[2E] Homebrew Courts and Freeholds

[Satchel]

Tad stuck on a Bargain for my court of Coal.

This seems like a good point to remind everyone that the non-Lost end of a Bargain can be upheld in ways other than forcing the Gentry into a pattern of behavior, depending on what the court's Bargain is properly with.

That said, the pattern of behavior that most directly lends itself seems to be insurance against interrupting a courtier's work.

[haren]

Well, anyone checking the document, every Court has 4 Common Contracts and 3 Royal. Not sure how well they measure up or how balanced they are. I'd appreciate any comments people have.

[Taidragon]

This seems like a good point to remind everyone that the non-Lost end of a Bargain can be upheld in ways other than forcing the Gentry into a pattern of behavior, depending on what the court's Bargain is properly with.

That said, the pattern of behavior that most directly lends itself seems to be insurance against interrupting a courtier's work.

The biggest problem with this is, unfortunately, we only have four complete Bargains up for show, and all four demand behaviour from the Fae Who would disrupt the freehold. If it helps, the Bargains I currently have for the other courts of the Freehold I'm building (as well as their names and emotions) goeth thusly:

Dust (Regret): Any who would invade the Freehold must leave markings of their passage, "dust" as it were. This can range from footprints, claw marks, eye-witnesses, a camera feed that just so happened to catch them at the right moment; whether they are doing it knowingly or not, they will leave a trail that can be tracked no matter where they go. This doesn't make invasion harder, but the Freehold certainly knows if it is happening and there are trackers always on standby in case it happens.

Paint (Pride): Any Fae who come into the Freehold must do so in all their finery. This doesn't impede them (save for perhaps impractical outfits), but it does make them stand out as an eyesore among common folk, even without being able to see past the mask. The True Fae in particular are guarenteed to be a sight that would put a skyscraper to shame, both in terms of opulence and the inability to hide.

Bone (Frustration): Any strike made on a Changeling of the Freehold may be met by one in turn, a strike that cannot be dodged, hidden from or met with another attack. The foe may block the attack if they can, but that is it. If the Changeling were to miss their attack, their strike is counted as done; if the attacker was hidden they do not get forced out of hiding, but they cannot retreat further into it, and if seen or exposed any stealth they had is reduced to simple cover. This also turns any combat with long ranged attackers into a game of accuracy and cover.

Perhaps for Coal (Joy), invaders must present the target with something intended of warmth and comfort in advance of them? A gift to denote entry? This could range from Goblin Fruit to tokens, or even an icon? Maybe something as simple as candles that keep the darkness at bay? Of course, it can be taken into twisted ways...

One problem I just realized for my Bargains is that they're all reactionary (save for maybe Coal's). Dust has you follow the trail laid, Paint simply makes stealth near impossible to do, and Bone turns any fight into a "who brought bigger boots to this kicking match" scenario. That said, Dust serves as the court's record keepers and body guards, Paint courtiers are spies who do their work while having the center of attention, and Bone is all about potential and living up to it (they're the most recent court to be founded in the area by a long way), so the bargains are thematic that way. Perhaps a little too on the nose though.

Again, not sure if I'm going about this in a good manner. The freehold above is one I've been deliberating for a long time, way back when Hill first released the intiial teasers regarding Courts. What was once the Bulwark has simply become the means the courts pass along the crown (a play performed of the history of the city, in some context or another), and the courts that were once themed on History have changed in the process. Surprisingly, contracts have been the easiest part of all this.

[haren]

And I've finished the Contracts... at least a first draft. Some of them were me wracking my brain for it.

[Satchel]

The biggest problem with this is, unfortunately, we only have four complete Bargains up for show, and all four demand behaviour from the Fae Who would disrupt the freehold.

All four are also with metaphorical embodiments of times of the year in a structure built around working with emotions instead of, for instance, a city or an astronomical clock or a pack of werewolves. Nomenclature notwithstanding, it may be useful to know what your Courts actually swore their Bargains with. History? The living city? Its populace? Its founder? The play?

One problem I just realized for my Bargains is that they're all reactionary (save for maybe Coal's). […] Perhaps a little too on the nose though.

It may be worth noting that the Seasonal set's Bargains all do really well at holding off a Wild Hunt of legendary scale, barring exceptional circumstances — Summer is well-served by the common frailty of goblins in the mortal world, Autumn receives advance notice in proportion to the threat, Winter forces at least a momentary cooldown period, and Spring just outright doesn't let a large group of hostile fae make a concerted move on anything short of a bundle of hearts' desires. If you're going to use pattern-based Bargains, they should probably be things that actually lessen the likelihood of being carried off by marauding Huntsmen and briarhounds, or at least make the follow-through of that outcome more than passingly inconvenient. What do the Gentry owe a faithful child of Coal?

