Changeling/Theme/Gentry
Guidelines For Writing Gentry
When writing up your Gentry for inclusion, please keep the following in mind:
- Gentry are almost powerless outside their Realm compared to within it. Therefore, in 2.0, Gentry do not leave their Realms for pretty much any reason except existential threat or destruction of their Realm. They make use of Privateers and Huntsmen. They do not personally go chasing after Lost except in the most extreme of cases. We do not anticipate this ever happening on FDTJ -- Gentry should remain off-screen; they're scarier that way.
- True Loyalists are much more rare and insidious in 2.0 than in 1.0; please do not write your Gentry as having armies of Loyalists.
- Gentry on this list that are not Staff-written may have a maximum of 3 Titles.
- Gentry may not have more active Huntsmen than they have Titles, but most are loathe to have more than one at a time. Every Title which is invested in a Huntsman is a Title which the Gentry in question does not have, and a little less power they have in their own Realm the entire time the Huntsman is gone. Please bear this in mind when writing Gentry.
- Any Gentry writeup may be modified or tweaked by staff to meet theme requirements or secret storyline plans.
Local Gentry
The Brackish King
Fae Titles: His Gracious Highness; King of the Deep
Description: The Brackish King looks something like a massive octopus, and something like a mind-bending horror.
Methods and Madness: Literally everything in his realm was once human: every tree, every wave, every statue, every fish. His obsession with only crafting using what he has stolen or bought infuses every decision the King makes.
Arcadian Realm: The Brackish King’s realm resembles the a twisted estuary, and a strange garden within it. He chooses those who are already outsiders for one reason or another, and crafts them into exhibits for his garden, guards to keep his garden safe, workers to buff the statues. A Lost taken by the Brackish King might be one of his treasured mermaids, kept close to amuse him, or sent on border patrols to prevent anyone from escaping. That Lost might have been instead crafted into a tree, growing in the half-salt, half-fresh water. Perhaps instead a statue, gazing forever at his magnificence. A Wizened to craft beautiful new buildings or to serve his every whim. Darklings live as shadows in the water. Water Elementals are kept in marble reflecting pools. Most who have escaped from his realm come back with strange eating habits — some go entirely vegan, some become totally carnivorous. Others report having overcome cannibalistic urges. The Arcadian version of the shoreline estuaries where the Pine Barrens meet the sea, and the small beach where only his most treasured creations are allowed to occasionally play as a very special treat? Food sources are limited. Either you learn to eat very strange plant life, or you turn on each other.
Huntsmen: No Huntsmen have been seen from The Brackish King for a very long time.
Fetches: His captives almost invariably come back to find a fake in place; their lives are sometimes well-maintained and sometimes thrown into chaos.
Former Denizens: Petra Fichette, Roger Gimlin
The Child of Joy
Fae Titles: Your New Friend. Smilebringer.
Description: The Child is, well, a child. Or more precisely, It is every child. It is a constantly shifting form between every single child which ever lived or ever will live or ever could have lived. When It is calm, It is constantly shifting but never doesn't look like a child you could see on the street. The angrier It gets, the more fluid It becomes, often stopping on four eyed in-between frames and moving by stretching out Its body into a new one and letting the old disintegrate. Those who claim to have seen the The Child Of Joy trapped into combat swear that It loses all cohesion, turning into a swarming mass of childish limbs and screams, like a cartoon of a child throwing a tantrum.
Methods and Madness: The Child has a sinister method to Its play. It finds people who need love and affection and blame themselves for not getting it. It lures them to Its realm and turns them into toys for It to play with, while constantly reminding them that they're nothing without It. It makes a concentrated effort to come across as a good guy and a curious child, even when It's doing things like ripping off limbs for fun. In between playtimes, The Child leaves the toys "put away": a state in which they can't breathe, let alone move. When It gets bored with a toy, after leaving them put away for a while, It lets them go with a few knick-knacks and some words reminding them that they should really blame themselves for all of it.
Arcadian Realm: Your Neighbor's House is a simple building that looks exactly like a child's crayon drawing of a house, what with the slanted roof and the two upstairs windows and the chimney. It continues its facade on the inside, though the perspective on all things is off. The House is a constant state of changing sizes, as if every object could breathe simultaneously. On average, however, the house is big enough to give off the impression that you've been shrunken down to about 8 inches. In case of attack, there are a number of massive Beasts kept put away in various parts of the house, who only come to life when intruders are near.
