Seemings Part 06 - Wizened

Wizened

"Oh, I've got compassion running out of my nose, pal! I'm the Sultan of Sentiment! Dr. Hayward, I have travelled thousands of miles and apparently several centuries to this forgotten sinkhole in order to perform a series of tests.  Now, I do not ask you to understand these tests, I'm not a cruel man, I just ask that you get the hell outta my way, so that I can finish my work! Is that clear?!" - Albert Rosenfield, Twin Peaks

You can cry for the mechanical man, for the machine girl, for the person made by their own hands, but they won’t cry for themselves. The Wizened doesn’t know to, or care to. She’s found a way to cope and live, and it works for her. Wizened are crafters, makers, creators, endless invention embodied in a body or mind that is otherwise incomplete. She’s a jigsaw puzzle missing the edge pieces, and because of it, or related to that, the puzzle can go on forever, adding more pieces, moving pieces around, endlessly creating, always building, and never complete. The tinkerer is the toy with the Wizened, and the sculptor can be the sculpture.

The Wizened is happiest when she’s busy. When her hands and mind are idle, she can’t help but feel like she ought to be doing something. She keeps her wits about in a crisis and pulls miraculous solutions out of the most vexing problems. If she gives a little too much advice, its only because she’s been there and done that. She made the t-shirt, and she doesn’t like to see the same mistake made twice.

Once upon a time: Before the Durance, many Wizened already had their craft. She had a skill or talent that drove her and made her unique and different. She excelled in this particular field, and it made it stand out. Maybe because of this, or simply connected to this, she has always had a problem connecting with people. Among normal people with normal lives she felt different, outside, and maybe even a little broken. There was something everyone around her seemed to have, and she was missing. Maybe it bothered her, maybe she didn’t even know it exactly, but that missing something is what they used to lure or trick her into the Hedge.

In Faerie you worked your fingers to the bone, hunched over your workbench or running yourself ragged in the field’s day in day out. All that for a glimmer of hope – surely this time your Keeper would cleave to their word. They never did. As soon as the deed was done they laughed in your face. Or scolded you, beat and punished you faults where none existed. You drove yourself to distraction learning impossible crafts and following endless convoluted rules, but inevitably the bastard manipulated you into sabotaging yourself over and over…

The Escape: The Durance isn’t easy for anyone, but for the would-be Wizened the change is just too much. In the hands of her Keeper, there is no pattern, no safe routine to fall back to. Even if the Keeper brought the would-be Wizened to perform her art, the very nature of the unreality means that pattern, order, routine are impossible. This is a natural cruelty that makes all other concerns seem secondary for the would-be Wizened who may have a strong need for comfortable repetition. The reality of the place itself breaks down the would-be Wizened, literally, they fall apart a piece at a time, unable to handle the chaos. Fingers snap off, limbs wither and drop away, her heart shrivels and a wind carries it off like ash pushed away by bellows. She leaves that part behind. But for the would-be Wizened, she has something outside of herself.

 As terrible as the chaos and the conditions are, something inside can’t be taken away. She knows how to do a thing, she is good at it, and it drives her. Even as she found herself in pieces, the tool of her trade is a comfort, the symbols of her skill fills the gaps. And so, with what’s left of her hands, her arms, her mouths, she sows herself back together. She binds the tools into her body. She joins with her art, rebuilding herself from the ground up. With this new body, the choice to devote herself to the thing that brings safety, comfort, and praise. She abandons the human parts that failed her, and with that choice, she escapes.

Now: You’re Wizened because you have a way about you that reminds the others of a withered old seamstress: nose to the grindstone, with a jaded air and a half-empty glass. But for all your talk, you still mix ethereal colours into your palette and build wonders that dazzle even your fellow Lost. Though you’ve tried to bury that spark of mad inspiration, fearing eternal disappointment, it pulses in your heart and betrays your hard boiled manner in the marvellous things you make. Your canny - and uncanny - mind works overtime blurring the thin line between genius and perfection, and more often than not the considerable talent that you have devoted yourself to can also consume you. Your friends admire your creations and put them to good use, but they know you’re not just making gadgets. You’re building a better world.

Nicknames: Domovye (singular: Domovoi), Hatters, the Shrewd

Regalia: Jewels

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot in a Finesse Attribute at character creation.

Your character can take a Build Equipment action to transform one kind of material into another, as long as she has the appropriate tool to work with what she has. For instance, she could spin straw into gold with a spinning wheel, or forge steel into diamond with an anvil and hammer. This counts as a five-dice bonus for purposes of determining the required successes. This ability costs a point of Glamour per action if she’s jury rigging, but in this case she can improvise her tools as well; she might spin straw into gold by running it around a ceiling fan, or forge steel into diamond by running it over with a car.

Curse:

In addition to your character’s other breaking points, she risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half her Wyrd (rounded up) whenever an unpleasant surprise takes her off guard.

Tales

He hides behind his online handle and never lets anyone see his face. With careful research, blatant hacking, and a little social-media stalking, he tracks down fetches and documents their every move. He drops anonymous tips to Changelings seeking their false selves and plays cryptic benefactor with the unknowing scarecrows, sending them on a wild goose chases to manoeuvre them into their Changeling doubles’ paths. His paranoia drives him to collect dirt on everyone else, too, to keep them from tracking him down in kind and exposing his operation to the world.

If only he could do it himself! His vision is clear, his tools are perfect, it’s the models that keep failing! Why can’t they hold still longer? Why can’t they smile just the right way?! He’s considering alternative paths to the perfect tableau…

She can’t hear your words, and while she can read lips when she’s paying attention, she’s almost never paying attention. The music is in her head, and she doesn’t need hearing to confirm if it’s correct. She just knows. All other concerns are secondary.

Seemings Part 05 - Ogres

Ogre

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have is a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare to people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." - Bryan Mills, Taken

If the Ogre is a brute, a thug, a monster, it is because it is necessary for him to be. Of all the Changelings broken by their Keepers, none have such potential for tragedy. For them, the need for violence, for control, for consumption is a means of survival. For the Ogre, all becomes survival of the fittest. The Ogre knows what a fine line separates the hero from the monster, and how hard it is to walk it. Sick of having to say they’re sorry, they’re careful not to do anything they’ll feel obliged to apologise for. When they smash and maim, it’s because someone deserved it. Others may dismiss them as brutish and slow, but the Ogres keep it simple because to do otherwise is to drown in remorse.

For those around the Ogre, one has to question if survival is worth the cost. The Ogre puts up stone walls between himself and any danger, emotionally and physically, and when you dig in to why, it’s hard to even blame him.

