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In Short

The Good: All characters have a variety of interesting plot hooks from the very start, which really helps the game start with momentum. The various fairy tale concepts, from Oaths to Dream Combat, are all very well realized within the World of Darkness system.

The Bad: As with other World of Darkness games, there are few antagonists here and some readers may wish for an additional villain group to supplement the Fae. Some players may not like the idea of playing people recovering from abuse and torture.

The Physical Thing

Under the Cover

Chapter One The World Behind The Mask - 52 pages.

Next to our world is a magical land called Arcadia. Arcadia isn’t like our world because every little thing has its own spirit and must be contracted with. In our world anyone can drink from a stream of water. In Arcadia a being must contract with that stream in order to drink from it. Gravity, temperature, shelter, and everything else we take for granted on Earth must be contracted for in Arcadia. That alone makes it a hostile land, but as it happens Arcadia is also filled with the true Fae. They’re ancient, fickle creatures that exist only to do whatever they think is fun at the moment. They have immense power and each one controls a little slice of Arcadia where it has established all manner of contracts with the local land.

Arcadia is separated from Earth by the Hedge, a great labyrinth that reacts to thought and emotion. Trods, or passageways, exist from Earth to the Hedge. Just getting to the Hedge, however, is only the smallest part of the journey. Navigating it is extremely difficult. The thorns of the hedge walls tear away soul, so doing anything other than navigating the hedge the old fashioned way is sure to result in a nasty fate. Unfortunately, the Fae and their servants have little difficulty navigating the Hedge and occasionally visit Earth when the mood suits them.

When the Fae visit they occasionally take humans away with them. The stories are extremely varied, but the end result is always the same. A human, whether an infant or an adult, is whisked away to Arcadia. There this ill fated person serves as a slave and a plaything, subject to the chaotic whims of the Fae. It’s a life of toil and horror, and it changes the human over time. The magic of Arcadia and the new role this person has taken on change the body and the mind, so that this once human slowly becomes something new – a Changeling.

The truly lucky Changelings manage to escape their Fae masters and flee back to Earth. Unfortunately for them, they have fled one nightmare merely to enter another. Once back on Earth they’re still changed and sport horns, hooves, and other physical changes though a glamour hides their true nature from humanity. Time flows differently in Arcadia, and those who were taken often find that years have passed on one side or another. Taken as infants, now they’re 20 years old but the human world has only advanced months. Taken as adults, they return to find 30 years having passed while they were gone only months. What’s more, many of them find duplicates in their place. These creatures, called Fetch, have been living their lives and aren’t about to hand them back over.

Reclaiming their old lives and dealing with a world that is so different from where they have been tormented are only a few of the problems awaiting these escapees. The Fae often want them back, and that means bounty hunters hot on their trails. Other Changelings have their own agendas and have banded together for protection, but this means courtly politics and forging alliances when the new Changeling has little to offer. This is the world Changelings face, one of danger and confusion where their old lives have been taken away and familiar horrors are close on their heels.

Chapter Two Character Creation - 100 pages.

Let’s walk through character creation.

Example: Character creation begins with a concept. This is an actual character built by one of my players for our campaign. The character Stephen was a sort of wandering occultist and detective before he was abducted by several Fae for experimentation. For countless years he has been run through mazes and subjected to various intelligence tests until, finally, he managed to escape his captors under unusual circumstances.

As far as raw stats are concerned Changelings are no more powerful than ordinary mortals. They don’t have the core abilities of other World of Darkness creatures, such as vampires, and can be killed by something as simple as a gunshot. As such, Changelings have 5/4/3 to distribute among Attributes and 11/7/4 to distribute among Skills. All Changelings receive a free Specialization in Athletics, Brawl, or Stealth to reflect the survival skills they had to learn while being imprisoned.

Example: Stephen has Mental as his priority, with Int 3, Wits 3, and Res 2. Next, Physical with Str 1, Dex 3, and Sta 3. Finally, Pre 1, Man 2, Com 3. While fine stats, note that these aren’t going to get any higher. Being a Changeling doesn’t make Stephen a combat badass. As to Skills, Stephen is primarily focused on Academics, Occult, and Streetwise. Stephen took Endurance as a specialization for Athletics to reflect the time he spent running through mazes and being experimented upon.

