The Laurent: Changeling--Proposed Frailty Modifications
As a sort of attempt to try something new, I'm going to codify some ideas I've had. Ever since a conversation on Changeling's weaknesses, I felt like I might as well at least offer this out there. It's been a while, but it just occured to me that I might have something to really offer. Feel free to use this or not.
First, the common weakness remains the same. Relatively pure iron, not mixed in with anything else, can cut through Fae defenses, and Fae armor, both of which are quite common in battle. Unless your players choose to have it be a weakness, iron is not a frailty, and touching it does no harm to a Changeling, a fact that often leads Changelings to hand-forge iron weapons that are a weakness greater than frailties, dealing aggrevated damage to the Gentry.
Now, what are Frailties? They come, as in canon, in two types, of two severities. Banes are frailties that do damage to the Changeling. The chiming of bells, the touch of a virgin, a goat's blood, being quite literally pained by intentionally forced rhymes… or by the presence of children. For as long as a Changeling is exposed to the bane, they suffer either a point of bashing damage per turn (if a minor frailty) or a point of lethal (if a major). Taboos are actions they cannot do. One Changeling might be unable to cross a line of salt, another has to speak in limerick, a third cannot walk under the light of the moon, and the last cannot enter a home without an invitation. Minor taboos can be resisted for a scene by spending a single willpower, while one has to spend willpower every turn to resist the compulsion.
Minor frailties are inconvenient, but shouldn't be common in everyday life. Needing permission to enter a private home is a minor taboo, while being burned by the touch of children, literally burned, is in fact a major bane.
Major frailties, then, are things that can and do impact someone's entire life. You'll face them and live a life shaped by them, and many of them are very inconvenient, though other times they are the annoying kind of convenient, where an honest man suddenly finds it impossible to lie, or a vegan's mouth burns at the touch of meat.
Now, in traditional Changeling, the first Frailty wasn't until you hit Wyrd 6. This has its virtues, let it be known. Because it's sudden and a definite sign that you've become incredibly powerful, it can often be a kick in the head to PCs, in character at least. Asha Ashblood, a character in Kansas City Shuffle, had her entire life changed by her first major frailty, the details of which she had hidden well.
An accomplished swordswoman, but also a tree, her Major Taboo was the inability to wield metal weapons, forcing her to rely entirely on her famed and infamous (and dangerous) Token wooden-sword, and to bluff and keep away from duels in which she'd be likely forced to 'play fair' by using an ordinary blade, an act that would have quickly drained her willpower to keep up.
Thus, it can create story opportunities, as the malady and limit of the elite: powerful Changelings, steeped in this power, now have to hide or deal with increasing restrictions.
But if one imagines a society where everyone has frailties, and it's merely that the most powerful have more and stronger ones, then it creates a very different atmosphere.
Thus, the following chart, after this brief note on choosing frailties. They should be thematic, they should be interesting, they should be in service of the play, and for the first two, the sub-6 Wyrd ones, both should be references in different ways to their Durance.
Chart:
Wyrd 1: 1 Minor Frailty.
Wyrd 2: 1 Minor Frailty
Wyrd 3: 2 Minor Frailties, the newly chosen frailty has to be the opposite type as the first (if you chose a bane, now choose a taboo.)
Wyrd 4: 2 Minor frailties
Wyrd 5: 2 Minor Frailties
Wyrd 6: 1 Major Frailty, 2 Minor Frailties
Wyrd 7: 1 Major Frailty, 2 Minor Frailties
Wyrd 8: 1 Major Frailty, 3 Minor Frailties
Wyrd 9: 1 Major Frailty, 3 Minor Frailties
Wyrd 10: 2 Minor Frailties, 3 Minor Frailties
Of course, if one wants to make it harsher, they can make it 2 at Wyrd 9, and 3 at Wyrd 10, but I was trying to emulate the actual chart, but have it start earlier, and then smooth it out.
But the important thing about this is: what does it mean? In a world where all Changelings have frailties, hiding and protecting them is important. They're things you only reveal to those you trust, like your Motley, and they're weapons in the hands of both your Keepers, the traitors and enemies you will face… and in your own hands, since that which can be used against you can also be used by you.
This, of course, is all but a mantra among Changelings, whose very powers and nature are distressingly similar to that which changed them.
Contract of Nemesis
In a world where frailties were more fundamental, one powerful and ambitious Changeling made a deal with the very frailties that bound her, that were destroying her life, and that would later lead to her death. By making herself all but a slave to them, she was able to forge a Contract, one she taught to others.
While any type of Changeling can learn it, and equally well, as a Contract it is poorly understood, and thus knowledge of it is often scattershot: well known and taught by almost anyone in one Freehold, but nothing more than a whispered rumor of strange powers in the next, though at the rate it's spreading, no doubt one day it might be a universally known Contract.
This Contract covers Frailties of all sorts, first learning to understand them, then to protect against them, and finally to use them as a weapon, albeit a double-edged one.
(*) Bane-Sense
The first step to being able to use an enemy's banes against them is to know that they have them. With this simple Clause, a Changeling may be able to find out how many Frailties the target (who must be within line of sight) has, and thus, indirectly, how powerful their Wyrd.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wyrd+Investigation
Action: Instant
Catch:The user is in the presence of one of their own frailties
Roll Results--
Dramatic Failure: The Changeling's look into other frailties has consequences. For the next scene, the effects of frailties are doubled (two bashing damage instead of one for a minor bane, two willpower a turn instead of one for a Major Taboo.)
