Knights of the Widow’s Walk

As noted, those with an urge or need to escape (be it their own ruined lives or some enemy or ex-lover) are the primary targets for this Knighthood. But beyond that, what goes into crafting a talented spy or a gifted “deep-cover” agent? Social Skills are key, of course: the ability to lie, schmooze and coerce are critical. One’s social abilities are simply not enough, however. No, a broad array of Skills serves a changeling well. How can she pretend to have once been a long-distance runner if she has no Athletics score (and an average Speed)? She could certainly pretend (with Subterfuge) that her durance was spent in the twisting tower library of some owl-eyed Lord, but sooner or later they’re going to call her to task and if she doesn’t have some Academics or Occult to back that story up… well, they’ll start to smell something rotten in the freehold. Certainly whenever possible a Knight makes do with what she has, endeavoring not to go “undercover” as a boxer if she doesn’t have a notable Brawl score, but what if she’s trying to break into some kind of underground fight club? Brawl will be necessary, reminding her that Knights do not always have the luxury of choice. It’s why so many of them end up as jacks-of-all-trades, masters-of-none. Organization: The Knighthood is a secret order, and in many ways it’s secret even to its own members: its history and organization are concealed behind layers of occultation. What the Knights know (or are told) is this: long ago, the Secret Pharaohs of the Nile Cataracts believed that a number of the subjects within their freeholds were surreptitiously serving the Gentry instead of protecting the many Hedge gateways that lined the river through the reeds and shallows and boulders. And so the Secret Pharaohs created this noble order, asking that a nomadic motley serve and go undercover within the freehold to attempt to rout treachery. They did. They found evidence of changelings still loyal to their Keepers. Story over. Right? Wrong. One of the Pharaohs continued the order’s existence, publicly disbanding it but privately maintaining its bonds with the Wyrd. He became the order’s first Spymaster, but certainly not the last. The order always is under direction by an undisclosed Spymaster. The Knights do not know who he is, though they may know one of his many false names—the current that counts for the largest portion of its membership. No, sometimes the members are ones that are on the run: fleeing a vengeful queen, escaping the seemingly-infinite hands of a diabolical Keeper, or just trying to leave one’s own human family in peace. In a way, they’ve hit bottom too, but it’s not so much of their own doing. They’re still in need for an escape from their escape, and thus they can become the lost among the Lost: a Knight of the Widow’s Walk. Mien: As noted in Privileges below (“The Spy’s Shifting Face”), the Knight’s mien is liquid, changing to suit the assignment. 46 Chapter One: The Third Act Spymaster is said to go by the names of Minister Throckthrush, Black Goat, and The Bagman’s Nephew. Of course, trying to investigate any of these names is a lesson in futility, given the circuitous and duplicitous trails (replete with a hundred dead ends and false leads) one will discover. The Spymaster is intimately aware of every Knight within his ranks, and personally ascribes them with tasks. Given that some estimate that this eldritch order is home to dozens if not hundreds of such spies, it seems amazing and even impossible that the Spymaster knows of the comings-and-goings of all his Knights. Oh, but he does. Once a changeling joins the ranks (a severe affair in which he spills a pint his own blood while blindfolded, all under the watchful gaze of the Knight that recruited him), he’s on the radar. He’ll receive his first assignment within a few days, and it’ll appear quite out of nowhere. Each assignment is handwritten. It’s sealed with a wax stamp whose relief is that of a dagger crossing the image of an eyeless skull. The wax stamp is preternaturally tough to break for anybody but a Knight of the Widow’s Walk. That Wax Seal Any outside the order find that the wax seal and letter have a Size 2 and Durability of 5, with a total Structure of 7. All Structure must be destroyed before the envelope can be opened. Once it’s opened, the letter appears as a complex substitution cipher that, to a Knight, is plainly read. To anybody else, the cipher must be broken, which is no easy feat (extended Wits + Occult roll, 15 successes necessary, each roll equals one half-hour of deciphering). Those who refuse the bidding of the Spymaster receive a second letter urging the completion of the task at hand. But if the Knight waits too long to take on his task, he may find that the benefits of his calling are suddenly inaccessible, and that he is no longer a member of the order (which can be awkward when one’s mien is suddenly revoked in the midst of other changelings). Do the Knights know of one another? At times, yes — often, a freehold will be home to more than one such spy, and in this case it’s possible that one’s received assignment will actually make note of the identities of fellow Knights. In addition, some Knights set up semi-permanent “safehouses” amidst various freeholds, and these are known to a large portion of the Widow’s Walk spies operating in that area. Concepts: damaged goods with new lease on life, habitual liar, “hollow man” Mirrorskin, low-Clarity assassin, masked paramour, pretend victim, smooth-talking mole What follows are the three privileges available to those members of the Knights of the Widow’s Walk. The Spy’s Shifting Face A Knight’s identity is up to her. Upon receiving a new assignment from the Spymaster, she has the opportunity to shift her mien considerably, becoming what appears to be an entirely different changeling of a different kith — though, she can only shift to the mien of a kith within her seeming (a Beast could change her mien from a Swimmerskin’s shark façade to a praying mantis-esque Skitterskulk, but not to a Fairest Bright One, for instance). This costs her nothing, and her Mask also changes according to her whims (though always to the same Size and gender). She doesn’t actually gain the benefits of the new kith, though she still can access the blessing of her own original kith. She can reveal her own true face and kith by spending a Glamour point, and this lasts for one scene. She can also shift her mien and Mask in the middle of an assignment, but doing so costs her one Willpower dot. Curiously, the Knight cannot use this benefit to appear as someone else: the shift of Mask and mien must be invented wholecloth (or come from a persona the character had used before). Attempts to accurately mimic another’s face (Mask, mien or both) fail automatically. Certainly she can attempt a fair facsimile, and with makeup can carry it further, but it’ll never be a perfect mimicry. A Bouquet of Lies A Knight of the Widow’s Walk can literally smell lies. No roll is necessary; when someone lies to the character, it manifests as an aroma appropriate to the lie. (A sweet lie — “I love you” when it’s just not true — might smell sickly sweet, whilst a lie about a murder — “I didn’t kill him, I don’t know anything about it” — might smell like a rotting corpse.) Subterfuge, So Sweet The Knights are excellent liars. They must be, given that so much of their day-to-day lives hinge on constant deception. Thankfully, this eldritch order prepares them for that, giving them a comforting bonus for perpetuating such subterfuge. Once a day, the changeling may regain a point of Glamour from lying successfully (meaning, having convinced another of an untruth). In addition, upon joining the Knighthood, the changeling may take a free Specialty in Subterfuge. 47 Knights of the Widow’s Walk Rumors of the Widow’s Walk The Knights of the Widow’s Walk represent a very secret eldritch order, and so for most changelings the only rumor regarding them is the one about their existence. But within the noble order, rumors still persist… • The Spymaster is a True Fae. Except, he’s been exiled, right? Given that so many of the order’s assignments seem to revolve around exposing Loyalists or damaging the resources of the Gentry in this world, you’d have to think that he’s on the “good” team. Or maybe he’s just trying to get rid of his competition? Okay, so there’re competing rumors that say he’s some really old vampire, but that’s a load of road apples. Vampires don’t exist outside of those porny Anita Blake novels. • A second Widow’s Walk exists within the first, and this one’s gone rogue. How would you ever know? It’s a faceless, headless organization. So there’s a Spymaster — ever meet him? Didn’t think so. One wonders why two such noble orders exist with the same name. What’s the deviant purpose? Is one good, one bad? Are they constantly maneuvering to undo one another’s work? • Last year, the Widow’s Walk took it up a notch. This one Winter Court witch, I think they call her Saint Beatrice of the Wooden Spoon (though hell if I know why), she went undercover in freaking Faerie, man. That’s right. She’s strong enough to masquerade as one of Them. She can’t handle it. You know she can’t. She’s going to tell them everything and then we’re all dead, or worse — slaves all over again. Still, it bears repeating, if anybody can do it, it’ll be someone from the Winter Court. They seem so good at hiding in plain sight. 48 Chapter One: The Third Act The Parliament of Victors Or consider Lady B, the Cyclopean gang banger who negotiated peace (at the ends of two gold-plated .45’s) between the four warring Courts. Or what about Steamhead Cyril, the Broadback Gladiator of Queen Sarah and Victor of the Spring Court who performs at the behest of his mother, Queen Sarah? Who remains undefeated even after these ten years, despite the network of scars that criss-cross his leathery flesh? All of them, Noble Champions in the Parliament of Victors. They are the heroes of their freeholds, above all others. Singular amongst the Lost. Title: Noble Champion Prerequisites: One combat-related Skill (Brawl, Firearms, Weaponry) at 4, Presence 4, Wyrd 6 Joining: Joining is easy, so to speak. Get the attention of the Victors by deed. They’ll come. They’ll wine the changeling, dine the changeling. Then they’ll make their offer. Problem is, it’s just as easy to fall from grace as it is to join. See, the Noble Champions of the Parliament of Victors don’t get to rest on their hindquarters. They have to keep up momentum. They’re heroes. They need to act like it. Loud. Boastful. Social. Harder still, they can’t fail a challenge. Someone comes up to a Champion and threatens to knock his block off? Or if he says he’s going to take care of that band of treacherous privateers lurking in the deep Hedge but doesn’t? That’s a problem. He won’t get kicked out of the eldritch order, exactly, but he will lose access to all three privileges until he can prove his mettle anew. Mien: The changeling’s mien grows. It becomes largerthan-life, almost mythic in proportions. If the Champion’s mien has antlers, they grow larger, more impressive. If her skin is covered in scales or in ribbons of water, it shimmers, perhaps with a kind of iridescence. Lithe limbs grow longer and all the more beautiful. Big eyes deepen and shine with a captivating luster. In addition, the mien inspires a mix of It’s good to be the champ. I’ll do what needs doing to stay champ. I’ll win. I’ll kill. I’ll boast. I’ll woo. Whatever it takes to keep succeeding. Want to join the Parliament of Victors? It’s easy. Win, and keep winning. Boast and offer challenges left and right. Slay the Keeper. Have a threesome with the two princesses. Steal the stillbeating heart of the ancient Humbaba and eat it like it’s a pomegranate. Every freehold has one: the hero. Not a reluctant hero, no. Not the guy who does the right thing but stays silent about it, who refuses to take the spoils of war and accept the laurels placed upon his brow. This hero knows what he is. He’s the cock of the walk. The best of the best, a platinum band amongst a handful of dirty silver ingots. And it’s not just about having a success here and there. Killing one of the Gentry is a good start, but it has to be done with flair, with narrative panache: killing the Keeper whilst protecting the queen that you just bedded with little else besides an iron candlestick, that’s something for the books. And that’s something for the Parliament of Victors. See, a Noble Champion in the Parliament of Victors is on par with the king or queen, and may even be more popular. Everybody knows the Champion. They know of his exploits because he tells them of his exploits. It’s not about getting into the legends and earning some kind of twisted immortality the long way. It’s about the hero getting what he deserves now. Not later. He succeeds because he wants. What he wants — wine, women, song, whatever— are earned because he succeeds. The cycle recycles. Consider Suli the Slayer, a Draconic who challenged his Keeper to a duel atop Coit Tower in San Francisco. Surrounded by a cage of Thorns and a whirlwind of biting glass butterflies, he took on his Keeper. He cut off its head and its hands, then kicked the body down to the street below (it crashed into a car on Lombard Street and then turned into a flock of gulls). He keeps one of the hands on a leather cord by his side. 49 The Parliament of Victors What About the Sacred Band of the Golden Standard? What separates these guys from the Gilded Aspirants (Changeling: The Lost, pp. 306–309), exactly? Both claim to be champions. Both claim heroism and don’t necessarily go about it the most honest or honorable way. So what’s the deal? Frankly, the Noble Champions think of the Gilded Aspirants as little brothers — sure, it’s cute how they play at being heroes, but the whole “hero” thing is really a One Man Show. There’s room at the top of the mountain for one, and it’s always, always a Noble Champion. Moreover, the Parliament of Victors isn’t interested in the long-term Viking immortality seemingly pursued by those of the Sacred Band. The Gilded Aspirants seem to think of heroism as something that transcends the moment, a greater grab for an eternal slice of the neverending story. The Noble Champions don’t care. Being a champion is about the moment. It’s about the victorious swing of the blade, the triumphant crack of the rifle as the Keeper’s head explodes in the scope’s view, the taste of honey licked off the thighs of a courtesan who wouldn’t be in bed if it wasn’t for that whole “champion” gig. Also, they’re not a chummy group. You don’t find a number of Champions in a single freehold: the rules are, one per freehold max. A domain might have a gaggle of Gilded Aspirants (and the one Noble Champion might kindly claim that they almost add up to his awesomeness). Finally, the Champion doesn’t really care about the freehold—or, at least, doesn’t have to care. He does what he does because he cares about himself. It’s solipsism almost on par with what the Gentry themselves possess: all things seen as a reflection of the Victor’s wants and needs. 50 Chapter One: The Third Act intense emotion — the ugliest brute seems suddenly beautiful while the most stunning warrior-queen stirs both fear and self-deprecation in those who gaze upon her. It represents an aura of celebrity, palpable and pervasive. Background: What does a take to be a Noble Champion? It isn’t enough to be good; it necessitates becoming the best. The best at what? Well, that’s where the different flavors of “hero” come into play. One Noble Champion might be able to put a bullet through a Keeper’s eye at 500 yards, while another might do surgical procedures with a rapier — blindfolded. Physical and martial prowess is common, but other supplementary Skills are apropos: a high Persuasion (used to coax the king into bed), Socialize or Expression (the better to boast with, my dear), Athletics (think Olympiad-level displays of might), and Intimidation (sometimes it’s necessary for the Champion to bully someone into recognizing his unparalleled aptitudes). If anything falls by the wayside, it’s Mental. Being a Noble Champion isn’t about chemistry experiments, fixing an engine, or book-learning. Well, it can be if done with the proper élan, but usually, who cares? Of course, most Noble Champions tend to be profoundly full of themselves, and often sport the Vice of Pride (or, for some, Lust and Greed provided those aspects go to feed one’s narcissistic furnace). Speaking of narcissism, it’s not uncommon for a Victor to have particular derangements. Narcissism and Megalomania come to mind, though some gain a Fixation or an Obsessive-Compulsion about homespun superstitions and folklore that keep the champ from losing. In addition, some Champions hide a very damaged inner core, building up walls around a frail self-esteem (and so, Depression and Inferiority Complex might manifest). Organization: The Parliament of Victors doesn’t have any profound organization — in fact, given that there’s only one Noble Champion per freehold, the group doesn’t really need much formal organization. Since the Wyrd enforces the pledge of the hero to the order, it’s not like they need a secret council to vet one another outside the offering of an invitation to a prospective champ. The one thing they do have is semi-regular gatherings. The Noble Champions often come to recognize that they have no equals among their peers, and so they go to be among other Noble Champions for a time. They might get together for a weekend retreat. They might come together for dinner. Maybe they compete, committing to games of sport or hunting parties. (And, the beautiful part is that in being defeated by another Noble Champion, it doesn’t seem to upset the pledge: one may still retain privileges upon losing a challenge to another of your heroic ilk.) Concepts: corn-fed golden boy, fallen hero, haughty Draconic, one-woman army, preening Adonis, sore loser, violent supermodel Rumors of the Parliament The Noble Champions represent obvious targets, and thus are host to a whole slew of what they claim are just “bitter rumors.” • They’re forming an army. The Noble Champions, they only get along with one another, right? And so they’re forming an army. Why wouldn’t they? Alone, each one is a deadly foe. Together? They’re like a hurricane and an earthquake and a nuclear bomb shoved into one. No freehold stands a chance when they decide to get over themselves long enough to mobilize. Don’t buy that whole “they’re loners” angle. • Within the order waits a kind of “inner council”. Think of them as the Olympian gods, right? Zeus and Hera and Apollo and all those guys? These guys have been so favorably looked upon by the Wyrd that the rumor is, they can control fate itself. They have that much might and magic. You want something done? You go to the inner council. Or better still, you join the Parliament of Victors yourself, and they’ll tell you the truth soon as you sign up. Trust me. • It’s a True Fae recruiting tool (which is ironic given how many of these guys are tools themselves. Get it? Tools?). Seriously, the Noble Champions represent the crème de la crème, and that’s what the Keepers want. They know that changelings of that kind of power can represent a very real threat to them, and so it’s a perfect back-door to find out who’s really got that kind of power, and how to ply them with more of the same to get them on board. You think the Noble Champions are just getting together for dinner or to go hunting in the Hedge? They’re going deep. They’re going to Faerie. Can you say, “indoctrination?” I knew that you could. What follows are the privileges that the Noble Champions so richly deserve (at least, if you ask them). Remember that, should a Noble Champion lose a challenge or fail 51 The Parliament of Victors at a notable task, he’ll lose access to these privileges until he can reclaim his “title.” This doesn’t mean just failing a roll (although he’ll certainly not be thrilled with failure on any level), but it means falling down at a challenge he swore he could complete. The Storyteller remains the ultimate arbiter. Stacked Odds The odds are clearly stacked in the Noble Champion’s favor: any and all Physical rolls are considered exceptional successes on four successes instead of five. The Hero’s Veneer Upon joining the lofty ranks of the Parliament of Victors, the character automatically gains the Striking Looks Merit at four dots. If she already possesses the Merit at four dots, she instead gains an additional +1 to all Presence rolls (this is added to the normal benefit gained by the Striking Looks Merit). Mighty Blow Once per chapter (game session), the character can spend a Glamour to add her Wyrd score to a single combat roll (based off of Brawl, Firearms or Weaponry). If successful, the attack is dramatic and showy (even if the damage done isn’t). The player is encouraged to describe the flourish of the mighty blow—does lightning coruscate up the blade of her sword as it crashes down upon an enemy’s collarbone? Does the bullet take a whining and unlikely ricochet to end up punching through the Loyalist’s hand (just in time, causing him to drop his own weapon)? Does he punch a Keeper through a bay window? The Storyteller is encouraged to make the description a reality, even if the damage done as a result is low. 52 Chapter One: The Third Act The Office of Vizieral Counsel this sorcerer. He knew not only