As with other White Wolf RPGs Changeling includes a major supernatural template. A given entity can only have one supernatural template, so no Changeling Vampires or other combinations. All Changelings have a Seeming which reflects the way in which they were altered. Beasts, Darklings, Elementals, Fairest, Ogres, and Wizened make up the available options and each represents a unique yet intuitive fairy type. They also tend to support certain RPG archetypes, with Darklings clearly being focused towards Stealth while Fairest are Social focused and Ogres are Physical focused. Each type has its own unique benefits and hinderances, or Blessing and Curse. The Wizened, for example, are preternaturally quick but suffer a penalty to Social roles due to their often unpleasant appearance.

Every one of the above Seemings is also split into several Kiths. Beasts are split up by animal type while Fairest are split into groups like Bright One, Draconic, and Muse. These Kiths help to further refine the concept, adding to the Changeling’s uniqueness, and provide another special ability. The Muse Kith of Fairest, for example, allows the Muse to inspire humans to do better at certain Skills. In play we found even more small unique abilities to initially be a little much to keep track of on top of everything else, but after a session it wasn’t a problem.

Example: Stephen spent a lot of time running and hiding and so his player decides on the Darkling Seeming. Over time Stephen became like the shadows around him. His natural aptitude for puzzles and illusions made him perfect for the Antiquarian Kith, a sub-group of Darklings that gives bonuses to Academics and memory tasks.

Like other White Wolf games, Changeling has a ‘power stat’ that broadly reflects how powerful of a supernatural creature a given Changeling is. This stat is called Wyrd and it controls how high Attributes can go, how much Glamour can be used, and various other things focusing around the supernatural powers of the Changeling. Glamour is temporary magical currency used to power some Contracts (special powers) and Oaths (promises with magical effect). Finally, Clarity replaces the Morality stat and reflects a Changeling’s ability to understand what’s real.

Political organizations are also included here, though these groups represent both philosophical outlook and political affiliation within Changeling society. They also represent the archetypes of Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Social to make it easy for players to find a group that corresponds to what they want to do with their character. Split into four seasonal Courts, these groups require binding oaths to join and are an excellent source for endless plot hooks.

The Spring Court focuses on beginning a new life as a new person rather than constantly trying to reclaim something that is lost. The Summer Court focuses on defending the Changeling community from the Fae and other outsiders that might harm them. The Autumn Court focuses on the acquisition of magical knowledge so as to better advantage the Changeling community generally. Finally, the Winter Court focuses on hiding and misdirection so as to avoid any contact with the Fae and those that might want to hurt the Changelings. What’s important to keep in mind while looking at all of these groups is that all Changelings have been horrifically abused and avoiding recapture is often the driving goal for many of them.

Each Court has a variety of interesting rules supplementing the plot hook rich political atmosphere. Members of a Court can take on a Mantle of its season, sort of broadcasting that season to the world around them. A Changeling with high Mantle in Winter, for example, may often be accompanied by a cold wind. Membership in a Court also indicates what emotions a Changeling may feed off of in order to gain Glamour. Finally, each Court has its own unique Contracts that may be taught to a Changeling.

While the Courts are presented as something Changelings begin with, I ran a game where the Changelings were just escaping their Fae masters and so did not yet belong to any groups. I found this to make character creation a little more restrictive, since Court Contracts, Mantle, and other mechanics just weren’t available to the players. However, I had no difficulty introducing the Courts in an organic fashion and they proved to be fun in play. The Courts, as with the rest of the game, provide an excellent set up for lots of fantastic imagery. I had Snowdrift Outriders, a group of knights serving the Winter Court, riding horses made of moving ice (which appeared to mortals as motorcycle riders). Stuff like that is just very easy to dream up and implement in this game.

