Authors: Justin Achilli, Joseph Carriker, Jess Hartley, Wood Ingham, Matthew McFarland, Peter Schaefer, John Snead, Travis Stout, Chuck Wendig, Peter Woodworth
Release Date: 2007-08-16
On Sale: Yes
Price: 34.95
ISBN: 978-1-58846-527-6
Product Type: Core Book
Product Style: Hardcover
Page Count: 210
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Review by: Christopher Lee Simmons
Rating: 10/10
An amazing game. What Changeling should have been all along.
I always wanted to be a fan of the original Changeling: The Dreaming. I fought tooth and nail to love that game, and to some extent even fooled myself into thinking I did. But the thing is, I loved the potential of Changeling, the idealized version that lived in my head, not the imperfect and jumbled game that actually stood before me. That's not to say there weren't brilliant spots, shining through the "whimsy" of the game line that Dreams and Nightmares told us we mustn't ever forget. Rich Dansky's work on Kithbook: Redcap was excellent, for example. But for every book like that, there was enough half-assed pasteboard anachronism to make Renaissance Faire geeks everywhere yell "Huzzah!"
See, here's the thing. The game that lived in my head? The game that I so desperately wanted Changeling to be, like Dorian Gray lusting after his Sybil Vane, only to discover that he was more attracted to the part, than the player? That game is Changeling: The Lost.
Banality is nowhere to be found. Technology is only mentioned insofar as it helps the changelings connect to one another, or to the extent that it doesn't exist in the Hedge. Science is not a bogeyman, and may even be a hobby of certain True Fae.
The book itself is beautiful. The cover looks even better in person than it did when White Wolf released the preview months ago. The art is, with a few exceptions, spectacular. But even the art that didn't quite grab me did the work it needed to. Unlike Scion, which had a dissonantly hip and ironic tone that felt out of place with the epic nature of the subject matter, the writing is tight, and hits on all cylinders throughout the book.
Changeling: The Lost starts out with What Alec Bourbon Said, the mandatory opening fiction. The author did a good job building the story without either giving away too much or becoming an info-dump to introduce the world. It's not necessarily easy to pick up what's going on if you aren't familiar with the original concept of changelings, but it's intriguing enough to make you say "please sir, may I have some more?"
The Introduction does what it's supposed to. It sets the mood, it... Well, it introduces the game. If you haven't read the books mentioned in Sources and Inspiration, you should. The same with the movies, actually. I would add The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke to the mix, as well, and pretty much anything by Caitlín R. Kiernan, particularly her run on The Dreaming, the followup to Neil Gaiman's Sandman, a large part of which can be found in Graphic Novel form, titled Through the Gates of Bone and Ivory.
Chapter One: The World Behind the Mask is all about the bits of changeling society you need to know to immerse yourself in their world. This includes the fae (note the lowercase "f." Only the True Fae get the proper noun capitalization) Courts, no longer the Seelie and Unseelie, now more aligned with the setting of Dark Ages: Fae. Each court is built largely around your character's reaction to the trauma she endured at the hands of the Fae. The Spring Court caters to those who want to live life to the fullest, and their ruling emotion is Desire. The summer court are those who burn with Wrath over what has been done to them. The Autumn court is full of fae that were terrorized by their Keepers, and know Fear (both their own and others') as well as they know magic. Finally, Winter is a court of Sorrowful changelings trying their best to step out of the flow, to hide and praying that the Fae don't notice them again. There's an interesting bit that links UFO abductees to the stolen victims of the Fae, that we'll get back to in a bit.
The next section is Chapter Two: Character Creation. Generally, the actual character creation section is about what you'd expect from a White Wolf game. There's nothing utterly remarkable in the first bit. The kiths are all interesting, and every seeming (which is kind of like an optional subsplat) has potential for characters. Generally, I only find one or two splats I'm really interested in, but every one gave me ideas. I've heard a few people complain that they'd prefer to be able to choose two kiths to expand their customization option. I don't really think that's necessary, but whatever floats your boat. One thing I found interesting is that the Chirurgeon kith of the Wizened seeming is described as looking like the prototypical Grays of UFO abduction fame, because what are alien abduction stories if not a modern fairy tale, and what are the victims of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers if not a modernized version of a changeling?
