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Mask:
Illusions hide fae magic from human eyes. Only in the world of deepest dreams do mortals awaken to the magic of Faerie. This same illusion weaves about the Lost, disguising their true natures to the masses. Changelings call this powerful illusion the Mask. The Mask defies mortal senses and technology alike. It is not of changeling design, but something perhaps conjured by the Others in ancient times. Maybe it is simply the nature of fae things, for which illusion and deceit are as real as flesh and blood. It hides them so completely that it persists even beyond death.
Fae beings and other supernatural creatures with mystical senses can see through the Mask. This extends to objects originating from Faerie, such as a sword forged out of a dragon’s claw or a gown spun only of perfect snowflakes. The Lost see these objects as they truly are, but to mortal eyes these things are mundane, if exceptional in some way. The Mask only covers objects and beings from Faerie, and not mundane clothing or items a changeling might wear. Fae tokens and objects retrieved from the Hedge almost always resemble their real-world counterparts.
The changeling can strengthen his Mask such that other Lost and supernatural creatures cannot pierce it. To do so, he spends some Glamour as a reflexive action and wills the Mask to become active. For a short time, no magical senses can passively see through the Mask, though it is imperfect and the changeling's shadow can reveal the truth.
A changeling may scour her Mask away, revealing her fae form and embracing her magical nature. To do so is fraught with peril, and few changelings choose such an act without serious reason. The changeling spends a point of Glamour as an instant action, and the Mask shatters in dramatic fashion — burning, breaking, or crawling away from her fae form. For a while all see her as she truly is, even to mortals, in a way that flavors her form as something both beautiful and terrible, wondrous and horrifying, representing the great and dangerous power of Faerie in all its splendor. For that time, all contracts are massively boosted in strength and the glamour cost is reduced as glamour flows into her as if she was a living conduit of the fae in the mortal realm. However the price can be steep. Not only does this reveal her true form to everyone nearby, including technological recordings, but also slams open hedge gates for 10 yards / meters for each point on the 10 point Wyrd scale she possesses unless she has trained to suppress it, which might not be completely possible for the higher end of the scale. In addition she leaves a magical trail that Huntsmen and Keepers may follow.
Things covered by a mask maybe pierced in certain circumstances, such as viewing through a stone with a hole in it, young children, the exceptionally drunk or drugged, especially on a full moon, the insane, especially schizophrenia, people with heterochromia (one eye differently colored than the other), being a seventh child of a seven'th child, anyone who's slept on in a graveyard (lasts for one month), if a mortal eats a goblin fruit (lasts for one day), or if they have an active pledge or bargain with one of the fae (lasts as long as the pledge does), or the fae has otherwise invested glamour into the mortal outside of using contracts or such on them, called "ensorcelment".
Mien:
What the Mask hides is a changeling's fae mien. This is her true shape, transformed by her time in Faerie. An Elemental might have icy blue skin and hair that streams like frigid water about her shoulders. A Beast has scaly skin and rows of bony ridges instead of hair. An Ogre’s stony flesh feels rough to the touch and instead of two eyes, she has one. The Mask disguises even these changes. An Elemental made of ice feels cold to the touch, but her lover only assumes she has poor circulation. A changeling with clockwork mechanisms replacing her organs seems perfectly normal under medical examination. An Ogre’s eyes are perhaps too close together or larger than normal, his skin rough and dry.
Changes wrought by the durance reach beyond the cosmetic, manifesting as blessings from seeming and kith. A Darkling can become a shadow or a sunbeam, a Beast's claws rend flesh like real talons, and a Leechfinger's lamprey fingers actually do latch on to drink blood from his victims. The Mask does not fully hide these changes. Mortal observers explain these effects away as unusual but ultimately mundane circumstances: long nails, strong hands, or an uncommon limberness. Though the Mask disguises even their effects, it does not diminish them. A Fairest's song may seem only a beautiful melody, but it still enraptures those who listen.
The fae mien grows more pronounced as a changeling’s Wyrd rises. Even the Mask strains to disguise subtle, cool breezes, scents like the ocean, auras of fear where the shadows seem to deepen around the changeling, or an impression of glinting, catlike eyes. A changeling's Mantle flavors these effects, sending Winter chills down a bystander’s spine, filling someone with the warmth and vigor of Spring, or inciting the greed and envy of Coins. The effects are mostly harmless, unlike the more potent magic of the Lost, but help to define a changeling as something not fully of this world.
