Changeling

Resources

• Changeling: Savage Dreams - This is the main rulebook for the Savage Worlds conversion of Changeling.
• The Waters and the Wild - A collection of additional playable changelings, including Hsien (fae of East Asia), Inanimae (elemental fae of nature), and Nunnehi (Native American fae).
• Character Sheet for Changeling: Savage Dreams

Setting Rules

Character Creation Rules

▼ Language Proficiency

Using this rule, the Language skill measures a character’s overall understanding of communication patterns rather than a specific language.

Each language is a proficiency of the Language skill, granting +2 to Language rolls to speak or understand it. In some settings, entire language families might be used as proficiencies.

Acquiring a new language proficiency costs the same as raising a skill below its linked Attribute. So, during character creation, a language proficiency costs 1 skill point. After character creation, an Advance can grant two new language proficiencies, or a new language proficiency and increase a skill below its linked Attribute.

Native Language: A character does not need the Language skill to speak or understand their native language. Any time a roll is needed involving their native tongue, roll the higher of their Language or Common Knowledge skills at +2 (counteracting the -2 penalty if they lack the proficiency).

When using this rule, the Linguist Edge adds +2 to all Language rolls. Furthermore, any time a Linguist uses an Advance on a Language proficiency, they gain two languages.

▼ More Skill Points

Thanks to technology and improved education, characters in modern and futuristic settings have 15 skill points at character creation rather than 12. This helps them take Driving, Electronics, and other skills common in the modern world.

General Rules

▼ Conviction

Conviction is a special award granted when a character experiences a great victory or catastrophic misfortune.

Conviction can be spent to add a d6 to all a character’s Trait and damage totals until the beginning of their next turn. This die can Ace, and its result is added to the final total.

Conviction tokens aren’t Bennies and can’t be used as such. They are kept between sessions, however.

A character may maintain Conviction from round to round by spending a Benny (at the start of their turn, before it runs out). Once Conviction lapses, however, the effect ends.

▼ Downtime

When the Game Master decides there’s “downtime” (generally a few days to a week), you can choose one of the following activities. Each provides a benefit of some sort, from financial rewards to progress in crafting or rerolls on select Traits. Narrate what your hero is doing then follow the instructions under each activity. Some Game Masters might also require characters spend money on Lifestyle (Fantasy Companion, page 50) during Downtime.

Unless an option says otherwise, its effect may only be gained once regardless of how long the downtime lasts. The options are as follows (see the Fantasy Companion for full details):

• Carouse: Spending time socializing with friends, making new ones, or cementing relationships with contacts. Spend money in exchange for a favor.
• Center: Focus on what brings happiness (e.g. quality time with friends, riding a favorite horse, painting, reading, writing, courting a romantic interest, etc.). Gain Conviction.
• Earn: Go get paid!
• Enchant: Create magic items. Requires Artificer Edge.
• Train: Practice a skill to gain a free reroll for an entire encounter.
• Research: Gain temporary use of a new power or reveal information.
• Rest: Recover Wounds or gain Conviction.

▼ Dynamic Backlash

A Critical Failure on an arcane skill check does not automatically result in Fatigue. Instead, roll on the Dynamic Backlash table (Savage Worlds, page 138).

▼ Team Bonding

Sometimes it is important to emphasize the bond shared between friends. When the heroes form a committed team of some kind — a superhero league, a werewolf pack, a detective agency, a rebel cell, etc. — they may share Bennies as per the rules for the Common Bond Edge.

Benefiting from your teammates Bennies means actually working as a team. If a character has a penchant for going off alone or ignoring team plans, the GM should suspend the Team Bonding benefit until they learn to work with their comrades.

If Team Bonding is used, characters with the Common Bond Edge can share Bennies (including receiving them) even with characters they cannot communicate with.

▼ Villainous Conviction

Villains get Bennies, but at a much slower rate, and while they can be given Conviction if the Game Master desires, it’s not something they earn quite as easily as player characters.

