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How Changeling Works

Ex Libris Nocturnis - http://www.nocturnis.net By: Daniel Arbuckle (email: djarb@wvc-omak.ctc.edu) Summary: Or, One Man's Interpretation Thereof.

Forward
I've seen a lot of questions about Changeling recently. For various reasons, it seems, a short detailed overview would be welcomed. This is such an overview. I have made every effort to stick to cannon here, in that I do not believe that I contradict the Word of White Wolf anywhere within. Additionally, I believe that what I present here matches closely with the ideas that were in the developers' heads when they wrote the books. However, Changeling is not a game where every detail has been provided, and there are blanks left for the players and Storytellers to fill in. This document is rife with details which fit into those holes but which should not be taken as cannon. This work is presented in the hope that it will help new players reap the rewards of playing Changeling, help experienced players perhaps pin down one or two niggling confusions, and help storytellers of all stripes by providing them with another perspective on the great Changeling setting. In that spirit, I hope you enjoy this work and find it useful.

Dreams, Emotions and Belief

Changeling is about dreams, and the struggle to retain belief in a world that believes in nothing. Changeling is about emotions, and the struggle to keep feeling in a world where acting emotionally is considered a sign of weakness or even insanity. These two statements may seem contradictory, but they aren't. There is a deep and fundamental connection between dreams and emotions; dreams are emotions given shape. Since emotion is the more fundamental of the two, it is usually easier to talk about Changeling in terms of emotion. Just don't forget: Dreams are emotions given form.

Glamour and Banality

Glamour is the power of emotion; the stuff which gives substance to dreams. Banality is the absence of Glamour - if Glamour is like heat, then Banality is like cold. In the chart below, several emotions are displayed. At the center is a point where all emotion is canceled out; this is Banality. Each emotion in the graph is displayed on the opposite side of the circle from another emotion which cancels it. Joy and Sorrow are both equally Glamorous, but each brings the other closer to Banality. This ability of Glamour to bring Banality is at the core of many conflicts between changelings. Each changeling prefers a certain flavor of Glamour, and changelings who prefer the oppositional flavor of Glamour are natural opponents. Note: The word Glamour is used not in the sense of "she's glamorous" but in the sense of "casting a glamour." "A glamour" is a type of transformative magic in fairy tales. As we'll see later, Changeling's use of the word is quite appropriate.

Changelings
Changelings are the result of a merging of Faerie with Human. They are both, or neither. Faeries are literally living dreams; emotion made substance. Canonically called chimerae, faeries come in many shapes and sizes. Most of them haven't had the opportunity or desire to become changelings. Those faeries who have become changelings sacrificed much, but gained much as well. Much of the power and glory of the fae is diminished by the merging with a human. Even the memories of their long immortal lives are buried. To justify such a loss, the gain would have be enormous, and it is. Changelings can survive in a world where dreams are no longer given even second-class status. They can walk down the street. They can interact with the world well enough to nurture the Glamour that they need to survive. A changeling is not a faerie who is controlling a human body. A changeling is a single person whose spirit and psyche are made up of both mortal and faerie, twining around and through each other to an extent that they can be separated only by the death of the mortal. The faerie part, being immortal, must then find a new human to merge with. There is a less diminishing procedure which allows a faerie to evict a mortal soul from a body and then take its place; the effects on the faerie are about the same as when becoming a changeling, except for three points: The faerie is not demeaned by contact with a mortal soul, a bit more of the faerie's power survives, and the faerie gives up immortality. By taking the mortal soul's place in the body, the faerie also takes the mortal soul's place in the great scheme of things. While this may seem like a pretty bad trade, the proud and noble Sidhe choose this method of interacting with the mortal world. Let the commoners soil themselves by mixing with mortals.

