Changeling: The Lost

Chronicle
Storytellers Guide

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1|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide

The Gentry
Using True Fae in
Your Game
The Gentry are the prime antagonists for
Changeling: the Lost. As such, the use of these
characters in a Storytelling capacity is very
important.
That said, the limited number of 24 True
Fae, each with potentially hundreds of actors in
the 2013 chronicle creates challenges for
Storytellers at any level. It certainly raises the
following questions for storytellers, which well
address one by one.
How can I portray such an important entity on
a local level and be in line with Regional,
National and Global plot?
Weve established for the chronicle that each
of the 24 Gentry possess hundreds of titles, and
manifest these titles regularly as actors. What
this means is a particular True Fae will manifest
more important actors with many titles, and less
important actors with fewer.
Storytellers on a local level will be utilizing
these less important actors. True Fae are
known to behave in bizarre and erratic manners.
This means that as long as a Faes vanity, truces,
feuds and tells are portrayed per the Players
Document, you have free reign to portray your
local actor how you like.

Just because these actors are less important

to the overall motives of the True Fae, however,
it doesnt mean they should be unimportant to
your players. The Gentry are very real threats,
even when theyre not manifesting their full
power.
Similarly, a low-titled actor you create as a
manifestation of a particular True Fae can be
destroyed (or is she?) without drastically
affecting the overall entitys ambitions.
With True Fae and their actors so common,
how can I keep Loyalists, Privateers, Goblins
and other threats interesting to my players?
Id like to stress that while our goal was to
increase flexibility for storytellers and relevance
of plot for players, we were definitely leery of
making a True Fae of the week game
commonplace.
While this may be the right model for you
and your players, the Lost venue is chock-full of
fantastic antagonists that should be utilized to
not only make True Fae encounters more rare,
but enhance them.
Consider the following two examples:
1. A game who encounters the Queen of Ice as a
face in the crowd among a parade of weekly
Gentry antagonists, defeats her, then moves on
to the next generic Fae, versus

2|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide

2. A game who has spent the last four months

bumping heads with icy hobgoblin-trolls and
loyalists working strange plots. In the end, they
discover the machinations of a mysterious
queen-figure.
Pursuing her into her icy
temporary lair in the hedge, the freehold
experiences the loss of a member but forces her
to retreat to Arcadia. They know, however, shes
only been bested for the moment and is enraged
at their interference.
Whats the point of my players defeating an
Actor, if another one spawns in its place?
One of the key themes for the Lost in this
chronicle should be one of hopelessness against
an overpowering adversary versus the courage to
fight the good fight, even if its a losing one.

Tells
Tells are an important aspect to this take on
True Fae they let the Lost know which of The
Gentry a particular actor belongs to. If youd
like to make Tells less obvious, or if a True Fae is
attempting to hide one, have your players roll
Wits + Occult, with a number of successes
required as suits the situation.
Because of the importance of tells, they need
to be included even if they dont seem to be
compatible. Working in a tell that doesnt seem
immediately compatible with a concept can be
difficult. There are a few ways to address this:
1. Does a different member of The Gentry
work better?

Each actor, even one with only a couple of

titles, is a daunting foe and to defeat one only
indicates the barest of progress if any toward
the defeat of the True Fae itself.

Because each True Fae has a unique tell, see

if theres another True Fae that suits your
concept and has a more compatible tell. Give
the list another glance.

This is by design. With only 24 True Fae,

the complete destruction of even one would be a
momentous event rocking the entire Lost
community.

2. Can you make the tell itself symbolic or

abstract?

Sell your players less on the struggle as

Why bother? and more on the notion that just
because one is losing (or at very least doesnt
seem to be winning), survival and the will to
push on in the face of adversity are traits that
should be shared by any with the strength of will
to escape Arcadia in the first place.
Make sure players feel this when
encountering a member of The Gentry. Theyre
not designed to be disposable adversaries, but
challenges that test the skills and mettle of your
players characters.
These are strong people that fought like hell
to escape Arcadia. They certainly wont give up
the fight now that theyve gotten out.

What about the case of the Patriarch

manifesting as a literal Alpha Wolf. He
wouldnt be wearing a physical golden crown,
wouldnt be wearing a pin, and a tattoo wouldnt
be visible. Rather than a literal crown in this
case, The Patriarch might manifest with a ring of
blonde among otherwise raven black hair.
As in the above example, try to see if theres
an alternate interpretation that works. Even if
you think youre being too abstract, you can
allow your players a Wits + Occult roll to have
their characters come to a conclusion they might
not themselves.
3. Could the True Fae be concealing it?

What about my question? It wasnt addressed

here.

Lets say the Architect is manifesting an

actor as a literal architect, a suave business type.
Clay-caked hands dont seem to quite fit that
said, the actor may be aware of this himself, and
wearing gloves to conceal it.

The development team put a lot of thought

into the decisions we made about the new
chronicle. We couldnt cover all of the issues
here, but please consult your storyteller chain
with any additional questions or concerns.

A True Faes concealment of the tell, if its

obviously incompatible, can illustrate the tell
quite accurately as a weakness The Gentry cant
overcome and might serve to enhance, rather
than detract from, the character.