of what this man was capable, but also knew that this changeling had a grasp of the Wyrd that he himself might never have. And so he made the mad murderer an offer: if Lailoken would act as Cantigernus’ advisor, he would not only spare his life but help pull him back from the brink — rehabilitating him, keeping him saner if not precisely sane. Using his last shred of sanity, Lailoken judged the bargain as a good one, given that he had little interest in having his head at the end of a pike. He agreed, offering a pledge to seal the deal. Thus was born the eldritch order of the Office of Vizerial Counsel (known then and sometimes now as the “Kin of Lailoken” or simply, “The Lailokin”). The members of this order all act as sorcerer-advisors to the kings and queens of the freehold. It is their sole purpose. While not all of them are addled madmen capable of leveling an entire town with some long-forgotten clause of some heretical Contract, many are, and joining this order helps keep their lunacies at bay. Title: Vizier Prerequisites: At least 12 dots in various Contracts, Politics 3, Occult 3, Wyrd 7 Joining: The Wyrd is powerful, but dangerous. Itself, it is not a direct cause of madness — but its power is heady and intoxicating, and many changelings are ill-prepared to wield the magic of Faerie. And what choice do they have? Wyrd infuses. It inMy magic for my queen. Nothing else matters. T h e story of the Office of Vizieral Counsel begins eons ago, with a lunatic known as Lailoken. As the story goes, he was as powerful a changeling as had walked this Earth (and most tales claim that this madman was a Beast sorcerer of the Autumn Court, though certainly other Courts claim this cannot be so). His Wyrd had infused his entire being. Drunk on power, Lailoken began to lose… well, perspective. Sanity dwindled, torn to fringed ribbon. He heard the lilting melodies and dissonant songs of Faerie drift upon the breeze calling to him, whispered out of some Hedge door somewhere, and he wondered just what it was that he was becoming. It went on like this for weeks, months, and soon he began to suffer blackouts. Upon waking one morning, he bolted upright to find himself in the midst of a field of corpses: bodies charred, beheaded, some turned to ice, others with trees grown up through their chests. Lailoken had enough sanity to recognize he had gone almost completely insane. He didn’t remember killing these scores of people. But the blood on his hands—his fingertips still smoldering with steam, smoke, fog — made his sins clear. As luck would have it, the local Summer Court king was having a pass by, hunting stag upon his horse. The King, the warrior known as Cantigernus, saw what had become of these people at the hands of the lunatic Lailoken. He thought to destroy Lailoken on the spot, and then… an idea struck him. He knew the tales of 53 The Office of the Vizieral Counsel fects. It’s not just something the changeling calls upon when she needs it — it’s within her, as much a part of her being as her heart and mind. Hence, it’s easy to let one’s Clarity slip out of one’s grip, submerged beneath the tides of magic. Madness comes. Derangements manifest, and so do Frailties. It won’t be long before the Gentry start to see the character as more a kindred spirit than an escaped captive. However, ways exist to help a changeling mitigate this and find some stability and sanity. The Office of the Vizieral Counsel is one such way. Joining this eldritch order gives the character a purpose and a vent for her magic. Becoming a Vizier allows her to feel anchored, not as if she’s going to float away at any moment and be snatched back to Faerie like a wayward balloon. The question still needs asking, though: how does the changeling end up joining the Office of the Viziers? It’d be all well and good if the changeling could approach them and offer herself to them, and some do. But it rarely works like that, just as it’s rare t hat an addict seeks help before the addiction gets bad— no, early on the Wyrd feels great. Clarity loss isn’t troubling, that’s why mechanically it’s a loss (the character is able to justify her wonky perceptions). But eventually? It’s going to come back to bite her. Something will happen. She’ll kill somebody. She’ll make a scene at a Court function. She’ll interrupt or break a significant pledge or might even accidentally do something that calls attention to one or several Keepers. She’s basically like a loaded gun with a broken safety; she could go off at any time. This is why most changelings that join the Lailokin do so at the summons of another: the Viziers offer the changeling a chance to join their estimable ranks, and unlike many other noble orders, this offer doesn’t come only once. They make the offer as many times as they’re able, actually — provided the subject hasn’t gone off the deep end or earned himself such enmity that the whole freehold wants his heart on a stick, then they will continue to urge the character to join the Viziers. Some even stage “interventions” for particularly troubled and troublesome fae. Of course, such interventions often require iron shackles and a trip far away from the nearest gateway to the Thorns… Mien: The Wyrd bleeds off the Viziers in waves — and it seems to manifest as reflective of the character’s core persona. A lustful Lailokin 54 Chapter One: The Third Act might find that the air above his flesh is suffused with tendrils of sultry red smoke. A frenetic or angry Vizier may crackle with sharp snaps and pops of lightning or static. Charity as Virtue might cause a halo of burnished light, while a cruel and callous Vizier might simply be cast in an unsettling shadow. Background: The term “Vizier,” literally translated, means “bearer of burden.” That’s appropriate to those who join the Viziers, because they must be mentally prepared to bear a tremendous burden. For all the benefits to them personally, joining this eldritch order isn’t one that comes with a free social boost and an ornamental title. No, a changeling who joins the Office of the Vizieral Counsel is a changeling who’d better be prepared to work. As a magical advisor to the king or queen, a Vizier’s life is hardly his own. While certainly some rulers will make this easier than others, for the most part running a freehold and juggling all the disparate elements (elements that can be as simple as negotiating peace between two arguing Lost or as complicated as stomping out a hobgoblin insurrection that threatens to come flooding out of the Hedge) is a painful and time-consuming job. Acting as a ruler’s right-hand magician and advisor means that a lot of the sovereign’s burden is shared squarely upon the Vizier’s shoulder. What goes into this mighty job, this heavy millstone around the Vizier’s neck? It means offering a number of social and mental advantages — a Vizier must be a bureaucrat, a diplomat, an investigator, a sage. The Vizier will often act as a king’s representative, operating on his behalf as a proxy. Plus, when issues of magic of Wyrd come up… the Vizier is expected to be the uttermost authority. Above all else, the changeling better know the ins and outs of Faerie magic and madness… or she at least will need to learn how to fake it with extreme confidence. Organization: To a large extent, each a Vizier is an island. While some freeholds have more than one Vizier, many only have the one — and that Vizier is expected to service all of the Court kings and queens. There’s the rub, and perhaps the most difficult thing about a Vizier’s job. She’s expected to be neutral. When the season shifts, her job does not end—no, she remains standing in place next to the throne, and advises the coming monarch. This is tricky for a number of reasons. In some domains, the rulers come to resent the Vizier—after all, she acted as counsel for what may have been rivals, and because the Vizier represents a stable presence it’s also likely that many of the freehold changelings come to her with their problems. (Alternately, some rulers are happy that this is the case; if the Vizier wants to take the burden while the king takes the glory, so be it.) Other rulers shut the Vizier out entirely. No explicit rule states that a king or queen must accept a Vizier’s advisements or even let her give the advice in the first place. Of course, once one king accepts her advice, then all the rulers will jump on board because—why be left out? And that might be the worst burden of all for some Lailokin: when the Court rulers attempt to manipulate her against the others, leveraging her abilities and instructions against the other Courts. How a Vizier reacts is up to her. If she wants to be the Power Behind the Throne and try to pull the puppet strings of one or several rulers, then that’s the way it’ll be. If she doesn’t have the foresight and instead is the puppet instead of the puppeteer, then oh well. Maybe she’s honest and good. Maybe she refuses to be shut out. Maybe she’s happy to be shut out. For the most part, other Viziers simply don’t get involved. Frankly, a once-deranged (with probable high-Wyrd and lowClarity) changeling is far more useful as a worthless or manipulative Vizier than as a loose cannon with the mad magic of Faerie fate at her fingertips. Some Viziers might get involved from afar and urge a ruler to heed the freehold Vizier’s advice. Some might instead try to stir the character into action or to mend her scheming ways. Otherwise? They stay out of it. However, betraying a king or queen in a way that brings harm to that ruler? Bad news. The privileges of the Entitlement are torn away (which can be quite devastating; see “The Eternal Advisor,” below). The pledge between changeling and the eldritch order is severed. Any derangements she possesses, as well as any Frailties, trigger madness sweeps upon her, leaving her a weeping, trembling wreck (if it doesn’t kill her). A Lailokin doesn’t need to do every deed her king asks of her, though some may do that anyway. That isn’t a betrayal. But any refusal to serve or action taken against the ruler that brings harm to that king is a dire mistake. Concepts: ancient witch, beleaguered soothsayer, court jester whose punch lines contain wisdom, deceitful puppet master, neglected advisor, power behind the throne, silent observer Below are the three privileges gained by joining this eldritch order. 55 The Office of the Vizieral Counsel The Eternal Advisor The Vizier does not age, at all. Her duty is eternal, for she is now bound as an advisor to the freehold and its rulers. She can still die, of course: a bullet to the head or an iron fireplace poker through the heart is still damage. She’s not immune to any source of damage except that which may come from aging. Whatever age she’s at when she joins, that’s the age at which she’ll remain… …until she leaves the eldritch order, of course. Leaving the order means that her normal years will catch up with her (or at least “normal” in compared to how the Wyrd might have normally extended her years). If that puts her past the normal years of survival, then she withers and turns to dust, dead. The Clarity of Duty Joining the Office of Vizieral Counsel is like pulling back from the precipice to a stable, safe place. While a member of this order, a changeling gains +5 dice when making a roll (usually Resolve + Composure) to resist the manifestation of an existing derangement. She also gains +1 to any Clarity rolls made in an effort to resist gaining new derangements, too. Finally, she can ignore all Major Frailties (but Minor Frailties still apply). Leaving the order, however, is damaging to a changeling’s sanity. Upon ceasing her Vizieral duties, she automatically loses a dot of Clarity. The Clausemaker’s Boon Magic comes easily to the Viziers. Frankly, it needs to — it’s their job. Provided that the Vizier’s player can explain how purchasing a given clause of a Contract will help her perform her duties for the king or queen (Storyteller is the final arbiter, and other players should be encouraged to offer yeas or nays), then purchasing that clause (i.e. that dot of a Contract) only costs the player the same as it would if she bought a Merit (new dots x 2). This is regardless of whether or not the Contract is affinity or non-affinity. Note that it still means she must buy the Contract one dot at a time — just because it’s useful to her duties doesn’t mean she can jump from Fang and Talon • to Fang and Talon ••••. Rumors of the Lailokin The Lailokin aren’t a secret order, and in fact frequently become advisors in freeholds large and small. As such (and especially in those freeholds where more than one Vizier provides counsel to a king), rumors are sure to spread. Rumors like these: • These guys are eternal, right? Their crazy moonbat founder, Lailoken? Ask around, and you might learn that he never died. He’s still out there. Working for some king or another. Maybe he doesn’t call himself that anymore, but he’s out there, all right. And given that he’s been alive for a couple thousand years, let’s all just hope he walks the narrow path and keeps on keeping on for the Viziers. Or we’re all going to cower beneath his madness and might. • Face it, they have more power than the rulers themselves. They’re always there, always a presence. Oh, sure, the kings and queens don’t need to take their advice, don’t even need to let them in the door. But they will. Why? Well, what I heard is that they get a Polaroid or other picture in an envelope slid under their door. And on that picture is a shot of them getting killed: mid-brain splatter or axe-to-chest. Written on the photo is a note: “You should listen to your advisor.” And they listen. They always listen. • Rumor mill tells of one of them that tried to become a queen herself. That was a bad day for that freehold. First night of Winter comes, they hand over power to her. The curtain draws back. Her title is stripped from her — she’s no longer a Vizier. She ages, super fast. Skin like parchment, hair goes white, bones crack. She doesn’t die, though. And she goes nuclear. Her mind fractures into a thousand tiny pieces. She went on a tear that night. Killed a good third of the freehold. They still talk about it: the “Night of the Winter Witch,” they call it. love you,” he said one more time as the door closed, knowing she hadn’t heard him. Then he turned and stepped down the walk, to where they were waiting. Rory stretched out a hand, and they clasped each other’s wrists. “Joz,” Rory said. “I hated to ask, but I’m glad you’re with us.” “Good to see you, Rory,” he replied, resting one end of the cloth-wrapped bundle on the ground and shifting his grip on the wooden hilt that came out one end. “Good to see you all. Glad you’ve been safe.” “Not for much longer,” wheezed Beth-Beth. “Well.” He shrugged. “Joz,” said Bright Megan. “Are you sure? I mean… we’re so glad to have you, but…” She twisted her hands. “She’s right,” said Silver, shifting uneasily. “Joz, you’ve earned this. We don’t want to take you away to go burn out with the rest of us losers. None of us holds you to this, you know.” “Yeah,” said Rory, low-voiced. “We’d want… I mean, yeah.” Beth-Beth just nodded. The Ogre looked over each of them in turn, and shook his head. “There’s nothing here or anywhere I love more than my family,” he said, pretending not to notice Megan flinch and hide her face as he said it. His smile was a little sad. “But I couldn’t live with them if I was the kind of man to break my promise to all of you. You’re family, too.” He hoisted the bundle onto his shoulder. It rested there like it was home. “Come on. Let’s finish it.” 58 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales the Endgame This book presents resources for playing epic Changeling games: chronicles where the Lost dare the shores of Arcadia and challenge the Fae themselves, or stand against the Gentry when their hunger threatens the human world. The World of Darkness is a place where subtle supernatural plots twist everyday life. If the creatures behind the curtain of secrecy let down their guard the consequences would be disastrous — but it’s one thing to say that and another to show it. Virtually every group wants to kick over the anthill at some point, give the horrible creatures in the back story a chance to stretch their legs and see if their protagonists can stand up, confront them, and create a damn good finale. Epic, disastrous things immediately inspire visions and fragmentary scenes, but a story is more than an image of dragons lumbering up Miami Beach, of Fae gods turning skyscrapers into huge trees, or changelings uttering the secret words that bind the Wyrd. The worst thing you can do is confuse these impressions for developed stories, use brute force to make the scenes happen and hope that some rationale will stitch them into a good story. Epic stories often fail because this thought process worms its way in. Players talk about fighting an aerial battle on gryphon-back to defeat the Army of Fimbulwinter, armed with oaths the rot-elves have beaten into weapons of power. They get pumped up, ready to play — but for some reason; the chronicles that actually work tend to be a lot humbler. Why is this? Why can’t enthusiasm alone carry your epic aspirations? Hype is exciting but it isn’t play. If you build a story by boosting the extreme side of the game and brainstorming half-finished scenes you’re doing the opposite of designing a chronicle. In a roleplaying game the rules, setting and protagonists are all tools that create a narrative during play. But enthusiastic speculation creates the story first and expects game play to catch up, falling into place to produce what the players demand. So it’s no surprise that when the big moment comes, groups struggle with the vast, epic edifice they’ve created in their imaginations. It intimidates the Storyteller and makes players anxious about character portrayal. You can build an epic, but you have to do it by playing the game. Your time at the table is the epic — it leads the story. This is what makes roleplaying a distinct activity. Instead of passively witnessing the build-up, make it happen through the medium of your changelings, your World of Darkness and the themes you’ve put at the heart of your chronicle. Twisted Tales “…They don’t like it when violent things happen in my Illustrations. Each Illustration is a little story. If you watch them, in a few minutes they tell you a tale. In three hours of looking you could see eighteen or twenty stories acted on my body, you could hear voices and think thoughts. It ’s all here, just waiting for you to look….” — Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man 59 Storytelling the Endgame 59 Storytelling and Story-Playing We hope that over the course of the chronicle your group’s developed a strong collective play style and a real appreciation for each other’s efforts. Roleplaying is a pastime for friends and assumes a certain amount of trust and goodwill. A good story brings people together because at heart, it’s founded on players being as good an audience as they are participants, and wanting to help everyone give their best performance. That’s why this section’s title is a bit deceptive. Not all of the techniques here are for Storytellers alone. Players can use them to refine their performances and improve group communication. Ultimately, roleplaying is based on resolving creative tensions between the players and Storyteller, characters and setting, and a bunch of other binary categories that are ultimately arbitrary, but give us a structure to improvise and provide unexpected, compelling results. So everyone, player and Storyteller, can examine the techniques here. Together, they can use them to complete a memorable chronicle. Anatomy of an Epic If your World of Darkness doesn’t matter to the players, even the most extreme events won’t matter. Endgames work because players believe in their importance. They’re fascinated with the world and want to see how it transforms. You’ve got to build a living world around the players. If you don’t, even the most extreme events won’t matter. Develop your World of Darkness from the ground up. Put your visions of Ragnarok on the backburner for now and concentrate on the setup — but remember that at every step you’re sowing the seeds of new plotlines, culminating in your endgame. Then, when it’s time to finish it, consider the following elements. Chronicle and Character In Changeling and other World of Darkness games, theme is front and center. We talk about it explicitly but we don’t force it on you. You don’t have to adhere to the game’s focus. This is intentional. Think of theme as a landmark: a place to find your way by. Some people want to get as close to the core ideas as possible, while others are happy to keep it in the distance. So Changeling is a “Storytelling Game of Beautiful Madness.” On page 13 of the game, it says the theme is “to find one’s way home.” What the hell does that mean? There’s no one correct answer for everyone, but there are interesting answers for every participant in your game. Start then, by asking every participant what this means in the context of their place in the game. For Storytellers, the answer is the theme they want to explore through their chronicle. For players, it’s a theme that guides their characters. This isn’t the same as the character’s background or personal values (though these things can certainly influence the theme). You can create arrogant characters to explore the value of humility, for