Changeling the Podcast

Just because we're having a chaotic summer doesn't mean we can't occasionally find time to generate some scraps of content. While we search for time to catch up on chonkier recordings, herewith is a short minisode of something that nobody asked for: a set of poems that are (arguably) Changeling-y in themes. Pooka threw this episode together solo, and recorded it very late at night, so please forgive them for the quality. And if you think you hate poetry, well, hopefully this will at least not make you think you hate it more.

The poems featured in this episode:

...

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) thinks the ellipsis is the most air-headed of punctuation marks, while the em-dash is the sassiest.

...

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Sooner or later, the most sinister of the Unseelie were bound to rear their greasy and/or misshapen heads, no? While Banality is an ever-present threat that changelings must struggle against, and nobles-versus-commoners is an important piece of the metaplot, it's important to remember that the balance of light and darkness is another critical conflict for the Kithain. The Shadow Court is the first supplement in the canon to really go in-depth into the Unseelie ethos, the structure and motivations of their court, and what it means to be a baddie (or a beastie, or a bogie). This week, we're taking a deep look at that tome, which is one of the densest with material in the entire line. Bear with us for the wild ride...

This is a Big Topic that will probably get its own episode at some point, but a few things need to be said about the relationship of the Unseelie, and the Shadow Court, to eeeeviiilll. The WoD games overall trade in shades of grey, making it difficult to say that the Seelie are overtly "good" and the Unseelie overtly "bad". One could claim that the traits, actions, and outlooks that do fall into the "good" camp tend to crop up more regularly, in sum, among the Seelie, and vice versa among the Unseelie. But there are Seelie who are bloodthirsty, haughty, tyrannical, inflexible, and manipulative, following codes for their own sake and believing that they are Right about everything. And there are Unseelie who are empathetic, joyful, egalitarian, and honest. To draw a parallel with Dungeons and Dragons (yeah, yeah), the better analogy for the Courts might be "Lawful" (with a tendency towards good) for Seelie vs. "Chaotic" (with more wiggle room for evil) for the Unseelie, and where an individual falls within them is on the Good–Evil spectrum is their own thing.

The Shadow Court, as a book, just kind of stirs the already-murky waters. There are Unseelie in the book who, despite their contempt for the Seelie, seem to simply be passionate freedom-lovers with the occasional bad temper. But then there are amoral jerks who engage in human sacrifice and make a career out of emotionally abusing Dreamers to get their Glamour fix. Introducing the Thallain as kiths who can never become Seelie and operate as the right hand of nightmare doesn't exactly help the reputation of the "dark side." Importantly, the Shadow Court is not the Unseelie Court; just as importantly, the former is often pulling the latter's strings. Even among the Shadow Court, though, true evil is not a given, especially because the book seems to highlight the fluidity of Court identity: changelings come and go from its ranks, rising and falling in prestige. (That being said, many Shadow Courtiers certainly seem willing to hang out with some truly twisted types...)

Ultimately, the game is more interesting when the nature of good and evil isn't predetermined, and the movement between the two becomes the focus of a story, with the Court conflict as a metaphor. Why shouldn't a Thallain have a redemption arc? Why shouldn't the most prim and proper Seelie countess have a long slide into decadence? Changelings rebel against stagnation and stasis, so shifting attitudes, identities, and allegiances are perhaps more in line with this game than the others. As we mention in this episode, Changeling has a reputation for being "not dark enough" (for whom? what does that even mean?), but as this book demonstrates, there is a whole buffet of options that range from the purest of the pure to the dankest of the dank. A word of caution, though—the book's wishy-washiness extends to its use of gaming tools to protect the sensibilities of gamers when needed. It doesn't really offer a stance on how to use or not use violence, sexuality, depravity, etc., so remember: talk. to. your. players. and find out everyone's mileage for different dishes at that buffet.

...

We solicit comments for recordings on our Discord (and here's the link! woooo), but for this episode, we totally forgot to respond to two hot takes from one of our listeners. So, here's some brief responses:

Hot Take 1: "The Thallain were never meant to interact with the Kithain. They aren't another splat, they're the main characters from a fundamentally darker game."

Hot Take 2: "House Ailil is the only good house in the entire gameline. Ennobled Boggans of House Ailil will utterly wreck your political machinations."

...

We mentioned this book a couple times this episode, and here we are mentioning it again...! Charlie Cantrell and Radio Free Arcadia put out Harbingers of Winter back in the spring, updating much of the content of this book (and then some) for C20. You can purchase it from the Storyteller's Vault, and you can listen to our episode #12, wherein we discuss the book with Charlie. It's definitely recommended reading for anyone looking to run a Shadow Court (or otherwise deeply Unseelie-flavored) game, so check out and help support other folks in the community.

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) thinks that Unseelie tastes like chocolate raspberry ice cream laced with codeine and bits of stained glass.

...

The Neighbor: "A little boy went out to play. When he opened his door, he saw the world. As he passed through the doorway, he caused a reflection. Evil was born. Evil was born, and followed the boy."

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

So, we took an extra week off due to individual life stuff that needed sorting out. But now we're back to talk about the first of the splatbooks for Changeling, Kithbook: Trolls, in all of its blue-tinted glory. Takeaways from the book include: oaths matter; legend is more important than history; and if it's anything kind of large and fae-ish, it's probably a troll. Something to remember is that the kithbooks spanned a much larger period of time for their complete set (1996 to 2018), cutting not only across editions but also some serious changes in the world and its sensibilities—so, KB: Trolls feels very different from KB: Eshu and waayyy different from KB: Boggans. But we have to start somewhere, so the beginning seemed like a decent place to start.

