From: johnbil@next17pg2.wam.umd.edu (John Walter Biles) Subject: Changeling: The Game Eternal Part 5 Faerie Circles: A Faerie Circle is a place where the faeries maintain contact with the physical world. It's manifestation is always circular in some manner....a circular cloud, a spiral current, a round pond, a ring of toadstools or monoliths...maybe even a road that is a circle. Within the circle, it is easier for Faeries to travel back and forth between the mortal and Arcadian realms. On the two equinoxes, the two solstices, and on the four sabbats (Walpurgis, Samhain, Beltaine, and ) some sort of pathway to Arcadia will open at the site when the sun goes down and last until the sun rises again. This path can be used by both man and faerie. On these days, the faerie revel and flood forth to harrass the mortal world. The local gauntlet drops by 4 within ten miles of the circle. (or by 2 needed successes for Magi...) Faerie circles are normally hidden away in secluded places to remove them from prying eyes. Faerie Regios: Some faerie circles are powerful enough to generate regios...areas where the gauntlet thins and unwary travellers can cross over into the umbra. This is easiest around the sabbats, equinoxes, and solstices. This usually happens when the circle is old and powerful and faeries have moved into the umbral area corresponding to the circle and its environs. To enter, or leave a regio, each person who enters the area in the physical world rolls a certain number of dice--determined as shown below: Ordinary Human--1 die Vampire, Ghoul, or Hunter with Numina--2 dice Garou, Mage without the Spirit Sphere-3 dice Mage with Spirit Sphere: 3+Spirit. Faerie: Five dice The Difficulty is 9 in the day, and 8 at night normally. On Sabbats, it drops to 6/5. On Equinoxes and Solstices, it drops to 5/4. Botch the enterance roll and you can't enter the regio until the next equinox or sabbat. Botch the exit roll and you are trapped for that long. You can try once an hour to enter/exit the regio. The regio resembles an enchanted version of the area in the physical world. Everything is more perfect and magical enchantments abound. Many Circles with Regios have a permanent gate to Arcadia...which is the most common cause of a regio. Areas with Regio have an effective gauntlet/shroud of three for Garou and other shifters and wraiths, or a 1 success gauntlet for mage purposes. Technomagic is always vulgar in a faerie regio unless it resembles a tinker device.... Arcadia, the land of the Fae: The true nature of Arcadia is a mystery. It is known that it corresponds in some way to the dark side of the moon, and mages and Garou who travel to the umbral darkside have had success in entering Arcadia from that point. It also connects to a near umbral realm known as the Arcadian gateway. Some faerie circles have temporary or permanent gateways to Arcadia, and all of them correspond to a circle in an arcadian domain. Arcadia seems to be a chaotic dreamworld to most travellers, but there are some laws to its apparent madness. Arcadia is divided into domains. Each domain is fairly stable within its own set of rules. Domains are created by the united will of the faeries and others who dwell there. A domain that lost all of its inhabitants would dissolve back into chaos. Domains range from the size of a single room to entire continents. The larger the domain, the more powerful the faerie lord or lords who rule over it. The High Kings of the Faerie Courts rule over continent sized domains... Arcadia cannot be mapped, because geography is not stable. But if you find a river, you may be able to get to any domain that has a river running through it. It is easier to pass from one yew forest to another rather than from a forest to a desert. It is easier to travel between realms that have "correspondences" or similarities. Some domains also have special qualities. The celestial domains are in the sky, so you have to move upward to get to them. The aquatic domains are underwater...so moving down into water helps you get there. The seelie domains tend to be in the east towards the rising sun or to the south where it is warmer, and the unseelie in the west towards the setting sun, or the north where it is colder. While Arcadia has no fixed geography, there are several major "regions" of Arcadia: Celestial Arcadia, Aquatic Arcadia, Terrestrial Arcadia, The Lands Forgotten, Subterranea, The lands of the fallen, The great fire, The mists. Celestial Arcadia: This is the realm of the sky faeries, a sea of cloud islands and cloud castles. It is most easily reached from mountaintops and by those with the power of flight. The pixies are often to be found here, along with dopplegangers, and bird-related pookas. Some Alfar sorcerers dwell in cloud castles here. (And perhaps a legendary goblin Giant...) Aquatic Arcadia: This is the realm of the sea faeries. Nixies, dopplegangers, fish related Phookas, and gremlins dwell