Huntsmen: Why would It need to send huntsmen? If It wants a new toy to replace one It got rid of, It just acquires a new one. And sometimes, toys even come back to It of their own free will. Rumors persist that It occasionally makes use of a Huntsman, but those are so far just unconfirmed rumors.
Fetches: It always leaves behind a fetch. One designed to make those around it happy. The fetches take great joy in giving others what they want with no concern for themselves. A fetch that a changeling would have to be real monster to replace with themselves
Former Denizens: Azuma Hiroko,Lamp, Tonya Brooks
Le General Taire
Fae Titles: Master of the Battlefield; His Silent Majesty; Silhouette Upon The Hill
Description: Le General Taire is never seen except as a distant shadowy figure, directing troops. Messages come to combatants in a genre-appropriate way: crackling radios filled with distant voices and horrified screams, the far off howl of another wolf pack, a carefully folded message smuggled in the heel of someone’s shoe. Those who return often have strange superstitions about sending or receiving messages.
Methods and Madness: Le General Taire not only gathers soldiers from the gleanings of privateers, and from those that his Huntsmen bring back from their rangings, but rumor has it that those captured in raids of other Realms become his soldiers as well. He doesn't seem picky: all are meat for the grinder, and only the strongest, or most ruthless, survive.
Arcadian Realm: The actual name is unknown, but the nickname - Verdun - was given by a French WWI vet that was also an escapee, and fits rather well with a Realm of eternal war. The Realm is carved into dozens of pockets, each filled with endless war games. One realm is filled with Beasts, hunters and hunted; another filled with trenches and mustard gas and twisted war machines; yet another is modern urban warfare. The only constant is conflict. Just about any Seeming or Kith can fit within Verdun, as long as they fit within the concept of war: medic, warrior, perpetual innocent bystander.
Huntsmen: Le General creates Huntsmen much more than any other locally-known Keeper and is often obsessed with reclaiming those who have escaped Verdun. His Huntsman was responsible for the death of Michael Zloof, the Winter Crown prior to Marjorie. No one knows which Title was passed to those Huntsmen.
Fetches: Approximately half of the time, Le General does not leave a Fetch behind when someone is abducted. Oftentimes, those Fetches which are left find themselves meeting bad ends, destroying utterly the lives left behind, leaving a metaphorically blasted hellscape in their wake.
Former Denizens: Teagan, Jack Martingale
Milk and Honey
Fae Titles: The Porcelain Princess; The River Twixt Taint And Temptation; Butcherbaron of Fatted Calves
Description: Milk is porcelain perfection, an ideal of purity effortlessly inspiring impure impulses. Honey is dark-skinned desire, the exquisite embodiment of every temptation which ever got anyone in trouble.
Neither favors any particular form while they weave through the uncounted delights along the riverbank, adapting to their captives' desires, all the better to lead them astray.
Methods and Madness: More and more and more and more.
It's wonderful, at first, to have every desire sated, every curiosity explored, every hunger so exquisitely well-fed. It's all decadence and delight. Senses awaken in ways you never thought possible.
Have you ever tasted something so rich, so complex that it inspired a flurry of perfect poetry that you didn't bother to chase because no words could capture this singular, blissful experience? Have you ever smelled something so enticing, so heady that you lost yourself in all the memories it conjures, half of which are of worlds you'd never known, lives you didn't live? Have you ever seen a sky so perfectly, brilliantly blue that your heart ached with joy it could scarcely contain, your whole being seeming to lift, buoyed by that glorious sight? Have you ever heard a song so sweet, so soulful that you felt it moving through every inch of your body, every nerve, every muscle resonating with the purely sublime? Have you ever felt a lover's touch so skillfully delivered, so perfectly placed that ecstasy washed over you instantly, drowning the need for anything but this, this, this?
It's wonderful. At first.
But what if it doesn't end? When does more become enough? When does enough become too much? When does too much become never enough? When does excess become emptiness?