The word troll and the concept overall come from Norse mythology and derived Scandinavian folklore, blended in fantasy literature—and CtD as a whole—with similar concepts from other Germanic lore (including English). So it was a bit of a surprise that there was fairly little overt Norse influence on the book, or Celtic (which tends to be the top coat of paint on the entire game), save for a few names, artifacts, and artistic flourishes. It may be unfair to put too much of the burden on the ST and playgroup to bridge the gap between the text and the kind of game they want, but the text is neutral enough that you can have a troll hail from anywhere in the world that supports the myth of "big thing smash with honor". Because this book came out before Changeling's kith bloat really went into overdrive, it implies that all such folkloric beings are trolls, in some form—your mileage may vary with how much you want to fold all those legends into a single kith that is Northern European in its origin. The game has received a lot of justified criticism for its Eurocentrism; the way that different fae who smash with honor regard each other is something that can have in-game effects and consequences.

Since this is first edition, there is also a strong thread of "changelings hang out with their own kind". But the rest of the game materials don't exactly bear that out; the fiction and setting materials of 1st edition imply mixed populations as common enough, and future editions make it more or less the norm. Kithbook: Trolls presents them as having almost a standalone society whose uniqueness extends back to the legendary days, with their own freeholds and societies and whatnot. There's nothing wrong with this, and it opens up the possibility of a troll-only game. But it's an oddity to read in the light of what comes after. (Pooka's note: kinship is a strong theme in Changeling, but it's different from the tribalism of Werewolf, or Vampire where bloodline is often the only kind of kinship that matters. CtD is much more supportive of the concepts of found family and building new, small-scale culture together. My take is that giving the trolls all of this material without talking about how it's integrated into Kithain society at large kind of runs counter to that theme.)

...

Apologies if we came off too harsh about the artwork in this book. Some of it is genuinely cool! The Maul of Thunder Treasure (which the text suggests is basically the "backup" Mjölnir) genuinely looks pretty cool!

And then there's like, this chapter opening with a... cop? Maybe he's after this... eco-terrorist?

We're just saying, quality varies.

Speaking of cops: there's a whole society of trolls, the Protectorate, who are basically love cops. Their oaths and dutiful natures are entirely centered on facilitating and protecting true love wherever they find it, because nothing makes a romantic encounter like an eight-foot-tall hulking blue dude with a massive axe standing watch over you and your beloved as you exchange honeyed words under the chimerical moonlight. (Also, he's probably watching. Awkward.) Anyway, that's a Kithain reality show we'd like to see.

...

As one of our listeners pointed out, there was at one point another, online "Trolls Revised", from long before social media or Storyteller's Vault or any of that. (The early days of the Web were a wild place, folks!) For those who do want a more Norse-inflected version, here's the archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20090910043150/http://www.traitorsgate.net/trolls/. We haven't thoroughly read or reviewed this yet, but may do in the future. (Initial impression: the author mentions that the original kithbook presents the trolls as a "pseudo-Celtic tribal group," which we don't think quite hits the mark. However, they are absolutely right that there are vast amounts of cultural background and history that the kithbook left unattended, so we're curious to see how this fan effort approaches these things.)

But that's a saga for another day...!

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) met a troll under a bridge, but it turned out to just be a sentient shopping cart loaded with boxes of evaporated milk and flat packs of discount lunchmeat.

...

An eleventh I know, if needs I must lead

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Greetings, all! We've been taking a bit more of a break than we anticipated due to life getting in the way of podcasting, which slowed down our production process more than usual this week. But we're getting back on track, beginning with this episode, a conversation with the cast of Toronto by Day: Tales from the Rookery, a Changeling game that streams regularly on Twitch. They've just wrapped up Season 2 (though it was still nearing its finale at the time of this recording), with Season 3 on the horizon. But in the meantime, join us as we chat with Cliff (the ST), Zev (player of Volodomir the nocker) and Crystal (player of Lilly the korred) about their experiences with CtD in general and this game in particular, with some helpful wisdom to share for anyone who's thinking about running/joining a streaming game.

Our notes for this episode are rather brief, since the game sort of speaks for itself. (It is worth saying, this is probably the only time we've ever seen someone actually playing a korred.) But to that end, here's the most recent installment with the current cast. Even if you don't follow an actual play regularly to know the ins and outs of the plot, just skimming through any of their videos often gives a good idea of the timbre of the game and its players:

But! If you do want to check out the series from the start, the playlist for Season 1 can be found here, and for Season 2 here. Note that the shows are hosted on YouTube by, and the game is (loosely?) connected to the world of, Vancouver by Night and its family of games; if you enjoy Vampire and other games, check out their channel for additional tidbits.

...

So, if you want to watch the shows (which are pre-recorded, but broadcast live—formerly on Tuesdays, though this may change) as they air, you'll want to check out some pages:

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/Vancouverbynight

(Again, as of this posting, the show is on its season hiatus, but that means this is the time to get yourself caught up for its return...!)

Some of the current cast also have various web presences if you want to follow their work elsewhere:

Once again, we'd like to say thanks to the cast for chatting with us about the experience of running the game, and encourage you all to think about starting one of your own...!

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) was trying to come up with rhymes for "livestream," but couldn't get past "thrive beam," which is a concentrate ray of good vibes that instills anyone in its path with the energy and willpower to pull themselves out of dire circumstances.

...

