Post by Seth on Dec 5, 2011 14:19:55 GMT -5
The Fae long ago used their Glamour to create the Mask, a magical veil that makes anything touched by Faerie appear mundane to human eyes, and this extends to Changelings as well: they appear human, and indeed look much as they did, though older (depending on how long they spent in Arcadia). But a mask is all it is; underneath it, a Changeling's true mien is something from a story. They may be anything from an impossibly beautiful figure with a narrow face and pointed ears to a towering brute made of living stone; the demands and whim of their Keeper has shaped them to fulfil whatever role they required. While each Changeling is unique, there are basic similarities in their experiences which have shaped them in similar ways. These "types" of Changeling are called Seemings
The Wizened
The Wizened are those changelings who embody the "little people" and "wise women" (or men) of fairy myth. They are unmatched artisans and tinkerers, and generally excel at a particular skill or occupation, whether butler or artisan, clerk or fortune teller.
The Wizened often seem to have less in common than other Seemings - they come from a diverse number of backgrounds. Many were taken on a whim or stumbled into the Hedge through bad luck. They may have served any number of functions for their Keepers or merely been the butt of cruel "jokes", but they are without exception known for their cunning and nimbleness - traits necessary to escape the clutches of the true Little People.
While they always seem like "little people", the Wizened are not necessarily small in size: some may be tall and thin, but walk with a stoop, while others may be normally proportioned yet give the feeling that there's somehow less of them. They are without exception extremely dexterous and nimble, a trait that applies equally in combat; though few are great warriors, all are good at avoiding the blows of enemies. Their long suffering and lack of physical beauty, however, has made them ill-equipped to deal with others, and their social skills are somewhat lacking.
Kiths
* Artist - master craftsmen, artisans or artists; gnomes, elves and goblin-smiths. Blessing: Impeccable Craftsmanship.
* Author - writers, poets and archivists of superb skill. Blessing: Polyglot’s Riddle.
* Brewer - possessors of secret fairie recipes. Blessing: The Inebriating Elixir.
* Chatelaine - the perfect butlers, manservants without peer; in formal circumstances their social skills are second to none. Blessing: Perfect Protocol.
* Chirurgeon - Changelings able to work magic with blade and scalpel. Blessing: The Analeptic Charm.
* Drudge - fast menial workers who take after boggans and house-elves. Blessing: Unseen Labor.
* Gameplayer - riddle-makers and gamblers who love puzzles and games. Blessing: Grandmaster’s Stratagem.
* Gremlin - culture-themed kith of malevolent tinkerers. Blessing: Gremlinizing Touch.
* Miner - Kobolds and other tunneling sorts. Blessing: Tappingspeak.
* Oracle - Changelings with the ability to tell fortunes. Blessing: Panomancy.
* Pamarindo - culture-themed kith of pot-bellied butchers. Blessing: Gourmand's Grotesquerie.
* Smith - forgers of Faerie weapons and superb equipment. Blessing: Steel Mastery.
* Soldier - drafted into Faerie armies, these Wizened find battle is second nature to them. Blessing: Blade Lore.
* Thusser - culture-themed kith of compelling musicians. Blessing: Fiddler's Delight.
* Woodwalker - nature's allies and protectors. Blessing: Wildcraft.
Ogre
Ogres resemble the big, brutish figures of folklore, like the troll under the bridge or the Cyclops of Greek myth. Ogres serve as guards, gladiators, and heavy laborers in Arcadia because of their outstanding strength. Due to their hardiness, Ogres endure particularly vicious and bloody Durances. Once back in the real world, Ogres are stereotyped as universally dumb, but are feared for their prowess nonetheless.
Ogres are big and imposing figures. Some are kidnapped because of their size and strength and are honed to frightening proportions in Arcadia. Some are taken because they were already cruel and intimidating in the mortal world, and could be used as weapons by the Fae.
Ogres are some of the most monstrous-looking of the Changelings and are even imposing to humans. They are often misshapen in some way, with abnormally tough skin, pustules, or tusks. This can make others wary and rightfully so, since Ogres are capable of outstanding feats of strength. Most of them continue to build their physical abilities and many are used as enforcers. And while they are not necessarily stupid, they can be gullible and rash.
Kiths
* Bloodbrutes - brawlers and gladiators. Blessing: Improvised Mayhem.