Once upon a time: Ogres were bullied. Most often, this bullying was real, brutal, and constant. Bullying that’s better to call abuse. Rarely, but not impossibly, Ogres come from people who perceived bullying where it wasn’t really happening, and so the abuse that drove them was mostly from their own persecution complex. Mostly, though, Ogres were first people who were pushed and pushed and hurt and hurt until they had no choice but to lash out, to respond with violence or brutality, and that moment, when they snapped, they fled, flung, or were grabbed into the Hedge. The power to snap, the thing that pushed them over could come from within, but often, comes from the Keeper and his servants, to draw the Changeling in.

In Faerie, you were no knight in shining armour, no dutiful soldier marching under a banner. Such things; beings of love, honour and fellowship could never have been forged from such a pitiful creature as you. No, you were a brutal destroyer – a thug without mercy. You endured by dishing out more pain than you received, and you fed the terror you inspired. Even when you killed others to release them from this hell, or let them do the same to you, you all returned to life again the next day to start again.

The Escape: An Ogre-to-be spends her Durance waiting. He knows all about abuse before the Hedge, and although it’s fantastic and horrific, it’s just more of the same. He went in to the Hedge raw, skinless, vulnerable, but there’s no way he’ll stay that way. The Ogre-to-be bides his time, building up his strength and his shields, sculpting muscle and a new skin out of the violence and chaos around him. He doesn’t just make armour: He becomes armour. Eventually, when things get hard, when the pain isn’t just physical, he makes a choice. He sheds his very flesh, replaces it with rock or clay and becomes, he thinks, invulnerable. Liberated from the part of him that can still hurt, he makes a break for it. He watched, enduring, planning his escape. He destroys everything in his wake, moving with such unstoppable brutality.

Now: It’s an easy mistake to assume that all you’re just a combat focused meat-machine built to hit and be hit. Violence and inflicting violence has nothing to with fighting and combat. Sometimes, on the surface, you even eschew fighting, leaning on pacifism and that kind of morality. But the anger builds, regardless of intent, and so you manipulate and abuse violently, to protect others with brutal social rhetoric as much as your iron fist. Bullies happen in academia, the sciences, and anywhere there are people. You can’t erase what you did in Faerie, but you can make up for it. You’re the one they can count on to do the right thing, even when it happens to be the hardest thing.

Nicknames: Bruisers, Gargoyles, The Terrible

Regalia: Shields

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot of one Power attribute at character creation.

Whenever your character deals any damage to another, you may impose the Beaten Down Tilt, which lasts for three turns. This ability costs a Glamour if the Ogre makes the attack on his own behalf and not someone else’s.

Curse:

In addition to your character’s other breaking points, he risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half his Wyrd (rounded up) whenever someone he doesn’t consider an enemy flees or cowers from him.

Tales

 He wonders how different his life now is from before. At least now he’s salaried, that’s something. The Earth Queen insists she’s doing what she must for the greater good, but as far as he can see it she’s no different from any crime lord. The people he intimidates into paying her titles and fealty probably believe he’d really eat them alive if they didn’t comply. Who knows? If she ordered it, maybe he would…

No one ever hit her, or called her names, they just left her to herself, and a child without love and support is a child abused. She turned her anger inward, hate and violence saved for herself. When she hurt herself bad enough to go to a hospital, she went to the Hedge instead. She’s whole now, and understands better what was done to her, and when she broke out, it was to get revenge.

They couldn’t understand how important he was, how much smarter. They were stupid, and ignorant, and he’d been planning his revenge for years. He never realized that his mistreatment of his little sister, the way that he vented his rage at her, would mean her one day selling him out to his Keeper. When he escaped, he came back determined to make them all pay. He doesn’t know that sis is still watching him, undoing him, and should he ever find out, well... It won’t be pretty.

Seemings Part 04 - Fairest

Fairest

“I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.” - Diana of Wales

The Fairest is a brilliant, shining, idealization. She’s too bright to look at, or reflects back to you the way you want the world to be. She speaks and the world listens. A gentle touch, a lingering glance, one compassionate word – these hold all the power she needs to lend strength to the doubting and win over the reticent. If she’s impervious to the grime of politics and intrigue, it’s only because she refuses to be put in her place.

The Fairest struggles, every day and night, to live up to her own myth, to be the great hero that they expected to be. She made a choice to take on the responsibilities of others on to their own shoulders, and sometime she succeeds. When a Fairest fails, when the crown falls from her brow, it falls in flames. A Fairest may not be the leader, but fate makes others look to her as leader time and time again. Whether she embraces that, or runs from it.

Once upon a Time: Before, many Fairest were diamonds in the rough, flowers that had not bloomed, or swords never drawn. Wasted youth, wasted life, wasted time. Minutes, hours, days, tick away and maybe she realizes, or maybe she doesn’t, but her life is passing by tick by tick. She could have stayed in school, or took piano lessons, or asked for that raise, or done a million things differently to make her life matter. But she just, didn’t, and her potential built and built and ripped her up inside, filling her stomach with guilt of what could-be until it started to consume her. Then, a trigger, a preventable tragedy that wouldn’t have happened if she’d just lived up to her potential. That’s when she knew what a waste it had all been, and either she flees to the Hedge, or she accepts a well-timed offer for change and goes to her Keeper willingly, if not wittingly.

In Faerie, you were pampered and cherished, even idolised by your Keeper. Your body was re-sculpted with a master’s touch, elegant and graceful, radiant and desirable. You were the ring that glimmered on your liege lord’s finger, the blade that danced in their hand, the voice of your Keepers will. Whatever the case, you were a novelty, a plaything. You were beautiful and noble, expendable and empty. You existed purely to glorify your Keeper, nothing more…

The Escape: Once, he’d be potential wasted. But then, in is Durance, he was potential suppressed. He could have been someone, he still had time, but he made a bad choice, or had shit luck. But the Fairest to be is also keenly aware that he is not alone here. With his own wasted potential stinging like salt in the eyes, he could see, know, and sense, that all the others with him, were wasted potential too. It wasn’t just about his own failure to grow anymore; it was about others like him, smothered as well. And so, the Fairest made a choice to sacrifice himself, or risk his own life to see potential blossom. He marked this, he pulled some portion of his skin from his own back to clothe and protect the others. He wouldn’t leave alone, he offered a hand out and did what he could to help others see they can go, run, and make it back home. The Fairest had a change of heart, and changed the hearts and minds of those around him, and in that moment, he escaped.

Now: You glorify yourself, because no one will do it for you. The truth of leadership is this: Sometimes it’s not about being right, it’s about appearing right. It’s about appearing right, even when there is no real right or wrong. It isn’t pretty, and it’s certainly a quick path to corruption, but it remains true regardless. Most people need to be led, and when they’re scared or desperate, they’re naturally going to turn to the Fairest. It’s the easy choice. And since so many are naturally going to put themselves in the hands of the Fairest, the Fairest has to do something, anything. You are the guiding light in a sea of uncertainty, the grandeur of Arcadia come to Earth in the flesh. Your friends know that when they tire from their labours or lose hope from their traumas, you’ll be there with words to inspire and a plan to win.

