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Because Amethyst is in there, too.

Changeling kiths

Here's a thing I posted on another blog some three years ago. It was kind of ill-fitting in that context, and never gathered any comments or anything, so I'm going to delete it there and repost it here. It's soon to become obsolete, what with the new edition of Changeling coming out in the next year (YAY), but here it is anyway. It promises two more upcoming posts, which never happened. I may or may not do them now.

~~~

March 9, 2012

One of the greatest things about this setting is the incredible variety to the characters you can create with it. Even before you introduce individual creativity (e.g. “what kind of Hunterheart are you?”), there are an unusually huge number of options given just in the published materials, and whatever you choose has both a mechanical effect and a significant aesthetic one.

Because of this, one of the first things I got excited about when I first started obsessing over Changeling was the idea of making a fun system for randomly generating characters. I’ve gone through three or four versions of that, most of which I’ll be posting eventually. They’re great for randomly picking your own character, if you’re feeling adventurous. They’re even better for populating the Freehold you’re going to be Storytelling.

Before I share those, though, I have a few homebrewed kiths to post.

Here’s the thing. When you add up the total number of kiths in the base book and Winter Masques, there are close but uneven numbers under the six seemings. So in order to have an even chance of belonging to each seeming, I wanted to bring the number of kiths for each one up to 15.

Of course, you could also just accept the differences and call it a reflection of how things really stand in changeling society, or you could leave blank spaces with a “roll again in this seeming” note, but in my case, I thought it’d be more fun to provide some homebrew kiths. The numbers required to even things out are  one each of Darklings and Elementals, and two each of Fairest and Ogres.

So, here are my Fairests and my Elemental. Ogres and Darkling will come later. Please bear in mind that I have not explored anyone else’s homebrew lists around the internet, so if you have some you especially like, feel free to drop them in the comments!

FAIREST KITHS

• Puckbottom - This Fairest is actually hideous, but is madly attractive to those around him anyway. No one quite perceives his ugliness when he’s around, but it becomes disturbingly obvious in retrospect. Dirty Little Secret: Anybody the Puckbottom makes any opposed social rolls against is very reluctant to talk about him after he leaves. They have to make a willpower check to do so.
• Figurehead - This changeling has been groomed for leadership, and the Wyrd knows it. Useful details about government, both general and specific, just seem to flow to her mind, even if she doesn’t understand them. Savvy Instinct: Spend any number of glamour points to add that many dice to dice pools involving Politics. Points in the Status and Contacts merits can be bought for half XP.

ELEMENTAL KITH

• Aetherling - A changeling who spent much of her durance where no other elements are found, whether in the emptiness between fae stars or in the swirling void of her keeper’s own strange dimension. Cosmic Separation: An invisible force gently repels any unresisting objects or substances (of the Aetherling’s choice) from within arm’s reach. She cannot levitate or steer anything moved this way–it simply moves away from her by the most direct route, obeying gravity once it leaves her immediate vicinity. She can also add her Wyrd to any dice pools involving more forcible attempts to repel things, at the Storyteller’s discretion. This might include throwing objects, breaking down doors, escaping grapples, etc. Wyrd cannot be added to Dodge rolls.*

I’ve done my best to make these fairly balanced, but in the proud tradition of the base game, they’re probably not really. X) I would be thrilled to hear about it if anyone decides to play-test these, especially the Aetherling.

* If you can figure out a way to influence Dodge rolls without it being overpowered, I’d love to hear that, too.

SCA flags

...making decorations! Because, of course, the best thing about heraldry is putting it all over everything.

The first bit of heraldic crafting I ever did was to make a cross-stitch version of my first attempt at an SCA device (as seen in this post). Everyone on the internet warns you not to make any actual artifacts of your heraldry until it's registered, just in case something goes wrong, but I figured I wanted to learn how to cross-stitch, and so I might as well learn it on something I liked. I regret nothing! The next thing I made was within the first 48 hours after our first devices passed, because I had a baby and an event to go to and I wanted to cover up the label on my modern carrier. I made an appliqued panel, cheating with modern iron-together adhesives, which quarters the middle two ideas for my husband's and my coats of arms. (Quartering suggests that the person bearing it is the child of two armigers and is inheriting from both of them.) Of course, I can't really use either of these two things anymore, since they aren't the devices we actually went with, but I'm still glad I made them. They were good practice.

