[Changeling] From the desk of an Old ST
What follows is a piece of the 5 year plotkit I ran as local VST until I burned out, just a little bit of setting information I wrote to add some flavor and touches to the mechanics of plot. Most players never explored enough to get at these details, but it stands as one of my all time favorite pieces of plotkitting for venue settings and to explain some of the odd things (such as an Insane dreaming) I was handed when the previous VST quit and left almost no notes. Posting it as I'm a touch nostalgic (a better word than the more honest Melancholy) over 'Ling and what it ultimately shaped up to be for me and since there is no longer a local venue it won't hurt to post this.
Once, there were peoples in this land who never knew the tread of the Caucasian. They never knew the tread of the Hopi or the Apache. They were a people between Dreams, somewhere between the First Dreams of the Inanimae - the dreams of the very world itself and the Dreams that would become the Nunnehi - the dreams of the native americans with their spirit kin- and the 'Western' Fae that would appear even without the interventions of the Europeans.
But like all things, all Dreams, they end and sometimes the Sleeper wakens violently. And so this Dream that Was Not ended in fire and battle, fighting those things from the edge of the Dream and World that crave life and light and dreams for they have none of those things themselves. At first they were stealthy, slipping into the world of Life and Dreams to steal a little of the light for themselves. But time passed and they warped the world around them, because they could never hold to the light they stole, for it was alien to them. And as it ran away from them, like sand between their fingers they clenched harder and pushed more and corrupted others to their wills so that they could have helpers to feed their endless hungers.
When the Shaping War came, when Inanimae warred against Inanimae, the People of the Dream that Was Not sided with their kin and allies and friends. And their People were torn apart by the war. And that which fed on their Light and Dreams hungered endlessly and its dread hand reached out and took more, pouring gas onto an already terrible war.
Inanimae, and some of the oldest Fae who remember yet, tell of the shattering of the City of Brass and the Glomes that tore down the Solimonds for the crime of Caring Too Much and being Too Curious. The Crime of giving Fire to mankind.
What even most Inanimae do not speak of is how that war tore down another People. A people that unlike the Solimonds did not scatter but simply vanished.
The Anasazi, as they came to be known by the later peoples who knew them only truly in Shaman memory, paid the ultimate price to stop the endless hungers of those things That Were Not. The Nothing that craved Light it could never keep or understand tore them apart, kith and kin, house and home while the last long years of the Shaping War raged on. Until they made the choice to stop the Nothing, as they could not stop the Shaping War or the tide of time. As one people, with the help Inanimae who came from Before and paused in their war to fulfill one last promise to the Dream that Never Was; helped by those who would become the Dreams of the Nunnehi and the native born Fae they moved all that had been touched and warped back into the Nothing at the edges of the World and Dream. They worked their magics and sacrificed their Dream to not just destroy or seal way but remove entirely everything they had been and were and would be, so they could stop the Nothing. An entire People, an Entire Dream given over to NOTHING so that what existed in the darkness of Nothing could not triumph.
Long years past and the Inanimae slumbered and the Nunnehi grew into their dreams. But all around where the Anasazi used to live the Dream warped still, from the terrible saddness of an entire People going to Nothing. The bittersweet grief of doing the right thing, even though it meant oblivion and dissolution of what they were and could be, for they could not remove the memories of the Earth itself or those who helped and lived on. And the Nunnehi prospered and told old tales until even the Nunnehi and their Spirits forgot the exact details and told only of the People Who Came Before. And so that saddness lived on, fueled and fed by half remembered stories and the pain of the World and Dream at what had been lost.
Then came the Caucasians and their Banality.
Then came the Concordance War.
And the bitter saddness ripped the Dream apart, plunging the land into chaos and madness that only Banality kept at bay. The Irony that the very thing that would doom the Dreaming in Winter was what kept destruction at the hands of Madness away now a cold solace. The Near Dreaming was crazed, shifting and changing as pure Wyld fought with itself. The Superstition Mountains became their name, spawning nervosa and nightmare with dangerous ease. But even a Dream, given over to Nothing, cannot truly ever be said to be totally gone, until Winter itself settles its icy chill on the world.
The bitter saddness had a point of Light, for it was a reflection of the right thing, a gamble on fate that it would work out and that the cost was worth it. And as the years had turned, each individual had fed into the manifestations until finally it had a form and purpose.
Of red eyed cows he saw,
A-plowin' through the ragged skies
And up a cloudy draw.
Their brands were still on fire and
Their hooves were made of steel,
Their horns were black and shiny and
Their hot breath he could feel,
A bolt of fear shot through him as
He looked up in the sky,
For he saw the riders comin' hard
And he heard their mournful cry.
Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred,
Their shirts all soaked with sweat,
They're riding hard to catch that herd,
But they ain't caught 'em yet,
'cause they've got to ride forever on
That range up in the sky,
On horses snortin' fire, as
They ride on hear their cry.
Whenever chance was hanging by a thread, whenever fate left two paths opposed, whenever time of great importance arose the herd and its riders would thunder through the skys at the forefront of the Glamour Storm - the yearly monsterous thunderstom that ripped through the desert and set it to bloom and permitted life in dry and dusty Sonora.
A herd of cattle and its riders, shaped by the dreams and wishes of all the Cowboys who never made it home from that last drive, that last push. Shaped of every time one folded in cards for the last time, when one bet it all unwisely hoping for the break. Shaped by their sad tales by the campfire and all the men who were buried in the desert that claimed their lives and blood. A herd that rides, and its eternal chasers, seeking a way to bring back what was lost and warn those who lived on of the price paid by those who knew the meaning of Right.
