Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition
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Not trying to prove you wrong. I legitimately disagree with your premise and think that it's a somewhat narrow reading of what is a perfectly thematic mechanic.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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And I think your reading is bizarre for a rather unthematic mechanic. Why I think that way is not about players having 100% control of their characters (and said so), but this is what you chose to focus on. That's why I'm done; it's frustrating to begin with, and worse when people are not really disagreeing on the current point at hand. And that's when I'm watching two other people aggressively agree. I have no idea how to react to it when someone is doing it to me.
Thus: Done.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
It's even thematic for a Changeling thread - a pretty princess telling you to...
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Well, there goes all of my fucking spare-time work for the past couple of months.
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Chapter Three: Character Building.
Regaining Willpower
I welcome the return of oChangeling's Archetypes, in oWoD called Nature and Demeanor, here called Needle (what you show the world) and Thread (inner self). For those who don't know, this replaces nWoD Virtue and Vice, which I thought was okay but not great.
I imagine a good storyteller could tint all Wyrd and Hedge with a character's Thread, but the idea that Wyrd is sociopathic is because what we want comes from our Id and Ego, not something that's under our control. If we gave into what we wanted in our deepest heart I imagine that we could find the Gentry buried in our own dreams.
That Bonus Attribute Dot
Changelings also get a bonus Attribute, putting them in parity with the rest of the Chronicles of Darkness. Did you know that from core CoD rules, normal humans get only 7 dots of Merits, but all supernaturals get 10? It's things like this that people don't even register when you quietly give M+ their 10 dots. I know that Humans are largely considered bit players in the greater world, but two more dots of Merits is barely enough to start risking power imbalance.
Touchstones: The Bane of Some People For Some Reason
And we also have Touchstones. Ah, Touchstones. In Promethean I get them since the system pretty much relies on them. For ghosts I get them because something like them has been in World of Darkness since very early on. For Changelings?
I suppose I'm okay with this because faerie tales and ghost stories have been greatly intertwined for millennia, and Changeling has always had an element of being grounded to it, tho the original Changeling was very much that being grounded was bad. Honestly, I think this is the better option, though not the best.
Touchstones give you bonuses to resisting Clarity loss. Not having Touchstones give you penalties to resisting Clarity loss. That's it. Nothing exotic. Moving on.
Wyrd
Wyrd, the power stat, has a few little changes.
The biggest one: Wyrd is added to the dice pool of fae creatures trying to track them (max +5). Whhhaaaaaaaaat? I'm sure this is covered in great detail later on, but the biggest retooling for this version of Changeling is to give Arcadia teeth, and that means no more handwaving the risks to your escapee, give Freeholds and Courts meaning.
The lesser one: You start gaining Frailties a lot sooner. At Wyrd 2, in fact. I'm rather terrible at coming up with these, but I could see "cannot let an insult go un-answered" for a(n in)famous character I once played.
Clarity As Health Track
Hello, oChangeling! How've you been? I saw you looking around the corner with Archetypes. Don't be shy. Come on in. What's that you have with you? Is that your old Glamour/Banality track? Oh that's okay, you still have a place here. Come in, sit down, get comfortable.
So when you lose enough Clarity you gain a Persistent Condition. Oh hi, Fate Core, I didn't see you there. Come on in, grab a drink and stay a while.
-- Out of time -- More later.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
Chapter Three, Continued.
Kenning
As previous. Does not penetrate hidden anything, so no contest of wills needed.
I just noticed that 'Success' is being listed first under 'Roll Results'. This is a great decision.
Mask & Mein
Fae beings and other supernatural creatures with mystical senses can see through the Mask.
[...]
Characters using sensory magic can oppose [strengthened Mask] with a Clash of Wills (p. 126).Welp, that answers that!
(My 'Mages are to be 100% Avoided' philosophy as a Changeling is renewed. Sheesh.)
While her Mask is [scoured], treat each success- ful rolled Contract use as though you rolled an excep- tional success, regardless of the actual successes rolled. If the number of successes is important, use whichever is greater from among your rolled successes, your char- acter’s Wyrd, or her Mantle rating.
