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NYC Changeling game stuff.
Okay; if you're interested, please indicate that you are also interested in doing side RP, and intend to do so. If no one is interested in that, then I won't give out as much setting information, since I'll be the only one running the scenes. Also, please comment to this entry giving at least one very brief idea or concept. (If you don't know the system, then let me know what type of game you're looking for: combatty, investigative, political, so forth.)
Character Generation Guidelines:
Chargen + 25 XP to spend for Changelings, +40 XP for Mortals.
All Kiths and Seemings allowed (Kiths: Beast, Darkling, Elemental, Fairest, Ogre, Wizened. If you're not familiar with the system, get with me on details.)
Only Seasonal Courts or Courtless, no dual-kiths. (Courts: Spring, the Court of Desire; Summer, the Court of Wrath; Autumn, the Court of Fear; and Winter, the Court of Sorrow).
Changeling durances should be a maximum of 50 years.
You may have pledges defined at the beginning of the game.
You may have an entitlement.
You may make two characters, but your first and second cannot have any close relation (not members of the same motley, entitlement, or family).
Setting Stuff
The main freehold of NYC is accessed through the Statue of Liberty, in a maintenance door towards the back. The keeper of the freehold (and Master-at-Arms for the Council) is a Wizened Oracle who calls herself Libertas. A member of the Winter Court, she is rarely seen unless summoned by the shedding of blood on the statue's base, or at the ceremony for the changing of the Seasons. The freehold was moved to the statue after 1905, in a massive collaborative effort by the Lost of NYC to hack away and clean the Hedge in that area after the opening of the subway system a year earlier encroached upon the hidden areas the Council was previously using. After hours, the Lost know of a hidden dock on the West Side where Charon, a Winter Court Waterborn Elemental runs a rickety shuttle boat from his decrepit shack. The previous freehold can still be accessed through the doorways and reflective surfaces of the BMT Jamaica Line, near the Alabama Avenue station. The Thorns have reclaimed much of the once grand refuge, but the Old Brooklyn Court is still a popular destination for the Lost who wish to settle differences in Hedge duels, or make public pledges of great duration or seriousness.
Each Court also has its own freehold, and the Courtless of NYC have created a open refuge in the Hedge for any Changeling who will pay the cover price. Spring Court is held at the New York Stock Exchange; any door in the area will get you there. Summer Court has been held at the Bowery Mission for over a hundred years, although the Court periodically sends out crusades to tame and cut freeholds out of the Hedge in other places just to prove that they can. The Iron Arrow only occupies these new freeholds for a few months before returning to its far more comfortable court. Many Hollows of the Lost throughout the city can be traced back to these little expeditions. Autumn Court is located in the New York Public Library, down a twisted and frightening set of Hedge stacks…those who seek out the freehold without an Autumn guide rarely return. Winter Court has been located in Kennedy Airport for the last 45 years, under the philosophy that there's no better place to hide than somewhere everyone is a stranger. Since the September 11 attacks, there have been those in Winter who have strongly lobbied for the movement of the Court to the area around the fallen towers, but the motion has met considerable resistance among other courtiers for various reasons.
The season has just changed to Summer, and Jabari Lehmkuhl, the Wizened Soldier leader of the Summer Court, has taken his place as Chairman. Outgoing is Agnes Martin, the Ogre leader of Spring. The current leaders of Autumn and Winter are Jakub the Whisperer and Bishop McMahon, respectively. The 'leader' of the Courtless, in so far as such a disparate group can have a leader, is Karin Bovill, an outspoken Windwing Beast who has a street gang of angry young changelings calling themselves the Carrion Crows at her command. The Crows and the Courts have periodic conflicts, but so far have not reached any fatalities. Still, Lost involved with a court must prepare for harassment or the payment of 'dues' when they venture into the Bronx neighborhoods that the Crows circle.
The Hedge of New York is a sprawling, fantastic, and dark cityscape, overgrown with hungry Thorns, and infested with the Mad Lost, and several enterprising groups of privateers, eager to snatch up Changelings and sell them to the Goblin Market, or back to their Keepers. The hobgoblins of NYC have an almost uniformly mechanical look to them, hulking beasts of rotting silver or scuttling abominations of flesh and gold that feed gladly on unwary changelings or the occasional human who enters the Hedge. There are several Goblin Markets throughout the Hedge; they move through various campsites based on the season, finding their way through the bewildering paths with far greater ease than the average changeling. Spirits dwell here as well, the very ground animate and often hostile to the treading of mortal or semi-mortal feet. At one time, the Hedge-correspondence to Broadway was a relatively safe harbor for Lost, for the spirit of Broadway was in a neutrality pact with the courts; since its disappearance, however, the garish and poisonous gardens there have become prime hunting grounds for privateers and even, it is rumored, a True Fae.
Character Generation Guidelines:
Chargen + 25 XP to spend for Changelings, +40 XP for Mortals.
All Kiths and Seemings allowed (Kiths: Beast, Darkling, Elemental, Fairest, Ogre, Wizened. If you're not familiar with the system, get with me on details.)
Only Seasonal Courts or Courtless, no dual-kiths. (Courts: Spring, the Court of Desire; Summer, the Court of Wrath; Autumn, the Court of Fear; and Winter, the Court of Sorrow).
Changeling durances should be a maximum of 50 years.
You may have pledges defined at the beginning of the game.
You may have an entitlement.
You may make two characters, but your first and second cannot have any close relation (not members of the same motley, entitlement, or family).
