[Closed] Changeling: the Dreaming - Yours to Keep

A jumpstart adventure for Changeling: the Dreaming
CHIVALRY ISN'T DEAD

There is magic hiding everywhere. You just need to know where to look.

You are a changeling, a faerie soul hiding in a mortal body, fighting the chill of Nightmares and the oppressive weight of Banality with the pure creative power of Glamour. You have lived many lives, but the story of this one? It outshines them all.

In this hidden world, knights in steel and leather clash sword to sword outside the homecoming dance, dragons fly between skyscrapers, and fantastic castles rise from suburban lawns. A world of magic, intrigue, and adventure, and now that your fae side has awakened, it's your world too.



Characters
There are pre-generated characters available, or players may make their own. If the motley agrees to continue the game beyond the initial adventure, then you will be welcome to continue using the pregen. If you suspect the game will have legs, you may wish to create your own either initially. Lastly, if we do continue the game to Detroit, we can discuss character changes at that time.

The Pre-Generated Characters
Erissa Brightwood - Seelie Autumn Sidhe Wilder, House Liam
Errant Sharely - Seelie Piskie Childling
William Ashe - Unseelie Sluagh
Cid Steelskin - Seelie Troll Wilder, House Liam
Lily Stoneheart - Unseelie Redcap Wilder



Post Frequency & Commitment
Players in this game should try to post daily. I expect the initial adventure to take about 3 months to complete if we can keep to this schedule. Expect some amount of slow-down during major holidays.

Big Dream: This scenario is a jumpstart, and is intended to serve as a starting off point for a full campaign. As such, I've spent some time workshopping a broader setting of Detroit. Should we all love the setting and the characters as set up, then following the introductory adventure, we can open the door to a broader world and step through. However, if we decide not to continue, then we'll have seen CtD in action and can be satisfied with that.

Themes and Tone
Changeling: the Dreaming is seen by some as a lighter, more fantasy-based setting in the modern-day, and by others as the darkest game White Wolf had yet created as players have to face the question of what happens once creativity and magic fades from their world.

Who can Apply?
Anyone is welcome to apply if they can keep up with the post schedule and are in it for the long haul. A positive experience for all players is my number one priority, and I will strive to be sensitive to the needs of all players.

How to Apply
To apply, leave a comment in this post to tell me about what intrigues you about Changeling: the Dreaming. I'm most interested in their mood, energy, and personality. If you do have a concept that you would love to see come to life, I'm all ears (but again, pre-gens are available).

I'll take my favorites and use a die roll for a tie breaker. My optimum motley would have two users I know to be reliable, one or two with lots of zeal for this particular World of Darkness game, and someone I've not played with before. Knowledge of Changeling: the Dreaming is not required.

This post will be open until Friday, July 25, so take your time. I'll take four or five players.

Questions?
Ask away in this thread, or feel free to private message me.

I have zero knowledge of the gaming system.But I do love the atmosphere of the setting.

I like the mixture of modern day fantasy combined with fae / fairytale magic. It is among my favorite fantasy tropes.

I am fine going for a pregen, but I would generally favor to make a custom character. For that I would need to learn a bit more of the rules and detailed themes first.

My character idea I'd like to explore would be someone who goes through daily life dismissing magic. Trying to be party of a cool gang. But is actually the soul of some Seelie nobility.

Thanks for expressing interest, Heyde!

The Storyteller™ system that underpins the World of Darkness line of games is a simple d10 dice pool system - you match an attribute with a skill, both rated from 0 to 5 dots, and roll the sum of those many dice, with each die result on or over the difficulty (target number) resulting in a success.

Character creation involves first choosing a kith (class/ancestry), court (seelie/unseelie), legacy (personality archetype), and seeming (age: chilling, wilder, or grump), then spending points between 9 attributes, about 30 skills, some background points, and some magic abilities. Then merits and flaws can be chosen to give you additional flavor (such as being a reborn noble soul, or not really believing in magic). Most of that could be easily guided without having the corebook, except the magic system which would be more difficult to summarize in a post. There are wikis online that do have most of it spelled out.

That sounds cool, and I will be looking into that a lot more in the comming days. As for character creation; I have the outline draft of who she could be. Depending on the motley, I will finalize her idea and then add the mechanics of the system.

A wild Changeling chronicle appears! Kinda have mixed feelings.. I really enjoy the core ideas of Changeling, but the light dnd-esque fantasy portion never quite appealed to me. I would still be interested in exploring it, however few things stop me from screaming "YES ME":

1) lesser understanding/memory of rules (pretty meh reason, i suppose)

2) post frequency - i run two games and have joined a mage game here recently. both of my games seem like they will have enter a more active phase soon and while the Mage game doesn't seem like it's going to have a galloping speed, it is still a time commitment that i've made because i want to play mage. so i'm not sure if i'll be able to match the posting rate. implying that most of the messages will be medium to long, which seems likely for WoD, but maybe the format of a chronicle with a determined plot points will be tighter?