instance. These larger themes are part of the play experience, not the imagined world. For a chronicle with tightly integrated themes, take this process through two rounds. Use one to identify basic themes and the other to explore the ways they connect and blend into an overarching set of ideas. The result describes your endgame’s thematic focus, both for the group as a whole (based on the Storyteller’s theme) and individual players (based on their character themes). You can use a number of techniques to turn this general direction into specific parts of the finale. You might use the linking word technique in Chapter Four of Changeling: The Lost. This naturally leads to a consistent direction for the story. You can also pick a motif (a recurring event or structure in the narrative) for each theme. Heavy Lifting Intimidation is a common problem in the endgame, though not every player or Storyteller cares to admit it. At first glance it looks like this section’s numerous techniques will only exacerbate the problem by increasing the workload. To make it clear, don’t use everything here and only use it to the extent that it would inspire you. You don’t have to work everything out in precise detail. These techniques aren’t hard rules to play by. Instead, draw on the tools in this section whenever part of your story looks like it might grind to a halt. Employ them when you need or want them — not just because they’re printed on the page. 60 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales These serve as inspiration points for scenes and chapters in your chronicle as well as the mood and symbolism. This works in any part of your chronicle, but we’re talking about the endgame, so let’s modify either technique according to different stages in your chronicle. These are: To apply a key word or motif to foreshadowing, tone it down a notch and associate it with a passive image. Foreshadowing is usually a side effect of the action, not the center of the story. If the theme describes an end state rather than a recurring condition, twist the theme’s symbol a bit to indicate the story will challenge it and make the players work to bring it to fruition. Example: Steve’s character theme is “peace through balance.” Tara the Storyteller chooses a quiet garden or green space as its motif (Steve could choose it too, and request that Tara works it into play). Early in the chronicle, his character negotiates peace between two rival freeholds. The final meeting takes place in a small greenhouse. Suddenly, his character senses someone spying on them. He gives chase, but only finds a few flowers crushed underfoot — a sign that something’s going to disrupt the fragile balance. Rising Action As the story progresses, put your themes in the middle of things. Make them the subject of scenes, subject to ever-increasing stakes. It’s life or death, war or peace, and it all hangs on the themes in question. Example: By now, Steve’s character is a noted peacemaker, a master of compromise, but even he’s hard-pressed to keep the peace between the Miami and Tampa freeholds. Each blames the other for sabotage and mayhem. The players’ motley believes there’s a third party to blame, but renewed recriminations drown out their voices. Suspicious representatives meet on neutral ground: an Everglades cabin with a bountiful flower garden. One diplomat is late, however — until his body floats by. Battle erupts and flame consumes the garden. Make it big. This is Changeling, so the most abstract things can take on a palpable form. Elemental Lost really do burn with rage. Jealousy is a muscular, crimson-skinned man culled from a powerful dream. Fear is a changeling with terror-inducing Contracts and a horrific mien. Apply your themes to the environment; they should consume the entire story. Don’t hold back. Example: Suspicion leads to war, which leads to the revelation that two True Fae used the rival freeholds as The False Climax A staple of action and horror films, the false climax gives the players a definitivelooking challenge, a hint of the denouement — and then the final struggle really begins. A hate-maddened warrior jumps up from apparent death to launch a final attack. You defeat the Gentry, but they existed to guard the world from Arcadia’s all-devouring chaos — and now it’s crawling down to face you. A false climax multiplies the significance of the real ending because it gives you an extra “beat” to explore the dramatic significance of what’s happened. The real final conflict gives you a chance to turn the sentiments of that moment into action, multiplying its emotional impact. It’s a potent technique, but don’t overuse it. As a movie cliché it’s worn out its welcome and if you use this repeatedly it gets boring fast. Save the technique for the endgame and you won’t lessen its impact. proxy fighters in a duel. They caused the conflict and sabotaged Steve’s peacemaking attempts. But one of them has manifested as a Fae Prop called the Deathrose. It stores the souls of fallen combatants to keep score for the Gentry. After learning of it from a captured Fae servant, Steve’s motley fights its way to Arcadia and plucks it from a poison garden. They make it back on the eve of a terrible battle and reveal it to both sides, proving they’ve been manipulated. Now it’s time for both freeholds to unite behind the characters and dare Faerie itself, to destroy the Others’ influence for good. After you’ve sealed the gates of Arcadia, cracked the Hedge’s walls or chronicled your motley’s rise to Arcadian divinity, you need to tie up loose ends, meditate on what’s happened and provide a final catharsis, closing the chronicle. Use your themes to make an end statement about the story. Example: The motley led two freeholds to Arcadia. They used the Deathrose as a weapon, first against its creator’s greatest enemy and then, after reconstituting it from the foe’s essence (no Prop can be used against its owner, so it must be remade as a separate thing) wielded it against the enemy. The fight is difficult, but the players’ motley prevails. Afterward, Steve’s character plants the Deathrose on Arcadian ground. Its petals fade to white. Suddenly, new 61 Storytelling the Endgame flowers bloom: one for every soul lost in the war. This garden is a new domain, a safe haven for changeling travelers. It has a strange governing intelligence made of war-dead spirits, and they create a safe path back to Earth. Set up backgrounds filled with potential action. Characters start with angry relatives, lost loves and mortal rivalries. The game turns these into story events. The Storyteller matches personal backstories with histories and conflicts drawn from her supporting cast and game setting. When your endgame comes around, give your backstory another look. After all, you won’t get another chance to reveal it within the chronicle. One simple technique is to write out background facts in point form. Check off every background element you’ve managed to explore and see what you can do with the unaddressed elements that remain. This isn’t just a Storytelling tool. Players have just as active a role in shaping the chronicle finale by playing their characters and stating their preferences at the table. The Storyteller uses this method to help plan the endgame as a whole, but players do it from two perspectives. First of all, your character probably still has matters to resolve. Whatever happened to her twin sister? Why did that noble say, “Third time’s the charm and charms are bright, charms burn the eyes of the bitterest night,” back in the first session? The chronicle is a collective story, so it’s a good idea to develop a more focused agenda as your character’s story draws to its conclusion. You don’t have to address every neglected point, however. If a note turned out to fall a bit flat, you don’t have to labor to address it just for the sake of closure. Life isn’t always neatly resolved, and neither are all stories. Play interests extend beyond what you can accomplish through your character, however. The Storyteller is there to give you a meaningful experience, so you have a say in how events are going to play out. Explore your backstory for unresolved elements and discuss them with the Storyteller. It’s likely that she’ll appreciate input as she prepares for the finale. Storytellers and players have to strike a balance, based on trust in each other’s good intentions. Players envision certain experiences and need stories that acknowledge this, but the Storyteller provides unexpected situations and even challenges the players’ ideas about what they really want. It’s not always about playing in your comfort zone or getting the experience you expect. An intense game can feature legitimate unease, even anger, but all within the boundaries of a group dynamic built on trust. For instance, one player might want the chance to confront and even duel Open-Ended Revelations Plots tend to get more tightly focused toward the end of a chronicle. In an archetypal chronicle, the beginning is focused on exploring the social and supernatural environment. You don’t know what’s out there and why it’s important until you encounter it through the early chapters. They tell you what a freehold is (even if you know the books from front to back, really knowing them is a function of experiencing them in play), what changelings do and the challenges they face. The middle of a chronicle takes this knowledge and turns it into a plan of action: a way for characters to make their desires known in the new world. By the time you get to the finale, you may find that you’ve uncovered so many secrets that there isn’t much room to unveil the background, or that the players are so committed to a particular way of playing that the revelations you thought would be real bombshells just wouldn’t matter to them any more — or as riddles, are so far removed from their mindsets that they probably won’t ever figure them out. Storytellers, the solution is simple: cheat. In other words, if your planned revelation is irrelevant or obscure, change the revelation to better fit the current story. If one character’s twin was supposed to “really” be a sorcerer in a crossover that never happened, it’s time to decide she is in fact a fetch, sent by the chronicle’s main antagonist. If a player comes up with a wrong answer to a puzzle that’s a better fit than your secret right answer, then retroactively change the right answer to match the more interesting solution. The world that the players see is more important than your own behind-the-scenes ideas. the chronicle’s antagonist: a Fae lord that has hitherto stayed behind the scenes, creating monsters and dilemmas. The Storyteller isn’t obligated to provide that story event but she shouldn’t ignore it, either. Between the player’s wishes and the Storyteller’s preparations lies a third way that acknowledges everyone’s desires but formulates them into something new: the kind of surpris62 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales ing, exciting conclusions that come out of the best Changeling games. So the duel does take place, but it’s horribly one-sided; the Other toys with the character, but at the same time, reveals a weakness that the motley can capitalize on. The duel served a purpose, but it didn’t just fulfill the player’s wishes. Character backgrounds provide the easiest way for you to formulate and express your interests as a player. Just as the Storyteller can make plans based on your back story, a player can delve into the chronicle’s collective background to help plan the endgame. Open, constructive dialogue is the key to success. You don’t have to find a way to ask about the freehold’s secret chambers in-character every time. Bring it up out of character; tell the Storyteller you always wanted to explore that end of the game. The Plot Theme and background inform your plot. Changeling: The Lost and The World of Darkness core books provide general advice and techniques. In the excitement to get your chronicle going you may have only skimmed these sections; if you haven’t already, consider giving them a more thorough reading now, because the endgame will be the most intense part of your chronicle. To give your game an epic scope, examine your plot on three levels: character focus, group focus and setting focus. No component is more important than any other except as far as it entertains the players. Some people love intimate, emotional scenes. Others want to witness history and see how the entire World of Darkness responds to chronicle events. Most players shift their interest from level to level though, so while you want to tailor the plot to the players, don’t make too many assumptions about what they want ahead of time. Character Focus A plot’s character focus brings together elements culled from one protagonist’s personal themes and backstory. Throughout the chronicle, scenes zero in on one character or another, giving each one a moment in the spotlight. When the endgame examines an individual, unpack the entire dramatic arsenal. There won’t be another chance to explore the character during the chronicle, so don’t hold back. It’s also time to redress imbalanced character focus. Does one player constantly miss a chance to be the center of attention? Fix that now. If you’re playing, don’t rely on the Storyteller to make it happen, either. Talk about it honestly and don’t be afraid to arrange things at the “meta-game” level. Make time to reveal character themes and backgrounds. This is often hard to do in the chronicle’s climax because in that one, 63 Storytelling the Endgame one world, or the other. The Five Kings have promised to assemble and defend humanity, but that won’t happen for three days. His motley decides to deal with personal matters first. In other words, the players devote three in-game days to an individual focus. Two other players decide to run live scenes with the Storyteller, but Szandor’s player uses the time to write a journal entry about visiting his estranged wife. He doesn’t know that she always knew Szandor’s fetch wasn’t really him, but Szandor believed she loved his copy more than the twisted thing that returned, and is set to forgive her in aloof, measured tones. So when his player posts this event, the Storyteller responds as his wife, bringing that revelation to his individual story. Group Focus Storytellers naturally emphasize a chronicle’s group-focused aspects. This fosters cooperation and keeps stories from getting stuck on one protagonist. The classic roleplaying story revolves around the ensemble; your finale should present it at its finest. One of the best ways to do this is to look back at the motley’s history. Note important accomplishments. It might have founded a freehold or defeated a powerful enemy. One thing groups can do to develop a shared identity is to explicitly list these events. Write down your awkward first meeting, the court appearance that forged you into a new motley and every other story event that transformed you into a strong group, fit to confront the final days of your chronicle. You can use journaling here, too. Jot down entries about the motley’s accomplishments as they happen. An appealing endgame builds on the group’s history and interests. Storytellers are often tempted to start major events in a remote corner of the World of Darkness, where they can dictate exactly what happens. If you want to make the players care, don’t reveal the Perilous Gate in the Storyteller-controlled Toronto freehold. Bring it to their hometown, especially places where they’ve come to know the neighborhood. The World of Darkness games emphasize a detailed local setting. Over time, players get used to visiting particular places and talking to regular Storyteller characters. In the endgame, you don’t have to hold anyone or anything in reserve for future games. The changeling who claims the north end of town doesn’t need to be kept safe so that you can use him again. Kill him, put him under the thumb of a Fae lord — whatever you do, you don’t have to moderate events for fear of wrecking the next chapter. The tradeoff for a local focus is that the Storyteller needs to give up some control. It’s easy to use that Toronto freehold to introduce exactly what you want. Nobody The Chosen One The “chosen one” is an old epic fantasy tradition. He’s the messiah, true king — the character upon whose shoulders rests the fate of the world. This isn’t an easy concept to apply to a roleplaying game and shouldn’t be; a chronicle is about the group. Storytelling games look to literature and film for ideas but they’re really their own art form. That means you can’t lift a single-character focus directly from the source material because it pushes everyone else to the sidelines. You can use the chosen one, as long as the other characters are just as important, even if they aren’t celebrated in prophecy. If the chosen one’s destiny depends on learning certain skills and secrets, make the other characters teach them. If there’s a prophecy, make sure that every character has a role to play. The chosen one is a pivotal figure but can’t walk the path laid out for him until it’s been prepared for him. You can give the chosen one a twist, too. What if he’s fated to do horrible things? What if he’s destined to die at the hands of a friend? Add burdens commensurate with the character’s mythic status, or give him a power to fail and destroy that’s as dramatically potent as any anticipated success. extreme action-packed moment, you want events to have as broad an appeal as possible. Failing that, look for time in the denouement or during the lull before the climax. Character journals (or “blue books”) are a timehonored, effective technique for exploring individuals in the midst of a group storyline. Nowadays, you can use Internet forum posts, electronic documents and blog entries. Aside from the fun of sharing your character’s point of view with the world, it’s easy for the Storyteller and other players to write responses and comments. This promotes your entries from being side fiction to a fully integrated part of the game, and allows you to play through interactive stories between game sessions. Your group can even designate a period of in-chronicle time where journal-based events happen. Example: Szandor sees a second moon in the sky and knows this means that Arcadia and Earth have merged at last, in a conflagration that will see the dominance of 64 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales over there is going to save people who are supposed to die or solve a mystery too quickly. You could ensure that critical scenes have the same fallout no matter what the players do. They save the guy you’d planned to kill after he shares some vital bit of information, but saving him doesn’t reveal more information. The problem with this approach, however, is that it deprives players of the sense that they’re effective participants in the story. Instead, develop a ladder of events that build on each other. As characters succeed, they get access to the higher tiers of the ladder: better information, material rewards and so forth. Example: Malcolm asks the players for a summary of the things his players believe define them as a group. They remember the time they stood up to the bullying Lord Tothman when he threatened Tara’s character Esme in court. They also remember saving five missing Lost from a corporation that wanted to harvest changeling organs. These are great starting points. Malcolm wants to introduce a power that can “cure” changelings. He goes back to the corporate plot and decides the same company — the shadowy Cheiron Group — developed the drug. Naturally, Lord Tothman was one of their first experimental subjects. The freehold suspects the players’ motley is responsible for his disappearance. The characters investigate to clear their name and find the once-mighty Summer lord in a homeless shelter, reduced to pure mortality, with few memories of who he was or what happened to him. After a difficult dream quest, the characters rehabilitate his mind, but not his powers. Malcolm is prepared for this eventuality. He’s set up this hierarchy of results: 1. The motley gets some unreliable information about a medical procedure. 2. The motley learns that changelings are being drugged in a building on the waterfront. After that, they’re no longer Lost. 3. There’s physical evidence: a crumpled folder with the names of the scientists and the “Anomalous Factor” that both advises them and provides a crucial component for the cure. The motley’s actions rate a 2 on the scale, but Malcolm decides that with a little effort, the motley could win a rank 3 result. Tothman ripped off some papers when he escaped and left the folder where he thought it couldn’t be found, but Cheiron agents are on its trail. Thus begins an endgame where a powerful entity (the Anomalous Factor — really an “anti-Fae” creature who escaped his Earthly prison) threatens to destroy the Lost forever. 