beginners guide to the changling genre and q&a
pregenerated characters
downtime report form
player contributions
game history
people
places
escheats and codes
banality weather report
History
2001 - 02
Little Toybox of Horrors
Date: August 2001
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Onward Fae Soldiers
Date: September 2001
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Seekers of Truth
Date: October 2001
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Hey, where did the Glamour go?
Date: November 2001
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Walking in Another's Shoes
Date: January 2002
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
The Centre of Time
Date: February 2002
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Three Little Pigs
Date: March 2002
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
(Game description not available)
Who's got the Ring?
Date: April 2002
Storyteller: Trish Arnts
In the day of the full moon, when all Changelings in Canberra mysteriously turned to their Unseelie sides, a new group of Changelings led by a Sidhe Knight and his Pooka Lady came to town. They called themselves the "Gryphon's Wing Oathcircle" and said they were sworn to find the mystical, magical Eversword - although the reason they were in town was to return a ring they claimed belonged to the sleeping Baroness. They found out that something had happened to make all the Changelings in Canberra vanish at some time in the past and that all the Freeholds were lost, although the Baroness Rhiannon retained her claim to Enverona. The Baroness herself was under some sort of curse that kept her asleep as long as Canberra was blanketed in Banality. On entering the town they noticed that the entire place was 'ticking' with Banality as the entire town moved to its mundane rhythms. Amidst trickery and the distrust of the local Changelings and strange visions of a beautiful place that none had ever seen, the Oathcircle were led on a long and convoluted chase for the ring after it was stolen by two of the locals who believed that its powers should be theirs.
The Circus is in Town
Date: 9 June 2002
Storyteller: Marissa Harris
NPCs
Selina O'Shaunnesy the Selkie (Set Free into the Pacific Ocean)
Mary Burnett the Mortal (Arrested by Police)
John Wright the Dauntain Pooka (Killed)
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona the Sidhe (sleeping under a curse)
The Changelings of Canberra go to see a newly arrived circus, amidst worries about the disappearance of the Fox Pooka, Lady Trina. The entire place was lit up with Glamour and Dross, attracting children and changelings alike. In looking around before the show various Changelings found out that the frivolity of the circus concealed a dark secret.
One by one the Changelings were lured into traps and captured by the evil Dauntain and his assistants who ran the show. They were collared and chained, then sent to join Lady Trina in cages bound with cold iron in a large truck out the back. Eventually the Sluagh Shade recognised the danger and drew those that were left away to plan the rescue.
With a brief pause to cause havoc in the big tent, an attack was launched on the Dauntain and his assistants. They eventually freed all the trapped Changelings, including a very unhappy Selkie, who had been trapped several days earlier and then forced to perform in her animal form in the circus. The Dauntain was killed and the police took the ringleader of the circus, Mary Burnett, away for questioning.
While most of the Gryphon's Wing Oathcircle took a trip to Jervis Bay to free the Selkie and the mundane authorities went to work rounding up all the wild animals let loose from the circus, the Nocker Maelstrom led a small group of injured Changelings, including Shade, to a Glade where the Ghille Dhu Spinifex healed them. Inside this Glade they saw the sleeping form of the Baroness Rhiannon.
Deepest Darkest Africa
Date: 23 June 2002
Storyteller: Marissa Harris
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona the Sidhe (sleeping under a curse)
The Sluagh Shade, having seen where the Baroness lay, decided to claim the freehold of Enverona (since the Baroness was obviously in no position to resist). The problem was how to get past the protections around the Glade get to her? Since the Freehold seemed to be hidden, that was the only way to be able to claim it. Knowing that the Oathcircle would jump at any rumour of the Eversword, he found a trod that led deep into the African Dreaming and planted a fake sword there. The Oathcircle, finding a planted clue to the Eversword's whereabouts, decide to get everyone together and go on a quest to find it in the hope that it would free Canberra from Banality.
After some troubles with a group of council workers, they headed off through a wild jungle, meeting pygmy headhunters, a volcano god and a happy sprite who offered to act as their guide, but was really using them to increase her collection of shiny things.
Finally the sword was found and presented to the sleeping Baroness. This failed to wake her up, but using this distraction, Shade made his claim on the freehold. He promptly fell asleep under the curse and the Baroness woke up. The fake sword transformed into a metal bar, much to the horror of the fae who had quested for it.