3) themes and moods. you've described them for the line (and maybe the jumpstart), but what about the game itself? will it be leaning more into lighthearted fantasy adventures, depressive exestencialia or ubran/gutter punk gloom? i'm definitely more dark/dramatic-themes leaning type. which in Changeling terms would be the explorations of the nature of a man Banality - why is it and how to keep it bay without going insane? are you the kith or is the kith you? nightmares are just a type of dream. inspiration vs obsession. that sort of thing.

4) i don't particularly mind the present kith, but i think they lost a good opportunity to distinguish CtD from other oWoD lines by having a kith "configurator" instead of preset types, like with Clans or Tribes. so i'd be more interested in making a new kith rather than picking one. not for any mechanical advantages (don't care much about those), but to fulfill the core - create something.

Hopefully this made sense, because it is very late and i'm going to bed now. Good evening.

I'm very interested in a Changeling game! Personally, I enjoy Changeling's lighter, more ambiguous themes of "technically good-aligned" in contrast to the more blatantly monstrous WoD splats(Vampires, Werewolves, etc). It allows for more of a neutral standpoint to work from in my opinion, and for greater contrast and depth of storytelling than if one was simply limited to the perspective of someone or something that actively lurks in the night.

The concept I would like to try out most would be the stereotypical Troll Knight of House Scathach, who would ordinarily have been full of fire and brimstone to do good and right wrongs, but as the years progressed and the animosity House Scathach is afflicted with begins weighing down on him, he'd need to puzzle out what exactly drew him to chivalry and kind deeds. Was it the glory and recognition all along, or was it something closer to home? But further workshopping can be done once the game starts and I hammer down the concept to more specific points.

In regards to the tone of the full campaign, should it proceed that far, here's the summary for the Detroit seeing from AI workshopping* I did:

* While I've used ChatGPT to suggest ideas and directions for the game, any content will be hand written.

Detroit, Michigan: the city of broken industry and buried potential. Glamour once flowed here in rivers of steel and Motown rhythm. But Banality choked it, and now only fragments remain: half-awake Freeholds hidden in forgotten theaters, in the heart of a shuttered auto plant, or beneath a crumbling jazz club where echoes still dance.

The Dreaming is thin here, stretched taut—but not broken.

I think that feeling of the rusty decline of Detroit is a wonderful analog to Banality, and a strong contrast to the albeit infrequent wonders of Glamour.

Hi Qralloq!

Thanks for offering such a chance to play CtD. I played it for a one-shot 20 years ago and would love to revisit. I never fully got Changeling, to be honest, but I would love to try. :)

Sidhe, Eshu, Satyr—the ideas are many, and I would have to consult the rulebook (which I just found) before coming to a decision. Listened to a lot of Harry Dresden the last few months, so there may be some blatant stealing and being "inspired" to come.

The commitment is not a problem on my part. Normally the DMs give up, long before I do. But I want to be clear that there are a few things upcoming in August that will delay me getting into the game (holiday with the kids for 2 weeks in FAR away, a wedding where I am the best man, my wife's birthday). It all should be over on the 20th. Hope that's alright.

But if that could be managed I would love to join your game and flee the banality of my existence through the dark winter and beyond! :D

Hi there!

I find Detroit to be a fascinating setting—its mix of decay and resilience really sparks the imagination. I was especially drawn in by the way it was portrayed in "Only Lovers Left Alive". That feeling of the old giving way to the new, not always for the better, seems like a theme that fits both our world and the world of the fae. There's something about the contrast between Dreaming and Banality that feels very relevant right now.

I’m new to the system, but I have some friends who can help me out if I get stuck. I’ve always found the fae intriguing—mysterious, powerful, but also fading in a way that makes them feel very human.

I’m currently in just one other game that moves at a relaxed pace, so I should be able to post about once a day. That said, I’ll be away from August 6th to 19th and might not have consistent internet during that time.

Thank you for considering me :)

I must say that a number of times I've been interested in trying one of the World of Darkness games and I am always vastly intimidated by the shear mountain of lore these volumes contain. I've listened to some pod casts and done some reading of the rules. Very interesting concepts within Changeling.

As you may have guessed based on the above, I have never played Changeling or any other WoD games, but I am very much interested. I am almost always on daily, although only a few games actually require a post every day.

Originally I was thinking of a Troll which seemed more like a traditional character I might play, but I was curious about the fact that two of the premade seemed to be more "evil" characters. At least that was my first interpretation, but after reading up on the Sluagh - perhaps they are just misunderstood >:) I must say, playing one well may be a stretch for me, but seems like a fun challenge.