* Corpsegrinders - fed on carrion. Blessing: Sepulchral Hunger.
* Cyclopeans - monstrous hunters and guardians. Blessing: Smell the Blood.
* Daitya - giants of Hindu myths. Blessing: Cutting Might.
* Farwalkers - hairy and stealthy wild men. Blessing: The Elusive Gift.
* Gargantuans - can grow to a gigantic size. Blessing: Spurious Stature.
* Gristlegrinders - possessed of voracious appetites. Blessing: Terrible Teeth.
* Oni - red-skinned ogres that feed on blood. Blessing: A Mouthful of Sin.
* Renders - used to break down objects. Blessing: Sundering Talons.
* Stonebones - rock-like troll folk. Blessing: Obdurate Skin.
* Trolls - manipulative grotesqueries. Blessing: Unyielding Voice.
* Water-Dwellers - appear as water demons of folklore. Blessing: Lie Under the Waves.
* Witchtooth - hags and twisted witches. Blessing: Black Hex
The Faerist
The Fairest are changelings for whom Faerie should have been - and in some sense was - bright and wonderful. They embody the wonder and beauty ever-present in folklore: the elves, the Shining Ones, the fairy maidens and dashing fairy knights. But theirs is a beauty not of this world; they are wondrous to look on, but they're too perfect. Their faces may be too symmetrical, or their features impossibly angular or chiseled; perhaps they literally glow with a warm light. They are still changelings, and their true forms are still inhuman.
The Fairest are frequently taken for their beauty, but usually this is not the only reason. Each has some other quality or talent that attracted their Keeper, most often artistic skill or the ability to play music or perform. Since this skill becomes their sole reason for their existence in Faerie, Fairest sometimes become obsessed with it, desperate to prove their worth. They are, however, almost without exception supremely social creatures, used to admiration and hungry for approval.
While the Fairest were ostensibly loved by their Keepers, such clear and pure emotion is unknown to the Fae; what passes for love among them can seem like obsession, cruelty, slavery or worse to mortals.
The Fairest live up to their name: not only are they physically appealing, but they are enchanting in a literal sense: their magics allow them to make the most of their beauty, and get what they want. All social activities come naturally to them, but perversely, they also find it hard to truly come to peace with themselves. Of all Changelings, they are the most likely to lose their sense of Clarity.
Kiths
* Bright One - the shining Changelings who embody the beauty of light in all its forms. Blessing: Goblin Illumination.
* Dancer - creatures possessed of unearthly grace, always moving. Blessing: Fae Grace.
* Draconic - inheritors of the blood of Faerie's "great beasts", from dragons to demons. Blessing: Dragon's Talon.
* Flamesiren - living incarnations of the allure of flame. Blessing: Burning Hypnotism.
* Flowering - the epitome of nature's beauty. Blessing: Seductive Fragrance.
* Gandharva - culture-themed kith of androgynous messengers. Blessing: Heavenly Articulation.
* Larcenist - graceful and elegant thieves. Blessing: Thievery's Grace.
* Minstrel - entertainers and serenaders, with or without an instrument. Blessing: Perfect Pitch.
* Muse - beauties who inspire great art by their presence alone. Blessing: The Tyranny of Ideas.
* Playmate - friend and companion. Blessing: The Circle of Friends.
* Polychromatic - ever-shifting kaleidoscopes of color. Blessing: Prismatic Heart.
* Romancer - visions of the ideal nature, for anyone's eyes. Blessing: Narcissus' Blessing.
* Shadowsoul - enthralling, terrifying creatures, shaped by darkness and the night. Blessing: Unnatural Chill.
* Succubus / Incubus - culture-themed kith of demonic seduction. Blessing: Vice to Vice.
* Telluric - those imbued with the nature and essence of the celestial bodies. Blessing: Music of the Spheres.
* Treasured- ornaments and adornments of the True Fae. Blessing: Alabaster Fortitude.
* Weisse Frau - culture-themed kith of weeping protectors. Blessing: Kiss of Life.
Elementals
While most other Lost became the way they did through simply living in a faerie's home and eating faerie food and doing faerie work, the Elementals were often deliberately changed, transformed into slaves of some kind or another, or features of the land until one day, they awoke to themselves and realized they had to escape. Their memories of Faerie are often difficult to understand. Some know that once, they understood what it was to be a tree, or a stone, or a mound of earth. Some remember being lost to enchantment, becoming a clockwork doll or a lover made of ice. Others recall being lost in an environment now alien to them: perhaps the changeling served as a manservant in a flying city of glass or a blazing city made all of brass.