Example: After playing for a while Stephen meets a Changeling who runs the local library and happens to be a member of the Autumn Court. In exchange for an Oath and some service Stephen is shortly thereafter brought into the Autumn Court and gains the resources of that court. Note that this contributed a lot to the game for two reasons. First, Changelings are expected to give at least as much as they receive if they want continuing support. This means that a new Changeling needs a lot of help, and so is expected to give a lot thus providing a lot of forward momentum for adventures. Second, the city my game was set in had a rotational system of rule where the Court corresponding to the current season ruled over the city. Because of this belonging to the courts is an excellent source for constant, interesting political events.

New Merits are available and they all fit in very well with the Changeling cosmology. It’s also important that they’re here because many Changelings will have a difficult time justifying Allies, Contacts, or Resources since they’ve been gone for so long and have changed so much. Interestingly enough, in play this resulted in a lot of contact with the homeless community as the Changelings had absolutely nothing but the shirts on their backs and whatever they could steal or con. It certainly made the Courts look even more appealing, since they had resources they were willing to share… for a price.

Example: Stephen’s player talks with the other players and they decide to collectively purchase a Hollow, a sort of hidden supernatural area somewhere beyond the Thorns. Stephen spends 3 points and the other characters spend a total of 7 more for an extremely impressive 10 point Hollow. This Hollow is the full estate of a Fae Noble who was killed and, because of the nature of the contracts he had engaged, no other Fae may ever tread there. The characters have access to an immense library and other resources there, though they may need to defend it from time to time. Stephen also took Harvest at one dot, which makes it easier for him to plunder the dreams of mortals in order to regain Glamour. Finally, he invested 3 dots in a Token (tricky magical artifact) called Dead Man’s Boots that help him evade trackers.

Changelings also have access to Contracts which can grant them various powers, often involving illusion, luck, and dreams. These Contracts come in several forms including the Universal Contracts that anyone can use, Seeming Contracts, Court Contracts, and Goblin Contracts (another sort of general Contract). These are the supernatural abilities for Changeling and they’re of varied power. I feel like they’re on par with other supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness, and if anything there are even more interesting here. The very broad variety of starting selection is particularly nice, though certain initial game setups may change this. In my game Court wasn’t allowed at the very start, and that substantially decreased the number of potential Contracts for players to choose from. My players weren’t particularly excited about Contracts at first, but after playing for a bit I feel much more confidant in saying that many of them can be extremely valuable to Changelings.

Example: Stephen has 5 dots to spend on Contracts. He purchases Forging the Dream (direct another character’s dreams, 2 dots), Pathfinder (navigate the Hedge, 1 dot), and Nevertread (erases evidence of character’s presence, 1 dot). In retrospect I think Pathfinder is a real powerhouse of a Contract for its extremely small cost.

In play my group often felt like Changelings had little more advantage than normal humans, and for starting Changelings this is true. With limited Glamour and no easy way to replenish it at first, limited Contracts, and no supernatural toughness a Changeling has as much to fear from a bullet or a blade as anyone else. Unless Changelings begin as already established characters I think many groups will find that a period of running and hiding from the Fae while working hard to establish themselves in the mortal world will be in order.

Chapter Three Special Rules And Systems - 60 pages.

Changeling has a surprisingly large number of things going on, and this chapter draws particular attention to that. The first major thing worth discussing is the Pledge system. The game provides a list of good things and bad things that can be incorporated into a binding Pledge that is powered by Glamour, the end result of which must total zero. For example, a Pledge might give one party a major benefit (say, a Favor worth +2) but include a severe penalty if the Pledge is broken (say, a Curse worth -2). This allows for the easy creation of promises like “Keep this promise from all others and I will aid you, but if you should ever break it may food forever spoil in your presence.” It’s simple but works surprisingly well and gives the Storyteller a lot more room to work with when it comes to building Pledges and Oaths (another type of magical promise) that aren’t necessarily out of balance.

In actual play I was fast and loose with Pledges, as I didn’t want to add and subtract clauses while people waited. I think this system works best if you have something in mind ahead of time, but could slow things down a bit if you’re crafting promises on the fly unless you’ve already used the Pledge system several times. On the plus side, many examples are provided to make this system easy to use.