The world according to changelings

Dreams can survive in the physical world only when they are part of a physical object, but there is a place where physical objects can survive only when they are part of a dream. This place is the land under the hills; the Dreaming. Changelings, being mixed scions of both the physical world and the Dreaming, experience both worlds at once. They experience the two worlds as one. However, the mixture isn't usually half-andhalf. The ratio of physical to Dreaming depends on the situation and the whim of the storyteller, but it is usually tilted in favor of reality. Thus it is that a changeling might encounter a dragon walking down main street. The dragon is in the Dreaming and main street is in the physical world. To a changeling, though, this separation of worlds might as well not exist. To the dragon, on the other hand, main street doesn't exist. The dragon could walk right through a building without even being aware of it. Only the changeling, who exists in both worlds, can interact with both worlds at once. Of course, being in two worlds at once can be a problem. A changeling might find that he can't walk down a hallway because there's a wall across it in the other world. The only choices are to go around or to make a hole in the wall. Changelings are bound by the rules of both worlds at once, and only their magic gives them any leeway to bend those rules. Although the vast majority of dreams exist in the Dreaming, there are some which which exist in the physical world. Usually dreams decay and disappear quickly, but if a dream is protected by the solidity of a physical object it can survive. When people feel something intensely it often births a dream. When that Glamour is focussed on a physical object, the newly created dream becomes part of that object and is protected by that object. Anything in the physical world can have a dream aspect: people, places, toys, clothing, rocks, ad infinitum. These dream aspects

of physical objects are an important part of the world for changelings. It is the changeling tendency to see and interact with the emotional content in things which sets them apart from everyone else. For many changelings, the dream aspects of physical objects are the most commonly encountered type of dream. Glamour, then, is the magic that transforms things. Those pebbles are really gems, those dollar bills are really leaves. This smelly old crashspace is really a sumptuous dwelling suitable for a prince. This is why the word Glamour is used for the power of emotion. The separation between worlds blurs around a changeling. It is as if they smudge the line between here and there. A changeling weapon can strike an enemy who is in a different world from the weapon (a dream weapon can strike a physical enemy, a physical weapon can strike a dream enemy), and a changeling's purely dream companions can often see the physical world when they're with the changeling. There's no hard and fast rule for this blurring, except that the end result should be that to changelings, it's all one world.

History and Cosmology

In the time before time, there was no difference between dream and reality. To describe a thing's physical appearance was to describe the emotions associated with it. That changed though, as humans learned the value of cold rationality. Long ago, the world was Sundered, the dream forever separated from the real. The two halves of the world floated apart, but they remained tied together. Mortals and faeries could still cross between worlds. This remained the state of the world for a very long time. But the longer it went on, the fewer mortals chose to cross into the world of dreams. Eventually, mortals began actively trying to divest themselves of the dream world, and thus began the Shattering. One by one, the connections holding most of the Dreaming to the physical world were cut. As these connections broke, bits and pieces of the Dreaming were snapped off by the force of the humans' rejection and sent floating away from the physical world. Although still a complete world when seen from the inside, the Dreaming is a shattered world floating in the depths. A small piece of the Dreaming, the part containing those small and petty dreams which humanity still allows itself, is still anchored to the physical world. This land, called the Near Dreaming, is the only gateway left between the physical world and the Dreaming. Even this small part of the Dreaming was made inaccessible by the Shattering; the connections with it were not destroyed, but they were made nearly impassable. It was the Shattering that provoked faeries into becoming changelings. With their connections to the Dreaming dangerous and crowded by nobles desperate to get free of the trap they suddenly found themselves in, commoner faeries of several sorts decided that the best bet for survival was to find a way to live in a world without a connection to the Dreaming. What they found was a ritual for merging with a human. The Changeling Way saved the commoners, and even allowed them to prosper after a fashion. For 600 years, the changeling commoners were the only faeries. During this time, the world changed enormously, as those few who still allowed themselves to feel strongly and dream deeply pushed the rest of humanity along at an ever increasing pace. Many of these same people encouraged the rest of humanity to give up their dreams and ignore their emotions. It perplexed many of the changelings that dreamers could discourage dreaming, but it was true. Then came a temporary reversal. The 1960s were a good year for the changelings. People were rejecting their limitations and embracing their dreams. Women's Liberation, Rock and Roll, Free Love... the list goes on. The capstone came in 1969, with two events. One was the Woodstock concert. The other was the greatest achievement of changelings and dreamers since the Sundering: a man walked on the moon. The Glamour that this achievement ignited in people worldwide restored the connections to the Near Dreaming. Now that the roads were back, many of the nobles who had fled 600 years earlier came back to the physical world (stealing mortal bodies in the process). They expected to be able to simply pick up where they had left off; rulers of the faeries of the world. There was a problem with that plan, though: the commoners had caught the "representational government" bug. They were none too happy with being lorded over by the high and mighty who had been living it up in the Dreaming while they struggled in the physical world. There was a vicious civil war fought between the two factions. The nobles won, even though they were vastly outnumbered, because they were trained in military tactics and because they have a truly imposing presence. Many commoners found themselves wondering if maybe the reason the nobles were so beautiful and so hard to disobey was because they really were rightful rulers. The war only seemed to end, though. Three decades later, it seems it was more of a hiatus than a finis. The changeling empire in North America has lost its ruler under mysterious circumstances, and as a result the war has begun again. Simultaneously with this - perhaps as a cause, perhaps as an effect, perhaps due to other events - the Fomorians are becoming more active in their lairs deep in the Dreaming. Insightful changelings are preparing for a war which will make this civil war look like a practice skirmish. Which may be exactly what it is.