The Elementals were often those whom the Fae desired in some way, those whom they sought out and went to some effort to kidnap. Most were already exceptional in some way. Perhaps the changeling was beautiful enough to excite a faerie's desire. Perhaps they needed a guard or a servant of some kind. A musician or dancer could become the prize of a Fae who fancied himself a doyen of the arts. When they come back, they still possess those talents that attracted the Fae to them in the first place, but now their element alters it in many ways, some subtle, some less so. Some, however, wandered into the Hedge on their own, in some ways bearing the marks of whatever thorny wasteland they wandered in before being taken to Faerie.
The Elementals are further removed from humanity than other changelings, and find humans harder to understand and to influence.
Kiths
* Airtouched - the Elementals of wind, cloud, smoke, and sky, who can be as healthy as a fresh breeze or as pestilent as the miasma that surrounds the dead.
* Apsaras - culture-themed kith of cloud and fog elementals. Blessing: Enthralling Mist.
* Ask-wee-da-eed - culture-themed kith of meteoric elementals. Blessing: Taste of Ill Luck.
* Blightbent - Elementals of pollution.
* Di-cang - culture-themed kith of jewel elementals. Blessing: Peace of Suffering.
* Earthbones - Changelings who have the mark of earth and stone: lumpen Paracelsian Gnomes, sand spirits, dour men of peat and dwarfs made of mountain granite.
* Fireheart - Elementals marked with fire, heat or electricity.
* Levenquick - Elementals of lightning and electricity.
* Manikin - Changelings who have the character of man-made objects, such as caryatids, mannequins, and other, stranger things, such as enchanted beings powered by clockwork or steam or living bodies made of mercury or glass.
* Metalflesh - Metal elementals.
* Sandharrowed - Changelings of sand.
* Snowskin - The Children of the cold, who can be as powerful as the Arctic ice or as delicate as a snowflake.
* Waterborn - Changelings who are imbued with the nature of the waters, soft and brutal, gentle and mighty: undines and nymphs, man-eating river demons, water babies, ladies of the lake.
* Woodblood - The children of the plants: Green Men, flower faeries, spirits of mandrake, rose, thorns and all manner of medicinal herbs fair and foul.
Darklings
Darklings are Changelings forever tainted by shadow and darkness. They often resemble folk tale creatures of the night or underground: grave-wights, banshees, kobolds and weirder things still. Every one of them is unsettling in appearance, with many gaunt, tall and thin.
Whether experimented upon, chained in a factory as slave labour or simply tossed in a dungeon and forgotten by their Keepers, all Darklings were kept from the light of Faerie. Their memories of their durance are usually full of foreboding, fears sensed and ever-present, but never revealed. Many Darklings share a sense of curiosity, and most crossed some kind of line that brought them to Faerie, whether they are aware of the nature of their transgression or not.
Darklings are possessed of a cunning born of darkness. Each and every one can think quickly and lie well, and they are all gifted at concealment. Their time away from the light, however, has made it anathema to them, and they find their magics difficult during daylight hours.
Kiths
* Antiquarian - keepers of ancient lore and artefacts. Blessing: Keys to Knowledge.
* Gravewight - creatures who feel more at home among the dead than the living. Blessing: Charnel Sight.
* Illes - culture-themed kith of troll-like under-folk. Blessing: Shadow Beauty.
* Leechfinger - faeries who steal the life from mortal folk. Blessing: Sap the Vital Spark.
* Lurkgliders - winged creatures of the night. Blessing: Gargoyle's Grace.
* Mirrorskin - masters of disguise whose real forms are malleable as clay. Blessing: The Mercurial Visage.
* Moonborn - deranged madmen touched by the moon. Blessing: Lunatic's Kiss.
* Nightsinger - dark musicians who conjure up hypnotic tunes. Blessing: Haunting Nocturne.
* Palewraith - near-transparent beings that lurk in the shadows. Blessing: Light's Aversion.
* Pishacha - culture-themed kith of demonic haunters. Blessing: Taste of Madness.
* Razorhand - shadowy stalkers and slashers with blades for hands. Blessing: Ripper's Gift.
