Changeling: The Lost: Difference between revisions

removed reference to deleted page
m (update links)
(removed reference to deleted page)
Line 1:
{{work}}
[[File:CtL3 6694.jpg|frame|When [[Karma Meter|morality]] and [[Sanity Meter|reality]] fall apart, [[Loss of Identity|so do you]].]]
 
 
The successor to ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'' and fifth of the [[New World of Darkness]] games, following ''[[Vampire: The Requiem|Vampire]]'', ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken|Werewolf]]'', ''[[Mage: The Awakening|Mage]]'' and ''[[Promethean: The Created|Promethean]]''. Player characters are Changelings, humans who were stolen from their lives by the [[The Fair Folk|True Fae]] of Arcadia and kept as slaves or servants. Changelings are no longer entirely human, having been tormented in positively [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]] ways until they were broken in either body, mind, soul, or all of the above, and then rebuilt according to the True Fae's whims. The player characters, and many non-player character Changelings, are those who managed to fight, sneak, run, or trick their way back to freedom and the mortal world, but even when they return they bear the scars of their experience. Their very bodies have been changed into inhuman shapes. Their eyes have been opened so that they can see the truth of things, but they are also beset by hallucinations and tricks of perception. Worst of all is the constant, nagging worry: ''what if I never escaped? What if this is all a trick... or if I was '''allowed''' to leave?''
Line 240 ⟶ 239:
* [[Instant Expert]]: One of the early Clauses of the Contract of Animation is to give the Changeling who uses it an innate knowledge of how to use a device. Combined with the ability to gain Skill and Merit bonuses through Pledgecraft, or to use a Merit to draw knowledge from the collective dreams of mankind, this means that a Changeling could go from computer illiterate to Googling away in a few moments, and become a fairly serviceable hacker overnight.
* [[Invisible to Normals]]: The Mask, mentioned above essentially fools all five human senses, rendering their mien invisible to the eyes, removing anything clearly supernatural from their voice, muffling any odd scents or tastes, and convincing a human's sense of touch into believing that odd features like fur or horns are simply unaltered skin. Supernatural creatures with special sensory powers can pierce the mask, but it's ''extremely'' difficult.
* [[Invoked Trope]]: The book Swords At Dawn introduces a new mechanic called Talecrafting, which essentially lets canny players spot Tropes in motion (or good places to shoehorn them in) and tweak the Wyrd to cause them to come to pass. Changelings often get the inspirations for this power when they realize that they're, in a sorts, LIVING in a Faerie Tale, as they are Fae creatures. For example, a Changeling loses two huge bets at Vegas, but suddenly realizes that [[Rule of Three|the Third Time's The Charm]] and goes for one last bet, hoping to win it all just like in all the stories. Conversely, the same Changeling might set up events to fool the Wyrd into thinking it should enact the trope, such as using rigged 'failure' dice, intentionally blowing bets, etc. The Wyrd doesn't like it when it catches you doing this, and so inflicts a dice penalty on the attempt. The system has a dangerous caveat: unless the player gets very lucky on their Wyrd roll, their success comes with a Cruel Twist of Fate, such as the casino busting the Changeling for 'cheating', who gets a blunt lesson in [[All That Glitters]]. Needless to say, the possibilities in this system are as endless as this very website's bottomless resources, and this[[TV siteTropes]] indeed is [[Notable References to TV Tropes|LINKED TO in the book itself as a resource.]] Ladies and Gentlemen, things just got Meta.
* [[Karma Meter]] / [[Sanity Meter]]: Clarity. This tracks how much a character has mentally grown to resemble her Fae captors, both in her moral uprightness and her ability to tell reality from the dreams and hallucinations that come from her fae perceptions.
** It is worth noting that Clarity is somewhat unique amongst the various World of Darkness Morality tracks in that it can drop through no fault of the player- their sanity has become much more fragile, and general disruptions and chaos that disrupts their day to day routine can be just as jarring and detrimental to their mind as actively doing something reprehensible.