Well, that's a thing!
The act of tearing away the Mask also opens any gateways to the Hedge within 10 yards or meters per dot of Wyrd she possesses. Additionally, she leaves a magical trail, making it easy for fae creatures to track her in the mortal world. Gentry and Huntsmen automatically succeed on rolls to track or follow her within the same range while her Mask is down there.
Again, being found out is a major point of this version of Changeling, but damn that's an amazing benefit.
Portals: This Was a Triumph
(Hah, take that lack of downvotes!)
"Portalling" is what they call giving every Changeling the level of Contracts of Separation that allowed escape from handcuffs and other bindings, only now every Changeling can pass through any door, window, handcuffs, rope, or grapple with a dot of Glamour. Clash of Wills may apply with no retry limit. None. Just the number of Glamour you've got.
Oh, and iron. You can't escape iron.
Hedge doors must now be 'closable portals' instead of just 'archways'. Sorry, Czcibor; no more using the archway of a bedframe to escape captivity!
Bedlam
I never liked Bedlam, but with CoD's Conditions it's a little more understandable and makes Bedlam a different way of tagging people with Conditions.
Merits
What I've called "Location Merits" are now "Motely Merits", those merits that are shared among the group. There are a few new twists.
- If you don't add to the merit pool you don't get any benefits.
- While a merit can have more than 5 dots this way, the effects are never higher than 5. (Or, I imagine, if a merit goes to 4 the greatest effect would be at 4 dots, etc.)
There are a few new Seasonal Court merits (reflections of Vampire 2e), and building a Hollow has changed again, but there's nothing surprising in this list.
Contracts
This is probably the change most Changeling players were looking forward to: Contracts are now much more like merits. You buy the thing, you get the effect, the end.
Well, the end-ish. Some Contracts give certain Seemings free add-ons. Anyone can buy one of these benefits for 1xp.
Goblin Contracts are still a thing. Sight of Truth & Lies is still there. But to use a Goblin Contract, a Storyteller gets to mess around with your character later. The options are pretty weak (subtract dice, related tilt, related persistent condition) but hey, at least that puts some weight on some Contracts that were essentially 'Be A Dick For Free'.
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@thenomain said in Changeling the Lost: 2nd Edition
--Beaten Down (CtL2e, p.327)
Personal- Description: The character has had the fight knocked out of him.
- Effect: The character cannot take active part in the fight without extra effort. The player must spend a point of Willpower each time he wants the character to take a violent action in the fight. He can still run, Dodge, and apply Defense.
- Causing the Tilt: The character suffers bashing damage in excess of his Stamina or any amount of lethal damage.
- Ending the Tilt: The character surrenders and gives the aggressor what he wants. At this point the character regains a point of Willpower and takes a Beat, but can take no further action in the fight.
That's it. No mention of the aggressor needing to spend Willpower to keep attacking the victim.
I'm finding text closer to what you're quoting on p. 183 with the header "Optional Rules".
Yeah, from the RAW it's basically what happens when you get full up on Bashing damage - previously you were potentially unconscious (if I recall you had to roll stamina to stay up, but otherwise took wound penalties for being at zero health); in this case you're still conscious, but need to spend WP to continue acting.
That says nothing about anyone attacking you; and in truth, the ease of kicking people when they're down is something that anyone in this hobby should be familiar with on one side or the other. -
Needle/Thread are basically the Changeling version of Mask/Dirge and Blood/Bone in Vampire/Werewolf (I don't recall if Mages have the same, I think they do).
Touchstones are also just a new concept for the CoD that represent "things that tie you to part of your nature". For Vampires, they tie the character to their Humanity; for werewolves, they tie the character to either extreme of Harmony to keep them balanced; and for Changelings, likely, it ties them to their Clarity, which makes perfect sense to me. It's more of a system-wide mechanic, really.
Again, Mage is an outlier, because Mage always does whatever it fucking wants.
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Hearing more and more about 2nd Ed. Changeling:
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Chapter Four: Shall We Play A Game?
