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Your seeming is the manner in which your fae nature manifests itself. Your seeming is the primary factor in defining your fae mien, the true appearance of your altered self. Often your seeming comes at least in part from your Arcadian jailer, but in at least some instances, your Keeper might have had a different nature and deliberately shaped your seeming to fill his needs or desires. For example, a changeling taken by a lordly Fae who took regular hunting excursions into the Hedge might develop a beautiful and lordly mien of his own, or the hunter might shape the changeling into something akin to a hunting hound or a hawk
Questions about the Seemings? Refer to the Changeling: the Lost , pages 100 - 123 for lots more.
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Beasts
How the Beasts view:
Darklings: They understand. They know that only half the world is asleep when it's dark.
Elementals: We hear the world?s heartbeat and smell its blood. They hear the world breathe. We?d be damned alike if we weren?t so damned different.
Fairest: Got a lot of vigor for something that doesn?t look or smell like a real flesh-and blood animal.
Ogres: You want to gobble me up? I?m not your meat, big fella.
The Wizened: Crafty little creatures. And usually on the other side of the walls from us.
Vampires: Fangs. I know fangs.
Werewolves: No, they're not kindred spirits. Difference between us and them is we got our souls back.
Mortals: No, my place is a pigsty. Let's go to yours. So. What was your name again?
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The oldest version of the story of Red Riding Hood has the girl tempted into removing her clothes and getting into the bed with the Bad Wolf, where she is ?devoured.? Red Riding Hood is very much the archetype of the Beast's victim. She was innocent, unknowing of where her actions would lead her. She was prone to wandering in out-of-the-way places, out of human view but well within the notice of a Fae Beast. And for all her innocence, the wild tempted her, drew her into that world of excitement and sensation that consumed her.
Many Beasts were innocent when they were taken in some way, as naïve when it came to the ways of the animal world as they were to the human world. Many were loners, with no human society to protect them from the things that would take them away from the world they knew. And many came to the world of the Fae, or at least they thought they came, of their own free will. They might not have understood what giving into to a world of sensation and instinct was going to mean, but a good proportion of them wanted it enough to willingly fall into the clutches of the Gentry.
Those few who escape are those whose innocence was not a weakness. Some were simply ignorant, and when, within themselves they realized what their time in the lands of faerie really meant, they regained themselves and escaped. Others have an innocence that simply refuses to be corrupted or destroyed, an innocence that can be wielded like a weapon. This bright refusal to be corrupted can give a changeling the strength to get out. Escaping, some return to the wilds and return to living alone, but just as many, if not more, throw themselves into human society, as if to attempt to regain the benefits of civilization. It works, if only to an extent: the Beast might gain a veneer of civility, but spreads just as much wildness to the civilized world.
Concepts:
Horse whisperer, cat burglar, animal rights activist, ox-sized college jock, homeless sewer rat king, man-eating loan shark, reptilian lawyer, grizzly man with a clue, hare-like professional athlete, dog soldier, queen bee of the sorority, eagleeyed detective, penniless frog prince.
Kiths:
Broadback, Hunterheart, Runnerswift, Skitterskulk, Steepscrambler, Swimmerskin, Venombite, Windwing |
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Darklings
How the Darklings view:
Beasts: I wouldn?t trust too much to those senses of yours if I were in your pelt. They aren?t always as honest as you might think.
Elementals: You think that because you have this attachment to the world?s bones that you have nothing to fear. I pity you.
Fairest: Watch your back. No, that?s not a threat. Why should it be a threat?
Ogres: Absolutely. You go in first. I?ll just stay out here and back you up.
The Wizened: It is a good thing to be wise, and diligent and useful. You work in the lights, I?ll work nearby.
Vampires: So like the Others. Watch them, carefully, from a distance, as hard as you can.
Werewolves: All the more reason to stay out of the moonlight.
Mortals: You and the sun are friends. And you haven?t a clue what that means.
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Darklings are among those Lost who were stolen because they transgressed. They might not have known they were transgressing, or even that there were rules to break, but they went too far. Many crossed the line out of curiosity, and it?s this curiosity, this need to find new things and to explore, that helped to bring many of them back out through the Hedge. This curiosity made them what they were: by investigating the dark, they became like the dark. Many Darklings are talented at finding things out, and many take on roles that depend upon them being observant.
Concepts:
Parapsychologist, nocturnal building superintendent, night-shift call center worker, chimney sweep, professional spelunker, lab assistant, amateur night-time naturalist, night refuge manager.
Kiths:
Antiquarian, Gravewight, Leechfinger, Mirrorskin, Tunnelgrub
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Elementals
How the Elementals view:
Beasts: You would almost share my heart if you weren?t lost to the? impermanent side of nature.
Darklings: See that? That was me shivering.
Fairest: So what? You?re a force of nature? Oh, I like you. You?re really funny.
Ogres: Get out of my face before I do something you regret.
The Wizened: Dig all you want. Just not here.
Vampires: I think I?m going to be sick.
Werewolves: No, you?re welcome here. Of course you are. So. When were you planning to move on again?
Mortals: You?re overturning the land. You?re cutting down the trees. You?re choking the sky. So why am I so jealous of you?
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The Elementals were often those whom the Fae desired in some way, those whom they sought out and went to some effort to kidnap. Most Elementals were already exceptional in some way. Perhaps the changeling was beautiful enough to excite a Fae?s desire. Perhaps they needed a guard or a servant of some kind. A musician or dancer could become the prize of a Fae who fancied himself a doyen of the arts. When Elementals come back, they still possess those talents that attracted the Fae to them in the first place, but now their element alters it in many ways, some subtle, some less so. Some, however, wandered into the Hedge on their own, in some ways bearing the marks of whatever thorny wasteland they wandered in before being taken to Faerie.
