Episodios
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The other gamelines in the World of Darkness rarely engaged with Changeling very deeply, but now and then, a book would have a chunk of pages illuminating some new corner of the lore. We're looking to Vampire this week, and in particular the first Dark Ages corebook and the original Dark Ages Companion. This first edition of Dark Ages, using the second edition Vampire ruleset, was contemporaneous with early Changeling—and it shows. These two books show glimpses into fae conceptions that didn't quite make it into the deep history, let alone Dark Ages: Fae when that finally dropped, but we're curious about how they might still be of use. And beyond that, the rich setting information in this line is useful for anyone looking to set up a medieval Europe game that is more CtD than DA:F. We promise this is not a deep readthrough of 500 Vampire pages!
That being said, as promised, the Fishmalk:
Even mad vampires can use a friend once in a while!
The two books in question are available for purchase at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/2672?affiliate_id=3063731 and https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/100?affiliate_id=3063731, respectively. We are available but not for purchase at:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) rolls Chimerical Alchemy to distill dreamstuff into heraldic tinctures impossible for human eyes to discern.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) has successfully used the Ride Skill only once and on a camel.
Uns ist in alten maeren | wunders vil geseitvon heleden lobebaeren | von grozer arebeitvon vroevden hohgeciten | von weinen und von klagenvon chvener recken striten | muget ir nu wunder hoeren sagen.(We have been told in ancient tales many marvels / of famous heroes, of mighty toil, / joys and high festivities, of weeping and wailing, / and the fighting of bold warriors – of such things you can now hear wonders unending!)—The Nibelungenlied, tr. A.T. Hatto
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It's the dawning of a new age here at Changeling: the Podcast, as we begin to eye that entity known as Changeling: the Lost... veteran Storyteller and noted gaming authority Fetch joins us as co-host for this run of episodes that will proceed through Season Four. We're beginning with a deep dive into the (new) World of Darkness 1st edition corebook, the central text for the games that succeeded the original run of World of Darkness. This edition ran from 2004 through 2013 (or thereabouts) before being succeeded by the "Chronicles of Darkness" that ended late last year. We're talking this time around about Fetch's background with the games, the context of the gaming landscape in the mid-Naughty Aughties, mechanical differences in nWoD, and the themes/moods of the setting—which are quite different as well as being quite the same. If you've never delved into the series, then this will be a primer for you to get your feet drenched, and if it's old news to you, we hope it will be an engaging refresher nonetheless.
If you're inclined to purchase the book, drop by https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/1124?affiliate_id=3063731. Otherwise, for communication purposes, you can drop us a line via any of the following:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsPooka G (any pronoun/they) is more "Horror Stylish" than vice versa, or so say the latest and greatest society rags.Amelia Fetch (she/her) gets 9-again on Occult rolls because of that deal made with that entity that one time, let's leave it at that?
O, brave new worldThat has such people in ’t!—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, V.i.217–218
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¿Faltan episodios?
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And so it begins...! meaning Season 4, of course. We have a nice little backlog of recordings to edit, bowdlerize, and disseminate to the masses in the coming weeks and months. While we're done with the core line of Changeling: the Dreaming, there are a number of books we'd like to consider from the old World of Darkness. First up among these is World of Darkness: Tokyo, a Wraith book pretending to be an all-the-lines book (with a smattering of Changeling material). This episode was recorded a few months ago, but delayed due to the passing of our friend Terry Robinson, who appeared in it as a representative of Mage: the Podcast (along with Josh Heath for Werewolf: the Podcast). We've decided to move forward with producing this one in his memory. And then who knows in which pages we'll be losing ourselves next week...?
