Customer Reviews

Changeling: the Lost

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Probably the most striking difference between the old Changeling and the new Changeling is the shift away from the Shakespearian concepts of faeries. There is no banality, chimeral reality and glorification of child-like behavior. In striping away those overly romanticized notions we get Changelings that are rooted in folklore with all it's twisted darkness. Infact, from a philosophical perspective, this game is exactly the opposite of Dreaming: The "villains" (True Fae) appear very much like Dreaming Changelings in that they are selfish, self-absorbed monsters lacking in empathy and having no ability to see things from anyone's perspective but their own. Talk about a gutsy change.

This game is not about recapturing an unattainable childhood that never was; it's about growing up and realizing that life without empathy and self-sacrifice is empty and horrifying. It's about overcoming things forced on you in life, and choosing not to repeat those mistakes when you have power. It's about real forgiveness and growth as a person.

You are actually playing a Changeling this time around, not a fairy in a human body. You are former human who now has half a fae soul and half a human soul, and you probably look radically different from your former self. Because time between the Fae dimension (Arcadia) and Earth isn't stable, you could have emerged years, or mere seconds after you were abducted. You might even have arrived *before* you were abducted (oh, the headaches).

Building your character is incredibly flexible. You pick a Seeming based on six fairy tale archetypes: Beasts (animal creatures), Darklings (Spooky, slithery dark things), Elementals (aspects of natural forces), Wizened (crones, little old men and such), Fairest (fairy tales princes/princess, beautiful witches), and Ogres (powerful and violent monsters). From here you select one of the many kiths that focus your characters traits and abilities. This allows you to play almost any type of fairy tale creature regardless of culture. Winter Masques (Changeling: the Lost) offers even more choices.

Changeling "magic" is very Faustian in nature. Changelings make contracts and pledges to gain power, complete with obligations, loop holes and catches. This is an interesting and different take on fairy magic that reflects folklore far more than any system I have seen. As you can imagine, it creates a lot of social politicking that should please Vampire fans.

As a whole this module is a very focused with lots of potential hooks for the GM. If you're sick of D&D's elves/fae and want a system that really captures the essence of all things fae, Changeling is what you want.

I have been playing Werewolf: The Forsaken for about a year now. Werewolf has been an awesome ride, but after reading the first 50 pages of Changeling: The Lost, I am stunned on how cool this read is. I have a notebook next to me jotting ideas down for my next chronicle. This book is becoming my new muse. I see my gamers getting into this.

When I heard there was going to be another Changeling game. I wasn't pleased. The first one, Changeling the Dreaming, was not a horror game, it was a fantasy game wrapped in a modern era. Changeling: The Lost has some fantasy elements, but its a horror and suspense game living up to the banner of "A World of Darkness".

BTW the primer story in the beginning really freaked my wife out. That's always a good sign. She's a bigtime horror nut and it takes alot to get her creeped out.

Good Job White Wolf. Keep it coming.

I can't say enough good things about this book. It is wistful and moody, lovely and brooding. I held some reservations about Changeling belonging in the new World of Darkness. My favorite line to date has been Werewolf:The Forsaken, an all around outstanding game, but Changeling kills anything I've ever read from White Wolf before, including their critically acclaimed, poorly selling Promethean, a stellar setting in it's own right.

This book is tremendous. That said, while it IS a dark game, do not invest if you want splatter. While horror can and should factor in we are looking at a lot less Clive Barker and a lot more M. Night Shayamalan.You play a person taken to Faerie, an indescribaly idyllic looking place, and tortured and abused relentlessly. Upon your escape you find that your life has been stolen. The Others (the ones that took you) have replaced you with some THING that is living your life. And killing it and taking your life back isn't usually a reasonable option, for many good reasons.

It's a twisted and thorny journey through the old fairy tales that makes one examine the things they value in their lives, and what would happen if you were remade into something alien and bizarre, forever denied what was rightfully yours.