Look well, young Fae. If you see them thunder across the sky, pause and mourn the Dream that Never Was and beware, for fate is a fickle bitch and if you don't ride carefully in times that make them ride, yours will be a dream that ends too soon as well.
Once, there were peoples in this land who never knew the tread of the Caucasian. They never knew the tread of the Hopi or the Apache. They were a people between Dreams, somewhere between the First Dreams of the Inanimae - the dreams of the very world itself and the Dreams that would become the Nunnehi - the dreams of the native americans with their spirit kin- and the 'Western' Fae that would appear even without the interventions of the Europeans.
But like all things, all Dreams, they end and sometimes the Sleeper wakens violently. And so this Dream that Was Not ended in fire and battle, fighting those things from the edge of the Dream and World that crave life and light and dreams for they have none of those things themselves. At first they were stealthy, slipping into the world of Life and Dreams to steal a little of the light for themselves. But time passed and they warped the world around them, because they could never hold to the light they stole, for it was alien to them. And as it ran away from them, like sand between their fingers they clenched harder and pushed more and corrupted others to their wills so that they could have helpers to feed their endless hungers.
When the Shaping War came, when Inanimae warred against Inanimae, the People of the Dream that Was Not sided with their kin and allies and friends. And their People were torn apart by the war. And that which fed on their Light and Dreams hungered endlessly and its dread hand reached out and took more, pouring gas onto an already terrible war.
Inanimae, and some of the oldest Fae who remember yet, tell of the shattering of the City of Brass and the Glomes that tore down the Solimonds for the crime of Caring Too Much and being Too Curious. The Crime of giving Fire to mankind.
What even most Inanimae do not speak of is how that war tore down another People. A people that unlike the Solimonds did not scatter but simply vanished.
The Anasazi, as they came to be known by the later peoples who knew them only truly in Shaman memory, paid the ultimate price to stop the endless hungers of those things That Were Not. The Nothing that craved Light it could never keep or understand tore them apart, kith and kin, house and home while the last long years of the Shaping War raged on. Until they made the choice to stop the Nothing, as they could not stop the Shaping War or the tide of time. As one people, with the help Inanimae who came from Before and paused in their war to fulfill one last promise to the Dream that Never Was; helped by those who would become the Dreams of the Nunnehi and the native born Fae they moved all that had been touched and warped back into the Nothing at the edges of the World and Dream. They worked their magics and sacrificed their Dream to not just destroy or seal way but remove entirely everything they had been and were and would be, so they could stop the Nothing. An entire People, an Entire Dream given over to NOTHING so that what existed in the darkness of Nothing could not triumph.
Long years past and the Inanimae slumbered and the Nunnehi grew into their dreams. But all around where the Anasazi used to live the Dream warped still, from the terrible saddness of an entire People going to Nothing. The bittersweet grief of doing the right thing, even though it meant oblivion and dissolution of what they were and could be, for they could not remove the memories of the Earth itself or those who helped and lived on. And the Nunnehi prospered and told old tales until even the Nunnehi and their Spirits forgot the exact details and told only of the People Who Came Before. And so that saddness lived on, fueled and fed by half remembered stories and the pain of the World and Dream at what had been lost.
Then came the Caucasians and their Banality.
Then came the Concordance War.
And the bitter saddness ripped the Dream apart, plunging the land into chaos and madness that only Banality kept at bay. The Irony that the very thing that would doom the Dreaming in Winter was what kept destruction at the hands of Madness away now a cold solace. The Near Dreaming was crazed, shifting and changing as pure Wyld fought with itself. The Superstition Mountains became their name, spawning nervosa and nightmare with dangerous ease. But even a Dream, given over to Nothing, cannot truly ever be said to be totally gone, until Winter itself settles its icy chill on the world.
The bitter saddness had a point of Light, for it was a reflection of the right thing, a gamble on fate that it would work out and that the cost was worth it. And as the years had turned, each individual had fed into the manifestations until finally it had a form and purpose.
Of red eyed cows he saw,
A-plowin' through the ragged skies
And up a cloudy draw.
Their brands were still on fire and
Their hooves were made of steel,
Their horns were black and shiny and
Their hot breath he could feel,
A bolt of fear shot through him as
He looked up in the sky,
For he saw the riders comin' hard
And he heard their mournful cry.
Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred,
Their shirts all soaked with sweat,
They're riding hard to catch that herd,
But they ain't caught 'em yet,
'cause they've got to ride forever on
That range up in the sky,
On horses snortin' fire, as
They ride on hear their cry.
Whenever chance was hanging by a thread, whenever fate left two paths opposed, whenever time of great importance arose the herd and its riders would thunder through the skys at the forefront of the Glamour Storm - the yearly monsterous thunderstom that ripped through the desert and set it to bloom and permitted life in dry and dusty Sonora.
A herd of cattle and its riders, shaped by the dreams and wishes of all the Cowboys who never made it home from that last drive, that last push. Shaped of every time one folded in cards for the last time, when one bet it all unwisely hoping for the break. Shaped by their sad tales by the campfire and all the men who were buried in the desert that claimed their lives and blood. A herd that rides, and its eternal chasers, seeking a way to bring back what was lost and warn those who lived on of the price paid by those who knew the meaning of Right.
Look well, young Fae. If you see them thunder across the sky, pause and mourn the Dream that Never Was and beware, for fate is a fickle bitch and if you don't ride carefully in times that make them ride, yours will be a dream that ends too soon as well.