Nicknames: Muses, the Sovereign, Unicorns

Regalia: Crowns

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot of one Power attribute at character creation.

A Fairest may spend Willpower points on another character’s behalf for purposes of the usual three dice bonus or +2 resistance trait increase. You may only spend one Willpower per action. This ability costs a point of Glamour if any condition is in play that would cause contention or mistrust between the characters such as Leveraged or Notoriety.

Curse:

In addition to your character’s other breaking points, she risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half her Wyrd (rounded up) whenever her action – or inaction – leads directly to misfortune for her allies.

Tales

They say she turned the heart of a Huntsman who sought to seduce her back to her Keeper. They say she showed him real love and changed his nature, and when he was called back to his Keeper, she went into the Hedge after him. Is it true? Who can say, but she wears a gold ring, a content smile, and gently brushes aside all suitors.

A majority of people will never notice him; he blends in all the other homeless drunks and drifters. The bottom of the bottom, living in tunnels under the city. They don’t see the gleaming sword he wears with honour at his side. It’s better that way. It makes it easier to find the worst of the worst, the monsters that kill those the city has forgotten. He defends the defenceless, with a sword of radiant sunlight. The Prince-Protector of the sewers.

No one calls the Citizen’s Advice Bureau Anymore, not when they can talk to her. She knows all the secret forms to fill in, the ones the Council won’t tell you about but can’t do anything about when they land on their desks. They look to her for leadership. They don’t just suggest she stands for election. They demand it. She’s holding out for now; it wouldn’t be too long before people find out how she plays the system just to make ends meet…but in these dark times the people need a champion. They deserve it…

Seemings Part 03 - Elementals

Elementals

"You know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek homweorld? The Oncoming Storm. You might have removed all your emotions, but I reckon right deep down in your DNA there's one little spark left. And that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?" - The Doctor, The Parting of the Ways

Elementals appear to have skin just like the rest of us, but that’s just a sack, a shape to hold in the storm. He’s transcendent and yet more single-minded. He understands function better than form, and purpose better than reason. It’s difficult to consider the consequences of his actions beyond the immediate, and he doesn’t care to. Other Lost may call them incorrigible; an Elemental listens to their gut intuition because to do otherwise is to deny who they are:

 The Elemental is the deluge, the forest fire, the one who leaves nothing in it his wake. Sometimes, instead of being overt destruction, the Elemental is a sort of existential “place” where other people go missing. Spending too long in the arms of an Elemental means dying of exposure.

Once upon a time: In mundane life, she had no peripheral vision, had no environmental awareness, either literally or about her cultural and social climate. In many cases, she never saw it coming. This is not to say that the Elementals were innocent and wide-eyed, virtuous and guileless. In fact, most Elementals believed they were the single most interesting person they knew. Usually, he’s a big fish in a small pond, and because of his blindness, he has no idea how truly small that pond is. Until, one day, he met someone considerably more interesting, someone amazing, who made him begin to realize how small his pond was and how much he’d missed. So, he tried to make himself more interesting, more unique, the bigger fish, and somehow, this all pushed or pulled him through the Hedge.

The Escape: Maybe she stayed on course, attempting to be the most special, the most important, the most unique of all the captives at the Keeper’s hand. Maybe she determined to burn the brightest, even in hell. Or maybe she went dim, fading, beginning to become nothing since she could never hope to matter anymore. And yet, at some point, brutal winds toughened her skin, or else the pain of hot steel dimmed and she felt only the sensation, not the agony. She saw, for the first time, the elements around her, and realized how big and wild nature itself was, the biggest most important thing. In that moment, she decided to release her ego, her sense of frail-self vanished in an instant, and her heart fell out. It hit the ground, and shattered to a thousand useless pieces. She filled that hole, her heart, herself, with the raw possibility of the elements, embodying fire, electricity, ice, rage, light, any overwhelming, principle force. And in making that choice, she used the element itself to escaping, becoming its child in the real world, free of the Hedge.

Now: You are the fire that shall set the world ablaze, the great deluge that shall separate the wheat from the chaff. You take every opportunity to unleash everything you have, because that’s when you feel the most like you. You are power: pure and raw and simple. And you wield it as your heart demands with abandon because nature acts as it will. However, the freedom to be without self often means forgetting that others still cling to superficial notions like “me,” and “now”. And not everyone is a raw force like you are. Even to your friends you are danger, but when times calls for unrelenting persistence and maybe a lightning strike to black out a street, you’re the one to call.

Nicknames: Sprites, Torrents, the Unbound

Regalia: Swords

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot of one Resistance attribute at character creation.

As long as your character touches or is surrounded by his element, he may use it to take mundane actions at a distance of up to three meters away; these actions use his usual traits. This includes unarmed attacks but not attacks with weapons. This ability costs a point of Glamour per action if he has fewer than half his maximum willpower points remaining.

Curse:

In addition to your character’s other breaking points, he risks clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half his Wyrd (rounded up) whenever someone browbeats, coerces or forces him to act against his will.

Tales

He’s a party monster, he came crashing into the party like a bolt, and the air’s just electric anytime he’s there, rolling. The parties get more intense, more excited, more extreme with every new party, and at this trajectory; it’s only a matter of time before someone dies.

She spent her life holding it in, hiding what she knew herself to be, to protect her friends and family. Things are different now. She’ll burn them all with the bitter cold inside of her. She’ll create her own world of ice and snow where she’s completely free, and who cares who freezes to death in the process.

Her flower shop is the neighbourhood’s pride and joy, and her garden grows fresher produce than any farmers market. The local Kids dare each other to sneak into her private greenhouse at night, but none has ever stolen a glance at her secret crop. Every October, she takes a long trip to meet with unknown associates, and tells no one where she goes. But the kids say that right before she leaves, they swear they hear tiny voices in the greenhouse pleading for help. They don’t sound human…

Seemings Part 02 - Darklings

Darkling

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves.