I wasn't going to buy this. I already had the Changeling from the old system and I really wasn't happy with Promethean or Mage. Fortunately for me, I bought this on a fluke just to see something new. Let me tell you, the only reason I give this a five is because I cannot give it a ten--seriously. This is one of the games that comes along once in a while like Nobilis, Trinity, Wraith, and Wild Talents that reminds you what roleplaying is all about. I cannot praise this book enough for its art, words, presentation, and inspiration.

If you ever feared the monster under the bed or the troll under the bridge and have even a passing interest in things Faerie--buy this book. It is both haunting and beautiful, disturbing and delightful. I cannot stop reading it and fear the day when I finish.

The premise of this game is that you are a normal person in a version of our world that is very much like the X-Files world where the supernatural skirts the edge of reason. Within that world your character is kidnapped, tricked, or betrayed and taken across the briar-patch of the hedge to Faerie; a place that is both beautiful and horrifying. There you are made a slave to the keeper who had you taken and made to serve, without rhyme or reason, the whims of and enigmatic being who is a cross between an H.P. Lovecraft entity and a fairy tale.

While in Faerie, you learn quickly that the only way to survive is to abide by the rules of contracts. Contracts replace or sometimes supersede
the laws of physics for those Fair Folk who actually abide by those rule. They are the only way to accomplish anything even eating and drinking and they form the collection of powers that changelings bring back to the world.

At some point during your tenure in Farie which can be anywhere from a couple of months to fifty years or any other variation your storyteller deems appropriate, you escape (either by design or through skill )your keeper and return to the mortal world. There you come the realization of your transformation into a being of both mortal and faerie, the time that has elapse, and in some cases the fact that you were never really gone--or at least, your friends and family never noticed. This is due to the fact that some of the abducted where replaced by simulcrum; artifacts made of sticks, twine, maybe an old rabbits head, and a piece of your shadow. This scarecrow has your memories, skills, and acts in every way like you and has been living your life while you were gone--talk about a head trip.

Now you have returned to the world. No longer a mortal but a Changeling with contracts with the elements, shadows, dreams, or what-have-you. How do you handle the time that has elapsed and your absence? Do you destroy your Fetch (your doppleganger) if you have one or try to forge a new life? Will your keeper come looking for you and what will you do if the things in the closet or in the nearby Hedge find you?

Changeling The Lost is the most terrifying game to come out in a long time. It embodies all of the nightmare elements that are basic to our psyche and really strikes a nerve with storytellers and players alike.

I cannot praise this book enough.


P.S. A note on system. Changeling does not use what I refer to as contrived dice rolling mechanics where you might have to roll dex+firearms or some other silliness to perform one of your powers. It, like Wraith, has rolls that are independent of skill for your power (contract) usage which promotes players buying skills that fit the character as opposed to trying to fulfill the need of power usage. Very professional and logical approach to dice mechanics.

The second in White Wolf's limited run RPGs for their World of Darkness gameline, Changeling takes you into the world of the fae. Not your white-washed Victorian fairy tales for children, but the darker stories of trolls that lurk under bridges looking for mortal flesh, goblins who kidnap children, and dark things hiding under beds; creatures born of nightmare and madness. Like I said before kids, its the World of DARKNESS. It's all about Gothic horror!

Whereas in it's predecessor, of sorts, 'Changeling: the Dreaming' you took on the role of a human with a fairy soul, Changeling: the Lost goes back to the original folklore. This time around, you take on the role of a human who was kidnapped and abused by the Lords of the Fae, warped by the very nature of Arcadia, yet somehow, through sheer force of will, escaped and made your way back through the Hedge to find your old life gone. Changeling is a very intense game, but thats part of what makes it so appealing. If thats not up your alley, though, you might want to consider looking for a different game. I've found that theres not necessarily any correlation between fans of Changeling: the Lost and Changeling: the Dreaming. Some fans of C:tD absolutely LOVE Changeling: the Lost, others hate it with a passion. For that matter, some people who hated the old C:tD love the new C:tL. Go figure.