This Setting Rule reinforces that villains do, in fact, get Conviction, helps the Game Master understand when to award it to them, and adds a powerful new ability to even the odds against meddling heroes.

Gaining Conviction

Villains gain Conviction any time they Incapacitate, or capture an important character (GM’s call, but always includes player characters), accomplish some significant part of their scheme, or undergo a major tragedy or triumph.

In the course of play, this means villains gain Conviction as they accomplish their goals, kidnap Dependents, make off with treasures, or destroy some hated target—even if it’s “off-camera.” That lets them start a scene with Conviction, which is another incentive the heroes have for thwarting their plans.

This should usually be visible to the players when they encounter the villain so they know what they’re up against.

Villainous Effects

Villains gain one additional effect when they play Conviction besides the usual d6 bonus to their actions and damage (see Savage Worlds)—they become Unstoppable! This helps even lone villains last a bit longer against those annoying super teams.

Combat Rules

▼ Cinematic Ammo

Sometimes it’s more important to keep the action flowing than to track how many bullets are left in a gun.

To keep things fast, furious, and fun, all modern and futuristic ranged weapons are assumed to have enough ammunition for the scene.

Certain circumstance can cause a weapon to run out of ammo, jam, or overheat. An action is then required to reload, unjam, or heat-sink the weapon. Such maintenance will be required:

• On any Shooting roll that results in a Critical Failure.
• On a Shooting roll with a Rate of Fire 2 or higher and any Shooting die results in a 1.
• The GM spends a Benny specifically to cause a player character’s weapon to run out of ammo or malfunction.

▼ Creative Combat

A successful Test (Savage Worlds, page 108) works as usual, but if a Wild Card character succeeds with a raise while in combat, their foe is not automatically Shaken—they rolls on the Creative Combat table instead (Savage Worlds, page 137).

▼ Death & Defeat

In some settings, death is a rare occurrence. This options reflects a more narrative fate for great heroes who fall in battle.

When a hero is Incapacitated by lethal damage, they make an immediate Vigor roll and check the results below (don’t use the regular Incapacitation rules in Savage Worlds).

• Critical Failure: The character is not Incapacitated but instead goes out in a Blaze of Glory (see below).
• Failure: The hero is Incapacitated and Defeated (see below).
• Success: The character is Incapacitated and Injured. Roll on the Injury Table in Savage Worlds. The Injury goes away once all Wounds are healed.
• Raise: The character is Incapacitated, but a Healing roll at −2 gets them up and fighting on the next round (with all their Wounds as usual).

Blaze of Glory

Great heroes and villains should have memorable and desperate dooms.

When a hero Critically Fails their Vigor roll due to Incapacitation, they're awarded a point of Conviction and three Bennies. These should be used sparingly, as they are the character’s insurance for lasting the rest of the session until their chosen moment arrives. All effects of the attack that triggered Blaze of Glory are completely negated. This includes being Shaken.

At any point during the remainder of the session, the character may spend that point of Conviction to perform the amazing feat that will result in their death. The Game Master should make this moment as memorable and epic as possible. After the character’s Conviction bonus expires (remember, they can spend Bennies to prolong it), they die, hopefully having taken out some of their adversaries or accomplished a significant goal with their sacrifice.

Of course the Game Master may always work with the player to simply narrate some dramatic and purposeful end rather than gaming it out.

Death isn’t usually permanent in comics. If the player and Game Master want the hero to come back, they can—perhaps transformed with new or altered powers. With the GM’s permission, you may alter a returning character’s profile or create it from scratch. Such a return should be suitably melodramatic. Exactly when and how this happens is up to the GM and the player, but it should be a significant and memorable event in the campaign.

Defeated

The hero is beaten and bloodied but will live to fight another day. They must choose one of the following results:

• Go out in a Blaze of Glory (see above).
• Roll on the Injury Table in Savage Worlds. The injury is permanent.
• Lose one step in an Attribute.
• Lose an Edge.
• Gain a Major Hindrance, perhaps reflecting a permanent mental or physical injury from the fight.

