So, we had thought, surely the supplements for Changeling: the Lost's first edition can't be as dense as the corebook. Surely there will be some let-up in the sheer volume of material crammed into the pages. And yet, here we are with the first book in the line, Autumn Nightmares, applying nostrums to our eyes and brains after the sea of tiny text and dizzying array of concepts and creatures contained therein. Have we regrets? Always, but not about this one. The book is focused on antagonists for the Lost: their fellow changelings, their former Keepers, their fetches and so forth. Underneath it all is the idea that the Autumn Court's pet emotion of fear is a defining part of the Lost experience... so if we forged ahead through these pages without stopping, is that bravery? Better philosophers than us will have to answer. In the meantime, as we recover our wits, here are two hours of our findings!

The book is available for purchase at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/50679?affiliate_id=3063731 if you're so inclined. And another inclination you may have is to get in touch with us! If so, a smattering of options include:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) keeps a small farm of Hedge-squirrels who are superb dream-thieves, but have worryingly started to unionize.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

If you've been listening to our show for a while (or hanging out on our Discord!), chances are you've heard Josh mention Dr. Jenna Moran's game Nobilis. In some ways adjacent to the World of Darkness and Exalted, in some ways adjacent to its own distinctively hallucinogenic blossom-laden spatial warp of hyperconsciousness, it seemed like a good choice for our first discussion of games outside of our usual bailiwick. And indeed, there is lots of inspiring cross-pollination to explore! We're giving an overview of the game's third edition corebook in this episode—mostly Josh explaining and trying to alleviate Pooka's confusion—and some thoughts on parallels for Changeling players. Perhaps other entries in this series of episodes will follow, where we examine other games outside the WoD? It's always best to start with the trippiest and see how things go from there.

As discussed in this episode, Nobilis has had kind of a torturous publication history, but a version of the third and most recent edition—the one we talk about here—is available at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/89003/nobilis-the-essentials-volume-1?affiliate_id=3063731 (and hey, it appears to be on sale at present!). Some other links that might be of use are the usual passel of socials we espouse:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) committed a level 9 Domain miracle and only got this lousy T-shirt.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

At long last, with this third installment, we are at last finished our readthrough of the Changeling: the Lost 1st edition corebook. Here's hoping that when we get to 2nd edition, we can just breeze through and say "nyaaahhh, it's mostly the same but here are things that have changed." (Doubtful.) This week, we're talking about Entitlements, the sample freehold setting of Miami, our thoughts overall on the book, and listener questions that we've been saving til the end. But of course, this is only the first step in our considerations of 1e Lost, for there's a handful of supplements that we will work through in the coming months, and after that, who can say? Until then, we hope this deep dive was informative, and whether you're learning about CtL for the first time or thinking "thanks the fates they finally got more into the other Changeling," may it have whetted your appetite for more.

One last time, you can pick up the PDF of the 1e corebook if you're so inclined, at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/50010?affiliate_id=3063731. And more socially, points of ingress to our own digital freehold include:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) can't believe that Appendix II passed up the chance for a manatee Beast motley politely guarding the coast.

The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.

Another week, another as-rapid-as-we-dare readthrough of the Changeling: the Lost 1st edition corebook. This time, we're having a look at Chapters Three and Four. "But Pooka and Fetch," you might say, "this was supposed to be a two-part series, not a trilogy. How could you spend just under two hours talking about two measly chapters?" Well, when those two chapters clock in at ~120 pages with small text, little art, and extensive detail on both the intricate bespoke systems of the game and how to run the damn thing... as you'll discover, we had plenty to talk about. Still, we hope that the brisk clip of our discussion and the occasional wisecrack will help keep you engaged. (And seriously, there's only one more episode left for this book before we put it down, if not for good, at least for a breather.)

As indicated previously, the 1e corebook is available for purchase at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/50010?affiliate_id=3063731. Our usual passel of links below as well:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) spun the Hedge like a roulette wheel, and just look what happened...

This was the way he had to go; he had no choice. He had never had any choice. He was only a dreamer.

As the light half of the year breaks over the horizon, it's time at last for us to take the deepest of breaths and open the tome that is the Changeling: the Lost 1st edition corebook. The density of the text and the number of pages meant that this was always going to be a multi-part endeavor, but we did our best to keep the wild tangents we could have gone down to a minimum. In this installment, we're covering the introductory material and the first two chapters... which is a solid 170 pages of material with very tiny font, so we really still had to pack it in. We're commenting on elements as they relate to Changeling: the Dreaming throughout, so for any veterans who haven't tried one of the games but are curious to know about what they could bring into the other, we hope it will be of use! And as a historical curiosity—for now the second edition has obviated many of our comments here—perhaps it will show the roots of the setting to newer Lost players. About this trilogy of episodes, we've got hopes and perhaps left and right. And what, besides abductions and transformations and oneiromancies, could be more fae than that?

