Changeling the Lost Second Edition: Wizened

Changeling: The Lost, Chronicles of Darkness, Open Development, Projects

Last Seeming! I’m still fielding thoughts on what you want to see next. I have some thoughts. But yeah.

So, normal rules apply. This is a rough draft. Don’t comment on grammar and typos and shit. I’m also still fussing with the way I want Blessings and Curses to look, so they’re not all perfectly aligned yet. That’s intended. I THINK the way they’ll end up is:

Blessings: Minor mechanical advantage and a condition that can give you free Clarity

Curse: Something that heightens an inherent weakness or otherwise mechanically affects the Changeling template, and something that risks Clarity loss.

Here’s the forum thread for discussing the Wizened.

Wizened

Placeholder quote about art and shit

You can cry for the mechanical man, for the machine girl, for the person made by their own hands, but they won’t cry for themselves. The Wizened doesn’t know to, or care to. They’ve found a way to cope and live, and it works for them. Wizened are crafters, makers, creators, endless invention embodied in a body or mind that is otherwise incomplete. They’re a jigsaw puzzle missing the edge pieces, and because of it, or related to that, the puzzle can go on forever, adding more pieces, moving pieces around, endlessly creating always building never complete. The tinkerer is the toy with the Wizened, and the sculpture can be the sculpture.

Appearance: You’ll know the Wizened by his stiff joints and muttering. He talks to himself about high concepts of his craft that you can’t possibly understand. He caries the aire of the dysfunctional genius who so very close to solve a Millennial Prize Problem, but can’t remember to tie his shoes. She is a violinist so perfect in her performance that must be reminded to stop practicing when her fingers start to bleed.

To the Changeling, she is incomplete, where parts of herself are replaced with parts of her craft. She is a surgeon without fingers or face, both of which having been replaced with obsidian scalpels and a mask respectively. He is a woodsman of tin and wood, limbs replaced when the axe slipped. She’s a dancer with feet made of silk and leather, stuffed pointe shoes bound to her knees. The Wizened is a blend of their art and their imperfection. They are beautiful and perfect and broken.

Background: Before the Durance, many Wizened already had their craft. She had a skill or talent that drove her and made her unique and different. She excelled in this particular field, and it made it stand out. Maybe because of this, or simply connected to this, she has always had a problem connecting with people. Among normal people with normal lives she felt different, outside, and maybe even a little broken. There was something everyone around her seemed to have, and she was missing. Maybe it bothered her, maybe she didn’t even know it exactly, but that missing something is what they used to lure or trick her into the Hedge.

The Escape: The Durance isn’t easy for anyone, but for the would-be Wizened the change is just too much. In the hands of her Keeper, there is no pattern, no safe routine to fall back to. No time to practice her craft or rhyme and reason to escape too. Even if the Keeper brought the would-be Wizened to perform her art, the very nature of the unreality means that pattern, order, routine are impossible. This is a natural cruelty that makes all other concerns seem secondary for the would-be Wizened who may have a strong need for comfortable repetition. The reality of the place it self breaks down the would-be Wizened, literally, they fall a part a piece at a time, unable to handle the chaos. Fingers snap off, limbs wither and drop away, her heart shrivels and a wind carries it off like ash pushed away by bellows. But for the would-be Wizened, they have something outside of themselves. As terrible as the chaos and the conditions are, there is something inside the would-be Wizened that can’t be taken away. They know how to do a thing, and they are good at it, and it drives them. Even as they found themselves in pieces, the tool of their trade are a comfort, the symbols of their skill fill the gaps. And so, the with what’s left of their hands, their arms, their mouths, they sew themselves back together, build from the ground up, and bind the their tools into themselves, bodily. She join with their art, rebuilding herself from the ground up. With this new body, the choice to devote herself to the thing that brings safety, comfort, and praise, she abandons the human parts that failed her, and with that choice, she escapes.

Character Creation: Naturally, any Wizened will have a decent score in the craft they have devoted themselves to. When building a Wizened, players should consider that the skills reflected on a character sheet are highly conceptual, and playing pool, for example, may require a suite of skills at two or three to reflect real skill at pool, rather than one skill at a four or five. Additionally, it’s important to consider what the focus of character growth should be, if the Wizened is still perfecting their gift, or if their gift is a given and the character will focus on developing in other ways. The important thing when creating a Wizened is this; four dots in Expression does not a Wizened make. Not on its own.

Blessing: Clarity of Comfort. Her special gift has been and will always be the place she can go to in order to feel safe, to recover, to recoup. Any time she runs away from the world, avoiding problems by using her gift as a means to self comfort she gets an exceptional success on three successes rather than five. Once per Story, she can also regain a Clarity point for doing so for free.

Curse: The Problem with Perfection. The line between genius and perfection is thin, and the considerable talent that Wizened have devoted themselves to can also consume them. Any time a Wizened fails a roll related to their unique talent, it’s a Clarity break.

Concepts:

“But you’re a Wizened, aren’t you?” they all say. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at something?” they chide. They don’t know what she can do, it’s not as obvious as they’d hope, but on the day they understand, truly understand, it will be like the fire of heaven, scorching the ignorant. Until that day, though, she takes their abuse quietly and devotes her self more deeply.

If only he could do it himself! His vision is clear, his tools are perfect, its the models that keep failing! Why can’t they hold still longer? Why can’t they smile just the right way?! He’s considering alternative paths to the perfect tableau. Desperately.

She can’t hear your words, and while she can read lips when she’s paying attention, she’s almost never paying attention. The music is in her head, and she doesn’t need hearing to confirm if it’s correct. She just knows. All other concerns are secondary.