Some links:
Josh Heath's Werewolf: the Podcast lives at https://keepontheheathlands.podbean.com/, and OpCast (arms around the Trinity Continuum!) at https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/opcast; Terry's Mage: the Podcast (of which Pooka is now also officially a co-host) dwells on https://magethepodcast.com/Linking to the same key episodes from the last time we did a Grand Crossover of our podcast: here's the one with Josh where we talked about Werewolf/Changeling crossover (https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-8-werewolf-changeling-with-josh-heath/), and the one with Terry on Mage/Changeling crossover (https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-14-mage-changeling-with-terry-robinson/)Should you wish to acquire the text for yourself: https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/347?affiliate_id=3063731The socials, as usual:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) fashions ikebana out of used circuit boards mounted on skewers.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) secretly yearns to occupy a designated seat at the end of the counter at a humble, impossibly delicious izakaya.
Tokyo, city of my dreams! Will you fulfill my one desire and give me a life of my own? Yes, I believe you will, I know you will, in spite of the hardships and trials in store.—Kaneko Fumiko (金子 文子), from Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman, tr. Jean Inglis
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One last minisode to tide you over through Winterregnum...! As you may or may not be aware, not all the audio we record makes it into the final episodes. It's been a while since an episode with some outtakes, so we've returned to the cutting room floor for random bits of conversation. Here's the list of disconnected items and the episodes they're from:
"Sensible advice" (from Episode 19, The Shadow Court)"Dual-wielding" (from Episode 19, The Shadow Court)"Neck fashions" (from Episode 28, Isle of the Mighty: England with Andrew)"Elizabeth II" (from Episode 28, Isle of the Mighty: England with Andrew)"Kith creation" (from Episode 29, Isle of the Mighty: Scotland)"Dots of 90s White Wolf" (from Episode 30, Isle of the Mighty: Wales with Terry)"Coracles" (from Episode 30, Isle of the Mighty: Wales with Terry)"Geography lesson" (from Episode 30, Isle of the Mighty: Wales with Terry)"Lifetime movie" (from Episode 33, The Immortal Eyes Novels)"Lasers and feelings" (from Episode 36, Glamour and Banality)"Death of a freehold" (from Episode 36, Glamour and Banality)"Mage Banality" (from Episode 39, Dreams and Nightmares: Part One with Terry)"The Most Important Dream Realm" (from Episode 39, Dreams and Nightmares: Part One with Terry)"Pooka's proudest moment" (from Episode 44, The Shining Host with Pete)"The world of DIE" (from Episode 45, Queerness and Kinship)"Texas" (from Episode 49, Kingdom of Willows)There's more where that came from, but probably this will suffice for now, as a sampler. And yes, this is really just filler material, but in these curious and uncertain times, we're doing what we can to stoke the balefire and keep ourselves grounded with voices and memories. Otherwise, we are as always available at the usual passel of links:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) keeps spare minutes in a chronometric piggy bank for future splicing into bonus hours of undiluted time.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) once played "Exquisite Corpse" with a sluagh, but not the kind you'd think.
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We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last dregs of content from the vaults. On the LARP side of the equation, there are a few remnants from various Mind's Eye Theatre books that never made it into either The Shining Host or the Shining Host Player's Guide, which we have collected to discuss in today's minisode. These basically consist of live-action Dauntain, adapting the Time of Judgment stories, a piece of fiction, and a meditation on supernatural phenomenology (whew). We've gathered these together so that you don't have to, and we're giving a bit of commentary, but as far as we can tell, this is really it for the Dreaming official content in print (with one exception) that we know of.
If you do feel compelled to pick up either Laws of the Hunt (revised) or Laws of Judgment, you can find them at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/182?affiliate_id=3063731 and https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/1621?affiliate_id=3063731, respectively. And if you're looking to chat with us instead, some places to do so include...
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) once threw a LARP with nothing but dollar-store buntings, a tray of mini-pizzas, shaving cream, and gumption.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) scrapes the bottom of barrels knowing that it's just barrels all the way down.