So I would be interested in either creating my own Sluagh or looking over the pre-made William Ashe - Unseelie Sluagh.

Hello. I guess you might remember me as the other kind of changeling.

I never played CtD before, being more of a MtA player with a brief touch of VtM. I tend to gravitate towards two sorts of roles - the sneaky loner type (stereotypically Obertus/Sluagh), or the 'social bulldozer' type (Zantosa/Sidhe), though of course not exclusively. I'm not yet sure what I would pick if allowed to join.

As for what I find interesting about CtD:

• I like some of the ideas behind the Seelie/Unseelie dichotomy, especially the 'Seelie is not good, Unseelie is not evil' approach (contrasted against some of the more black-and-white interpretations, allegedly more common before C20 tried to get things more nuanced again).
• As mentioned, I like two of the archetypes that map reasonably well onto Kiths, though that's a first-glance reaction.
• I think hope and stubbornness in the face of seemingly unstoppable darkness is a good theme, though I'm not sure whether I'd want to play a wholly 'ISO-Standard' variant of that theme.
• There's also the interesting debate about Banality: I know many detractors of CtD latch onto the idea of equating Banality with science, logic, and maths, but I like the idea that it does not have to be that way, and that the sense of discovery and wonder are Glamorous - a lot depends on the attitude. I'm not sure whether this would come up in a campaign and whether my preferred view has any 'support' in the current interpretation of the setting.

A chance to resist Banality? Isn't that precisely why we're all on GP in the first place?

Changelings have to be my favourite fairy tale creatures. They're interesting because they have a foot in each world and don't really fit in anywhere, and I find it fascinating how the classic changeling myth taps into some of the most primal fears for both parents and children: What if something took my baby? What if my parents aren't my real parents? In spite of all that, I've never actually managed to play a changeling game, so I would love to try CtD.

I realise that CtD changelings don't follow the standard baby-stealing-fae myth, but it looks like they've replaced it with something equally interesting. From what I've read so far, the Dreaming reminds me of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and it sounds like a great setting for the kind of collaborative storytelling I like.

I've played some WoD games before (a VtR game and a Demon quick start, both PbP on another site), but it's years ago and I don't know how transferable that experience is anyway. However, I enjoy learning new systems and I've just picked up the rules pdf, so I expect to be able to catch up. I've started reading, but I'm not ready to formulate a concept yet. I need a better grasp of the lore first, so a pre-gen may be the way to go. Either way, I would be flexible with what to play because there seem to be plenty of interesting options.

I like the idea of starting with a quickstart and potentially continuing on to Detroit if everything works out well.

I can commit to posting once per day (typically late in the evening CET). I've been able to do that consistently since I rejoined GP late last year after a rather long break.

This made me think.

I would definitely consider sense of discovery glamorous, and I'm sure many scientists have hopes and dreams related to their research. But once the results have been processed and published and put to use then I guess banality can set in.

As an example, consider the Moon landing. It's a bit before my time, but I'm sure the quest to put a person on the Moon sparked a lot of dreams -- both in the people participating and in the general public. But once the mission was over, the Moon arguably became more banal. There was less room dreams about what wonders the it might hold.

Some people still dream of the Moon. The child that wants to be an astronaut. The researcher looking for signs of water. And maybe even a megalomanic billionaire dreaming about how to exploit its riches. But to most people, it's just a big rock that has lost its magic.

The Moon landing had a huge consequence in CtD. The outpouring of wonder was so global that it may have actually opened the door to Arcadia allowing the Sidhe came back to Earth. As such it's really the starting point of the modern era. That time is called the Resurgence, the beginning of the fifth age of Changeling history.

Nice. I haven't made it that far in the lore yet, so my example was just a lucky coincidence. I'll take it as a sign that my understanding of the Dreaming is not completely off.

The only reason I havent voiced my interest is that I'm on vacation and will not be home for a couple of weeks.

Thanks everyone who put their keys in the hat. I've decided through combination of choice and random roll to invite: @Heyde, @Adrasthea, @DrifterDwarf, @vicky_molokh, and @runestone

Look for invitations in about twelve hours and once inside the game we can discuss character creation and expectations.

Thank you.

In the mean time, I tried to read some of C20. I think I'm currently leaning towards a social-leaning Autumn Sidhe, either Wilder or Grump, probably low nobility, probably some sort of rich socialite with an art gallery or the like inspiring a bunch of artistic dreamers (either that or having a freehold in the gallery). I would want to explore the Unseelie-is-not-evil, Seelie-is-not-good theme, and pick an Unseelie legacy and house, though I'm sure which yet.

I'd like to 'call dibs' on such a concept.

Yay. Looking forward to it :)

Thinkimg Selkie or Arcandian Sidhe

Invitations sent. You can see those in the game page (linked at the top) or on the front page of the site.