65 Storytelling the Endgame Setting Focus Endgames are unique in that you don’t have to worry about sticking to chronicle basics. Put Lost magic on network television or destroy Arcadia if you want; you can make any change without worrying about long-term consequences. At the same time, the fact that nobody’s going to play it again means that the fallout from an event won’t always be the thing that captures players’ interest. They’re not going to see the aftermath so they won’t necessarily be as invested in it. An effective finale builds on the chronicle’s total history to attract committed play. An engaging endgame feels like it sums up the entire chronicle. To make that happen you need to give Changeling a dynamic, progressive setting. The books are a snapshot: a still moment of things as they are at the start of the chronicle (not counting your house rules and setting changes, of course). The World of Darkness is always changing, however and the protagonists aren’t responsible for every new development. Gentry rise and fall on the winds of immortal politics. Distant freeholds change leaders, monsters find new lairs — it’s a busy world out there. Some people call this continuing story the metaplot. It’s a potent way to set up your endgame but it needs to be designed carefully, lest it alienate the players. The best way to do this is to design setting changes in discrete chunks that play across a session or chapter. Character actions trigger each event but they aren’t necessarily responsible for them — a distinction we’ll talk about shortly. Design the event and note possible triggers. Perhaps the players’ motley has a ripple effect on Lost culture. The players’ changelings defeat the Huntsman and prove that one of the Gentry can be beaten. Word spreads through freeholds worldwide and they begin to actively campaign against the Fae. Some dare the gates of Arcadia and lay the groundwork for a final battle. You don’t have to attribute every major event to the characters. Use your group’s exploits as a symbolic inspiration instead. There’s no direct causal link in the plot, but the Storyteller assumes that the players’ motley represents the changeling zeitgeist. This technique keeps the world’s vast scope while subtly reinforcing the protagonists’ special place. They’re not the only actors in the chronicle, but it moves to their rhythm nonetheless. Perhaps a victory over the Huntsman doesn’t inspire changelings far and wide, but it’s part of a new era, where even Winter courtiers might dream of defeating the Others. The players control one fighting motley among many. Big Crossover Your endgame is an opportunity to explore the ultimate truths of your World of Darkness. You can definitively state whether mages and changelings are talking about the same Arcadia or if vampires are a corrupt Fae creation. You don’t have to worry about the possibility of player-run vampires and mages coming up in future stories set in this iteration of your World of Darkness, so you can run roughshod over those games without consequence. (If they matter at all to you, of course.) Make these connections serve the plot. The players aren’t there to listen to you hold forth on the secret metaphysics of the World of Darkness. They want to explore the world through a story, so big ideas have to matter to the story at hand. Nobody cares if mages really get their powers from stealing part of a True Fae’s soul. They do care if one day, every soul shard takes over its wielder, making them puppets of the Gentry. This assumes that your game is focused in Changeling: The Lost and doesn’t feature protagonists from the other game lines. If you’re running a true crossover chronicle where (for instance) a vampire, hunter and changeling get together to resist supernatural evil, you’ll need to be more evenhanded. The first thing to do is consult the players. How important is each line’s “canon” to their play experience? Some players are open-minded about this kind of thing, but a few will want to keep each line in its own safe harbor. If a vampire’s player wants to study Kindred origins without encountering the slightest whiff of Fae involvement, respect that and stick to Vampire: The Requiem for inspiration. Setting-scale plotlines emphasize a larger, ever-changing World of Darkness, so they’re especially important when your finale hangs the world in the balance, but they also serve some practical ends. Major events allow you to tweak your game’s setting and rules without forcing players to make new characters or accept retroactive continuity. Instead of asking players to pretend that there’s always been a Court of Thunder, or that Contracts have always worked according 66 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales to your house rules, story events create these changes, but leave previous chapters intact. In the endgame, you can also change the rules for dramatic effect. See Changing the Rules, below, for more about this subject. Example: Malcolm designs two events to set up his endgame. First, he decides that the Seasonal Courts were created with the help of the True Fae in exchange for a secret debt that comes due at the end of days — at the end of the chronicle, in fact. The Court founders deferred payment by allowing the Gentry to take slaves according to longstanding traditional agreements, but these have fallen by the wayside. Once the last such conspiracy falls, the balance of the debt — thousands of human souls — must be paid in full. Consequently, Malcolm decides that when the players’ motley destroys a conspiracy to take children to Arcadia, that ended the last traditional slaving pact. The Gentry send hunting parties to kill Court-affiliated changelings. Malcolm wants to make the story a bit subtler after this burst of action, so he decides that if the motley fends off the initial attack they’re part of a broad trend. Lost around the world successfully defend themselves. This triggers the next event, as the four Pitiless Factors who are responsible for claiming payment set up conspiracies around the world. Instead of striking directly, the Factors use work through worldly agents. The Pitiless Factors will eventually take over entire cultures, touching off a finale where the motley leads the resistance against a Fae-ruled Earth. Dramatic Tools Storytellers can use a number of other techniques to enhance the endgame. We methodically explored elements of the finale before, but now we’re going to get a bit scattershot. Real chronicles aren’t neat and tidy conceptual machines that output conventional plots. They veer from horror to humor with a sentence. Climaxes stretch over a dozen sessions or fly by in the blink of an eye. Storytelling (and play) is a balancing act between adhering to the patterns that inspire us (like movies and books) and embracing the special aspects of the roleplaying form. You need dynamic tools to do this well, without waiting for the moments ordained by source literature or a Storyteller’s notes. So instead of linking the following methods to any larger structure, apply them as needed. Changing the Rules We’ve emphasized that the endgame gives you a chance to open up previously inviolable parts of the game to advance the story. Nothing’s sacred, really, but we’re not always eager to alter Changeling’s core ideas without a good reason, or without carefully considering the consequences. The finale lets us discard the usual caution and make big changes. We don’t have to account for long term play any more and we have a strong incentive to take radical steps, because the endgame is a potent enough story event to justify more extreme Storytelling methods. Changing the rules is one of these. In the finale, we can tweak the rules above and beyond what we’d need to run a custom, long term Changeling game. New rules represent a shift in the Wyrd, an overriding theme or some other sign that the end is nigh. New rules might reflect as real changes in the setting. Suddenly, every changeling gains a dot of Wyrd because Arcadia creeps closer to the mortal world. Contracts are unraveling, so their users can “bid” for more power than usual by scoring an exceptional success — or pay a horrible price when the dice go sour. Players usually recognize these as important signs that the chronicle’s entered a new phase. The rules are, after all, tools for putting the players’ their stamp on the story. If their characters notice these changes, the result could be anything from social upheaval to the rise of a powerful, protagonist-led conspiracy to exploit the new order of things. The laws of Faerie magic are breaking out of their ancient routines — the Lost must take notice. On the other hand, you might change the rules just to give part of your story a certain feel. These systems don’t come into being because of setting events. Apply them as a narrative device to give scenes a certain emphasis. For example, if you want to guide the story toward scenes full of cinematic violence, you might give minor antagonists fewer Health points or enable the use of Fate points (see p. 130). The Narrative Seasons below are one way to apply these ideas. Narrative Seasons Narrative Seasons are scene templates. They add particular rules to the game to tweak its feel. These need not be permanent; apply them to your story for a scene, session, chapter — whatever fits the moment. You don’t need an in-chronicle rationale for them, but apply one if you like. Perhaps each Court’s power intensifies in the last year of the world, and the Wyrd twists events to comply with the spirit of each passing season. Naturally, you can use other Courts as models to develop your own Narrative Seasons. Just look at the Court’s theme and choose systems that support it. Spring: Narrative Spring focuses on intrigue and social conflict. While this template applies, social rolls tend to have extreme results. Social dice pools always have the 9-again quality, but if a social roll fails and scores at least a single 1 on the dice, the character suffers a Dramatic Failure. 67 Storytelling the Endgame During Spring play, players use social dice pools to seize powerful advantages over their rivals. If the roll succeeds, the victim suffers a penalty to dice pools associated with one particular Attribute (such as Strength or Resolve) for one roll per dot of the “attacker’s” Wyrd (or in crossover games, another supernatural trait), unless the victim performs a scene-length task of the attacker’s choosing, stated at the time of the roll. In Narrative Spring, a changeling can weaken a giant warrior with a clever word. Summer: In the season of Wrath, violence and action take center stage. Physical dice pools gain the 9-again quality, but if the roll fails and scores at least a single 1 on the dice, the character suffers a Dramatic Failure. Mundane humans with Attribute + Attribute or Attribute + Skill dice pools of 7 or less fall before the wrath of supernatural demigods. They don’t have Defense scores. As long as they’re visible, attackers never suffer ranged dice pool penalties to hit them. Don’t add a species factor bonus to these “spear carriers” Health. Supernatural characters are actually harder to kill. Even after suffering fatal injuries, any supernatural combatant lasts until the end of a scene unless an enemy delivers one additional blow (a “coup de grace”). 0 Health characters who survive the scene can be saved with first-aid if it’s administered immediately. This benefit doesn’t apply to environmental hazards or large scale devastation unless the Storyteller allows it. Autumn: Autumn favors magic and sorcery. Supernatural power dice pools gain the 9-again quality, but if the roll fails and scores at least a single 1 on the dice, the character suffers a dramatic failure. Every character can collect mystical secrets — up to one per dot of Wyrd — and may redeem them for a single use of any Contract or enhanced ability with a single Contract on a one point per dot basis. For instance, a character with one secret can either raise his Eternal Autumn dots from two to three to use the higher rank once, or temporarily employ the first dot of Contracts of Stone. He can’t cash in more secrets on a single action than the lower of his Resolve or Composure. The Storyteller makes these secrets available in play; she either keys them to particular Contracts or lets them apply to any one, provided the player narrates a connection between the secret and the power he wants to employ. For example, his character might know the secret name of an old building, giving him enhanced power whenever he acts inside that building. In crossover games, other supernatural beings might have a similar ability to collect secrets — and even normal humans might be able to employ certain powers. Winter: Winter is a season of cold-blooded stratagems. Mental dice pools always have the 9-again 68 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales quality, but if the roll fails and scores at least a single 1 on the dice, the character suffers a dramatic failure. In Winter stories, all characters can compose special plans. To do so, the character needs to successfully research a subject or learn a secret about it. She learns the weak points in a noble school of fencing, finds a loophole in freehold law or learns an infiltration tactic from an old soldier. If her investigation succeeds, the player then rolls a relevant dice pool based on a Mental Attribute — Wits + Weaponry for the fencing style, for instance, or Intelligence + Academics to exploit the law. If she succeeds, her character adds the rote quality (roll failed dice again) to all dice rolls related to the subject matter, up to one roll per success. Characters can hold a number of running plans equal to their lowest Mental Attribute in reserve. The Epic Troupe An epic troupe is one way to make your World of Darkness feel like a vast, lively environment. It’s an extension of the classic troupe concept. In a traditional troupe, players create one primary and one supporting character, along with a host of minor roles. In a Changeling game, the primary character would be one of the Lost. Secondary characters would be competent Retainers and might have some minor supernatural powers. Minor characters are normal humans: the type of people that might be part of a main character’s Allies Merit. Instead of bringing every primary character to the session, one or two troupe players portray their main characters. The rest play supporting or minor characters. The story focuses on a few main characters but players of supporting or minor characters enjoy the freedom to take bigger risks, because even if something horrible happens to whoever they’re currently playing, their primary characters are safe and ready for another session. Epic troupes take this concept to the next level. Every player creates a standard changeling protagonist and a number of alternate characters who provide different perspectives on the overarching story. Alternate characters belong to different functional categories, selected for the distinct roles they bring to the story. This works well in high-stakes chronicles, because their events can entangle hundreds or even thousands of people. The Storyteller gives the entire cast of characters a common narrative thread. In fiction, you can see this method working in Alan Moore’s Watchmen, where parallel stories follow people who share the same street corner or another casual connection, but don’t have close ties with the central protagonists. An epic troupe chronicle switches between character categories every chapter, story or session, and occasionally segues into a mixed group, drawn from several categories. Players might choose their favorites out of the lot for the chronicle’s climax, or play through several perspectives. If the Gentry invade on dragon-back, players see it happen through the eyes of embattled changeling lords, allied Hedge wizards, local cops — perhaps even the Fae themselves. This is an advanced play style, however, because the players need to track each character’s knowledge separately and should avoid directing them all toward a common goal. Players must be willing to let their characters be played by the Storyteller from time to time; inevitably, a scene will call on two characters who have the same player — and talking to yourself is just awkward. Here are the basic character categories for an epic troupe game. Use whichever ones you like or invent your own instead, but what you see below should serve as a starting point. Main: This category includes the standard players’ motley as detailed in Changeling: The Lost. It’s selfexplanatory, save that not every changeling may appear at the same time. Players, decide how your main characters would use the time between appearances. Journals can be useful here. Divine: These are True Fae or other powerful, hidden actors. This gives the player an insight into the secrets at the core of the chronicle. Divine characters initiate the action and comment on events as they transpire, but don’t meddle in the affairs of “inferiors” so often as to trivialize what everyone else is doing. Players don’t normally know everything a divine figure is thinking or doing, even while they play them. Storytellers provide just enough information to start the story off and give the players what they need to make decisions. Divine beings also make broad choices that might play out in a number of ways; they don’t micromanage the plot. For instance, you might start your game with a council of Fair Folk. The Storyteller tells the players that their Gentry have been searching for a certain human being. She’s “hidden to the Wyrd,” so the Fae must use intermediaries to find her. In their divine roles, the players cement alliances and start planning. The Storyteller uses the results to structure his chronicle and generate foreshadowing. He works out the fine details, like who the Gentry’s minions are and why that human is so important. He might surprise the very people who created the plot. Alternate: Alternates are changelings (and perhaps, other supernatural beings) who are less important 69 Storytelling the Endgame underscores the wonder and horror of the setting. If dragons invade Miami, your changelings will recognize Arcadia’s gambit and take a stand, but for mortals, it’s about surviving an inexplicable disaster. Their eyes reveal that an epic endgame changes the world from the ground up. Plus, of course, they make great victims. Play them to the point of death or madness to get a grip on how dangerous an antagonist really is. Unique game traits aren’t important. You can use the abbreviated, non-combatant format in most cases, or assign a standard “average person” sheet with a dot or two left for customization. Their life stories make them important and not just because they’ve encountered Faerie. Their normal lives are worth cherishing and protecting. Explore their jobs, family ties and passions. Make them complex figures so that their helplessness arouses compassion and their heroism inspires respect. Troupe Experience Epic troupes divide attention between multiple characters, so awarding experience points can be a tricky thing. If you hand out standard awards to characters as they appear you’ll have to deal with slow advancement. Instead, consider awarding experience to the player, not the character. Multiply the standard award by the number of characters he’ll regularly play. Storytellers might want to drop this final number a touch to represent the uneven importance of different character types (main characters should be the prime recipients). Main, alternate and supporting characters usually advance, but divine figures and minor characters rarely do so. Players give each character one point per session, but they can divide the remainder as they see fit. You can also award experience in “pulses:” large, infrequent grants. This has the advantage of mimicking character maturity in other media, where ability rarely rises in fine increments. Award a new pulse every time the focus switches to a new character group. Limit players to one or two new dots per trait after each award. This keeps them from dumping the entire award into a single game trait. to the story than the main characters, but might appear in vignettes to explore a situation from another perspective. Storytellers can wreak havoc on alternates’ lives to emphasize how important the story is, or give them information that the main characters need, but can’t get themselves, or would enrich the chronicle from an audience perspective, even if it doesn’t tell the main characters anything new. While the main characters explore courtly intrigue for the throne of Miami, alternates in the Sahara dig up a powerful artifact that will influence that struggle for the crown. Alternates contract a hideous Wyrd disease; main characters look for the cure. Like divine figures, you don’t need to know everything alternates know to play them. The motley finds the ancient artifact but the perspective shifts to the main characters just before the scene that would reveal its secrets. Sometimes, however, players get just as interested in the exploits of the alternates as they do about those of the main characters. As a result, you might play two groups of main characters, picking the best from both motleys to participate in the climax. Supporting: Supporting characters have been initiated into the world of the Lost, but they aren’t changelings themselves. They might serve them, hunt them or investigate them for a secret society. These characters aren’t as powerful as the primary protagonists but they’re still competent. The ensorcelled are the most obvious characters to fill this role. They might have special expertise, great wealth or minor supernatural powers. World of Darkness: Second Sight includes the minor abilities they might have, but you can also start them off with powerful pledges or even a few dots in one or two Contracts. Some supporting characters accompany the main characters and others dog their heels, but no matter the