I'm not sure about this decision. The chapter starts by describing Attributes and Skills but saying "for more information read the core book". Then it proceeds to go into great detail for the systems. All the systems. Hey, book, did you want us to read the core book or not? Could you have used this space to, I don't know, give us more Kiths, or an Index? (Yes, I'm capitalizing that word. It's my Victorian Nature, Wot.)
The Hedge: A Hive of Scum and Villainy
Gateways are no longer permanent. Changelings can still create one out of any "closable portal", but we no longer have to fall to the inevitable forgetting or thinking that the Hedge has ten million million doorways in one city alone.
Gateways can also be opened by humans using their Vice. 'Near' a gateway, a human using Vice rolls Wits + Composure. Failure means the Gateway opens and they can walk through if they want, gaining more Willpower and a Beat.
This is fuckin' neat.
More rules that will be forgotten:
A changeling’s player reduces the dice pool for all Clarity attacks by one inside the Hedge unless something within the Hedge itself caused it, such as abrupt scenery shifts or a hobgoblin terrorizing her.
You want to fail, so the Hedge...allows you to be stable? Thenomain, are you going to stand for this when you went all Quasimodo on the Ogre thing?
Well as Arkandel said, "Be more like whatever that chick from Frozen's name is." (I haven't seen it.) The explanation is (paraphrased): The Hedge, like Changelings, are neither Reality nor Arcadia and the Changeling has a lot more control over it, which is calming.
Okay. Sure. It's a nice rules perk.
Because misery loves company, hey @Wretched: Page 160. Wings. Ha-ha.
Trods n' Stuff
I'll start with a quote of another rule that will probably be forgotten, but answers so much about the new Hedge:
Navigation inside the Hedge works just like a chase, using the rules on p. 195. Even if the characters are unopposed, the Hedge itself works as an “opponent,” representing the myriad dangers and temptations that face all travelers there.
First you must have a goal. The chase ends by reaching that goal. Either "go somewhere" or "escape something".
Trods are now specifically maintained paths. (Maintained by whatever Hedge denizen you want to define.) They have dot-ratings and rules. I'm jazzed.
The Thorns are "metaphysical representations of the Hedge’s greed" and don't have to be plants. One example has Detroit's Hedge Thorns looking like people.
Icons: What We Left Behind
Shards of humanity and bits of memory of Changelings from who they were before. They're found in the Thorns. They can raise their owner's Clarity, or be used against them in a minor way.
That's it. Thank god there are no hints that gathering all your Icons can turn you back into a Real Person.
Hedgespinning
It's now about shaping the Hedge. That's all. No magic items here. #sorrynotsorry
(edit: Actually this system is pretty cool. I welcome our Hedge-Combat character concepts.)
Goblin Fruit & Oddments
No change here. The number a Changeling can
carrymaintain outside the Hedge has grown. I'm going to read that word as: Sure you can keep them at home in the fridge... Next up is pledges. It's still part of Chapter Four, but that's going to be a whole long discussion.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
Chapter Four, Continued: Oh Just Pledge Me a River!
Pledges. Ple-d-ges. Pllleeeeedges. A funny word, pledges. I never understood why people got stuck on "add + and - elements until they equal 0 and you're done". A lot of people complain that CtL pledges are hard. Speaking as someone who gets increasingly frustrated with WoD/CoD Chargen because I feel compelled to minmax across four books (minimum) and shitty page references, I have to say: What crack are you on and maybe you should get help.
Anyway. Pledges. There are now entirely different kinds. Let's look at them, shall we? (I mean, that's why I'm writing this summary, so yes, lets.)
Sealing Pledges
No, this is not how to finish them, it's a type of pledge. I'm going to get confused on that. This is a fae creature sealing the accidental promise. I like their example: “I swear, next time you come home late, I’m kicking you out.”
Fae creatures (including Changelings) can undo this attempt against them. Ha-ha. It's a trust thing. Their example: “Yes, truce, I’m not going to hurt you, now get in here.”