The real challenge is to make art out of these bits and pieces of our reality.—Joe Lewis
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Welcome to 2025, changelings and changelants! We said that Winterregnum was going to be our hibernation season... but truth be told, there are too many things to do and not enough time to do them, so yes, we're going to continue to put some content out for the coming weeks. The Season proper will launch in February as usual. Whether the episode numbering will tick up to 101 in this intercalary period remains to be seen, but for this week, at least, we'll keep with the convention for giving fractional numbers to minisodes. This time around, Pooka has a chat with Bloodied Porcelain about Hallowed Haven Studios about their upcoming Changeling: the Dreaming actual play, "District of Dreams"! The first live episode will launch on Friday the 10th, so we hope you'll be able to tune in... but if not, audio recordings will be available thereafter on their website and on podcast platforms near you.
For more information and other ancillary material—teasers, prologues, etc.—check out the various HHS places around the interwebs:
Website: https://hallowedhavenstudios.com/District of Dreams home page: https://hallowedhavenstudios.com/district-of-dreams/Hallowed Haven on Twitch (for watching live): https://twitch.tv/hallowedhavenstudiosHallowed Haven on YouTube (for post-viewing): https://www.youtube.com/@hallowedhavenstudiosHallowed Haven on Discord (for community chatting): https://discord.gg/hallowedhavenTheir Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hallowedhavenstudiosAnd our own interweb scramblings can be found at:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostPooka G (any pronoun/they) lived in DC for a while, but had to go to Virginia just to find green hair dye, because DC was that kind of town.
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.—Abbie Hoffman
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Woo-hah! We got here at last. Yule is upon us and it's time for another State of the Podcast before we enter our Winterregnum period. As stated before, there will likely be a bit of content here and there through the coming weeks, but—with one or two possible exceptions—no full episodes until some point in February. And when we come rocketing back at that point, well, we have a thing or three in store for you. In this bit of bonus content, we're talking about statistics from the Season, plans for the next one, little life updates, and whatever else crossed our brains on a chilly weekday night.
Although we won't be releasing much to the winter airwaves, you are still welcome to get in touch with us through the usual socials below! The conversation rolls on, and if you don't want to miss what's happening, our freeholds are always welcome to you:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) has set up the nocker sugar shack what makes the Glamour syrups and chimerical caramels.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) offers heady sacrifice to the gods in eager anticipation of First Snow...!
Et quand viendra l'hiver aux neiges monotones,Je fermerai partout portières et voletsPour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais.(And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,And build me stately palaces by candlelight.)
—Charles Baudelaire, "Paysage" (tr. George Dillon)
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Like any grumps, we often ruminate on the past and what it has (and hasn't) brought us. After the closing of the old White Wolf forums post-Time of Judgment, those in search of community found our way to various places on the internet, one of the most noteworthy of which for the two of us was Shadow'n'Essence, a message board forum with extensive space for each of the WoD lines (and more!) in the 2000s. You may have heard us wax poetic about it in our online games episode a couple weeks ago. The vibrant atmosphere and creative energy among the Changeling fans in particular is something still fondly remembered, and sometimes people turn up years later to talk about it—like Chris Bern (aka Swordsman), former coordinator (aka Vilicus) of the Changeling section of the site, who joins us for this minisode walk down memory lane. Tune in to hear us talk about things as they once were, and if you were on SnE, we'd be delighted to hear from you...!
Chris' repository of Changeling bits from the days of yore can be found at: https://theshepherdsfreehold.wordpress.com/. And as for us, it's the usual mishmash of places:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (zenten) absconded with a Glamour slushie machine and the gods of internet past can't have it back.Pooka G (AlecRavager) will use however many Chronos Unleashings it takes to stir the slumbering PHPbeast.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And never brought to min'?Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And days o' auld lang syne?—traditional, adapted by Robert Burns
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Once again, it happened...! Pooka is in attendance at PAX Unplugged this weekend, and spent Friday afternoon rushing around doing on-the-spot interviews with creators whose work is somewhat Changeling-aligned. Herein are five short interviews about games that touch on the fae, dreams, imagination, and more. The sound quality in this minisode is particularly awful, which is what happens when you're doing interviews in a giant hall filled with 10,000 people, but at least everybody was as lovely and informative as they could be on a frantic day. Hopefully these will inspire you to seek out new and interesting games to expand your horizons, and if you happen to be at the convention, check out the booths in questions!