[tasti man LH]

Alright, here's my own freehold, Toontown. Still quite a bit of work to do and still some ideas messing around with, but here's the general idea on this freehold.

Toontown Freehold
Hollywood, California 1930's

It’s said that there is no other business like show business. And the changelings of the Toontown freehold in Hollywood know this intimately.

Like many mortals of the time, the Gentry were fascinated by the realm of animation. Especially with the idea of humans creating entirely new worlds and characters with nothing but paper, pencils, and ink. So naturally, the Gentry wanted some of that for themselves. So many changelings in this time period as cartoon characters. Coming back to our world after going through the Hedge, things were actually worse for them when they came back. Non-toon changelings regarded toon changelings with more suspicion and fear then they normally would. Their fae meins, their manifestations of their Contracts, and their…toon way of thinking, they were deemed too strange and bizarre to be among them. Toon changelings were repeatedly barred from entry into freeholds and ostracized from other changelings.

So, the toon changelings got together to form their own freehold, naming it Toontown. Word quickly traveled around the world that there existed a freehold where any toon changeling could find a home and where they could find other Lost like them. And that they understand and appreciate the strange and bizarre world of cartoons together.

The Cartoon Courts roles are as entertainers. They understand that to entertain is to invoke specific emotions within the audience. And that sometimes, certain emotions are what the audience needs depending on what’s going on in their life. Especially in the current times, when the Great Depression was in full force and people needed a little bit of entertainment to take their mind of the troubles of the real-world.

These Courts include the Musical Court (Disney), the Laughing Court (Warner Bros), and the Horrific Court (Fleischer)(working names).

[Taidragon]

Satchel , that actually helps me a great deal with thinking up appropriate bargains, as well as the actual entities the courts are allied with. Bone was the only one I'd thought of before, but even now I'm not entirely sure if it is applicable as it is. Having more than ten hours of sleep in me will help with the process.

The entity as is, named The Grave of Potential, started as basically a dumping site of bodies in the Hedge. Due to the Hedge being weird like that, the grounds gained sentience and styled itself after an actual graveyard, adding its power by taking more dead into its boundaries before starting to desire to not be an endpoint of potential but a river of it (dead, living, dying and recovering). The Bargain of the Grave of Potential would effectively be a reciprocal loop of empowerment; by granting its power to Changelings, its own power could expand by way of it being associated with beings who were expanding their own potential by associating with it. A massive gamble, really, but given what it was to start with it didn't exactly have options.

One idea I just had for the Bargain of either Dust or Bone is that, by acting in the name of a victim of a Fae who cannot resist them, be they less capable, incapacitated or outright dead, the Changeling of the Freehold gains a bonus against the Fae or its minions as the victim acts with them in spirit. For each applicable victim named, add 1 die to a pool that is then rolled as a Teamwork action. This bonus lasts until the end of the conflict, and only works against the Fae named and their minions; Huntsmen from two different Gentry will have different bonuses against them, rolled separately. This bonus only works if the Changeling is better suited for the actions being taken than the victims, and if the Changeling knows the names of those victims (they cannot simply state "All those taken by the Queen of Heartstrings" or "Every Mary slain by my Huntsman"), though the dead are universally applicable by virtue of being, well, dead.

It works for Dust in that they are based on archiving events and resources, and thus the dead, but given Bone's patron is a living graveyard, and every break in a bone causes it to grow stronger...

...yeah, I really need to get some rest. That was way too rambly, even after I've pared it down.

[MrParaduo]

Okay, need some help fine-tuning the mantle dots for my Tellurian courts idea. This is what I've got so far:

Purgatory (The Veiled Pass, the Pale Court, Court of Remorse (Purgation?) )

• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots to mundane rolls to hide or follow someone.
•• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots when taking mundane actions that encourage or bring about remorse.
••• When conversing with someone or something related with death, be it a gravedigger or a hedge ghost, gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots to all social interactions.
•••• Reduce the effective number of successes rolled on mundane attempts at deceiving your character, by your character’s Mantle dots.
••••• Your character ignores wound penalties. By spending 2 Glamour, your character may target an assailant who dealt damage to them this scene, and force an equal amount of damage back onto them. This can only be done once on a given target within the same scene, and said-target must be physically present.


Heavens (The Alabaster Throne, the Empyreal Court, Court of Zeal)

• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots to mundane rolls to encourage or rouse someone to action.
•• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots to locate threats to the freehold.
••• When your character is outnumbered in a fight, gain bonus dice equal to their Mantle dots to defense or attack rolls.
•••• Automatically succeed on attempts to chase after someone through mundane obstacles or impediments. The target must be physically present and perceivable.
••••• ?