By each let this be heard

Some do it with a bitter look

Some with a flattering word

The coward does it with a kiss

The brave man with a sword”

― Oscar Wilde, The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

You know the old joke: “Hey! Where are you going with my shoes?” “Shits going down. I can’t outrun the Gentry but now I can sure as hell outrun you…” Hilarious. Everybody laughs…except the Darkling sitting in the corner. She carries a broken heart, either shards of her own or someone else’s. Her curiosity and obsession with ‘knowing’ brought her to the darkest realms of Faerie, and not everyone made it back…

Once, she chose the shadows over the light and it saved her, and that’s a choice and result she can never totally shake. A Darkling is never really among friends; a Darkling is always waiting for the light to chase the shadows, and her, away. The righteous path, the “good guy” way of doing things, left her to suffer horrors at the hands of her Keeper, and she will never again let the right way of doing things stop her from doing what needs to be done. Darkness is not, and never has been about good and evil, and the Darkling is a living embodiment of that.

Once upon a time: Before being drawn in by a Keeper, many Darklings were powerfully dedicated people. Dedicated to a job, to a family, to a friend, or to a secret lover. While few Darklings were what one would call universally ethical, they stood steadfast about that one important thing. Darklings may have been old school company men, or dedicated wives who stayed even through all the affairs. She believed in the things she believed in, and steadfast clung to her ideals: It made her strong. It also made her a pushover. At some point along the way, the thing she believed in most betrayed her in a very real or powerfully imagined way. So powerful that the Darkling was driven to the brink needing a confession…needing the ‘truth’. It was this first betrayal that sent the Darkling-to-be, and more often than not her supposed betrayer, fleeing to the Hedge or into her Keeper’s arms. She walked into the Hedge, already bleeding, and more than wolves can smell that kind of blood in the air.

Here’s the thing: Walt Disney Lied! You didn’t spend your time at your Keepers pleasure with talking animals, sing-along songs and glorious Technicolor dreams. What you endured were the things reserved for the darkest dregs of the human psyche, shapeless nameless things impossible to recall but burned onto the imagination forever - the so called “hyperarousal”… according to clueless armchair academics. To survive you had to fade out of sight, out of memory, even out of existence to evade the eldritch and arcane horror of Faerie. From the shadows you observed hollow mysteries and forbidden fantasies. You wore many masks, made from the memories and emotions and sometimes things more… physical; to hide as those you followed silently. Knowing with each weary step you became more like the unspeakable horrors you evaded.

The Escape: Frequently, as it is with many Changelings, the Darkling-to-be was not alone in her Durance, with others like her suffering alongside. Her turning point, then, is when she watched a hero walk away. When she watched another Changeling make a choice escape, and in effect left her behind. Real or imagined, first, the Darkling felt abandoned, and then, she knew that no one was going to save her. And so, she did what she had to do to escape. In her mind, or in reality, that meant screwing someone else over. It meant leaving someone or something important to her behind. It meant taking advantage of the situation and making the hard choice not the right choice. In that decision, she let shadows in; she accepted it in and abandoned the light and righteous path. She decided, in that key moment, that the righteous are fools or liars, and she would be neither. But it broke her heart into a thousand shards, glinting in the shadows around her.

Now: You are shunned, you are despised: you are a monster. All these thoughts, these ‘tells’ you see on all those you pass might be imagined but you couldn’t care less to find out. You know all the hidden paths both physically and metaphysically…and you go where you please. You wear a mask of a thousand faces and can be all men to all people but you’ll never again be the coward your Keeper made you. You spy and thieve on your own terms, and demand whatever you want in return – because they all know you could just take it if they refuse. You may be often overlooked, though honestly you prefer it that way, but you true friends know that for all you seem shy and hesitant, you’re the one who’s always heard the right whisper…and the one prepared to act on it…

Nicknames: the Bewitched, Mountebanks, Wisps

Regalia: Mirrors

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot of one Finesse Attribute at character creation.

If you spend a point of willpower, your character may touch something insubstantial and become part of it for three consecutive turns, transubstantiating into smoke, shadow, a sunbeam – whatever’s handy. This ability also costs a point of Glamour if anyone is looking directly at her at the time.

Curse:

In addition to your character’s other breaking points, she risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half her Wyrd (rounded up) whenever a secret or important piece of information she knows turns out to be false.

Tales

She’s visits the children first in dreams, playing games with them there and coaxing them out of their shells. She then starts visiting them in the flesh, careful never to let their families or other grownups see her. The parents think she is an imaginary friend, and she lets the fiction persist. The children don’t care no one else knows she’s real – they’re happy just to have a companion who understands them…

He’s killed, more than once, in the service of his country, and it feels like there’s always blood on his hands. He sleeps well every night, though, because he’ll put down the bad guys, because no one else will.

Necromancy, demonology, fetishism and the homunculus crafting? They’re lost, forbidden, but why? What makes them evil, what makes them dangerous, and who uses them despite the taboo? She means to find out, and if she must fight fire with fire, she will…

Seemings Part 01 - Beasts

Times they are a Changing: a note on edition changes.

Seemings are one of the biggest changes from 1^st edition to 2^nd as their whole frame of reference has been inverted. In 1^st edition seeming reflected the role a human was dragged kicking and screaming to Arcadia to perform: a Beast was quite literally a hunting animal or a beast of burden at the beck and call of their keeper, a fairest was always an object of great beauty given a so called ‘easy ride’ (mostly by spiteful and frightened Darklings) as a polished jewel, a fine sword or a keepers consort. This is no longer wholly true of 2^nd edition – that’s what Kith is for – Seeming is all about personal agency.

 A Seeming is a moment of true clarity where the Changeling truly sees themselves for what they have become. The Changeling embraces the changes wrought upon them by their Keeper, forever casting out a part of their soul and the shackles of their own humanity that had kept them prisoner, and channels it into their escape. Seeming is about taking the power invested in a Changeling and turning it around to spite their Keeper. Kith is what Arcadia did to you; Seeming is what you did back on the way out.

Seeming, Make a Choice

It goes like this: shit went sideways; a bad choice or an arsehole pushed your character into hell. Into the Hedge. Into the hands of a Keeper. Shit goes from bad to worse, and existence with her Keeper is hell by design or by accident. And she’s pushed and pushed and pushed. Every week is worse than the last, and eventually, something pushes her just a little too far. Her Keeper breaks her down and changes her to suit its own needs, and maybe even takes her humanity from her turning her into a monster. Or tries. That’s the kith. Changed, almost destroyed, without hope, she decides for herself that something’s got to give. She makes a choice, decides it’s time to get out, and on her own or with the help of others, she breaks away some part of herself that the Keeper used against her. She remakes herself, at least in part, to survive, to cope, to escape.

She grabs agency over herself, and changes the one thing she can – herself – and in doing so, she finds a way to escape. That change, that survival mechanism is her seeming, and it is who she appears to be.

What It Is

Seeming is the change the Changeling has made to himself to reclaim his humanity, or else redefine it. It is who he had to become in order to escape. It may or may not be a good thing, it may make him worse for it, but it was necessary to endure and to get away. It comes with baggage, like any life-changing choice we make. It’s as much blessing as it is curse, and for some, it will make them better people than they were before, somehow. For others, it will make them much worse. Seeming is how you cope, and that’s not always pretty.