connection, it puts them in the path of major story events. Supporting characters uncover secrets with their determination, abilities, and special place in the supernatural world. They know enough about the World of Darkness to make connections, but not so much that they’re consumed by the perspective of a particular faction. Use them to reveal new information and bridge mundane and supernatural outlooks. Minor: It’s a big world; lots of people live in it. Some minor characters know about the supernatural and some don’t, but they all provide a “man on the street point of view.” They’re ordinary people, or were before the plot pulled them into Wyrd-touched events. When your game’s consumed with freeholds and changeling rivalries, pulling back to mundane life 70 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales Crossover: The Lost and the World of Darkness of mages interact? The question almost stifles discussion, because there are so many reasons why such interaction is possible. We examine, therefore, bringing changelings into the larger World of Darkness at the culmination of a chronicle. Theme Dilution One of the occasional arguments against mixing characters from the various World of Darkness games is that the themes of those games are different. That is, while the mechanics of combat (for instance) are the same in both Changeling and Werewolf, combat means something different in those games. Werewolves fight with tooth and claw just to make a point. For changelings, a fight might just be a brawl, but could also be a matter of honor or survival, and in any case it isn’t taken lightly. Likewise, Vampire and Changeling are both highly political games, but the themes of the former game make lying and cheating much more likely than in the latter (where breaking an oath is a much more important thing). What this means for the Storyteller is that when you plan a crossover story, find where the themes of the games intersect with the themes of your chronicle, and highlight those areas, rather than trying to figure out all of the pitfalls of mixing the characters. Likewise, remember that a changeling doesn’t know much (or anything) about the vampires of Requiem, and so won’t immediately shun, say, a Ventrue because of their propensity toward madness. A major theme of any crossover story should be the exploration of forbidden and dangerous secrets — which is a theme appropriate for any World of Darkness game. Vampire: The Requiem It might be tempting to compare changelings to vampires, in a way. Changelings, after all, feed from human emotion — is this not an analog to the vampire’s thirst for blood? It’s a false comparison, though, because the human doesn’t lose anything when the changeling absorbs emotion. Indeed, most people nevA question that naturally arises in any World of Darkness chronicle is: how might one supernatural “race” interact with the others? What would a changeling have to say to a vampire? Would a werewolf and a Hunterheart hate each other on sight, or find some common ground? How would a changeling view a Promethean — a beacon of hope, or no better than a fetch? As a Changeling chronicle approaches its conclusion, and the horizons of that chronicle broaden somewhat, the Storyteller and the players might be interested in including some of these creatures, and, more to the point, their societies. A werewolf on its own is an interesting and probably frightening creature, even for the Lost, but if a motley meets a pack and learns something about the Tribes of the Moon and the battle against the Pure, that motley can get a sense of exactly how little it knows about the World of Darkness. This can actually be a message of hope for the fae — look how much of the supernatural is untouched by the Gentry! This section discusses crossing Changeling: The Lost with the other World of Darkness game lines. At present, six such lines (including Changeling) have been published. The sidebar names each (except for Changeling, which we assume you have already read) and presents some of the specific terminology, just so Storytellers who might not have access to all of the relevant core books at least have some context. Theory: Why Crossover? Equinox Road focuses on the end of a Changeling chronicle, and therefore the crossover rules and notes presented here deal with changelings’ interaction with other supernatural beings as they relate to the chronicle’s end. The truth is that examining crossover without this kind of strong focus is difficult, because each of the World of Darkness games is broad in scope. Why would a motley of changelings and a cabal 71 Vampire: The Requiem The Denizens of the World of Darkness Vampire: The Requiem: Vampires refer to themselves as Kindred. All vampires belong to one of five different clans, which determine what supernatural powers they wield and some of their weaknesses. Many vampires also belong to covenants, organizations that fill the roles of religions, political parties and secret societies. Small groups of vampires band together into coteries. Werewolf: The Forsaken: Werewolves are born to human parents, but undergo a First Change some time during their lives, at which point they discover their savage heritage. Werewolves refer to themselves as Uratha in their own language, or sometimes as Forsaken (those who ally themselves with Luna, the spirit of the moon) or Pure (brutal, vicious werewolves who make war on their lunar cousins). Forsaken werewolves take social roles called auspices, based on what phase of the moon they first Changed under, and many join tribes that provide training and support. The basic unit of werewolf existence, though, is the pack. Mage: The Awakening: Mages are human beings who Awaken to mystical Supernal Realms and work their arcane powers through a connection to these places. Every mage walks a Path, depending on which Realm she Awakened to, and some join one of five orders, ancient fellowships that stretch back to a forgotten city of antiquity. A group of mages is called a cabal, while a local organization, usually composed of multiple cabals, is called a Consilium. As a special note, one of the five Supernal Realms that mages can Awaken to is called Arcadia. The relationship between this Realm and Faerie is discussed later in this section. Promethean: The Created: Prometheans, sometimes called the Created, are living beings made of unliving flesh. Like the Golem of Hebrew legend or Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, these creatures are powerful, despised by humanity, and extremely rare. This is, well, because Prometheans bring out the worst in people. Close proximity to Prometheans makes others suspicious, angry, jealous and spiteful — and all of this ill will is focused squarely on the Promethean. Each Promethean walks a Pilgrimage, hoping to find the secret of Mortality, and sometimes these beings are lucky enough to find others of their kind and band together into a throng. Prometheans descend from one of several Lineages, based on the first of that particular “family” to gain sentience. A Promethean’s approach to his Pilgrimage is called a Refinement, and this approach can (and usually does) change several times before the creature finds Mortality. Hunter: The Vigil: Hunters aren’t supernatural beings, per se. Rather, they are human beings who have chosen or been chosen to protect humanity from the supernatural. Hunters are often obsessive and zealous, and over time can even appear quite insane (provided they survive their avocation long enough). Some hunters belong to compacts or conspiracies, organizations that can provide access to weapons, training and personnel to facilitate the Vigil. Some hunters band together into local groups, scrounging whatever they can. And some face the darkness alone. er know that a changeling has been nearby, soaking up their desire, rage, fear or sorrow. Vampires are the unnatural prolongation of human existence. That is, a vampire is dead. A changeling has returned from something like death (the durance) and begun life anew. Vampires and changelings both have strange relationships with time, vampires because time spent in torpor causes them to lose memory, and changelings (of course) due to their long stints in Arcadia. Interaction between the two at the end of the chronicle, then, might come from the changelings needing to learn something about their own pasts and appealing to the sympathy of a vampire who can never recapture his mortal life. Another possibility, of course, is that vampirism could be cured by a trip to Faerie. In Arcadia, a changeling might be able to forge a new Contract (as detailed in Chapter One) allowing her to return a vampire to mortality. Of course, that would then require getting out of Faerie and back to the mortal world again, but since such a story would be a quest to return from the dead, there’s no reason it should be easy! (Certainly one of the major themes of Vampire focuses on the explicit lack of a cure for vampirism, so definitely check 72 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales with your players first; they might not enjoy such a thing being genuinely possible.) Vampires are probably the most limited of the major supernatural character types, in terms of mobility. They suffer aggravated damage from sunlight, after all, which means that a few minutes in the sun destroys them. Likewise, vampires must feed on fresh blood at least every week or so, and since they use blood (called Vitae) like changelings use Glamour, most of the undead feed nightly. In a modern city, these obstacles aren’t difficult to overcome — every city has a nightlife, and with that nightlife comes people to feed from. But in the Hedge, with no people around (other than the changelings, who might well start looking tasty after a while) and no easy shelter from the sun, logistical concerns become paramount. Some vampires can feed on animals, but more powerful ones can’t. Hobgoblins, however, aren’t precisely animals, and so the Storyteller might allow a vampire to take blood from such a creature, provided the intended hobgoblin can be caught. The Damned can, of course, feed from changelings, meaning that any enemies the group encounters on the trip are probably forfeit to the vampire’s hunger. Sunlight is another issue. It’s possible to view a trip through the Hedge as an extended journey into the wilderness, and plan accordingly. A light-proof container of some kind can protect the vampire during the day, but the group should be wary of traveling through the Hedge only at night. It’s possible for the vampire to sleep during the day while the group travels, perhaps in a cart liberated from the Goblin Market, and guard the rest of the group while they sleep once night falls. That does mean, though, that the group is trusting a hungry vampire to watch over them while they sleep. (And, from a game-play perspective, it means that the vampire is always alone.) Some trods through the Hedge, though, are never lit by sunlight. These Nighted Trods take travelers through dense underbrush, through caverns, and under rocky outcroppings. The sun is sometimes visible, but light never touches the path. Finding a Nighted Trod would enable a vampire (or several) to stay active — provided that he can resist the daysleep. For the most part, a vampire’s Disciplines work normally in the Hedge. Changelings are susceptible to Disciplines just as supernatural beings normally are (that is, they add their Wyrd ratings to resistance rolls, etc.). Hobgoblins, however, are a slightly different case. Some hobgoblins can be affected by the Animalism Discipline, while others are only affected by the “higher functioning” powers of Dominate. The Storyteller needs to make that decision on a case by base basis, and unfortunately, there’s no way for a vampire to tell until he tries it. After some time in the Hedge (and a few mishaps, probably) the vampire’s player might be allowed a Wits + Animal Ken or Occult roll to determine at a glance if a given creature operates on a human (or human-like) level of cognition. Vampires cannot eat food, and so cannot usually partake of goblin fruits (though there is always the possibility of something like bloodroot, as mentioned on p. 250 of Changeling: The Lost). But some of the animals in the Hedge have mystical properties to their blood, and the vampire is uniquely suited to discovering these properties. In game terms, the possibility of having such animals gives the Storyteller a way to allow vampire characters all the fun of guessing whether a given goblin fruit is going to be beneficial or deadly in the long run, and to give the vampire a way to interact with the Hedge a bit more directly. Remember that stepping off the thorns doesn’t strip a vampire’s Morality (called Humanity), but it does sap her blood as the thorns slice her flesh open. This is described on p. 222 of Changeling: The Lost. Werewolf: The Forsaken A question that the Lost occasionally raise is: why don’t the Gentry steal other supernatural beings? Surely they’d make for more interesting pets than humans. But that makes a number of assumptions, one of which is that the Others can steal such beings. Perhaps they have bargains with the supernatural that prohibit it, after all. Changelings that have seen packs of werewolves hunt offer another explanation — the Others don’t want such creatures near them, and understandably so. Werewolves are vicious hunters and killers, barely contained on the best of days, and they take very poorly to being used, chained or controlled. Werewolves travel in packs, and to offend one werewolf is to draw down the pack’s ire. But still, rumors persist of Gentry accompanied by huge, slavering wolves with silver collars. Are these hapless monsters fae hounds, or hobgoblins tamed by the Others? Or were they born human, changed under Luna’s light, and subsequently captured by the Gentry? 73 Werewolf: The Forsaken Werewolves might accompany changelings into the Hedge to rescue a pack member, or to retrieve a family member (a wolf-blood) who has been captured by the Gentry. Not all Uratha care about their human family, but many do, and a great number of them would find the notion of anyone carrying Father Wolf’s blood being enslaved to be unacceptable. Beyond that, however, it’s possible that a pack of werewolves might chase their quarry into the Hedge and be unable to leave while he still lives. Consider: the Hedge is psychoactive, and the reason that the Lost can find their way out is because of some strong memory, some image powerful enough to act as a guide. If the werewolves are so focused on their quarry, no path will lead them out of the Hedge (unless the quarry leaves). Changelings don’t have much truck with spirits, but werewolves are just as much spirit as they are flesh. This protects them in the Hedge to a large degree; their Morality is safe from the mind-altering effects of the Hedge because they, like changelings, are focused on balancing one side of themselves with the other (spirit and flesh, in this case). The thorns don’t strip away this Morality (called Harmony) because the Hedge has no power to do so — their souls are already marked by a higher power, Mother Luna. The problem, though, is that a werewolf in the Hedge is badly out of his element. The Hedge isn’t like the spirit wilds, and hobgoblins aren’t the Jagglings and Gafflings they are used to. Acquiring Essence is difficult, because spirits don’t respond to rites in the Hedge. Indeed, there is no Gauntlet in the Hedge, and Gifts like Two-World Eyes and Read Spirit that involve looking past the Gauntlet or getting direct advice from a spirit simply don’t function. A pack of werewolves retains its totem bonuses, and a totem spirit can accompany a pack into the Hedge, but the spirit becomes immediately Materialized (whether or not it knows the Numen) and is vulnerable to physical attacks as long as it remains in the Hedge. Note, too, that werewolves run an increased risk of Death Rage while in the Hedge (see p. 222 of Changeling: The Lost). Gifts, for the most part, function in the Hedge, subject to the restriction listed above. Spirits don’t venture into the Hedge — the Hedge is a barrier between Earth and Faerie, and the spirit world has no dominion here. A spirit forced or tricked into the Hedge Materializes, and over time, Glamour can replace ephemera, making the spirit into a hobgoblin (indeed, some theorize that this is 74 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales how the Hedge become “populated” in the first place). A spirit bound into a fetish is safe from this effect. Rites, like Gifts, only work if they don’t rely on direct intercession from a spirit. As such, Shared Scent works in the Hedge, but Blessing of the Spirit Hunt does not. Gifts that affect animals, such as Beast Speech, are subject to the same restrictions as the Animalism Discipline mentioned above — they only work if the hobgoblin in question is truly animalistic in nature. Werewolves can eat changelings for Essence (and, of course, face the same possibility of Harmony loss as for eating people), but derive no such empowerment from hobgoblins, no matter how human- or wolf-like they might seem. Mage: The Awakening The burning question for enthusiasts of both Mage and Changeling is, of course, whether Arcadia refers to the Supernal Realm to which Acanthus mages Awaken, the surreal nightmare-paradise of the Gentry, or both. This question is explored in greater detail below. Our initial discussion of mages focuses on why a mage, or a cabal, might choose to accompany changelings into the Hedge. Discovery, of course, is one possible motive. Mages are driven by, among other things, a lust for knowledge, secrets and the power that these things can bring. Learning about the forbidden realm of the Fae would fill volumes, and there are certainly scholars among the Awakened who would love to be the ones holding the pens. Naturally, wise mages would balk at this fact-finding trip if they knew all the facts, but a motley of changelings that just wants some cannonfodder might not bother with full disclosure. Revenge is another likely spur for mages. A mage might lose a loved one to the Others, or even to the Lost, and follow that fell creature back through a gateway. He might even see the gateway close as his lover, brother, or child is dragged off into the Thorns, and spend hours or days throwing every spell he knows at the doorway, trying to get it to open again. Mages are dangerous foes at the best of times, but when they have time to prepare their spells and research their foes, they can bring the wrath of the Supernal down — provided they can find their foes, of course. The most important thing to remember about mages, though, is that they are human. Any motive that could conceivably be applied to a human being for entering the Hedge can be applied to the Awakened. A mage might wish to reclaim a loved one, to follow a beautiful faerie back home, or to obtain immortality by making a deal with the Fae. She might be tricked into entering the Hedge (either by changelings or the Others), or stumble in by using a key. Since mages are mortal, they must eat, drink and sleep. The Hedge can make these things difficult (though mages can, of course, compensate for these necessities with magic). Consuming goblin fruits has the same effect on mages as on changelings, and the Fae are just as likely to snatch up a mage in the Hedge as one of the Lost. The Thorns strip a mage of his soul, and thus his Wisdom, and without a soul he cannot perform magic. Mages suffer the baleful effects of the Hedge just like mortals, barring the use of magic. But there’s the rub — mages do use magic, and their magic can mitigate many of these effects. The magic of Mage: The Awakening is dizzying in scope, and we can’t hope to come up with every single possible scenario or spell that a Mage player will think of for his Hedge-bound character. All we can do is provide some of the theory behind our rulings on the matter, so as to provide the Storyteller with a foundation for making her own judgments. • Plant Life: A mage might think to alter the plant life of the Hedge using Life magic. This can have positive results. For instance, the mage might wish to cause a tree to bear fruit, hopefully producing goblin fruits that allow for healing or some other beneficial effect. Fortunately, most plants in the Hedge act like normal vegetation (whether that’s because they are normal vegetation or because they are just under Contract is another question). A Life spell using the Knowing practice might determine the effect of a goblin fruit (but remember that perception-based magic in the Hedge has a maximum dice pool of the mage’s Wisdom; see p. 212 of Changeling: The Lost). A Perfecting Life spell could cause a few goblin fruits to blossom forth (one per success on the casting roll seems fair). Likewise, spells that change plant life into animals, matter, or energy work in the Hedge. The barriers of the Hedge, though, are not plants, no matter how much they might resemble them. Life magic has no effect on the high Briars, on seaweed that delineates the paths of the seaside Hedge, of the mangroves of the Hedge near a swamp, or the dense thickets of the countryside Thorns. 