Huntsmen overkill? (2E)

[Satchel]

I'm sorry for being "dreadfully" nonspecific. I didn't realize my question was suddenly a formal debate. Lighten up, Satchel. We're all friends here.

You put forth a reading overblown enough that you made a thread asking if you were misreading the text and somehow needed specific prompting to supply the basis for its foundational claim from a three-hundred and forty page book that has been out for multiple years with nobody else making a thread about this exact conundrum.

I was not expecting a formal debate. I was expecting to actually see you put specific points forth to be addressed before you started demanding the source for "the game is not set up in a blatantly ridiculous nightmare scenario as-written" as a standard reading. I think I'm allowed to make a pointed reference to your being nonspecific after my points are met with "nuh-uh" twice in a row.

Page 57 - A True Fae will stop at nothing to retrieve a lost pledge, sending Huntsmen, loyalists, and even other True Fae after escaped Notaries.

Right. Notaries. The changelings who served as combination witnesses and documentation for pledges that are extremely important to the Fae due to the way pledgecraft works for the fae in general and the Gentry in particular. Special cases who are not even as common and widespread among the Lost as seemings.

Page 263 - Whatever desires you had before are muted — you now share the same desire for a changeling as the Keeper... Changelings run. They always run. And so, the Huntsman follows... One who does, and who clings stubbornly to defenses and a routine, finds the attempts to flush her out never cease. The heart that beats inside the Huntsman is that of her — their — Keeper... A Huntsman never ceases... their heart’s desire is to see a changeling in fetters, dragged through the Hedge and brought back to Arcadia... Even slaying the Huntsman will not end her suffering, for only a chill cavity rests between their ribs, and so long as their heart beats in their stolen Bastion, they reform somewhere in the Hedge within a month’s time to start again. And even when the heart itself is destroyed and the Huntsman is no more, the animating Title’s fire flits back to the Keeper whence it came, and can be sewn into a new Huntsman to start the cycle anew... In the colloquial among the Lost, the phrase “Wild Hunt” represents this dread reality: The hunt against them never ends, a furious host will chase them to the ends of the Earth, and a Huntsman may be coming for them at any time.

This sounds an awful lot like an "after the Huntsman has been sent for you" problem rather than a starting point.

Page 264 - Only in the Hedge can a changeling sway the Huntsman from their mission, if temporarily.

See above.

Page 267 - At their core, the Fae are ravenous beings that must possess.

See "the True Fae want the world and are not complete idiots in how they go about getting it" — to own the land entire and claim it as a vessel for their Wyrd, dreams, and facets means the Strangers have a lot of rabbits to chase even before narrowing the field to changelings in general.

Page 268 - What the courts call the “Keeper” is just one Title’s manifestation, and even if a changeling kills it, the oaths it made would simply cast a new piece of itself in that role eventually and pick up the Wild Hunt where it left off.

This is describing the Fae, who are not the Huntsmen they empower and are often reticent to leave the place where they keep most of their stuff and have the most oomph behind their casual control of local reality. "The True Fae are basically immortal, period" has nothing to do with the verderers at all.

Not to mention all the fluff between chapters about Changelings always being hunted and punished for not being paranoid.

Again, look to Demon for comparison: there's a difference between the existential state of being on the run from supernatural pursuers who could potentially be anywhere and having forty It Followses around every corner.

There is a mention that making pledges with people would make changelings much harder to find but it's just a line and doesn't have mechanics to support it.

Page 209 - Finally, the fae can make promises of service, favors, or magic to others. The benefit to doing so is concealment — a changeling performing services for others ingratiates herself to the Wyrd, thus hiding effectively from Huntsmen.

There are absolutely mechanics to support it; it's literally the primary function of bargains — see "Benefits" and "Systems" on page 214-5 and the referenced Obliged Condition on pages 343-4.

[Mr.F.I.X.]

Huntsmen are mercenaries true Fey have to go about "recruiting", I've always seen it as a matter of escalation. I'm not sure if it's the case but a huntsmen had never seemed to me like the first move a keeper would make but an escalation when easier methods have failed and the effort related to a huntsmen suddenly isn't so ridiculous.

