Darklings is the character type, the kith in a more in depth type that grants an extra blessing.
When dealing with matters of Faerie, there are
things that a person must do, and things a person must
not. This is the foundation of many stories of the Fae,
including this one. It begins with a hill, somewhere not
far away, and they say that the Invisible Throng congregate
there, three times a year. The rules are simple.
From sunrise to sunset on that night, the people must
not speak of the Invisible Throng, and from sunset to
sunrise of that night, they must not leave their homes.
Consider the young man of courage and curiosity,
who would rather see the faeries
for himself. He tells his sweetheart,
the sweetest girl in 50 miles, that
he wishes to see the faeries that
morning, and she recoils in horror,
and says that he must not
speak of — but it is too late,
and she has spoken of them,
too. She cries, and says that
she will not go with him. And
she retires that night with her
rosary and she prays. And the
young man of courage and curiosity
hides at sunset on the mound,
in a tree. And he sees them, as they
swoop from the sky in their hundreds,
and without warning they descend upon the
tree and sweep the young man of courage and curiosity
away, and the tree with him. And one hour before
dawn, the sweetest girl in 50 miles hears the voice of
her sweetheart at her window, begging to be let in. She
goes to the door and steps outside to embrace him, and
she, too, is gone. One day the young man, still of great
courage but no longer of great curiosity, will escape.
His sweetheart never will. She is theirs forever.
Changelings know that their deeds have consequences,
but few feel those consequences so keenly as the
changelings who are called Darklings. Many were stolen
away as the consequence of attracting the attention of
the Fae. The Darklings’ obsessive clinging to the solace
of the night is the consequence of having been imbued
with shadows. Their love of quiet is the consequence of
having lived in a world where all was whispering, all was
rustling and snapping twigs and creeping fear.
The Darklings believe that they found it hardest
to escape from the lands of the Fae, because their way
back was hidden from them. Of all the changelings, they
were lost in an alien landscape, with no reference point
to return to, with all paths shrouded in shadow. To escape,
they had to be the ones who could survive in the
shadows, to thrive there with creeping things and dark
things and dead things that move. Having come back,
they are the changelings who wait in the shadows.
A Tunnelgrub works in sewer maintenance.
He rarely sees the light of day,
but he’s happy down there. Every so
often, the Court asks him to lose
something or hide something or
keep something safe, and he
knows exactly where to put it.
He knows where the alligators
are kept. A Leechfinger,
thin and predatory, works as
the night porter in a hospital.
The hospital has a terrifying
death rate, partly due to the
things that spontaneously appear
in the basement, and partly
because of the night porter’s special
talent. His opinion is that the patients
are dying anyway. Who cares if they die
faster? An Antiquarian runs a secondhand bookshop
in a rundown arcade. Everything’s organized in the
haphazard, impenetrable way that only the truly great
antique bookshops affect, and yet the Antiquarian
knows exactly where everything is. And then there’s
the private collection, the books that only the changelings
get to see, if they know to ask and the price is
right. A Gravewight works as a funeral director, his
sweet decorum only just masking his searching eyes.
Another Gravewight travels around the villages of
central southern Uganda in the capacity of a churchlicensed
exorcist. Sometimes his methods are violent,
but the ghosts know him and respect him. His Court
has use of his ghost lore on occasion. A Mirrorskin,
meanwhile, lives in an old house on the edge of a small
town somewhere in Tennessee. He watches the town,
and the local kids know him by a variety of nicknames.
One night not all that long ago, some children dared
each other to go inside. Two went in, and both ran out
screaming. One saw his dead father. The other saw his
granddad. The kids don’t go in there so readily these
days, but the weird old man in the big rotting house,
he’s still watching. Another Mirrorskin accosts people
on the street, picking their pockets with a smile, like
a street magician — only not giving the money back.
The police have been trying to catch her for months,
but every time, the smiling pickpocket wears a different
face. Some of the money goes to the Court. Not all
of it, though.
Appearance: Darklings tend to appear somehow
less solid, less substantial than other changelings. It’s
not that Darklings are transparent or anything. They
just feel less solid somehow. Many (but not all) are thin,
in their fae miens unnaturally so. Many are tall, and the
ones who aren’t are only shorter than normal because
they’re hunched over. Some have pointed ears and noses.
Some have straight, lank hair. Their skin runs the
gamut from deathly white to transparent, shadowy black
or blue. Their eyes are almost always dark, like deep pits
that reveal nothing. Sometimes, in their fae miens, they
have freakish features, such as tiny horns or fangs, extra
eyes and the like.