Talespinning:
Fae lives tend to read as stories, with actors, scenes, fate bending into archetypes and scripted lines. Fae can sometimes tap into this power, causing what's known as a Plot Hook and manipulating Fate to aid them in some way. For example, a lady is gambling and has already lost twice. She's almost out of money and on her last, desperate roll when she realizes Third Time's The Charm, blowing on her dice to infuse them with that extra bit of luck, winning the roll and taking home the entire pot! Or being in handcuffs while your captor is mocking you, invoking the story trope that a hero usually escapes during such an event in stories to give fate that tiny nudge to help you slip your bonds. Maybe he accidentally left his handcuff key under the floor mat of his car while you're in the back seat for example. Obviously there are limits, for example this only works if a trope comes up during play, since you can't invoke Third Time's unless you've already failed twice, and it must be used the third attempt. If you let it pass you by, there's no recovering it. However, this comes at a further price: Cruel Twists of Fate. These cause problems related to the hook as a consequence for it. For example, with Third Time's, the winner might trip and break an expensive roulette table and thus be forced to pay for a replacement with a portion of her earnings, or the person who escaped his cuffs trips and falls flat on his face as he gets out of the car to make a run for it, giving the captor time to realize and catch him if he isn't quick enough at recovering. It never undoes the original deed, and it's not always so immediate, but it can cut into it a bit.
Oneiromancy:
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The art of manipulating and creating dreams. Unfortunately, a fae cannot dreamscape their own dreams, at least not the more magical effects of them. Dreams are an essential part of keeping the mind healthy. Even when they aren't remembered upon waking, dreams are key to retaining long term memory, subconscious problem solving, and healing from mental and physical stress, among other benefits. Dreamscaping allows fae to trigger these abilities on a magically-enhanced scale.
Examples:
False memory dream: Memory is notoriously malleable. Eyewitnesses often disagree with each other when seeing the exact same thing and therapists have convinced patients of events that never actually happened. Fae take this one step further and implant a memory directly into the subconscious.
Healing Dream: A fae can craft a dream that's particularly refreshing, such that a healing dream might count as two days, a week, even a month of resting and healing for the purposes of wound recovery if the fae is particularly skilled. If the fae knows the target's personality and emotions well enough, usually through riding their dreams before, they can relieve stress as if it was a Wish Fulfillment dream.
Nightmares: A fae can create dreams to harm as easily as help, the opposite of a healing dream / Wish Fulfillment, dealing wounds and draining will like Kreuger on a binge.
Psychotherapy: If previous dream-riding techniques reveal the target is suffering from a mental problem, the fae may use psychotherapy as a means of treating it.
Hedgespinning
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The creation of fae objects, such as Tokens. From a teddybear that whispers words of love and encouragement as you sleep that eats your nightmares to fuel itself to a sewing needle that can create beautiful outfits but demands a price of blood from a prick with the tip. This also allows the user to bottle and extract abstract concepts. Imagine selling the color of your eyes in exchange for a cloak made of midnight's sky, or selling your cowardice for a sword made of the pain of a thrice-murdered, or even something as simple as selling a magical pastry in exchange for a laugh and all the joy that comes with it.
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Emotivore:​
Fae can 'eat' emotional energy and require it for sustenance. See Glamour Lore for more details.
Arcadian Metabolism:​
The duration and effects of Fae Fruit are doubled, In the Hedge natural healing is similarly boosted. Bruises like a punch to the face heal within a minute. Nastier wounds like a stabbing heal within a day while severe wounds such as burns, acid, etc take a week. The fae must be inside the glamour-soaked landscape of The Hedge for this healing rate to work.
Brownie's Boon:​ Like the shoemaker’s elves, the user completes tasks with a casual disregard for time. Reduces the time for an extended action such as surgery or painting while no one watches her by half. The changeling may spend a Glamour to halve the interval again, working at four times her normal speed for that task, up to a maximum of 1/16th at the price of 4 glamor, going 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16.
Gentrified Bearing:​ To low-level fae creatures, the changeling appears as one of the Gentry, boosting intimidation attempts the higher their wyrd is.
Glamour Fasting:​ The changeling can endure without glamour longer than others. As long as they have willpower remaining, they do not suffer deprivation until one full day has passed since they last gathered glamour.
Manymash:​ The changeling may alter their mask once per day. While they may even change the gender of their mask, it must still roughly fit their body.
Eidetic Memory:​ The user remembers events and details with pinpoint accuracy. Extremely useful for remembering who pledged what, where, and why.
Fleet of Foot:​ As a squirrel-like changeling, he inherits some of their speed and agility, making him easily able to keep up with humans despite being so short, and making him a fantastic climber.
Trained Observer:​ The user, whether due to professional training for their job or simply having a knack for seeing things, can more easily spot tiny details. She might not have a better chance of finding things, but she has a better chance of finding important things.