All the world's a stage,

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

No, not the C20 one that came out in 2019; we're taking a look at the 1st edition Player's Guide from... year unclear. (We think it's 1997? But there's an ad for Hunter: the Reckoning in the back, so who knows.) As WoD Player's Guides go, the Changeling one has a lot of your standard fare: Merits and Flaws before those became standard in the corebook, additional Traits, new kewl powers. But this book also stands out for its full introduction of the Nunnehi after their brief appearance in Rage Across Appalachia (see episode 10), its thorough treatment of the nine core kiths, and some insightful short essays into the roleplaying experience from a player's perspective. It also feature a full-on errata section of material that got dropped from The Autumn People, because these were the heady days when deadlines were tight and editing was a luxury. In short, this book really packs a lot into its just-shy-of-200 pages. Let's have a look at some tidbits, shall we?

Changeling: the Dreaming art is often kind of a mixed bag, but especially as we approach the end of 1st Edition and its full-color books, it's nice to see some truly gorgeous examples in these page. The splash pages at the start of each chapter by Mark Jackson are especially fab, as in these examples:

Thematic and evocative! There are also some pretty groovy portraits associated with each kith by Adam Rex, such as this redcap who's charging out of the page, knuckle spikes bared, but who still has some sensible heels and hefty socks for battle:

And then there are these troll ladies. We're not entirely sure what's going on with them, but we include them as a reminder that no book's assortment of art will be perfect, and it is only through contrast that we learn to truly appreciate the pieces we really adore:

We report, you decide!

...

Aside from established terms like a corby of redcaps and a tragos of satyrs, some suggestions for what to call a group of each kith:

• a nosiness or industry of boggans
• a rowdiness of clurichaun
• an intrigue of eshu
• an agitation or complaint of nockers
• a suspicion of piskies
• a veracity or certainty of pooka
• a nibble of redcaps
• an excitement of satyrs
• a sleeking of selkies
• an insufferability or pomp of sidhe
• an unsettlement of sluagh
• a bravado of trolls

Suggestions for others welcome!

...

We gave some advice and shared some links last time we discussed the Nunnehi, in the Rage Across Appalachia episode. Following up on that, here are some more links that you might find useful for delving into the mythic background of the Indigenous kiths of Concordia:

• May-may-gway-shi: http://www.native-languages.org/memegwesi.htm
• Rock Giants: http://www.native-languages.org/stonecoat.htm and possibly references to the Gahonga in this book from 1922
• Nanehi: http://www.native-languages.org/morelegends/nunnehi.htm
• Yunwi Amai'yine'hi: not much, but there's a reference in section 78 of James Mooney's 1900 work, Myths of the Cherokee
• Yunwi Tsundsi: http://www.native-languages.org/morelegends/yunwi-tsunsdi.htm
• Canotili: http://www.native-languages.org/morelegends/canotila.htm
• Tunghat: unclear; it seems as though the name and "gamekeeper" concept might be taken from Yup'ik ritual (see for example https://www.penn.museum/sites/bulletin/1907/)
• Kachinas: http://www.native-languages.org/kachinas.htm and http://americanindianoriginals.com/kachina-doll-glossary.html
• Surems: https://parentseyes.arizona.edu/node/506
• Water Babies: http://www.native-languages.org/water-babies.htm
• Nümüzo'ho: references and tales in this collection
• Pu'gwis: mentioned on http://www.native-languages.org/kwakiutl-legends.htm; note that the -s at the end is not a plural!
• Inuas: less anthropomorphized than in the game; the concept of inua is apparently more abstract in Inuit lore, as outlined in this book from the Smithsonian on artwork that deals with the subject

As always, it's important to be aware that one's own research might be flawed, and that digging around on the internet can't fully substitute for thorough academic books and/or talking with an actual expert on the topic. It's also worth noting that digging around for information on the folklore behind these kiths turned up, among other things, sites that claimed to give background to the myths that was directly quoted from the Player's Guide (to the point of talking about "fae mien"). Doing background research is not easy! While you might not need to dive all the way down on these legends for the sake of a game session, you should still be ready to spend more time than you think you will need to try and separate what seems authentic from what seems like the random (even if reasonably informed) invention of someone online.

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun)'s weapon of choice: frog-venom-tipped lawn darts.

...

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Thanks for joining us! This week is a bit of a breather: we're talking about ten books that inspire us for Changeling: the Dreaming. The show notes are therefore pretty straightforward, as we'll just have the list below with a few notes. (You are encouraged to find, borrow, or purchase these books at a library or bookstore, for we will not be linking to a certain bookselling megacorp on this post.) In a more general sense, we're opening a conversation here about media as inspiration; we anticipate talking about another stack of books in the future, but also graphic novels, television, film, even artwork. Given that the game is to some extent about inspiration and story, it seems fitting to think about more than just "books about faeries." How can players and STs get the most out of the media they encounter for their games? What qualifies as a narrative that has something to do with Glamour and Banality, or the other themes of the game? Things to consider for future iterations of this series of episodes...

(Also, we threw in three honorable mentions at the end, because stopping at ten books just wasn't going to happen.)

