Perfect timing! My group wanted to play a more comedic game and I volunteered to run Changeling for it. They're all Childlings, all live in the same neighborhood, all attending the same elementary school. My goal is to emulate 90's Saturday morning cartoons, stuff like Recess, Hey Arnold!, or even Kids Next Door. One of the teachers is also a Kith as well so we can even do Magic School Bus kind of stories. It's gonna be fun.
This might be the most wholesome yet sad game in WofD, I just love it even though it shaders my heart the amount of banality in the world of dreaming, I can really relate to this game because since I was a child(and till now) I have been a dreamer, daydreams, nightdreams, daymares, and nightmares, I had them all, also an archnemesis that is a black cat wearing a leather coat trying to kill me(from that I have the weird obsession of closing and locking every door and window in the house, you can't imagine the amout of times I locked my family outside of fear of that cat that walks on two legs, my sisters are still mad at me for making them freak out because they thought that my horrer of that cat has to be something, also I locked them out), I also had imaginary friends, also angels and demons guide me and misguide me, some loved me, some hated me, some I loved, I still have a big passion for this dreams, sometimes I go back in time and find myself younger and my body is filled with colours that human bodies don't have, I can relate to changelings in this game which make it a lot more painful when I see the banality in the real world(I am almost crying when I started talking about the banality I actually suffered in the real world, anyway I still have my glamour with me whatever happens)
@@ThePrimogen don't worry about that, actually I am a lot better than what I could have been if I wasn't such a dreamer, I think this game is much more than a game, it is a part of everyone of us, a part most people forgot but I remember, it is not just a game, and I am no longer sad because I know the dreams can live even if most people forgot it, it always stays there, in the ones willing to carry them.
ive always had a soft spot for Dreaming. Both due to my love of Fantasy and the running theme of "Some things are worth fighting for even if they seem hopeless".
I've always found that there can be horror in CtD but it's a lot more subtle, and it has to do with duality. The horrors of losing all of your childhood wonder on one side of the coin and on the other the horrors of never growing up and delving more into the parts of a child like mentality that can be harmful to yourself and others. Though I don't think the later part has really been brought up and might not even be intentional unless I am mistaken. Just my interpretation.
Tony DiTerlizzi did some fantastic art for Changeling the Dreaming. I have his artbook "Realms" and the work he did for Planescape and Changeling are without equal.
Hello Primogen, I know that I'm writing two years later but Changeling the Dreaming deserves a lot ( and I mean a LOT ) of love and you can really spread it with your magnificent work. I really hope that you will hear my request: more Changeling content, more Glamour for all of us. Thank you and keep up the good work !
man, i remember playing this, the DM at the time was a hippy nihilist and the campaign was us escaping from the autumn people, just people here and there who's very presence robbed us of our glamour and our inevitable dragging down into banality, good times
Woo-hoo! Changeling lore!! Your channel is on fire, dude. I've been binge-listening to your lore playlists all the time now. Hope all your hard work has been as rewarding to you as much as your subscribers :-D
Thank you so much! :D Just seeing that people enjoy the content is reward enough, I'm so happy to have so many amazing people watching and sharing my stuff!
Ah is there anything better than looking a Toreador or Tzimisce in the eyes and asking him why she has so many crows feet? Asking a Get of Fenris if he loses his voice from growling so much (before running for the hills) ? Or even playing catch with a wraith ? What a beautiful world we live in, if only more knew where to look
You have a good feeling since one of the Malkavian Traditions is called: "The Malkavian-Arcadia Connection" which hints at Malkavians being aided by Fae because the way Malkavians question reality puts cracks on the Wall of Sleep. Or as the Clan Novel put it: "The Malkavians are secretly being aided at the higest levels by the Faeries who stayed behind in earth's reality when most of their fellows fled. They see the Malkavians as a direct assault on the Wall of Sleep, the calcified reality structure that precipitated the loss of magic energy in Earth's dimension." Then theres storys about the Word-Eater who was a Malkavian that somehow evolved into a fae like creature.
