2Table of Contents

table of ContentsintroduCtion 3

field of honor 5

book 1: the War of hazels Weeping 9Families 10Cernach 11Jeannine “Flidas” Martin 13Aidan o’Connal 15Fianna 18Geanann 19Evelyn apScathach 22Nathracha 25Bmidele “Aoibheall” Durand 27Granny Glastic 29Seasons 32

book 2: the invisible people 35Yolking the Wave 36Merits 37Halo of the Moon 37

K I T H B O O K Faun

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3 Kithbook Faun

What am i reading?

This book follows the story of a lost kith. The fauns never quite found a place among the Kithain (and later the Concordians). The Sundering saw their cultures targeted by Roman colonization. The Shattering birthed a supernatural genocide against those fauns, losing their lands and Dreamers. The faun families were forgotten by the Autumn World. Pushed to the brink of extinction by the twin forces of Banality and the newly ascendant Kithain political alliance there was little place in the Interregnum world for them. Returning to a world sha-ken by the Resurgence the fauns were barely noticed by the Kithain commoners until the sidhe granted them citizenship and titles in the new Concordian kingdom. Despite this act of largess the tensions between the fauns and House Liam were left unaddressed and drove many fauns to reject the courts altogether and again become solstice fae.

Kithbook: Faun is a passion project that evolved out of the work Victor and I did on the Walking Away from Arcadia podcast. Changeling: the Dreaming’s Concordia narrative is a story about cyclical colonization--the Euro-pean changelings, the Kithain, came to North America with the white settlers and colonized Turtle Island and its

Dreaming. Years later the sidhe returned and fought a war against the commoners to colonize America’s Dreaming.

While the canonical story of colonization should be a pillar of the Concordian metaplot (and there are two sourcebooks on the topic [War in Concordia, and Fool’s Luck: Way of the Commoner]) the narrative lacks reso-nances with the real world it’s meant to be commenting upon. The Resurgence War coincides with the occupation of Alcatraz by Indians of All Tribes, as well as the Civil Rights Movement, yet the groups at the hearts of these movements are ignored or dealt with in ways that shove them to the side and centers white culture instead. Unfor-tunately, this is a tendency that continues into the 20th anniversary edition of Changeling: the Dreaming. While I would love to see official and fan-made material for Changeling: the Dreaming expanding upon (and, honestly, rewriting) Native American changelings and their history, African American changelings who live in the shadow cast by the slave trade, Japanese changelings who lived through internment, the Chinese changelings who built the railroads, etc, etc, ad infinitum--These books aren’t for me to write.

My two hopes with Kithbook: Faun are that it pro-vides some material and story hooks for storytellers and players looking to expand and complicate the Concordian storyline, and that it provides inspiration for writers more appropriate than I to carve some narrative space out of

IntroductIon

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4Introduction

Changeling: the Dreaming for their own stories about their experience with colonization and minority life in America (and hopefully make names and a few bucks for themselves selling those stories on the Storyteller Vault). The plot in this book deals with some of my personal long-standing questions about how the satyrs, trolls, and eshu are assimilated into the mostly Irish Kithain with no real explanation or investigation into what must have been a complicated, messy process.

Field of Honour is a short story introducing a loya-list faun showcasing one of the optional new rules for manipulating the mists.

Book I: The War of Hazels Weeping introduces the contentious history of faun and satyr, the Roman colonization of Gaul, and how these cultural forces came to a head during the Shattering. Including plot hooks for emphasizing that the needs of the Shattering made everyone a little bit monstrous. Kith information for three different families of Celtic-inspired antlered changelings is provided, as well as the ways they, as a primarily European Gallain group, think of the world they find themselves in. Included in each family description are two prefabricated character templates

Book II: The Invisible People details an optional mists rule expansion that resonates with the themes of the faun kith. The topic of mists swells has been lightly touched on in official Changeling: the Dreaming material--speci-fically referring to Samhain. The Invisible People rules deal with times and situations in which the force of the mists is stronger than it is generally thought of as being in post-resurgence Concordia. While originally written for an Interregnum setting, the Mists Rising rules create scenarios in which changelings are operating in a slightly more hostile Autumn World and have the opportunity to find succour and antagonize each other in dramati-cally interesting ways. This system is useful for tables that want to delve a little deeper into Changeling: the Dreaming’s capacity to simulate the experience of being an invisible minority.