This book is the core of the gameline. Although it contains everything you need to run a Changeling, you still need the 'World of Darkness' corebook in order to play the game (for the basic rules). This book expands upon the life and society of the Changelings - it gives full details on the different Seemings and Kiths, the four Seasonal Courts of the Changelings, the basic Contracts (Changeling's 'magic'), rules for Oneiromancy, information on the Fae, Hobgoblins, Arcadia and the Hedge, sample Tokens and Pledges, systems for Wyrd and Clarity and even a number of sample Entitlements for more advanced characters. Of all the gamelines in the new World of Darknes, Changeling is perhaps the most rich, evocative and inspired. Almost every part of the book will give both Storytellers and Players new ideas. In addition to giving all the details necessary to run a Changeling game, it also includes the sample Freehold of Miami (Changeling's signature city) and several NPCs. This is great for ST's planning on running a game set in or around Miami.

If you are a fan of White Wolf's World of Darkness, then you have to check out this gameline. Its a perfect fit for anyone who wants to incorporate the darker side of fairy tales into their games, or just add trolls, bogeymen, goblins and other creatures from folklore and nightmares. And the book has several supplements available as well: Autumn Nightmares (which expands on the True Fae), Winter Masques (a book for customizing Seeming and Kith to fit your favorite myths), Rites of Spring (all about Changeling magic) and Lords of Summer (covering the politics of Freehold, Court and Entitlements), all of which are brilliant, as well as the forthcoming Equinox Road. However, you can run Changeling with just this and the corebook. Either way, you'll definitely want to pick this book up.

DISCLAIMER: First off, this is MY PERSONAL OPINION and I know many people will not agree. It's important to remember however that we're all entitled to our opinions and we all have different preferences. My negative review doesn't mean I think the book should be pulled from the shelf or that people should not be permitted to play it, but rather that *I* personally did not find it enjoyable or pleasant. If you do, fantastic! It's just not MY cup of tea.

Onto the review. I'm a long time fan of this book's predecessor, Changeling: The Dreaming. (Henceforth "C:tD") I collected all the books and I greatly enjoyed the theme, setting and style of the books. I never read any of the other lines (Vampire, Mage, etc.) but I did really enjoy what was created with C:tD. There was a brightness to C:tD; a sense of hope and promise. That despite things being bleak, Spring would always still return. Set in a darker version of our real, modern world, it was ultimately a game about hope, promise and Beauty. I appreciated that since far too often we only celebrate ugliness in our society.

So when White Wolf ended the original World of Darkness for their New World of Darkness ("nWod"), I wasn't originally terribly interested. As I said, I never read any of the other lines so it didn't matter to me that they'd relaunched them in different forms. Until, that is, when I heard there was going to be a new Changeling edition.

When I finally got it and started to read, I realized it was VASTLY different from the old C:tD. Gone was the sense of lightness, whimsy and beauty and in it's place was something MUCH darker, ugly and sinister. Changeling: The Lost ("C:tL") isn't so much a revised version of C:tD as it is an entirely different concept all together. Which is perhaps part of why I disliked it so much. I expected more of the same C:tD. What I found wasn't the same at all.

In C:tL you play a human who was abused by the True Fae that has now escaped back into the mortal world. The book makes it VERY clear that every single person was tortured, abused, raped, hurt, beaten and/or any other combination of unimaginably cruel events. That the True Fae are utterly without hearts, morals or understanding and that they put your character through Hell - physically, emotionally, mentally, sexually and more. That you had to fight to get back, tearing yourself further into shreds only to find that when you returned, you were changed. You're now more like they are. Worse, your human life is utterly unreachable to you. You fought through all of it to find either you're now believed dead, too much time has past, or you've been replaced by an impostor who now IS you. All that and there's nothing waiting for you upon your return. Your family is lost to you. Your life is lost to you. Your spouse/partner is lost to you. Your job/career is lost to you. Everything you were before is gone.