Edit: looking into it, a true fey invests on of their titles into a huntsmen, that's a big thing.

[tomewilson]

Wow, Satchel. You must be a lot of fun at parties.

I get what you're saying. That said, there are better ways to say it.

Did I burn down your house in a former life or do you treat all your friends this way?

Seriously though, your responses on this forum are filled with disdain and reek of gatekeeping. If someone asks a question that doesn't fit your worldview, you treat that person like shit; like they should feel bad for asking the question in the first place.

I'm sick of it.

The internet trophy you're trying to win is an empty playground devoid of people who want to interact with you.

Have fun on that swing set. Your giant asshole will need both seats.

[CTPhipps]

Wow, Satchel. You must be a lot of fun at parties.

I get what you're saying. That said, there are better ways to say it.

Did I burn down your house in a former life or do you treat all your friends this way?

Seriously though, your responses on this forum are filled with disdain and reek of gatekeeping. If someone asks a question that doesn't fit your worldview, you treat that person like shit; like they should feel bad for asking the question in the first place.

I'm sick of it.

The internet trophy you're trying to win is an empty playground devoid of people who want to interact with you.

Have fun on that swing set. Your giant asshole will need both seats.

If you have a problem with another poster, REPORT THEM.

Do not make personal attacks!

Especially if you think you're under attack yourself.

Leave this thread forever.

[CTPhipps]

You put forth a reading overblown enough that you made a thread asking if you were misreading the text and somehow needed specific prompting to supply the basis for its foundational claim from a three-hundred and forty page book that has been out for multiple years with nobody else making a thread about this exact conundrum.

I'm putting forth a warning here too because calling another poster's posts, "Overblown" is not particularly good forum behavior either. There's multiple and many readings of WOD games and you should dial it down.

[Unahim]

I personally assume that most Changelings are sadly recaptured or killed and don't die peacefully in freedom.

That said, it can take years (or decades) for a True Fae to remember: "Oh, right. That Changeling I had! Where is she right now? Oh..; she ran away?! Ah, yes, I remember... well... can't have that."
A portion of Keepers will never remember, or will not care, or will be too busy. But a portion of Changelings will get caught up in True Loyalist ploys, be captured and sold by Freebooters, attract the attention of another type of supernatural monster that makes the World of Darkness its home and wants to suck the glamour out through their marrow, or get stabbed by a paranoid political rival in the Freehold, etc...

So in aggregate, even if only half of the Keepers ever remember to send/get to sending a huntsman during the time where their Changeling is still alive, I feel there's way more than enough problems for almost none of them to die peacefully in their sleep. And at this rate, there only need to be a few Huntsmen around any given year. Which is narratively manageable.

Nobody says a Keeper can't recall a Huntsman after it sends it when it suddenly gets attacked by a rival, either, so just because a Huntsman shows up doesn't mean they'll be coming back every month. Priorities of True Fae shift. ^^

I also don't think the Changeling having "low social status" will affect the decision to send a Huntsman all that much. True Fae want what they want when they want it, there does not need to be a logical reasoning beyond it. (And anyway, you always harm their pride by escaping...)
If there is an extra reason, like Notary, then all the worse, but nobody is really safe only because they were "just" a maid.

[Satchel]

I also don't think the Changeling having "low social status" will affect the decision to send a Huntsman all that much. True Fae want what they want when they want it, there does not need to be a logical reasoning beyond it. (And anyway, you always harm their pride by escaping...)
If there is an extra reason, like Notary, then all the worse, but nobody is really safe only because they were "just" a maid.

Social status isn't the issue so much as favoritism being a thing with degrees — the True Fae being fickle and alien doesn't exempt them from the logical concerns of there being a bunch of them who want each other's stuff and there only being so much stuff a given Fae can put in front of their other stuff, and a Huntsman is equipped with some pretty major stuff.