All things spoil along the banks of the River That Ate the Moon. The golden sun becomes glaring. Mold clings to the marble. Food smells sickeningly sweet with the promise of rot. The songs turn repetitious. The sex grows clumsy, desperate. Every epiphany becomes an itch of almost. Nothing is quite enough anymore. Everything falls short of satiation. You are always hungry, always on the verge of being buzzed, the pain nearly gone, the orgasm almost there, the ache almost soothed. Almost. Almost. Almost. But never enough.
Milk and Honey are pushers, dealers. They'll give you whatever you want until it's all that you need. You are an addict chasing a high you can't find anymore.
You knew perfection once. It ruined you.
Arcadian Realm: The River That Ate the Moon
Idyllic fields and marble estates flank a brilliant, glittering river where the sun never sets and every wish can be fulfilled. Everything seems so radiant upon arrival, all gilded ivory, verdant lawns and crystal clear water bathed in enough sunlight to make it all sparkle. It takes time for eyes to adjust to the light and see the ugly truth beneath the high gloss, all the rot and grime, all the death and desperation, the insects which infest everything, the way everyone scratches at their skin until it breaks. Everything is broken, imperfect, unclean. Except when the sun hits it just right, when it's glorious again, and you wish you could live in that moment forever.
Huntsmen: There's no need for Huntsmen, as far as anyone knows. Either you live a life tormented by the memory of perfect indulgence or you come crawling back for more.
Fetches: Only in certain cases will Milk and Honey create a Fetch. In most cases, leaving your bed empty spoils your memories of your old life far more than having a replacement, leaving you to deal with the angry questions and the hurt relatives. When there is such potential for destroying what you left behind, however, they have been known to create devilish Fetches interested only in sabotaging every relationship you ever had before you can even hope to get back.
Former Denizens: Evan Shaw, Sam Ryan, Edward
Óðinn (Odin)
Titles: Alföðr (The All-Father), Grímnir (The Hooded One), Herteitr (Glad of War), Hrafnfreistuðr (The Raven Tester), Skollvaldr (Ruler of Treachery)
Description: Odin has many titles, and many faces. On occasion he appears as a wandering traveler, typically with a tall and wide brimmed hat and some form of walking stick. Traditionally there would also be gray robes and his stick would be a staff. At times he appears as a hooded figure with one visible eye appearing from the shadows of the cowl. Other times, a warrior with spear and shield in mail and helmet. Yet other times, as a flock of ravens. He fits his appearance to the times, and to the needs of his aspirational whims. The only real uniformity to his appearance is that he looks to be an aging white man in all of his guises. His demeanor is equally fickle, at times carousing with good cheer, at other times savage and cruel. His word cannot be trusted unless it is bound by oath, though he delights in sharing aphorisms and his own sage advice. (Which he often take pains to ensure bears out.)
Area of Activity: Scandinavia, Northern and Western Europe, British Isles, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, The Eastern Seaboard of the US, the Upper Midwest of the US.
Methods and Madness: He tends to claim those of Scandinavian heritage; or any blond and blue eyed people. He has a particular interest in violent people, and those who are passionate in their beliefs. His legions of warriors cross the gender spectrum, save for the Valkyries of his hall who are all persons who identify as women. The meat of his armies are the Once-Slain, the Einherjar. They are those who were captured, forced to fight his armies, and died well. The valiant were given renewed life in the Einherjar, while the cowards were put to other purposes. Used as building materials, or turned into hounds for his massive Hunt. The Valkyries, women all of them, were tasked with leading his armies in battle and choosing from among the dead those who would serve in the Einherjar. When not in battle, they served in Valhalla, bringing food and drink to the tables of the celebrating warriors. He is thought to also be behind the jötnar who on occasion raid his realm and lay waste to the Einherjar and Valkyrjar alike, though under one of his less reputable Titles.
Arcadian Realm: From his Jarl's throne in Valhalla, Odin rules his realm. It is a vast place, empowered by his many titles and the burgeoning sway of his armies and his legend. It is quite similar to the scandinavian coast, only impossibly more grand. Deep water, tall mountains, green fields, enormous trees. It is a land where all is legendary, and all legends are real. Stags are hunted, battles are fought, but the realm never ceases to be beautiful because of it.