Failure: Nothing happens, the Changeling cannot get a grasp on the slippery nature of frailties.
Success: The Changeling knows how many Frailties (and whether they are major or minor) the target has.
Exceptional Success: As before, but the Changeling knows whether these frailties are taboos or banes.
Modifiers: +1, the target is currently touching or under effect of a frailty, -1, the target has not been harmed by their frailty, or effected, in at least one week.
(**) Sinner's Contagion
Learned and discovered via careful understanding of the possibilities of turning the failure-states of the previous clause outwards, a Changeling can make a person's Frailty worse, though they must physically touch them in order to use it.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Intelligence+Wyrd
Action: Instant
Catch: The Changeling is currently under the effect of their own frailty.
Roll Results--
Dramatic Failure: Their own power is turned on themselves, and they lose one willpower, disheartened at the failure.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: All frailties the target has are doubled for the next Wyrdx3 hours. Thus a single bashing damage a turn becomes two, a single willpower a scene also becomes two.
Exceptional Success: This weakness instead lasts for a number of days equal to the Wyrd of the Changeling who used it.
Modifiers: +1 (The Clarity of the Changeling using it is below 4), -1 (The Clarity of the Changeling using it is above 7.)
(***) Sinner's Gloves
Frailties are difficult to live with. But through careful study of their nature, a Changeling can figure out how to mitigate the costs, at least a little.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Resolve+Wyrd
Action: Reflexive
Catch: The Changeling is wearing literal gloves
Roll Results--
Dramatic Failure: The Changeling loses one willpower and takes one bashing damage as his own protect backlashes against him.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: For the next scene, the Changeling may spend Glamour one-to-one, subject to all glamour-per-turn limits that their Wyrd allows, to cancel a frailty. They may spend one glamour to make it so that a minor taboo is inactive, just as they could have spent one willpower. They can cancel out the bashing damage on a one-to-one basis. For a Major Bane, it instead requires three glamour spent for every lethal damage that would have been dealt.
Exceptional Success: As above, but the Changeling regains one willpower, as they feel accomplished, as masters of their weaknesses.
Modifiers: +1 (Occult is higher than 3), +1 (The Changeling has avoided any contact with frailties for the last 24 hours), -1 (The Changeling lacks entirely in Occult Skills.)
(****) Exchanging Maladies
Changelings often hate their frailties, and many wish they could discard them, or think that someone else had it lucky. With this clause of the Contract, a Changeling can touch someone and exchange one of their frailties for that of another. Neither Changeling can be in contact or under the power of their frailty when it works, and yet both as a means of willing exchange, and as a trap meant to doom an enemy, it is feared by many.
Cost: 3 Glamour
Dice Pool: Occult+Wyrd, if resisted, contested with Wyrd+Composure
Action: Contested/Instant
Catch: The target has complained about the nature of their frailty in the past day, while the user listens in, unknown to them.
Roll Results--
Dramatic Failure: Instead of switching a single frailty for another, the user gains the frailty that the target has, without
Failure: Nothing happens at all! Failure states are pretty boring, I admit!
Success: The Changeling pickes one of their frailties, and exchanges it with a frailty of the same strength that another person possesses. Major for Major, Minor for Minor. The Changeling does not know what the nature of this new frailty is, nor does the target automatically know what frailty they were given.
Exceptional Success: The Changeling automatically knows the nature and details of the frailty he gains.
Modifiers: N/A
(*****) Frailty Plague
All can suffer as the Changeling suffers. Anyone who the Changeling can see--and thus whom their eyes can infest, in a very old-fashioned view of how such things come to pass between people--can be stricken down with the same frailties that hurt the Changeling. A taste of the Changeling's own dangerous medicine. This works on all types of beings, including those with major templates.
Cost: 4 Glamour (7 for Major Frailties)
Dice Pool: Occult+Wyrd, contested by Wyrd+Resolve (or relevant power-stat)
Action:Contested
Catch: The Changeling chooses to make the gained frailty one of their own.
Roll Results--
Dramatic Failure:Gain a Major Frailty for the next week.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: A number of targets within line of sight equal to ½ Wyrd (minimum of 1, may target less than the number you can target) gain one Frailty that the clause, which is actually two closely related clauses that are learned together, allows. The target possesses this frailty for twenty-four hours. With a minor frailty, they do not know what it is until they find out the hard way, but the impact and power of a Major Frailty is so great that they instinctually know its nature.
Exceptional Success: The Changeling may pick two of their frailties, and 'infect' a number of people equal to their Wyrd.
Modifiers: +1 (The Wyrd of the user is above 8), +1 (The target/s is someone who has broken an oath with the Changeling), -1 (If cast in a hospital or church, places of healing, symbolically.)
*******
A/N: And yes, that's a juicy capstone. It might be too juicy, and I'll have to nerf it, but I thought it very thematic.
The Contract as a whole might not be balanced, it was made in a rush, and would need to be refined. It also only makes sense as a common (or semi-common) set of Contracts in this particular everyone-has-Frailties world. If one is using the original rules, then this would be the personal and custom Contract of a high-Wyrd Changeling who uses it to fuck over other High-Wyrd Changelings, and it'd never spread beyond them by the various ways I imagine Contracts might spread.