• Emma Bull, War for the Oaks — Blurb: "Eddi McCandry sings rock and roll. But her boyfriend just dumped her, her band just broke up, and life could hardly be worse. Then, walking home through downtown Minneapolis on a dark night, she finds herself drafted into an invisible war between the faerie folk. Now, more than her own survival is at risk—and her own preferences, musical and personal, are very much beside the point." There was some talk long ago about adapting it for film (to the point that a low-budget trailer got made), but alas, it has not yet come to be...
• John Crowley, Little, Big; or, the Fairies' Parliament — A truly magnificent 25th anniversary edition just came out...which actually makes it a 40th anniversary edition, so how's that for a publishing delay? But anyway, even though that version is frighteningly expensive, you can at least get a sense for the book by reading the first couple chapters here: https://littlebig25.com/.
• Charles de Lint, The Wild Wood — Blurb: "A young artist returns to her cabin in the deep woods of Canada to concentrate on her illustrations. But somehow, strange and beautiful creatures are slipping into her drawings and sketches. The world of Faerie is reaching out to her for help--and she may be its last chance for survival." See an example of the Brian Froud art paired with this book below (used for the cover, in fact).
• Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town — This one is freely available for download, presumably because Doctorow is a big proponent of Creative Commons and whatnot: https://craphound.com/category/someone/
• Joanne M. Harris, Honeycomb — Author's website with some Q&A and other information: http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/honeycomb/
• Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere — Multimedia moment: Neverwhere was actually a TV series first, some of which you can watch for free because some kind soul has put it online (start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKlsXquUKdA). So technically the novel is a novelization, and we might cover this again for when we talk about TV... but then, it's also been made into a stage play, and a radio drama, and a graphic novel. Many options for your media-consumer pleasure.
• Seanan McGuire, the October Daye series — Author's website: https://seananmcguire.com/toby.php; you can check out her other series as well here.
• Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (and many other Discworld novels besides) — Another one with a TV adaptation, featuring Ian Richardson and Michelle Dockery (of Downton Abbey fame), which you can fairly easily watch online as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWifSyA9NQ).
• Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories — A brief excerpt: "So Iff the water genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Stream of Stories, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the Ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive."
• Bill Watterson, any or all of the Calvin and Hobbes books — It almost seems a travesty to direct you to an internet version of the comic, but if you haven't come across the strip before, allowances must be made... you can read some of the old daily strips at https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes.

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) keeps finding library cards between the cushions, in their pockets, on buses, on trains, behind other people's ears... something mysterious is clearly afoot.

...

"Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic." —Carl Sagan

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Hi, Mage fans! And/or Changeling fans! On this week's episode, we're having a conversation with Terry Robinson, host of Mage: the Podcast, to talk about crossover between Mage and Changeling. If you aren't well versed in Mage: the Ascension, don't worry—we'll give you some of the key terms and concepts to get you going with incorporating mages into your Changeling game. Not only that, but we hash out every crossover issue you could possibly want to deal with! (Well, okay, that was an outright lie, because we could do an entire separate podcast just on those issues.) (Maybe someday...) In any case, have a listen, and as always, feel free to hop in our Discord (link at the bottom of this page) to discuss your thoughts and ask your questions.

Probably the most important thing to talk about with any game crossover situation are the themes and moods of the games and how they align. We brought this up with Terry, and discussed three that do, and three that don't:

• Imagination and hope are incredibly powerful. From the Changeling perspective, this is pretty self-evident and central to the game; their power stat of Glamour that reflects (in part) this theme. With Mage, it's a little more subtle. The paradigms with which the willworkers construct their magic rely on imagination—which in theory can make mages powerful Dreamers, with the right outlook—and they build (some of) their hopes upon the strength of that paradigm and their ability to manifest its power. For mages whose way of magic is danger of going extinct, hope takes on an extra veneer of urgency.
• Culture is valuable. The ideas of groups of mortals have literally shaped changelings into what they are, in terms of kiths. Culture has also given structure to the magic used by mages, a structure which they must follow (at least, at first). Both groups are invested in preserving their originating cultures, although the need to combine those traditions with growth and modernity presents an interesting element of tension in each game.
• Everything is temporary. Terry frames this in relation to the desire to keep alive the connections to the past that give both changelings and mages strength. On top of that, mages are mortal, and although changelings reincarnate, Banality often means their time as self-aware fae is limited. But how the character reacts to these facts can also provide compelling story material. Both splats may strive for immortality and struggle against the way of things, creating all kinds of interesting drama (and possibly hurting a lot of people along the way).
• Mortals and isolationism. In theory, both Mage and Changeling are centered on their protagonists' interactions with mortals. In practice, tables often run both games without mortals making a single appearance. We'd wager that Changeling players are guilty of this more often: many groups do Dreaming-centric games with Glamour drawn from chimera or wherever rather than interacting with Dreamers. With Mage, "Hogwarts games" entirely set in a mages-only space are rarer, and to some extent have to be, because...
• The shifting of destiny. Mage and Changeling start at opposite ends of a spectrum in terms of how they affect the ultimate fates of mortals. A mage wants their way of handling reality to be the correct one for everyone (because they know it's correct for them). They start with the goal of changing civilization and work their way down. Changelings, on the other hand, cultivate individual artists; it's more the philosophy that pushing a pebble in the stream might eventually change the course of the mighty river. Neither one usually ends up altering all of human destiny that much, but it's important to realize that they're coming from very different places.
• Balance. Changeling has this theme baked into the Glamour/Banality mechanics, and it drives the entirety of the game. Mage... does not really have this. You can add Resonance and Quiet and everything, but fundamentally, there's very little (e.g, a morality stat) stopping mages from quickly going down Megalomaniac Road.

...

Terry mentions at one point a lovely anecdote about getting into Mage by reading the 2nd edition of the "Big Purple" and a sharp memory of some John Cobb art. For the viewing pleasure of you, the audience, here's what we believe to be the art in question that stuck in Terry's mind:

And now perhaps it will stick in yours. Whatever this might say about Terry's aesthetic sensibilities, we leave to others to decide! ^~^/

...