here. It can be reached from any body of water in Arcadia. Any mortal brought here by the water faeries can breathe water for as long as he or she keeps their blessing. Terrestrial Arcadia: This is the great wilderness of Arcadia. It resembles the surface of the earth before the coming of man. It is full of perfect ancient forests, huge trackless deserts, pristine swamps, uneroded mountains, etc. It is marked by the cities of the Alfar and other "civilized" Faeries. These cities are larger and more organic than human cities. The buildings seem to be grown out of the rock and trees from which they are made. They are beautiful almost beyond human understanding. They are connected by Faerie Trods. (see below in the navigation section....) Virtually every kind of faerie can be found somewhere in Terrestrial Arcadia. It is the special home of the Alfar and land animal related Phookas. Most Faerie circles are located in Terrestrial Arcadia. It also contains many places that resemble the major spiritual/historical/magical sights of earth...revealing their true nature in some way. Subterranea: This is the great world of the caverns of Arcadia. It is most easily reached by descending into caves, canyons, sea trenches and other holes in the ground. It is a great maze of tunnels. The Brownies and Goblins make this their special home. The Great Fire: This is the home of the Salamanders. It is a world built out of flame. Those who have the blessing of the Salamanders will not burn. It is much like Terrestrial Arcadia, except that everything is made of different kinds of fire. It can be reached from any flame, but Volcanoes, forest fires, and burning buildings provide the easiest access. It is said that those with a salamander to guide them can travel from flame to flame across other realms by taking short cuts inside The Great Fire. The Lands of the Fallen: This realm contains many legendary homes of the dead. It is not known for sure if it is inhabited by faeries who believe they are the spirits of the dead, or if those who dwell here really did live upon the earth at one time. It is known that few new dead have arrived in many centuries. Still, the Elysian fields, Annwyn, and the Happy Hunting Grounds can all be found here. The dead are unable to leave, whatever they are. Wraiths who are brought here will have to lose all their corpus or get the aid of a sorceror to leave. But while they are here, their Shadow is silenced and powerless.... These lands are ruled by various "gods" of death...their true nature is also unknown. Faeries slain in Arcadia by non-mortals will awaken here within days or months (The more stability, the sooner they awaken). The lands of the fallen are most easily reached by travelling West, towards the setting sun. The Lands Forgotten: Many lands and peoples of myth and legend can be found here. When they were defeated/destroyed, some of the survivors found a way into Arcadia, where they slowly became faeries and recreated the land they had known in mortal life. Others were created by the belief of mortals in their existence, or who were so touched by their stories they wished they were real. Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, the isle of the Amazons, the kingdom of Prester John, Lilliput, Utopia, the kingdom of Cockaigne, Hobbiton, and Sherwood forest have all been seen by people who have visited the Lands Forgotten. Many of the faeries here seem completely human, using Iron freely in some areas, and in many other ways not acting like faeries. Most suspect that the inhabitants of this area are indeed largely human, touched by faerie power, but not fully faeries. (or maybe everyone just has iron tolerance...) The mists: There is a region of faerieland that is without form...The mists. They can be reached from any region of arcadia. No one knows what lies beyond them. But they can be reshaped by those with creativity to create new arcadian domains. Anyone who enters the mists can try to shape them to match hir own desires. This works best when a group of people work together. It is much easier for Mortals or human changelings to shape the mists than it is for Faeries, because faeries have too much creativity. They have a hard time limiting themselves to a single vision of a place for long enough to make it stable. They need humans to pick and choose between the infinite possibilities they see. This is the highest goal of the kidnapping of humans as changelings. They can combine the self-control and focus of humans with the creativity of the Faeries, and help to give birth to new faerie domains. To create a realm requires several steps. The person must enter the fog and face their own fears. This requires a difficulty 8 fearlessness or Courage check. Failure forces the person to run away. They will be unable to return until a 10-WP days have passed. The second step is to express one's creative vision. This requires a roll on Cha+Performance or Per+Expression at difficulty 9. The more successes, the more the realm will resemble what you want it to be. Botch: You are trapped in a nightmare realm that is a perversion of what you wished to create Fail: Nothing happens. You can try again in a month. 