I do have some ideas on that front. Though it'd be less 'Paradox theory' and more 'being told never to show her magic to other people. Which, no, is not exactly how her magic works, but Brienne seems the sort of person who'd be a cautious child. Rule-follower.
Tyrion would be more willing to experiment, but again, there's the problem of writing Tyrion.
Oddly poetic is good.
Name: (Fill in later), note, female.
Concept: Banker off her meds.
Virtue: Meticulous. The ts will be crossed, the is will be dotted, and the margins will be precisely one inch.
Vice: Inattention.
Seeming: Fairest
Kith: Artist
Wyrd: 1, Glamour: 10/10
Attributes:
Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 2
Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Presence 1, Manipulation 4, Composure 2
Skills: Academics 5 (Banking/Economics), Computer 2, Drive 1 (Classic Cars), Firearms 1, Intimidation 1 (Blunt Truths), Investigation 2, Larceny 1, Politics 2, Persuasion 2, Socialize 2, Stealth 1, Subterfuge 2.
Now, this is the last easy day. The stage after this will be long and hard to do, because Contracts are where the magic opens up.
To explain the new things. Wyrd is your magical power. Like in all nWoD games, it governs both good and bad things, and raising it tends to fuck you over in some areas in exchange for getting more overall magical power and dice to roll for activating magic. You start out with Wyrd 1, which includes the fact that you can hold 10 glamour (magical fuel you can refuel by harvesting emotions or other things) at a time, and spend one a turn in combat.
Now, Changelings form organizations. These often differ, but one of the most common, and thus the default we'll be going for, are the Seasonal Courts. Four monarchs leading four courts that in each Freehold rotate control. Because the True Fae don't understand seasons. They don't understand the idea that a person would GIVE UP POWER.
Each Court is focused around an emotion that they harvest and believe is the secret against the True Fae, and as with any system, there are all sorts of differing philosophies attached to each. I'll try to be relatively brief.
Spring Court:
The Emerald court, the court of Desire. Its power is the power of stealing back what the True Fae thought they'd owned. Joy, happiness. When their Keepers come looking for broken shattered husks hiding in dark alleys, they will look right past the dancing men and women, the people who know that joy and desire are the center of life. Rejoice, for you have come back from hell, and do not deny yourself the pleasure that was denied you.
Live life with beauty, with grace and wit and most of all, LIFE. And their emotion of desire, which is not just physical but often is interpreted by others and members themselves as being so, ties right into this. They are stereotyped as hedonists. The lazy courtier or courtesan, the dabbler artist doing drugs, and while these find their home there, so do people for whom desire is more than that. For the saying is, "Your desires are your own." A love of freedom, a love of the power of desires, many things can drive one into Spring and keep them there. For Spring has its warriors, sages, and spies. But its warriors are esctactics, or they make fighting look as simple as dancing, or they are the knight in shining armor that leaves a trail of hearts behind them. Their sages speak the wisdom of the beat poets, or dance through the wilds of the Hedge picking rare fruits, the eccentric genius to the core. Its spies understand the humans are a landscape, a place of hiding. That spying on people is spying ON PEOPLE.
The downside is that this revelry, this forgetting, can often be denial. It can hide weakness and self-delusion, can cover for real and meaningful issues that perhaps they should have dealt with.
In the Freehold, they often make up the courtiers, the society such as it is. The people who give a reason to fight. But sometimes they forget that there's more to a Freehold than just its revels.
Summer
The court of wrath. The Gentry took everything from you, fuck them. Take their magic, take their power, and fasten it into a weapon so that if they ever come to take you, you'll spear them through. You don't always have to be a fighter. Wrath can be social, it can be the intellectual raging at those who do not see the truth. And more than that, it's a brotherhood. At its best, it's a group of people, a whole Court, that tries to devote itself to protection the Lost, the Changelings, from those who would destroy them. Goblins and humans and the True Fae, oh my.
Anger is a thing to be stoked, to be carefully controlled, and used so that others, that friends and loved ones, might sleep safe at night, knowing Summer is protecting, that their wrath is turned against evil. Yet the same anger, the same fire that is righteous can burn. Can burn out the courtier, can burn other people. The act of being in Summer is keeping the fire aimed in the right direction, and keeping it from getting too low and guttering, or rising too far and burning the Changeling alive.
A diplomat from Summer is blunt, but their words strike true. A summer sorcerer is a Battle Mage. There is room for those who cannot fight, as said before.
They often make up the backbone of the Freehold, the hard spine that keeps it alive and going, a duty that sometimes spurs ambition far greater than they should have.
Autumn
The court of Batman. No, actually, the Court of Fear. Fear and Magic. Are you afraid of the True Fae? Good. Because you need to use that fear. The Fae have magic that you cannot match if you do not study it, if you do not learn how to use it. Fear is a weapon. A weapon that you use and can be used against you. Master the weapon, master the magic, and you will gain the power that the True Fae used to so totally dominate you. But more than that, more than a weapon, magic is...well, let's be blunt here, it's magical. It's amazing, and for all that Arcadia was horrible, people who join Autumn aren't the people who reject magic and hide in a corner. They're the people that take up the right so forcibly given to them.
Their warriors use fear as a weapon, ambush and lies, deception...whatever it takes. Their courtiers are terrifying and they know what makes you tick. They know how to take you apart. Their sorceror's are terrifying, giving up part of their humanity in order to gain the strength they need, and their spies are brutal and deadly.
They provide the magical know-how to the Freehold, and they harvest fear. There's even Halloween rituals they have.
But of course, fear can go too far. Fear can consume someone, and then they become a shitty Batman villain.
Winter
The Court of Sorrow knows that the way the fox survives the hounds isn't to fight. It's to hide. Arcadia was horrible, and the Keepers are brutal. Hide, wait, know the Ice Law, the laws of banding together against all outsiders, and you can survive. They talk in code, they make safe-houses, they practice lying and dissimulation. In the human world, they avoid drawing attention, they are 'just some person.' Some call them cowards, but they know the truth. Arcadia was horrible, and they're not going to accept going back. They know that everything has a price, and everyone has a place. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter have their roles, and Winter's are the spies, the assassins, the secret keepers of knowledge and lore that keep it from the enemies. A Winter warrior is a murderer. A person who doesn't fight fair, who thinks fairness is a lie. A winter courtier hides and slips around the corner, a winter sage knows far more than he'll ever tell.
They stay in the background, whether in life or court leadership, they are silent partners and seemingly normal housewives, they are everywhere and they are prepared for everything.
Touched by sorrow, touched by despair itself, knowing the Keepers might yet take them back, theirs is the smart and watchful path. But the costs of vigilence are high. Sorrow is not something you can hide from forever, is it?
Courtless
Or you could be someone who looked at all four and didn't fit in/didn't want to join any of them. There's no real advantages to it, banding together exists for a reason...but you can totally do it!
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