Concepts:
Secretly incompetent firefighter, landscape gardener, logging saboteur, clockwork secretary, workaholic steelworker, tornado chaser, model with flawless skin, allweather surfer, competitive mountaineer, deep-sea diver, extreme sports fanatic.
Kiths:
Airtouched, Earthbones, Fireheart, Manikin, Snowskin, Waterborn, Woodblood
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Fairest
How the Fairest view:
Beasts: Careful! You?ll have someone?s eye out with that.
Darklings: Well, we can?t all be the lucky ones, I suppose.
Elementals: Are you free Friday night? Dinner? Some drinks maybe?
Ogres: Be my faithful brute, won?t you? Come to me when I call, walk your own way when I need to be alone? Promise?
The Wizened: You?re taking my money for this, you horrible little man. So stop bitching about it.
Vampires: Oh, they can be fair in their own way, and oh yes, they know about cruelty, but they?re? not like us. Nothing of dead flesh could be.
Werewolves: Always, always keep your eye on the length of their leashes.
Mortals: I?m the fairest of them all. I am. Not you. Me. I don?t care what the mirror says.
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The Fairest were not always those whom the Fae thought to take for lovers. Although most were pleasing to the eye, all had some talent beyond simple good looks. Some could dance, some had beautiful voices, some were artists or poets. The few who have made it back have often found that this one talent has consumed them. It?s almost all they have, in a way. The arrogance that comes from having the strength of self to be able to freely return from bleak, beautiful Faerie is perhaps bolstered by insecurity. What if the talents they have are not enough to make them truly the most talented, the brightest, the most beautiful? After all, in the stories, the Fae sorceress is very rarely, if the mirror is to be believed, the Fairest of them all.
Concepts:
Charismatic but incompetent executive, professional athlete, lead singer in a band, amiable politician, catalog model, aging heartthrob, too-glamorous gangbanger, out-ofwork actor waiting tables, high school beauty queen, low-table professional footballer, late night torch singer.
Kiths:
Bright One, Dancer, Draconic, Flowering, Muse
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Ogres
How the Ogres view:
Beasts: Hey! Hey! You didn't have to do that! I was just making a friendly offer!
Darklings: Say what you need to say to my face. I ain?t scared of something that hides from me, and I ain?t gonna be your friend if you won?t shake my hand.
Elementals: Look. If I want to piss against your tree, I?ll piss against your tree. That?s natural, too.
Fairest: Has anyone ever told you ? ? Oh. Right. Yeah. ?Course they have. So. What was it you wanted me to do?
The Wizened: Don?t think I can?t hear you down there. You can do things I can?t, that?s fine. Just don?t act like I?m stupid.
Vampires: Clammy little bastards. Maybe we're all monsters together, but I don't think they're my kind of monster.
Werewolves: I would have been scared shitless knowing these guys were out there, about a lifetime ago.
Mortals: God, you?re beautiful. On the other hand, you taste like chicken. What am I supposed to do?
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The Ogres who make it back through the Hedge have to be, more than any other changeling, exceptional people. Not that the Fae are necessarily picky in whom they choose to abuse and brutalize: more that the Ogres are the ones who managed both to survive without being eaten, crippled or beaten to death and to avoid becoming so much like the monsters that took them that they wouldn?t want to leave. They don't have to be particularly smart or cunning, but they are the kind of people who know their own mind. Most Ogres have an inborn streak of stubbornness that makes them faithful (if sometimes annoying) companions and terrible enemies.
Concepts:
Working-class Red Cap hard-man, arrogant giant CEO, shrill political activist, gung-ho Marine grunt, nightclub bouncer, understanding but non-nonsense bar manager, Bigfoot hunter, belligerent redneck, prizefighter, long-distance truck driver, deep sea fisherman.
Kiths:
Cyclopean, Farwalker, Gristlegrinder, Stonebones, Water-Dweller
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Wizened
How the The Wizened view:
Beasts: No. I?m not talking to you until you?re house-trained.
Darklings: Come on out where I can see you. I think we?ve got a lot we could talk about.
Elementals: Look at you, raw and unshaped. Gorgeous. When they made you, it?s like they unmade you and you came out better for it.
Fairest: If I envied you your pretty face, I wouldn?t tell you. Is there anything more to you that?s actually worth my jealousy?
Ogres: It makes me tense when you act like you?re about to break something. And you always act like you?re about to break something.
Vampires: Those are a bad job, they are. One wonders who decided to make something so dangerous and so flawed.
Werewolves: I don?t know, I don?t want to know. Find a brute or a beast or something if you need someone to talk to them.
Mortals: It doesn?t matter how hard I try, or how much better the work is. It doesn?t last the way it does when you do it.
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The Wizened are often the most unfortunate of changelings, for they were most often taken for no reason at all and no fault of their own. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The faeries saw them and took them; that is all. Unluckier still are those who came to the faeries? attention because they encountered a faerie who appeared to be in trouble ? like the man who found a little person under a rock and set him free, only to be hounded to death for his presumption that the Fae might need his help. The Wizened could be anyone. Having said that, it takes someone as cunning and ingenious as the Fae themselves to escape from the Little People, and so Wizened changelings who return are most often those people who were already nimble of hand and quick of wit.
Concepts:
Creepy backstreet surgeon, paranoid UFO enthusiast, faithful laconic manservant, snooty maître d?, footpad for hire, reclusive artist, socially inept radio technician, antisocial Nethead, pawnbroker.
Kiths:
Artist, Brewer, Chatelaine, Chirurgeon, Oracle, Smith, Soldier
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