Huntsmen: The Huntsmen of Odin frequently hold the title of Grímnir or Skollvaldr, as they lend themselves best to the work of hunting down escapees. Their regalia typically take the form of Odin's walking stick, a weapon that is often a spear formed from a branch of the world tree of Yggdrasil. His armor, the gray cloak or wide brimmed hat. These are sometimes interpreted as gray suits, canes, or gray caps. When possible, they look the part of norse legend. When not, they're happy to meld in with the people of Midgaard. Their heralds are always ravens.
Fetches: The All-Father tends to create the fetches needed. Those made with intention are of carved wood, animated with raven feathers and clumps of moss. The more hasty variety are thrown together bits and bobs of natural items. Cloth, grass, branches of wood, and the like. Their universal flaw is either a limp that was not present before, or sudden unexplained blindness in one eye.
Former Denizens: Sigrún Ljósdóttir, Sturm, Ulf, Avery Frisk
Sweetness
Fae Titles: Her Gracious Majesty; Queen Of Sugar
Description: An exaggerated creature built of sugar, spice, and everything not so nice, Sweetness seems all sweetness and light until seen up close. She can be by turns perfection in all her forms and a horrifyingly petulant tyrant; she can be truly overwhelming in her unpredictable wroth, or sweet as... well. You know.
Methods and Madness: Sweetness almost invariably buys her subjects at the Goblin Market; they are often humans who accidentally stumbled into the Hedge rather than captured by her Huntsmen. She's been known to discard Lost who no longer intrigue her, simply letting them go, if she doesn't kill them by neglect.
Arcadian Realm: Sweetness' Realm is -- predictably -- made of spun sugar, gingerbread, candy... and it all rots. Her creations when in favor are stuffed full with all the good things they could possibly want: food, intoxicants, the company of other Lost, and when out of favor, left to wander the outer reaches of her Realm, scrounging for moldy cookies from last week's rebuilding. She constantly smashes everything she builds and starts again, and when she's in one of her rages, no one is safe.
Huntsmen: Does she even have any? Could she bear to give up any of her power, and would she even care enough to get back someone she'd discarded?
Fetches: Invariably, fetches are left, and the lives into which they are inserted are perfectly maintained, putting a beautiful vision of what could have been in front of those who manage to return.
Former Denizens: Polly Romantic
Non-Local Gentry
The Amazon Queen
Fae Titles: Hippolyta (The Horse-Looser); Penthesilea
Description: The Amazon Queen is rarely seen by her changeling prisoners, tending to use hobgoblin intermediaries. On the infrequent instances where she does appear to one, it is as a (literally) statuesque woman.
Methods and Madness: The Amazon Queen only ever takes women, whether they knew it prior to their Durance or not. Traditionally she favoured people of Greek descent, but in recent decades that has broadened out to readers of comic books.
Arcadian Realm: An endless sea of grass, interrupted only by the occasional tree or rocky outcropping.
Huntsmen: None have ever been confirmed active, though there are rumours that may be changing. Whether this is due to a sudden lack of access to Privateers or a spate of escapees who found themselves unwilling to return on their own is unknown as yet.
Fetches: The Amazon Queen has only recently started leaving fetches; previously, she tended to buy her victims from Privateers. Sewn together from horsehair, and often inexplicably lacking one breast, her fetches usually lead very sedate lives, making them harder for those she takes to readjust to.
Former Denizens:
The Archdragon
Fae Titles: His High Lord of Scale and Smoke, The Owner Of All That Glitters, The Crown Conqueror
Description: A large self-centered dragon. Vanity and avarice color his every move. With scales like glittering gems and a voracious hunger to own and hoard anything he perceives as valuable, both immaterial and tangible in nature. If he cannot acquire something, however, he is a destructive force of nature willing to obliterate anything he cannot have.
Methods and Madness: Humans of all sorts are brought and altered to serve as curators, servants, and treasures all their own. Often he takes those with talent or wealth or some exceptional quality or uniqueness. Some are guards, hidden watching his possessions (frequently these are not allowed to set eyes on their charges). As he yearns simply to own, he collects and creates anything he discovers he doesn't have. Keen on his draconic nature, many locations play home to kidnapped 'princesses' and knights/princes who would rescue them, meant only to be killed time and again.
Arcadian Realm: A seemingly vast microcosm of every type of region, littered with castles, mansions, towers, palaces, and monuments. He invites other Fae to show off his opulence. When his temper is roused, the whole realm shakes and storms with his wrath. Like all Fae, he takes poorly to being robbed.