Inferno (The Umbral Flame, the Infernal Court, the Court of Vice)

• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mantle dots to mundane rolls to tempt or trick someone into acting on their vice.
• Gain bonus dice equal to your character’s Mandle dots to mundane actions that encourage or bring about over-indulgence.
• Reduce the Glamour cost of Contracts by one when using them to subvert a True Fae or something from Arcadia.
• Once per story, reduce your character’s Goblin Debt by their Mantle rating.
• ?

[Mr.F.I.X.]

I'm surprised to not see anyone having made Seelie and Unseelie courts. I guess I'll have to get on that.

[Mad_Maudlin]

Okay, need some help fine-tuning the mantle dots for my Tellurian courts idea. This is what I've got so far:

For Heaven Mantle 5, maybe spending Glamour to grant another character Inspired? Or even Steadfast? Both these Conditions help you achieve your goals, which seems appropriate for the Court of Zeal.

[wyrdhamster]

Non-toon changelings regarded toon changelings with more suspicion and fear then they normally would. Their fae meins, their manifestations of their Contracts, and their…toon way of thinking, they were deemed too strange and bizarre to be among them. Toon changelings were repeatedly barred from entry into freeholds and ostracized from other changelings.

tasti man LH, beside forming their own Freehold and Courts - if Toon changelings were so different from classical Lost - maybe good way to mark this be doing also Toon Seeming? We have very similar thing with Grimm Seeming, and we have extra Seeming. ,

[MrParaduo]

For Heaven Mantle 5, maybe spending Glamour to grant another character Inspired? Or even Steadfast? Both these Conditions help you achieve your goals, which seems appropriate for the Court of Zeal.

Beautiful. Now for Inferno. Not sure what to do. Basically, the court follows the idea that the Lost are already damned, but dammit if they won't make the others suffer for it. They believe that by making mortals indulge in vice, their glamour will be 'tainted', making them less appetizing to the True Fae, while also killing the desire mortals might have to follow them back to Arcadia. Sort of dark spring, but not just about desire. All vice is about indulgence, whether your want for vengeance, food, sex, or violence. While the Empyreal court focuses on fighting and defending, the Infernal centers on influencing mortals away from the Hedge, through trickery and temptation. Ideally subverting society's more shadowy elements to protect the freehold, while keeping a leash on what they can't break. They are masters of the deal, as is becoming of ones who bargained with Hell, and know how to avoid pitfalls when signing a pledge.

[tasti man LH]

tasti man LH, beside forming their own Freehold and Courts - if Toon changelings were so different from classical Lost - maybe good way to mark this be doing also Toon Seeming? We have very similar thing with Grimm Seeming, and we have extra Seeming. ,

I have thought about how to mechanically represent being a Toon changeling.

Ultimately, I didn’t want to invalidate any of the existing seemings and kiths by making a theoretical Toon seeming or Toon kith. It would quash any variety if Toon changelings has to take a specific seeming or kith. And that I don’t have a hard time believing that the regular seemings and kiths would still come into play.

Being a Toon changeling will probably, just be a changeling-exclusive merit. Just need to think up of other mechanics that would make Toons distinctive from regular changelings.

[Hsienfan]

I'm surprised to not see anyone having made Seelie and Unseelie courts. I guess I'll have to get on that.

I once suggested mashing the seasons into two "super-courts": The Court of Joy and Wrath, and the Court of Fear and Sorrow. It might be too powerful to run straight out of the box, now that I've thought about it.

Another one I've been thinking about, for California and Mexico, is the three courts of Santa Muerte: The Red Court of All Desires, the White Court of Purity, and the Black Court of Doom and Power. They compete for the right to rule the entire year, which they determine at Dia de Muertos.

[andrix]

Well, anyone checking the document, every Court has 4 Common Contracts and 3 Royal. Not sure how well they measure up or how balanced they are. I'd appreciate any comments people have.

It took me longer than I'd care to admit to realise the full version of your stuff is all in one doc on the first post. Maybe it could be made clearer that's where it's all compiled so stupid people like me don't have to keep digging for the link? >_<

I love the carriage contracts especially, and am surprised some of the ideas on here aren't ones being used officially since they seem nicely in Changeling's wheelhouse. I'd also be really curious to hear what people think on the balance of these since the Kickstarter is my first real taste of Changeling but I could really see myself using some of this stuff if there's not any super obvious jank I'm missing.

Which were the ones you were wracking your brains on? It doesn't really show which to me but it might help people help you buff up the ideas behind them?