Christopher Howard
May 31, 2000 (21:28)
Denizens of the Dreaming FAQ
Wow. You’re absent from the forum a week or two and stuff piles up. Hello, folks. For those who don’t know me, I’m Christopher Howard, the primary author of Denizens of the Dreaming. As I mentioned a while back, I have been compiling a FAQ to answer some of the questions, comments and complaints people have had about the book. I probably haven’t answered everyone’s questions, but I have made an effort to get to as many as I could find. I hope this clarifies things a bit.
A note on the below format: Since some folks asked variations of the same question, I’ve collected their comments under one question, but have separated different posters by putting an ellipse (…) in front of each new speaker. And so, without further ado:
Q: Why did the naraka not seem to encounter the hsien present near Ravana's death? You would think they would be the first fae they encountered. Why was this not mentioned, or this listed as a type of conflict, given naraka and acheri nature? The hsien are more closely related to Changeling than vampires or werewolves.
A: True enough. There are a number of reasons why I didn’t mention the narakas’ interaction with the hsien. The main reason was that, despite the fact that a hsien played an active part in the death of Ravnos in Time of Thin Blood, the majority of hsien are in the Middle Kingdom, farther East than the narakas’ home stomping grounds in India and Pakistan. Also, since the surrounding region was mostly reduced to an atomic cinder by the Hidden Ones’ spirit nukes, I figured that any of the remaining local hsien were something less than a threat (at least in the immediate aftermath). If there were any hsien left in the area, I surmise they beat a hasty retreat.
That said, the two groups (not to mention the acheri) are not all that far away from each other. They probably have come into contact with each other at some point in the past and I wouldn’t mind seeing some information on this in future books. Denizens was not meant to cover the totality of the Adhene’s interactions with the fae world, any more than Changeling 2nd Ed. is meant to cover every aspect of changeling life. Regrettably, there was just not enough room in the book to detail everything I wanted to cover. I encourage Storytellers to create their own stories involving the hsien and the Dark-kin.
Q: What is going on with the new systems for Arts? Is this a change in overall system or just an oversight?
…Each and every cantrip in the book says that it requires a point of, Glamour regardless of whether it is chimerical or Wyrd. Is this Glamour in addition to the Glamour required to cast a Wyrd cantrip?
…Denizen Arts: WHAT THE (expletive) WENT ON HERE!?!?! Not only do the Arts contradict pre-established Cantrip rules such as: Realm + Attribute combinations or Banality + 4 difficulty, but the cantrips themselves seem to be completely unchangeling. Discord, save for the 3rd and 5th levels, are weak, uncreative and written to be weaker than even Vampire Disciplines. [Out of context from the same poster: The Arts were also weaker than standard fae cantrips; lets face it, Legerdemain and Chicanery make for better Arts of War than Discord will ever be, as it’s written.] The Autumn Way Level 5 for some reason cannot be combined with the Scene Realm to effect multiple targets; and level 4 is pathetic and worse, making the effects little more than a very static ability.
A: There are some good points here and others that fall far wide of the mark.
On the first category, let me tender my abject apologies: The Glamour cost mentioned in the book is to use Wyrd aspects of the cantrips, as with all other Arts. I also included the Attribute for each Art’s Attribute + Realm roll, but then erroneously went on to give oddball rolls for many of the cantrips. Agh! If I could change one thing in the entire book, this would be it. I know this rule as well as you do and I don’t know where my mind was when I did this. I could try to come up with some long-winded rationale for why this occurred but, bottom line, I made a mistake. This is what happens when you rush things. The only real, and somewhat lame, explanation I can give for this is that I write for so many gamelines that I occasionally lose sight of the rules system I am currently working under. I will try to be more careful in the future. Please excise this unfortunate mistake from your minds and run the denizens’ Arts as you would any changeling spell. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.
Now, as to the rest:
First, on Discord. I didn’t write this Art (it was Tadd’s baby and maybe he’d be inclined to add to my answer), but I felt it mostly succeeded at what it set out to do.
"Weaker than even Vampire Disciplines?" Some of those vampiric powers are pretty damn scary to me. Besides, even though the Art was designed to allow the wielder to go toe-to-toe with various prodigals, neither Tadd nor I ever intended it to be that much more potent than abilities of comparable levels in other games. We’re trying to even the playing field, not kick it to the opposite extreme where changelings dominate it. That’s not the point of the game—never has been.
Now, since you didn’t seem to have any problem with Discord levels 3 & 5, I’ll address the other three. Level 1 (House of Mirrors) allows the caster to create non-material duplicates of himself or any other item allowed by his appropriate Realms. While I don’t intend to debate how "creative" this cantrip is (if you’ve already made up your mind, I can’t convince you), I’d say that this is hardly "weak" for a Level 1 spell. Similarly, Level 2 (Hermes’ Fleetness) is, while not hugely potent, at least in line for a Level 2 cantrip. Finally, Level 4 (Whirling Dervish) deals with difficulty modifiers and can reduce the difficulty — against a specific Realm designated target — to a very low level (as low as difficulty 2) for a number of rounds. This is quite a potent ability. While we can argue about whether it stacks up against the comparable levels of Chicanery and Legerdemain (Haunted Heart and Mooch) as combat cantrips, I don’t believe it is anything to sneeze at.
Finally, to address your comments on the Autumn Way:
First, briefly, Autumn Way 4 (Dagda’s Boon) allows the denizen to abrogate the Silver Ban. While this may not be a big deal to the average changeling, it opens up whole new worlds to the denizen who possesses it (especially since it can be used to bring other Adhene onto the Silver Path). Think of this in both a mystical and a socio-political sense. In the first case, the denizen is overcoming (or, more precisely, fooling) the extremely potent magics of the Tuatha dé Danaan. This is no small thing. In the latter sense, the denizen can penetrate one of the changelings’ strongest defenses, raid hitherto unavailable trods and freeholds, gain power and esteem among his own kind as an "opener of paths" and generally make life miserable for the Kithain. "Pathetic and worse?" You are welcome to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree with your assessment.
On Autumn Way 5 (Reality’s Horror) not being allowed to combine with Scene 5 to affect multiple targets: For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Ravnos Chimerstry Discipline in Vampire: The Masquerade, I drew this cantrip directly from the fifth level of this power (Horrid Reality). In order to curb power gaming with this ability (which is quite potent), the developers of Vampire decided to limit its use to one person at a time. Rightly or wrongly, I followed suit. The limitation of various Realms is not unprecedented in the game and, so I would argue, not "unchangeling." If I may refer you to the cantrip rules on page 172 of Changeling 2nd, Edition:
"The basic cantrip casting rules make the most use of the Realms of Actor and Fae. Generally speaking, the target of many cantrips is most often a person, whether a mortal, supernatural or another fae. In many cases, the Scene Realm can be used in conjunction with Fae or Actor to affect multiple targets." [Emphasis added.]
For a specific example of Scene restrictions, look at its outright ban in the system rules for Chicanery 5 (Captive Heart) and at the limitations it faces throughout many of the other Arts.
In other words, for reasons of game balance, certain cantrips (Disciplines, rotes, Gifts, Arcanoi, etc.) have this, or similar, limitations — and most Storytellers are very grateful for this fact. The actual metaphysics behind these system limitations are rarely explained because it would simply take too much precious space, and because it is assumed that the Storytellers and players are intelligent enough to work out the "why" of such limitations on their own. If a Storyteller is so inclined, however, the Scene limitation is the easiest thing in the world to fix: Simply allow the Scene Realm and divide the number of successes among the people affected. ‘Nuff said.
--Chris Howard
Next: Part 2 of the FAQ.