"Whispered words, pickled and preserved!"

One more bit of flavor text from my old Changeling game, and then I'll revert to something more topical, I promise.

The path you take is a narrow, cavernous affair, crowded with trees and brush that seem to grip at your clothing and hair. When the wind blows, you’d swear you can hear muttering and whispering in the blackness. Off in the distance, a twig snaps loudly. As you shuffle uncertainly down the path, the eerie sounds seem to increase in volume and frequency. Strange music, equally earthy and ethereal, drifts between the dark treetrunks, and soon you can see silver-blue light. As you get closer, the light makes your path clearer, until you find yourself stepping into the surreal madness of the Nightmarket.

This is no gathering of changelings, and the colloquial term “goblin market” is no exaggeration. Most of the creatures here were never human, and the wares they hawk and vend defy mortal understanding. The forest canopy crowds down on you, and is lit by the same diffuse blue glow that illumines the Nightmarket. Vines and wispy scraggles of moss hang down among the booths, carts, and heads of the creatures here. The whole place is less a forest clearing and more a cavernous grotto of branch, root, and trunk.

The variety of goods is staggering. Jars and bottles of eyes that twitch to watch passersby. Strange gourds and fruits from the Hedge. Ancient books of faerie lore. The foreskins of heretical men. Feathers and skins from exotic beasts. Hedgespun garments. Contracts. Dried herbs. Fresh herbs. Broken toys. Stolen songs. Lost dogs. Forgotten dreams. Potions, distilled from the saliva of apes and the menstrual blood of horses. The hands of hanged men. Jars of fat, rendered from the bellies of the unrepentant. Bird bones and boneless birds. Preserved fish, dead in their jars. Graveyard earth.

“Toes… toes for sale… two times two, three times three, toes for sale….”
“Gemstones, fine jewelry! Opals, tourmaline, diamonds, petrified heart! Strung with pearls, set in rings!”
“Contracts… oaths of power and mystery…”
“Lies… lies for sale… two times two, four times four…”
“Suicide letters, freely exchanged for reagents of twisted earth…”
“Hopes and Fears, we buy and sell.”

Goblin-creatures of varied and outrageous appearance populate the market. Here a tiny crone pushes a cart of doll’s eyes. There a vine-entwined nymph, bare-breasted and with leaves in her hair, laughs at the flirtation of a grotesque dwarf. He pulls open the front of his pants, giving her a glimpse inside, and the two laugh uproariously. At the base of a dying oak, a team of huge-eyed gnomes, made of earth and dressed in leaves, unloads a cart of tools. Across from them, an ancient man of polished wood squats naked on a mossy carpet. Everywhere you look it is busy, as goods change hands at a madman’s pace.

“Whispered words, pickled and preserved!”
“Charms, tokens, and treasures, all stolen…”
“Burned candles, broken promises!”
“Shrouds, all for a pittance… corpse-clothes, burial shrouds…”
“Greed, Bitterness, Loss, and Sorrow, Pain and Suffering by the ounce.”
“Oracles! Divination! I see all!”

Changeling-inspired fictionette

Just a little piece I felt like writing when I first started reading Changeling: The Lost.  I feel like this gives a sense of some of what this game can be.

I only have room enough in here to open one eye. There's not much to see, because there's really no light anyway. It's dusty and cramped, full of hard splintery wood and crumbly plaster. You wouldn't like it, but it's about the only place I can sleep anymore. I found a mouse skeleton over there yesterday.

My name is Hester and I sleep inside walls. I like the older walls in the B-Wing best, the stuff that was put up forty years ago. They still have the old cellulose insulation in some places, and they're sturdier than the synthetic ones in the Goldsmith Wing. I started sleeping inside the walls here about a month ago; before that I curled up wherever I didn't think any of the staff would find me. Sometimes in supply closets, sometimes in the archive, and sometimes right there in the stacks. The staff never saw me.

Still, I crawled inside the wall after the fifth morning that I woke up crying again. I couldn't stop. I don't know why I was crying, I can't remember any dreams. But I felt so awful and sad, so I just went over to a crack by the baseboard and just sort of wiggled my way in.

It's not so bad. I feel safe in here, and I haven't woken up crying in a while. I've started bringing in some of the old books too. I have a pile of some of my favorites (The Well-Tempered Clavichord, books two, three, five, and seven of The Waverly Novels, and a 1914 Sears-Roebuck catalog) keeping my mouse company now. I can't really read my books in here because it's dark, but it's easier to keep them safe.

I think Bastion would be disappointed if he saw me like this, but he wouldn't really get it either. Ever since he returned from Foolspoint, it's like he's a different person. Not that I think he was Taken and replaced (again), but... I don't know, when he listens to me, he doesn't really hear me anymore. I haven't seen that much of him in the past couple of weeks. Terrible Claire told me that Bastion has been very busy with his duties to the Scarecrow Ministry. I guess they're in negotiation with some goblin out in the Hedge who claims he's got a bottle of Bastion's memories for sale.

A better friend would be happy, I guess, but if those really are Bastion's memories and he really manages to get them back, all it's going to do is put more distance between me and him. I miss him.