3|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide

Creating a True
Fae Actor
Actors are created using the following process:
1. Attributes: Attributes are assigned like
mortals, but Actors are much more
powerful. They get 9/7/5 dots plus 1 dot to
each priority for each title held. Fifth and
higher attributes cost only a single dot, but
are limited to 5 plus the number of titles
held. Attributes are purchased with XP at 5
times new dot. While in the hedge, attributes
are doubled, increasing the damage limit.
2. Skills: Skills are prioritized as 20/12/6 dots
plus 1 dot to each priority for each title held.
Fifth and higher skills only cost a single dot,
but are limited to 5 plus the number of titles
held. They are limited to only one dot in
Computer, Empathy, and Expression in the
Hedge or Arcadia, but a max of three in the
mundane world (Autumn Nightmares p
69). Skills are purchased with XP at 3 times
new dot. While in the hedge, skills are
doubled, increasing the damage limit.
3. Skill Specialties: True Fae get 3 skill
specialties at creation +1 free skill specialty
towards Changelings. True Fae cannot have
specialties the Courts. Specialties cost 3xp
each.
4. Wyrd: True Fae can not purchase Wyrd. An
Actor's Wyrd is 5 plus the number of titles
held.
5. Merits: True Fae do not get merit creation
dots, but may purchase character creation
merits with XP, and pay double the XP cost
for
mundane
merits.
6. Contracts: True Fae get 20 dots in
contracts to spend. The fifth clause in a
contract costs only one dot. Mantle
requirements are ignored, but only True Fae

with 4-5 titles may purchase Court

contracts. Contracts may be purchased at
Affinity cost except Goblin Contracts which
are normal cost.
7. Mask: A True Fae's Mask is always
imperfect (Autumn Nightmares p 67)
and costs a glamour to turn on and remove.

8. Mein: Actors get one Seeming and 3 kiths.

Kiths must be chosen from within the
Seeming or the True Fae kiths (Autumn
Nightmares p 68). Kiths may be changed
reflexively.
9. Other Advantages: True Fae have a Virtue
and Vice, but gain willpower as per the
Ruled by Passions aspect. True Fae may gain
Clarity as Changelings if they are Banished
but otherwise are Clarity 0. Size and Species
Factor (to determine speed) are limited to 10
dots + 2 per title and Defense is the highest
of Dexterity and Wits.
10. Other Traits: All Actors possess the
Immortal Flesh and Ruled by Passions
aspects. They have one Major bane or taboo
in addition to those gained from High Wyrd.
True Fae have a limited time in the real
world as per Autumn Nightmares p 69
and can harvest Glamour as per Autumn
Nightmares p 67.
11. Determine
the
True
Fae,
and
Incorporate the Tell: Suggestions for how
to do this are included in the Gentry
Storytellers document on page 2. The list of
True Fae, their tells, and their vanities is
included in The Gentry Players Document.
12. True Fae in Arcadia do not have stats. They
are only limited by the deals they have made
and can make their manifestations as
powerful or as weak as they please.

4|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide

Truths
Trod Boundaries

"deeper" into the Hedge rather than being tied to

a real world location.

Trods will simply need the approval of the

Storyteller chain in control of each end. If two
storytellers decide that characters can travel via
trod between their games, then there is no good
reason to hinder that.

This allows us to bring story and plot to the

local game, rather than relying on proxies to go
to new and unique locations. Also, with the
ever-changing nature of the Hedge, once a
plotkit is over, the path to that location deep
within the Hedge could be grown over and lost.

Often times, how a PC arrives to game is

glossed over in favor of jumping into
roleplay. We will leave it up to the ST running
the game to decide what is best. It was decided
that the chronicle would not start with any
international trods connecting to the US. These
far-reaching trods may be developed at a later
time.

Hedge Geography
While someone can travel in any direction in
the hedge and traverse distance, they can also
travel "deeper" into the hedge. While one
character could pick a direction, and strike off
that way and cover a great distance, another
character might initially head off in the same
direction, but travel "deeper", experiencing a
completely different journey, and while traveling
deeper they get closer and closer to Arcadia.
In this way, the Hedge locations mentioned
in the books could be accessed (with proper
approval) from any Domain, by traveling

Forces, Concepts,
and Hedge Magic
It was decided that the Fundamental Forces
that power contracts (Summer, Darkness,
Smoke, Dreams, Artifice, etc) would never
appear as personifications. In other words,
Summer would never take on human form and
have a conversation with other characters.
When the founder of the Autumn court
made a compact with Autumn, it was through
achieving some sort of cosmic-universal-oneness
level of understanding and clarity (probably big
'C' Clarity) that allowed them to change and
harness that primal aspect of the Wyrd.
In addition, the idea of "concepts" being very
real forces in the world of their own accord,
without a physical or spiritual manifestation,
ascribes a unique take on how Changelings use
magic literal Hedge Magic to interact with

5|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide

the world. They have a very different point of

view than say, a Mage or Werewolf.
Concepts expressed like this might be quite
freeing to storytellers to express Concepts in
their own game accordingly. If Summer doesn't
like how a particular freehold is handling its
business, it wouldn't manifest and say "I'm very
unhappy with you." It would cause droughts,
heat waves in particular areas, and be generally
unpleasant to the people it was upset with until
they "righted the ship."
This was done to preserve the mystery of the
origin of Contracts and where they draw power
from, as well as differentiate them from the near
infinite power and personifications of the True
Fae.

Fae Arcadia versus

Supernal Arcadia
Fae Arcadia is different from Awakened
Arcadia.
These two (basically inaccessible)
realms are indeed different places. No one
knows which came first, if they are related, or if
one is a reflection or shadow of the other. This
was done to avoid OOC confusion, crosscontamination of theme, and elevating one
setting over the other.

6|Changeling: the Lost: Chronicle Storytellers Guide