Changeling: The Lost, The Hedge

Changeling: The Lost, Open Development

Hey everyone!

Working on wrapping Changeling: The Lost Second Edition. A while ago, I posted the bulk of the rules, and I’ve been integrating a ton of playtest notes and tweaking this, that, or the other thing. We’re in the home stretch on the text.

One thing I’ve been asked more than a few times about was the way we were handling the Hedge in 2E. The answer to that is, “basically the same, but with some minor fussing and emphasis changes”. For example, the Hedge was always more than just literal thorns. It’s called out in the description in the previous edition pretty clearly. However, you might not notice if you forgot that short paragraph and just paid attention to other material about the Hedge. So, in 2E, I want to be very clear and present about the fact that the Hedge’s brambles aren’t always literal. This is mostly just a tonal change though.

I’ve got new, pretty simplified systems for navigating the Hedge, for warping the Hedge physically, for Hedge duels, and a few other minor things. I didn’t have a ton of word count to devote to this, so I wanted to favor basic foundations. And, if you’ve been following the discussions, you know that “The Hedge” is the tentative name of our first supplement. So, we’ll be giving that a lot of love, and sooner than later.

The one thing you’ll get a nice hint of here, but you’ll see more of in The Hedge is the ability to change Seemings. It’s the kind of rare, focus-of-multiple-stories type thing that I feel gave us some fun space to play with the agency changelings take over their condition.

This segment is notably shorter than the original. Again, space constraints are a real thing, and I think we have a lot of room to expand and let it develop into something more beautiful and terrifying with our first supplement.

Anyway, here’s some Hedge. I hope you dig it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Edit: I made some minor changes about six hours after posting this. I added some description text under “Pain and the Hedge” to add more explicit dichotomy between beautiful and dark aspects. I clarified Master Shaper to allow for human characters. I clarified some rules about warping the Hedge. I added a minor reference to Dream Bastions in the reasons changelings travel to the Hedge. I made it clear what happens to warped objects when they’re taken from the Hedge into the human world.