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.
I’d see more the mien next
Wow, this is probably the biggest shift of focus in the Seemings for me, I’m guessing because most of the leprechaun and grey alien qualities have been shifted over to Kiths?
The one issue with the clarity break is that it could be practically eliminated with a large enough dice pool, which is quite likely given a wizened’s focus on that pool at character gen. Perhaps facing a break if they don’t achive at lest two successes on the role, reflecting their drive towards arête. I’m not sure if that’s any more or less likely statically though.
The one factor that you didn’t mention is frequency. Sure, it is Unlikely that a Wizened will fail in their particular craft too frequently, but if they are rolling their focus 3 or 4 times in a session, where a Beast may only be captured and bound once or twice a Chronicle, eventually the Wizened will fail and that’s not something their minds are equipped to handle. The Wizened suffer from a slow inevitable loss of Clarity, while most of the other Kiths can at least avoid their sources of clarity loss (Ogres being the largest exception to this). I enjoy it, of course it will need math and play-testing and it will depend on the ST, but I like the way these guys look so far.
I can’t say I agree. Remember that the Curse is a Clarity breaking point: it’s a roll to avoid losing Clarity, not an automatic loss. Especially as it comes up only in the admitted unlikely event of a failure, I really don’t see it happening that often. The breaking point just means that failure in the area of devotion is significant enough to generate a Condition and therefore plot (and XP on resolution).
Meanwhile, the Wizened Blessing IS an automatic Clarity gain, like the rest, and I don’t see it as more onerous than the other Seemings’. It’s certainly less inherently likely to create/invite conflict than the Beast’s, Darkling’s, or Ogre’s.
Actually, if you know Winter Masques, one the defining trait of the Wizened is their stoicism and ability to endure.
This just shows what their shield actually is, in a way that leads into their collective inspiration of the Skilled Wonderworkers.
“Placeholder quote about art and shit.”
While this quote doesn’t apply to the wizened, it captures the Nockers of old perfectly.
Huntsmen next, please.
I’d really like to see what direction you are going with the oneiromancy portion of the setting. I always thought it was really awesome part of the setting. But it seemed to have a really high bar of entry and at the same time, completely disposable to the larger game.
Another splat I feel kinship toward. Also, smart move, pointing out that monomania doesn’t translate to hyper-focused character builds.
The young, bushy-haired college student. Every question has an answer hidden in a book. The campus library is practically her permanent residence. She’s always the first to volunteer an answer, and she always gets the highest marks on exams. Her skin may seem like it’s in desperate need of moisturizer, but it has actually turned to paper. Woe unto any who tells her that not all answers can be found in a book. Now please, she needs to get back to translating this manuscript of ancient runes.
He was a prodigy of chemistry. He knew the elemental composition of the human body down to the .1%. But he tried the impossible- elemental transmutation- and got himself dragged off to Arcadia for his trouble. The madness was too much, and so he slowly replaced himself with steel. He eventually escaped with a prosthetic arm and leg, and a heart made of steel. For now he knows: there is no such thing as a painless lesson.
I see what you did there.
Thank you, thank you. Hermione always struck me as a Wizened, but their new emphasis on following their passion to get away from stress, and suffering Breaking Points from not “getting” it really struck a chord with her character.
The whole “replace your body parts with inanimate objects”and “alchemy has all the answers” thing reminded me of Ed a lot- though I suppose an iron-themed Elemental could be appropriate, since his character arc is all about coming to terms with the limits of his abilities and learning his place in the cosmic order.
Like the elemental one, the curse/blessing for the Wizened make more sense and fit the game better.