Changeling the Podcast

...and that's a wrap! For this year, at least; we intend to be back in a couple of months, after taking our usual winter constitutional. A happy solstice be upon you, and thanks again to everyone for sticking with us through the second half of the Season. We hope you'll help us make Season 3 one to remember as well.

As reminded in the episode, we are putting together a passel of homebrew books over the course of 2024, for release on a monthly basis in 2025, in celebration of Changeling's 30th Anniversary. To that end, we are still open to knowledgeable people joining the crew for this project! Please see our public Patreon post at https://www.patreon.com/posts/changeling-30th-92652480 for more information. You're welcome to toss your name into the hat to help with any of the books listed, or to send us a pitch for another of your own. If you've been curious about getting involved in independently-created content for Changeling (or other TTRPGs), maybe this is the time?

For more news and updates, click your way to any of our usual haunts, where we'd be happy to welcome you in:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) is waiting out the Winterregnum in a fort made of marshmallows.

"Never say goodbye, because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting."

It's strange to go back to the end of an era, but that's the feel of things this week as we pick up Time of Judgment, finale to the old World of Darkness. After the "Big Three" each got their own book of the end times, the remaining (lower-selling) games got one chapter each in this catchall supplement. And those were the last pages of Changeling for over a decade—so it's seems fitting to cover this as our last full episode of the season. There's some Storytelling guidance and five scenarios (about which we have thoughts), and a note of bittersweetness about it all. How else could it have (for then) ended?

The book is available to add to your collection at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/699?affiliate_id=3063731, and you'll get the chapters on Demon, Hunter, Kindred of the East, and Mummy to boot! We pointed to Harbingers of Winter as well, for incorporating the Tithed Ones but also other big baddies of Changeling. That one is at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/388455?affiliate_id=3063731, and you can listen to our interview with Charlie here: https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-12-harbingers-of-winter-with-charlie-cantrell/. Finally, if you're into Mage and want to hear about that game's finale book Ascension, Mage: the Podcast has an informative episode on just that very topic: https://magethepodcast.com/tomes-of-magick-ascension/. Ask ye and the digisphere shall provide.

As for ourselves...!

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) favors the apocalypse scenario where the nockers just try turning the Dreaming off and then on again.

That's how it goes, you think you're on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armageddon on you.

Another trip across the ocean...! Pooka put their linguistic skills to use in order to skim/translate (read: stumble through with a dictionary in one hand and a fervent prayer to the word-gods in the other) the long-lost book Trolle, Träumer, Tiefe Wälder. This German-only supplement was released near the end of 2nd Edition, and describes Germany from a Kithain perspective. (It's also the original source for the Wichtel and Wolpertinger kiths from C20, although they are rather different here...) The book is basically impossible to find for fewer than several hundred dollars at this point, so this minisode is an attempt to summarize the text and provide some information for the curious. Consider this a bonus listen before we get to—deep breath—the end of the original line...

If you've got some feedback, in German or otherwise, drop us a line:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) insists that there are very few problems of the body or soul that can't be solved with a bowl of Kürbissuppe.

Denn das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen, und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht, uns zu zerstören.

And now for something rather different... we're stepping out of the Changeling canon and into the wonderful world of late 90s/early 00s homebrew with Changeling: the Celtic Cycle. Written by three World of Darkness authors, CtCC radically re-imagines the world of Changeling: no Glamour and Banality, no Dreamers to cultivate, no Dreaming separate from the Umbra. Instead, the fae in this version of the game are directly inspired by Celtic mythology and epic. The supplement was released in three installments as part of a zine, in all its early-days-of-desktop-publishing glory, and is as much an interesting historical artifact for that context as for its contents. But the authors also went on to be involved in Book of Lost of Houses, Dark Ages: Fae, and Changeling: the Lost, with all of which we see a few subtle connections...

The text is findable online, but we'll also have it available in our Discord (link below!). Some other links include:

As always, our own passel of social media links:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) went looking for Changeling: the Danish Cycle, but only found a kith that could shapechange into flaky pastries.

High on the mountain stands a boat

Wanderers and storytellers, tricksters and rapscallions... we're diving this week into Kithbook: Eshu and all that it has to teach about this most wonderfully wayward of Kithain. This was the last full-length Changeling: the Dreaming supplement for something like fifteen years, and as presumed final entries go, it was an intriguing one. (The last page of the original print edition, though, with the ad for a book that would never materialize... that was kind of heartbreaking.) We discuss levels of appropriateness for incorporating Yorùbá religion as this book does, get into the weeds about Birthrights, and ask important questions, such as "Talecraft: why?" It's a bittersweet sunset to 2nd Edition, all things told. And what could be more Changeling than that?

Wend your way over to https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/174?affiliate_id=3063731 if you'd like to purchase the PDF. And why stop there? Let your path continue to any of the following places to find out more about the show and connect with us:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) travels by a compass that points in nonexistent directions, like "south–north-up" and "otherwards".