1 success: You get the terrain types you wanted. 2 successes: You get the kind of weather you wanted, and the geography is correct. 3 successes: You can have buildings and inhabitants if you want them. 4 successes: The place can have unusual features...like water up hill, night all the time, etc. 5 successes: Exactly what you wanted. This process can also be used to reshape a realm which has not been stabilized with permanent WP...Or to try to warp someone else's not yet stable realm... The realm remains intact as long as its creator remains in it. If he or she leaves, it loses size levels at the rate shown below...That is also the rate at which it forms from the mists. Your stability (or WP, whichever is lower) determines how big a realm you can create. You can create one with inhabitants...but you can't guarantee they will like you. The realm can be made permanent by spending permanent WP = to its size....Or ownership can be transfered to another being...but he/she must have as much stability as you or the realm will shrink. Also, the new owner will have to spend permanent WP too...or the realm will lose its stability if you die. The ritual of transference takes 1 day per size level. Unless a realm is made permanently stable, nothing native to it can leave or be taken out of the realm. Stability Size Time 1 10' Circle 1 round 2 100' circle 1 minute 3 1000' circle 10 minute 4 1 mile Circle 1 hour 5 10 mile Circle 6 Hours 6 100 mile Circle 1 day 7 500 mile circle 1 week 8 1000 mile circle 2 weeks 9 2000 mile circle 1 month 10 3000 mile circle 2 months. There are several ways to navigate around Arcadia. Some domains are connected by Roads, known as Trods. These roads often resemble some road in the physical world. As long as you stay on the path, it will eventually get you where you are going. But if you leave the path, it will vanish and you will get dropped into some domain you were not looking for. Per+Faerie Lore at Difficulty 6 will identify where a Trod goes...the more successes, the more precise the identification. A Trod is easy to follow, but creatures often lurk along it, striving to lure you off the path so they can amuse themselves with you. The second technique involves using correspondences. The more you know about what/who you are searching for, the easier this is. You simply search for examples of those correspondences, moving always in the direction where they become more intense. This may require a lot of traveling through various realms. Roll Per+Faerie Lore (Variable difficulty--Storyteller's discretion). If you botch, you wander into the wrong kind of realm and get in trouble usually. If you succeed, you reach a more similar domain to what you want. You need to accumulate usually five to thirty successes to get where you are going.(Five to get from one mountain guardian realm with a river to another...ten to descend to a foothill guardian realm...30 to go from an underwater Seelie court in the far south to a celestial Unseelie court in the far north....) If you are unaware of any correspondences, you can try to create one. This is done through artistic activity. You must create art or stories which attribute the desired correspondences to the thing,place, or person to be found and spread them about. The difficulty of this is pretty hard....and only non-faeries can create correspondences, so you may have to get some help. Human Changelings, Vampires, ordinary humans, Garou, and Mages can create correspondences...To do this requires a creativity of at least three on the part of a vampire(see Toreador book). It requires five successes at difficulty 9 on a Art+Wits or Cha+Expression roll and publicity of the same...It is hard, but you can wreak real changes in Arcadia by this method...although it tends to make court leaders irritated with you... Arcadian Time Dilation Time flows strangely in Arcadia. Different realms have different time-flows. It is hard to keep track of days or even hours. Clocks and watches malfunction. The effects are entirely up to the storyteller, and should be hand designed for each trip. Keep in mind that long trips will seem to pass in minutes if nothing happens--in dream like time. Time in Arcadia flows like a dream...fast when nothing is going on, slow when things get busy. Faerie Food in Arcadia It is unwise for mortals to eat the food or drink offered to them in Arcadia. A mortal who does so cannot leave until the faeries release him. Any effort to remove him or her from Arcadia will fail unless the magic used to get him out gets at least 5 successes, and the difficulty will go up to 10. If a Garou eats faerie food, he must get five successes to get out, but the difficulty remains