The Storytelling Game of Modern Fantasy
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The Storytelling Game of Modern Fantasy Changeling:Sample The Dreaming™ Created by Mark Reinfile•Hagen, Sam Chupp and Ian Lemke with Joshua Gabriel Timbrook Second Edition by Ian Lemke Contents 1 Playtesters: Charles J. Rodgers, Jean L. Rodgers, Mark K. Credits Rodgers, Erin Rodgers, David P. Spencer, Christopher A. Smith, Original Concept and Design: Mark Rein•Hagen, Sam Bobby Sinders, J.D. Hubble (Indiana); Wayne Peacock, Deena Chupp, and Ian Lemke with Joshua Gabriel Timbrook McKinney, Thomas Deitz, Gilbert Head, Brian Finneyan, Cath- Second Edition Design and Development: Ian Lemke erine Little, Forrest B. Marchinton, Catehrine Hackett (Athens); Written by: Brian Campbell, Jackie Cassada, Richard Jackie Cassada, Carla Hollar, Heather K. Williams, Nicky Rea, Dansky, Chris Howard, Steve Kenson, Ian Lemke, Angel Leigh Tadd McDevitt, Andie McDevitt, Beth Bostie (Asheville); Neil McCoy, Deena McKinney, Neil Mick, Wayne Peacock, Nicky Mick, Arwyn Moore, Jamar Andrews, Benjamin F. Stanton Rea, Michael Rollins (San Francisco) Angel Leigh McCoy, Gilbert Isla, Joseph W. Additional Contributions by: Phil Brucato, Richard Dan- Johns III, Marshall S. Bash, Kenneth Aunchman, Karin Arnst sky, Rob Hatch, Ethan Skemp (Blacksburg); Stephan Herman, Ian Gurudata, Tracey Ellison, Editing: Cynthia Summers Kateri Belanger, Rene Van Den Bosch, Anthony Green, Alan Additional Proofreading: Ken Cliffe, Donna Hardy, Jennifer J. Pursell, John F. Zmrotchek and many others who helped make Hartshorn, Laurah Norton, Allison Sturms, Fred Yelk this game possible. Art Director: Aileen E. Miles • Dedicated to Jim Henson, whose inspiration continues to return us to our childhood, and to Neil Gaiman, who tears Artists: Andrew Bates, Tony Diterlizzi, John Dollar, Jason aside the veil to show us our hidden dreams. Felix, Richard Kane Ferguson, David Fooden, Michael Gaydos, Rebecca Guay, Anthony Hightower, Jeff Holt, Mark Jackson, I would also like to thank everyone at White Wolf who Brian LeBlanc, Stefani McClure, Heather J. McKinney, Rick supported this project and everyone else who contributed to O’Brien, Shea Anton Pensa, Paul Phillips, Steve Prescott, Adam making this book a reality. Rex, Drew Tucker, Valerie Valusek Cover Design: Aileen E. Miles, Joshua Gabriel Timbrook Typsetting and Layout: Aileen E. Miles © 1997 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire the Masquerade, Vampire the Dark Ages and Mage the Ascension are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Æon, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Wraith the Oblivion, Changeling the Dreaming and Werewolf the Wild West are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. Reader discretion is advised. Check out White Wolf online at Samplehttp://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storyteller file 2 Changeling: The Dreaming Table of Contents Introduction 4 Prologue: The Young Knight 10 Book One: Childling 28 Chapter One: The Dreaming 30 Chapter Two: A World of Dreams 50 Chapter Three: The Kithain 84 Book Two: Wilder 112 Chapter Four: Character Creation 114 Chapter Five: Arts and Realms 170 Chapter Six: Basic Rules 190 Book Three: Grump 200 Chapter Seven: Glamour Systems 202 Chapter Eight: Dramatic Systems 228 Chapter Nine: Storytelling 258 AppendixSample file274 Contents 3 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. — The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe The gates to the Realms of Faerie are closed. Humankind were), and that they don’t always have happy endings. You has turned its back on the magical in favor of a new dream — a will discover what it is like to be exiled from your homeland, dream of a sterile, banal world with no mysteries or wonder. A persecuted for your true nature and unable to express the beauty world where all the questions have been answered and all the welling up from your soul. You will know what it is like to be puzzles of the universe solved. And yet, in the quest for this alone in a crowd, to be aware of the power of dreams and to be Utopia, much of humankind has lost a little of themselves. able to tap the power of magic. And you will learn what it is They have forgotten how to dream…. like to be helpless in the arms of Fate and unable to stop the When the last trods to Arcadia closed and the gates slammed crushing weight of Banality from robbing your memory of all shut, there still remained a few of the Fair Folk living alongside you have discovered. humanity. These stranded fae were forced to adopt