Changeling society
Changelings are divided into two courts: the summer court and the winter court (called Seelie and Unseelie, respectively). Each court is home to changelings whose preferred form of Glamour was commonly generated by people during the appropriate season, back when the seasons were an incredibly significant part of life. Emotions like those in the top half of the chart generally fall into the summer court, while the lower half is representative of emotions in the province of the winter court. Don't get the idea that the Unseelie are just about villainy, though. Summer was a time of hard work and responsibilities, while the winter was a time for relaxing around the fire, telling stories, or seducing that lovely wench next door. These and many other traits are also reflected in the courts. There is a third social group being brought to light by the meta-plot: the Fomorians and their servants. The Fomorians are best described as Cthonic; their servants are merely evil. They represent a threat the changelings specifically and the world in general; it may be that the courts unify to long enough to fight them. In any case, the Fomorians are a social force which is currently mostly hidden but definitely significant.

Changeling magic

Changelings can theoretically achieve any Effect though their magic, and they can counter the magic of a human magus. Changeling magic, though, goes without paradox. Before you get too worried about changelings being too magically potent, keep in mind that the Arts are more focussed than the Spheres are. Where a human magus would study Correspondence (the Sphere of position and distance), a changeling would have to study several Arts including Wayfare (the Art of getting from here to there) and Soothsay (the Art of seeing through space and time). The Spheres of human magic are the most empowering form of magic, by a large measure. It may be that changeling magic avoids paradox because its study involves the in-depth understanding of a single concept at a time. This narrow and deep focus may make the results of changeling magic fit into the universe more neatly and with less rejection.

Changeling life
So, you woke up this morning and there was a beautiful royal blue silk coverlet where your old comforter should have been. You went into the kitchen and all your glasses have turned into crystalline goblets. Your dog talked to you. Then the really weird stuff started to happen. Things like your boss growing horns in the middle of lecturing you about being late again, and your cubicle walls being made of stone and having manacles set into them. The whip that your project supervisor carries around all day and uses on you occasionally. There's beautiful princess locked in cubicle 12 who keeps telling you she doesn't want to be rescued. When you finally get home, you find that one of your friends has left something (you don't have a clue what, but it's active) in the refrigerator. Welcome to life as a changeling. Congratulations, you have the headaches and worries of two worlds to deal with. On the other hand, you get two worlds worth of triumph and beauty too. "To live will be a great adventure." (Peter Pan, "Hook")

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