Have any you created your own Changeling Court?

[Lysander]

If so what did it cover?

[ArcaneArts]

No, no one has ever made courts outside of official work ever.

I think there's probably still several people who remember that one time I wrote the Rosiere and it almost ended up in 2nd Edition before the entire shakeup with the Underhill and 2nd Edition proper-I still intend to clean it up, fill it out, and put it up on STV. For those who weren't around for that entire transition, The Rosiere is a dark romantically themed freehold that fulfills it's Bargains by re-enacting a ritual union and sacrifice, the participants of which are determined through duels for each courtier's honor, manipulated by the Sovereigns of the Courts and the possibly malefic patrons. Also, the freehold may be slowly birthing something, ranging from a True Fae to any other kind of eldritch horrors. It was heavily themed around gender and romance roles and all that jazz, and was rooted in works like Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, Phantom of the Opera, Bluebeard's Bride, aaaaaaaand very nakedly Revolutionary Girl Utena.

In terms of updates, there'd probably be more attention of the strange natures of the patrons (The Caged Aerie, the Ember Garden, the Clear River, the Grave Hollow, and the Sundown Spire are, in addition to epithets for the Courts, locations in the Hedge, very likely titles[Titles?] for the patrons, and in the case of the Sundown Spire, also a nuclear explosion), an understanding that the Rules of Engagement for the Duels of Paris are somehow tangled in something that allows for Dreamweaving/Hedgespinning in the mortal world (possibly tied up in a Bauble or the basis for some of the Contracts in Kith and Kin), exploring more of the direct history to it's World War 2 history(mentioned below), and probably cleaning up and sharpening the courts.

There was also the Forest of Teeth, the WW2 French Resistance Freehold/Protectorate of Houses(Court/Lodges) of Hunters, Wolves and the 'apocryphal' Victims, which as you might've picked up was also crossover with Werewolf, and then there was the always promised, never delivered Sleeping Lions Freehold that was alongside the Rosiere, exploring Paris through it's immigrant population ala the then Scheherazade Freehold of Underhill, and also was a stealth Arisen Cult.

[Satchel]

The Grey City Freehold (a.k.a. The 1871, The Loop, The Underwood, the Freehold of Hoyle and Kerosene, and sundry other sobriquets) has shifted since 2e proper came out, and the finer details are still settling as supplements round out the nature of the metaphysics, but the gist of it runs as follows:

A fringe theory goes that the Great Chicago Fire, along with three other fires around the shores of Lake Michigan, was caused by a fragmenting meteorite — a falling star, or pieces of a passing comet. Poppier culture instead assigns the blame to careless gamblers, or that poor Irishwoman's cow. Whatever the true cause (and the Fire Court has taken pains to obfuscate the particulars at their patron's behest), something did fall from the skies on that fateful October night, and what's more, something else Fell.

The Bright Face, a former angel masquerading as an incarnation of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, made connections among secret societies as the city rebuilt itself on donations from abroad and gathered secret lore in libraries and university collections, pulling on association ties with other Unchained and their cults as she snaked her way into the innards of the city's growing infrastructure. As the city's flag gained its third star, she cemented her power base when she finalized her pact with the changeling who would become the Fire Court's founder, the Elemental Duke Kerosene, beneath the Rainbow City of the World's Fair.

The Fire Court is markedly structured, divided into three Departments each led by a Principal and associated with a color. This method of organizing the Agents of the Court is a later development added sometime during the beginnings of the Cold War. Part of this development is owed to the introduction of the Blue Department as counselors, confessors, and morale officers for the bookkeepers and emergency responders among the groups now knowns as the Red and Green Departments, as the freehold finally joined together with its fellows in the Wind Court and found it necessary to avoid getting in each other's way — no small number of Cerulean Agents once belonged to the Quicksilver Chorus, now effectively retired from spreading dissension for the Long Shadow to undo the consequences of their work.

Duke Kerosene no longer possesses the Crown that bound itself to his mien when he forged the Court, having relinquished it to his patron as his opposite number did hers when their freehold was formed. Now, he serves as the Vermilion Principal bearing one of the blazons fashioned from its fragments, deferring to the Executor chosen by the Bright Face (or, in more recent days, one of her creations) to resolve whatever major issue plaguing the city that the Saint has deemed worthy of her Hands' intervention. Like his fellow senior members, the Principal takes pains to maintain a culture among the court that ensures the Agent so nominated will carry out their duty to resolve the problem despite the many incentives they may (read: will) have to let the wound fester. So far, they has been successful in this regard, with one shameful exception.

Since the Chicago Flood of 1992, the Bright Face has not been encountered in person; the Flood coincided with a major Fae incursion enabled by the Executor of the moment, who confusingly claimed he let the Gentry in at the behest of the Court's patron and a being he referred to as "the Great Star." During an episode of broken Clarity, the Mirrorskin later claimed (and still later recanted) that another version of himself had done the deed before disintegrating into a swarm of rats and going to ground somewhere in the city. This incident led to a number of Fire Courtiers from all Departments resigning their posts and defecting to the Wind Court.