75 Mage: The Awakening • Ingress and Egress: It is impossible for mages to magically exit the Hedge, something that frustrates them to no end. Even a master of Space cannot open a portal out of the Hedge. A Shaman cannot step into the Shadow from the Hedge, nor can a mage use Death or Spirit magic to enter Twilight. Mages speculate as to why this is the case, but as with all things Fae, the answer lies in oaths. Entering the Hedge is an oath. By entering, no matter how one enters, a person agrees to be bound by the laws of the Hedge. Among those laws is the promise only to leave through a proper gateway (that is, a doorway, mirror or other aperture made available to access the Hedge through Glamour, as described in Changeling: The Lost). The laws of the Supernal hold no sway over this agreement (and a good thing, too — if the laws of the Hedge were to be broken, what need would the Hedge serve? Arcadia might butt up against the mortal world in an instant, and all within the Hedge would be lost forever!). This does mean, though, that a mage can teleport into the Hedge, if he has the power to do so. Of course, finding a sympathetic connection into the Hedge might be difficult, but if the mage is following someone who was kidnapped, he might be able to use Space magic to locate the unfortunate. Any attempt to open a gateway into the Hedge is vulgar in aspect, and the player suffers a -2 penalty if the target is still within sight of the mortal world. This penalty increases to -3 if the target has turned her back on the mortal world and is well and truly ensconced in the Thorns, and the roll is automatically reduced to a chance dice if the target has left the path. If the target is in Arcadia, Space magic cannot find her from outside the Hedge. Opening a gateway with magic is impossible unless the gateway has a key. If it does, the mage can, of course, use the key normally (more about keys can be found on p. 216 of Changeling: The Lost). Another option is to fool the Hedge into thinking the key has been fulfilled. This requires a Veiling Fate spell (similar to the Fate 3 “Fabricate Fortune” spell). This spell is considered vulgar in aspect. If the spell succeeds, the gateway opens for a number of turns equal to the caster’s successes. Supernal magic cannot be used to create a gateway into the Hedge. Only Glamour can do this. If a mage could find a way to store or manipulate Glamour, it’s possible that he might be able to use it to open a gateway. • Hobgoblins: Hobgoblins can be affected with Life and Mind magic as though they were animals, for the most part. As mentioned for the Animalism Discipline (p. 72), some hobgoblins are just as self-aware as human beings, and cannot be controlled by spells meant to work on lower beings. Spirit magic does not work on hobgoblins, as they are not spirits. Arcadia: Supernal Realm or Home of the Gentry? The important question is this: is the place that changelings call “Arcadia” the same place that mages refer to when they use the word? Do mages venture to Arcadia to Awaken, and are the strange creatures they glimpse there the Fae (or, perhaps, changelingsin-progress)? There is no mandated “canon” answer to this question. The games are designed as if the two could be the same — that is, we’ve avoided material that would clearly prove that they aren’t, as well as concrete proof that they are — but the answer is something that every Storyteller needs to decide how, and whether, to answer. The latter issue, that of whether the question needs an answer at all, might be the most important. After all, if your chronicle never includes mages, you don’t have any call to consider where they go when they Awaken. (And, for any Mage Storyteller who’s picked up this book, the reverse is also true — if you aren’t dealing with the Lost, who cares where they come from?) But assuming that Acanthus mages and changelings might, in your chronicle, interact and that you need to figure out the metaphysics of venturing to “Arcadia,” you have two simple possibilities, each with a lot of potential in the details. Separate Realms The first is that Supernal Arcadia and Fae Arcadia are different places. They are sufficiently similar that inhabitants of both are referred to as “fae” or “faeries,” but a person can’t find a Watchtower in Fae Arcadia and a changeling can’t reclaim his original soul by going to Supernal Arcadia. Acanthus mages might have an easier time detecting changelings, but this is because the Gentry play merry hell with both Time and Fate, which, of course, are the fortes of the Tricksters anyway. If you want to delve into a little more detail on the similarity between these two realms, though, consider drawing a connection between them. Maybe Supernal Arcadia was a copy created by powerful mages (Oracles or Exarchs) who somehow witnessed Fae Arcadia, perhaps through the memories of a changeling. The Supernal Realm, then, is a duplicate, a “fetch,” if you will, of the original Fae Arcadia. Might it, therefore, be subject to some of the same rules as a changeling’s 76 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales fetch? If a changeling or some other reminder of the Fae Arcadia could be taken to Supernal Arcadia, would the Supernal Realm become aware of its false nature and turn on its Awakened constituents? Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe Supernal Arcadia came first, and Fae Arcadia was a neutral place, a Domain colonized by creatures that escaped from the Supernal Realms. Would that make the Acanthus mages and their progenitors indirectly responsible for every life shattered by the Gentry? Could the mages have prevented countless kidnappings, murders and rapes by simply leaving well enough alone? One and the Same There is only one Arcadia. This possibility opens up a great number of story possibilities, but it also raises a lot of questions. For instance, can a mortal enter Arcadia through the Hedge and wind up Awakening? Can a mage be dragged back to Arcadia through the Hedge, and what effect would that have? Can a changeling Awaken by finding the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn and signing her name? What are the Fae, and what relationship do they have with the creator of the Watchtower? As you’ve probably guessed, we aren’t going to definitively answer these questions, though we’ll certainly consider them and help the Storyteller to come up with logical answers. First, there’s the issue of changelings becoming Awakened. From a design standpoint, the World of Darkness games don’t generally allow “template stacking,” partially due to issues of game balance, and partially to keep the systems compatible but relatively uncomplicated. The in-story reason that changelings cannot Awaken, even if one should manage to find the Watchtower (which would make for a fantastic story; see below) is that Awakening requires a strong connection between the mage’s soul and the Supernal Realm in question. But a changeling’s soul is a tatterdemalion of Glamour, shadow and a few scraps of the original. It doesn’t have enough strength to hold a connection to the Watchtower, and should a changeling try it, she might gain some brief insight into the nature of reality (especially Fate) before her signature fades from the tower. This brief insight shouldn’t be overlooked, though — it might be the only way a changeling can resolve a question that has plagued her since her return to Earth. Perhaps she is looking for a lover or child, someone who was taken through the Thorns with her but who she lost. The Watchtower might hold the answer she’s looking for. Next, let’s consider the idea of a mage returning to Arcadia or a mortal becoming Awakened by reaching Arcadia through the Hedge. Mages don’t have universally positive experiences of Awakening, and a trip to Arcadia, even if it leads to enlightenment, might be a nightmare. But assuming that the mage did enjoy (or at least, was intrigued by) her trip to the Abode of Faeries, she might wish to return. Reaching Arcadia is difficult in itself, due to the Hedge’s ability to strip Wisdom from mages. Note, too, that the effects of the Hedge to strip Morality away mirror the effects of soul loss (these can be found on p. 276 of Mage: The Awakening, and are summed up in the sidebar), and that a mage without a soul can’t perform magic. All of this in mind, a mage even getting to Arcadia with her Awakened soul intact is difficult (see Chapter Three for more on entering Faerie). If the mage should manage it, she’s likely to be in a very different part of the Realm than she remembers. The reason for this is that the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn was constructed specifically to act as a beacon for souls on the cusp of Awakening. Once a person has become a mage, the Watchtower isn’t really meant to serve another purpose. Of course, a story in which a mage fights (alongside a group of changelings) to reach Faerie in order to find her Watchtower again, and then discovers it’s got nothing to offer her, isn’t likely to be very satisfying. The mage character needs a strong reason to go back to the Watchtower before embarking on the journey (this kind of focus is emblematic of such a quest anyway, and very much in-theme for both Changeling and Mage). It’s also possible that the mage fights her way through the Hedge, finally manages to arrive at the Watchtower, and discovers that she doesn’t have a good reason for it — she’s left behind everything that she knew and loved in the Fallen World for a goal that she can’t even name. This kind of endgame is tragic, but perfectly valid. If a mortal in Arcadia somehow finds the Watchtower and signs it, does she become a mage? It’s possible, but it doesn’t leave the newly Awakened person in a very good position. Consider: most Awakenings take the form of astral journeys. The body doesn’t go anywhere, only the soul travels to Arcadia (or another of the Supernal Realms). The experience is dreamlike, and enables the nascent mage to experience things on a cerebral level, rather than the bloody, jagged horror of the Thorns that changelings have to experience. Magic requires focus, and summoning 77 Promethean: The Created that focus after or during a durance is near-impossible. Even if it does happen, that still leaves the mage stuck in the middle of Arcadia. A changeling can fight her way back through the Hedge because the Hedge doesn’t strip Clarity away from the Lost. A mage crashing through the Thorns is probably going to be insane or dead by the time she finds a path. Does that mean this sort of prelude for an Acanthus mage is impossible? No, of course not — but it does mean that this sort of mage would probably be damaged, and likely suffer from a few derangements (to say nothing of having a low Wisdom rating). She would also probably have holes in her memory. And, what’s worse, she might well have a fetch. Soul Loss in Brief It’s possible for a mortal’s soul to be removed quickly, rather than stripped away by a long, slow walk through the Thorns. If this happens, the character loses a dot of Morality once a week. A mage without a soul cannot use magic, and any living being without a soul grows listless, depressed and possibly suicidal. It’s possible to reaffix a person’s soul with magic, and it’s not inconceivable that a changeling could forge a Contract to do so. Even if Arcadia is Supernal, many things fae are not. Tokens are clearly not Artifacts; no changeling powers register as Supernal. If the realm of the Gentry and Supernal Arcadia are one and the same, there must be something in the interface between the two worlds that dilutes the Supernal — perhaps a trait of the Wyrd, perhaps a facet of the Hedge. An Artifact of Arcadia would have to have made its way back to the Fallen World in a way other than the paths through the Hedge to retain that Supernal nature. Finally, consider the relationship between the Fae and the Oracle that created the Watchtower. In order for anything to be constructed inside Arcadia, some kind of agreement had to be reached. The question is, who took advantage of whom? It’s possible (and thematically appropriate, from a Mage perspective) that the Oracle that built the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn took advantage of a loophole in an agreement with the Fae. Perhaps she promised the Fae a tithe of souls — maybe those “too weak for Awakening.” But since Awakening requires signing the Watchtower, those who are too weak to do so don’t remain in Arcadia. This kind of bargain might explain why the Fae are hostile to humanity as a whole (and raises the question again: did mages start the kidnapping cycle that changes people into changelings?). Another possibility is that the Oracle walled off a section of Arcadia somehow. This might have been accomplished by mimicking the Fae’s ability to craft Domains, out of the reach of most mages, but possible for an Oracle. This means the inhabitants of Supernal Arcadia (since many mages report encountering “faeries” when they Awaken to this Realm) are beings that were trapped there. Were they simply hobgoblins who were unlucky enough to be in the area when the walls went up? Were they Gentry sold out by their fellows to this strange interloper? Were they Gentry who agreed to remain in the Realm, in exchange for some favor that only the Oracle could provide? If this is the case, getting into Supernal Arcadia from the Hedge would require entering Faerie, finding the walls to the Realm, and then getting over, under or through them somehow. Is there a gatekeeper, some awesomely powerful or elusive Fae creature that knows the secret? Is it only possible by forging a Contract with the Acanthus Path? And, as always, what is the point? What goal would propel the characters to take on this task? Promethean: The Created Prometheans are unpredictable. Each one is on a personal quest to become human (though granted, some Prometheans do ignore that urge), but that quest can take the Promethean down some truly strange paths. The Created approach humanity as outsiders. What they know about humanity is gleaned from pure observation or, perhaps, a kind of reflexively “muscle memory” lingering in the flesh used to make them. Humanity is cruel, selfish, spiteful and murderous, and Prometheans are quite capable of mimicking these traits. But human beings are also kind, noble, courageous and loving, and Prometheans can ape these characteristics, too. A Promethean might find the notion of stealing human beings as slaves completely unacceptable, and be willing to brave the Thorns to right this wrong (especially true for the Golems, who have an inborn fascination with the notion of servitude). One of the Created might also note that the Gentry can create fetches, which, for all intents and purposes, are 78 Chapter Two: Twisted Tales artificially created living creatures — much like Prometheans. Might the Gentry’s creations contain some link to the elusive New Dawn? Possibly, but learning the truth would require meeting the Gentry, and that involves a long walk through the Hedge. In the end, Prometheans are extremely rare and each has its own Pilgrimage. The reasons why a given Promethean might enter the Hedge vary from Created to Created. A Promethean’s Refinement might hold some clues (a Titan, for instance, might be searching for the ultimate battle — and incidentally, isn’t there some superb dramatic potential in bringing a creature following the Refinement of Iron to fight the Fae?), but at the end of the day, the Promethean takes the step through the gateway for his own reasons. It might be as simple as befriending a motley of changelings, and being unwilling to abandon his friends. Of course, it’s hard to be friends with a Promethean. Disquiet affects changelings, meaning that sooner or later the motley is going to turn on their Created compatriot. The fact that fetches don’t suffer Disquiet means that Prometheans often wind up in adversarial positions to the Lost. This generally only lasts until the Prometheans learns the truth about the relationship between the fetch and the changeling, at which point the Promethean typically becomes appalled or intrigued (or both). Prometheans can eat anything remotely organic, and so finding food in the Hedge isn’t too much of a problem. Regaining Pyros, however, can be a major sticking point (see Mechanics, below). Prometheans do not cause the Wasteland effect in the Hedge. This might initially be a cause for celebration from the Created, but the reason for this “mercy” is only likely to make them feel more isolated than ever. The Hedge has no agreements with the Divine Fire. The Divine Fire has will and agenda, but no Contract has ever been struck between it and the Fae. As such, the Hedge doesn’t know quite what to do with Prometheans. Creatures born purely of Arcadia or of the Hedge ignore Prometheans (meaning that hobgoblins and the Gentry don’t suffer Disquiet), and while the Divine Fire scorches the land back on Earth, the Hedge just doesn’t acknowledge it. This also means, however, that Prometheans don’t have a good way to regain Pyros in the Hedge. The sunlight here isn’t pure sunlight, and no deal exists between this light and the Divine Fire. Hence, the Created cannot regain Pyros when the sun rises. Storms, likewise, provide no benefit, and a Promethean who sleeps in “his” element in the Hedge regains no Pyros from it. In the Hedge, a Promethean is more alone than ever, because now the land around him doesn’t recoil. It just refuses to notice him. Of course, this can have some benefit. Prometheans gain 8-again to any contested roll to hide or sneak past a hobgoblin or True Fae (this doesn’t apply to changelings, obviously; they are still human enough to respond normally to the Divine Fire). Fae creatures attack Prometheans last in a fight (if at all). The Hedge has no effect on Promethean Morality (called Humanity, but approached very differently than a vampire’s — vampires try to retain Humanity, while Prometheans try to mimic it). The dreams, fears and desires of the Created don’t impact the Hedge, and the Thorns only cut a Promethean’s flesh (one lethal damage per hour, ignored if the character has any kind of armor), not his soul. Finally, a Promethean in the Hedge loses one of his greatest advantages, and worse, he probably has no way to know it until it’s too late. Prometheans can return from death — once. The Divine Fire flares up and returns the Created to the strange semblance of the life he possesses. But in the Hedge, some vital connection to the Divine Fire is missing. Azoth might flare, but it cannot call back the Promethean from the brink of death. The area of the Hedge in which it happens is scoured with a rain of fire (if you have access to Promethean: The Created, you can use the rules for Firestorms found there), but the Promethean remains dead; however, the Osiran Bestowment Revivification works normally. Hunter: The Vigil Brave people occasionally take up arms against the crimes that supernatural creatures perpetrate against humanity. Some of these stalwarts do their work under the auspices of a governmental organization, some join societies that are hundreds of years old, and some merely find kindred spirits from their area and try to right a wrong without losing their lives in the process. Whatever the scale, any hunter cell would agree that few acts are so unconscionable as abduction and slavery. Except, of course, that the Gentry have the right to steal humans. If they didn’t, they couldn’t do it. Humanity must, at some point in the past, have given the Fae permission to take them (though it’s probably a fair 79 Hunter: The Vigil bet that the Others twisted the deal somehow), and as such, does humanity really have a right to complain? This kind of semantic double-talk doesn’t interest the hunters. Their concerns are, usually, much more concrete. Kill the monsters. Rescue the helpless. Protect humanity. That in mind, it’s highly possible that a cell of hunters might follow a changeling or a motley into the Hedge, possibly all the way to Arcadia. This is especially true if the changeling hinted that there might be a way to end the Fae menace permanently. For an endgame chronicle, maybe this kind of world-altering event is exactly what you need, in fact. Hunters are human beings. They suffer all of the problems that any mortal does in the Hedge. These are detailed on pp. 210-222 of Changeling: The Lost. For the most part, hunters don’t require special mechanics for dealing with the Hedge or other fae creatures. They are, again, mortals, and the game systems work accordingly. Tactics work normally in the Hedge, but circumstances might dictate modifiers beyond what the cell would face on Earth. The Storyteller needs to use common sense and determine whether a given Tactic would suffer penalties (or, indeed, bonuses) based on the target, the surroundings, and the specific conditions. Advanced Armory, Relics, Thaumatechnology and Elixirs work normally, keeping in mind that ghosts and spirits don’t naturally exist in the Hedge and therefore items that affect such beings aren’t useful. Note, too, that as a hunter approaches Faerie, man-made devices become unpredictable, and the superior technology of Task Force: VALKYRIE or the arcane quasi-science of the Cheiron Group is no exception (see Changeling: The Lost p. 210 for more on this effect). Benedictions work normally in the Hedge, but as the Hedge is a place out of time, with regards to the mortal world, the bonus for performing one of these rites on a given saint’s feast day never applies. Castigations likewise function normally, except that the effects of the Hedge on Morality mean that if a hunter’s player receives an exceptional success on the