Setting Stuff
The main freehold of NYC is accessed through the Statue of Liberty, in a maintenance door towards the back. The keeper of the freehold (and Master-at-Arms for the Council) is a Wizened Oracle who calls herself Libertas. A member of the Winter Court, she is rarely seen unless summoned by the shedding of blood on the statue's base, or at the ceremony for the changing of the Seasons. The freehold was moved to the statue after 1905, in a massive collaborative effort by the Lost of NYC to hack away and clean the Hedge in that area after the opening of the subway system a year earlier encroached upon the hidden areas the Council was previously using. After hours, the Lost know of a hidden dock on the West Side where Charon, a Winter Court Waterborn Elemental runs a rickety shuttle boat from his decrepit shack. The previous freehold can still be accessed through the doorways and reflective surfaces of the BMT Jamaica Line, near the Alabama Avenue station. The Thorns have reclaimed much of the once grand refuge, but the Old Brooklyn Court is still a popular destination for the Lost who wish to settle differences in Hedge duels, or make public pledges of great duration or seriousness.
Each Court also has its own freehold, and the Courtless of NYC have created a open refuge in the Hedge for any Changeling who will pay the cover price. Spring Court is held at the New York Stock Exchange; any door in the area will get you there. Summer Court has been held at the Bowery Mission for over a hundred years, although the Court periodically sends out crusades to tame and cut freeholds out of the Hedge in other places just to prove that they can. The Iron Arrow only occupies these new freeholds for a few months before returning to its far more comfortable court. Many Hollows of the Lost throughout the city can be traced back to these little expeditions. Autumn Court is located in the New York Public Library, down a twisted and frightening set of Hedge stacks…those who seek out the freehold without an Autumn guide rarely return. Winter Court has been located in Kennedy Airport for the last 45 years, under the philosophy that there's no better place to hide than somewhere everyone is a stranger. Since the September 11 attacks, there have been those in Winter who have strongly lobbied for the movement of the Court to the area around the fallen towers, but the motion has met considerable resistance among other courtiers for various reasons.
The season has just changed to Summer, and Jabari Lehmkuhl, the Wizened Soldier leader of the Summer Court, has taken his place as Chairman. Outgoing is Agnes Martin, the Ogre leader of Spring. The current leaders of Autumn and Winter are Jakub the Whisperer and Bishop McMahon, respectively. The 'leader' of the Courtless, in so far as such a disparate group can have a leader, is Karin Bovill, an outspoken Windwing Beast who has a street gang of angry young changelings calling themselves the Carrion Crows at her command. The Crows and the Courts have periodic conflicts, but so far have not reached any fatalities. Still, Lost involved with a court must prepare for harassment or the payment of 'dues' when they venture into the Bronx neighborhoods that the Crows circle.
The Hedge of New York is a sprawling, fantastic, and dark cityscape, overgrown with hungry Thorns, and infested with the Mad Lost, and several enterprising groups of privateers, eager to snatch up Changelings and sell them to the Goblin Market, or back to their Keepers. The hobgoblins of NYC have an almost uniformly mechanical look to them, hulking beasts of rotting silver or scuttling abominations of flesh and gold that feed gladly on unwary changelings or the occasional human who enters the Hedge. There are several Goblin Markets throughout the Hedge; they move through various campsites based on the season, finding their way through the bewildering paths with far greater ease than the average changeling. Spirits dwell here as well, the very ground animate and often hostile to the treading of mortal or semi-mortal feet. At one time, the Hedge-correspondence to Broadway was a relatively safe harbor for Lost, for the spirit of Broadway was in a neutrality pact with the courts; since its disappearance, however, the garish and poisonous gardens there have become prime hunting grounds for privateers and even, it is rumored, a True Fae.
no subject
I'm throwing around a couple concept ideas. Right now I've got a Darkling Nightsinger -- as fresh from the Hedge as you're okay with; in fact, I'd be tempted to make her first scene be her first escape from the Hedge, so she's therefore Courtless to start. :-) And I'm badly tempted by a Wizened Gameplayer of the Spring Court, except that the character is an AU Salathiel and I feel kind of weird about "replaying" a character. >_> <_< (I can translate him from IN to Changeling surprisingly well, and part of why I like him so much is because I can easily fit him into any setting or plotline, plus he's just fun to play and I really miss playing him. [laughs] And by taking him out of IN, I also take out a lot of the backstory/concept stuff that normally makes me not want to throw him at unsuspecting GMs. But it's still replaying a character I've played in SammyMU*, so I feel weird about it and want to check with you first.) I've got a lot of vague concepts knocking around, though.
I'm a sucker for combat, but I don't want to play combat-exclusive; likewise, horror is fun but relentless horror is too much. I definitely want to play with the Hedge and changeling abilities and the supernatural and the like. Investigative stuff is fun, politicking is fun . . . Character development opportunities and heavily character-based stuff (even if my characters aren't the focal points) are awesome, but in a pickup game where side-RP is encouraged, it should be easy to fit that into any plotline. :-)
no subject
I.e. you'd like a little of everything on that sammich? :P I'm okay with that; I tend to play Lost as dark urban fantasy, not as straight-up horror. There are some pretty Wonderful things in the setting (and Terrific things, in both senses of the word), and I don't want to forget those.
no subject
[laughs!] Well, more like I'm up for everything, because everything has so much potential. :D I just really want to play with the supernatural stuff and character development, and beyond that, variety is great.