* Skogsra - culture-themed kith of woodland trolls: Blessing: Keepers of the Feral Heart.
* Tunnelgrub - dwellers in the tight spaces and darkness underneath. Blessing: Slither and Squirm.
* Whisperwisps - secretive whisperers that gather information. Blessing: Turncoat's Tongue.
Beast
Beasts are Changelings whose Seeming is connected to the animal world. They come in many shapes and sizes, and may be tied to a particular type of animal, an animalistic concept, or even an animal that never existed in the real world.
Beasts were all used by their Keepers as animals in one form or another, and they all bear at least some bestial features. Many were innocents, lured into the Hedge by the tempting excitement of the wild, but regardless they felt the pull and power of raw instinct and sensation.
Beasts are blessed with a wild nature that gives them an affinity with animals and a raw, bestial attractiveness that they may use to gain favour with humans. This same animalism is also their curse, however; their ties to instinct and the simpler thoughts of the animal world make it hard for them apply themselves to cerebral tasks unless they have had training in a specific area, and they are rarely able to access human levels of mental insight.
Kiths
* Broadback - beasts of burden. Blessing: Stoic Forbearance.
* Chimera - culture-themed kith with parts from many creatures. Blessing: Goblin's Tongue.
* Cleareyes - Beasts who retain an animal's heightened senses. Blessing: Primal Senses.
* Coldscales - kin to reptiles of all kinds. Blessing: Reptilian Blood.
* Coyote - culture-themed kith of coyote-headed tricksters. Blessing: The Trickster's Truth.
* Hunterheart - predators and hunters. Blessing: Tooth and Claw.
* Nix - culture-themed kith of river mermaids. Blessing: Consumptive Voice.
* Riddleseeker - Beasts of wisdom, cunning and curiosity. Blessing: Inquisitive Instinct.
* Roteater - scavengers and eaters of the dead. Blessing: Scavenger's Nature.
* Runnerswift - beasts of great speed. Blessing: Runs Like the Wind.
* Skitterskulk - creepy-crawlies, spiders and insects. Blessing: Impossible Counterpoise.
* Steepscrambler - climbers and tree-dwellers. Blessing: Gifted Climber.
* Swimmerskin - aquatic beasts of all kinds. Blessing: Natural Swimmer.
* Truefriend - faithful and loyal pets. Blessing: Companion's Boon.
* Venombite - poisonous creatures, from snakes to scorpions. Blessing: Poisonous Bite.
* Windwing - flying beasts. Blessing: Gift of the Sky.
The Wizened
The Wizened are those changelings who embody the "little people" and "wise women" (or men) of fairy myth. They are unmatched artisans and tinkerers, and generally excel at a particular skill or occupation, whether butler or artisan, clerk or fortune teller.
The Wizened often seem to have less in common than other Seemings - they come from a diverse number of backgrounds. Many were taken on a whim or stumbled into the Hedge through bad luck. They may have served any number of functions for their Keepers or merely been the butt of cruel "jokes", but they are without exception known for their cunning and nimbleness - traits necessary to escape the clutches of the true Little People.
While they always seem like "little people", the Wizened are not necessarily small in size: some may be tall and thin, but walk with a stoop, while others may be normally proportioned yet give the feeling that there's somehow less of them. They are without exception extremely dexterous and nimble, a trait that applies equally in combat; though few are great warriors, all are good at avoiding the blows of enemies. Their long suffering and lack of physical beauty, however, has made them ill-equipped to deal with others, and their social skills are somewhat lacking.
Kiths
* Artist - master craftsmen, artisans or artists; gnomes, elves and goblin-smiths. Blessing: Impeccable Craftsmanship.
* Author - writers, poets and archivists of superb skill. Blessing: Polyglot’s Riddle.
* Brewer - possessors of secret fairie recipes. Blessing: The Inebriating Elixir.
* Chatelaine - the perfect butlers, manservants without peer; in formal circumstances their social skills are second to none. Blessing: Perfect Protocol.
* Chirurgeon - Changelings able to work magic with blade and scalpel. Blessing: The Analeptic Charm.
* Drudge - fast menial workers who take after boggans and house-elves. Blessing: Unseen Labor.
* Gameplayer - riddle-makers and gamblers who love puzzles and games. Blessing: Grandmaster’s Stratagem.