The Wind Court, for its part, was born from the meeting (and courting) of a demon known variously as Robin Goodfellow, the Kingfisher, the Long Shadow, or (most casually) Mister Hawkins during the Great Depression. Mary Hoyle (or Muriel the Rook, as she's known today) was Shrewd enough to leverage a working relationship acting as a go-between for the devil among the fae merchants that sprung up like mushrooms among the city's working-class neighborhoods, building up a stockpile of favors and information before she made her Bargain in the form of a bet. Pessimist that she was, she took it in stride that her beginning resources were almost completely exhausted in the course of engineering a gas leak, stealing a Goblin Market, breaking the faith of a zealous cabal of interlopers, and successfully spreading a lie that nobody ought to believe.

As one would expect from such a laissez-faire Court positioned opposite the Agents of the Bright Face, the Quicksilver Chorus's organization is largely informal and built on reputation and constructed niche. The nature of their coping strategy means Choristers tend to eschew each other's company outside of business relationships, preferring the tractability and familiarity of goblins and mortals; their fellow Birdwatchers are valued more for their ability to keep them sharp and accountable in the shifting currents of public awareness as they exchange gossip, investigate rumors, propagate urban legends, rub shoulders with goblins, and send each other on snipe hunts of varying type and purpose. A few cliques have built up across the years, most notably the advertising agency Newcomb & Razor and the Contract innovators among the Kin to the Hawk, both led by entitled changelings of dubious history (the Marquis de Newcomb and the Steward of the Garden Perilous, respectively).

The Wind Court has been in power near-constantly since Saint Catherine disappeared, as the Kingfisher explicitly rules the roost as Regent of the Grey City whenever the Fire Court cannot claim divine mandate for some pressing crisis, but the Long Shadow has been similarly absent during that time until very recently, having been retrieved from beneath the earth only a short while ago. While he's been out, the Vice-Regent designated to assist him has been none other than the Rook herself; faith in the institutions of the freehold may have been shaken by the Executor's faltering, but the post of Vice-Regent is borne from a reputation for getting the herd of cats that is the Chorus to cooperate, and whether by blackmail, pledgecraft, or genuine trust, few have difficulty believing that old Muriel has the means to get her fellows to do as she says.

We don't talk about the Chain of Letters binding the Great Star into a dream-prison beneath Chicago, or how study and emulation of the thing that used to be a Stranger has led the freehold's Unchained patrons to make leaps and bounds in meshing the metaphysics of the God-Machine and the Wyrd to produce weird experiments in pledgecraft, entitlements, and Regalia, along with strange cryptids and cultists of unusual ability.

Lacking better places to put these tidbits: The Fire Court's resonant emotion is guilt, and its Bargain draws agents of the Gentry into the systems the fallen angel has subverted, delaying her Agents' abduction by forcing their would-be reclaimers to shoulder some of their duties in exchange for the intrusion, thus allowing the Court time to restore the wards that keep the Strangers away while it is not in power. The Wind Court's resonant emotion is doubt, and its Bargain requires the Long Shadow to know when his assets are being called upon, forcing the Fae and their agents to have an unaffiliated witness present when they make their move against a Chorister, who cannot be silenced and will remember the action as long as the changeling is "on loan."

A long-running joke in our group has been that the freehold is held together with duct tape and prayer, for reasons you can probably guess even without the knowledge that our playtest game wrapped up its overall story arc during a chaotic time where a bunch of bad decisions finally came home to call. It's been a fun thing to be working on for the past half a decade, and I'm really looking forward to being able to get it into a state where I have proper mechanics for all of it, given that I've had to start over on that part multiple times.

[espritdecalmar]

I've got a write-up of some Snake Courts languishing in my drafts folder I should find the wherewithal to finish some day. I got frustrated by the way my imagination made them so chaotic and contradictory in their presentation, but on a later reread realized that was what made them unique in the first place.

[Chaosweaver]

I’m slowly working on a region module covering south-eastern Sweden, where I have written up four new courts (of which two admittedly are heavily inspired by the Dawn and Dusk courts). I have tried to give the four courts full thematic descriptions, hints on important historical events, mantle descriptions, and a couple of important celebrations. I have found myself struggling with trying to make contracts that feel fresh and have mechanical balance.

[Master Aquatosic]

I want to create Cleveland Courts of Rock and roll but it's really hard to get my thoughts into mechanics and just the thought of historical research in my free time outside my journalism job is exhausting

[HobbitGuy1420]

I've done some preliminary concept work on a set of circus courts - the Road governs worry and the practicalities of travel, while the Ring governs wonder and the magic and spectacle of a good show.