Changeling the Podcast

There was a bit of a delay for this episode—sorry! When you party with the satyrs for the sake of episode data, you party hardy. But in the end, we have some thoughts about the kith and their presentation in Kithbook: Satyrs. To overcome the fairly one-dimensional sex maniac trope, the kithbook situates them within an extensive fae history of Greece, argues that passion can go in many directions, gives some insights into how satyrs...

When it comes to themes in Changeling, there are plenty of possibilities for discussion: the bittersweetness of time, the necessity of balance, alternative forms of horror (which we talked about back in Episode 24). Two closely aligned ones that interest us are queerness and kinship. The experience of the former is often paralleled by many of the game's core ideas, and the various forms of the latter come to the foreground in the g...

...no, not the pseudo-Kithbook: Sidhe. We already covered that book, if you'll remember Episode 11. This time we'll be talking about the similarly named but wholly different The Shining Host, Changeling's entry in the LARP (Live-Action RolePlaying) universe of Mind's Eye Theatre. Given the alignment between the themes and mechanics of Changeling: the Dreaming and, well, make-believe, it's a natural fit for this more performative st...

In case it wasn't clear, the sidhe are the star kith (some might say "Marys Sue" or "prime donne") of Changeling: the Dreaming. More metaplot space was devoted to their intrigues than any other, players seem drawn to play them (possibly for those sweet House benefits), and while they never got 72 or 96 pages of proper kithbook, they got ~400 pages of House book divided across three supplements. (And that's putting aside Nobles: the...

It's been a while since we had one of our inspiration episodes, where we take a look at material outside of the CtD canon that we find helpful for grokking the themes of the game. We've had novels and spoopy novels, but in this episode (#THE ANSWER) we're turning to graphic novels and other visual narratives of the comic form. A professor might say, pairing text with image creates its own kind of media experience for the reader, ti...

At long last, we come to the end of the road... well, not the end, because that would (presumably) be Arcadia. But we are deeper into the Dreaming than we've yet been, as we deal this week with the final part of our dive into Dreams and Nightmares! Joining us is C20 author and longtime community bastion Charlie Cantrell, for a discussion of the Realms in the farthest reaches of dream, and the stories one might tell on the way there...

We're continuing down the path into the Firchlis-warped wilderness as we dip into Chapters 2, the first half of 4, 6, and the Appendix of Dreams and Nightmares. Why the scattered approach? While we focused on the Near Dreaming along with general Dreaming cosmology and (meta)physics last time, in this installment we're talking specifically about the Far Dreaming, its Realms, and more of the mechanical side of things. If you want to ...

Brace yourselves—it's time for another trilogy of episodes as we dive into the library for a book of exquisite density. While Isle of the Mighty (our previous three-fer) was long in addition to dense, Dreams and Nightmares is a trim 128 pages with standard-sized font. So why the excessive episodage for it? Because this is the first, last, and thus far only entry in the Changeling canon to give us a thorough look at the Dreaming, wh...

Even when you're equipped with quickstart materials (as we discussed a few episode ago...!), it can be daunting to prepare your/your players' first Changeling game. Many of the potential speed bumps can be smoothed over with a solid Session Zero, where everyone gets together, talks about the characters they want to play, the particular game and story they expect to craft, and the questions they need answered before diving into the ...

Another dive into the library...! This week, we're taking a closer look at the ill-tempered genius of the nockers as we flip through the pages of their Kithbook, the third in the lineup. There are certainly some interesting tidbits in this one: the origins of nockers' foul mouths, some fast-and-loose chimerical "science", a panoply of devices and vehicles from their workshops. And then there are... choices that were made about thei...

There are a few different ways to summarize Changeling: the Dreaming and its themes. "You're a faerie in a human body" and its variations are a common starting point; "it's about the struggle to keep imagination alive" might be another. The conflict (or is it, really?) between Glamour and Banality is our topic for this week, as we try to take a holistic view of them as metaphysical forces, game systems, descriptive elements, and th...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a tabletop RPG with a rich setting is in want of an overflow book for all the material unceremoniously cut from the corebook. Changeling's 2nd edition was no exception, and so we have the Book of Lost Dreams, a slim volume that touches on crossover rules with other WoD games, resources for Storytellers, Unseelie Houses, an introductory adventure... all of it packaged with a seemly Storyte...

Greetings, Dreamers! After a couple months' hibernation, we have returned to start bringing you content once again, as we enter the enchanted realm of 2nd edition... so of course, we must begin with the corebook, a tome near and dear to both our hearts. We really tried to rein it in, and this still ended up being our longest episode yet (by the merest of hairs). This is still a legacy edition, but nearer to the most recent incarnat...

Hey all! This is just our quick wrap-up for the end of our first season (which we've sort of stumbled into properly calling a season now). It's a handful of thoughts on what we've accomplished, and what we'd like to do in the coming year. Thanks again for listening and supporting our podcast so far, and we hope you'll stick with us when we come back after our hiatus. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to us via our usual passe...

For our last long-form episode of 2022, we're diving into the library again, but this time we're headed to the fiction section, and the Immortal Eyes novel trilogy. These books tie in to the three Immortal Eyes setting/chronicle books from 1st edition, fleshing out the story and giving some more options for incorporating the plot (and metaplot) into one's own chronicle. It was a grand experiment that, while not unsuccessful, is dif...

Changelings are part fae, part human. But what about their fellows who are even humaner, or humans who are entirely so, with nothing inherently fae about them? This episode, we return to the library to talk about The Enchanted, Changeling's supplement for "Year of the Ally" and the final(!) book of the 1st edition. While we've seen mortal antagonists throughout the line, here we get a look at the enchanted and the fae-blooded-but-o...

Greetings, all! This episode is dropping a bit later than anticipated, because it's our longest yet, but also one of our most important. Today we're talking about Changeling's version of the Nunnehi, the Indigenous fae of Concordia whose presentation has been a mixed bag over the editions. We're not focused on a particular book, since they appear throughout the line, but the 1st edition Player's Guide, the Werewolf supplement Rage ...

Croeso! We are wrapping up our trilogy of episodes on Isle of the Mighty with an exploration into Wales/Cymru and the fae/Tylwyth Teg that dwell there. The unfortunate news is that Book 3 of this weighty tome has a lot of the same issues we called out previously: clunky choices for the history section, uneven distribution of information in the geography section, several NPCs whose defining adjective is "meh". But the better news is...

The legend continues... this week, we're proceeding north to Scotland for Book 2 of Isle of the Mighty. There's more of the same in terms of bizarre history section content management, NPCs who are intriguing and forgettable in equal measure, and a geography chapter that is surprisingly good! Even though in the balance, this section probably leaves more questions unanswered than we had when we started, there are some moments of tru...