Huntsmen: It's a coinflip whether the dragon will send a Huntsman out for any reason. On the one hand he does not enjoy seeing his hoard diminished or incomplete. On the other, he is very loath to give up a title even temporarily. How does he acquire possessions without sending out Huntsmen? That's one of the Archdragon's mysteries.
Fetches: The Archdragon rarely leaves a fetch behind. He doesn't like imitations and if he takes something, he would prefer to own the only version.
Former Denizens: Arthur Phoenix, Rosalyn Solfrig
The Game Master
Fae Titles: Unknown. The Game Master itself is the most recent title of a far more ancient Fae.
Description: The Game Master is usually only heard as a deep distorted voice, commanding Players to begin their runs or announcing their completion of a stage. He is represented in effigy as a man upon a throne, or a stern and masculine head without hair.
Methods and Madness: The Game Master is drawn to those who play games, particularly isolated adolescents. Many Players called out to him in their hearts, yearning to escape from their real lives into familiar fantasies. Some were pulled through the glass of the TV screen late at night, others visited a new arcade and never left, but when the time came to leave the real world behind, most of them agreed willingly.
Arcadian Realm: A Realm of Realms like many others, the Game World is an endless sprawl of pixellated Stages and Levels within an empty black void. Some Players may be kept isolated, forced to run athletic gauntlets at top speed, where a single mistake means violent death and a return to the start to begin again. Others may be thrown together into small groups to cooperate or compete, or be arranged into elaborate plots with hundreds of characters. Players may spend years fully immersed in their role, believing the current Game to be the only reality, or be forced to struggle in barely-rendered surroundings against inscrutable primal horrors while fully aware of their plight. A 'recent' escape from the Game World has 'broken' or 'corrupted' an unknown portion of the realm. The hole torn open into the Hedge means entry or exit may be easier than ever before...or may spell certain death amidst scrambled and fragmented bits of reality.
Huntsmen: The Game Master does not use many Huntsmen, as most do not escape his realm. Rumors in the Hedge say he may only have a single one, or has only ever sent out one. If this is true, whatever reaches the mortal realm may be a particularly dangerous foe.
Fetches: The Game Master often does not bother with a Fetch, preying on those already isolated and rejected. When one is made, from old metal cable, plastic cases and magazines, his creations are prone to depressive behavior and robotic, simple personalities, fixated on a single aspect of obsession. While designed to be docile and avoid attention, they also nurse a deeply repressed violence.
Former Denizens: Arthur Franklin, Glitch, Mearcstapa, Sloane Clarke
The Glittering God
Titles: He Who Hoards, The Diamond Man.
Description: A vain, fickle creature who hoards wealth and status, the Glittering God doesn't look like a dragon (despite obvious associations), but a tall, handsome man made of diamond. He wears clothing made of gold and/or silverweave.
Methods and Madness: A currently active and long-running Gentry, this God creates what others desire. Keeping them from the light, he makes them from the lonely, destitute, and desperate, forcing them to live alone in darkness and either revel in it--or become even more downtrodden by it.
Arcadian Realm: Much like a king’s treasure room, the realm of The Glittering God is full of heaps of stuff. It's a maze of gold, silver, platinum, and jewels locked away where no one else can reach them. Of course, most of these treasures are actually captives, taken from their human lives to serve as useless, pretty things in a collection of other useless, pretty things. Beastial guards (also captives) traverse the collections, keeping other Fae out as much as the collection in.
Huntsmen: As a New England Gentry, not much is known about his Huntsmen.
Fetches: The Fetches left behind often become poor substitutes of the promising people taken by this Gentry.
Former Denizens: Ylva Theodulus
The Lady of The Longest Night
Fae Titles: She of Darkness and Ice, The Eyes That Watch, The Midnight Queen
Description: Her eyes. Her ever-glowing eyes. Even in the darkest times in her realm, the Lady’s eyes glow a cold, cold blue. The rest of her is often hidden in impenetrable shadows. When she does allow glimpses of herself she is always clad in an ice blue gown, though its style seems to change even as one looks at it. Her hair is void black and swirls around her, even in the absence of wind. She speaks only rarely, in a whispering voice that sounds like cracking ice.
