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0 – 12/03/2020
Canada at Midnight
Changeling: the Dreaming
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Changeling: the Dreaming

Domain Creation Guide
The purpose of this guide is to help you set up and run your County for the ​Changeling: The
Dreaming​ 2020 chronicle.

Shared C@M Venue Rules Regarding Stock Locations

Stock Location Traits:​ May not be taken as Haven Background Advantages.

Distracting: ​Characters can use powers that enhance the senses to pierce Supernatural
powers in a ​Distracting ​location.

Prestige Locations: ​May be controlled by Player Characters at Mid Approval and Global
Notification.

Iconic Locations: ​Reserved for the office of the NCT. Iconic locations that exist in Counties
may be applied for at Global Approval by the VST.

Freeholds:​ Freehold Qualities are selected by the starting Freehold Leader in consultation with
the VST.

Changeling Specific Rules: County Creation

Although you can easily follow the steps below to create your County on your own, just like
making your VSS, the process greatly benefits from the involvement of your players. Solicit
input from them to nail down the basics, and even let them write up descriptions of districts

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and locations, especially if you are going to allow them to start with control over any Stock
Locations.

Districts
First, create ​3-10 Districts​ within your County. Base the number of Districts on the number of
Changelings in your County at chronicle start. While you can choose whatever method you
would like, one suggestion is to start with three and add one for every four Changelings, up to
10 total.

Give each district an appropriate label based on what you want the County to look like:
e.g., Docks, Slums, Suburbia, Business District, Dark Forest, etc. Optionally, give each district
a 1- or 2- sentence description. More flavourful names are fine, as long as they’re descriptive.

Next, ​assign a Banality Rating to each District.​ This represents a variety of things, including
how difficult it is to enter the Dreaming there. The Banality Rating of a District is added to the
difficulty of Epiphany Quests to gather Glamour.

It is recommended that any change to the Banality Rating is processed within the downtime
period between games. Further, if a player fails to log downtime actions and they do not have
a set default downtime on file with the VST, then their downtimes are assumed to be used for
finding sources of Glamour.

Banality Ratings:
10 - Black 5 - Red 0 - a Freehold or the Dreaming
9 - Brown 4 - Orange
8 - Violet 3 - Yellow
7 - Indigo 2 - Dark Green
6 - Blue 1 - Light Green

Stock Locations
Create 4-10 Stock Locations​ (see ​BNS Changeling: The Dreaming​, p. 350 and the ​Holdings,
Stock Locations and Places of Power Guide​) and ​assign 0-2 of these Stock Locations to
each District.​ Furthermore, discuss the Stock Locations that the players would like to have
and their locations. These do not count against the total of 4-10 Stock Locations mentioned
above.

All Stock Locations held by Player Characters begin as Standard Stock Locations. It is
recommended that VSTs create one Level-4 Stock Location, two Level-3, and up to three

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Level-2; the rest would be Level 1. Standard Stock Locations get one Quality per level.
Locations the players control at the start of the game are excluded from this total number of
Stock Locations.

Prestige Locations are available at Low Approval. The Storyteller is encouraged to use these
sparingly, and to highlight the themes of Hope Punk and Winter as creation or approval criteria.

A County may have no more than three Trods.

Baronies
Next, decide how many Districts you have flagged as Baronies you would like to have in your
domain. As stated in other documents, a County may have a maximum of three Baronies.
Determine the number of players who will have the appropriate rank in Title to support a
Barony or Free Town. Determine if the Freeholds (or Glades) in these Baronies will produce
Glamour, or if they are purely social and political in nature.

If a Freehold produces Glamour, it must have the ​Kindled o​ r ​Salubrious ​Stock Location Quality
(see the ​Rules Addendum​). As this is a supernatural Quality, it must then be a Prestige
location.

County Management

Ravaging and Rhapsody

Each Ravaging that occurs in a District increases the district’s Banality rating by 1 per Ravage
for the next month. Fortunately, this is not permanent. For every month in which there is no
Ravaging in a District, the District’s Banality rating lowers by 1 until it returns to its original
level.

Each Rhapsody increases the district’s Banality rating by 1 for the next month, and
permanently increases a District’s Banality rating. This permanently adds +1 (per Rhapsody) to
the District’s default Banality rating for the purposes of Reverie and Ravaging.

