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.

The gravity of Changeling: the Lost's first edition corebook is slowly pulling us in... but before we get there, let's make a few stops along the way. Two whole months before the game was officially released at GenCon 2007, there were a number of introductory and ancillary materials that helped drive up interest. This includes the Demo rules summary and quickstart adventure, "Dwelling in Darkness", featured in previews on the White Wolf website, as well as the usual swag: Storyteller's screen, character sheet pad, fancy dice. While we're focusing mostly on the first one today, the others helped to set the aesthetic of the game that was about to launch, If you're looking to dip your toes into 1e, then the quickstart may be just the thing for you, before the headlong plunge. Listen along as we try our best to give comprehensive and spoiler-free summaries of what is found therein!

Naturally, things are available on the Storytellers' Vault, namely https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/28293?affiliate_id=3063731 for the Demo, https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/50484?affiliate_id=3063731 for the Character Sheet Pad (but why, in this day and age), and https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/126290?affiliate_id=3063731 for the Screen, although if you print it out, you'll want to stick it to something sturdy. Dice are unfortunately not yet available for print on demand.

And as for our own links...!

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) was forced to check for Clarity after snorting a handful of Pixy Stix.

Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest green?

The other gamelines in the World of Darkness rarely engaged with Changeling very deeply, but now and then, a book would have a chunk of pages illuminating some new corner of the lore. We're looking to Vampire this week, and in particular the first Dark Ages corebook and the original Dark Ages Companion. This first edition of Dark Ages, using the second edition Vampire ruleset, was contemporaneous with early Changeling—and it shows. These two books show glimpses into fae conceptions that didn't quite make it into the deep history, let alone Dark Ages: Fae when that finally dropped, but we're curious about how they might still be of use. And beyond that, the rich setting information in this line is useful for anyone looking to set up a medieval Europe game that is more CtD than DA:F. We promise this is not a deep readthrough of 500 Vampire pages!

That being said, as promised, the Fishmalk:

Even mad vampires can use a friend once in a while!

The two books in question are available for purchase at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/2672?affiliate_id=3063731 and https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/100?affiliate_id=3063731, respectively. We are available but not for purchase at:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) rolls Chimerical Alchemy to distill dreamstuff into heraldic tinctures impossible for human eyes to discern.

Uns ist in alten maeren  | wunders vil geseit

It's the dawning of a new age here at Changeling: the Podcast, as we begin to eye that entity known as Changeling: the Lost... veteran Storyteller and noted gaming authority Fetch joins us as co-host for this run of episodes that will proceed through Season Four. We're beginning with a deep dive into the (new) World of Darkness 1st edition corebook, the central text for the games that succeeded the original run of World of Darkness. This edition ran from 2004 through 2013 (or thereabouts) before being succeeded by the "Chronicles of Darkness" that ended late last year. We're talking this time around about Fetch's background with the games, the context of the gaming landscape in the mid-Naughty Aughties, mechanical differences in nWoD, and the themes/moods of the setting—which are quite different as well as being quite the same. If you've never delved into the series, then this will be a primer for you to get your feet drenched, and if it's old news to you, we hope it will be an engaging refresher nonetheless.

If you're inclined to purchase the book, drop by https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/1124?affiliate_id=3063731. Otherwise, for communication purposes, you can drop us a line via any of the following:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) is more "Horror Stylish" than vice versa, or so say the latest and greatest society rags.

O, brave new world

And so it begins...! meaning Season 4, of course. We have a nice little backlog of recordings to edit, bowdlerize, and disseminate to the masses in the coming weeks and months. While we're done with the core line of Changeling: the Dreaming, there are a number of books we'd like to consider from the old World of Darkness. First up among these is World of Darkness: Tokyo, a Wraith book pretending to be an all-the-lines book (with a smattering of Changeling material). This episode was recorded a few months ago, but delayed due to the passing of our friend Terry Robinson, who appeared in it as a representative of Mage: the Podcast (along with Josh Heath for Werewolf: the Podcast). We've decided to move forward with producing this one in his memory. And then who knows in which pages we'll be losing ourselves next week...?

Some links:

The socials, as usual:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) fashions ikebana out of used circuit boards mounted on skewers.

Tokyo, city of my dreams! Will you fulfill my one desire and give me a life of my own? Yes, I believe you will, I know you will, in spite of the hardships and trials in store.