I think I'm going to go out tonight. Terrible Claire said that there's going to be some kind of gathering down at the Bend tonight, for the equinox. I don't really like the Bend most of the time, but Bastion will probably be there and I should talk to him before he forgets me entirely. There's going to be a really lovely moon out tonight, and Terrible Claire thinks that Sister might show up to tell us a story. If she does, I'm going to write it down, because it'd be a shame to lose Sister's stories. I wonder if she'd meet me to start recording them?

Nobody's seen Tim for a while. Mr. Abraham says he heard Tim found his family. I hope that's true.

I should go get cleaned up if I'm going out tonight.

Changeling: The Lost, one you may have missed

It's not new, having launched in 2007, and like many of the lesser-known World of Darkness titles, flew under a lot of peoples' radar.  I'm bringing it up again because I feel like it's a game that deserves a lot more attention than it got.  This is a truly deep, compelling game, with some stirring themes and imagery.

I feel like White Wolf got it right. This game has a purer feel to it than its precedent title. The faerie tale elements are all there. The supernatural element is what it should be: raw, elemental, potent, and terrible. Dreaming changelings had to carefully husband the faerie parts of their lives; Lost changelings run the risk of being overwhelmed by it.  This is a game about people who are victims of something greater and more terrible than themselves, but ultimately turn those victimizing forces into essential aspects of a new identity.  It has a timeless quality found in the writing of Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman and the Brothers Grimm.

Published by White Wolf as another installment in their reincarnated World of Darkness line, The Lost is drastically different from its ancestor, The Dreaming. In the Dreaming, changelings were mortal people who housed faerie souls and lived in two worlds: the physical world we all know, and an immaterial overlay of living dreams. The supernatural half of this dual reality existed only for its participants, and was vulnerable to the forces of disbelief and denial. Children's imaginary friends or monsters under the bed were real to the changelings, as were more classic faerie beings. This world of enchantment was fragile and prone to vanishing for individuals who wander too far into day-to-day drudgery, but those that strayed too far into it were often driven mad.

However, The Lost takes a more archetypal approach, drawing more on traditional faerie tales. Changelings are mortals who, at some point, were abducted by the True Fae, and carted off to Faerie. There, they slaved and served at the whims of their ethereal, godlike masters in a realm more beautiful and terrible than anything they'd imagined could exist. Memories of former lives dwindled and faded, and the magic of Faerie inundated these people until they were no longer truly human. Eventually, they escaped from Faerie, through the barrier between the worlds called the Hedge, back into their own world.

Except it wasn't their world anymore. Many return to find that time has passed dramatically. Oftentimes, the changelings return to friends and family to find that they were never missed; they had been replaced by a fae-made imposter called a Fetch. Frequently Changelings have flawed memory of life before their abduction, and recall their time in Faerie only through dreams or vague (but overwhelming) sensations.

Unable to return home, or not even knowing where home is, the changelings find each other. Mortal eyes see changelings as normal people, but they can see each other's fae aspect. They band together for camaraderie, friendship, mutual understanding, and protection. The enchanted world they share is not the fragile fantasy of The Dreaming, it is an awful, brutal reality that seeks to hunt them down and drag them back, through the Hedge, to their immortal Keepers.

This new iteration of Changeling has one of the most open-ended character generation systems I've ever seen. In the past, there were a handful of kiths that a player could choose (Nocker, Boggan, Eshu, Sidhe, Satyr, Troll, Pooka, Sluagh... did I forget any?). Now, there are six Seemings: Darklings (the insidious things from the deep dark places in Faerie), Ogres, the Wizened (sage in appearance and ability), Beasts (changelings with one or more animal aspects), Elementals (those that were shaped by their keepers into material objects or overexposed to raw natural forces), and the Fairest (humans abducted to be singers, dancers, courtesans, and lovers to the True Fae).

Each Seeming has six or seven Kiths associated with it, which takes the overall role and appearance determined by Seeming and refines it by detailing specific powers, and expanding on particular aspects of the Seeming's role. For example, Darklings might be Antiquarians (hoarders of books and forgotten knowledge), Gravewights (those who deal with the dead), Leechfingers (who steal life from mortals), Mirrorskins (changers of shape and appearance), and Tunnelgrubs (goblinesque creepers capable of squirming through extremely narrow spaces).

Each changeling also has a Mantle. Rather than being simply Seelie or Unseelie, each changeling is (usually) allied with the forces of a particular season. The Winter Court embodies Sorrow, the Spring Desire, the Summer Wrath, and the Autumn Fear.

Finally, changelings frequently can have Entitlements. These represent membership with particular houses, factions, or secret societies that grant supernatural boons, and instill an agenda. The Duchy of the Icebound Heart, for instance, grants its members supernatural influence over those whose hearts they have personally broken.



The theme of The Lost is beautiful madness, and like many of White Wolf's other titles, it asks a great deal of its troupe.  The potential for gripping, tragic storytelling is there, if the players and storyteller are ready and able.  The strong fibers of loss, isolation, confusion, and insanity are interwoven with myth, beauty, poetry, and raw elemental power to create something that can inspire players.  It certainly inspired me.