The various creators and their web presences:
Imagining Games (publisher of Broken Tales): https://www.imagininggames.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/imagining_games/World Champ Games by Adam Vass (publisher of Babes in the Wood and Ever Dream This Man?): https://www.worldchamp.io/Osprey Games (publisher of Through the Hedgerow and The Terror Beneath): https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/osprey-games/NerdBurger Games by Craig Campbell (publisher of Good Strong Hands): https://www.nerdburgergames.com/Rown, Rook & Decard (publisher of DIE, Spire, and Royal Blood): https://rowanrookanddecard.comAs for ourselves...
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostPooka G (any pronoun/they) has no voice today, and must game. (Credit to Mike from Darker Days Radio for this too-true line.)
The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.—Daniel Day-Lewis
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Maybe it's pretty obvious that we do a lot of gaming online nowadays, and that as hosts of a podcasts, we are thorough netizens who have thoughts and feelings about the interwebs. Nevertheless, online games have their own particular dynamics, opportunities, and cultures that we thought it might be good to explore, for people who are less or un-familiar with the experience. We're joined by veteran Storyteller of online gaming, Fetch, who shares wisdom from her extensive experience, which we compound with hoary reminisces about the forums and text-based ditherings of yesteryear (which we would not trade for anything of this world). This isn't an episode about the digital Dreaming itself, although maybe that's yet another entry for the Season 4 wishlist; this is an episode about how, through gaming, to dream digitally.
Some of the links we discussed in the episode include:
Lot-Casting Atemi, a tool for all your Exalted character management needs: https://www.lotcastingatemi.com/Hammertime, the location-sensitive timestamper for Discord: https://hammertime.cyou/Fetch's independent games including Necromancer and Do Androids Run on Electric Spoons?: https://ameliafetch.itch.ioAnd her Bluesky as well: https://bsky.app/profile/ameliafetch.bsky.socialAs for ourselves:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) once used Metamorphosis with Prop 5 and Scene 5 to briefly transform all of mIRC into a single honeybee.Pooka G (any pronoun/they), upon seeing in online game a (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻, will politely do a ┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ).
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.—Peter Steiner
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In the annals of Changeling history, there are many books that have been promised without coming to fruition. The Changeling atlas, Kingdom books beyond Willows, Book of Glamour... the litany goes on. Things are less clear for C20, but one title with a particular twisty path was By Night Studios' Mind's Eye Theatre: Changeling, which was almost official before it was de-officialized, and then eventually released on the Storytellers' Vault, but with a different team, even though their books for the other lines are official... or something. In any case, at nearly 400 text-dense pages, this is by far the largest homebrew Changeling product on the Vault, and its vaguely formal connections to the line meant that it was a candidate for reading. Pooka is joined by special LARP correspondent Amanda to talk about the book's evolution, particulars, and reception within the community. Much mixing of opinions ensues!
You can purchase the PDF from https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/326469?affiliate_id=3063731 if you're so inclined. Amanda also recommends reading the essay "The Economy Cool" by Jason Andrews at https://jasonbandrew.com/role-playing-games/role-playing-game-articles/the-economy-of-cool/. And naturally, if you want to get in touch with us, you can reach out via any of the following:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostPooka G (any pronoun/they) wonders if the mind's eye is covered by the company vision plan.
The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.—Daniel Day-Lewis
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And so here we are. It's time to open up the last few chapters of the Changeling 20th Anniversary Player's Guide, thereby ending our readthroughs of the game's canon. Feels weird, to be honest. When we started the show, it felt like we'd be going through the library of official texts forever, and now that there are no more, there's a bittersweetness much like when the game was canceled (and then canceled again). We don't know whether it will reincarnate in the future, as the fae are wont to do, but if there's one thing the last three years have taught us, it's that the community is as vibrant and inventive as it ever was. So while we're discussing Síocháin and Imprints and Lycians and swan maidens on this episode, our thoughts are already reaching forward to see what new dreams are on the horizon. (And we hope you'll continue with us on that journey...!)
