The third in my series of rapid-fire teasing Seemings, The Fairest. By now, I hope you can see the general feel and format. We’ve already shared Darklings and Beasts; I have the others lined up, they’ll probably go out this coming week.
Here’s the draft.
The normal rules for my draft sharing apply. Here’s the thread for discussing the Fairest.
Loving it,i always thought the fairest needed to change,it was silly that they were just “the pretyy ones”,theres nothing cool about a seeming that is just about being “Pretty”. but now the fairest are natural leaders and Bringers of Hope,they actually DO something besides standing there and looking pretty,that is exactly what i wanted!
let me ust quote my favorite movie now
“”David you Magnficent bastard i read YOUR DRAFT!”
They’ve never been “just the pretty ones.” Read the original material – they’re a lot of things, but never “just the pretty ones.”
Hell, Draconic is one of the main Kiths of the Fairest.
Constructive criticism: In my opinion, there’s not enough emphasis on their physical beauty, which after all is what they’re named for, or at least unconventional charisma. It is definitely an improvement that the concept has gone beyond just being beautiful, but shouldn’t shift into a mono-focus on leadership skills. I don’t believe the third character concept; a Fairest should never be unnoticeable by definition. That’s their curse. I would suggest that it would be better reworked so that he’s that one homeless guy everybody *does* notice and is drawn to.
Road versus destination. People unnaturally look to them as paragons, as leaders. That’s functionally a supernatural charisma. We don’t explicitly spell that out. Maybe we should.
Right, and the fact that they can’t be overlooked even if they want to be. And not just within their own chosen set, so the third example character couldn’t be ignored even if he is a homeless guy. I mean, at least people would remember that they walked by him even if they forget all the other homeless, even if they don’t all stop and talk to him.
There is something that I think is lost in this interpretation, and it isn’t an emphasis on physical beauty. To me what made 1st ed Fairest interesting wasn’t that they were so pretty, and that wasn’t what felt like the emphasis to me from the lore of the book but perhaps it was from how people often played them. To me the name Fairest felt like it was talking not as “Most Fair” (beautiful) but a way of saying “Most Fae”. Am I the only person that read this as a double meaning?
The Fairest are made in the image of the inhuman, fantastic, otherworldly monsters that took them for all that is good and all that is evil, all of the beauty and all of the cruelty. I think taking that away from them cheapens them a little, and risks pidgeonholeing them into the role of a “leader” figure when they can be more versatile than that.
The ones people look at and see as paragons, as leaders, et cetera, even when they don’t deserve it are definitely “the most fae”. That’s implied. Maybe we’ll just have to make that a little more explicit.
I’m really loving how the Seemings emphasize Changelings taking agency for themselves. I like how the “focus” of the Fairest seems to have been shifted a little to emphasize other forms of beauty than physical beauty. I’m getting an Ugly Duckling vibe from the Fairest: the untapped, hidden potential emerges, and the Fairest’s true nature is revealed.
I dig that read.
I’m not sure I like this. The fairest from 1e were sympathetic not because of leadership, but because the price of whatever beauty was forced upon them by their keeper, was greater susceptibility to madness. They took all the flaws of the flesh and put them inside the brain. The Curse works up to a point here, but suggests that only the Fairest should be leaders. Or at least forces them into a role that not all such characters should take up.
Maybe it’s just the wording, I dunno.
Except Fairest taking leadership roles literally puts them in danger, and damages them. The kind of Fairest that would take the job knowing that risk is a fucked-up Fairest.
My thoughts exactly.
II agree. Yes, we have something of leaders in there, but lost the universality of the previous text. Beauty and Madness are still a good motto.
What’s been described here evokes some aspects of Changeling: The Dreaming’s Sidney, a tone I find inadequate here.
Sidhe, damn autocorrect!
I apologize for being blunt but…This draft is a huge disappointment. Especially coming on the heels of the other Seemings. 2e Beasts and Darklings are a distillation of everything that made them cool and interesting in 1e, but 2e Fairest don’t bear much of a resemblance at all to their 1e counterparts. The Fairest, as a splat, have never been paragons or knights in shining armor (except possibly in their own minds). They’ve been the manipulative, decadent courtiers, the wicked stepmothers, the beautiful but dangerously capricious enchanters. I get that you needed to reinvent the Seemings as expressions of defiance, agency, and escape, but this just feels like you threw out 1e Fairest entirely. Were 1e Fairest really THAT incompatible with the new direction of Seemings?
>>Were 1e Fairest really THAT incompatible with the new direction of Seemings?
Yes. Also, I think you’ve misread the draft and the whole concept. I’ll seek to clarify in later drafts.
Sorry, but where did my comment go? It was right there where Exploding Frog’s now is. It wasn’t rude or irrelevant or anything, so why is it gone?
Not sure. I might have hit the wrong button when approving comments. Lemme check.
Thank you
I’m not sure how I feel about the “trigger points” that result in the player characters being abducted into the Hedge (in the Background section of the samples). On one hand, there’s some victim blaming happening there, which is, in fairness, part and parcel with the milieu. It also suffers from a bit too much specificity – Darklings were betrayed, Fairest suffered a tragedy they could have prevented. This wasn’t so much an issue for the Beast sample, as it was framed more universally.
I think what bothers me most about it, though, is that it’s a display of agency leading to the durance, which is ended by a display of agency. It feels magey, like the characters are entering the world of the supernatural by making a break with their previous understanding of the world. Which I feel undermines the importance of the claiming of agency that leads to their eventual escape.
I think people are struggling with understanding the “point” of the Seemings now. My reading goes like this:
1E CtL focussed on the Durance primarily (excessively?) as an abuse metaphor. The Escape represented getting away from abuse. Now, 2E CtL is shifting the focus of the Durance from “abuse” to “soul-crushing circumstances.” The redundancy of both Seeming and Kith representing the circumstances of the Durance (which felt like trying to port Clan/Bloodline, etc. into Changeling via a clumsy method) have been changed, and now Kith represents the abuse/trauma, and Seeming represents the agency/resolution. Seeming is all about being your own hero now.
You want to get out of the suffocating standards of your culture? You need to go ahead and break some taboos all on your lonesome, because letting somebody else do it will just saddle you with new rules and taboos. Become a creature of passion and rebellion. That is the essence of the Beast.
You don’t want to feel the sting of betrayal again, you want to get ahead for once? You need to realize that, in the end, you are the only person you can trust 100% of the time, and be willing to disadvantage somebody else for your own benefit. Become a thing of plotting and distrust. That is the essence of the Darkling.
You want to make a difference, bring a little more beauty and light into this cesspool of a world? Get up, study, apply yourself, follow your passion, strive to realize your dream. Lift yourself above the masses, and become an icon, a paragon, the kind of people people follow, even if you think you aren’t anything special. That is the essence of the Fairest.
I eagerly await the drafts for Elementals, Wizened, and Ogres. Keep up the great work.
… the kind of person people follow….
Sorry!
I really like this summary, well done!
Thank you!
Having just read the Darkling draft, I absolutely adore the shared history the two Seemings imply and demand about the Changelings that bear them. The Fairest just got significantly more meaningful (in terms of place in narrative and society) than how they were in Changeling 1.0.
Very well done! I’m excited to see more.
I may also be failing to understand, as the write-up reads, to me, about how other people react to them, not their own agency but as if the role is thrust upon them. If this is meant to be, I don’t find that people play like this and leadership (et al.) comes naturally through the character. Will the system (“fate”, in the write-up) force the Fairest to be a leader, or is it something that will be up to the Storyteller?
I feel bad about sounding negative, here, as I’ve enjoyed all the write-ups so far.