Changeling: The Lost

Changeling: The Lost
Changeling: The Lost cover
Designer:	Ethan Skemp
Publisher:	White Wolf
Publication date:	August 2007
Genre(s):	Personal Horror
System:	Storytelling System

Changeling: The Lost is the fifth supplementary role-playing game line published by White Wolf, Inc. It uses the Storytelling System for rules and is set in the new World of Darkness setting. The game is primarily inspired by tales of changelings from European folklore, but includes elements of similar stories from around the world. While superficially similar to the original World of Darkness game Changeling: The Dreaming, Changeling: The Lost approaches the legends from a more traditional perspective of mortals kidnapped by Fae and eschews the past life angle that characterized its predecessor (i.e.: in Changeling: The Dreaming, the Changeling characters were actually Fae souls placed into human bodies, while the previous occupants of said human bodies were taken to Arcadia and "removed from play").

Contents 1 Release History 2 Game Overview 2.1 Themes 3 Characters 4 Books 5 External links 6 References

Release History

The game was released on August 16, 2007, according to the White Wolf website "just in time for Gen Con". Previous to that, updates on the White Wolf Inc. website slowly revealed more about the setting and the mechanics. Much of what was known about the game, prior to the official updates, was disseminated by members who attended the 2007 GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas. On April 25 2007, a White Wolf staff member's publicly posted photograph documenting a prank revealed the Changeling cover for the first time.^[1] On April 30 2007, the cover for Changeling: The Lost was officially revealed via White Wolf's news feed ^[2]; coupled with this description of the game line from the publisher:

Taken from your home, transformed by the power of Faerie, kept as the Others’ slave or pet — but you never forgot where you came from. Now you have found your way back through the Thorns, to a home that is no longer yours. You are Lost. Find yourself.

The cover depicts the Changeling title super-imposed over a mass of green thorns; a battered Luna Moth is impaled on the thorns. A "quickstart" version of Changeling: The Lost was released for Free RPG Day, June 23, 2007. This free demo was made available for download from the White Wolf, Inc. website on June 26 2007.

Game Overview

The game is set in the World of Darkness, a fictional analog to the real world in which human beings unknowingly coexist with legendary monsters and other supernatural phenomena. The "Changelings" of the title are ordinary human beings who were kidnapped by the Fae and taken as slaves to their world (alternately known as Arcadia or Faerie). Alternately, the humans may have chosen to breach the barrier, using half-remembered childhood lore or other sources, in search of power, wealth, escape or some other callow goal; inevitably, the Fae find them. The player characters are changelings who have managed to escape their otherworldly captors and struggle through the barrier (known as the Hedge or the Thorns) that separates Faerie from Earth. The game focuses on the experiences of these changelings as they re-discover the world of their birth, try to cope with the changes they have undergone, and seek to evade recapture.

Themes

The dominant Themes of the game are the pain of loss, the quest for identity, and the bittersweet nature of human existence. Changelings refer to themselves as "the Lost": they were kidnapped by the godlike Fae, taken to an alien realm, and held prisoner. While trapped in Faerie (referred to as their "Durance"), they were forced to perform unimaginable tasks and endure inhuman tortures; to survive under the twisted laws underpinning Arcadia, they also had to undergo physical and supernatural changes. Many escape only to find that they have been replaced by a faerie simulacrum (often called a "Fetch") and that they have not been missed at all. Most also discover that time passed differently in Arcadia than in the mortal world, and they are either too old or too young to resume their normal lives. Those who can often do attempt to pick up where they left off before they were taken, with varying degrees of success, while others try to build new human lives elsewhere. However even under the best possible circumstances, the Lost are no longer fully human; they have become part of both worlds and while they are still human enough to make sense of human things, they have been changed just enough to skew their perceptions. Many embrace their new existences, compensating for the loss of their mortal lives by immersing themselves in changeling society. Most find that they have come to appreciate humanity in a new way, finding beauty in the most mundane or painful of experiences, aching for things they did not appreciate before their capture.

Characters

Changeling characters are unique individuals, each one shaped differently by his or her personal experiences in the world of the Fae. As a result Changeling: The Lost features a more nuanced and detailed character-creation system than the other World of Darkness games. Each Changeling possesses a Seeming, and may possess a Kith, a Court and Entitlements which are used to distinguish and describe the nature of the character according to the changes that her time with the Fae have wrought upon her. All things fae, including changelings, are also protected by the Mask, an illusion that makes them appear as mundane versions of themselves. Only fae beings can see through the Mask, though they can ensorcell humans and thereby grant them the temporary ability to see through the Mask.

Books

• Changeling: The Lost (August 16, 2007) (WW70000) (ISBN 978-1-58846-527-6) Core rulebook.
• Autumn Nightmares (October 5, 2007) (WW70300) (ISBN 978-1-58846-531-3) Antagonists book.^[3].
• Winter Masques (November 30, 2007) (WW70200) (ISBN 978-1-58846-532-0) Seemings and kith book.^[3].
• Rites of Spring (February 6, 2008) (WW70201) (ISBN 978-1-58846-716-4) Contracts and magic book.
• Lords of Summer (due Summer, 2008) Courts and entitlements book.
• The Equinox Road (due ??) ?? Mentioned on book list in Autumn Nightmares.

External links

• Changeling: The Lost Demo - Freely available PDF demonstration version of the game

References