Like Chapter 3, I really like the writer of this section.
There are no benefits other than keeping someone to their word. Punishments start from basic (one bashing, two-die penalty for one skill for a scene) to more severe for Glamour (one lethal, loss of ability to spend Willpower for a scene).
Another sweet example: “I’m going to kick his ass.”
Sealing Pledges seem like the Cantrip of pledges. Gotchas. They require one Glamour; they're not entirely freebies. They apparently can be escalated by the ST if two Sealed Pledges are at odds. Neat.
There is a specific system for Sealing Pledges on Huntsmen. You know, we really haven't covered Huntsmen. Maybe I skimmed it as a part of the setting/theme/fluff chapter, but I don't think I did.
For now: Huntsmen are who the Gentry send out to hunt down Changelings. They are not machines and not without compelling sympathy. I mean, why else would you hold them to their word if they had no word to hold them to. This system even makes it look like you can force them to accept it.
Maybe Huntsmen are not entirely faerie creatures?
*obligatory chinrub*
Oaths
Only fae creatures can create Oaths, tho others can be involved. Here Huntsmen are included. Okay then!
Oaths are permanent. They may be changed but never ended. Oaths include: Joining a Court or Freehold, Eternal Love, Eternal Enmity.
Here's a rule that's going to be forgotten if it's not elsewhere:
For a freehold, the changeling becomes a recognized part of the local supernatural landscape; the player receives a +1 to all rolls to navigate the Hedge wherever the freehold controls it.
Seriously heavy juju. The book does say that someone breaking an Oath does not leave it, merely changes their conditions in it. It does not go on to explain them here.
More Huntsman notes:
When changelings swear oaths with Huntsmen, hos- tile oaths are the most common. It’s a gamble, but many changelings would rather take the odds of a knock-down, drag-out fight or duel than the odds of escape from a single-minded captor. Likewise, some Huntsmen would rather take the odds of blessed destruction over returning to the Gentry’s service, but getting at that desire buried beneath the Fae Title to convince the Huntsman to agree to the oath is a difficult prospect.
*more chin rubbing*
Yeah, Huntsmen are slaves.
Bargains
This kind of pledge helps Changelings hide from Huntsmen, so it's pretty necessary. That's the carrot. Now for the stick:
To make a bargain with a person, the changeling has to reveal her true nature. She doesn’t have to be honest with the mortal about the particulars of her situation, but she has to appear to the person without her Mask and propose the terms of the agreement.
This. Changes. Everything.
You know how when you play on CtL Mu*s people are all, "Ensorcellment is evil because they will forever remember and be risks!" etc. etc.? Well here we are saying that risk has a reason, a purpose, and probably critical.
What it doesn't do is give a mechanical benefit, which I would sincerely consider house-ruling or pushing into, e.g., chase rules with Huntsmen. Here's what the book says:
A bargain gives the changeling a place among mortals, and tricks the Wyrd into assuming that she should be there. Huntsmen and Fae, therefore, see her not necessarily as human, but as a natural part of the landscape, a faerie fea- ture that is and has always been. A bargain isn’t foolproof, of course — the fae are persistent and powerful, and have many ways to ferret out the Lost.
That's it.
I don't even see 'spend one Glamour' in here anywhere.
So benefits: No longer a breakable system. The only thing that can be abused is that what the human promises and what the Changeling promises don't have to be anywhere close to one another. Another benefit: No free Resources.
Drawbacks? It's vague as fuck.
My ambivalence: There's no punishment for breaking or ending the Bargain.
... Next up, Oneramanancy.
One-er-man-cy.
Dreamwalking. -
@thenomain Upvote for the capitalized of Index.
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Before I get into the next section, I want to encourage people not to review text this way. I'm trying to keep it mildly entertaining but my main goal is to delve into what this version of Changeling is about.
I am pretty aware when this Changeling is doing things that are being done all across Chronicles of Darkness, but there are many parallels between CtL2e and CtD, too many for me not to point out.