Methods and Madness: Just because her realm is dark doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful. The Lady seeks artists of all sorts to enhance her realm and reputation. She tends to take people who are at the start of their careers, or at the edge of a breakthrough rather than people who are established. She considers herself a training master of sorts, refining her captives’ raw talents through the harshness of her realm.
Arcadian Realm: The Frigid Void is dark. So very, very dark. And cold. Think Antarctica at the winter solstice. Light and warmth are rewards the Lady gives to those servants that please her. When her servants are allowed to see anything at all, her realm seems to be a grand castle with innumerable rooms, the corners and ceilings of which are always lost in darkness. There are grand windows, but beyond them appears only on a featureless void.
Huntsmen: The Lady very rarely sends Huntsmen after escapees. Why bother with Huntsmen when she can content herself with the knowledge that those she once owned will never be able to reclaim the lives she took from them?
Fetches: Oh, The Lady always leaves a fetch. These creations of living, unmelting ice are at least as talented as the people they replace - sometimes even more so. They are less skilled however at maintaining social connections. Even if a changeling doesn’t return to find their fetch succeeding even more brilliantly at their chosen art, they always come back to find the fetch has destroyed their relationships with friends and family.
Former Denizens: Adela Fletcher, Aurelio Menegi, Spicy
The Lord of the Circle
Fae Titles: The Legion of Black Flame, The Betrayer in Silence
Description: The Lord of the Circle changes shape as need be, but has three common faces. One, a beautiful shining figure meant to deceive and tempt people into Pacts. Second, a tar-covered business man who's mouth drips venom. And third, a monstrous demonic fiend with withered blackened skin, burning eyes, and leathery wings
Methods and Madness: The Lord of the Circle only keeps you for the time you signed. Whatever your crimes, you had to sign for them (whether or not you understood what you agreed to is another story) and you had to be punished. Or another signed in your place when they had power over you. Tough break, but them's the rules, kid. Your actions in the realm could extend your time, but never lower it. You had jobs to do. Try to escape, and you may end up one of the mindless Legion (or pretending to be one for a chance at escape). Hell truly is other people, and most likely other people are what truly pushed you into transforming as you did, with the Lord just keeping the peace as warden over his particular prison.
Arcadian Realm: The Circle is at once a circle of Hell, an impossible Labyrinth, and a prison. For some, they can view the realm as a place where only the strong make the rules. Those people are not the strong. There is a rigid hierarchy of enforcement and trade kept under from the eye of the Lord. As one gets closer to the edges of the realm, they find the Black Fire and may be conscripted into the Legion to be puppeted in eternal war against others. Those in the center find it unbearably cold and quiet until they find the very center of the circle where The Betrayer stands in silence itself.
Huntsmen: The Lord only reclaims those that haven't served their time. Whatever the length of their contract, the huntsmen are sent to help fulfill it - never mind that such a contract can be extended for any number of reasons. More often, succubae and pact makers catch wind of one escapee in an area and come calling before such an enforcer comes.
Fetches: No fetch is left for those taken by the Lord of the Circle. Those who serve their time are free to return to their lives unhindered if they can.
Former Denizens:
The Naturalist
Fae Titles: The Master of the Menagerie, The Beast Collector
Description: The Naturalist appears as a 19th century gentleman, but with an anthropomorphic animal form that seems to slowly but constantly shift between different creatures, some of them entirely fantastical.
Methods and Madness: The Naturalist has an obsession with collecting animals of every sort, even if 'collecting' means capturing people and turning them into the creatures he needs. He likes to consider his collection to be complete, even while constantly searching for new specimens that have never been seen before, which means that when one of his creatures escapes or dies, he works in haste to 'replace' them.
Arcadian Realm: A realm that seems much like a sprawling, fanciful zoo, complete with endless enclosures that are designed to seem as if they're set up for the comfort of their creatures, but at the same time ensure that they never have any privacy. The paths are maze-like in their meandering and complexity, meaning that even those who aren't locked within are often trapped, if not guided.
Huntsmen: The Naturalist rarely makes use of hunters, viewing its wayward creatures as readily replaceable with new ones. The Naturalist's Changelings are all but interchangeable to him. If he needs a new Lion, he'll simply make a new Lion.
Fetches: Often the Naturalist doesn't bother with Fetches, but when he does they're usually submissive things that readily conform to the roles that other people expect of them, and have little drive of their own.