Acute Senses:​ The changeling’s senses are especially acute, even by the standards of high Clarity. Her sight, hearing, and sense of smell operate at twice the distance and accuracy of mortal senses. She can’t see in pitch darkness (for that, she needs Contract magic), but she can see much more clearly than humans can. Add the character’s Wyrd rating as dice to any perception-based rolls. This bonus supersedes the one normally granted by maximum Clarity. Also, add the bonus to any rolls made to remember or identify details.
Kenning:​
Changelings with strong Clarity are so good at telling the difference between magic and mundane that they have an easier time spotting the telltale signs of supernatural phenomena. The Lost refer to this as kenning. Each use reveals the presence of one supernatural creature, item, or active effect (including ongoing effects), assuming any are present. This does not allow for a perception against anything actively concealed through magic as that level of scrutiny requires Contracts. The changeling cannot determine what kind of supernatural phenomenon she has detected, only that it is one. This may be boosted by the Goblin's Eye contract, that allows learning the nature of the magic but not the specifics, (such as noticing a vampire is using a supernatural power but not which one or the difference between a mage's spell and a fae contract, but not the particular effects of either) determine a single weakness, bane, loophole, catch, etc the phenomenon possesses, how to activate it, how long it will last, with which subgroup of contracts does it most closely align, the power level relative to his own Wyrd score, and if there is a debt or oath associated with it. Each aspect of these burns their own glamour, so he can quickly burn through his supplies.
Portaling:​ Changelings escaped Arcadia, a land where fate and time are mutable and the whims of monstrous solipsists shape reality. By doing so, they forged a Contract with Faerie itself, so that not even dreams can hold them prisoner. Changelings can escape any kind of confinement. They refer to this phenomenon as portaling, referring specifically to the ability to open doors into the Hedge, but it applies to all aspects of their ability to spend Glamour to gain freedom.
If bound or held, a Changeling can simply slip free of the bonds — escaping a grapple, or slipping free of manacles by spending a Glamour point reflexively. If her bonds are supernatural in nature, such as someone using magical force to hold her down, or a magic rope binding her arms, she must engage in a Clash of Wills with the effect’s creator. She may retry without penalty, as many times as she likes — an exception to the rule about successive actions. Simply put, a changeling can always escape if she makes the conscious decision to do so, as long as she still has Glamour left to spend. This includes locked doors and windows, but only when trying to leave, not enter.
This is not to say that escape is without consequences. The ability does not protect a changeling from her jailers. She can escape police custody — handcuffs and a cell can’t hold her — but she still has a mugshot, her criminal record, and the police after her. Successfully restraining a changeling requires the use of magic, iron, or a Frailty. Iron bindings don't burn them, but they do resist all attempts at using fae magic to gain freedom.
Bedlam:​ Faerie is a place full of intense and conflicting emotional situations. Fear wars with joy, anger fights against happiness, and all the feelings in between rage through the magical realm. The Lost, though now escaped, can still feel those emotions, and sometimes tap into them. By drawing on his own strong passions, a changeling can convert Glamour back into an outpouring of emotions and send them coursing through the people around him, overwhelming them with extreme emotional responses. The urges the changeling has released consume targets who fail to resist, and they abandon other activities in favor of following the whims of their incited emotions.
This costs 1 willpower + 1 point of glamour.
Anyone within sensory range of the changeling is overcome with the emotion the changeling channels. The person must be able to sense the changeling somehow; even cameras or recording devices convey Bedlam’s effects. The changeling chooses a single Condition at the time he incites Bedlam appropriate to the emotion he incites. Using the four Seasonal courts’ emotions as an example, these would be: Wanton for desire, Competitive for wrath, Frightened for fear, and Lethargic for sorrow. Those who fail to successfully contest this power gain the Condition. The target rationalizes the change of emotion as perfectly natural while it’s going on, but after the effects end he may question why he felt that way. Supernatural creatures may very well suspect a magical cause.
Bedlam is a wild, unrestrained release of emotional energy. No one made an agreement with these emotions, like a Contract, and so all bets are off. It’s a blunt-force instrument, incapable of sending thoughtful direction, or even bold commands. The changeling may attempt to guide the behavior of the targets via mundane methods, such as attempting to draw the attention of an angry mob toward a single target, or shouting “run for your lives!” after unleashing a wave of fear through a crowd, but even this method is not perfect. Mob rule takes over, and sometimes drawing attention to yourself is more dangerous than just letting it run its course. This power targets anyone who can sense the changeling, and cannot distinguish between friend and foe. The changeling cannot choose to selectively remove targets from the effect, nor direct the effect at a small group of targets out of a crowd
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