 

Also pretty pleased how that guy turned out.

Now, PLEASE NOTE: I have never been an accomplished seamster, rarely even a willing one. But because of the SCA, I figured out that this was because I'd never wanted to have any of things that are easy to learn to sew. (Cross-stitched teddy bear for the wall? Nnnnnno thanks.) But once I found heraldry--which is all about marking objects to show your presence and identity--there were all kinds of crafts I suddenly needed to learn. (I also made a 13th century dress somewhere in here, with moderate success, but that's another topic.) Once we'd finalized our heraldic designs, I decided I wanted a painted flag, and threw together this gonfalon:

And this one we use all the time! Woo!

...which is fortunately only designed to be seen from the front, because it's kind of a hot mess on the back! This type of combined display, in case you're curious, is called "impalement." Most of the time, with some exceptions, it represents a married woman, showing a combination of her husband's arms and her father's. (In the middle ages, when heraldry was developed, that was about as close as you could get to describing such a woman, since she was not an independent legal entity.) In the context of the SCA, since everyone gets to be armigerous regardless of gender, that usage is a lot less meaningful, so this has come to be regarded as more of a marital display, representing the union rather than just one of the people.

ANYWAY, the wonderful, wonderful day soon came when people I had helped started getting their names and devices registered, and the fact filled me with crafty delight. I decided to make my friend a gonfalon of her own in congratulations. I was also becoming the brand new baronial herald at that time, and so in my enthusiasm I presented her gift in a business meeting and announced to the whole populace that way too many of them had been showing me awesome designs for heraldry that they'd never gotten registered. I then made a vow that, for each person whose arms were passed during my time as herald, I would make a flag. Even at the time I knew this was quixotic to the point of being bonkers, but it's been a little over a year now, and I stand by it. I've been having so much fun, and I've been getting so much better and faster at sewing, and people have totally been sending in their paperwork who wouldn't otherwise have done so. Win, win, all the wins.

Here are all the flags I've made so far, plus one I'll be giving tomorrow night. These are all approximately the size of a fat quarter, give or take seam allowances, and are painted with acrylic pens. (And with all this practice, even the backs are starting to look pretty nice.) If there's any interest at all in the future, I could probably make a tutorial.

Yay yay. I love heraldry so much. <3 It looks like there'll be a couple months' break before the next registrations, but I'll make another post when I've got a few more of these under my belt. ^_^

[All paintings and photos by Rachel Spitler. These images may be used without permission only in direct connection with the bearers of these arms; otherwise, please contact me.
Original source for the wolf and scorpion: Christie L. Ward and her SVG gallery for heralds.
Lions: Based on a drawing by Azizah bint Rustam of the society, made for the armiger.
Butterflies and cat: Based on drawings by the armiger.
Mirrors and cap: Original.
Hawk: I have lost track of where this artwork originally came from. I will update this when I find it, or remove the image at the copyright holder's request.]

SCA heraldry

In the autumn of 2012, I started attending SCA events, which had been a lifelong dream. My first chance encounter with our local group was actually in August, but I had to wait two months until the next gathering that fit my schedule--and it felt like a whole lot longer, because many of my friends and family were abroad and I was in the latter half of a pregnancy. During that time I became deeply engrossed in heraldry. And then I... pretty much stayed that way.

For a year and a half I designed and redesigned coats of arms for myself and my husband, not to mention all my loved ones, people who were requesting help online, and not a few fictional characters. Early on, I didn't have a very thorough understanding of what medieval heraldry really looked like, and the devices I developed were needlessly complex, modernistic, and in some cases not actually within the rules.

My first design for myself, from the evening of that first run-in, was so ridiculous I've never actually tried to render it digitally (there was an orle nebuly involved, if that means anything to you), but I quickly developed these two designs for Heath and I. For a month or two I doted on these, until someone correctly advised me that mine was not actually describable in heraldic terms, and Heath said he'd like something much simpler. Up until then he'd mostly had very little opinion, so feedback was exciting. Plus, it meant I got to go back to designing!

The blazons for these puppies stretch the image box to an unacceptable width.