▼ High Adventure

Characters can spend a Benny to gain the one-time use of a Combat Edge. They have to meet the Rank and any Edge requirements as usual but can ignore Trait requirements. Multiple Bennies can be spent in one round for multiple Edges, either for different effects or in order to meet a needed requirement to gain another Edge.

▼ Wound Cap

Characters can never suffer more than four Wounds in a single hit and therefore never have to Soak more than four wounds either.

Large Creatures: The Wound Cap applies even to creatures with more than three Wounds (due to their Scale or the Resilient/Very Resilient Special Ability). A Huge creature that can take five Wounds, for example, can’t take more than four from a single attack, so it can’t normally be killed with a single attack. The GM can always overrule this in specific and obvious situations, of course, such as massive blasts, falling from towering cliffs or mountains, etc.

Dramatis Personae

• Changeling Cast (All)
• Changeling Cast by Affiliation
• Changeling Cast by Ancestry
• Changeling Cast by Court
• Changeling Cast by Status

Lore

• Changeling Primer
• The Escheat
• The Nunnehi
• Timeline

Locations

Kingdom of Pacifica

• County of Brightshore
• Duchy of Goldengate

Kingdom of Willows

• County of the Big Easy
• Duchy of Cotton
• Duchy of the Delta Crescent

References

• Glyph Symbology
• Pronunciation Guide for Changeling
• Rules Quick-Reference

Galleries

• Character Icons for Changeling
• Character Portraits for Changeling
• Glyphs for Changeling
• House Crests for Changeling
• Images for Changeling

Campaigns

Campaign	Summary
All That Jazz	Odette Mercier goes through her chrysalis shortly after her grandmother's funeral during her first Mardi Gras. Family history and mystery complicates the matter.
On the Boardwalk	The safety of the Santa Cruz boardwalk rests in the hands of…a pooka?
Immortal Eyes	A motley of San Francisco Kithain just wanted to make movies…but they're about to make history.

Character Page Tags

Changeling characters should be tagged according to the guidelines below. Anything in <angle brackets> is a variable specific to the character.

Tag	Use for:	Examples
character	All characters.
<character-name>	All characters. As it appears in page name.	blue, whisp, amaltheia-lovejoy
seeming:<seeming>	All fae.	seeming:childling, seeming:wilder, seeming:grump
kith:<kith>	All Kithain and Nunnehi.	kith:boggan, kith:pooka, kith:sidhe-arcadian
calling:<calling>	All Menehune.	calling:ali'i, calling:hana
ancestry:fae	All fae
ancestry:<fae-type>	All fae	ancestry:kithain, ancestry:thallain, ancestry:inanimae
ancestry:mortal	All humans, with or without powers.
ancestry:kinain	All Kinain.
ancestry:chimera	All chimera.
ancestry:prodigal	All Prodigals.
ancestry:<prodigal-type>	All Prodigals.	ancestry:vampire, ancestry:werewolf
ancestry:ghost	All ghosts.
court:<court>	All Kithain.	court:seelie, court:unseelie
camp:<camp>	All Nunnehi and Menehune	camp:summer, camp:feast
status:<status>	All fae.	status:noble, status:commoner, status:outsider
affiliation:house-<house>	All nobles and retainers of a house.	affiliation:house-dougal, affiliation:house-ailil
affiliation:<group>	Membership in a given group or faction.	affiliation:shadow-court, affiliation:crystal-circle, affiliation:ranters
affiliation:none	Unaffiliated with any major group/faction.
location:<location>	Anyone associated with a particular place.	location:new-orleans, location:santa-cruz
epic-powers	Characters with Epic Power Modifiers.
campaign:<campaign-title>	Characters connected to a given campaign.	campaign:immortal-eyes, campaign:quest-for-dreams-lost
wip	Work in progress (unfinished page).