Wheel of the Year

Theme Song: Control, by Poe

Once upon a time – because all proper stories start that way – there were six little faeries, who may have been boys and girls once. Or perhaps, they were faeries that simply wanted to be boys and girls, and were brought back home by the Master of the Estate.

Now, the Master of the Estate was wise and terrible and beautiful to look on, and he loved the things in his life to be likewise. Beauty of this greatness requires a lot of work, and if there was anything the Master of the Estate hated almost as much as ugliness, it was hard work.

Fortunately, he was blessed with these six little faeries, and they worked very hard indeed. Of course, sometimes they were wicked little faeries and didn’t wish to work, so the Master of the Estate was forced to use his Sublime Chastisements upon them for being so lazy and ungrateful. On the other hand, other times they worked so hard that they became very ugly indeed, and he sorrowfully was forced to subject them to the Sublime Chastisements, to teach them the importance of beauty.

One day, while the Master of the Estate threw one of the great balls that he was justly revered and adored for by the Gentry, something terrible happened. The Master of the Estate had an enemy of such savageness and hideousness that something as wonderful and beauteous as the Master of the Estate had no choice but to declare it his foremost adversary! This terrible thing, the Reiver Most Fell, did something abominable – the attacked the Estate during the night of the ball!

Oh, the chaos! So many beautiful things were set on fire, or trampled upon, or spattered with the blood of stupid servants who didn’t know any better than to die near priceless artifacts. The Master of the Estate was terribly wroth, and while his noble guests fled for their own strongholds (many of the selfish, silly creatures assuming it was an attempt on their own unimportant lives), the Master of the Estate’s sterling tactical acumen and sublime fencing talents drew the Reiver Most Fell away from the Estate.

And in that moment, something terrible happened. The Estate was empty and unattended. And those wicked, deceitful, ungrateful little faeries – do you know what they did?

Yes. They ran away.

Oh, how wroth the Master of the Estate will be when he finds them again. How wroth, indeed. The Wheel of the Year may turn ever onward, but the Master of the Estate will not stop searching for them. Oh, no. Not until he's found them again.

Premise

"Wheel of the Year" is a Changeling: the Lost chronicle intended for up to six players.

I will be running this chronicle once a month at most, on a weekend when Mandy (and Keith, who asked to sit out, and possibly play the occasional Storyteller Character) can make it down.

As such, some of the game will take place via the wiki and email. This is where I'll be doing "information dumps" and other sorts of things that I don't want to waste time during game to do. This means that part of participation in this game involves active participation on that electronic forum - if you aren't going to be able to spare the time to play the game fully, I'll understand; that's how things go.

I want to get together for a character creation session rather than having everyone create characters separately. I know this means basically getting started with the game a little later, but you will not only be creating your characters - you will be creating the Master of the Estate, from whom you escaped, and helping to define his Sublime Punishments, the Estate itself and the kinds of duties you did there that led to your transformation into a full Changeling.

You will also be creating and playing one anothers' Fetches, the faerie entities who thought they were your character while your character was in Arcadia. We'll determine this by random lottery, so I'm going to want everyone there to be able to listen to one anothers' character concepts and backstories which we can just assume that all of you, by dint of having known one another for the time you spent with the Master of the Estate, know of one another.

As such, we'll also be going through Fetch character creation. :)

I'll be posting the kinds of Changelings that are available for play (including Kiths not included in the core book) to the wiki here in the next couple of days. In the meantime, if you're interested in playing, please start thinking about the following questions:

1. Who was your character before s/he was taken by the Master of the Estate? All of you come from or were stolen from New York City.

2. Why was your character stolen? Specifically, what talents or traits did the Master of the Estate see in you that caused him to snatch you up and carry you away to Arcadia?

3. It was your memory of the Statue of Liberty that drew you back through the Hedge and into New York. Make sure you come up with a good reason in your backstory why the Statue of Liberty was such an important memory that your character clung to it the way s/he did.

This means, as an aside, that your character concept can span the years from 1886 to the modern day; do note that most Changelings who've been gone longer than fifty years almost never find their ways back, but you're PCs, so you're the exception. No more than one or two of you older than that fifty year mark, please. I hate games that focus too much on Anachronistic People Out of Place In the Wacky Modern World! It's a little too cheesy for my taste. One or two - especially if you've got a cool reason to use an older character - is okay, though.

Player Characters

• Katrina played by Sarah
• Torq played by Ericdabear
• Freddie the Fat Man played by Wil
• Figment played by Chillos
• Paulo played by Mashbyh
• Archer played by Mandy

Chronicle Resources

• Seemings and Kiths, a look at the available Seemings and Kiths.
• Contracts, the Contracts for changelings.
• General Merits, the Merits available to most characters in the World of Darkness.
• Changeling Merits, the Merits available uniquely to changelings.
• Changeling Flaws, the Flaws available uniquely to changelings.

Setting

• The Great Wheel Freehold: The Changeling Courts of New York City.