The sewer worker’s skin, although pale, has a
greenish tint, and his bloated face has a wide mouth, a
broad, flat nose and tiny eyes. Small horns grow from
his temples. Both of his hands have six fingers. To human
eyes, he’s flabby and pasty-looking, with blotches
and acne. The murderous hospital porter is hunched
and curved, looking like a great pale, leering question
mark. His nose and chin are pointed together like
some effigy of Mr. Punch, and his hair falls straight
to his shoulders. In his human seeming, these features
are less pronounced… but not much. The bookseller
appears as a precise, decorous figure, all dressed in
black. Her black, pupil-less, heavy-lashed eyes sparkle
with good humor. Her mouth is small and precise.
Her fingers are freakishly long. The funeral director’s
hands are like broad, flat shovels, his face pale, round
and pockmarked like the moon. As a human, he’s
prim and small and softly spoken. The Ugandan exorcist,
on the other hand, is huge and broad, like a vast
grinning shadow, and if sometimes he’s almost transparent,
that only adds to his menace. Even when his
fae mien is invisible, the only thing people remember
of his face is that terrible smile, those terrible white
teeth. The strange old man is bent almost double, but
straightens when he creates a new face. He always
speaks in a whisper. The pickpocket, on the other
hand, is quick moving and fast-talking, smooth and
young and charming, but has so many faces, she’s not
even sure which one is her own.
Background: Darklings are among those Lost who
were stolen because they transgressed. They might not
have known they were transgressing, or even that there
were rules to break, but they went too far. Many crossed
the line out of curiosity, and it’s this curiosity, this need
to find new things and to explore, that helped to bring
many of them back out through the Hedge. This curiosity
made them what they were: by investigating the
dark, they became like the dark. Many Darklings are
talented at finding things out, and many take on roles
that depend upon them being observant.
Durance: The Darklings’ memories of their time
in Faerie are awash with shadowy fears. Vague, hulking
forces loomed from the corner of the room. Small skittering
things crawled across faces or became momentarily
tangled in hair before dissolving. Wet, slithering
things moved around in the background. Trapdoors
and boarded windows with something behind them
figure heavily in dreams of Faerie. Being sent on errands
with no point, being forced to copy ancient codices
of lore that made no sense while outside things
shrieked and fluttered, being made to enter a cellar and
being eaten, over and over again, being lost in mazes:
all of these things feature heavily in Darkling dreams
of Faerie. The dark places of the human world don’t
remotely compare.
Character Creation: Darklings are often nimble
and cunning. They often have their highest scores in
Finesse Attributes (Dexterity, Wits and Manipulation).
Although physically weak and unprepossessing, many
have reasonable ratings in Resolve and Composure, the
better to have resisted the fears of the Fae night. Darklings
often excel in Skills that require precision and
training, such as Larceny, Stealth, Subterfuge, Academics
and Crafts.
Blessing: Just as the shadows that infect them, the
Darklings are as ephemeral and flighty as the dark itself.
A player can spend Glamour to increase dice pools
that include Wits, Subterfuge and Stealth — each point
of Glamour increases one dice pool by one point. The
character also gains the benefit of the 9 again rule on
Stealth dice pools.
Curse: Darkness and twilight so define these
changelings that their magic falters somewhat when the
sun is in the sky (that is, not at night, or at twilight).
Darklings suffer a –1 die penalty to all rolls to enact
Contracts during daylight hours. The penalty increases
to –2 dice if the sun is directly visible to them.
Seeming Contracts: Darkness
Concepts: Parapsychologist, nocturnal building
superintendent, night-shift call center worker, chimney
sweep, professional spelunker, lab assistant, amateur
night-time naturalist, night refuge manager.
Kiths:
Antiquarian — Those Darklings who surround
themselves with dusty tomes of lore and the artifacts of
long-dead lands and peoples. Dusty, quiet and diligent,
they hold the Keys to Knowledge: the Antiquarians
know where to find lore ancient and modern, and have
a near-flawless memory for facts, trivial and not so trivial.
Every Antiquarian receives the benefit of the 9 again
rule on dice pools including Academics and Investigation.
They may also spend a point of Glamour to gain
the benefits of the Encyclopedic Knowledge Merit for
one question. If the Antiquarian already possesses this
Merit, he may spend one Glamour to add three dice to
the roll.