The Baroness's Tea Party
Date: 28 July 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Mark Bruckard
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona the Sidhe
Armand Coutier the Satyr (Killed)
Sir Stavros Yosmedes the Ghille Dhu (Killed)
Charleen "Charlie" McKenzie the Boggan
The Baroness has announced that she will be holding a celebration dance in Charlieís pub. Everyone turns up to meet her, including a Satyr from New York and an old Ghille Dhu, leading an eshu childling bound in cold iron chains on a leash. A strange male sidhe, Raziel, also turns up, very disoriented, wearing hospital robes and covered in blood.
As the fun and furor starts, the occupants of the pub find themselves taken over by strange dream segments, that they eventually realise come from the Baroness' past. These culminate in the materialisation of a nightmare of her Dauntain father given form - Darkness whipping out of the eyes and mouth of a huge black demon, like fire.
A battle ensued in which Armand and Sir Stavros were both killed - Sir Stavros after having been possessed by this creature. All attacked and the monster was beaten back, until the Baroness was able to step forward and deny his power over her, killing the nightmare.
It is later revealed that the Baroness had unwittingly caused the strange effects in her attempts to destroy the Banality that was plaguing Canberra.
Hide 'n' Seek
Date: 25 August 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Mark Bruckard
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona
Todd Ramsay the Kinain
Amberyl Flamelle the Nocker
Mary Burnett the Mortal (Killed)
Charleen "Charlie" McKenzie the Boggan (Killed)
Mary Burnett, the human partner of the Dauntain killed 3 games ago, called in a few favours in order to try to wipe the Changelings off the face of Canberra. She had spent months tracking them and noting their hideouts. She captured a woman called Charlie. She had planned. And she was ready: she called in the hunters to make the Changelings pay.
The Changelings of Canberra spent a terrifying and action-packed day racing about Canberra, trying to stall, avoid or counteract the attacks that Mary called down upon them. All the while they kept receiving boxes containing Charlie's body parts with notes sending them around Canberra into traps. A Nocker woman, Amberyl, and her two Kinain grandsons, Todd and Kevin, tested out new Spiderman and Superman suits that she made for them as they helped the Changelings out.
They finally caught up with and killed Mary (Maelstrom killed her in cold blood in the middle of Civic) and the rest of Charlie's corpse was found in her house. The rest of the enemies were eventually dealt with, although Charlie's pub becomes a major crime scene. The distraught Changelings withdrew from Canberra to a pub in Murrumbateman to regroup.
Telling Tales
Date: 22 September 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Mark Bruckard, Xole, Mike Walker
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona
Paul Burnett the Kinain, brother to Mary Burnett
Graham Cappelari the Kinain AFP Officer.
With nearly everything the Changelings of Canberra hold dear lost, they gathered at the Baroness's behest to regroup and plan to retake the city - and to tell tales. Each of them told of events of the past month or of their lives before that. The Baroness also espoused the laws of the Escheat and this was tested late in the day when Maelstrom, having tried to fully turn to the Dark side by ravaging Redjack's Balefire, suddenly claimed sanctuary within the Oathcircle's Freehold.
Meanwhile two Kinain men turned up to join the gathering. One of them, an Australian Federal Police Officer, looked enough like Raziel to be his brother. The other, obviously a victim of being Ravaged recently, sought news about the murder of his sister Mary Burnett.
A strange man (perhaps a Kinain?) called Bob Smith spoke of Canberra the way it used to be before the Banality Wave. He told of three great Freeholds, from which Fae ruled the city. A Troll called Karl Jarlssen told of the Sometimes-Sword which he occasionally wore at his side, and its links to the mystical, magical Neversword. He also told of a great Moon Dragon slumbering beneath Black Mountain.
In the violence surrounding Maelstrom's entry to the Freehold, the police officer and his companion beat a hasty retreat, calling in backup and forcing the Changelings to go into hiding as the grounds of Rose Cottage were searched by mortals.
Chasing Tales
Date: 27 October 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Xole, Mike Walker
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona
Lady Trina of Cloud Castle the Fox Pooka
Ethan Griffen an Old Court Eshu
The Changelings gathered at the pub in Murrembateman, newly purchased by Great Aunt Mima with Sir Tristan's financial aid. It was a subdued gathering, broken up as they realised they were under surveillance by a strange group of mortals, who seemed to be studying them.
They split up to investigate some of the strange things they had been told. A group went to Black Mountain, only to find a strange, impassable barrier stinking with Banality. The rock beside the Barrier told them that a great dragon lived within, sealed there by "Black Magicians of Banality".