It depends on the Malk. Not every Gift of Malkav is bright and joyful. Some of the darkest and most heinous kindred throughout history have been Malkavians. They can bring the artistic eye of the Toreador, the unfeeling detachment of the Tremere, the twisted dreams of the Tzsimisce and the cold calculated fascination of a Cappadocian together into one focused moment of absolutely pure depravity. The darkest feelings a human can know only touch the edges of the cavern that can live inside a Malkavian. A dark hole of hate, or worse, antipathy. These kindred can feel nearly as bad as some Technocrats for the banality they bring. But then there's the others, the flighty, bright and bubbly sort, the ones who'll run into a convent singing tunes from The Sound of Music while feeding indiscriminately. Who are often told to stop playing with their food by the rest of the coterie. To the Kithain Malkavians are just like you and me. Except they're turned up to 11. 😉
A Team up between the Changelings and the Mages of the Traditions could be fun they basicly have the same enemy and can bring absolute chaos to the world
Wonderful video and very beautiful and evocative art. Changeling has always spoke to the part of me that loves tabletop (as I feel many of us who enjoy it have felt the forces of bedlam while trying to maintain this hobby). Most of all I am reminded of Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, when I read changeling.
Apparently my impression of what CtD was is very, very wrong. XD And that’s ok! My initial impression was heavily based around CtL and I thought it was a direct prequel to the former which deals with the Durance. This is considerably more optimistic XD
My biggest problem with the dreaming growing up is my friends got a laugh cause my last name is Bogan and they always joked about being one lol, though I prefer the darker nature of the lost, I’m looking forward to playing the lost and not running it
I enjoyed it very much, I love that my favorite series of games are regaining attention, it makes getting my players into these games do much easier once they watch your vids
I can't really say I understand the conflict of this game. I mean, is the whole point of the game really just to fight off being sad and depressed? Because that's a bit too meta for my tastes. Keep in mind that I don't know anything about this game and I'm only just learning about the World of Darkness' less mainstream games (Mummy, Hunter, Demon, etc).
Yeah that's part of it. Part of it is dealing with real life shittiness and how easy it would be to just slip into full-Changeling and never go outside, but that brings problems as well. It is pretty meta in a sense, but the focus is really to try to capture that childlike sense of wonder and holding on to it in a mundane and hostile world.
Changeling the lost is more in your face with its horror elements. You’re an abuse survivor who has returned to a world that doesn’t recognise you anymore, and doesn’t really have room for you. You are left trying to find a new purpose while staying alive through tricking humans, all while trying to avoid recapture. It’s a game of looking over your shoulder at every turn. The Dreaming is in my opinion a more poignant experience. Unlike the lost where you know exactly what to fear, the dreaming’s antagonists are more etherial, the world is simply not compatible with you, but you are still of this world. Dreaming forces the changeling to make a choice between the exhaustion of maintaining their duality, or giving in to banality or bedlam. The easier choice is always most damaging, while maintaining duality is inherently unsustainable. The Lost instead tried to force their changeling to give up on their human life entirely. It’s tragic sure, but like all CoD games, it’s far more simplified a goal. Dreaming instead makes every goal you have a potential pitfall. If banality is coming in, the changeling may feel forced to create a quest to smite a mighty dragon in order to keep glamor flowing, but how that translate into reality may harm those they love in the mortal world, does it become a terrorist attack or a great fire? Does the inadvertent death or injury of mortals lead to the changeling dismissing it in favour of glamour, or giving in to banality in order to save them? The themes of personal responsibility are there to tease out, and it’s something that the Lost simply does not have much interest to tackle. While the Dreaming are capable of doing terrible things inadvertently in the name of survival, there is a tragic innocence to their actions, while the Lost do terrible things in a more similar vein as the kindred. The Dreaming also ties into the themes of the other WoD books so incredibly well. Werewolves try to stave off the apocalypse in the same that changeling try to hold on to glamor, yet their connection to the wyrd make their actions often more damaging that helpful. Many garou cannot trust a changeling out of fear of how their world view can alter things into far more dangerous versions simply because they imagine if, yet as partial spirits, the garou may feel a duty to protect them too. Mages have probably the best connection with the changeling, their goals in many ways align, but diverge in that the Fae have no endgame, they simply don’t wish to lose what they have while the mage always strives for betterment. They do benefit off each other greatly, a changelings effect on the world can greatly enhance what is and isn’t coincidental magic, and if used properly can be a potent force against the technocracy. Yet their nature