the same. Anyone with Faerie Blood gift can eat faerie food with no ill effects. Faerie drinks tend to be highly intoxicating. Roll Stamina at Difficulty 8 or be intoxicated. Each additional drink adds one to the number of successes needed to resist. Combat in Arcadia Arcadian combat is usually like combat anywhere else...when mortals participate. If a mortal takes part in a combat in Arcadia, it is run just like combat anywhere else. Faeries can only die in arcadia if mortals(Humans, Garou, or Magi) participate. Vampires and Wraiths do not count as mortals... When non-mortals fight in Arcadia, they cannot permanently die. Wounds heal at the rate of one wound a turn(even for Vamps and Wraiths...). A non-mortal brought to the point where they would die appears to die, but they will awaken one day later in the lands of the fallen. Vampires find themselves in the same condition they were in at the start of the battle, as do Faeries. But they lose everything they were carrying. Wraiths discorporate when "slain", and reform in the Land of the Fallen. But they cannot get out without the help of a sorceror or knowlege of Argos. They appear completely solid while there. They function as mortals, although their Arcanos remain active. A wraith with Argos can get out of the land of the fallen, similar to entering the tempest. Fallen Faeries dissolve away in about an hour...then reform a day later in the land of the fallen. Any possessions not taken from them will reform with their new body. This can sometimes destablize the poor faerie...He/She must roll their stability at difficulty 7. If they fail, they lose one point of stability. If they botch, they get a derangement also. Faeries sometimes bring mortals to Arcadia for the sole purpose of making a battle permanently fatal. Wars between fae can drag out for centuries if no mortals get involved...because the armies keep rising from the dead the next day. Only if Mortals get involved can faeries die permanently in Arcadia. This is another reason why faeries bring changelings to Arcadia... INTEGRATION: Or so what happens when my Malkavian tries to see through your Glamour with Auspex! Vampires: Faerie Sight or Auspex will pierce Glamors, Fade, or Obfuscate of a lower level. Vampires using Dominate can attempt to dominate any Faerie or human changeling, but must spend 1 WP to do so to Faeries. Immunity to/protection against Presence or Persuasion blocks either power. People with Shifting can resist any use of Vicissitude on them, adding their level in Shifting to any normal resistance roll. Human Changelings can be vampirized as if ordinary humans. They lose all faerie related powers and the ability to perform Sorcery. Half-Faerie must roll a WP 8 check or go mad. In either case, they lose their school powers, but retain their native breed power and can improve it. Full blood faeries must roll a stability check at difficulty 10. A botch causes them to dissolve away into chaos. A failure causes them to become some sort of horrible rampaging monster with both faerie and vampiric abilities and weaknesses. A success causes them to simply come back to life as an ordinary faerie. They suffer the loss of one pip off a physical stat and one mental stat. Drinking Faerie blood: Faerie blood is more potent than mortal blood. It has several effects. One: the Vampire can't get out of Arcadia (if in it) until the faerie releases him or he spends the point of blood. Two: A vampire with Faerie blood in him can astral project with Auspex 5 into Arcadia at a Faerie circle. Three: All self-control checks are at +2 to difficulty. Four: Prolonged drinking of faerie blood on a regular basis has mutagenic affects. Five: It frequently causes hallucinations or uncontrollable discipline usage. Garou: Fae Sight can pierce gifts that disguise or hide the user. It only works against gifts of a lower level than the level of Fae Sight possessed. Roll Fae Sight vs. the Gnosis of the user of the gift, Difficulty 6. If the Fae gets more successes than the Garou, the difference between them is subtracted from the number of successes the Garou got on that gift with regard to the Faerie. A Garou using Faerie Blood is vulnerable to Mana Manipulation. Any use of his powers triggers Mana Sense. Mana theft (Level 7) can rob him of Gnosis. Roll Mana Manip. vs. Gnosis. Each success drains one point of Gnosis and converts it into Mana. Mana Manip. Normally has no effect on Garou. Magic sense does not detect the use of Garou gifts, but it will detect the use of rituals. Mages: Mages cannot directly countermagic faerie powers. They can however use magick to protect themselves from powers or negate their effects. Mind 1(or 4 for others) can be used to shield yourself(or others) from Persuasion, Beauty and Glamour. Each success on the Magick roll takes one away from any attempt by a faerie to influence you using those powers. Life 4 can screw up the powers of someone using