Former Denizens: June Desrochers
The Nightingale
Fae Titles: The Angel of Ended Suffering, Her Majesty of the Unequaled Voice, The Forest of Eternal Song
Description: A nightmarish chimera made of woman and bird. Her beak sings beautiful melodies that could sooth the heart of the fiercest member of the Wild Hunt, while her three mouths gibber secrets of the Universe that none can bear to hear. Four arms come from her back, each ending in a limb half-way between arm and wing. Her two crying eyes show compassion for all living things, for they know not what they do.
Methods and Madness: The Nightingale doesn't need people, she needs new things. Decorations and baubles for when she entertains other Gentry. Tools for her grand surgery where she stitches together creatures of war, improves on the human form, or even occasionally puts broken Changelings back together again. Animals to fill her forest so that her guests can hunt.
Arcadian Realm: The Eternal Forest of Song is a beautiful and ancient place. No sunlight can penetrate the thick canopy, but Bright Ones in airtight jars light the way as long as they live. Haunting birdsong fills the air, and is the only sound allowed in the forest.
Huntsmen: The Nightingale's Huntsmen have not been seen in Philadelphia
Fetches: The Nightingale believes in leaving things better than she found them. Her fetches are kind, selfless, and self-sacrificing. They become heroes and martyrs for causes the Changeling left behind in life.
Former Denizens:
The Queen of Mirrors
Fae Titles:The Eternal City, The Viridian Beacon of Unity
Description: The Queen is more often a presence than a physical being, the sensation of being watched from every angle writ large. When She does deign to take material form it often takes the shape of a regal female figure whose apparent ethnicity shifts on a whim, a crown of reflective glass ever-present on Her head and a soft green glow that trails in Her wake.
Methods and Madness: There is little rhyme or reason to those taken in by this particular Keeper, at least to those who end up in its clutches. People of all sorts and backgrounds end up on the streets of the Eternal City, filling various roles as the Queen deems fit and kept placid (for the most part) by the Beacon whose light shines throughout most of the Realm. Those that the Queen finds most interesting or useful are often tasked to serve as Her eyes and ears in the City, the brand marking their position allowing for Her to observe the realm through their perspective.
Arcadian Realm: The Eternal City is just that: a collection of brightly-lit buildings and dim alleyways that stretches on forever, the roads running through it looping back in on themselves until you eventually end up right back at the city center, awash in the green glow of the Beacon that calls all of the city's residents back into its chrome-covered embrace. The aesthetic is a mishmash of cyberpunk fantasy and strict brutalism, with mechanical enhancements regularly accompanying the changes wrought by the Wyrd itself upon its inhabitants. The mark of the Queen of Mirrors makes itself known in the ubiquitous modes of observation - cameras, reflections in glass windows, and through the physical brands placed upon Her direct servants who comb the city streets to find those who plot to leave Her realm. This leads those rebels to find places outside of Her emerald-tinted gaze to plot and plan, carving out places of refuge in the dark ruins of buildings buried under the weight of the ever-growing metropolis.
Huntsmen: While rarely seen in the Philadelphia area, the Huntsmen from this realm tend to carry the Title of the Viridian Beacon, taking the form of mostly-humanoid beings of light or, when on the Ironside, men and women dressed in tidy black suits with sunglasses to match that cover the brilliant green eyes that show the mark of the Title upon them.
Fetches: The Queen almost always leave behind a fetch when laying claim to a new citizen of the City, although the quality of the programming in these often-robotic replicas can vary depending on the time put into observation beforehand. Those who She has had Her eye on for some time can barely be told apart from their original, while others go cold and uncaring like the machines they are.
Former Denizens: Asbolus, Eugene Moon, Lucia Diaz, Lux, Sage Feld, Violette Farrow, Ziv
The Spirit Emperor
Fae Titles: Lord of Monsters; Nameless Phantom
Description: The Spirit Emperor is a formless apparition of darkness with countless eyes of all shapes, colors, and species.
Methods and Madness: Almost everything in the Emperor's realm was once a free person, and true to an animist view all of those things are now both object and living being at once. He prefers captives who come from animist traditions themselves but will take almost anyone and find a place for them.