Still others searched for information about, and ingredients to, a spell created by a man called Ethan Griffen, who now lay in a coma in the Holt mental asylum after falling ill nearly 3 years ago. The spell was said to take the casters to the "Heart of Banality". The ingredients were strange and not easily gained: tears of a clown; a noble horn; a whisker of a native fae; a glamour-laden representation of Banality; a bitter memory. Even the casting of the spell was filled with uncertainty. Some of the information gathered suggested that it was the attempted casting of this spell that actually caused the Banality Wave in the first place. Were the Kithain just setting up their own doom?
Heart of Banality
Date: 22 November 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Mark Bruckard, Xole, Mike Walker
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona
Amberyl Flamelle the Nocker
Morning's Light on Fire Mountain the Chimerical Dragon
Brokk the Troll (Proxy from Brisbane)
The Lady of the Lake (some kind of spirit?)
The Changelings of Canberra gathered at Great Aunt Mima's Pub to put together all the ingredients of Ethan Griffen's spell. The mixing of the ingredients, though nearly disrupted with a surprise health inspection, finally worked and a shining talisman was produced. They followed this to the lake-side where the final ritual was conducted, despite interruptions from onlookers and Kevin's chimerical spiderman suit going crazy and attacking his friends.
The spell took them into a strange dream setting, a school house of sorts where they were forced to learn boring repetative things and punished when they tried to be creative. Those that were violent awoke to find themselves in some kind of strange laboratory, surrounded by quickly reviving spiders of all sorts. These spiders proceeded to attack and try to contain the Fae, but were eventually subdued enough to allow the Changelings to escape.
Those that remained in the Dreamscape faced a tall school marm and her young student, a girl with brilliant green eyes. They used the best of their creativity to break the girl free of her restrictions so that she might use her own strength to reject the School Marm. Afterwards the girl smiled and led them back to the real world, where she thanked them, seemed to age into a young woman and then walked into the Lake.
The effects of all of this was to create a great wash of Glamour throughout the city. A booming was heard from Black Mountain and some went to investigate, fighting their way through some sort of secret underground base before eventually meeting the Moon Dragon within. Others went to find Enverona, only to find Maelstrom dead at the paws of a Great Sphinx who was guarding the entryway. Still others went north seeking the Freehold of One Tree Court and a final group entered the great Freehold of Caer Taghairm, only to find it a defiled ruin.
Where's the Bride?
Date: 15 December 2002
Storytellers: Marissa Harris, Mark Bruckard, Xole, Mike Walker
NPCs
Baroness Rhiannon Mordwyn ni Fiona
Morning's Light on Fire Mountain the Chimerical Dragon
Madeleine Darcy ni Fiona the Sidhe
Karl Kirtzweiler the Autumn Person (Killed)
Warren Kirtzweiler the Eshu Dauntain
The game started with Canberra's Fae separated into two groups: the women at a hen's night in Rose Cottage and the men at a bucks night at a pub in Mitchell. The lucky couple at the centre of all this attention was Sir Tristan and Lady Trina, who were to marry the very next day. That's where things started going horribly wrong.
Throughout Canberra Chimerae had starting fighting, over land and Glamour supplies, with various factions forming and trying to hold particular parts of the city. The Baroness was kidnapped, the Bride went missing and someone released a hoard of tiny scavenger chimera (Kwells) that were slowly devouring anything in Canberra that stood still long enough. Owie.
The search for Lady Trina found her in a glowing honeycomb, which was apparently supposed to help 'her Honeyness' ascend to a higher level. At least this is what the strange beings calling themselves "The Cult of Trina" said. Fluffy the Diabolical Kitten and his Minions were of quite another opinion. The Rescue party were forced to negotiate between these two factions for her release.
The Search for the Baroness led to her Dauntain father's cottage and the frightening back shed where chimerical objects were killed as soon as they entered, including Changelings. With the Pooka Cat playing tricks, this rescue party were misdirected and diverted before returning to this place to complete the rescue. Unfortunately the shed where Rhiannon was chained was set alight and she was nearly killed. A brave fire fighter raced in, severing the hand she was chained by and dragging her to safety only seconds before the place collapsed into an inferno.
The very sad news for the Fae of Canberra was that the Baroness Rhiannon was Undone. The new Sidhe in town, Madeleine, revealed herself as a Countess and claimed the Freehold of Caer Taghairm, cleansing it and restoring the Balefire with the help of some other Changelings and the Gift of Balefire from Brisbane.