is so unpredictable that many Mages simply do not understand them and cannot rely on them, even the Verbena who’s whole thing is keeping creatures like the far from dying out would be wary about hanging their plans on them, but some changeling my find them stability of a mage to be a great source of aid, their ambassador to the more banal, their bubble of whimsy and hope. Yet they too are subject to madness, and while marauders are probably the closest a mage can get to relating to a changeling, such beings are so unstable they threaten bedlam just by proximity. The wraiths have a very similar goal to the changeling, keeps existing. So much of a wraith’s existence is spent trying to keep a dying grasp on what they have left, their fetters, their influence on the skinlands, their place on the surfaces, avoiding. The descent to Stygia, avoiding the loss of self that enthralment brings, avoiding the chaos of the tempest, or holding on to merely existing as the void of oblivion calls every louder. All the while they try to hold on to the best qualities of their self before the worst ones take over. Changeling may not interact often with wraith, but of all the other creatures, they are the ones who are likely to relate the most to their predicament. The only difference being that wraiths focus on what they can keep from oblivion, changeling a instead focus on what they can pull back. These kinds of philosophical mixes are less palpable in CoD books, each creature is very much involved in their own things, werewolves are simply spirit police, Mages just want to pull the curtain back on reality and see what’s really going on, giests just want to make the best of their second chance, and changeling are survivors who are trying to reclaim their life. The metaphysics take a backseat to the personal struggle in CoD while in WoD the metaphysics create that struggle. As much as the premise of Lost interest me from a purely narrative perspective, it just doesn’t have the same bone deep sadness that dreaming promises. Changeling are doomed to fail in dreaming, and the trick to making a poignant story with them is to create the scenario where by the players can see success in the distance, but the mechanics of the game make reaching is impossible. That realisation that no matter what they do, no matter how they try to stay alive, they are either destroying the world their mortal side calls home, or losing themselves to banality. One way or another they will fail, and yet to admit that is the only way failure becomes certain.
The less said about this the better. But yes the Kiasyd came to be because the Lasombra Marconius drank a weird concoction after using Obtenebration on it.
The Ravnos Discipline *Chimerstry* channels the Changeling concept of “Glamour” (more or less) and can conjure Chimerical effects that can be effective against creatures of fae; whereas the Kiasyd/Maeghar are “freak accidents”, fae-blooded mortals who were successfully Embraced by a Kindred of any given clan or bloodline. The Weirdlings’ Discipline of *Mytherceria* is a collection of odd folkloric powers often associated with the Fair Folk. The Ravnos, if the kithain can even identify one as such, are likely feared and reviled for their uncanny mastery over the very essence of faerydom - and your average (non-Lasombra) Kiasyd/Maeghar is as likely to track down Changelings and commit hideous experiments on them as it is to earnestly seek an alliance. In the case of the latter bloodline, they’re so few and far between it would be a mistake to assume they share much in common with one another, if anything.
I personally love Changeling, but it's difficult to find a group of people willing to play it... much less those who might really appreciate it. Anyway, great vid, and fantastic art choices. Rebecca Guay is among my favorites.
I cant be the only one who feels like dreaming and lost can easily overlap. We know in lost some gentry get trapped in our world and it effects them in similar ways. I find irony in the possibility dreaming changelings may not be aware of what arcadia is “really” like wheras the lost do
The Primogen OMG I just realised the your patreon who requested this is actually my ST for changlings the dreaming he’s a the reason why I love the game so much.
I don't know if any one can help me here. I am struggling to find a mid 2000 movie that was very similar to changing the lost. The daughter was abducted by 3 creatures with television eyes. The father was being driven by anger. There was a blind character who constantly counted to three.
Ish. The Technocracy has a huge influence on banality. But so does the Weaver and it's servants. Ritualist Hermetics can bring a sense of banality as they move each candle just a bit to the left, or redraw that chalk outline for the twenty sixth time. The Ventrue's process maps, or Tremere's step by step experimentation. But the worst are the ones that sneak up on you. The normal folk. The Dreamers. The kid who's scared of going home because his dad's probably lost more money at the dog track and will take it out on him. The teenager who's avoided eating for four days now because her sister was making fun of her weight. Or just walking down the street at the beginning or end of the working day, the faces filled with resignation, boredom, or just numbness. Banality is everywhere, scratching away at you, looking for a chink in your armour. And that's why you need to hold on to your light young warrior. To fight and hope, to dream and wish. But most importantly, to never grow up - no matter how much you grow old. 😉