There's a Background introduced in Mage 20th Anniversary Edition called Demesne (pronounced like "da MAIN") which has... something to do with dreams. It's a "semi-permanent Dream Realm," according to that corebook, which doesn't really give much in the way of hard mechanics for interactions between a changeling and a mage who has such self-control over their subconscious. Some suggestions from Terry:

• Demesne can be a "resistance stat" to some fae shenanigans while the mage is enchanted (or otherwise perceiving the chimerical realm). Potentially this could be a kind of supplement or alternative pool for countering fae magic, and especially any kind of Oneiromancy.
• Demesne can "slightly tug" at that magic, altering the form of cantrips to things the mage can deal with more easily. In a way, they literally lucid dream at the changeling, using their own strength of subconscious as a shield/weapon. This is just a nudge though—perhaps the mage rolls Demesne and can change one aspect of the magic for each success.
• Importantly, Demesne does not help with Seekings to raise a mage's Arete, which would be quite overpowered (and not in keeping with the themes of the game). Extending this, one could say that Demesne has no impact on a mage's ability to provide Glamour; a well-developed dream life doesn't necessarily make a mage more creative or freewheeling.

Statistics are not available, but it's unlikely many mages take the Background in the first place, in part because of its limited use. But in a direct crossover game, Storytellers and players may want to come up with some ways like these that Demesne can be used to facilitate interaction. Perhaps the Demesne can function as a safe island for the changelings off the Silver Path when they enter the Dreaming, and in turn they can hang out with the mage without needing to enchant them (or even physically being present). Perhaps a mage can use Demesne as an ability like Crafts or Technology to create chimerical objects for the changelings (like the "guns; lots of guns" scene in The Matrix, except... dream-guns), which they can take out of the realm for a period of time. Or from an antagonist point of view, a Nephandus might use their Demesne as a nocnitsa breeding ground, or a Technocrat's vision of ultimate conformity allows them to manifest powers akin to an Autumn Person's (assuming they don't have these already). The Background may not have been intended as a built-in connection, but... might as well use it?

(And no, in this episode, we are not handling the question of "where is the Dreaming relative to the Umbra?" That will be its own thing at some point, when we each have several hours to kill and the substances of our choosing.)

...

Just because, here are a few little verbal swishes that occurred during recording:

• Terry used the phrase "campaign of tactical frivolity," which needs to be the plot of like half of all Changeling games from now on.
• Terry also describes Changeling as being like "a cookie dissolving on the tongue": wonderful and great, but we don't get to take it with us. <3
• While doing sound editing on this episode, Pooka at one point misheard "Cthulhu worshipper" as "Cthulhu greengrocer", and that's an NPC waiting to happen.
• Rather than "manipulating," Terry used the verb "renippulating" for the "raw bits of reality." Somewhere, there is a mage whose paradigm is indeed to renipple the world around them to great effect.

And importantly, there is a famous quote-drop from Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." This is one of those cornerstones of good Storytelling (in Pooka's opinion, at least) that gets overlooked. Mechanics and definitions and explanations are all well and good, but on the altar of a chronicle, everything and anything can (and sometimes should) be sacrificed. If you want a mage antagonist or ally in your Changeling game, unless there's a player with a sheet who needs to know how many dice to roll, you don't have to make that mage correspond to what the books say. Especially for Changeling, story is paramount. And sometimes, the unexpected and inexplicable makes for a more compelling narrative, both inside and outside the game. Hamlet calls out Horatio because the latter has a hard time fitting the ghost they've encountered into his worldview. It's an extension of the Golden Rule, in a way: breaking the rules to make a narrative feel novel and mysterious, to keep the players on their toes.

...

Some places online where you can find Terry:

• The website for Mage: the Podcast has the episodes of that excellent show (which is how this one got started, basically), for which Terry is a host...
• ...and the hopping Discord community is a good place to have some conversations about Mage, WoD, and various related sundries.
• Another podcast produced by Terry and Chazz Kellner is Pain in the Dice, which handles a bunch of gaming-related topics across a variety of lines.
• Terry's homebrew material on the Storyteller's Vault can be perused here; someday, that 20,000 word writeup of a 8-point Demesne will presumably make an appearance.
• Via Twitter, @MageThePodcast is the primary one, but also check out @TerryRobinson and @TryItCon, a convention Terry ran last year which we hope comes back someday...

...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) has a Familiar that fits inside a common household breadbox, but you won't guess what it is.

...

"Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness?" —Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Lucky thirteen! In this installment, we move forward in the Immortal Eyes chronicle, Shadows on the Hill, following the protagonist oathmates to their next adventure in Hawaiʻi. Like the previous book, The Toybox, the storyline (and included adventures) of the Immortal Eyes is kind of ancillary to the setting details laid out here. We found this one somewhat richer overall, with a lot of material that could be used for games set in the islands, with the caveat that one should always use discretion and do some additional research before taking everything in these pages for granted. (Disclaimer: we're both white folks with limited knowledge of the setting and culture.) But even if you don't use the book as intended, it has many beautiful passages and lots of bits that you might want to incorporate into a chronicle of your own. File under "not strictly necessary to buy, but a nice addition to the collection," if that's a label you're keen to use.

There's a passage describing the creation of the Hawaiʻian island chain that Pooka mentions reminds them of the intro to the first Civilization computer game. For the sake of a visual aid, and to do a throwback to a game even older than Changeling: the Dreaming, here's the video. It doesn't have quite the same power when the tinny Sound Blaster music isn't piping out of your cheap speakers, but you get the idea. (Pooka will not be taking questions on how many hours they've wasted playing the games in this series, so you'll just have to guess.)

...