* Gremlin - culture-themed kith of malevolent tinkerers. Blessing: Gremlinizing Touch.
* Miner - Kobolds and other tunneling sorts. Blessing: Tappingspeak.
* Oracle - Changelings with the ability to tell fortunes. Blessing: Panomancy.
* Pamarindo - culture-themed kith of pot-bellied butchers. Blessing: Gourmand's Grotesquerie.
* Smith - forgers of Faerie weapons and superb equipment. Blessing: Steel Mastery.
* Soldier - drafted into Faerie armies, these Wizened find battle is second nature to them. Blessing: Blade Lore.
* Thusser - culture-themed kith of compelling musicians. Blessing: Fiddler's Delight.
* Woodwalker - nature's allies and protectors. Blessing: Wildcraft.
Ogre
Ogres resemble the big, brutish figures of folklore, like the troll under the bridge or the Cyclops of Greek myth. Ogres serve as guards, gladiators, and heavy laborers in Arcadia because of their outstanding strength. Due to their hardiness, Ogres endure particularly vicious and bloody Durances. Once back in the real world, Ogres are stereotyped as universally dumb, but are feared for their prowess nonetheless.
Ogres are big and imposing figures. Some are kidnapped because of their size and strength and are honed to frightening proportions in Arcadia. Some are taken because they were already cruel and intimidating in the mortal world, and could be used as weapons by the Fae.
Ogres are some of the most monstrous-looking of the Changelings and are even imposing to humans. They are often misshapen in some way, with abnormally tough skin, pustules, or tusks. This can make others wary and rightfully so, since Ogres are capable of outstanding feats of strength. Most of them continue to build their physical abilities and many are used as enforcers. And while they are not necessarily stupid, they can be gullible and rash.
Kiths
* Bloodbrutes - brawlers and gladiators. Blessing: Improvised Mayhem.
* Corpsegrinders - fed on carrion. Blessing: Sepulchral Hunger.
* Cyclopeans - monstrous hunters and guardians. Blessing: Smell the Blood.
* Daitya - giants of Hindu myths. Blessing: Cutting Might.
* Farwalkers - hairy and stealthy wild men. Blessing: The Elusive Gift.
* Gargantuans - can grow to a gigantic size. Blessing: Spurious Stature.
* Gristlegrinders - possessed of voracious appetites. Blessing: Terrible Teeth.
* Oni - red-skinned ogres that feed on blood. Blessing: A Mouthful of Sin.
* Renders - used to break down objects. Blessing: Sundering Talons.
* Stonebones - rock-like troll folk. Blessing: Obdurate Skin.
* Trolls - manipulative grotesqueries. Blessing: Unyielding Voice.
* Water-Dwellers - appear as water demons of folklore. Blessing: Lie Under the Waves.
* Witchtooth - hags and twisted witches. Blessing: Black Hex
The Faerist
The Fairest are changelings for whom Faerie should have been - and in some sense was - bright and wonderful. They embody the wonder and beauty ever-present in folklore: the elves, the Shining Ones, the fairy maidens and dashing fairy knights. But theirs is a beauty not of this world; they are wondrous to look on, but they're too perfect. Their faces may be too symmetrical, or their features impossibly angular or chiseled; perhaps they literally glow with a warm light. They are still changelings, and their true forms are still inhuman.
The Fairest are frequently taken for their beauty, but usually this is not the only reason. Each has some other quality or talent that attracted their Keeper, most often artistic skill or the ability to play music or perform. Since this skill becomes their sole reason for their existence in Faerie, Fairest sometimes become obsessed with it, desperate to prove their worth. They are, however, almost without exception supremely social creatures, used to admiration and hungry for approval.
While the Fairest were ostensibly loved by their Keepers, such clear and pure emotion is unknown to the Fae; what passes for love among them can seem like obsession, cruelty, slavery or worse to mortals.
The Fairest live up to their name: not only are they physically appealing, but they are enchanting in a literal sense: their magics allow them to make the most of their beauty, and get what they want. All social activities come naturally to them, but perversely, they also find it hard to truly come to peace with themselves. Of all Changelings, they are the most likely to lose their sense of Clarity.
Kiths
* Bright One - the shining Changelings who embody the beauty of light in all its forms. Blessing: Goblin Illumination.
* Dancer - creatures possessed of unearthly grace, always moving. Blessing: Fae Grace.