This is even more notable if you watched the development posts on Onyx Path's web site; this game was looking to be a lot more like oChangeling, and the fact that it isn't is very refreshing to me. But there are elements of the old Changeling (and old World of Darkness in general) that weren't bad, such as Archetypes, or Clarity's damage track compared to the old Glamour/Banality struggle.
A good remake takes old concepts and applies them in a better way. I'm not convinced that the new Changeling is a good remake, but it almost never falls into any of the original's infamy.
Oneiromancy
I still don't know how to pronounce it. Still in Chapter 4.
Dreamwalking is explained in greater detail this time around, how you get there, how to get from Point A to Point B, that Contracts work in dreams (thank you!), and re-enforcing what stats are what: We're using the Spirit/Ghost/Etc. summary of Attributes but it's not your highest Power, Finesse, and Resistance, it's your Social traits.
*ominous music at making Social this important for Changelings*
A changeling can take other individuals with her [...] as long as they’re asleep. She must be in physical contact with all potential guests and spend one Glamour point per guest [...]
One of the things I'm liking about this pass of Changeling and Chronicles of Darkness in general is that if there's a chance someone doesn't want any certain effect the book is careful to say how to resist it.
Once again, you can be stuck in dreams. Yeah, you can drag someone into dreams and leave them there. I'm almost sad that the book doesn't have a side-bar here simply saying "Muahaha!"
[[ASIDE: I'm very frustrated that the book will talk about concepts without introducing them. Perhaps the writing direction was that people could always hit up the glossary near the beginning of the book, but even saying that a Bastion is any one person's particular dreamscape before talking about how the Bastion affects these rolls would've been nice. The book is filled with this disconnect. The term "Hedgeway" is used a lot, but not explained anywhere at this point, not even the glossary.]]
Speaking of Hedgeways, the realm of dreams also connects to the Hedge. This was heavily implied if not said without explanation in CtL1e, but here we go. Entering dreams this way is your physical self, not your dream self. Enjoy the danger!
Dreamweaving
You know that aside just two paragraphs above?
An eidolon is a dream actor, a character that is part of a dream and doesn’t exist outside that context.
I'm prescient! Either that or we're seeing an author shift mid-section. Page references to the Bastion section are explicit. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but a well-written RPG book would never have this problem.
That doesn't make this a bad game, just not well-written. I should note that this is better written than any other expansion book from the first edition, and maybe better written than CtL itself.
So each Bastion (dream) has eidolons and props, actors and things. How you change dreams is no longer just "roll this to find out that" but a series of systems and rolls and—hold onto your hat here—role-playing. Dreamweaving is a scene system in its own right. A++.
Dreaming Roads
I just want to put this here:
The Hedge is the barrier separating stone and water from the fabric of unbound desires
If anyone wonders why I get excited about Changeling, this right here is it. A lot of people focus on the survivor/abuse victim angle, but for me Changeling is a game of the allure and horrors of want.
A Dreaming Road is a thing, a pathway between dreams. People who've read Dancers in the Dusk have been introduced to most of these concepts. I've never delved too deeply into this aspect, so I'll just say: It's here, and there are rules about what happens to someone in a dream (Bastion) if the dreamer wakes up.
I find this section, even with my complaints, to be very complete and compelling.
... Next up, TOKENS (which I can pronounce just fine thank you).
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Can you tell when I have days off?
Tokens
The intro fluff puts tokens as "the physical representation of eons-old pacts between the material and the fae," and the text is good enough to ease us into the concept of Token-crafting: "Anything that’s spent time in the Hedge or in Arcadia can become a token, though, if it ends up mattering enough to someone."
They are identical to the previous Changeling's tokens (even the name "catch" is kept for some reason; it's changed to "loophole" for contracts), except now there is a drawback that always happens. Always.
Contact with iron destroys a token completely.
Hold on, let me make that a bit more notable:
Contact with iron destroys a token completely.
This is its own paragraph in the book. It couldn't be big enough.
Token Crafting
Hedge-Forged Tokens: Leaving an object in the Hedge still works. I like that the object must mean something to you, but it's about as random as you'd expect. There is kind of a system but it's mostly what makes sense for the item's meaning and the place in the Hedge it's been left. That system: 1 dot per Chapter left the item is left in the Hedge.