Once again, the book can be purchased at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/274520?affiliate_id=3063731, and if you want to listen to our previous two episodes on the title:
Chapters 1 and 2: https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-92-c20-players-guide-part-one/Chapter 3: https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-95-c20-players-guide-part-two/And if you'd like to get in touch with us, the options are ample!
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) jousts every Wednesday with the snarky Oppidan guarding the Chaudière Bridge. Or is that Pont de la Chaudière?Pooka G (any pronoun/they) wears Goth voile that gives all movements fierce angles and has unlimited throwing shapes up the fishnet sleeves.
It is today that we must create the world of the future. —Eleanor Roosevelt
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What do you get when you cross the infinity of the Dreaming's possibilities with eight billion humans? Questions about how many of them are changelings, that's what. This week, we're applying the art/science of demography to the fae, throwing numbers and proportions and calculations around like so much spaghetti, so that we can see what sticks. You may ask, why does this matter—but how many and what kinds of changeling are running around the setting for your game will impact its feel. And not just the fae themselves: a local expression of the game's themes and moods depends upon Dreamers, Autumn People, and even just those mundane humans we talked about last time. So take note, Storytellers! We hope that after listening, you too will be able to graph a demo, Dreaming-style.
The spreadsheet to which Josh refers to throughout the episode, with some proposed numbers based on the population of various divisions of Concordia, can be found at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rv_S2aGs1VtfeCvhyOoq_iZ10w9Eag2ERlo-UONllcY.
We also refer to two episodes from our sibling show, Mage: the Podcast, on the subject of games with high numbers of mages and low numbers of mages, and how adjusting those numbers creates a different play experience. Pooka may have been using Chronos when talking about these, as it appears only the former has actually been released thus far. Nevertheless, check it out at: https://magethepodcast.com/running-and-playing-low-mage-count-games/.
Our own bureaux of statistics:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) bribes fae of the Kingdom of Northern Ice into filling out the census form with maple syrup dross.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) traverses the Kingdom of Apples in a balloon-ship, dropping leaflets about the benefits of mixed-use zoning.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. —Agent K in Men in Black
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Changelings, lest we forget, are part human. Spending time in a meatsack isn't always Glamourous or exhilarating (though it can be both), but it's an inherent part of their experience that can be interesting both in and of itself, and as a contrast to the escapist fantasies that the Dreaming is built on. Yet players and Storytellers often gloss over those aspects of the characters that populate their games. So! We're here this week to try and redeem mortal life in Changeling a bit, giving due consideration to some of the more human elements that might come up at the table. Day jobs and homework, customer service interactions and strangers on the street, Dreamers and Kinain and Autumn People alike... there are many possibilities that you can explore. Naturally, we won't be covering them all, but maybe some of the tidbits here will help you craft a game experience that feels a little more real and useful for when you step away from the table at last.
Our perfectly mundane contact information:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) is fourth on the leaderboard for messing with Autumn People in the halls of Canadian government.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) might not be Kinain, but plays one on TV.
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shackAnd you may find yourself in another part of the worldAnd you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobileAnd you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wifeAnd you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"—Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"
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It's that time again! This second installment of our trilogy of episodes on the Changeling 20th Anniversary Player's Guide continues as we flip through Chapter Three. What's that, you say? An entire installment on a single chapter of a single book? Well, yes, because this "World of Dreams" section takes up a third of a dense text and covers a lot of ground, visiting four continents in swift succession. We're taking an honest look at how the fae histories of these regions are handled, the kiths that dwell there, and the stories one might be able to tell that connect with the game as a whole. Slight spoiler: we have a bone or five to pick, and honestly two to three of them were immediately resolved by In the Realm of Gods and Dreams, which you can hear about at https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-90-in-the-realm-of-gods-and-dreams/. But don't let all this stop you from learning a thing or two about changelings around the world and how they got that way...!