If this preliminary dive inspires you to purchase a copy of the book, you can do so at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/50010?affiliate_id=3063731. And if you are otherwise inspired to get in touch with us, that is also possible, through the links below:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) greatly prefers hanging out with Alec Bourbon's lighthearted and garrulous cousin, Bill Tequila Sunrise.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

We're visiting other shelves on the bookcase again, this time to dig into World of Darkness: Hong Kong. As with the Tokyo citybook, this was a Year of the Lotus supplement that was ostensibly for all the oWoD gamelines, but in truth was more vampire-centric than anything. Still—the tilts at the other games are present, and to help us sort through the Prodigals, we were joined by Terry Robinson from Mage: the Podcast (recorded before his passing) and Josh Heath from Werewolf: the Podcast (with whom Pooka recorded a follow-up segment more recently). From a Changeling perspective, the book notably contains example of hsien that are not quite built like Kithain, but are still a far cry from those in Land of Eight Million Dreams, which would not come out for several more months. The book overall is a richly described take on the city, and while its approach and accuracy are... debatable, some of it surprisingly prescient for what would follow in the next 25 years.

If you'd like to go beyond taking our word for it, you can pick up a copy of the title at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/344?affiliate_id=3063731. And as with the Tokyo episode, some links for the ad hoc World of Darkness Podcast Network:

And for our usual passel of links:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) warns you not to meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with hoisin sauce.

We all need stories. What happens in our daily lives changes our stories.

It's rare that the fae and the dead have much to do with each other, which is surprising given that within the latter category, the wraiths called Sandmen are oneiromancers extraordinaire. Manipulating the dreams of mortals from beyond the grave, they should be one of the more likely sorts of Prodigal a changeling may encounter. They are suggested as antagonists (in the C20 corebook, if not elsewhere), but what do these dramatic ghosts get up to on their own time? We're opening up their splatbook, Guildbook: Sandmen, to answer this question and learn more about being a theatre person for all eternity, for better or worse. Perhaps you'll be inspired to introduce them on the fringes of dreams in your own game for an unsettling bit of mystery...

We previously talked about crossover between Changeling: the Dreaming and Wraith: the Oblivion waaaay back in Season One; check out that episode (#25) here: https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-25-changeling-and-wraith-crossover/. And if you'd like to purchase the guildbook in question, you can follow the mist-shrouded path to https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/143?affiliate_id=3063731. Aside from all that, should you want to send missives in dreams to us, you have a range of options:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) makes use of a relic shepherd's crook to ensure no vaudevillian Sandmen get too fast and loose with Phantasm.

To die, to sleep; —

When talking about these games that we love, sometimes we may give the impression that we know more about the history behind the scenes than we let on. It's when we have the opportunity to interview an actually knowledgeable person that the extent of how much we don't know becomes obvious. So it goes today, as we talk with Pete Woodworth about the creation and development of Changeling: the Lost back in its earliest days. As one of the stewards of Changeling: the Dreaming who helped carry over some of the ideas in the new World of Darkness, Pete had anecdotes to share and perspectives to illuminate about how one game informed the other. (And secrets, too, that fall somewhere between curious and earthshaking, but we'll let you decide towards which end of that spectrum these tidbits fall closest.) We hope you'll find these stories as intriguing as we did for this rich and complicated game.

Pete's website, Positively Woodworthian, can be found at https://peterwoodworth.com/, from which you can check out his various works around the TTRPG sphere. As for various links on our end, you might try any of the following:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) feels the lack of mixed goblin fruit salad mechanics was a significant oversight by the writing team.

If change is inevitable, predictable, beneficial, doesn't logic demand that you be a part of it?

For a solid year now, we've been going on about the Changeling 30th Anniversary project, a celebration of three decades of this game we all know and love and dedicate too much headspace to, probably. We've also mentioned that one of the things we're trying to do for this Season is a series of books produced by the podcast for release on the Storytellers' Vault. Well—the day has finally come. This week, we're talking with guest Andrew Goodman in his capacity as co-author on the first two volumes, The Changeling Cookbook and Kithbook: Swan Maidens. We recorded this back in early February, back when we foolishly thought that both books would be out in a matter of days. Here we are, nearly two months later, eating humble pie—for which there is not actually a recipe in the Cookbook, unfortunately. But may these nevertheless be a catalyst to get the other ones done in timely fashion; we'll be releasing episodes in tandem with the other books as they come out.

If you'd like to pick up the Changeling Cookbook, it's available now at: https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/517123?affiliate_id=3063731. Kithbook: Swan Maidens is coming soon, and this page will be updated to reflect its release.

And if you have comments on either book, or on this project as a whole, or you just want to chat about whatever fae-flavored business, herewith our usual passel of links:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) prefers diffident pie, which is like humble pie, but with more boysenberries and whipped cream on top.

A cookbook is only as good as its worst recipe.

Apologies for skipping an episode release last week—there's a point at which even a pooka must throw in the towel for a day or two to recover from the wheel of reading, preparing, recording, editing. Now that things are a bit settled, we're back on track as we delve into the Changeling-adjacent library again today to talk about Sorcerer[s]! The hedge magicians of the World of Darkness haven't made many inroads into the game line, but today we're talking about a few groups that might be relevant, a few fae-impacting powers they possess, and a few tips for including them in your chronicle. (How many fews does it take to make a several? or a many?) Scattered across a number of books all somewhat titled "Sorcerer", these unexpectedly powerful mortals provide potential antagonists and allies for any motley.

The three books in question, should you wish to snag them for your own:

And you too can start your journey on the sorcerous Path of Podcasting by getting in touch at:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) advocates for more dank eldritch grimoires on audiobook and in readable EPUB format.

Magic is not science, it is a collection of ways to do things — ways that work but often we don't know why.