Hey all. It’s been a bit.
I wanted to share some second drafts with you. This is like… 75% of the kiths that’ll be featured in the core rulebook.
Here’s the document.
With these and the Seemings, you have the foundation for a Changeling the Lost Second Edition character. I’ll be working on Contracts soon, so I expect those to be around to toy and tinker with. Additionally, there’s going to be a simple “tag” system that helps to further organise them, and helps you pick a kith out of the big list.
I spoiled elsewhere, but in Dark Eras, there’s a Grimm’s Fairy Tales era Lost chronicle. It features a seventh Seeming (or eighth, depending on how you want to look at it). That one’s literally about embracing a story to escape, taking on a role from a tale in order to get the edge and flee Arcadia. The Hedge, the first supplement for Lost 2e, will feature an eighth and probably final Seeming. They escaped by embracing chance, chaos, and luck. They closed their eyes and jumped, putting their faith in the universe. But more on them later.
I hope you enjoy the kiths as much as we enjoyed making them.
Comments
40 responses to “Changeling the Lost Second Edition – Kiths”
I hate to be off-topic, but have the cities for CtL 2e been confirmed yet?
Toronto
Budapest
Tokyo
Miami
Capetown
These will all be pretty big by 2e setting standards, so there’s not quite as many.
The gameplayer makes me wonder what the contract of the board, if implemented, would be like.
I’m fairly certain there’s something like it in there.
I very like most of changes – only beside making Wizened “cyborgs”, connecting their body to the tools of their Kiths.
I assume that quotes in the Kiths descriptions will be in italic or something? They are now a bit blend with rest of Kith description, making a bit problematic to read it
Yeah. They’ll be italic like any other voice text quotes. Sorry, reformatting in Google Docs takes forever.
I don’t know if it has been answered already, so forgive me in advance… but will the new Seemings be referenced in future sourcebooks even if they are not part of the core? I mean, it’s not a “big” problem (more Seemings! Always cool), but I like what has been spoiled about them, and it would be a pity to see them as a “one time thing”.
I don’t know how much we’ll be referencing Seemings in general in supplements. But I’ll try to keep them as being mentioned.
(And truth be told, I might reprint the Dark Eras one in a modern format in an upcoming book, as well.)
Awesome news! Thanks for replying!
The only thing I see here that I don’t like is how some of these kiths have very specific, very exclusive names. I mean, the kiths before the ‘regional’ ones in Winter Masques allowed many different ‘real’ fae creatures (read: those from human stories outside of the game) to often fit into more than one kith, and a single kith could possibly accommodate a variety of concepts.
This document suggests that a wild and wooly game warden MUST be a skogsra. My suggestion would be to make THAT kith’ name ‘gamekeeper’ or something, which allows for more inclusion.
The same goes for brollachan (call them ‘fearwisps’ maybe?), Ifrit (I dunno, ‘scareflame’ sound lame but something like), illes (‘suntouched’), nixes (I’d call them ‘sirens’ actually), and the oni (which REALLY are about as limited as the ‘Coyote’ and ‘Greys’ below).
‘Coyote’ and ‘Grey’ come across as MAD specific compared to what I’d like to see in Changeling. By that I mean the options for a player are terribly narrow with those two, only allowing for very narrow interpretations that really ought to be widened. The ‘Coyote’ kith should allow including such tricksters as Anansa and Chameleon from various African traditions as well as Raven from some other American tales (not to mention that every ‘example’ of ‘Coyote’ sounds like a take on the Beast Seeming). Your ‘Greys’ could include all manner of fae taskmasters and takers, including archetypes ranging from the ninepin bowlers in Rip van Winkle to Agent Smith from the Matrix movies.
Gremlin and Chimera are okay, though, since they’re pretty well general terms.
…Overall, these are very okay, but the above ideas will allow for them to be great.
Honestly, Greys are a-cultural enough to the point where the name works. There’s pretty much a universal idea of aliens as being dark-eyed/exotic-seeming telepaths these days. The name “Starborn” could work though (and set apart from Tellurics-they aren’t communing with the stars, they’re from them).
As for Coyote, “Trickster” works, since most tricksters have a blending of animal and human features. It’s no character concept though-you’re just good at seeming a lot more innocent and dumb than you are.
I think that maybe you watch too much Ancient Aliens, as the ‘common’ view of the so-called Greys is not actually very common… But I’m a librarian (read: nutter who must research EVERYTHING), so please don’t take my statement personally. I’m also a mad conspiracy theory fan (read: SERIOUSLY mad conspiracy theory fan), so I respect where you’re coming from!
Is the plan to only have three Seeming examples for each Kith in the finish product, or an example of every Seeming? I would like that if possible.
Yeah. Adding all of them would really be word count prohibitive.
But they’re not limited to the Seemings given as examples, I take it?
No. You can totally take any combination of Kith/Seeming.
So, I take it the example Seeming/Kith combos are intended to show examples of combinations that are extremes in terms of ease of wrapping one’s noggin about? That is, they showcase easy and difficult examples, if any.