Gravewight — Cold-skinned Darklings who draw
comfort from consorting with the dead, both restless and
in repose. The Gravewight possesses the Charnel Sight:
the changeling can see the unquiet dead. For one point
of Glamour, the changeling can see ghosts for the rest of
the scene. The power doesn’t extend to any other invisible
beings that may or may not be present, and doesn’t
allow the changeling to touch the ghost or compel it to
answer her unless the ghost chooses to allow that.
Leechfinger — The faeries who steal life from humans,
grain by grain, drop by drop, with just a touch.
Every Leechfinger knows how to Sap the Vital Spark:
with a touch, he can steal the health of another to
heal his own injuries. The character needs to touch
the target and the player spends a point of Glamour.
The victim takes one point of lethal damage, and the
changeling heals one point of lethal or bashing damage,
or downgrades one point of aggravated damage to
lethal. This blessing can be used once per scene per
point of the Darkling’s Wyrd.
Mirrorskin — Darklings who hide in plain sight from
the eyes of humankind. Their bones are malleable, their
faces like flowing quicksilver. The Mirrorskin’s blessing
is The Mercurial Visage: he can change the cast of his
features to resemble (if not completely mimic) anyone
he has met. The player may do this at will, gaining a +3
dice bonus to Wits + Subterfuge disguise attempts This bonus
applies to both mien and Mask.
Tunnelgrub — Those of the Darkling faeries who
slide and slither through tunnels and sewers and chimneys,
the better to do terrible things in the night. The
Tunnelgrub has the ability to Slither and Squirm: she
slips and slides and wriggles through tight spaces and
out of handcuffs and other bonds. The player spends
a point of Glamour. The changeling can get through
spaces that are only just too narrow for her to get
through, spaces that would otherwise leave her completely
stuck. The changeling gets to roll Dexterity +
Athletics to wriggle out of ropes or handcuffs. If it’s
a long distance, such as a chimney or a sewage pipe,
the player needs to make an extended roll, earning at
least three successes, perhaps more, depending on the
length of the tunnel. A dramatic failure means that
the character is stuck and can’t escape on her own or
try again using this talent (if the changeling is caught
in the middle of a tunnel, this could be disastrous, because
she can’t get out on her own).
When dealing with matters of Faerie, there are
things that a person must do, and things a person must
not. This is the foundation of many stories of the Fae,
including this one. It begins with a hill, somewhere not
far away, and they say that the Invisible Throng congregate
there, three times a year. The rules are simple.
From sunrise to sunset on that night, the people must
not speak of the Invisible Throng, and from sunset to
sunrise of that night, they must not leave their homes.
Consider the young man of courage and curiosity,
who would rather see the faeries
for himself. He tells his sweetheart,
the sweetest girl in 50 miles, that
he wishes to see the faeries that
morning, and she recoils in horror,
and says that he must not
speak of — but it is too late,
and she has spoken of them,
too. She cries, and says that
she will not go with him. And
she retires that night with her
rosary and she prays. And the
young man of courage and curiosity
hides at sunset on the mound,
in a tree. And he sees them, as they
swoop from the sky in their hundreds,
and without warning they descend upon the
tree and sweep the young man of courage and curiosity
away, and the tree with him. And one hour before
dawn, the sweetest girl in 50 miles hears the voice of
her sweetheart at her window, begging to be let in. She
goes to the door and steps outside to embrace him, and
she, too, is gone. One day the young man, still of great
courage but no longer of great curiosity, will escape.
His sweetheart never will. She is theirs forever.
Changelings know that their deeds have consequences,
but few feel those consequences so keenly as the
changelings who are called Darklings. Many were stolen
away as the consequence of attracting the attention of
the Fae. The Darklings’ obsessive clinging to the solace
of the night is the consequence of having been imbued
with shadows. Their love of quiet is the consequence of
having lived in a world where all was whispering, all was
rustling and snapping twigs and creeping fear.
The Darklings believe that they found it hardest
to escape from the lands of the Fae, because their way
back was hidden from them. Of all the changelings, they
were lost in an alien landscape, with no reference point
to return to, with all paths shrouded in shadow. To escape,
they had to be the ones who could survive in the
shadows, to thrive there with creeping things and dark
things and dead things that move. Having come back,
they are the changelings who wait in the shadows.
A Tunnelgrub works in sewer maintenance.