What it Isn’t

A seeming is not a party. It’s not a club or a secret society. It’s not family. One Beast owes another Beast jack-shit, and shouldn’t Darklings know well enough to be cautious around other Darklings? A seeming is not a kinship; it’s a coping mechanism. An Elemental may get on great with another Elemental, they’ve learned to survive in similar ways, may have some things in common, but they share no natural sibling ties. That’s what Courts and Motleys are for. It’s also not really a badge one wears or a title to be thrown around. A man marching into Court, declaring himself a Fairest (and shouldn’t you all be very impressed) is bound to get more side eyes than nods of approval. While few Changelings look at their seeming as things to hide or be ashamed of, they’re not for bragging about, either. It’s how you got through, and while others can probably guess based on the way you look on the outside, they could be wrong and digging in too much risks digging in to your Durance, and that’s not just a social faux pas, it’s dangerous.

Beasts

“Fear not, we are of the nature of lions and cannot descend to the destruction of mice and other small beasts.” Elizabeth the 1st

“Evolution, indoctrination, experience…these are the false crutches of the herd” the Beast smiles to herself as she passes by the grey suited men and women in their gilded cages.  Her eyes burn wild, passionate and hungry. Widening them to melt the hearts of others when she wants something…and if she’s denied she doesn’t get angry. She goes feral.  She’s an atavism, a throwback to something more natural, more primal, more free than any so called ‘civilised’ being could ever hope to understand.  When her chance came to escape the Beast reached inside, found her animal self, and embraced her id. The animal inside of her kept her alive at the worst times. Humanity failed her when she was the most in need, and so she rejected it.

Once upon a time: Many Beasts lived trapped and caged, even before their Durance’s. Social bindings or literal incarceration can both lead to an attempt to “escape”. For examples, a cog in the wheel of a big corporation willing to make any deal to get out of his cubical, or a deadbeat loser swinging back and forth, in and out of prison unable to cope on the outside. Even a lovely, well-kept housewife in a gilded cage dreaming of some other, wilder life, might fall into the clutches of the Gentry, anything to escape confinement. That’s not to say that free spirits who lived life in the wide open can’t become Beasts – they do – but most often, a Beast felt trapped before his captivity.

In Faerie, you were not just enslaved you were collared and muzzled so tightly that higher thoughts, your very spark of humanity, was suffocated leaving you a primitive husk. You learnt to hunt and hide, to kill and maim, to obey and most importantly survive. The two pillars of pain and pleasure ruled your life rather than right or wrong and the savage arbitrary law of nature became your cruel mentor…

The Escape: From one cage to another, the Beast has been pushed too far. She already knows what it feels like to be without choices, to submit, to lean on humanity and civility. So she makes a choice, she chooses to do something wild, something socially unacceptable, something animalistic. She bites through flesh, claws through soil, smears herself with shit and blood to escape the Huntsmen on her heels. She chooses to break a taboo, destroys her civility, and in making that choice, she escapes. In making that choice, she becomes the Beast, the frail captive she once was left behind, forgotten. She tears out that bit of her stomach that quivers when she’s done something wrong, and she leaves it in the Hedge to distract her pursuers.

Now: You do what you want, whenever you want, and you won’t even apologise for stepping on someone’s delicate toes while you do it. You don’t take orders and you’ll never beg for anything again. When you act you act out on instinct because to think is to hesitate, to hesitate is to falter and to falter would have kept you trapped forever. You may not think things through, but that by no means makes you a lone wolf – you put your survivalist skills to good use for your comrades, keeping watch while they sleep and tracking enemies through the concrete jungle. When your Motley is mired in complex intrigues and moral conundrums, you remind them to take life one day at a time and savour the little things. Your friends know that when cages need breaking and knights need devouring, you’re the one to count on.

Nicknames: Coursers, Grimms, the Savage

Regalia: Steeds

Blessing:

Gain an additional dot of one Resistance Attribute at character creation.

Your character gains +3 to initiative rolls and Speed, and may choose to do Lethal damage with unarmed attacks. This costs a point of Glamour per three consecutive turns to enjoy this benefit if the Beast has the Shaken or Spooked Condition, or another condition that imposes fear.

Curse:

In addition to your Characters other breaking points, the Beast risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half their Wyrd (rounded up) whenever acting without thinking causes significant harm or complications to someone else.

Tales

The broker’s made of teeth and cunning. He’s figured out how to land the big fish; he’s a shark and he’s always hungry. He’ll sell you your own grandmother and then eat the both of you when the check clears the bank.

She’s free, running like the wind at the first sign of danger, not out of cowardice, but because nothing matters more than the freedom to run. She runs in a way that makes others want, no, need to chase her. She knows where she’s going, them? Not so much.

He knows everyone whispers about him luring mortals onto trods, kidnapping kids and selling them to the Gentry, whatever else they think he gets up to. If they knew he was going into the Hedge and enticing lost wanderers to stray from dark paths so he could take them home, they’d call him a hero. He’s sure not a Hero. He’s a bloodthirsty predator, and that’s a side of himself he shows them when he picks up a Huntsman’s trail and stalks it right back. It hasn’t occurred to him yet that he could be both at once…

Stay on the Path...A Survivalist's Primer for the Hedge.

“Listen close to everybody’s heart,

Hear that breaking sound.

Hopes and dreams shattering apart

And crashing to the ground...”

The Hedge is a strange land, inexorably linked to the dreams and nightmares of the mortal coil, reactive and reflective of the thoughts and feelings of the nearby daydreamers and schemers of mortal man.

And mortal man does nothing so well as despair.

The minds of man turn to a dark future. A dystopia where the haves and have nots are all but at war.

A nightmare world where everything is claimed and noting is free. Not food, not water, not safety. Where anyone could be at risk for the water in their bottle or the fruit in their bag or the money in their pockets. A place where roving gangs control turf by bloody violence and intimidation all the time dodging the brutal heel of The Man. Ecological cataclysm, nuclear holocaust, viral pandemic: mankind has always held deep in their hearts stories of the apocalypse because deep down they know that THEY fucked up the world.

And in the hedge... it’s true.

The Norwich hedge is a mismatch of desolation and ruined splendour. Their once were great spires touching the heavens, a skyline to match anything New York or Paris could boast. The ruins have fallen, overgrown with twisted roots or wire and tangled in the deadly thorns of the hedge. Brutal gangs or strange beasts made their homes in the dungeons of the fallen spires and strange dreams invade the minds of changelings who have never seen them. Dreams of beauty and terror just beyond the cellar doors...

