Changeling - Players Guide.pdf

But the sidhe's edict didn't sit so well with their "subjects."
The trolls were the first to revolt, and then the nockers.
Ah, the blood spilt, the bones broken, the brains splattered!
Almost as good as we could've done! The fae war spilled into
the mortal realms, and the mortals' horror in those days...
Oh, lads, nine-course Glamour-feasts for us every night, it
was. Finally, the mortals could take no more, and their dreams
cried out to separate themselves from the sidhe tyrants. And
thus began that time called the Sundering, when the sidhe's
deceit-woven constructs began detaching themselves from
the mortals' realm. (Aye, in these days of parley and truce, we
talk a fair game about reuniting Earth and Arcadia. That's all
crap, lads. We'll make the Dreaming ours and stuff Arcadia
down the sidhe's skinny arses.)
During those days, many of the servitor fae joined us as
vassals, pledging themselves to our task of wiping out the
sidhe and trolls once and for all. You know they don't call it
"Unseelie" for naught, lads. Unseelie — the Shadow Court
- the Hidden Rememberers — all those who swore to
remain free from the sidhe's yoke. From the caverns and
moors we launched an unending campaign to free the Dreaming
from those who would stifle it. Even a few sidhe, disgusted
with the tyranny of their brethren, joined us.
Oh, how we tarnished their Golden Age! From the
mortals' nightmares we fashioned all manner of servants —
the Cainites, who scourge the world to this night (Caine, as
all fae know, was a redcap of yore); the Lupines, whose noble
efforts to save humanity from its poisons rack up a body count
impressive even by our standards; the mages, who in their
quest to better the world spawn everything from pestilence to
genocide... I could go on and on. One horror after another we
introduced into the world, and the terrified screams of the
mortals were our wine and sweetmeats.
You see, fear is the key to power, lads. Death is nothing
— the tyrants'll just come back in the bodies of their seemings'
brats. But fear — ah, now, there's a weapon. Paralyze the
mind, paralyze the dreams, aye? When Their Highnesses are
too terrified even to dream, then all their sorcery turns to
rotting nightmares... and who is said to be spawned of
nightmares, eh?
Aye, we took to our task with abandon! During the
Sundering, the time others call the Mythic Age, how the
peasants feared us! Even the nobles knew to stay indoors on
certain nights of the year. For every tawdry wonder the sidhe
and their slaves concocted, we fashioned a thousand terrors
for the mortals' edification. The mortals whispered stories of
our atrocities, and so powerful did we become that we even
besieged a few of their border castles. From these strongholds
our corbies sallied forth by night against mortal and fae alike.
Finally, of course, the Tuatha De Danaan could take no
more, and ran mewling back to the land from whence they'd
come. 'Course, things were a bit tough for us in those days,
too, since the mortals were becoming so dull they didn't even
have enough imagination for nightmares.
Times were lean for a while, lads, though we filled our
bellies more than most fae. Finally, Banality grew so heavy that
all fae — redcap and boggan, troll and nocker, Seelie and
Unseelie, even the ragtag remnants of the sidhe — had to unite
or perish. But through it all, we never forgot the real war.
That war continues still, lads, though the sidhe of these
days fancy we're all for one and one for all against dread
Banality. Nightly the Shadow Court waxes ascendant. Nightly
the jaws of nightmare clench tighter. Every prison riot, every
"homeland," every drive-by, every "ethnic cleansing," every
landfill — it comes, lads! Can you not taste it? That bite on the
wind — it's a harbinger of the coming Fimbulwinter. Even
the Prodigals whisper of it, though they christen it "Gehenna"
or "Apocalypse" or what have you. Soon the sidhe and the
trolls and all the rest will fall, and out will go the sun, and then
we'll go a-merrily, merrily huntin' across the entire world.
Then into this world of darkness will come the New Dark
Age, when all will be a world of nightmare once more, and in
the tempest of our hate and fear we will rule in splendor and
glory forever.
Courts
Not only do most redcaps belong to the Shadow Court,
but (according to their legends) redcaps are responsible for
the Unseelie Court's existence. The fact that few redcaps
actually hold positions of great rank within the Unseelie
seems to make little difference to them (though pointing it
out to a redcap is a sure way to incite a brawl).
Redcaps carry the Unseelie Court's agenda one step
further. Born as they are from nightmares, many redcaps view
the infamous Nightmare Realms not as a hell, but as a savage,
primal paradise — a place where their way of life is not only
tolerated but lauded. These redcaps actively seek to twist
humanity's dreams to vistas of dread, thereby increasing the
Nightmare Realms' incursion into the material sphere.
Seelie redcaps (and there are a few) have a tough time of
it. Not only are they distrusted by those fae with whom they
have chosen to ally, but they are virtual pariahs within their
own kith. To redcaps, the Seelie are mawkish usurpers and
corrupters of the world's natural state, and redcaps who ally
with them are no better. Seelie redcaps fanatically, almost
frantically, uphold the Escheat and the Seelie codes.
Hurt Couture
Weaponry for redcaps is more ornamental than utilitarian.
After all, when one can devour anything living, dead or
in between, one has little need of killing tools.
This is not to say that redcap weaponry is not destructive;
on the contrary, redcaps are infamous for the carnage
they spread. It's just that, for redcaps, the fear a weapon
induces and the gore it produces are more important than the
actual lethality of the tool. (Indeed, redcaps like their prey to
linger a bit....) A stiletto in the kidneys, while certainly