* Draconic - inheritors of the blood of Faerie's "great beasts", from dragons to demons. Blessing: Dragon's Talon.
* Flamesiren - living incarnations of the allure of flame. Blessing: Burning Hypnotism.
* Flowering - the epitome of nature's beauty. Blessing: Seductive Fragrance.
* Gandharva - culture-themed kith of androgynous messengers. Blessing: Heavenly Articulation.
* Larcenist - graceful and elegant thieves. Blessing: Thievery's Grace.
* Minstrel - entertainers and serenaders, with or without an instrument. Blessing: Perfect Pitch.
* Muse - beauties who inspire great art by their presence alone. Blessing: The Tyranny of Ideas.
* Playmate - friend and companion. Blessing: The Circle of Friends.
* Polychromatic - ever-shifting kaleidoscopes of color. Blessing: Prismatic Heart.
* Romancer - visions of the ideal nature, for anyone's eyes. Blessing: Narcissus' Blessing.
* Shadowsoul - enthralling, terrifying creatures, shaped by darkness and the night. Blessing: Unnatural Chill.
* Succubus / Incubus - culture-themed kith of demonic seduction. Blessing: Vice to Vice.
* Telluric - those imbued with the nature and essence of the celestial bodies. Blessing: Music of the Spheres.
* Treasured- ornaments and adornments of the True Fae. Blessing: Alabaster Fortitude.
* Weisse Frau - culture-themed kith of weeping protectors. Blessing: Kiss of Life.
Elementals
While most other Lost became the way they did through simply living in a faerie's home and eating faerie food and doing faerie work, the Elementals were often deliberately changed, transformed into slaves of some kind or another, or features of the land until one day, they awoke to themselves and realized they had to escape. Their memories of Faerie are often difficult to understand. Some know that once, they understood what it was to be a tree, or a stone, or a mound of earth. Some remember being lost to enchantment, becoming a clockwork doll or a lover made of ice. Others recall being lost in an environment now alien to them: perhaps the changeling served as a manservant in a flying city of glass or a blazing city made all of brass.
The Elementals were often those whom the Fae desired in some way, those whom they sought out and went to some effort to kidnap. Most were already exceptional in some way. Perhaps the changeling was beautiful enough to excite a faerie's desire. Perhaps they needed a guard or a servant of some kind. A musician or dancer could become the prize of a Fae who fancied himself a doyen of the arts. When they come back, they still possess those talents that attracted the Fae to them in the first place, but now their element alters it in many ways, some subtle, some less so. Some, however, wandered into the Hedge on their own, in some ways bearing the marks of whatever thorny wasteland they wandered in before being taken to Faerie.
The Elementals are further removed from humanity than other changelings, and find humans harder to understand and to influence.
Kiths
* Airtouched - the Elementals of wind, cloud, smoke, and sky, who can be as healthy as a fresh breeze or as pestilent as the miasma that surrounds the dead.
* Apsaras - culture-themed kith of cloud and fog elementals. Blessing: Enthralling Mist.
* Ask-wee-da-eed - culture-themed kith of meteoric elementals. Blessing: Taste of Ill Luck.
* Blightbent - Elementals of pollution.
* Di-cang - culture-themed kith of jewel elementals. Blessing: Peace of Suffering.
* Earthbones - Changelings who have the mark of earth and stone: lumpen Paracelsian Gnomes, sand spirits, dour men of peat and dwarfs made of mountain granite.
* Fireheart - Elementals marked with fire, heat or electricity.
* Levenquick - Elementals of lightning and electricity.
* Manikin - Changelings who have the character of man-made objects, such as caryatids, mannequins, and other, stranger things, such as enchanted beings powered by clockwork or steam or living bodies made of mercury or glass.
* Metalflesh - Metal elementals.
* Sandharrowed - Changelings of sand.
* Snowskin - The Children of the cold, who can be as powerful as the Arctic ice or as delicate as a snowflake.
* Waterborn - Changelings who are imbued with the nature of the waters, soft and brutal, gentle and mighty: undines and nymphs, man-eating river demons, water babies, ladies of the lake.
* Woodblood - The children of the plants: Green Men, flower faeries, spirits of mandrake, rose, thorns and all manner of medicinal herbs fair and foul.