Castigation roll, he can forestall checking for the derangement until after he leaves the Hedge. e was the Poet Who Walked on the Sun this time, jet with burns and carnelian in the joints as the blood welled up. Dark-armored in the marks of suffering, he took step after step through mist and noted some cool comfort: her Mercy Clouds, sent to the ground. The Poet smiled at this stratagem, designed to heal him and lessen his sacrifice, but he was already at the foot of her jagged cliffs. Now, the Lady must resolve a conundrum. She might heal his wounds and give him easy passage (the Poet noted the gulls circling nearby, big as dragons from the Forgotten Days, and he could imagine riding one to the top), but he might formulate some new, secret pain during the trip, and brought before her, would be able to say his fearsome words. The clouds were ill-timed; he still had too far to go and suffer, so she would try to just stop his passage instead. The mist lifted; the great gulls attacked with hungry cries. But sun-fire still burned inside him, and though the birds dug new wounds with beaks and talons, their feathers burned seconds later. They fell, smelling sweet as burned fowl as the Poet pulled his broken body up the shale, eyes on the green firelight in the distance. Later, the Poet conquered the cliff and broke his arms to squeeze through the bars of her stone gate. He took the guards’ swords and spears as plunging body-gifts: more wounds for his work. Most of them melted and burned from the sun inside him, but one spear of sculpted granite pierced his side and stayed. It made his right foot stamp heavy as he dragged it into the throne room with him. She waited there, beautiful enough to make a mortal put his eyes out so that he’d never be insulted by any lesser sight. Her slaves followed this recommendation; bronze orbs decorated their empty sockets. The Poet smiled, pleased that the sight of her, dressed in clouds and emeralds, was for him alone. So the Poet crawled to the foot of her throne and looked up at her with ice-blue eyes. The only cold thing in him: windows to a mind that could shield any fire with the verses it invented. That gaze was the poem this time, an epic sung in a second. It told her how he’d burned for her, bled for her and made himself the wounded king of this little world, all for her. All for her. The poem in that glance was as mortal-maddening as her beauty, so despite herself, the Queen of the Mercy Clouds leaned down to listen when she saw the Poet’s burned lips part. He said “I love you” as sharply as an eating knife, and made a meal of her soul. 82 Chapter Three: Faerie The True Fae The Kindly Ones. The Others. The Old Gods. The Gentry. The True Fae. Such names don’t truly describe the powers of Arcadia, but don’t dismiss the power of names themselves. A True Fae’s name is a promise made to Arcadia. I vow to exist, she says, challenging the Wyrd to make it so. Birth is the hardest, mightiest oath of all. It screams at Arcadia, setting raw will against absolute, passionate chaos. Life is a Contract, and it brings obligations as fundamental as mortal breath and blood — and deeper still, for in Arcadia, living existence is more than mere appearance, solidity or even speech. Given the proper oaths, anything can populate the land of Faerie. A monster might talk, eat, even bleed and scream when cut, all without being alive in the way the Others are. For the Fae, life is more than metabolism and movement. It’s the difference between being a subject and an object: someone who acts, versus something that’s acted upon. They say the Old Gods are immortal and by some standards, this is true. Given enough time, any fragment of Wyrd might erupt into breath and speech, even if it was “killed” beforehand. Nothing can stay the Wyrd when it shapes Arcadia. By these standards, the Gentry are immortal, in the classic sense: no force can make any part of Arcadia absolutely lifeless. This is no comfort for the True Fae, though. There’s life, and there’s life. They prefer some versions of immortality to others. To move and respsawn like an idiot child of Faerie’s power means nothing to them. True life is mastery of the Wyrd, ironclad Contracts that bulwark a Kindly One’s identity and make it a lord of Arcadia who commands, and is not commanded. This is the primal passion, the true life of the Old Gods, whose eyes are green-clad, living moons and whose fingers are the blades that end royal dynasties. The Storyteller’s Curse Storytellers are cursed. Where players immerse themselves in a multi-layered world, Storytellers define it. They give everything a structure, working out causes and consequences. From her perspective, an epic setting — and few settings are as epic as Arcadia — shrinks into something manageable for the sake of play but from a reader’s perspective, a bit less breathtaking. This section delves into the secrets of the True Fae. It’s a risky thing for us to do. As vague myths, the Gentry are vast, inscrutable and impressive. Pinning them down with a structure and even game systems threatens to take some of the charm away. But even though vague myths make for a fine backstory (and the occasional deus ex machina) we want you to actually play with the Others. You can run an entertaining chronicle where you dictate what the True Fae can do and how changelings might oppose them, but it means characters succeed and fail on your sufferance alone. The Other can do whatever it wants. It always has a reason to win. “Fool!” said the man, stamping his foot with rage. “That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I ’d better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you understand — come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.” — C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 83 Nature and Needs As an alternative, we offer tools to make stories with the Kindly Ones more authentically interactive. If they learn the Gentry’s deep secrets your players can think strategically — and perhaps even turn the tables on their former Keepers. Even though this section has elements of theme and mood, it’s mostly focused on practical matters: what the True Fae need, why they behave in certain ways, and how changeling characters might affect them. Never forget that even though we talk about powerful things in stride, they’re still powerful. A faerie can manifest as a vast forest, a giant and a staff made of congealed lighting. You can see the logic and limits, but the players can only infer them. Use that to your advantage. Of course, this could all be lies. The True Fae lie all the time. Names and Titles A faerie’s name is the heart of its being. Gentry have many kinds of names, from a simple “Ayesha” or “John” to the sound of waves breaking against an ice shelf, or a picture of the wadjet: the Egyptian symbol of magic. Strange sounds and images don’t especially protect True Fae’s names. Once heard (or otherwise experienced) a substitute title is as good as the name itself, provided the speaker witnessed the faerie’s real name and uses the substitute with an honest, true intent. A Keeper’s name is his promise to be a will that binds the Wyrd, but existence is more than ambition. Just as a mortal needs a body to express his thoughts, a faerie uses Titles to make contact with his world. Titles are abstract (and even enigmatic) concepts but they always refer to an emotion, sensual experience or object. One Fae may be the Prince of Weeping Rats, while another is the Acolyte of Screams on the Mountain. Titles are deep Contracts with the Wyrd. Their obligations and purpose are high mysteries. Some Fae brag that they’re the guardians of Arcadia (or in a few ambitious boasts, existence itself) and that every Title is a shard of Faerie that’s theirs to protect. Then again, the Fae lie all the time. Most Fae have more than one Title. The more powerful the faerie, the more Titles they possess. Titles are channels through which the Gentry manifest. Every manifestation incorporates a Title in some distinct way. This shape or theme is called the Title’s tell. The Prince of Weeping Rats appears as a rat-headed crying man holding a scepter, or becomes an endless, filthy high-rise, whose human-looking tenants weep whenever the ruling rats eat their food or steal unattended children. Enemies and disasters deprive a faerie of Title. Some Fae are left with nothing more than their names. These wretches are devoured by their betters, exiled or mutate into mindless monsters. Arcadia reclaims their unprotected souls. Always, Never Born It might be said that every faerie is as old as Arcadia but as young as the blink of an eye, for Arcadian time is no steady stream. It stops in stagnant pools, runs fast, turns widdershins and even splashes backward. Then the end of time was yesterday; she was born tomorrow, and remembers it in prophecy. Fae also lack the landmarks that define ordinary life and death. The borders of their existence can only be vaguely defined. A Keeper can be a person, place or thing. She can think in a dozen minds at once. One of these might blossom into a noble faerie itself, lose itself in the Hedge or attach itself to a changeling as a mad whisper that sounds in his dreams. Despite these difficulties, the Gentry themselves think of their birth as the time of their naming, and their deaths as the moment they lose their names and Titles. This definition serves changelings well enough, because it’s the span when True Fae may hunt mortal slaves. Nature and Needs True Fae don’t have bodies but adopt them when the occasion demands it. They don’t need nourishment and rest unless these are required by an oath. They don’t age or feel pain unless they promise to experience those things. The Gentry dine on stories and vows. Flesh is a game. If a mortal was thrust into existence as one of the Gentry he might exult in the power and scope of his new existence, but would quickly learn it has its own vulnerabilities. For all the power of the True Fae, their fluid nature is a weakness. Like humans and changelings, Gentry are defined by a basic duality: subject and object, Self and Other. But unlike mortals, Gentry are not guaranteed duality. They only have a tenuous ability to set themselves apart from Arcadia. At the whim of material existence, mortals cannot help but experience a separation between themselves and their world. Tensions between the Self and Other drive their lives. They remember conflicts, link them together and forge life stories. By contrast, True Fae are the places they dwell and the things they experience. Without duality there’s no conflict and without conflict, they cannot truly exist. Instead of air, water, food or shelter, the Gentry need to struggle. They need adversity, surprise and risk. They can’t create these conditions by themselves. Fae can simulate all of these things, but it’s a meaningless exercise. 84 Chapter Three: Faerie A Keeper creates a fiery mote between herself (really, the body she’s created for the occasion) and a trapped lover — another extension of her desire. She leaps the mote and rescues her love, but it’s not real conflict. She is the mote, so leaping it is insignificant. Even if she fell, the fire would persist, and she would live as the fire. She is her rescued love. His peril — her peril — is voluntary. The love itself is false. None of it sustains the faerie. At best, it’s a diversion, like daydreaming or masturbation. At worst its autocannibalism; the desperate faerie mimics a true conflict to deny her own starvation. In fact, the most spectacular vistas in all Arcadia are often created this way, by desperate Gentry on the verge of fading away. The True Fae need conflict to survive, lest they succumb to the Dwindling, when their will disperses into Arcadia. Some say that many of Arcadia’s leaderless Realms are the remnants of Dwindled Fae: corpses made of unclaimed Titles and stillborn conflicts. This fate may not be death, but Gentry fear it. They cerate Feuds to stave it off: covenants of Gentry who vow to plot against each other. Each faerie in a Feud sends manifestations of itself against others, where they play out tales of genuine peril and difficult victory. One Keeper plays the hero of our last example, but another plays the fiery mote and a third, the imperiled lover. This time, the fire can burn the questing faerie. Her lover might spurn her, too. If she can’t overcome these obstacles, their ruling Fae win the right to devour a bit of her essence, but if she didn’t take up the challenge, she would fade away. Some Winter Court writings call these story-battles Legends: a code word designed to confuse Gentry agents about how much the Coldest Court knows. Feuds are not the only way True Fae create conflict. There’s also the Hunt: an expedition beyond Arcadia to alien realms like Earth, human dreams and the Hedge. Natives challenge the Others with strong wills and strange ways. Changelings know the Hunt. Often as not, they were the prey. Mortals are valuable commodities: a free will is precious. Human duality grows stronger before Arcadia. Mortal fear, hate and disorientation strengthen psychic boundaries and feed a Keeper’s needs. Resentful slaves are the most valuable kind. When they rebel, they trigger Legends of their own, and True Fae revel in them. These conflicts sustain them, too. What Changelings Know Changelings are in a better position to understand the True Fae than anyone else, but that doesn’t always count for much. They were slaves, seeing only what their masters wanted them to see. So many manifestations are possible that it’s hard to trust perceptions. A single Keeper can appear as a man or woman, a bleeding flower or ramshackle mansion. Only tells reveal that these manifestations are one entity, and if the faerie uses different Titles for each there’s no evidence that these are all one being. Some changelings believe the Gentry are virtually omnipotent. Mountains (the faerie in Realm form) move for them. They build armies out of ochre mist and castles from misshapen bones. Who dares oppose them? The Winter Court tends to believe the Fae are truly omnipotent. It’s better to hide and run; only fools and suicides fight the Old Gods. Others underestimate the True Fae. One sees his master “die” in Actor form and think she’s a corporeal being. Another flees while his Keeper’s distracted by Feud politics or mistakes apathy for weakness. Summer changelings are particularly inclined toward this point of view. Summer courtiers swap stories of the Gentry’s supposed weaknesses, how one flees at the color blue or another can’t hurt anyone who feels true love. Sometimes the True Fae enjoy spreading lies about their vulnerabilities but every once in a long, long while the stories are true; the Other’s bound by oath to flee or even “die” before some strange tactic. Nevertheless, there are scholars from all Courts who are better informed. The Autumn Court is perhaps best versed in the lore of the True Fae, but the Spring Court’s elders know much about the Kindly Ones’ social customs. No Court shares its faerie lore freely, because all fear the knowledge would send changelings on foolish quests. They might storm Arcadia and bring the wrath of the Others on the whole world, or despair at the Fae’s full power. They might surrender, even turn traitor. Uncertainty’s better. It makes changelings cautious but not cowardly. Mutable and Immutable Forms The True Fae are vast beings, born from a Realm that is ultimately unknowable, even to its inhabitants. To the inexperienced, (in other words, almost everyone) the Gentry seem to be born of chaos, beholden to passion alone. But if this was truly so, changelings would have no hope. Keepers would secure eternal service with a thought. They’d lie perfectly, break minds like dried straw, and utterly crush their slaves. If the Fae followed no laws, nothing would be safe from them, and even the mortal world would lie suspended between the Gentry’s jaws. The Fae are difficult to comprehend. Their true nature is beyond imagination and their might is matchless in the mortal world — but they can’t always do as they please. In exchange for self-identity, they obey powerful obligations. What laws bind the True Fae? Even the Lost don’t know for sure, but they’ve learned fragments and patterns of behavior. These rare consistencies offer some clues, but there are no guarantees that these, or laws that cause them, are stable facts. Perhaps Arcadia’s laws change from time to time. Even if there’s a fixed form, it’s hard to see it behind the Others’ puzzling, maddening ways. Even when a Fae lord must do something, observers don’t necessarily understand why. The Storyteller ultimately decides which rules are only habits and which are strict laws. Make these decisions care85 Mutable and Immutable Forms Title and Contract The difference between a Fae Contract and changeling Contracts is like the difference between a mundane Contract and a national constitution. One defines strict tit for tat services; the other provides a framework that allows people to come to legally enforceable agreements. The True Fae make particular agreements with a thought, but they get the power to do so by swearing on their name and Titles. Powers similar to changeling Contracts devolve from particular Titles and from there, trickle down into the Lost’s hands. For example, the Lord of Wolf-Snows momentarily bargains for powers like Contracts of Eternal Winter or Fang and Talon to empower an Actor or give to a changeling. Powers match the Title, but a Title is more than a set of changeling-style Contracts. True Fae customize agreements from moment to moment and aren’t bound to a rigid ladder of abilities. Titles also allow feats far beyond what any changeling can accomplish and have a deep nature, with rights and responsibilities beyond mortal ken. Some say that noble Entitlements are weak attempts to ape this power. Legend has it that only the legendary Court Founders ever gained true Title while refusing the full mantle of Faerie nobility. If this is true, then such a feat has yet to be duplicated in the modern age. It might be a difficult but worthy goal for a powerful changeling. fully, however, as they determine how much power the Others hold in a chronicle. Fae who can do anything are boring antagonists and overbearing allies. No player-created plot can stop them. Their help makes the characters’ efforts meaningless. Think about strategy and story logic. If changelings can entangle their former Keepers in contradictory oaths or read their intentions from certain manifestations, it gives the players a way to act effectively without belittling Arcadia’s lords. Oaths and Contracts A faerie can never intentionally violate a Contract he swears on his own name. When an Other commits to a namebound Contract, obeying it defines his existence. If he breaks his word, he destroys his name — and for the Gentry, namelessness is obliteration. Many Gentry cannot even conceive of breaking such an oath — it would be like asking a mortal to grow a new head. On the other hand, a faerie who makes a casual promise and later breaks it doesn’t necessarily believe that she made a promise at all. A Fae lord might entertain a mortal with something that sounds like an oath, but a real oath is defined 86 Chapter Three: Faerie by its enforceability. If it’s not enforceable, it’s not a promise. To the Old Gods this truth is too obvious to mention. Gentry who’ve dealt with mortals understand the human perspective better, but this is no help to anyone who bargains with them. Sheltered Gentry can’t imagine bending oaths, either, but their better-traveled cousins can. They insert diabolical loopholes into their promises and know that most mortals don’t know what a real oath is. They consciously make false vows to cheat humans. The Others can accidentally break namebound Contracts. This might be their greatest vulnerability, but exploiting it requires incredible ingenuity. True Fae usually make namebound oaths out of absolute necessity. A Feud requires a namebound oath; for many, it’s the only such Contract they’ll ever swear. Some Fae cement other alliances with them, or beg for Immortal Mercy (see page 91) when one of their Actors is close to death. Still, it would be premature to say all Fae swear on their names carefully. The Gentry have their fair share of gamblers, impulsive personalities and desperate ploys. Some Kindly Ones’ names are bound to a tangle of obligations to the point where they might even ask visitors to help them sort it all out. If enemies trick a faerie into breaking a namebound oath, his immortal existence ends. True Fae can swear upon their Titles, too. This is less risky than a namebound oath. If they violate a Titlebound Contract it costs them the connected Title. It’s a major blow, but it won’t obliterate them. A mortal analogue might be agreeing to guarantee a promise with a pound of flesh. You can break your word and survive, but it’s painful. Gentry weave particular Titles into different forms. This is how they manifest before visitors. The True Fae can assail others with huge, strange visions too — skeletons the size of cities and singing lattices of fire, for instance — but these all appear to have an unreal quality, even to a casual glance. None have been known to trick or harm witnesses, though they can frighten them. (On the other hand, this might mean that nobody who witnesses a more effective phantasm ever survives.) The Fae are limitless beings, but it seems that they