He rarely sees the light of day,
but he’s happy down there. Every so
often, the Court asks him to lose
something or hide something or
keep something safe, and he
knows exactly where to put it.
He knows where the alligators
are kept. A Leechfinger,
thin and predatory, works as
the night porter in a hospital.
The hospital has a terrifying
death rate, partly due to the
things that spontaneously appear
in the basement, and partly
because of the night porter’s special
talent. His opinion is that the patients
are dying anyway. Who cares if they die
faster? An Antiquarian runs a secondhand bookshop
in a rundown arcade. Everything’s organized in the
haphazard, impenetrable way that only the truly great
antique bookshops affect, and yet the Antiquarian
knows exactly where everything is. And then there’s
the private collection, the books that only the changelings
get to see, if they know to ask and the price is
right. A Gravewight works as a funeral director, his
sweet decorum only just masking his searching eyes.
Another Gravewight travels around the villages of
central southern Uganda in the capacity of a churchlicensed
exorcist. Sometimes his methods are violent,
but the ghosts know him and respect him. His Court
has use of his ghost lore on occasion. A Mirrorskin,
meanwhile, lives in an old house on the edge of a small
town somewhere in Tennessee. He watches the town,
and the local kids know him by a variety of nicknames.
One night not all that long ago, some children dared
each other to go inside. Two went in, and both ran out
screaming. One saw his dead father. The other saw his
granddad. The kids don’t go in there so readily these
days, but the weird old man in the big rotting house,
he’s still watching. Another Mirrorskin accosts people
on the street, picking their pockets with a smile, like
a street magician — only not giving the money back.
The police have been trying to catch her for months,
but every time, the smiling pickpocket wears a different
face. Some of the money goes to the Court. Not all
of it, though.
Appearance: Darklings tend to appear somehow
less solid, less substantial than other changelings. It’s
not that Darklings are transparent or anything. They
just feel less solid somehow. Many (but not all) are thin,
in their fae miens unnaturally so. Many are tall, and the
ones who aren’t are only shorter than normal because
they’re hunched over. Some have pointed ears and noses.
Some have straight, lank hair. Their skin runs the
gamut from deathly white to transparent, shadowy black
or blue. Their eyes are almost always dark, like deep pits
that reveal nothing. Sometimes, in their fae miens, they
have freakish features, such as tiny horns or fangs, extra
eyes and the like.
The sewer worker’s skin, although pale, has a
greenish tint, and his bloated face has a wide mouth, a
broad, flat nose and tiny eyes. Small horns grow from
his temples. Both of his hands have six fingers. To human
eyes, he’s flabby and pasty-looking, with blotches
and acne. The murderous hospital porter is hunched
and curved, looking like a great pale, leering question
mark. His nose and chin are pointed together like
some effigy of Mr. Punch, and his hair falls straight
to his shoulders. In his human seeming, these features
are less pronounced… but not much. The bookseller
appears as a precise, decorous figure, all dressed in
black. Her black, pupil-less, heavy-lashed eyes sparkle
with good humor. Her mouth is small and precise.
Her fingers are freakishly long. The funeral director’s
hands are like broad, flat shovels, his face pale, round
and pockmarked like the moon. As a human, he’s
prim and small and softly spoken. The Ugandan exorcist,
on the other hand, is huge and broad, like a vast
grinning shadow, and if sometimes he’s almost transparent,
that only adds to his menace. Even when his
fae mien is invisible, the only thing people remember
of his face is that terrible smile, those terrible white
teeth. The strange old man is bent almost double, but
straightens when he creates a new face. He always
speaks in a whisper. The pickpocket, on the other
hand, is quick moving and fast-talking, smooth and
young and charming, but has so many faces, she’s not
even sure which one is her own.
Background: Darklings are among those Lost who
were stolen because they transgressed. They might not
have known they were transgressing, or even that there
were rules to break, but they went too far. Many crossed
the line out of curiosity, and it’s this curiosity, this need
to find new things and to explore, that helped to bring
many of them back out through the Hedge. This curiosity
made them what they were: by investigating the
dark, they became like the dark. Many Darklings are
talented at finding things out, and many take on roles
that depend upon them being observant.