Oath-Forged Tokens: That is, if you swear an Oath on an object, that object can eventually take on the nature of those Oaths. Remember, Oaths are permanent, and these Tokens require three times the desired dot value, but the bonuses to both the Oaths and the Token are pretty nice. (The book also points out that people who can track bindings can do so through these Tokens. Hint hint, Fate Mages.)
Stolen Tokens: Yup, Tokens made by Gentry. "Whole freeholds have en- dured a Wild Hunt because some Fairest decided to steal her Keeper’s hairbrush on the way out." Because of this, Stolen Tokens are cheaper to buy.
And of course it wouldn't be Changeling if we didn't have the pretty clothes, Hedgespun Items which of course are always active so can always be seen by someone who can see through the Mask, i.e. Other Changelings. Yay. They take the place of the older Hedgespun Rainments as well as Hedgespun Items so they get a little bonus boost per dot, but they are now specifically Tokens and must be created/found/stolen with the Token rules.
Damn, writers, way to make Hedgespun more than player wish fulfillment!
...We are finally done with Chapter Four and that was a bit of a ride. I have to say that for now I am 100%* on board with the changes and can't wait to delve more into...
Oh, er, Chapter Five starts with Fetches. Okay, call me cautiously optimistic.
* Not actually 100% because I'm me, but if I were less anxiety-prone I'd say 100%
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Overview Continues with Fetches and Other Antagonists
Fetches: Like I Said
Same ol' same ol'. You have a Fetch or you don't, you can kill them or not, but they now have more teeth. They are build like a character with the Fetch supernatural template.
I don't know if they're doing this in other CoD games, but seeing "enemy 'x' is built normally and then you do 'y'" is both nice to see and frustrating. The nice should be obvious: Here's a character with a template. The frustrating is having to build a character. I never have nailed down what makes WoD/CoD characters good, except that the characters listed in the WoD/CoD books are not those built for the very different Mu*es.
Loyalists
Loyalists were introduced in the original Changeling: The Lost, but never really had their day. Here they are much better fleshed out.
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Bridge-Burners: Destroy everything connecting Changelings to Arcadia. Yes, their motivation makes them terrorists. Kudos!
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Privateers: People who work for the sometimes Gentry, sometimes Goblins, but mostly Huntsmen to give them more freedom and so they don't have to worry about being hunted.
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True Loyalists: People who work directly for Arcadia.
Hedge Ghosts
Ghosts born in the Hedge, or of the Hedge. Emotions can become Hedge Ghosts, apparently. Sure, why not! Bits of souls caught on the Thorns, too. They are created like normal ghosts, but with Glamour instead of Essence, Anchors instead of Threads.
A lot isn't said outright about them, bits of information hidden within bits of other information. For instance, under an "Injuries" header we have this important bit of information:
Despite appearing to the naked eye and being solid, a Hedge ghost doesn’t have any internal organs to injure.
The real answer is three sections later, under Manifestation: They're always manifest in the Hedge and they can leave but don't care to. More grumbling about making things easy to learn.
Hobgoblins
The book says outright there is no standard Hobgoblin, and that there is no standard way they're created, thus reversing Equinox Road, which honestly is good to see.
They use a full character sheet too, but with far more lax creation rules and in some cases far more powerful: A Wyrd 3 Hobgoblin can have 7-dot traits. Their creation is very solidly "whatever makes sense", but with a foundation of understanding their limits and abilities.
Hobgoblin Deals are detailed deeper here, too; more than Goblin Contracts raise your "Goblin Debt" stat. Humans can gain this debt, but at 10 dots they are so indebted they become a Hobgoblin themselves. Spooky.
Liza Cantwell,
Age 9, Goblin Queen
“Kneel before the queen!” [dissolves into giggles]Huntsmen
Here's the completely new element. 100% Pure New.
The Gentry, instead of splitting off an aspect of themselves to pull back Changelings, now put an aspect of their will in another creature and send it out.