a new way of Enter into the realm of the Dreaming — a place of unimag- living in order to survive the sheer power of humanity’s collective ined wonder and impossible terror. disbelief in all things magical: they became mortal themselves, sheltering their fragile faerie souls in mortal flesh. And yet these About This Book fae continue to dream of a day when humanity will once more Changeling is a game of make-believe, of pretend. But it return to the mystical. In the centuries following the Shattering, is not a “game” in the normal sense of the word; Changeling is the fae have quietly fostered the dreams of mortals, seeking to more about storytelling than it is about winning. If you’ve never usher in a return of the halcyon days when the fae were welcome played a storytelling game before, you may be confused by the and could openly walk among mortals. whole premise of such games. Once you grasp the basic concepts, Changeling is a storytelling game about the Dreaming. It’s however, you’ll find storytelling games aren’t all that strange. about lost innocence, about the cynicism of adulthood and make- You and your friends are going to tell stories of wonder and believe come to life, about imagination taking fruit. Herein you delight, tales of love and romance, tragedy and peril, lurking will find an invisible world of fantasy that exists alongside our evil and heroic triumph. And at the heart of these stories are realitySample — a place of delight, mystery and enormous peril. the lost fae. file When you play Changeling, you will come to understand These stories will capture your imagination far more read- that faerie tales aren’t just for children (not that they ever ily than any play or movie. Likewise, they are of a darker tone 4 Changeling: The Dreaming than the children’s fairy tales you might remember (although It need not be this way. Storytelling on a personal level can those, too, were rather grim in places). This is because you are be returned to our culture. This is essentially what Changeling is inside the story, not just watching it. You are creating it as you about: not stories told to us, but stories we tell others. Through go along, and the outcome is always uncertain. the game and art of collaborative storytelling, we create new What you need to do now is read this book, a little bit at a stories and claim the ancient myths and legends for our own. time, and enjoy it. You don’t have to study it like a textbook or Storytelling allows us to understand ourselves by giving us a devour it like a newspaper. Just browse. Later on, when you’re medium to explain our triumphs and defeats. By looking at our playing, you can consult and refer to whatever you need. You culture, our family and ourselves in new contexts, we can understand don’t need to memorize anything — just have an idea of what things we never before realized. Storytelling is entertaining because your character can do and understand the world in which she it is so revealing, exhilarating because it is so true. Our fascination adventures. Don’t let anything in this book scare you out of having with stories has a purpose to it — of that there is no doubt. a good time — storytelling is, first and foremost, about fun. Roleplaying Changeling is a storytelling game, but it is also a roleplay- Changeling Kind ing game. As a Changeling player, you not only tell stories, but You lead a double life, alternating between reality and fan- actually act through them by assuming the roles of the central tasy. Caught in the middle ground between dream and wakeful- characters. It’s a lot like theatre, but you make up the lines. ness, you are neither wholly fae nor wholly mortal, but burdened with the cares of both. Finding a happy medium between the To understand roleplaying, you need only think back to your wild, insane world of the fae and the deadening, banal world of childhood and those wonderful afternoons spent playing Cops humanity is essential if you are to remain whole. ‘n’ Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, or Dress-Up. What you were doing was roleplaying, a sort of spontaneous and natural acting Such a synthesis is by no means easy. Mortal affairs seem that completely occupied your imagination. This play-acting ephemeral and trivial when you stand amid the ageless mag- helped you learn about life and what it meant to be a grown-up. nificence of the Seelie Court. When you don garments spun of It was an essential part of childhood, but just because you have pure moonlight and drink wine distilled from mountain mists, grown up doesn’t mean you have to stop.