千里之行始於足下。

It's the weekend of PAX Unplugged, a three-day convention for all forms of non-digital gaming in Philadelphia, and Pooka got themself a media badge. So, in an effort to justify that, they went around doing on-the-spot quick interviews with a number of RPG creators whose work is Changeling-adjacent (mostly fairytale and mythology themed). Please forgive the sound quality; the interviews were conducted using a tiny microphone in a crowded and busy expo hall, and voices don't always travel well through N95 masks. Nevertheless, here's hoping these broaden your horizons, and if you're at PAX today, here are four booths you might want to check out...

The interviews are presented in the order in which they were conducted, as are the information about the creators below:

And as usual, for CtP's own points of contact:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) never met a fae-themed TTRPG they didn't like. Except for THAT one!

We're returning to the world of Live-Action RolePlaying this week, as we flip through the second and final of the Mind's Eye Theatre books produced for Changeling. Author and developer Peter Woodworth returns to talk about the creation of the Shining Host Player's Guide. Even if you prefer throwing dice around the table to dressing up and cantripping through the woods, there's plenty in this volume that enriches the setting. Mannikins with stories, Shadow Court slice of life, secret society emblems, elaborate court politics... as we draw ever closer to the end of the 2nd edition line, it's nice to be reminded that there was quality content even in the jaws of Judgment. (It's also nice to be reminded of the community's passion for keeping the game alive.)

The book is available for purchase at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/1490?affiliate_id=3063731, and you can find/contact Pete at his website, Positively Woodworthian: https://peterwoodworth.com/! For our part, behold a mishmash of social media:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) leads a secret society of Canadian nockers whose emblem is a maple leaf soaked in engine grease.

The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Sometimes a House isn't so much lost as misplaced, but sometimes you misplace four and a half of them. This was how the sidhe did back at the turn of the millennium, but good news! Those waywards are coming back through the gates in Book of Lost Houses: The Second Coming, the tome that gave us Houses Aesin, Beaumayn, Daireann, Arcadian Scathach, and Varich to round out the complement of noble branches to thirteen. (Because if there's one thing Changeling needed, it was more nobles.) Even though they all differ slightly from their updated versions in the 20th Anniversary edition, the history and background in BoLH is helpful for any player who wants to run a character from one of these five. This is the first and basically last place they appeared, so listen in as we read through for the choicest tidbits.

If you'd like to snag the book for yourself, pick it up at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/44?affiliate_id=3063731. And as mentioned in the episode, we snagged the errata, which you can get from us on the Discord! How do you reach the Discord, you ask, and perhaps other social media platforms you hadn't intended to find? WELL—

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) supports the expansion of Aesin industriousness into other occupations, like "numismatist" and "confiseur".

Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.

It's a time-honored tradition among Changeling groups to construct their own kiths, but the process has always been idiosyncratic. Doing justice to folklore and balanced game mechanics don't always go hand in hand. Luckily, the 20th Anniversary Edition has provided a basic template for creating them, so we're taking the opportunity to do a short kith-building workshop, wherein the nymphs finally get their due. (Yes, yes, Inanimae: the Secret Way tried to definitively re-cast them as Sessile Ones, but we defy that idea.) Join us as we scrape together the bits of precedent for the kith, and talk through the questions-and-answers process in C20 as applied to them. Perhaps it will give you some grist for the mill to create your own...!

We mentioned two homebrew products by members of our community that informed the approach here. Check out Aaron Siddall and Andrew Goodman's Roots of Legend on the Storytellers' Vault here: https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/354523?affiliate_id=3063731, and Charlie Cantrell's 5th edition hack for Changeling here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XCSfDfJUNFm6d9f0omHzQ-rt7U0kkR7b/view.

As for our own presence in various places online, you might have some luck with the following platforms. It's worth mentioning that subscribers to our Patreon are getting a peek at some bonus content related to this episode today...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) once slung syrup with the nymph grump keeper of a much-storied, well-loved sugar shack.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

Just in time for Guy Fawkes Night (and a bit on the early side of our usual release day), we're looking at the breakdown of social order in fae realms... kiiiind of? Despite its title, we've uncovered in our reading that War in Concordia: The Shattered Dream is more about widespread political tensions, the occasional skirmish or violent incident, and a whole bunch of metaplot updates that, er, have all been retconned in the 20th Anniversary Edition. But! There is still plenty here to examine and appreciate, from the multifaceted accounts of then-current events to a gaggle of new and interesting NPCs. And then, there's plenty for which we wish they had done more, from the Kingdom of Apples overview (at last!) to Chapter 4's mass combat mathematical headaches. As we close in on the end of the game's original run, the chill of Autumn is in the air, but we hope the fires of revolution will warm you...

The PDF of the book can be found at: https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/333?affiliate_id=3063731. Our own spaces for commoner liberation are scattered around the interwebs at places like:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) keeps a cabinet full of crackers for all the elements, from water to bug to sleaze to rubidium.

You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.