Durance: The Darklings’ memories of their time
in Faerie are awash with shadowy fears. Vague, hulking
forces loomed from the corner of the room. Small skittering
things crawled across faces or became momentarily
tangled in hair before dissolving. Wet, slithering
things moved around in the background. Trapdoors
and boarded windows with something behind them
figure heavily in dreams of Faerie. Being sent on errands
with no point, being forced to copy ancient codices
of lore that made no sense while outside things
shrieked and fluttered, being made to enter a cellar and
being eaten, over and over again, being lost in mazes:
all of these things feature heavily in Darkling dreams
of Faerie. The dark places of the human world don’t
remotely compare.
Character Creation: Darklings are often nimble
and cunning. They often have their highest scores in
Finesse Attributes (Dexterity, Wits and Manipulation).
Although physically weak and unprepossessing, many
have reasonable ratings in Resolve and Composure, the
better to have resisted the fears of the Fae night. Darklings
often excel in Skills that require precision and
training, such as Larceny, Stealth, Subterfuge, Academics
and Crafts.
Blessing: Just as the shadows that infect them, the
Darklings are as ephemeral and flighty as the dark itself.
A player can spend Glamour to increase dice pools
that include Wits, Subterfuge and Stealth — each point
of Glamour increases one dice pool by one point. The
character also gains the benefit of the 9 again rule on
Stealth dice pools.
Curse: Darkness and twilight so define these
changelings that their magic falters somewhat when the
sun is in the sky (that is, not at night, or at twilight).
Darklings suffer a –1 die penalty to all rolls to enact
Contracts during daylight hours. The penalty increases
to –2 dice if the sun is directly visible to them.
Seeming Contracts: Darkness
Concepts: Parapsychologist, nocturnal building
superintendent, night-shift call center worker, chimney
sweep, professional spelunker, lab assistant, amateur
night-time naturalist, night refuge manager.
Kiths:
Antiquarian — Those Darklings who surround
themselves with dusty tomes of lore and the artifacts of
long-dead lands and peoples. Dusty, quiet and diligent,
they hold the Keys to Knowledge: the Antiquarians
know where to find lore ancient and modern, and have
a near-flawless memory for facts, trivial and not so trivial.
Every Antiquarian receives the benefit of the 9 again
rule on dice pools including Academics and Investigation.
They may also spend a point of Glamour to gain
the benefits of the Encyclopedic Knowledge Merit for
one question. If the Antiquarian already possesses this
Merit, he may spend one Glamour to add three dice to
the roll.
Gravewight — Cold-skinned Darklings who draw
comfort from consorting with the dead, both restless and
in repose. The Gravewight possesses the Charnel Sight:
the changeling can see the unquiet dead. For one point
of Glamour, the changeling can see ghosts for the rest of
the scene. The power doesn’t extend to any other invisible
beings that may or may not be present, and doesn’t
allow the changeling to touch the ghost or compel it to
answer her unless the ghost chooses to allow that.
Leechfinger — The faeries who steal life from humans,
grain by grain, drop by drop, with just a touch.
Every Leechfinger knows how to Sap the Vital Spark:
with a touch, he can steal the health of another to
heal his own injuries. The character needs to touch
the target and the player spends a point of Glamour.
The victim takes one point of lethal damage, and the
changeling heals one point of lethal or bashing damage,
or downgrades one point of aggravated damage to
lethal. This blessing can be used once per scene per
point of the Darkling’s Wyrd.
Mirrorskin — Darklings who hide in plain sight from
the eyes of humankind. Their bones are malleable, their
faces like flowing quicksilver. The Mirrorskin’s blessing
is The Mercurial Visage: he can change the cast of his
features to resemble (if not completely mimic) anyone
he has met. The player may do this at will, gaining a +3
dice bonus to Wits + Subterfuge disguise attempts This bonus
applies to both mien and Mask.
Tunnelgrub — Those of the Darkling faeries who
slide and slither through tunnels and sewers and chimneys,
the better to do terrible things in the night. The
Tunnelgrub has the ability to Slither and Squirm: she
slips and slides and wriggles through tight spaces and
out of handcuffs and other bonds. The player spends
a point of Glamour. The changeling can get through
spaces that are only just too narrow for her to get
through, spaces that would otherwise leave her completely
stuck. The changeling gets to roll Dexterity +
Athletics to wriggle out of ropes or handcuffs. If it’s
a long distance, such as a chimney or a sewage pipe,
the player needs to make an extended roll, earning at
least three successes, perhaps more, depending on the
length of the tunnel. A dramatic failure means that
the character is stuck and can’t escape on her own or
try again using this talent (if the changeling is caught
in the middle of a tunnel, this could be disastrous, because
she can’t get out on her own).
