Book Referral - CHANGELING: THE DREAMING

     "You lead a double life, alternating between reality and fantasy.   Caught in the middle ground between dream and wakefulness, you are neither wholly fae nor wholly mortal, but burdened with the cares of both.  Finding a happy medium between the wild, insane world of the fae and the deadening, banal world of humanity is essential if you are to remain whole.  Although your faerie self is ageless and eternal, your mortal body and mind grow older and less resilient as you move through life.  Sooner or later, nearly all changelings succumb to one of two equally terrifying conditions;  Banality, the loss of their faerie magic; or Bedlam, the loss of their mortal reason.
     "But is this fate inevitable?  Can you retain your childlike wonder while fighting against the frigid Banality that seeks to numb your mind and steal your past?  Can you ride the currents of the Dreaming without being swept away in the maelstrom of Bedlam?
     "You stand alone in the mundane world.  No mortal will ever understand the depth of your alienation, strangeness, and uniqueness.   Though you may try to communicate your condition through art (and many have tried and failed), only those with faerie blood will see, understand, and appreciate what you are.
     "An exile among exiles.  Lost among the lost.  The stranger in every crowd.
     "Hail, fellow traveler- welcome to the Dreaming."
                    -Introduction, Changeling:  The Dreaming



       Changeling is a storytelling game about the Dreaming. Players create magickal characters and weave together a collective story, (creating it as they play along), so the outcome is always uncertain.  The game part is based on certain rules and premises which are elucidated in the metastory.  The rules direct and guide the story's progress and help define the characters' capacities and weaknesses.  There is no single "winner" of Changeling, for the object is not to defeat the other players.  To "win" at all, players need to cooperate with each other.  Because this is a storytelling game, there is no way for one person to claim victory.  Unlike other role playing games such as Magik or Dungeons and Dragons which are so fantastical that they may prove difficult to integrate into normal waking consciousness, Changeling is based on an invisible world of fantasy that exists alongside our reality, making many of the skills one's character developes usefull in one's own life. Changeling has a dreamlike, innocent quality that makes it a suitable game for adolesents (or maybe a stifled inner child).  The same format is used in other WhiteWolf publications such as Mage:The Ascension for those that want a darker, harder edge.
     Changeling is an invitation to reconnect with our youthful wonder and awe of all that is mysterious and magickal within this world.  We are faced with the challenge to imbue our mundane world with a sense of artistic Glamour to stave off Banality and keep our fae spirits flying free.

Nomad Gnosis