Arcadian Realm: A single snow-capped mountain rises from a misty bowl of a valley, capped with an impossibly huge Japanese style castle fortress that climbs all the way to the summit. Beneath the snow line the mountain is covered in dense woodlands, twisting trails, small villages filled with strange creatures of every imaginable variet, and terraced fields full of crops that whisper to those who work them. Strange things live in the misty valley itself, or on the slopes of the mountains that surround it. One of the Lost might simply be the spirit of one of the rocks on the mountainside, while another could be a crow person tengu or a dragon-deer like kirin guarding the gates of the Emperor's castle. One thing that all of the Emperor's captives learn is that anything could be a spy, and that almost anything they do that isn't in the character of their role is cause for punishment and possibly reassignment to a more demeaning creation. Obedience earns better placements.
Huntsmen: The Nameless Phantom almost never makes use of huntsmen, and in most cases is content to simply replace one escapee with another.
Fetches: Almost every captive is replaced with a Fetch, and those Fetches are almost always singularly talented in whatever area they choose to devote themselves to but struggle in other areas, including interacting with others. They're often successful and isolated.
Former Denizens: Nao Riot, Rieko Sato, Joy Hamidi, Saya Kemmochi
The Stone Haunter
Fae Titles: Duke of Ten Thousand Urges; Viscount of Victims & Villainy; He Who Walks Between
Description: The Stone Haunter is less seen and more felt- a presence within His domain, the Den of Ten Thousand Urges. His is a sort of artful architecture that sees the changes he wants arranged organically as his captives work His desired changes on each other.
Methods and Madness: Originally seen as a deterrent against permanent settlement in an area of New England, The Stone Haunter primarily takes people from alleys and dark places in His territory in New England. He seems to favor two types of people that are completely inimical to one another: the innocent and the criminal. Often prone to taking children, the locals native to his territory are often set on edge when a sudden emergence of disappearances shoot up around their homes. The reason for this is part of a game He plays with His victims: murderers, rapists, violent thugs and others have returned seeing the error in their ways... but the reverse is true of the innocent — they tend to come back with an insatiable urge for chaos. People taken by the Stone Haunter have to be of particularly hardy stock in order to survive after escaping from the Den of Ten Thousand Urges. This particular Keeper is known to have changed with the times, possibly due to influence from European settlement, or a personal fixation on the urban.
Arcadian Realm: The Stone Haunter's realm is unrelentingly urban. It possesses islands of apparent safety, though these are, in truth, simply honeypots to lure new victims into the clutches of the residents. There are endless twisting sewers and catacombs; unending alleys and fire escapes that never reach their roofs; twisting hallways leading from offices to hospitals to schools. Adults taken inexorably find themselves in their own preferred hunting grounds, only to discover their prey is hunting them.
Huntsmen: As The Stone Haunter is not local, the frequency of His Huntsmen isn't known. Only his escapees know anything about how frequently they're run to ground.
Fetches: The Stone Haunter rarely leaves a Fetch behind. He prefers for his escapees to return to lives ruined by their own crimes- or to families completely unprepared to handle the hellions sent back to them. The chaos surrounding his younger victims makes it easier to track them down, as does the media uproar surrounding the apprehension of his reformed criminal captives- and makes it unsurprising when they vanish, either apparently to escape punishment, or as what seems like further expression of their new rebellion. Either way, His purposes are served by not leaving doubles behind to serve time or soften the emotional tension of a missing family member.
Former Denizens: Vorpal
The Witch
Fae Titles: The Cruel Hag, The Wise
Description: The Witch is a gnarled figure in grey robes, green eyes gleaming from under the hood. Long, clawed fingers grasp the air around her and she moves with deceptive slowness.
Methods and Madness: Obsessed with knowledge, the Witch sees bestowing it as the greatest of all gifts and focuses on savage, often very bloody rituals.
Arcadian Realm: A gnarled forest, full of dead trees that grasp at the sky. Aside from the denizens she lets roam, it's utterly silent aside from the rustle of wind in the trees, a haunting sound that causes madness if listened to for too long.
Huntsmen: Huntsmen in her service are always on the lookout for those trying to dabble in the occult, often with no true understanding, and lure them in with offers of greater knowledge.
Fetches: Fetches left behind are quiet, withdrawn individuals who move through life without complaint but with a certain apathy.
Former Denizens: Laura 'Hyena' Walker, Tonya Brooks