Finally, the appendix includes a martial art meant to fill the gaps left by making Dragon’s Ire into a proper art in Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition and a couple of merits that play off the ideas introduced earlier.

Yeah, but WhY?Regional kiths are a step forward in making Chan-

geling: the Dreaming more playable for people who want to get out of the European focus, but they have a serious

problem; All the baseline kiths are described in very Eu-ropean terms. By making regional kiths sub-types of these “default” Euro-kiths, we’re engaging in assimilationist, or white-washing, behavior. Just dealing with the problems presented by forcing non-European changelings into the very Euro-centric seelie/unseelie Court and Legacy systems requires way more effort than most storytellers and players want to put in.

Why are the satyrs a part of the very Celtic grouping the Kithain mostly represent? Sidhe, sluagh, boggan, clurichaun, selkie, and redcap are all Celtic creatures. Satyr, eshu and troll are the odd men out. Why are they in this group? The backstory here for faun attempts to fill in how the satyrs entered into the greater kithain alliance during the European shattering.

I’ve wanted for a while to start addressing the pro-blems created by forcing all changelings from all cultures into the European mold, but was unsure how to do so without “breaking other peoples’ toys”, as it were. I could try to write kiths for peri and and orisha and yokai, but honestly I’d be doing it as a white guy raised mostly within white culture. As careful as I might try to be I wouldn’t be able to tap the proper cultural resonance. Even assuming the level of cultural sensitivity we should all aspire to, there’re plenty of white writers out there already--As much as I think appropriately constructed non-European changelings need to be brought into the game, I’d much rather that space be filled by non-white writers.

All that said, the stories of Cernnunos and Conall Cernach and the House of Donn are a part of my culture, and they don’t have kiths that properly reflect them in Changeling: The Dreaming. The faun kith is my attempt to address some of the problems of colonization and whitewashing without forcing my way uninvited into someone else’s house. Of course, my own experience as a queer man colors the way I chose to write the fauns as much as my experience of learning old faerie stories.

One of my absolute favorite ideas to come out of Walking Away from Arcadia was our Queer Themes conversation guest’s idea of using “solidarity moments” to create drama and reinforce a character’s fae self against banality. The Invisible People systems are meant to create more nuanced ways to interact with both changelings’ and mortals’ ability and inability to perceive chimerical reality.Sample

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5 Kithbook Faun

Introducing,” the doorman called. “Flamme d’Aubigny, Baronet of the Field of Crimson Flow-ers.”The young man’s voile were a set of frilly pants

and vest that Evelyn could not decide on the symbol-ism of. They evoked either flame or flower. Perhaps both? Evelyn subdued her excitement, lest it disrupt the masque of the new moon. She watched with practiced indifference as D’Aubigny flowed through the ballroom, straight to the duchess.

Duchess Trelane stood at her husband the duke’s side picking at her dress. Meanwhile the duke and his sycophants exchanged banal pleasantries. No one noticed d’Aubigny until he had swept up the duchess in a passionate embrace.

The duchess paired a very ladylike “Have we met?” with a very un-ladylike martial take-down.

The ballroom entire fell to silence.Standing, d’Aubigny quipped, “Our eyes met across

the floor, daughter of the Morrigan, and I knew I must have you.”

“You dare!” the duchess slapped him.The duke, as demanded by etiquette, stepped in.“How dare you humiliate my wife, sir!””The insult I delivered is less than that you’ve given

me, Trelane,” d’Aubigny stood unflinching as his cheek began to redden from the slap.

The duke looked d’Aubigny up and down, “I do not recognize you, sir.”

While the upstart and the duke circled each other, Evelyn moved through the crowd to the duchess’ side.

Field oF Honour

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