One of the secondary antagonists in the book's first adventure is an Autumn Person geologist, Jennifer Friedman, whose character is not really developed beyond that description. She's mentioned as part of a group of tourists who are depleting the mana from the land, as part of an ongoing framing of mana as Glamour specifically infused with the notion of being a dream of the land, an idea of the people, and the relationship between the two. While that concept of mana is an intriguing one, the use of this geologist in relation to it just seems too easy—another foray in the anti-science mentality that crops up regularly in 1st edition.

The issue of science intruding on culture is a longstanding one in Hawaiʻi, with the Thirty Meter Telescope protests being the most recent and high-profile conflict. (Note: the protests were erroneously referred to in the episode as taking place on Mauna Loa; they are actually on Mauna Kea.) Changeling has always been a game with the capacity to responsibly explore political issues like this, and if a group wants to engage with heritage and tradition in relation to land use and rights, this is a possible situation to address. On the other hand, the technical knowledge gained about how the planet works can be just as Glamour-inspiring for some, not to mention life-saving for others. That's part of why the character of Dr. Friedman as a throwaway line is so frustrating: she's a one-dimensional foil to the characters. We don't dispute the book's foregrounding of Hawaiʻi as a spiritual landscape first, but if you choose to have a scientist as a villain, at least make them more interesting than being just another Autumn Person. If they're going to disrespect the land to give players a reason to stand against them, they should have some kind of reason for it.

This goes for other similar cases as well. All around the world are places and moments where passionate belief is challenged by thirst for data. You can certainly have unabashedly corrupt foes—Pentex and their local branch, Big Fruit, spring to mind—but we recommend giving you and your group the space to get more complex here, because the game allows you to. The nature of Glamour and Banality is a theme we keep returning to; when the stakes are the well-being of entire groups of people, the question of what each of those forces means to people becomes all the more urgent.

...

That was a pretty serious topic in the last section. For a bit of whimsy to counterbalance it, here's the hot tub picture from page 124 that Josh found weird and uncomfortable:

It's really the satyr's face that does it. The longer you look at it, the more uncomfortable it gets.

...

The book that Pooka mentioned finding at the local bookmonger was the second volume of the Nānā i ke Kumu series. The first two were published in the 1970s as a joint venture between the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa and local community leaders/organizations. They cover all manner of legend, folktale, custom, and religious belief over the course of hundreds of pages; a third volume, published in 2020, covers more modern social problems from a cultural context. You can find more information/purchase the books at the press website, or (if you want) use a certain rapacious corporation's website instead. Such a collection is valuable for creating verisimilitude in your game—there are plenty of stories, practices, and kapu that you can search through to flesh out a Hawaiʻian setting—but also just for self-education.

And if you want some cool information about the mindboggling navigational practices that got the Menehune and their people to Hawaiʻi in the first place, check out this page from the university on techniques (see the sidebar for links to specific traditional tools), and this article from the BBC last year about the Hōkūleʻa, a traditionally-built canoe that was sailed using those techniques across the Pacific in 1976. The canoe's voyage demonstrated that the voyages of the ancient Polynesians were entirely possible, creating a sense of renewed pride and interest in the history of seafaring. Pretty astounding stuff that can make for an interesting sidebar in a chronicle set on the seas. (Some of this also pops up in Mage's Dead Magic II, within a WoD-context.)

...

In a misalignment of circumstance, Pooka did not take a picture of the promo card for the Arcadia: the Wyld Hunt CCG they have in the back of their copy of IE2 before departing for overseas voyages. And now, as the episode goes live, they are thousands of miles away from said book. Luckily, the In Arcadia blog has a write-up of the phenomenon, and an image handy as you please:

It's unlikely that this is still valid, right? Still, if we can get our hands on more cards, maybe an episode about the CCG will make an appearance in the future...

...

Josh Hillerup (he/him) tasted of the forbidden fruit, and found it resembled persimmon with a hint of cardamom.

...

"Ukuliʻi ka pua, onaona i ka mauʻu."

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

As in certain fantasy series of some repute, Winter has been coming for a very long time in the mythos of Changeling: the Dreaming, but never quite fully arriving. With the release of Harbingers of Winter, we get one take on what it might look like in the 20th Anniversary Edition, in the shape of the various antagonists who populate the world of the game: Autumn People, Thallain, Dauntain, and more. In this episode, we have a conversation with C20 writer, STV contributor, and longtime community fixture Charlie Cantrell about his stewardship of the project under the banner of his group Radio Free Arcadia. Join us as we talk about his history with the game, the genesis of the book, and a chapter-by-chapter exploration of how to deploy these foes—some updated, some brand new—for your chronicle.

There's much scuttlebutt in the episode about the Brood Mother Fomorian, who churns out chimerical monstrosities from the grist of changelings sacrificed to her maw. (Gross.) Charlie mentions a piece of artwork originally from Denizens of the Dreaming that seems to portend all her squoodly glory twenty years later:

It seems her image was lingering in the pages of canon, just waiting to get a write-up somewhere down the line...

Also, we talk about the excellent art of Alaina Milare, who did the maeghar splat artwork near the end of the book, which is this mopey fae vampire guy here:

Please check out her work at https://www.alainamilareart.com/ ! Much of it is Changeling-focused character work that evokes the spirit of the game and has a very classic splat-portrait feel.

...