Pretty bleak, hu?

Changeling: The Dreaming was, at it's core, about hope. That though things now weren't great, they were going to get better. Changeling: The Lost has no hope. All hope was ripped away from you prior to the game's beginning. You're now left broken utterly to fend for yourself. Oh yeah, and to live life looking over your shoulder to ensure you're not recaptured by the True Fae you escaped from who may or may not be actively hunting for you.

This just isn't my cup of tea. You're forced to play a victim. And, you're constantly reminded how awful things were and how terrible your past was. I feel that the world is already too dark and too bleak and I rather not spend my free time encouraging MORE of that attitude.

Now, I want to be clear that if you like it, more power to you. I make NO judgment calls on anyone who plays the game in ANY way. I'm just saying it's not for me. And I think for many people who may have been the victim of abuse, it may not be for you either. I can greatly see this book and this concept being triggering to people.

So in summary...

If you do not like horror situations, or dark settings, or concepts of abuse, kidnapping, torture and related are troubling to you, do yourself a favor and avoid this line. C:tL is NOT like C:tD at all. If you're expecting something airy and light like the original, you'll be sorely disappointed. When they say it has mature themes, they mean it for these reasons.

I felt great excitement and trepidation when Changeling: the Lost was announced; excitement that White Wolf's Changeling line was getting new life (after the fizzling ending in Time of Judgment (no disrespect to the authors mind you) and trepidation because I knew it wouldn't be like Changeling: the Dreaming. And that is something you defiantly have to keep in mind. As soon as the cover was released I knew this was a whole different game, one with a less colorful palate.

A little recap since it is impossible to talk about this book without discussing Changeling: the Dreaming: In CtD, you play a human who shares part of an immortal soul of the True Fae from mythical Arcadia. That part of you was exiled to the material world when Arcadia closed its gates sometime in the late Middle Ages. The whole theme of the book is longing for this mythical heritage and surviving in a world where you feed off of imagination and creativity, but both seem to be ebbing from the world. By contrast, in Changeling: the Lost the roads and gates leading to Arcadia are obscure, but woefully open and the True Fae occasionally walk the earth. In fact, your characters have been there, and will do everything they can to keep from going back with anything less than an army at their backs. You play a human who for some capricious reason has been kidnapped by the Fae and brought to Arcadia for some period of time. It is a place of passion and madness, where the laws of physics and reason do not apply; only the will of your captor matters. There they may serve as baubles to be admired, subjects to be experimented on, slave labor, perhaps even a fairy bride or lover. Your characters escape back into the material world, and finds themselves changed in body, mind, and spirit. They carry the magical taint of Fairie, something which may excite or disgust depending on bent. The theme of the game is the struggle to grip onto your humanity, find a sense of self and community, and grow powerful enough to avoid recapture.

I adore the old Changeling, but I love the changes inherent in Changeling: the Lost. It is more true to the source material (world mythology). Some have criticized it as having too much of a culture of victimization, but if you look close the first one had that as well, it was merely not as dark a series. In the first Changeling you play a benighted being who has been brought low and feels that loss strongly. In the new Changeling you play someone who has been brought low by a benighted being. It is indeed a big paradigm shift.

Also, the two major things that were broken about Changeling: the Dreaming have been addressed in Changeling: the Lost; the character creation system and the fae magic system. Character creation is more open-ended and very liberating. I like the fact that one True Fae could make a whole gaming troupe of different changelings and they all would be different depending on the roles they played in his household (say one would train the hounds, and would become doglike; one could be the master's callow lover; one could tend the crystalline garden and find herself developing quartz-like skin. You get the idea.) Also, you can take one type of changeling, say Ogres, and make anything from an Abominable Snowman to Hindi demons, to traditional Norwegian trolls. That is such a welcome break from Changeling: the Dreaming. It should be noted that all of the original "kiths" can be represented using this character creation system. The Contracts (magic) system it is so simplified and easy to use. Plus, it draws more upon fairy tales of how such magic would actually work and what costs it would take.