You can switch "bodyguard" and "scullery maid" in my example and the fact that one is the Keeper's favorite and the other five are just preternaturally skilled (by no means an uncommon trait in Faerie) remains; getting the set bonus back is going to be a priority chiefly for Strangers who don't have more pressing matters to attend to (by whatever metric they use) — changelings who've escaped and then distinguished themselves in some way become less easily substituted with a different character due to more unique or outstanding qualities.

There's changelings who were taken because their Keeper wanted a fetch in a particular life. There's changelings who served a term in Arcadia and then got sent back twenty years later because that was the deal. There's changelings who got out because their loved one traded their own freedom for it and actually secured a legitimate exchange somehow. You can totally be safe from pursuit by a Huntsman empowered by your old Keeper. (Another Fae whose eye you've caught is, admittedly, a different story, particularly in an edition where there's an entire category of token whose universal drawback is attracting their owners' attention.)

[Unahim]

Social status isn't the issue so much as favoritism being a thing with degrees — the True Fae being fickle and alien doesn't exempt them from the logical concerns of there being a bunch of them who want each other's stuff and there only being so much stuff a given Fae can put in front of their other stuff, and a Huntsman is equipped with some pretty major stuff.

You can switch "bodyguard" and "scullery maid" in my example and the fact that one is the Keeper's favorite and the other five are just preternaturally skilled (by no means an uncommon trait in Faerie) remains; getting the set bonus back is going to be a priority chiefly for Strangers who don't have more pressing matters to attend to (by whatever metric they use) — changelings who've escaped and then distinguished themselves in some way become less easily substituted with a different character due to more unique or outstanding qualities.

I agree with all of that, but for me it's often a difference between "good chance of them coming to get you in the next decade or two" and "almost certainly coming to get you ASAP".

There's changelings who were taken because their Keeper wanted a fetch in a particular life. There's changelings who served a term in Arcadia and then got sent back twenty years later because that was the deal. There's changelings who got out because their loved one traded their own freedom for it and actually secured a legitimate exchange somehow. You can totally be safe from pursuit by a Huntsman empowered by your old Keeper. (Another Fae whose eye you've caught is, admittedly, a different story, particularly in an edition where there's an entire category of token whose universal drawback is attracting their owners' attention.)

Already acknowledged that with this ^^:

A portion of Keepers will never remember, or will not care, or will be too busy. But a portion of Changelings will get caught up in True Loyalist ploys, be captured and sold by Freebooters, attract the attention of another type of supernatural monster that makes the World of Darkness its home and wants to suck the glamour out through their marrow, or get stabbed by a paranoid political rival in the Freehold, etc...

So in aggregate, even if only half of the Keepers ever remember to send/get to sending a huntsman during the time where their Changeling is still alive, I feel there's way more than enough problems for almost none of them to die peacefully in their sleep.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Additional question in regards to Huntsmen, how do they identify their target when they find them?

Changeling miens and mask are reshaped by the Hedge. So the Huntsman are looking for someone who could look like anyone. My guess is that they are following some sort of trail that the Changeling left behind, but that a Huntsman who comes face to face with their quarry might not know its them unless they see that the trail has led them to this individual. Even then the Changeling's name may have been changed so the Huntsman is hoping that the Changeling slips up in some way.

[ArcaneArts]

Additional question in regards to Huntsmen, how do they identify their target when they find them?

Changeling miens and mask are reshaped by the Hedge. So the Huntsman are looking for someone who could look like anyone. My guess is that they are following some sort of trail that the Changeling left behind, but that a Huntsman who comes face to face with their quarry might not know its them unless they see that the trail has led them to this individual. Even then the Changeling's name may have been changed so the Huntsman is hoping that the Changeling slips up in some way.

1) The changes aren't so much that recognizable features are a lost affair.
2) Huntsmen have a Title that knows their own by blood and bone driving them. The verderer may be looking, but the Title is gonna know who belongs to them, and that's the source that is going to inform the Huntsman.
3) Also it's not uncommon for a Huntsman to have an Icon, and looks fall short to comparing soul shred to shredded soul.

[Mr.F.I.X.]

Also, it is important to note that no matter your mask fellow fey simply see through the mask so that masks appearance isn't that big of a deal. While they can focus to see your mask it isn't the default.