This is slightly off-topic, but: changelings have Kiths and Seemings; the fae-touched only have Seemings. I’m assuming that the fae themselves (and possibly hobgoblins) only have Kiths? Or are they so varied that even Kiths are too restrictive?
More generally, are there any beings (aside from changelings still in their Durances) who have Kiths but not Seemings?
They’re too amorphous to have kiths.
Some changelings can leave without a Seeming. If they’re let go, or perhaps are arbitrarily rescued. Basically, if they never made an active choice to take control and leave, they don’t have a Seeming.
I still don’t quite get what you’re aiming to do with the seemings versus kiths for Second Edition.
The whole notion of a changeling character denied nearly all forms of agency – that she never CHOSE to go with her Keeper, that she had zero option to DECIDE her shape when she clawed her way out of the Hedge, that she needed to find ways to ACCEPT what fate had heaped upon her – is the most resonant theme of Changeling: the Lost for me and my troupe.
I’m curious how this will work out in Second Edition. I think I’ll need to see how the Clarity Trait (apparently important in how seeming works mechanically) will look before it makes much sense to me.
Dont forget Drudge servants.
Also electricity touched.
I was pondering making some sort of an Igor that had been made a servant forced to act as a sort of lightning conductor.
Congratulations Servant, today we do 2000 volts.
Yes master 🙁
Cool, Author is back! That Kith was one of my favorites back in 1E.
I do have a question, though. Will Cleareyes be in the final Kith list? I didn’t see it in here, and the kith that had a similar blessing in 1E (Cyclopeans) had its blessing changed. I’m hoping that the latter was due to wanting to set Cyclopean apart from Cleareyes, but I want to know for sure.
I am fairly certain Cleareyes are one of the remaining kiths.
Thanks for the quick response! That makes me feel a lot better now. Most of my favorites from 1E, plus some new faves… I look forward to the finished result!
Mechanically I’m a bit concerned about the Leechfinger’s ability to spend Glamour for damage. Glamour isn’t exactly a rare resource and as Wyrd grows I could quickly see that getting out of hand.
If it helps, we haven’t really heard about 2e Glamour acquisition. Not saying it will be scarcer — though I admit I felt it was a bit too easy to get in 1e — just that there are unknowns in there.
Awesome! Except we still haven’t gotten my beloved, put-upon little drudges!
… which may actually be fitting
I think, of all the changes to Changeling in 2nd Edition, I like the change to how Kith and Seeming interact the most. The old way felt a little too much like bloodlines in Requiem, where bloodlines are variations on a theme. Here, I think both Kith and Seeming now add to storytelling in a big way. With hundreds of Kith/Seeming combinations, and the infinite possibility of a player’s imagination, I don’t think any two characters are ever going to be alike.
I see where you’re coming from with that comparison to bloodlines, but I disagree that they’re the same. A vampire’s Clan and bloodline choices only offer ‘moar powerz’ from my perspective, though there ARE added weaknesses (or banes in Requiem Second Edition), and those do absolutely fill a need for character description.
A kith (in First Edition at least) allows more for FOCUS rather than EXPANSION, and the expressions of kith come from a very personal part of a changeling. A bloodline could be imposed on one of the Kindred at time of the Embrace, but kith made one member of a seeming ever-so-different from the all the others. The delineation between one kith to the next (and even more so for seemings) is DEscriptive, whereas bloodlines (and Clans in First Edition) came across very PROscriptive, the difference between ‘what you can do’ for the former and ‘only do this’ for the latter.
…I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but I think that the subtle differences are important. I also am not sure I like how kith and seeming have changed for Second Edition, but I shall try to keep an open mind until I see the finished product.
Yes, it of course looks fantastic, but where are the Gristlegrinders? It is a pidddling complaint, but I read the text and it mentions a maw of razor-sharp teeth (or something like that) and I get giddy. Only then after searching the text do I not find my beloved eating machines.
Again, overall the kiths look amazing, but as a former ogre “meat-grinder” I miss my toothy kith.
This draft is only 75% of the total kiths.
That is sweet music to my ears.
I would just like to reiterate thebfact that I have found all the work you guys have been doing to be fantastic. The elegance and nuance you all have brought to this project is spectacular. From the refreshing changes to the seemings, to the exceptional due dilligence on kiths and court building I can’t remember being more excited about project under development.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you!
The Gristlegrinders are in the document, they’re just not formatted correctly. The beginning of the entry is attached to the end of the Grey kith on page 17.
Well I’ll be blowed! It is there.
Thank ypu so much. It makes my heart happy.
Really I think my love for Gristlegrinders lies in the reaction that when so much is taken from you, sometimes all you want to do is consume, to take and take, not to fill the void necessarily but just so you can be the taker rather than the taken from. Something disturbingly compelling in that I suppose.
They all seem wonderful, but I have worry about one of them, the snowskin. The write-up says that they are supposed to be more intimidating than other peoples, but none of their powers work specifically with Intimidation. I know that the boost to Presence/Manipulation goes in that way, but it feels inelegant.
Do the kiths who gain dots in a Style merit gain the benefits of just that dot, or all dots up to and including said dot?
You get all the dots up to that one.
I’m dying to see some of the new contracts!