Oneiromancy, dream walking and dream combat, has its own system as well. More than anything else, I really wanted to incorporate dream adventures into my Changeling game but it just didn’t mesh well with escaping the Fae and trying to cope with being back on Earth. Instead I made use of dreams as portents and foretelling, which worked well but left me wishing I could have made full use of this system. Changelings have great ability to enter and manipulate dreams, using them to heal others, teach concepts, learn information, and even assault another’s mind with nightmares and created horrors. It’s fun stuff, fully integrated into the game and even supported by Contracts.

Tokens are enchanted items that grant various interesting abilities. No system for creating these items is provided, and only a few pages of Tokens are provided in the core book. Each includes a negative Drawback to partially offset the benefit of the Token, making it more of a bargain for power than just using a magical item. In play my players were largely uninterested in Tokens because of this, but on reflection I quite like it as it maintains the element of bargaining even when it comes to using enchanted items. The Tokens vary greatly in power and are assigned dots based on their cost and general potency.

Finally, this chapter wraps up by discussing the Hedge. I’m often amazed at the sheer number of interesting places to go and things to do in Changeling, and the Hedge certainly offers endless adventuring opportunity. The Hedge is, to an extent, a sort of psychic entity in that it often reflects a person’s expectations and dreads back at them to produce a particularly dangerous environment. Not only does the book support adventuring in the Hedge through good discussion of it as a specific entity but it also provides rules for imagination fueled Hedge Duels and other peculiarities of the Hedge.

Chapter Four Storytelling - 56 pages.

There are two things I really like about this chapter. First, it doesn’t tell you how to run an RPG. Second, it’s perfectly focused on this specific game and does an excellent job of addressing everything that might come up in a Changeling game. Example adventure plots, ways to approach Changelings, ways to use Fetches in a game, and a variety of other useful discussion is included here. In actual play I found this section to be generally inspiring, and that’s uncommon at best for me when it comes to GM-focused chapters in game books.

There is one place where this chapter disappointed me, however. The antagonists are very sparse and did not begin to meet my needs. I’ve felt this way with some other, similar White Wolf products but in this case I was really hurting in actual play. I would like to see some villains other than other Changelings, but the one True Fae example is far too powerful to use. I, personally, don’t want Fae to always be the adversaries in my Changeling games either. I ended up using some monsters from other World of Darkness products, but I really wish some other sort of adversary could have been included here.

Despite the lack of other interesting adversaries, I do find this to be a very well done chapter.

Appendix One Entitlements - 36 pages.

If you’ve played other World of Darkness games then you’ve encountered some sort of special groups characters can join that provide a unique focus and benefits. Entitlements are special groups of nobles a Changeling may join through a mix of stat requirements and roleplay requirements. Upon joining the Changelings appearance gradually change and the Changeling gains the political benefits of the group. The Changeling also gains a Token for that group which grants an ability of moderate use. I really like these groups for several reasons. First and foremost, they just aren’t that powerful. They don’t provide any super abilities but rather serve as interesting window dressing and plot hooks to have around. I really like that they each have a very unique and fantastical feel, such that belonging to them alone is just cool. Finally, I like how they’re integrated into a quasi-feudal title system. These groups could very easily be added to an existing setting to give it a little more flavor.

A variety of interesting Entitlements are presented here and provide plenty of options for interested characters.

Appendix Two The Freehold of Miami - 23 pages.

It’s not a highly detailed setting, but it’s a fine choice if you just want to grab something and go. This example setting does two things really well. It gives the reader an idea of how the local Changeling society may function, which helps bring a lot of earlier concepts together. It also provides several more pregenerated NPCs that can be dumped into any game even if the Storyteller chooses to never use Miami. Pregens are always helpful.

My Take

If you like dark fairytales and want to play a cooperative World of Darkness game with heavy fairytale elements, dream exploration, and constant opportunity for imaginative and clever roleplay then pick this one up.

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