So, down to work. Pages and pages of test ideas were created in Inkscape. Keeping our favorite motifs, but switching to more abstract sorts of symbolism, we settled on the following. The first set of armory formally registered to Heath and I -- or rather, to our medieval personae -- looked like this:

Awkwardly positioned between the good and the ugly.

...But during the ensuing months, while our submission was being considered, I started to learn more and more about how things actually worked in the middle ages. I started to read historical rolls of arms and to understand that the original purpose of heraldry was to be both instantaneously recognizable and easily reproduced by people with no artistic abilities. I started to be very attracted to the extremely simple, mostly geometric designs of the earliest coats of arms, and I was also getting better at running conflict-checks against the devices other people had already registered. After shuffling through dozens of alternate ideas, I decided that if I took the leaves off my coat of arms and used them as a separate heraldic badge, then I would have two pieces of gorgeous, simple armory instead of one pretty but modern one. After that, we quickly determined that the following designs were both clear and awesome. A new submission immediately followed on the heels of the first ones being accepted. And that's while I'll never get a tattoo, kids!

Gregory de Munemuth: Vert, a key cross argent.
Emelyn Fulredy: Purpure, two bendlets Or.
Three maple leaves conjoined Or.

Those minor decorations are an artsy thing, by the way, and can appropriately be done to any device in almost any setting. :) Now, technically, it would have been better to use colors that were actually popular in the medieval time period, such as blue and red. Green was unusual, while purple was vanishingly rare (and usually more of a brown). But, darn it, I like purple, and I love these coats of arms. ^_^

These days I'm serving as the official herald for a local group, which is pretty amazing and pretty impossibly fun. My own experience with scrabbling for a good design, and with ultimately accepting something that falls just barely short of complete authenticity but which I adore, has ended up being pretty useful to me as I advise others. :) Plus, I get to make pretty things! And talk to people about what makes them tick! And do a lot of easy paperwork! (Also speak for the Baron and Baroness in court, give people awards, yell at tournament audiences, and generally have a fantastic time.)

I also get to do fun things like... (continued in next post)

Vimpy

Andy just reminded me of this magnificent thing. Way back in 2007, I got bored and challenged him to a game where we wrote a story together by taking turns saying one word at a time. The result was seven times as amazing as it was stupid.

The Death and Death of Hungry Storytelling Bob

Once when Vimpy was young and naive, she decided that her allegories needed invigoration. Packing together her stationery and quill, leaving her numerous admirers behind, she set out to find someone--or perhaps something--to spice up her imagination.

After weeks became more weeks, without food or more food, she felt chipper about possibly tapping into the spirit of Hungry Storytelling Bob. Bob, that dastardly dead deceiver, was dead, but Vimpy knew his stories could never resurrect her unless she resurrected him first.

Consequently, the first thing she wrote when she contacted the ghost of Bob was, "Tell me how I can become an allegorist like Hungry Storytelling You." Then she was startled by the sound of a belly expanding with ghostly inhalation, followed by terrible laughter.

"PUNY POETASTER. YOU DARE PETITION HUNGRY STORYTELLING ME? I AM DEAD BECAUSE I WAS TOO AWESOME TO ANSWER ANYBODY'S STUPID FACE WITH CIVILITY. YOUR FACE MERELY AMUSES ME SO MUCH THAT I LAUGH. HA HA HA YOU FOOLISH FACE-FACE, I LAUGH IN UPPERCASE. HA HA." The ghost trailed awkwardly into silence.

Blinking, Vimpy pondered this monologue with some reserve. Clearly, Hungry Storytelling Bob was insane. Could this be itself a source of his insightfulness? His charm? His flawless "spice"? Or was it in the way hunger clarified and honed his tongue?

Fear coursed through her, fear, fear! She cried, "Stop laughing at such faces as mine! And by all means, stay dead!" Then she went home and ate her fill of food.

THE ALLEGORICAL END.

Margaret's Honour

Preparing our first Changeling campaign, almost three years ago, was a delightful period of intense, happy fervor. Rob had made us an "opening sequence" for our Heroes game just prior to this, and I felt inspired. Here's the opening sequence I made for us.

(...Yes, Changeling can be an exceedingly creepy game. ♥)

Cash

Here's the other card from the bulk box that I had to find a special way to deal with. Nicole is a good sport. X)