Just as a shameless attempt to get some awareness out there about our Discord (the link, as always, is https://discord.gg/SAryjXGm5j), we'll have a poll there for your favorite Fomorian character (or general Court, if you can't decide). Because there are over twenty options from the named Fomorians given some details and backstory in the Harbingers book, here are the six heavyweights that you can pick from:

• Balor: the original Big Bad of the Fomorians, with the evil eye to end all evil eyes (as well as anyone who it gazed upon)
• Z'laad, Storm of Color: a pure tempest of primordial and colorful Dark Glamour, rampaging like a cluster headache oil slick through the Dreaming
• Enphida, Goblin Queen of Machines: inventor of despicable war machines, whose inspiration took everywhere from the Unseelie nocker freehold of Goblin Town to (apparently) a tryst with an Etherite mage
• Brood Mother: see above for all you need to know, really
• Bres: the surprisingly beautiful grandson of Balor who was briefly tapped as ruler of the fae by the Tuatha (until it didn't go so well for all involved)
• Marena: Queen of Frost and embodiment of all the cruelty of winter

And if you can't decide, you can always just vaguely vote for The Green Court (inscrutable, nigh-Lovecraftian beings), The Red Court (unthinkably powerful and bloodthirsty war-titans), or The White Court (cold and calculating grand-scale manipulators). Whoever wins, we'll do... something. A write-up? A series of story hook ideas? A ritual sacrifice? Only time will tell!

...

It's important to remember that the shape of Winter in this book is just one possibility—as we mention a couple times in this episode's discussion, the Golden Rule of White Wolf games, and Changeling in particular, is that you can and should reshape things to better serve your game. If something doesn't fit with your vision, change it! Not everyone wants to imagine the world of the fae going in a direction quite so dark or horrific (or maybe their brand of horrific just looks different). Harbingers of Winter features antagonists who would go against the Kithain for a variety of reasons, each of which comes with their own baked-in set of themes and narratives, but none of them are set in stone. If you want to include Thallain as part of a redemption arc, new and complicated varieties of Dauntain, or Tithed who have a less antagonistic relationship with their fae "twins," go for it.

Winter is to some extend what you make of it at your table, both in-character and out-of-character. Will it be slow and eternal, or just another passage of a season? Will it be exceptionally brutal, with Kithain cutting each other's throats for the barest hint of Glamour and Fomorians rampaging through the Dreaming, or will it be a much more boring, Banal affair where the fae are slowly smothered into forgetfulness? How aware of it are the characters, if at all? Is their narrative arc one of bleak fatalism, determined questing to bring on a new Spring, or unified survival in the most hidden parts of the world? To some extent, these are the questions that underlie the discussion of what Changeling 5th Edition (in the distant, possibly alternate, future in which that appears) might look like. So far, Vampire is our only point of reference in print, and it's both grittier and more low-level-focused (at least at its base) than the setting was for many years prior. If we assume that all the games that get a 5th edition will go in that direction, certainly Winter could become a central theme of Changeling, displacing petty concerns like courtly intrigue and romps through the Dreaming as the fae struggle to maintain their inner spark in the darkest world they've seen for a long time. But that theme has always been part of the game, as have the permutations of how they deal with it, so a refocus on that aspect isn't totally out of nowhere, just... something to think about, that perhaps more tables should have been thinking about already.

(And we affirm that Harbingers of Winter is a good book for getting some of those thoughts going.)

...

If you want to see more of what Charlie has been/is up to...

• You can find him on Twitter, @PookaKnight !
• On Facebook, Radio Free Arcadia is a place to see the latest news about what he and his team might be up to
• Harbingers of Winter itself is available now on Storyteller's Vault...
• ...as is Kiths of Arcadia, another work by Charlie and Radio Free Arcadia that brings into C20 the kiths from the brief-lived but beloved Arcadia: the Wyld Hunt CCG
• Charlie's homebrew conversion guide to 5th Edition for Changeling is freely available as well (though note that you might need some familiarity with V5 to use it properly) (but that's probably why you're looking it up anyway, isn't it?)

...

Josh Hillerup (he/him) is uncomfortable with the adjective "phlegmatic."

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) questions all uses of the verb "extrude."

...

The darkness drops again; but now I know  

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)

Settle in, because this is a long one... the raw audio for this recording was the longest we've had by far. But that's because Nobles: the Shining Host, the first Changeling book to delve into Kithain nobility, covers a lot of bases. It's not quite "Kithbook: Sidhe," but there's enough about them in there to satisfy most players and STs who want to know more about the kith; on top of that, you have plenty about the social structure and cultural dynamics of nobles from any background. We get bits of history, an epic tale, political parties and secret societies, information about Concordia's monarchs, some new Traits (including two new Arts), a new House, character templates... the book really packs it in. We cover it in this episode as briskly, yet thoroughly, as possible—but even so, this is almost our longest episode thus far. (This is also the reason why it's going out a bit late this week. Nostra maxima culpa.)

Just kidding—we're not going to tell you the exact answer to that, because there really isn't one. Ultimately, you do what you want to do. But, since the book focuses heavily (not entirely!) on this kith, we are going to point out a couple things about trends and possibilities. See, the traditional roles for sidhe in CtD games have tended towards: 1. pretty Mary Sues who are (or demand to be) able to do anything (especially when people just want to play a sidhe for that extra Boon), 2. uptight patricians who treat egoism and sucking all the oxygen out of a room (or gaming session) as a virtue, 3. as Josh put it, the real-life protagonists of soap operas (for the viewing pleasure of the commoners), or 4. all of the above, which is doable because the first three are stat-, personality-, and narrative-based, respectively. The exact shape of these things has waxed and waned over the years—"mysterious warrior-sorcerer with Appearance 7 and/or an ethereal presence" seems to be a common expression of (1) these days—but the common threads are quite visible.