Moving on, we get to Contracts, the powers of the changelings. Contracts are literally that: pacts made with spirits by the Fae which the changelings can invoke by dint of the changes wrought on them in Faerie. In the earlier sections it mentions that the way things work in each Keeper's realm only mirrors our reality to the extent the Fae has forged agreements with the spirits that it would. Fire only harms because the Fae lord has given it license to do so. An interesting thing about Contracts and their Clauses... Every one has a catch, something that can be done to activate the power without expending Glamour. Some of them are kind of a pain, like "the changeling must commission the creation of an object she wishes to mimic," and some of them are fairly simple, e.g., "the changeling gives the target animal a new name." The contracts are almost all useful, though my gaming group did house-rule the level five Fang and Talon so that a skitterskulk might become a swarm of cockroaches, rather than just one. There are also Goblin Contracts, which are easy to learn, cheap, and come with significant drawbacks.
And on, to Chapter Four: Special Rules and Systems. This chapter includes fairly exhaustive rules for crafting Pledges, including a number of sample ones, including both elaborate, ceremonial wording and in-the-street casual phrases. One, in particular "Pledge of Horn and Bone," brings up a good point. The gates of Horn are, according to myth (and mentioned by Homer, Virgil, Lovecraft and others), the portals through which True dreams may pass, and the gates of Ivory (or Bone), are the portals through which False dreams may pass. After pledges, we look at the changelings' ability to pass through these gates, walk through, control and even bring things out of the dreams of others (Oneiromancy), as well as the ability to do battle in these dreams (Oneiromachy). I'm not a rules person. I usually skip over the really crunchy rules (and boy, pledges can be complex) and let Oni play rules lawyer, but in this case, the author kept it interesting and I made it all the way through. (Note: I found out after writing this section that Joe Carriker, someone who goes WAY back with ELN, is responsible for the sections on Pledges, Oneiromancy and Oneiromachy, and I think he should get due credit. Great job!)
This chapter also includes Tokens, the treasures of the fae, which also include catches. The real catch here, that makes them interesting even for games rooted solely in the mortal portion of the World of Darkness is that anyone can activate them using the catch: mortal, vampire, werewolf, mage or promethean, it doesn't matter. If, for example, a mortal (or supernatural) were to pour a pint of their blood into the gas tank of a car with Driver's Little Helpers hanging from the rearview, they would gain the effects (2/3 travel time, no need for fuel, and +1 to Drive rolls) for an hour, just like a changeling who activated it by succeeding on their Wyrd roll. The rest of the chapter covers the Hedge, entering it, exiting it, shaping it, and even the strange fruits that grow there.
Chapter Four: Storytelling is interesting for a few reasons, but first I have to include a quote that finally makes up for that stupid "whimsy" quote from Dreams and Nightmares that I've been ranting about for years:
"Certain elements of fairy tales have always suggested some degree of horror, particularly in the original stories of the Brothers Grimm, and in the real-world legends observed since time immemorial by regional cultures. Indeed, what we often think of today as fairy tales are watered-down versions of their original incarnations, softened a bit to keep children in line without terrorizing them.
Well, the hell with that. Let's bring back the terrorizing."
Thank you, whoever wrote those paragraphs. Really. from the bottom of my heart.
The rest of the storytelling chapter covers the theme, mood and aspects that you should keep in mind when running a Changeling game. It also includes Fetch creation, and a nice smattering of antagonists, from loyalist changelings to exiled Fae, to hobgoblins and psychopaths. The chapter ends with a look at the Goblin Markets (watch Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or Stardust for a nice visual look at a Goblin Market, or read some of the Courtney Crumrin graphic novels by Ted Naifeh.
After all that, there are still two appendices: Appendix One: Entitlements brings us to a sort of Bloodline analog, "noble" orders a character can join during the course of gameplay. The Scarecrow Ministry appears to be a favorite, and for good reason. They're nifty. But I'm also interested in the Bishopric of Blackbirds and the College of Worms. The end of the appendix includes a bit on creating your own Entitlements, for your own games... Or publication on ELN...
Finally, Appendix Two: The Freehold of Miami gives us the sample setting of Changeling, the Trident, the Freehold of Endless Summer. Miami is a perfect example of how changeling society is not supposed to work, which is nice, because it has the effect of breaking down assumptions that the way changeling society is described is the way it is. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean your chronicle can't deviate, like a septum. ;P
Really, I can't say much of anything bad about Changeling: The Lost. I'm kind of glad that it came out after Scion, because I'm not sure when we would have gotten around to playing our Scion game, if it hadn't. It really is good enough to deserve a 10 out of 10... Hell, I'd be a Ruthless Person and rate it 11 if I could.