Darklings
Darklings are Changelings forever tainted by shadow and darkness. They often resemble folk tale creatures of the night or underground: grave-wights, banshees, kobolds and weirder things still. Every one of them is unsettling in appearance, with many gaunt, tall and thin.
Whether experimented upon, chained in a factory as slave labour or simply tossed in a dungeon and forgotten by their Keepers, all Darklings were kept from the light of Faerie. Their memories of their durance are usually full of foreboding, fears sensed and ever-present, but never revealed. Many Darklings share a sense of curiosity, and most crossed some kind of line that brought them to Faerie, whether they are aware of the nature of their transgression or not.
Darklings are possessed of a cunning born of darkness. Each and every one can think quickly and lie well, and they are all gifted at concealment. Their time away from the light, however, has made it anathema to them, and they find their magics difficult during daylight hours.
Kiths
* Antiquarian - keepers of ancient lore and artefacts. Blessing: Keys to Knowledge.
* Gravewight - creatures who feel more at home among the dead than the living. Blessing: Charnel Sight.
* Illes - culture-themed kith of troll-like under-folk. Blessing: Shadow Beauty.
* Leechfinger - faeries who steal the life from mortal folk. Blessing: Sap the Vital Spark.
* Lurkgliders - winged creatures of the night. Blessing: Gargoyle's Grace.
* Mirrorskin - masters of disguise whose real forms are malleable as clay. Blessing: The Mercurial Visage.
* Moonborn - deranged madmen touched by the moon. Blessing: Lunatic's Kiss.
* Nightsinger - dark musicians who conjure up hypnotic tunes. Blessing: Haunting Nocturne.
* Palewraith - near-transparent beings that lurk in the shadows. Blessing: Light's Aversion.
* Pishacha - culture-themed kith of demonic haunters. Blessing: Taste of Madness.
* Razorhand - shadowy stalkers and slashers with blades for hands. Blessing: Ripper's Gift.
* Skogsra - culture-themed kith of woodland trolls: Blessing: Keepers of the Feral Heart.
* Tunnelgrub - dwellers in the tight spaces and darkness underneath. Blessing: Slither and Squirm.
* Whisperwisps - secretive whisperers that gather information. Blessing: Turncoat's Tongue.
Beast
Beasts are Changelings whose Seeming is connected to the animal world. They come in many shapes and sizes, and may be tied to a particular type of animal, an animalistic concept, or even an animal that never existed in the real world.
Beasts were all used by their Keepers as animals in one form or another, and they all bear at least some bestial features. Many were innocents, lured into the Hedge by the tempting excitement of the wild, but regardless they felt the pull and power of raw instinct and sensation.
Beasts are blessed with a wild nature that gives them an affinity with animals and a raw, bestial attractiveness that they may use to gain favour with humans. This same animalism is also their curse, however; their ties to instinct and the simpler thoughts of the animal world make it hard for them apply themselves to cerebral tasks unless they have had training in a specific area, and they are rarely able to access human levels of mental insight.
Kiths
* Broadback - beasts of burden. Blessing: Stoic Forbearance.
* Chimera - culture-themed kith with parts from many creatures. Blessing: Goblin's Tongue.
* Cleareyes - Beasts who retain an animal's heightened senses. Blessing: Primal Senses.
* Coldscales - kin to reptiles of all kinds. Blessing: Reptilian Blood.
* Coyote - culture-themed kith of coyote-headed tricksters. Blessing: The Trickster's Truth.
* Hunterheart - predators and hunters. Blessing: Tooth and Claw.
* Nix - culture-themed kith of river mermaids. Blessing: Consumptive Voice.
* Riddleseeker - Beasts of wisdom, cunning and curiosity. Blessing: Inquisitive Instinct.
* Roteater - scavengers and eaters of the dead. Blessing: Scavenger's Nature.
* Runnerswift - beasts of great speed. Blessing: Runs Like the Wind.
* Skitterskulk - creepy-crawlies, spiders and insects. Blessing: Impossible Counterpoise.
* Steepscrambler - climbers and tree-dwellers. Blessing: Gifted Climber.
* Swimmerskin - aquatic beasts of all kinds. Blessing: Natural Swimmer.
* Truefriend - faithful and loyal pets. Blessing: Companion's Boon.
* Venombite - poisonous creatures, from snakes to scorpions. Blessing: Poisonous Bite.
* Windwing - flying beasts. Blessing: Gift of the Sky.