At the centre of the city is a Castle, and in the depths of the hedge it is no different.

Well, there is a castle in the same place.

The Denizens of the hedge refer to the Castle on their side as “the Iron Garrison” if you can get them to speak its name at all, always in hushed whispers, lest one of the "Jacks" is listening to drag the speaker beyond those black doors.

The Jacks. Hulking great hobs, large and strong as any Ogre, the “Jacks” are fanatically brutal enforcers of...somethings will. Presumably they are under orders of some immense being of unquestioned loyalty for if they are seen they are always moving with purpose. These are the Brutes in black dress coats and red arm bands that find transgressors of the esoteric laws of the Garrison. These are the masked Stoßtruppen that tear arms from sockets for crossing the Rivers without an oak leaf in your hand. These are the monsters that jump from the other side of the wall and crush the spines of anyone who does not wail back at the Wall of skulls.

These “Jacks”.... these silent, perhaps mute, killers, guardians, thugs, thieves, and assassins... these guards...

 These jackbooted thugs are omnipresent on the walls of the Iron Garrison, to protect their domination and their ‘Custodian’.

Innumerate patrols of approximately four maintain constant patrol the fallen city and the seven fallen towers. Not to keep them free of interlopers, they don’t need to, but to tally the foolhardy souls who enter the ruins.

How else would the Custodian know how many bodies are down there?

 The thorny wilds of the Norwich hedge vary in climate, weather and foliage from day to day. From tangled wrecks of cars buried in sand to twisted and gnarled forests of gallows trees to salt flats or bombed out cityscape.

Only one constant ties these landscapes together, the twisted cameras dotting the sky, streetlights, adorning walls of caves, even the wildlife is tainted with film. Birds with glassy eyes, wolves with cameras for heads, twisted fruit that record the sounds of their digestion. Everything is seen. By something...

The edges of the city are easily discerned by the Rambling Ring, the only Trod in Norfolk. Well, the only one people have come back from. It is maintained by the Trifling Troubadours and Purveyors of fine Goodes, the travelling Goblin Market led by the Raggedy Prince, a Ram-like Beast with a penchant for shiny objects.

The market walks the Trod on an ever moving loop, stopping to set up its ragtag circus tents and put on a show. Anyone is welcome to see the show, and it is always a thing to amaze with tumblers and acrobats and magic and song.

But be wary at the market, for nothing is free, and a look could cost you your soul...

***

The seven Towers can be seen from the Trod sometimes, if they are welcoming or hungry. They are all similar in design, great sweeping towers that if compete would likely scrape the sky, elegant in style, complex in decoration but it is there that the similarity ends. They are known by the Materials they are made from.

The Tower of Gold

A beautiful tower, bright as freshly polished gold that radiates a sense of welcome and safety as though everything is going to be all right in the end. Witnesses have heard an angelic choir beckoning them to explore this most Blessed Tower.

The tower itself is half buried on its side, a single, unbroken piece according to changelings who have seen it from afar.

The Tower of Flesh

A twisted nightmare of bleeding faces and protruding bones and anguished cries. This dreadful broken ruin calls out – literally- for destruction. The sounds of those poor souls locked together through some twisted witchcraft, or bored keeper, rends at the sanity of those who have escaped it. Wretched hobs have built a sickening settlement around it, a cult that is in constant need of sacrifice to feed their home. Black cloaked acolytes with gnarled hands and spiral painted faces that will do anything, ANYTHING to sew more flesh to that blasphemous prison, or to their own body in twisted worship.

The Tower of Smog

A burning desolate field always seems to accompany the stump of this pitted and crumbling Tower, choked in burning corpses and choking hobs that cower and cough and scurry on some inscrutable endeavour that only makes sense to them.

The tower is made of some non-substance, it moves without moving, like a block of smoke or a cloud on a windless day. Yet out of every crack and thick choking smoke comes out and you can feel a heat from the edges of the field. The door is always unlocked, according to the stories. Nothing ever stops a changeling from going in; the hobs seem barely to notice those brave enough to go in...

The Tower of Water

At the top of a cliff sits the stump of the Water tower, a tower of solid water. Not ice for it is warm to touch, and yes, the hand can splash in the tower and through. Exotic and colourful fish of every description swim in those walls, but the edges are crushed and broken.

Off the edge of the cliff, propped against the cliff at an angle like a cylindrical waterfall, is the tower proper, dozens of metres down from the top of the cliff where its base stands, accessible only by the rope of vines that someone knotted together in the past.

The Tower of Jewels

To find the Tower of Jewels one need only follow the heat and sounds of Flapping.

And the Dragons are a dead giveaway. The tower was once, presumable tall as the others but it is nigh impossible to tell. Dragons like their Jewels... every mating season they come and tear more of the jewelled tower away leaving great fortunes of cast of and broken chunks of precious stone. They fight fiercely over anyone not of their Ilk taking a stone from this ancient site of their race, for in their view all precious things are Dragons by right.

There is a story of how Jenny Pearl, a changeling of Norwich bargained and tricked one into giving her a chest of jewels. She struck the bargain that the dragon would fill one of its cups with the most valuable things in its nest and she would give him 5 cups of her most valuable things. A bargain was struck and the dragon was upset when it realised that she was poorer that she appeared.

Since then they say that the Green eyed dragon mistrusts changelings and has been seeking revenge on the race ever since.

But jenny got rich enough to live a long life of luxury.

The Tower of Lightning

The tallest spire standing is bright and deadly, a shattered bright tower of sparking copper veins constantly struck by the bolts of  thunder from the angry black clouds  that cling to its battered roof. Between the blinding strikes and unimaginably loud thunder clashes whirling beasts on the wing can be seen diving and hunting the grounds around this once proud tower.

The thunderbirds are a beautiful and terrible sight, fully 20 feet across the wings and 2 metres tall they would be imposing enough, but their beaks are hooked and sharp as a cleaver and all 7 of their eyes crackle and buzz with primal rage and electric energy. The call of the Thunderbird is where they get their name, a screech, a bellow, a roar, a Noise unlike anything the survivors ever witnessed it hits like a physical force. The cry of the Thunderbird has a concussive quality and has been known to throw whole convoys to the ground or shatter the legs of a single prey animal. Or changeling...

The Tower of Joy

I can’t describe the tower of joy...

You have to see it.

It looks like your first kiss.

The first time you won a race.

The look on your fathers face when you beat him at chess.

The rewards only a keeper could give you...

The face of it is broken, I can tell you that. A great rend in the centre of its home coloured walls.

The siren song of the tower...

The sirens beyond the doors...such beauty...

Who would ever want to leave...?