Is it too dark? I do not think so, particularly when I look at how strong a theme this is in fantasy literature. When playing this game you can ask the question what would have happened to Niel Gaiman's Coraline if she had not been able to escape the Other Mother? What if Sarah had run out of time in Labyrinth and became part of Jareth's harem? You can go to classic literature too, what if Alice became lost in Wonderland? What if Dorthy Gale had tarried too long in Oz? What would Wendy be like if she spent decades in Neverland under the watch of a far crueler Peter Pan?

Changeling: the Lost is a welcome re-imagination of the series, and deserves to stand on it's own merits as a masterful work of the role-playing genre.

Changeling is the 5th game launched under the "new" version of the World of Darkness from White Wolf Game Studio. It is partially a re-imagining of Changeling: the Dreaming and a chance for White Wolf to explore myth and legend in new ways. This game deviates much more from its predecessor than Vampire: the Requiem does from Vampire: the Masquerade. Sure, there are a few familiar terms in this version of Changeling, but the game is very, very different from the Dreaming.

In Lost, the characters are victims of the True Fae, having been abducted or seduced into service of these other-worldly beings. The Fae often replace the victim with a Fetch (a Fae creation that effectively assumes the role the character would have had in the mortal world). While in Arcadia the characters fill any number of roles for their masters, servants, lovers, slaves, pawns and decorations in the endless imaginations of The Others.

Changeling: the Lost is a very different game than Changeling: the Dreaming. Some of the terminology may be similar but each book explores fairy tales in a different way and offer up very different types of games. Some fans will want to compare the two games, others will look at Lost as something new and original. I'm a fan of both games. Changeling: the Lost is an amazing book, full of great writing and tons of story elements.

This is the first White Wolf product to actually entice me into the World of Darkness. Accomplishing that was done by making the setting truer to the myths of changelings.

If you're like me, and like to get a basic understanding of the whole book before you attempt to run or play, be warned: it's long, and it's heavy; armchair reading it ain't. Knowing that it was part of limited run series, I understand White Wolf had to cram a lot of information into only a few books.

Although I understand why role playing books do it, I don't like seeing things I already understood re-explained ad infinitum. The largest problem with this book is that certain words are missing from sentences, and in one case, the whole first part of a paragraph is missing. Sure, I can tell what is intended, but it's more distracting than simple typos.

Overall, a good buy, maybe they just need a better editor?

My friends and i were huge fans of VtM, and were sad to see it go, but optimistic about a new WoD line. I liked VtR, but it lacked the ability to captivate me or anyone i played it with. Some time passed without much playing, then when we decided to start again, i came across this game.

i never played the old changeling, but its unfair to compare the old and new WoD games anyway. they aren't different versions of the same game, they're completely separate entities. this game has however, stood out to me as the current masterpiece of the NWoD lines. take this with a grain of salt though, as i havn't played mage, werewolf, or Promethean, just read about them and the nuts and bolts of each game.

as for the game itself, its theme of wonder and horror rolled into one works wonders alone, especially since it does so naturally, without having to exert much brain power into theme when creating a story.
I'll spare the details most reviews hang up on and mention the highlights of the game. character creation is more in depth for CtL than in any of the NWoD lines, with even more options being available the the other books of this limited run. the powers and abilities available are numerous, but balanced by their very nature, so it comes across as making sense rather than a laundry list of things a changeling can do. the political side of the game can have as much or as little with gameplay as desired, but the court systems still come across as more logical than those of VtR.

IF you're thinking about this book, but can't decide, I would recommend this title over any WoD line. it can make your head spin at times with just the sheer amount of possibility in just the core alone, but it all fits in a way that makes it just work. this title is at this time up for numerous awards and is becoming a favorite among WW gamers, so the numbers alone should balance out the negative reviews of bellyaching fans of CtD. changeling is the game of beautiful insanity and endless possibilities, and has been worth every penny.