As mentioned in our last C20PG episode notes, you can pick up the PDF (or print on demand book) at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/274520?affiliate_id=3063731. Visit our own digital world of dreams around the various platforms below if you want to contact us:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) is still searching for Carmen Sandiego.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) just realized while typing this post that Brazilian Carnival didn't get mentioned once, which is getting added to this chapter's ever-lengthening list of iniquities.
I'll put a girdle round about the earth / in forty minutes.—Robin Goodfellow, A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.i.175–176
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What is love? (Baby, don't hurt me!) In the context of tabletop RPGs, sex and relationships and all the matter around them can be tricky business to navigate for players and Storytellers alike. In the context of romance and Changeling, there are all sorts of specific considerations to think about. What are the norms of chivalrous courtship in this or that noble's jurisdiction? How do cantrips complicate physical pleasure and emotional fulfillment? Can a redcap truly feel love? Questions of this sort abound in the pages of the supplements, as it sometimes seems like every other characters has some kind of sexual or romantic thread to their story. This episode is not an exhaustive treatment of everything that might come up in the game... but we try to cover some important topics and give some pointers about handling at the table.
As for links...! We alluded to the recent episode at our sibling-show, Mage: the Podcast, on this topic; check it out at https://magethepodcast.com/adding-romance-to-games-with-friday-stout-and-sebastian-yue/. We made reference as well to our Session Zero episode (https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-38-session-zero/) on hashing out discussion around sensitive topics before you jump into a chronicle. And as usual, you can reach out to us strictly platonically at:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) theorizes that non-binary polycules are held together by them-ical bonds.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) prefers to get to know people in the deuterocanonical sense.
Love, love is a verb;Love is a doing wordFearless on my breath——Massive Attack, "Teardrop"
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Changeling: the Dreaming's tagline is as a "game of modern fantasy", and it deals with folklore, epics, and magic... so when you talk to most people about it, they rarely bring up science fiction as a genre that the game ties into. We beg to differ. Dreams of technology, visions of futures utopian and dystopian alike, the consequences of humankind's hubris, and alien anxiety all fit very neatly into the setting. We're taking the opportunity to discuss how you might incorporate some of sci-fi's themes and ideas into your game, both generally and specifically. As with most such discussions, the topic is waaayyyy bigger than we could cover in a single episode, but we hope that this tip of the asteroid—along with the many media we name-drop throughout—will serve as inspiration for you to make your game as bombastically SCIENCE!-y as can be.
One of those name-dropped texts is the noteworthy homebrew Countless Dreams, available on the Storytellers' Vault at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/314491?affiliate_id=3063731. Do consider giving it a flip-through and seeing if it's your kinda thing! And while you're clicking around on the intertubes, you might as well scope out some of our online presence as well:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) keeps appointments in stardates to three decimal places.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) built an ansible but couldn't connect it to 5G, so the superluminal calls keep dropping.
It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.—Rod Serling
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It begins...! We couldn't bring ourselves to go through Changeling 20th Anniversary Edition Player's Guide (quite a mouthful, but we have to distinguish it from the original) in one go, both because it's an incredibly dense text and because it's the Last Book. So, we're splitting it up into a trilogy of episodes. This first one covers Chapters 1 and 2, with an overarching theme of "politics and society among the Kithain." One of our episode ideas was to talk about politicking in the context of Changeling, so this kind of gets at that. Yet there are also numerous setting pieces to cover here which are somewhat tangential to that topic: Banner Houses, "secret" societies, opinions about anarchy. We do our best to give everything a fair shake, even for the stuff that may not deserve one.
The tome itself is available on the Storytellers' Vault at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/274520?affiliate_id=3063731. And naturally, if you'd like to drop us a comment, you have a surfeit of options for doing so...!