***

Beyond the realms of the twisting desiccated streets and barely habitable twists of the Hedge City, the deep hedge is nigh impenetrable, only the fearless, mad or desperate go beyond the goblin overrun suburbs. Patrolled by unstoppable golems and flying metal beasts that pierce the permanently night sky with their twin searchlight eyes, directing the grinding heel of the tracked Golems to anyone stupid enough to venture beyond their place in this twisted world.

To the East of the city is the only known landmark outside of the safety of the world. The Font of Hatred overshadows the city with its red haze, a mushroom cloud hanging in the air in perpetuity, a great rend in the sky spewing forth red destructive energy. Known as the Cloud, the Red Eye and most notably , and cynically, “The Monument to Mankind’s Indomitable Hate”; everyone has a theory- or at least a story- about how it came to be, what it means, what it is...but no one has ever come back from attempting to find it. Maybe they found their souls behind a red cage under its base, maybe the dragon that is roaring the Font into the sky ate them. Maybe the Golems of steel crushed them under their tracks long before they made it...

Polished Baubles and Trappings of Power: Courts Overview.

With our second blog post we provide an overview of the courts in our Changeling chronicle. We have chosen to create custom courts as opposed to using the familiar seasonal courts because we did not want a set destination for how Lost society should develop (i.e. the Seasonal courts will always form a seasonal rotation, the directional courts will always carve out courtly territories).

We are currently finalising mechanics for each courts mantle and will include them in more detailed write-ups of the courts at a later date.

ST Note: to reconcile the ‘just off the bus’ nature of the new Lost chronicle: The Four Elemental courts are something connected with the wider story of humanity and for a new character will denote their motivation for escaping Arcadia. This means a whole background ark of “What you were stolen for? How did you escape? And what brought you back?” can easily be answered by Kith, Seeming and Court.

The Fire Court- The Court of Pride, The Path of Flame

As you fled the eldritch horror and heady beauty of arcadia you followed a bitter yet soothing siren song: YOU were the first in your family to ever go to university, YOU managed to qualify for the national championships, YOU were president of the school debating society, YOU were the guy all the girls fell for at school, You were the woman everyone sought advice from, YOU weren’t nobody: YOU WERE SOMEBODY…

Arrogant, assertive, daring, dramatic, Jacobin, judgemental, visionary, violent… There are many ways to describe the walkers on the Path of Flame and all of them are dynamic like the court itself. The Members of the Fire Court burn with the Promethean flame: the divine spark of ingenuity and the determination to force the world around them to work on their terms. When a Lost soul who would become a member of the Fire court hears the call of their memories they do not consider escaping: they know they must…it’s just a matter of how. As such the culture shock of returning can be quite sharp, their hopes and dreams lie in tatters and the world has all but forgotten about them…just another woulda, coulda, shoulda… It is therefore understandable why the Lost of the Fire court are quick to ire and resistant to compromise. Despite their losses they will not forget that they are better than this and will push themselves and others to even greater heights. But fire is not just a source of warmth and power; it is inherently destructive in its nature. For the loftier a Fire Courtiers ambition and the closer it falls within their grasp, the further and harder the weight of reality can crash down upon them.

Promethean Flames:

To the uninitiated, the philosophy of the Path of Flame can be considered dangerous to the stability and liberty of Lost society, after all pride is generally considered to be a negative and reductive trait in human society. A Fire courtier however, would simply retort that it is better to be open and upfront about your failings because acknowledging a problem is the first step towards rectifying it. To the Fire courtier, pride is not an aloof sense of complacency but an active expression of the individual’s agency and a drive to reach ever greater heights.

A slave accepts their situation and bends to circumstance whereas the Fire courtier bends the world towards their agenda: it is always better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Character Concepts:

Polemicist, Lay preacher, ‘Visionary’, Hooligan, Vigilante, Grifter, Hacktivist, Amateur league Athlete, Hedge Knight, Ghost Hunter, ‘Man with Van’, ‘Expert’, Martyr, ‘Judge Jury & Executioner’.

The Earth Court- The Court of Envy, The Alabaster Road

To be Lost is not simply a matter of not knowing where you are, the voice told you, but to know that the things you hold dear have been taken from you. YOUR wealth, YOUR status, YOUR looks, YOUR thoughts, YOUR hopes, YOUR dreams. To be Lost is to be a slave, to be owned, to be possessed there is no agency, no justice…but to reverse such a wretched fate…it simply starts by taking back what is rightfully YOURS…

Calculating, controlling, cunning, capricious, holistic, hoarding, sage, selfish… It is often said of the walkers of the Alabaster Road that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing…but nothing could be further from the truth. To escape the realms of Arcadia the members of the Earth court realised a fundamental truth: The burden of emancipation is yours to carry alone, you carry your weight or you carry your chains. Following their memories of what they have lost and what they will regain, those who would become members of the Earth Court seethe over the many injustices that have been committed against them and plan how to right those wrongs. This can make the return all the more bitter when the Earth Courtier confronts their Fetch, a shallow and lacking doppelganger left in stewardship of their legacy. Despite the wracking torment of seeing  a pretender squander all the Earth Courtier strove to build before their capture, many play the long game; accounting for every detail and every omission the fetch has made so as best to slip back into their old lives. For Earth is cold and resilient, a level head and ruthless calculation will see those who stand in their way break long before they do. Once an enemy has been vanquished and their ‘assets’ have been consolidated under the Earth courtier’s control they will look for the next perceived wrong to be rectified. For the sad truth is that once an Earth Courtier finally gets back all they have lost, they soon realise that it was never enough…

The Land Knows. The Land Remembers:

Though brute force and social assassination are the probable outcomes of a walker of the Alabaster Road’s latest acquisition, many know that the surest road to power is knowledge. As such even the most meat headed of the Earth court have a working knowledge of something: whether it be esoteric lore, local history or simply a little black book for blackmail. Many within the Earth court carve an existence amongst Lost society as Consiglieres, Mandarins and middlemen; exploiting their knowledge and dubious connections to enact and facilitate the Freeholds will. Though an Earth courtier’s council may at times be highly charged or partisan it always contains sage analysis and insightful expertise. While many welcome the wisdom and teachings the Earth courtier can provide, the cynical state the Alabaster Road does not act out of something so simple as altruism. Favour, popularity and respect are all forms of currency the Earth Courtier can exploit in their ever increasing flow of wealth. As with its material counterpart, the influence of such ‘wealth’ can be corrupting of even the most ethical members of Alabaster Road, as many who enter a bargain with an Earth courtier soon learn the hard way if they choose or are forced to renege .

Character Concepts:

Street Corner Dealer, Burglar, ‘Spiv’, Token Appraiser, Parish Councillor, Protection Racketeer, Collector, ‘Jobsworth’, Local Historian, Pawn Broker, Scholar of the Dark Arts, Opinion Leader, ‘Black Hat’, ‘Hands on’ Loan Shark.

