This week, we're headed back to the [dramatic music] theatre... of the MIND's EYE ! [thunder, etc.] as we have a small LARP roundtable with Ash and Will. They are two of the movers and shakers for One World by Night (OWbN), a group that organizes live-action games worldwide! The conversation covers a lot of material following on the heels of Episode 44 , where we talked with Pete Woodworth about the genesis of Changeling LARP with his book, The Shining Host . But this one is more about putting t...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 48
Well, we managed to get to Episode 47 without covering it, but it's time at last for our final(?) WoD gameline crossover episode. This time, we're talking about Vampire: the Masquerade and its points of connection, mechanical and thematic, with Changeling: the Dreaming. We're joined for the discussion by CtP Patron, fellow podcaster, and resident vampire expert (Bryce/)(Sand) Chigg (er), as we meander through clans and bloodlines, Camarilla and Sabbat, Disciplines and other sundries. If you're i...
Jun 01, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 47
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 age... not all bad stuff. That said, it's middle of the road fo...
May 23, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 46
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 game's setting. This episode is kind of a meditation on those tw...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 45
...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 style of roleplaying. Part book dive and part exploration of the ...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 51 min•Season 2Ep. 44
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 Shining Host and The Shadow Court, each of which could also argu...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Season 2Ep. 43
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, tickling a particular set of imaginative centers in the brain tha...
Apr 17, 2023•50 min•Season 2Ep. 42
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. While we are talking about the Deep Dreaming write-ups in par...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 2Ep. 41
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 know more about the specific rules you'll need to run a Dreaming...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 40
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, whose impact on the world of the game cannot be overemphasized. Thi...
Mar 27, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 39
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 roleplaying "proper". In this episode, we draw on our experience...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 38
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 their heritage and presentation that we examine with more critical e...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Season 2Ep. 37
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 things in need of complication for a more nuanced game. We're tryin...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 36
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 Storytellers' Screen, behind which you can roll dice with secrecy and a...
Feb 27, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 35
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 incarnation of the game, and still chock-full of useful material for an...
Feb 21, 2023•2 hr•Season 2Ep. 34
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 passel of social media spots: Discord: https://discord.gg/SAryjXGm5j E...
Dec 21, 2022•11 min•Ep. 33
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 difficult to define in terms of its actual impact on the game line....
Dec 19, 2022•58 min•Ep. 33
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-otherwise-ordinary Kinain. They've changed dramatically in the la...
Dec 12, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 32
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 Across Appalachia , and the 20th Anniversary Edition corebook a...
Dec 08, 2022•2 hr•Ep. 31
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 that we are taking the opportunity to do a more thorough chat ab...
Nov 28, 2022•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 30
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 true enjoyment scattered through. (Lookin' at you, Loch Lads.) It's...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 29
So begins our trilogy of episodes on British setting supplement Isle of the Mighty , with a look at the first three chapters on England. It may seem a bit strange to dedicate so much recording time to this episode, but at just under 200 pages of text that is dense (both in terms of content and in terms of layout), we need the space. Even with the setting so richly described, the authors had to leave a lot out by necessity—so we talk about some of that in detail with special guest host, Andrew Go...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 28
*90s intensifies* as we do an exploration of the brief-lived but fairly-beloved Changeling tie-in CCG, Arcadia: the Wyld Hunt . With a base set released in August 1996, and a single expansion (King Ironheart's Madness) in November of that year, the game was canceled before its third set (The Lion's Den) could follow in 1997. But given the collapse of the market at that time, it's not really something we can hold the company entirely to blame for... This is technically not a Changeling game, per ...
Nov 08, 2022•54 min•Ep. 27
In this *bonus!* episode for Samhain—not Halloween—Josh interviews Pooka G about their latest homebrew release for the Storytellers' Vault, Book of Days . This is a compendium of things chronological for your Changeling chronicle: a day-by-day yearlong calendar of events with story hooks attached, essays on seemings, options for including Seasonal Courts or additional temporal weirdness in your games, chimera, Lycians, Treasures... it was a labor of love, then spite, then madness, then love agai...
Nov 01, 2022•41 min•Ep. 26
Happy Halloween! In accordance with the spoopy traditions of the day, we're talking this time about Wraith: the Oblivion , the World of Darkness game that came out just before Changeling in the original lineup (and similarly underappreciated). Although the fae and ghosts might not seem to have too much in common, thematically or metaphysically, in truth... there's a bunch. Since neither of us are experts in the game, we've called in fellow podcaster Victor Kinzer for a wide-ranging discussion ab...
Oct 31, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 25
This week we're talking generally about horror as a genre for tabletop, and in particular how to make it work for Changeling. As a game, it has a reputation for being too light and fluffy for the World of Darkness; we beg to differ. Given that its purview is literally anything imaginable , all manner of horror can be worked into its fabric, even if it's not necessarily "meant" to be all about that. We take the opportunity in this episode to share opinions and ideas on that subject. It's kind of ...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 24
We're hopping momentarily into the 20th Anniversary Edition of Changeling: the Dreaming to talk about a hefty new offering on the Storytellers' Vault, Kithbook: Dullahan . Ordinarily, we'd probably wait a bit to discuss a new homebrew release, but since this book covers headless horsemen and their ilk, it was too good a fit for our monthly theme to pass over. This episode, we're fortunate to have the author and illustrator responsible, Andrew Goodman, to chat about his motivations, process, and ...
Oct 17, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 23
Another week, another episode in our series of Octobrish delights... this time, we are returning to our bookshelves to pull some inspirational fiction for the more uncanny, eerie, and unsettling side of Changeling: the Dreaming. We're going through 10(-ish) books and story collections that keep us up at night, and seeing how we can translate that into the themes and moods of the game. (This was also kind of an unexpected topic, so we had very little time to prepare, and it shows—apologies!) Some...
Oct 11, 2022•45 min•Ep. 22
As October dawns, it's only fitting that we should get into it with a deep dive into the guide to that creepiest of kiths, Kithbook: Sluagh . We actually... don't really have many notes this time! Both of us agreed that it was probably our favorite kithbook, that there was very little we'd do to change it (except maybe axe that THEORY), and we didn't really have many asides to dump in the show notes. As mentioned last time, the show notes will from now on feature links to our social sites above ...
Oct 04, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 21
Episode 20! It's pretty amazing that we've made it this far, given how hectic life has been over the last few months. But as autumn (just regular, lowercase-a autumn) sets in, and we have time to center ourselves a bit, we're trying to get things in order to keep bringing you Changeling content into the coming seasons. To that end, this week we're talking about Court of All Kings , the third supplement in the Immortal Eyes trilogy of setting/chronicle books, which focuses on Ireland and the fae ...
Sep 27, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 20