The Huntsman, leader of a Wild Hunt.
But here's the twist, because I honestly believe this game is trying to make their enemies compelling or at least make some kind of sense:
Huntsmen were Arcadia's original inhabitants.
No music sting needed here; the Huntsmen were going to be this game's Big Bad Antagonist, their Strix or Idigam. Only here's what I think happened: So much else balanced that the Huntsmen are now just an antagonist. They can certainly be a Big Bad, and probably the worst of the bunch, but a lot more is going on in this Changeling.
This is good; one of the largest criticisms of CtL1e it wasn't clear what there was to do. If you don't get that sense from this edition then you and I are reading different books.
I was kind of hoping they would make a big analogy between Firbolg and Fae in this, but they have left it a mystery: The Huntsmen were natives whose big goals were things like "lasso the moon" or "conquer all lands where". Impossible dreams. (Human dreams, is how I'm reading it.)
I don't know why the Gentry need to do this, though there are the occasional hints that the Huntsmen are better with the Hedge than even the Gentry. The take-aways are that Huntsmen's personalities are almost completely subsumed by the Gentry, which is I think a large part of why. The fiction reads better this way. A Huntsman has (rare, dangerous) occasions they can be talked down. They make mistakes. This tells a better story.
Huntsmen are created when a Gentry decides it's time. They use the same Huntsman every time until someone kills it or frees it (also very dangerous), then a new, unknown Huntsman is made.
Bringing a Huntsman into a game for a PC is a game-changer. It would be a Chronicle in its own right, for the same reason that Terminator 2 didn't have a whole lot of downtime.
True Fae
A Gentry consists of two parts: A Name, and up to five Titles, including zero.
One of those Titles was a Keeper.
Oh, and there's Gentry chargen. I'm going to ping @Ganymede here because I know she's going to groan, wanting Gentry to be truly alien.
Well here's why: One Title is one Contract category. Sword, Crown, etc. That Title can use every Contract from it.
To kill a Title, you must either trick it into an Oath that it breaks (because it swears the Oath on itself) or destroy that symbol in its Arcadian realm. This means any Gentry must be killed up to six times: Once per Title, then kill its Name.
There are other ways, but read the book and let the ideas spark in your head.
The End
That's it. That's my Changeling Overview.
Wait, what? There are more sections?
There's "Other Courts of the World"? There's "Fae-Touched"?!
Chapter Six is about other courts, and it's a good summary. If you don't want to use Seasonal Courts, then don't. Making your own Court Contracts will be a bit challenging to balance, but it's a lot easier than it used to be.
Maybe I'll go into Fae-Touched next post, but they're in an appendix, and that's absolutely where they should be.
All in all, Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition is worth the read and maybe even worth the play. Complexities from the 1st Edition have been streamlined, gaps have been filled, and the reason to play Changeling has been injected with a big syringe filled with plot ideas.
It suffers the same things that Onyx Path has always had problems with; being reliable teachers. I'm also disappointed in the overall vagueness of the Pledges and I'm not sure how to feel about Contracts.
All in all, though, I'm willing to give this a try, and I'm glad that when they removed something (pledges) they gave more back in its place (dreamwalking). If my favorite character concept is now an Ogre then eh, so be it. I don't feel dictated, and can see paths of stories waiting to be told.
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CONCERNING THE OGRE
This ability costs a point of Glamour if the Ogre makes the attack on his own behalf and not someone else’s.
You know, this makes a lot more sense if I read it:
This ability costs a point of Glamour unless the Ogre is attacking on someone else's orders.
Sorry, @Derp.
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This review might actually convince me to play a WoD game. Changeling and Mage are the only two I have even considered dabbling in, and this sounds like it has a bunch of stuff I like in my fantasy.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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Well do note that the core character template is "victim and abuse survivor". I try sincerely not to play that way, but reacting to the threat of being re-captured is the driving motivating force for characters in the game.
Compare this to Mage, where the driving motivating force is to understand mysteries that have no pattern to one another.
