Changeling Flaws

Mental

• Addiction: Your character is hooked on a certain substance or behavior. If he doesn't get it regularly, he gets anxious and goes out of his way to satisfy his need, even neglecting more important duties. If he goes three or more game sessions without indulging this addiction, he is assumed to have beaten it (your character loses the Flaw). The Storyteller is free to inflict harsh withdrawal symptoms, however. Note: Satisfying this particular addiction does not count as indulging a Vice such as Gluttony. No Willpower points are gained for doing so.
• Amnesia: Your character cannot remember a certain period of her life. This might have been caused by physical or psychological trauma, and memories might come back at the most unexpected or inopportune moments. In addition, she might not remember allies or enemies from her past. This seeming disregard might insult others, make them abandon your character, or drive them to make her remember. For all she knows, there might be a warrant out for her arrest in a distant county or state.
• Coward: Your character is afraid to confront unknown situations, and hesitates when he should act boldly.
• Forgetful: Your character doesn't have amnesia, but she does have trouble remembering particular details. What was the name of that cursed book I was supposed to rescue from the library? The player should avoid relying on her own memory or asking for memory rolls for her character. The character doesn't forget everything, especially not truly important details, but she should forget enough to make things frustrating for her companions.
• Glamour Addict: Per the Addiction Flaw, but the changeling’s substance of choice is Glamour. Alternately, he could be addicted to the act of harvesting itself.
• Illiterate: Your character was either abducted before learning to read and write well, or lost her ability to do so somewhere during her time in Faerie. She may be able to recognize simple words and symbols (stop signs and the logos for some famous brands) or to sign her name, but anything beyond that is challenging and arduous.
• Nightmares: Some peoples’ psyches are naturally predisposed toward nightmares. In such dreamers, the more intense the dream is, the more likely she is to experience nightmares — the intensity of the dream unnerves the dreamer, and what began as a simple dream of some other kind takes a dramatic shift into the nightmarish. In game terms, any dream with an Intensity higher than the dreamer’s Resolve becomes a nightmare. These nightmares retain the beginning dream’s Intensity, however, meaning that such dreams are quite likely to leave the dreamer ill rested the next morning. (Changeling: the Lost)

Physical

• Manifest Mien: Your character’s Mask is imperfect in some small way, leaving humans who witness his Flaw uncomfortable. A Skitterskulk’s hair (including that on his face and body) might be bristly and stand out from his skin as a fly’s does, or he might always move with a scuttling walk. An Airtouched might seem always out of breath, or an Earthbone’s skin always covered in a faint layer of dust or smudges of dirt. Even for the Fairest, a Manifest Mien is no boon — a Bright One might be easily mistaken for a human on some sensory enhancing drug that gives his skin an almost palpable glow, or a Muse come across as “too beautiful,” making those around her spin conjecture about which plastic surgeon she sees to achieve such inhuman features. Note: In no way should the Manifest Mien Flaw be used to benefit the character. While a Hunterheart’s prominent fangs might be intimidating, with this Flaw he leaves those who see them thinking he’s a poser who files his teeth to look “tough” rather than a frightening predator. As always, a character gains no extra experience points if a Flaw comes into play but does not in fact hinder him in some undesirable way.
• Cannibal: Your character has developed a taste for human flesh somewhere along the line. While not quite an addiction, it is a strong preference and one your character finds hard to resist. It is possible that the taboo against giving into this “treat” only makes it more tantalizing for her.
• Cumbersome: Unlike the Giant Flaw, the extra mass your character carries around is not entirely beneficial to his health. He weighs three to four times what an average human of his size does and must shop for clothing in specialty stores. He has difficulty sitting in chairs with arms, fitting through narrow doorways or crossing weak bridges or floors. He can never raise his Stamina above 3. This Flaw may be taken in conjunction with the Giant Merit, exacerbating the Giant’s difficulties to “fit in” in a world designed for average-sized humans.

Social

• Anachronism: Your character suffered longer in Arcadia than most, and now much of the human world he returned to is unfamiliar. He may be flatly unable to complete certain tasks that modern changelings take for granted until he learns the ins and outs of recent technology. In addition, the local freehold likely sees him as a breach of secrecy waiting to happen, and is unwilling to let him wander freely through the area. Note: It is all but unheard of for changelings who have spent more than 100 years in Arcadia to return. Most Anachronistic Lost will have come from no later than the early 1900s, but even a century provides plenty of challenges for a returning fae. In 1900, there were no functional airplanes, no radio programs (let alone television), very few automobiles (all handmade) or electric lights (most homes were still lit with gas or oil lamps and candles). Gas stoves had just begun to be commercially available, along with portable cameras, and most clothing was still made for the family by the women of the house, who wore floor-length skirts even when gardening or bicycling.
• True Tongue: Your character is a horrible liar. While he is physically capable of telling a fib, when he does so it’s obvious. Maybe he stutters when he tries to tell a lie, or perhaps he can’t keep his stories straight from one moment to the next and contradicts himself. Whatever the reason, those who he lies to can just tell he’s not coming clean with them. Even lies of omission are difficult for him — those around him just have a feeling there’s more to the story than he’s letting on.
• Untrustworthy: Something about your character just engenders suspicion in others. Maybe it’s her shifty eyes. Maybe she talks just a bit too fast, or someone has spread rumors about her breaking pledges in the past. Regardless, others are hesitant to put their faith in her, and she is at a –2 penalty for all Persuasion and Socialize rolls, or any challenge using Manipulation.