One last minisode to tide you over through Winterregnum...! As you may or may not be aware, not all the audio we record makes it into the final episodes. It's been a while since an episode with some outtakes, so we've returned to the cutting room floor for random bits of conversation. Here's the list of disconnected items and the episodes they're from:

There's more where that came from, but probably this will suffice for now, as a sampler. And yes, this is really just filler material, but in these curious and uncertain times, we're doing what we can to stoke the balefire and keep ourselves grounded with voices and memories. Otherwise, we are as always available at the usual passel of links:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) keeps spare minutes in a chronometric piggy bank for future splicing into bonus hours of undiluted time.

We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last dregs of content from the vaults. On the LARP side of the equation, there are a few remnants from various Mind's Eye Theatre books that never made it into either The Shining Host or the Shining Host Player's Guide, which we have collected to discuss in today's minisode. These basically consist of live-action Dauntain, adapting the Time of Judgment stories, a piece of fiction, and a meditation on supernatural phenomenology (whew). We've gathered these together so that you don't have to, and we're giving a bit of commentary, but as far as we can tell, this is really it for the Dreaming official content in print (with one exception) that we know of.

If you do feel compelled to pick up either Laws of the Hunt (revised) or Laws of Judgment, you can find them at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/182?affiliate_id=3063731 and https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/1621?affiliate_id=3063731, respectively. And if you're looking to chat with us instead, some places to do so include...

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) once threw a LARP with nothing but dollar-store buntings, a tray of mini-pizzas, shaving cream, and gumption.

The real challenge is to make art out of these bits and pieces of our reality.

Welcome to 2025, changelings and changelants! We said that Winterregnum was going to be our hibernation season... but truth be told, there are too many things to do and not enough time to do them, so yes, we're going to continue to put some content out for the coming weeks. The Season proper will launch in February as usual. Whether the episode numbering will tick up to 101 in this intercalary period remains to be seen, but for this week, at least, we'll keep with the convention for giving fractional numbers to minisodes. This time around, Pooka has a chat with Bloodied Porcelain about Hallowed Haven Studios about their upcoming Changeling: the Dreaming actual play, "District of Dreams"! The first live episode will launch on Friday the 10th, so we hope you'll be able to tune in... but if not, audio recordings will be available thereafter on their website and on podcast platforms near you.

For more information and other ancillary material—teasers, prologues, etc.—check out the various HHS places around the interwebs:

And our own interweb scramblings can be found at:

Pooka G (any pronoun/they) lived in DC for a while, but had to go to Virginia just to find green hair dye, because DC was that kind of town.

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

Woo-hah! We got here at last. Yule is upon us and it's time for another State of the Podcast before we enter our Winterregnum period. As stated before, there will likely be a bit of content here and there through the coming weeks, but—with one or two possible exceptions—no full episodes until some point in February. And when we come rocketing back at that point, well, we have a thing or three in store for you. In this bit of bonus content, we're talking about statistics from the Season, plans for the next one, little life updates, and whatever else crossed our brains on a chilly weekday night.

Although we won't be releasing much to the winter airwaves, you are still welcome to get in touch with us through the usual socials below! The conversation rolls on, and if you don't want to miss what's happening, our freeholds are always welcome to you:

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) has set up the nocker sugar shack what makes the Glamour syrups and chimerical caramels.

Et quand viendra l'hiver aux neiges monotones,

—Charles Baudelaire, "Paysage" (tr. George Dillon)

Like any grumps, we often ruminate on the past and what it has (and hasn't) brought us. After the closing of the old White Wolf forums post-Time of Judgment, those in search of community found our way to various places on the internet, one of the most noteworthy of which for the two of us was Shadow'n'Essence, a message board forum with extensive space for each of the WoD lines (and more!) in the 2000s. You may have heard us wax poetic about it in our online games episode a couple weeks ago. The vibrant atmosphere and creative energy among the Changeling fans in particular is something still fondly remembered, and sometimes people turn up years later to talk about it—like Chris Bern (aka Swordsman), former coordinator (aka Vilicus) of the Changeling section of the site, who joins us for this minisode walk down memory lane. Tune in to hear us talk about things as they once were, and if you were on SnE, we'd be delighted to hear from you...!

Chris' repository of Changeling bits from the days of yore can be found at: https://theshepherdsfreehold.wordpress.com/. And as for us, it's the usual mishmash of places:

Josh Hillerup (zenten) absconded with a Glamour slushie machine and the gods of internet past can't have it back.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,