Self-Mastery. Forces and Matter are required to block or dispel Machine Master effects. Life for Flora and Fauna. Wrack requires life and mind to counter(Usually Life 4, mind 4). Fade is countered with Mind 3. Level 7 and up may require forces 2 as well. Luck is countered with Entropy. Mana vs. Prime-- Mana is not quite equivalent to Quintessence. It is a filtered form of Quintessence. Mages with Prime 1 can sense the presence of Mana in a faerie circle or in a Faerie. Prime 2 can disrupt a faerie's efforts to recharge himself with Mana. Prime 3 can drain mana out of a faerie or transfer it between faeries. At Prime 4, the mage can filter the Mana and convert it back into Quintessence, storing it in himself or a Talisman. He can also convert Quintessence into Mana and transfer that Mana into a faerie. At Prime 5, a mage could block a Faerie Circle from providing a source of Mana for faeries, or prevent a faerie from absorbing Mana long-term. Wraiths: Faerie Sight can see through Phantasmagoria, but only at Level 6 and higher. If a machine master and an Inhabiting wraith try to control the same machine, they make opposed rolls on their respective powers, taking the higher difficulty for both. Soulsight(Basic castigate) can be used to determine the degree of stability a Faerie has. Enshroud, Phantom Wings both work in Arcadia (Argos). Flicker, Jump, and Oubliette(Argos) go up in difficutly by two. A wraith cannot embody while in Arcadia...but is treated as being fully present as if embodied while there. Arcadia has no "shroud" nor are faeries effected by the Fog. Puppetry only works on Faeries who are in the physical world...or if you skinride with them into Arcadia. Usury works on faeries...but it will make them angry if they figure out what happened. Fae sight six can pierce the Shroud... Adventures with the Faerie... So, you are now thinking...what do I do with all this. Well, beyond helping you develop the faerie to pester those stodgy ventrue, Silver fangs, hermetics, and wraiths...You could run a faerie focused chronicle! The theme of Faerie is finding meaning for one's life. Many faeries find their meaning through joining a court, playing the Game Eternal through its rules, and adopting its philosophies. Others try to construct their own set of rules for the Game. Some reject meaning altogether...but their passions soon consume them and final chaos takes them. Faerie society encompasses a wide range of solutions to the problem of what to do with eternity. While Faerie society is somewhat hiearchical, it is less so than the Camarilla or even the Garou. Faerie leaders hold sway through charm and their ability to come up with interesting entertainment. And if you don't like where you are...you can always leave or go create a realm...if you dare. Major Chronicle concepts: Merry Pranksters: This kind of campaign focuses on the Faerie wrecking havoc in the lives of mortals, supernaturals, and each other. It is most appropriate for Romany, Aesthetes, and possibly Seekers and Tinkers(wanting to see how people react to various pranks.) Some faeries see it as their duties to shake up the rest of the world out of their old ways of thinking. In alliance with Malkavians, Marauders, and other testers of the boundaries of reality, the characters do battle with the forces of boring normality, whether it be by ruining the best laid plans of mice and men or by forcing people to just break their ordinary routine... Faerie Politics: If you thought the Jyhad was bad, just remember that the faerie have been playing the political game even longer (due to Arcadia Time Distortion). If nothing else, it is great for staving off the boredom that is one of the most feared enemies of the Fae. This could revolve around personal intrigues, court rivalries, power plays within courts, or playing political games with mortals and other supernaturals...which is rewarding but potentially very dangerous. And the long war of the Seelie and Unseelie continues. The Seelie and Unseelie courts are the two most caught up in political games. Faerie Protectors: Many groups of Changelings place groups of mortals or supernaturals or a place that they love under their protection. This chronicle focuses around a group of changelings who have chosen to remain largely involved in mortal affairs to protect some place or people that they care about. This is a good choice for a cross-over campaign, as the Fae will certainly become entangled in the rivalries of other groups. This is good for Dryadic, Ascetic, Aesthete (to protect Art and artists) and Guardian fae. Faerie Explorers: The Tellurian is a strange place, and many faeries want to see all they can of it. Some form bands to explore the strange reaches of the Umbra, Arcadia, and the mortal world. Perhaps they may even find the true rules of the Game Eternal somewhere out there....This is good for Romany (who love to wander) and Seekers (Who HAVE to know what is out there).