must restrict their powers to meaningfully interact with others. This, perhaps, is the hunger for conflict manifest. There must always be some risk for the Other when she appears in force, or the appearance is meaningless. The chosen Title’s tell colors every manifestation. There are four common manifestations. There might be more, but the Kindly Ones have never revealed them to outsiders. Rumors abound that some Fae travel as poems, rhymes and stories, even. Changelings take them a bit more seriously thanks to the rise of memes and mass media. Until evidence to the contrary arises, however, the manifestations are: • An Actor is the faerie’s living avatar. It could look like a human, an animated elemental vortex, a walking tree — anything consistent with the Title. Changelings are usually most familiar with the Actor form, and often falsely believe that this is a Keeper’s true self. • Prop is an object. It might be a weirdly carved stone, a bone spear that whispers violent suggestions to its wielder, or even a laptop with an odd user interface. True Fae often become Props to spy on slaves and rivals. Every Prop still has its faerie’s tell, however, so an educated eye sees the Fae behind the form. • A Realm is a place: ocean, a forest, mountain range, city or anywhere else, but always with a tell influencing its features. Realms can be lifeless, or filled with phantom people, animals, plants and changeling slaves. • Wisps are fragments of an Other’s will, given a dim consciousness and a few minor powers. They might be the sprites and house-elves of legend. In the hierarchy of servants, a Wisp is the lowest of the low; Fae treat them like autonomic functions, not slaves. Nevertheless, a flock of Wisps is as much a manifestation of the faerie as an Actor. A single Wisp manifestation is a group of creatures, not an individual. While even the weakest Gentry have tremendous power, there are still limits to their manifestations. A True Fae can only commit a Title to one form at a time. A faerie with three Titles can appear as an Actor, Prop and Realm simultaneously (as a king in a castle, wearing an enchanted crown, perhaps), but she can’t command a household of Wisps at the same time, or make herself into another Prop. No manifestation can disguise its tell completely, though it might alter it slightly. The Lord of Weeping Rats might shift from having a rat’s head to a naked tail, or opt for a human body with a particularly “rattish” look, but he can never banish the rat from any form that uses that Title. Being’s Borders Nothing born of a Fae lord can oppose its creator, or his other creations. An Other’s Prop sword cannot slay his Actor. The Actor can’t burn down his own tree-Realm — not in any way that counts, at least. True Fae can make these things appear to happen, but these are purely cosmetic affairs. The Actor falls upon his sword, but he can stand up and calmly pluck it out whenever he wishes. The tree turns into sea of ashes but a single thought makes it a tree again. Within the boundaries of a faerie’s being, nothing can truly destroy or constrain anything else. This limitation is a serious problem for the Gentry. They cannot experience constraint, conflict or limitation within themselves. They need Fae rivals, changeling rebels and other worlds to hunt. A Kindly One dwindles without nourishing conflicts, losing Title and power until he vanishes back into Arcadian chaos. No True Fae can stand against herself, but external forces may alter or even destroy her manifestations. Fae battle each other to generate Legends and live — but to fight, they need each Other’s permission. Arcadia’s ruled by oaths and Contracts; dire enemies must negotiate their wars. These agreements create Feuds: alliances of enemies that dominate Gentry society. 87 A Faerie’s Doom A Faerie’s Doom Can the Others die? Even they don’t know the answer, but they treat some fates like death. They’re loath to discuss them with visitors, especially former slaves who’d love to destroy them. Of course, True Fae also use outsiders against their rivals. Free changelings need not ask permission to attack. To that end, they’ve revealed a few vulnerabilities, but they frame them with lies whenever they can. They tell changelings that a rival’s weakness is unique and doesn’t reflect a general truth about the Kindly Ones. Thanks to the vagaries of Titles and manifestations, these deceptions are highly effective. A Fae lord says, “Crush the purple rose that grows on the tallest peak, for it contains her vital essence.” He doesn’t say that this is only true because his enemy’s taken the form of a Realm, or that this particular weakness is driven by the Legend the enemy’s playing out. Form and context vary so much that it takes a clever investigator to see a common thread. But behind the illusion, some things can degrade a Fae noble and perhaps even annihilate her. The Gentry battle constantly; vying for each other’s Titles, for each Title contains a shard of immortal essence. These conflicts take many forms. In one, an Actor searches for the hidden gemstone: his enemy’s Prop form. If he wins it, he steals the Title it represents. The rival’s been wounded; if she felt mortal pain it might be like losing an arm or burning alive. She’s been weakened. Other members of her Feud might attack again, creating more Legends to channel their assaults until she’s left with nothing but her name. If she loses that to a final Legend, she’s been devoured. Her rivals have eaten every part of her spirit. Whatever survives is no independent being, but a fragment owned by one of her conquerors. This “death” is the end a True Fae is most likely to suffer. The Others sustain themselves through rivalry. Some Feuds maintain a balance of power by enforcing complex oaths between members. These stipulate who can be attacked and when, in the hope that this will merely shuffle Titles in a controlled conflict. These arrangements rarely survive for long. Invariably, one faerie blunders. She’s weak, vulnerable. Her Feud companions hunger for her power and set upon her. No mortal knows all the ways a faerie duel lays out, but there’s always a specific order of injury. A True Fae’s name is sacrosanct until she’s been stripped of every Title. Without them, the unfortunate faerie must take an Actor form. Her Titles are gone, but her new, static shape contains remnants of them all: tells and certain Contracts. In a final Legend, she fights for her very identity. If a Feud-mate wins it from her, he devours her completely. Gentry often flee to Earth to escape this fate. Without conflict, the Gentry have no purpose. They don’t have the luxury of an objective cosmos that supports their existence. Struggle sustains them, whether it takes 88 Chapter Three: Faerie the form of a lover’s quest for satisfaction or a gunman’s fear-shaken aim. They play with forms and stories, forging Legends that fuel their lives. When the True Fae have no battles to fight, loves to win or any other conflict, they have no purpose, no tale to tell Arcadia — and no right to exist. With names, they promised to act, to rule. If they immerse themselves in illusions, instead of forging Legends, they’re mere objects. They dwindle. Where being devoured might feel like progressive amputation, dwindling is a kind of starvation. Oaths and energies exhaust themselves. Titles erode away one by one. First, symbols of corruption work their way into every manifestation. Actors look old and tired. Prop swords are rusty. Mountains crumble into battered hills. It takes a clever observer to tell signs of dwindling apart from intentional manifestations, but it can be done. The decrepit Actor acts like a vigorous young man; people in the Realm speak of huge, jagged summits, but point to squat drumlins. One by one, Titles collapse. On occasion, they reappear as independent entities, tucked in some odd corner of Faerie. A lost manifestation appears as an autonomous region, personage or artifact, beholden to no True Fae. Perhaps this is part of Arcadia’s ecology, and every island in the chaos owes its origin to a long-dead Kindly One, but no one, Fae or mortal, knows for sure. Few Gentry die by dwindling alone, because there are always opportunities to fight and eat. A faerie without a Feud to challenge is either the survivor of some unthinkable catastrophe or is no starveling, because she’s grown fat in Titles after eating every enemy. But even without the Feud, Gentry can always take up the Hunt to refuel the fires of Legend. The Others only starve to death if they can’t or won’t play the Feud or ride out of Arcadia for nourishment. More commonly, a dwindling faerie will perish because she’s too weak to fend off danger. A Kindly One starves to the point where she has one Title left — or even just her name. She tests herself against an enemy or adventures outside Arcadia, and it goes badly. Alternately, enemies have devoured much of her power, and have plotted to cut her off from further nourishment by imposing certain Contracts or attacking her manifestations. These situations are properly combinations of dwindling and devouring, however. If dwindling takes her Titles and leaves her with nothing but her name, she suffers the same consequences as a Fae who’s been devoured to the same point. She’s forced into an Actor form shaped by faded forms of lost Titles. She might try her luck on Earth. If she doesn’t, she gradually loses substance until she’s only a ghostly presence. Eventually, that fades into a voice and finally, naught but a shiver passing on the winds of Faerie. Obliteration is rare, but it’s such a dramatic end that the myths give it a disproportionate amount of attention. Obliteration is instant nonexistence, leaving nothing but a memory. In Arcadia, certain memories may turn into living things; once again, this might not be “death.” Then again, some True Fae forget the obliterated ever existed, or at least pretend to forget. Obliteration leaves no trace of the faerie except for any Titles that other Fae have previously devoured. There are three paths to obliteration — maybe. There might be more, or one of them might be a longstanding lie. The legends say they are: Namebreaking: If one of the Gentry breaks an oath sworn on her own name, she obliterates herself. Some tales describe horrific, spectacular scenes of destruction at the moment of obliteration, but there are those who say that the Other vanishes, snuffed like a sputtering candle. Mortal Doom: If the Other’s killed while his entire essence dwells outside Arcadia, he is truly dead. This fate usually befalls exiled who’ve had their Titles stripped away. Most of the Old Gods only extend a portion of themselves beyond Arcadia’s borders, leaving at least one Title manifestation back in Faerie. Some proud True Fae visit Earth arrayed in all their glory, risking a final end. This makes them potent but vulnerable, for if they die in the mortal dirt, they die like mortals do. Lost loremasters believe this is the only way to really kill a Fae lord. The Nemesis: Some Kindly Ones have living reflections. They’re perfect opposites, fiery where the original is cold and loving where she’s hateful, near-duplicates who copy their sisters down to the last Title and personality trait or something in between. An entity like this is a Nemesis: a potent danger to a Fae’s immortal existence. Despite The Forgetful When the Fae manifest as Actors in the mortal world for an extended period of time, their powers fade. Some of them even pick up mortal thought patterns. They learn Clarity. They even forget who they are, and construct delusional memories of a human life. They’re still sensitive to the Wyrd and seek out its presence. Instinct leads the way; rationalizations come later. In short: given enough time, a fallen Fae lord might resemble nothing more than a young changeling. Storytellers can explore this idea through a supporting character. She looks like a changeling but pulls the players’ motley into dangerous situations. Old enemies know her better than she knows herself. Former slaves seek revenge. If you really want a challenge, you can give this role to a player’s character instead. Just remember to give every character the spotlight in turn, so that the secret Kindly One doesn’t push everyone else’s fun to the sidelines. 89 Omnipotence Constrained what a typical faerie would like to believe, a Nemesis isn’t an imperfect, week counterpart, but a genuine Fae, equal in power and privilege. Educated changelings note the resemblance to their own fetches, so some believe there’s a relationship. They say the Others learned eldritch secrets from their twins and used them to craft their slaves’ stand-ins. No matter what appearance it takes, a Nemesis has the same true name as its enemy. It’s an independent, alternate identity with its own will and desires, tied to the same foundation as its twin. If one swears a namebound oath, its obligations and benefits applies to both of them. If one loses its name, they both suffer the consequences. This doesn’t apply to Titles, however. One might have more or different Titles than the other, and Titlebound Contracts don’t transfer between them. When one of them loses a Title, the other one isn’t affected. A True Fae’s Nemesis often fights its twin for power over their shared name. Titles offer no protection; the Nemesis has no obligation to devour them in turn before assailing her enemy’s name because it’s her name, too. This makes the Nemesis more dangerous than any other Fae the “original” might encounter. She’s just getting rid of the “extra” will. When one wins, the other’s obliterated. Most Fae don’t have Nemeses — or don’t know they have them. A Nemesis doesn’t always spring into existence when his twin’s born. They say Nemeses can erupt part of the way through an immortal’s life, born of malformed oaths or malefic rituals. The Feud Once mortals get used to the nature of Arcadia, the Feud seems reasonable — inevitable, even. In a realm defined by deception and perversity, it only fits that the Kindly Ones’ society is the reverse of everything that unites human beings. Hate is love. Vendetta is romance. Destruction is a gift. The Feud is family, pantheon and nation to the True Fae, which means that, as faerie perversion demands, its members vow to bully, insult and eat each other alive. Feuds aren’t intentionally perverse. They’re logical institutions for a mad Realm. Like changelings, the Fae are bound to promises. This restriction even applies to warfare. No faerie can assault another without permission. Without struggle, the Others starve for lack of a Legend, so they need enemies. To accept the risk of a rival’s assault, a Fae needs the promise of a reward, should she prevail. So the Others gather, give each other permission to war for name and Title and build the foundations of Gentry society: feudsworn Fae vie for supremacy and give birth to Legends. Fae create Feuds with a common namebound Contract. The oath might specify an order of challenges, themes and permitted tactics, but at its core the agreement gives Feud members permission to attack each other’s Titles. Without permission, the Kindly Ones can’t directly harm each other. True Fae create Legends to contest a Title. One faerie creates a challenge; another manifests to conquer it. These are bitter battles for survival, but they don’t always manifest as violence. Romance and riddle conflicts are as common as Wisp-soldiers, marching into a bloody melee. Feudal ties often manifest in a common theme. Some battle through romance alone. There are Feuds of hellish modern warfare and monster-slaying quests, Feuds where every story is played out by swarms of insects or cursed Props and their hapless owners. There might be some secret, mystical reason for enemy Fae to specialize in particular Legends but for the most part, the Feud’s Gentry simply have common tastes. The Others don’t have friends and lovers as humans understand them, so they share their emotions and artistic aspirations with enemies. Only sworn enemies merit such intimacy. When a Feud forms, its pact takes on a life of its own. A group of True Fae united all their powers to make it. Even if the end is mutual destruction, the means is a powerful creative act. The oath is a Feudal Court: a special realm that isn’t a part of any particular Fae but sustains itself through the efforts of all. It serves as a meeting place for Feud-bonded Fae, who usually visit in Actor form to trade polite jabs or discuss a rare matter of common concern. The Court is neutral ground, so Fae often receive visitors there. A True Fae is incalculably powerful. Their mightiest Contracts can level mountains, but the True Fae are mountains too — and trees, and flights of birds, if they wish. They are worlds unto themselves, populated with god-kings and items of power. To encounter one of the Gentry is to step into a land where a war arrays itself in stories. Some changelings are the fifth business of an endless opera, playing spear carrier, chorus member, and heaped corpse in the demesne of an inscrutable soul. The Gentry are vast beings, but they have boundaries — paradoxically, their vastness is a boundary. Kindly Ones thrive on struggle and meaning: things which their power can only destroy unless it’s given strict limits. No True Fae can be a hero without fighting hard for a prize, so an Actor needs finite capabilities. If a mountain can’t be climbed, it’s no mountain at all, but a false representation: a phantom image with no bearing on the faerie’s legends. Therefore, Realms are places of cruel fantasy, but never impassable hardship. True Fae bind themselves to rules and limits as naturally as a mortal’s heartbeat. Like a heartbeat, it might be possible to bend or even command the reflex to take lesser forms, but it isn’t a common skill. Some Storytellers may want a faerie capable of breaking the rules, but we assume that introducing a faerie with such command over its essence is a major story event, not to be undertaken without a very good reason, and never to be used just to bully players with overwhelming force. 90 Chapter Three: Faerie Therefore, Gentry characteristics depend on the form encountered: Actor, Prop, Realm or Wisp. Each form carries the essence of a Title, so the manifestation’s fate is the Title’s. Killing a Fae’s Actor severs his Title, but his other Titles and name are still safe. Like a Feud enemy, the killer cuts away one part but hasn’t harmed the remainder. Every form has its own rules and conditions. The Kindly One chooses her form’s characteristics at the moment of manifestation. In Arcadia, she must retain a form for a significant period of time as determined by story events — usually a scene, at least. This is an arbitrary period of time from a materialist perspective, but to the faerie, this is as objective a standard as mortal seconds, minutes or hours. Away from Faerie, the Others can’t change or abandon manifestations. Live as a sword and break as a sword. Save for the weak Actor made by a faerie left with nothing but her name, every manifestation coalesces around a particular Title. The Title determines the form’s tell, and the form can’t manifest without it. Tells modify themselves to suit the form if they must. When a Lord of the Vengeful Fire makes his Title into an Actor he has burning red eyes, but when he becomes a Realm, the eyes are huge twin suns of the same hue. Aside from these limits and the following, all manifestations have one other firm rule: none of them can create cold iron. An Actor is a living corporeal manifestation. It experiences fleshly limits. It’s only so strong, quick and smart. A faerie might play a human-like Actor, a natural animal or some sort of monster — even a thing of stony flesh or living fire. The Actor can change shape to a degree to shift between kiths or add a new flair to his appearance, but without additional supernatural aid The Fae maintains a core form. He can’t grow extra limbs when it suits him, but he might change the color of his eyes or body-flames. Actors are creatures of restraint. Without its boundaries, a Kindly One can’t meaningfully interact with others. Omnipotence makes communication difficult as well. A Fae lord might appear as a thousand foot tall demon of liquid bronze, immune to all mortal attacks, but by his own standards, such a thing can scarcely be said to have happened at all. Enthroned in the full power of his nature, a True Fae can no more speak to mortals than humans can to microbes. Legends are pointless too; he always wins, or suffers a stalemate against an equally magnificent foe. That’s why he becomes an Actor. He promises the Wyrd that if he wears flesh, he’ll live by some of its rules. In exchange, he can enjoy conflict, communicate with inferiors and even bend them to his will. He’s agreed to “play fair” at the game of power, so his form has enough solidity to beguile mortals or punish them with raw force. Thus, Actors have definable game traits. Create an Actor as you would a changeling, but with the following changes: The Base Actor An Actor is a fragment of an immortal essence, woven of Wyrd-matter and elements. This newly-formed creature is limited, but more powerful than starting, human World of Darkness protagonists. Assign the following game traits: Attributes: Prioritize 9/7/5 among character Attributes. Add 1 dot to each priority for every Title the Other holds. Attributes can rise as high as 5+ the number of Titles held. Don’t charge double for the fifth and higher dots.