The unfortunate thing is that the early books, at least, set up a lot of alternatives to these archetypes, even as they also provide examples of them. And yet somehow, the alternatives seem to have faded more and more into the background. Maybe this is due to real-world ideals working their way into the game: commoners are moving front and center with progressive, anti-aristocratic ideas, and the sidhe have flattened more and more into these Tolkien-elf types with little variation. The sidhe are a kith; Title is a Background; nobility is a quality; and while the three may overlap more than most other kith-Trait-characteristic combinations, it is not a necessity. (Remember, those in the back: your sidhe does not have to have a Title/be part of a House.)

We mention this because the sidhe fall into the trap most often, maybe, of becoming one-dimensional characters, with the only variation being the specific Trait build that represents their particular snottiness. It's true that kiths tend to shape characters; it's also true that more and more, especially with C20, there is pushback against such determinism. (Old fogies' note: it was always there, e.g., you could play soft-hearted Seelie redcap who liked macrame, but the game's willingness to foreground that varied.) So why would you not make a sidhe who is more interesting than the typical [insert Title here] [insert elaborate faux-Sindarin name here] [insert House here] [insert optional florid moniker here], knight and/or wizard and/or courtier par excellence? One of the first canon sidhe in fiction is Leigh from the Immortal Eyes trilogy, who is a teenage redhead knight struggling to reconcile her newly-discovered nature, princess memories, and swelling sense of honor with her upbringing as a working-class cop's daughter, as well as her fervent desire to be a chef. She has a soft spot for protecting childlings (though she's also a firm babysitter), she has a crush on the bad-boy Unseelie eshu, and she worries about making ends meet with her line-cook salary in her crummy one-bedroom (but she's also thrilled to be living away from her mortal family for the first time). She is far from perfect, but aspires to be better, and she has the capabilities of a beautiful warrior, but is far from defined by them.

This book gives a lot of material to work with to navigate that level of complexity, as do many of the others—if you're willing to look for it. We encourage you, therefore, to think outside the box and make being a sidhe (or being a noble) not the most important thing about your character. It may not be the least important either, but give your character a little depth before working that piece in. Obviously, this advice can be applied to any kith—it's just that sidhe tend to suffer for it most than the others.

...

Just because the headache that is this Background deserved to be reproduced in its entirety, here it is in table format. Pick the Background level you want in the first column, then choose one row within that level to determine which destinations the trod has access to across the world/Dreaming, and (in the last column) how often it's available:

Yes, we're aware that the first and third options for Level 2 are directly contradictory. The book also suggests that the accessibility be tied to natural cycles, e.g., a trod that's only open 1/4 of the year might be available during a certain season, and a trod open 1/2 of the year might only be available every other day or only at night. Surely there was some mathematical formula to figure out the balance of all this, but no idea what that might have been; heaven help you if you decide to have a single Background represent multiple trods, e.g., taking four dots in the Background allows you to choose two options from Level 2.

Are we having fun yet?

...

We're not saying the sidhe on page 49 isn't noted actor and voice actor (including, ironically, in Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia) Clancy Brown, but it's totally Clancy Brown. Publicity photo provided for comparison!

...

In case you needed some statistics for who's in the Parliament circa this book's publication in late 1995/early 1996... all percentages are relative to the entire Parliament, not the specific group being described:

• Sidhe nobles make up 42% of the Parliament, even though they only make up 5% of the Kithain in Concordia (though that number may have increased a bit as more Houses have returned, and the Autumn Sidhe have become a thing in C20). The Traditionalists make up 20%, Reformers 15%, and Modernists 7%
• Commoner nobles make up 20% of the Parliament: Traditionalists 8%, Reformers 4%, Modernists 8%. Meanwhile, non-Titled commoners make up the remaining 38%, with Traditionalists 15%, Reformers 7%, and Modernists 16%, suggesting that commoner political affiliation is roughly the same, regardless of whether they're noble or not—and with a surprisingly high number of Traditionalists. Overall, when you see that the nobles have a majority, and the Traditionalists have a plurality, the feudal system sticking around as long as it has begins to make a bit more sense (as does the more reform-minded fae's frustration).
• Within the Parliament, sidhe make up 42%—therefore, all sidhe in the Parliament are nobles. The remaining breakdown is boggans at 14%, trolls at 9%, nockers at 8%, pooka and satyrs at 6% each, sluagh, redcaps, and eshu at 5% each. We don't have breakdowns by kith for nobles and political inclinations, but presumably the boggans and trolls have higher rates of both nobility and Traditionalism.
• Similarly, we don't get political inclination breakdown by House, but we're told that Gwydion makes up 12% of Parliament, Eiluned and Fiona 10% each, Dougal 6%, Liam 3%, and Scathach a pitiful 1%. We also have the note that 95% of the Parliament is Seelie—estimated, of course.

Obviously, as new kiths have been made standard in C20, Unseelie power has become more openly displayed, and the Autumn World's political landscape has evolved, all of these are subject to change. But as a baseline for how things work, it's still a useful tool to start with... in the episode, we sort of poke fun at the voting system of Concordia. Nevertheless, there is undeniable nerdy pleasure to be had from a story centered around the electoral campaigns and machinations of the fae, if you want to work that into your chronicle. (Yes, one of us might be a fan of both Borgen on TV night and Die Mächer on board game night.)

...

Josh Hillerup (he/him) flew into battle on a song and a prayer.

...

"I had been too long away from the nobility; I had forgotten how silly even the best of them could be." —Laurell K. Hamilton, "Geese"

(psst! email us at [email protected] if you want)