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) remembers when the Acadian sidhe had not a Resurgence, but a tintamarre.Pooka G (any pronoun/they) wonders whether there are any foodie Banner Houses who get to just lounge around eating Dreamer-made desserts (and if so, are they taking applications).
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
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It's been a while since we've done a dive into media, so—here goes! Friend of the show Charles Siegel joins for Pooka for a discussion of how video games and tabletop games inform and resemble each other. We go through a shortlist of ten titles for inspiration to round out this series of episodes (for now) (the other big one is music, and no way are we getting the rights to do that one). In our opinion, each of these games features a variety of elements that tie into those of Changeling: the Dreaming. Obviously, there are a lot more out there, but a shortlist seems sufficient for our purposes. We're of the opinion that video and tabletop games inform each other If you'd like to acquaint yourself with the titles in question, behold some videos:
American McGee's Alice (2000) — opening video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSMZsT4UhyQBraid (2008) – trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFMFinal Fantasy (so many years) — here's the piano collection for FFVI as one example of Uematsu's music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SJisxnVFZoKingdom of Loathing (2003 – present): https://www.kingdomofloathing.com/Persona 4 (2008) – opening video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73LvR8V2LAPokémon Go (2016 – present) – one of many rare Pokémon hunts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLdWbwQJWI0Psychonauts (2005) – trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDbDShqvc_oTandem: A Tale of Shadows (2021) – trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKiv1skvUJQUntitled Goose Game (2019) longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gruIyw_AHYEYume Nikki (2004) – longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr4iJL1LZwYMeanwhile, Charles can be found around the following parts of the interwebsphere:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/charlessiegelStorytellers' Vault: https://www.storytellersvault.com/browse.php?author=Charles%20SiegelTellurium Games: https://www.tellurium.games/As for ourselves, drop us a line at any of the following:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostPooka G (any pronoun/they) used to tear it up at Dance Dance Revolution and is still proud of that A+ on "So Deep".
You have no chance to survive make your time. HA HA HA HA.—Cats, Zero Wing
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For many years, the Changeling community has longed for a better take on the hsien of East Asia. In our previous episode on their introductory 2e supplement, Land of Eight Million Dreams, we discussed at length how these fae were portrayed in... not the greatest fashion, and it's a characterization that the 20th Anniversary didn't really fix. But! The latest release from Hsienfan on the Storytellers' Vault, In the Realm of Gods and Dreams, breathes new life into what was a sometimes confusing, often cringey group of changelings, and manages to re-write many of the assumptions about the game along the way, both systems and setting. We had the opportunity to sit down with the author and walk through the book in its entirety. The open dev process used for its creation means that you may have seen glimmers and drafts along the way; now we have a 300+ page chomker in all its glory to digest. lf you've been eagerly looking for some thorough information about its contents, well, here goes...
(Hsienfan's appearance on our show is also dedicated to his wife, Coco Vanille, without whose publishing prep and prowess this book would not exist. Forgetting to mention this in the outro is purely on Pooka, who is terrible at reading everything in emails, and missed this request. Many thanks from us as well to Coco for helping make this tome a reality!)
You can pick up the book at the Storytellers' Vault by visiting https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/492660?affiliate_id=3063731, and here are some other internet places to check out on the side:
The RPG.net forum thread to ask author questions: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-the-realm-of-gods-and-dreams-q-a-on-asian-urban-fantasy.922068/Reddit Q&A: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG/comments/1f115so/in_the_realm_of_gods_and_dreams_qa_hsien_nostalgia/Our episode on Land of Eight Million Dreams, for reference: https://changelingthepodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-land-of-eight-million-dreams/And as usual, you can bother us via:
Discord: https://discord.me/ctpEmail: [email protected]: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPodPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcastyour hostsJosh Hillerup (any pronoun) has waiting been waiting too many years already for the film Moderate Trouble in Sensible Canada. Pooka G (any pronoun/they) journeyed into the West and all they got was this lousy T-shirt.
Half of the poetry of life would be gone, if we did not feel that life was either a dream, or a voyage with transient travelers.—Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living
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