The Water Court- The Court of Dread, The Drowned Procession

With every step you took towards freedom the voice inside your head whispered: All the barbs in your soul, all the pain in your joints…You are nothing to them. You were not the first, and you will not be the last…you were not chosen, nor are you special. You are dust and to dust you will return…but they found you. How easily they could find YOUR sibling, YOUR lover, YOUR friends, YOUR colleagues…one day they will come back…and you will be waiting for them…

Inquisitorial, indomitable, melancholic, meticulous, paranoid, paternal, temperate, terrifying…many a heart and a tongue stills when a follower of the Drowned Procession enters the room, for they are held equally with fear and awe. Lead back not by recollections of their triumph and humanity but a deep seated unease that everything that has tortured and tormented them can just as easily be handed down to those they cared about before their enslavement. It is with grim determination and a poisoned love that drives them to walk the roads less travelled and face the unimaginable horrors of the world of darkness, using their mastery of dread and careful planning to ward off mortals to the dangers hidden in plain sight. It is for this reason, many amongst the Water Court, intentionally or not, cultivate a mystique from which many an urban legend springs forth: The Hook, Bloody Mary, Spring Heeled-Jack and Slenderman were most likely all inspired by members of the Drowned Procession. But as the enemies of the Lost and the Servants of the Gentry are forced back night after night, the Water Courtier looks down upon the blood on their hands and the weight on their soul… little by little they realise that the most dangerous threat to those they care about is themselves…

The Briny Abyss:

It is an easy mistake to believe that Water is the court of fear…but fear creates adrenalin. Fear is primal and engages the fight or flight reflex…and it is astounding to see how much fight is borne of ignorance. No. The Drowned Procession are not the court of fear but the court of dread. For dread does not play to flutters of the heart but operates on the cold superstitious logic of the mind. The Water court may not be able to choose the nature of their opponents but they can choose the terms of engagement. Ruthless strategists bordering on the psychotic, Water courtiers may spend countless hours brooding on a problem, second guessing both themselves and their opponents, before deciding on a course of action but when it comes to the execution it is rarely anything but flawless. When it comes to engagement the Water Courtier will already have carefully laid the ground work and tightened their trap to cause maximum destruction, and in many cases merely the threat of the courts intervention can halt an enemy in their tracks…after all the anticipation of a monster hiding just out of sight can be more potent that an actual encounter with the monster.

Character Concepts:

Conspiracy Theorist, Gang Enforcer, ‘Kooky’ Elder, Night Doctor, Jaded Detective, Briar Ranger, ‘Family Man’, Curator of Forbidden Lore, Survivalist,  Legate of the Dead, Urban Legend, ‘Creepy’ Groundskeeper, Bailiff, Folklorist.

The Air Court: The Court of Desire and Regret, The Zephyrus Trail

It never felt real… the voice in your ear telling YOU the darkest secrets of your soul, The exam YOU winged because you didn’t think it mattered, the boy at school who YOU could never find the courage to speak to but were haunted by every teenage night, The job opportunity YOU turned down even though it had been what you always wanted, The dreams YOU held…but were too scared of failure to follow through…at first they felt bitter and mocking because all you had known was the dizzying vibrant bleakness of Arcadia. And then they felt cruel and barbarous because the voice told you stories of why you were weak when you were at the depth of your helplessness. And then they felt alluring and dreamy because even THEY couldn’t take your regrets from you…and then the flash of headlights the screaming obscenities of the swerving motorist and the sweet refreshing touch of the breeze…it never felt real…but does that even matter…

You’ve defiantly seen them; you probably even know some of them. The Guy who turns up at the bar at opening time and is somehow still drinking at last orders, The Girl who’s out clubbing every Friday night and is always hauled off in the back of a police van for getting into fights. The middle aged pariah who dresses as if they were still twenty years younger and is up for ‘anything’…all broken individuals both wearing and masking their pain, but the school of hard knocks has toughened them and what can be seen as either ‘reckless abandon’ or ‘dereliction of the self’ is often a true grit that allows one to survive the mind bending beauty and horrors of Arcadia. The followers of the Zephyrus Trail claim to be the court of Desire, wild hedonists  and capricious addicts who bring with them a little of the beauty and madness of Arcadia wherever they go. But the hardest lies for a trickster to swallow are the ones they tell themselves, for deep down in their hearts each member of the Air Court knows they walk the path of regret. For all their grand illusions, when reality starts to bite many within the court feel the weight of the void in their souls heavier than others as they come to realise the cheap fixes of desire cannot numb them forever…

NO regrets,  NO fears, NO anxieties:

Regret is a powerful emotion and for the Lost regret can easily be seen as survivor’s guilt. The members of the Zephyrus Trail are survivors, the memories that brought them back were rarely positive and even those that are sting with bittersweetness. But despite this, the Air Court find their regrets oddly empowering for regrets are born of compromise, appeasement and ultimately the surrendering of one’s agency. The Air court have made a personal vow never again to be held down by their regrets; living in the moment and making sure that every action and choice they make is first and foremost for their fulfilment. As such, the Air Courts seemingly headlong drive towards self-destruction lends them an inner strength and almost unshakable determination once they have set their hearts on something. Seen as skittish, self-obsessed and flaky by the other courts, nether the less when the chips are down and the Freeholds survival rests on a knife edge. You will always find the members of the Air court front and centre, holding the line.

Character Concepts:

‘Glutton for Punishment’, Addict, ‘Chancer’, Hedge Fruit Gourmet, ‘Tortured Artist’, Temptress, ‘Adrenaline Junkie’, Patsy, ‘Fight Club’ Initiate, Party Drug Dealer, ‘Lovable’ Rogue, Hedge Beast Trainer, Gossip, Knave.

The Courtless

For the Lost, following one of the four elemental philosophies is more than a mere political affiliation. It is an article of faith. Faith in their own humanity, conviction in their agency and the power they now possess to defy their former Keepers. The Mantle is therefore not some mystical membership card or gaudy bauble but a symbol of the bearer’s broken chains. How curious then are those whom are euphemistically referred to as the Courtless.

The Courtless are at best distrusted and at worse openly and actively despised. There is always a lingering fear that the Gentry send servants back to the real world to bring back their wayward slaves. Whereas the mantle reflects the struggle and ultimate triumph to escape and the emotional weight behind such a struggle, it could always be possible that a Lost who ‘escaped’ without a mantle was simply placed there by their Keeper as an unwitting pawn in their grand schemes. A Courtless who doesn’t make friends fast and learns to toe the line will quickly end up dead at the hands of the Freehold’s most zealous defenders, rightly or wrongly accused of subversion and loyalism.