The Arts College has a Banality rating of 4. Quest difficulties to gain Glamour are at difficulty of
+4 (7 for Reverie, 8 for Ravaging and 9 for Rhapsody). To lower the rating to 3, 8 successful

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Reverie Quests must be completed in a single month. Assuming no one acts to increase the
Banality rating of the Arts College, only 6 Quests are required to change the rating from 3 to 2.

If two Changelings successfully Ravage in that District, the next month’s Banality rating is 6.
This will affect the difficulty of the Epiphany Quests and the number of Reveries required to
lower the Banality rating. If, one month later, the two Changelings Ravage in that District again,
the Banality rating increases to 8. If, the next month, a Changeling Rhapsodies in that District,
the Banality rating is now 10, and its default Banality rating is 5.

Improving Districts
Characters may permanently adjust a District’s Banality rating up or down one step through a
difficulty 4 Heroic Quest, representing an ongoing investment of time and resources to grow or
crush the District. The number of down time actions required to complete this Quest is
increased by the current permanent Banality rating of the District. This may only occur once
per District. If the Quest fails, no other similar Quests are permitted.

Stock Locations
Stock Locations may be added, destroyed or changed as per the rules in ​BNS Changeling: The
Dreaming​, pp. 350-358.

Duchies
This section outlines rules and practices for Duchies (or a Metropolis). The Duchy is a crucial
multi-Domain, laterally connected political structure to tie local events (at the County level) with
broader Concordian society (the Kingdoms) via a character with 5 dots of Title (or the
Executive,​ in the case of a Metropolis).

The Duchy as a Realm

The Duchy is important, so arrangement of all Duchies involves open communication and
collaboration between multiple STs, local and national.

The Duchy Model

A Duchy consists of multiple Counties, each corresponding to an Out-of-Character Domain.

Ideally, this includes ​two or​ ​three Counties​: the Ducal Seat and one or two additional
Counties. For PC Dukes, this includes the VSS on which the PC Duke is based. Furthermore,
they should be within the same Kingdom, meaning that the games are reasonably close to
each other in geographical terms. This also means that the ideal Duchy involves ​three VSTs​.

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The Duchy as a Personal Union
The Player of the Duke (or Executive)

Per the expectations set for Dukes in ​Feudalism in Modern Concordia: A Player’s Guide to
Nobles and Nobility,​ the player of a Duke PC must commit to being involved in all the Counties
(VSSs) of the Duchy. This does not mean they must attend each and every game, but it does
mean they should show up frequently enough to play a meaningful role in that game and often
show their involvement indirectly (through intermediaries) even when they cannot attend.
Naturally, as game premises vary, some games will be more or less appropriate for the Duke to
play a role. Commitment up front, follow-through as described here, and continued
communication with the VSTs and County leaders of the Duchy are expected from a Duke.

It should be noted that PC Dukes are not sanctioned at game launch, but may be approved
after the start of play.

The VSTs of the Duchy

VSTs whose VSSs are part of a Duchy are expected to work with each other laterally,
communicating via club channels such as e-mail and/or Discord, for the benefit of all the
games they preside over. Although the Duke is based on one VSS (the Ducal Seat), VSTs in
the Duchy are expected to treat a Duke character as a shared asset for their games. At all
times, VSTs within a Duchy should focus on the purpose of the Duchy: to foster meaningful
In-Character interactions within a geographical area and to connect local games to our larger
shared chronicle. This is one of the chief advantages of a large, organized LARP club.

Entering into a Duchal relationship with another VSS should be handled by discussions
between the several local staffs during the planning phase of the Chronicle. Any details
regarding the special history or traditions of the Duchy should be agreed upon by all parties at
that time, and a copy of any such agreement should be logged with the National Team.

That being said, disagreements between Storytellers are expected and, frankly, natural. Keep
the following rules in mind:

(a) An NPC Duke should be made available to any of their VSSs for any session. While
plotlines where the Duke is kidnapped or hiding in his castle are perfectly appropriate,
this sort of behavior should result only from the unanimous agreement of the VSTs.

(b) Any action by the Duke directed at one of their presiding Counties must be approved by
the VST of said County. If this means some actions have to hold a little bit while phone
calls and emails are sent, you’ll be all the better off for it.

(c) In the event that VSTs find they are not in consensus about some issue of the Duke or
the Duchy, then the ideal model of three Counties allows for breaking ties. However,
each VST retains an absolute veto on all actions directed at characters housed in their
own VSS.

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 (d) Out of Character situations can change, and in the event that one VSS wants to break
away from a Duchal arrangement with another game, their VST of course retains the
right to pull their game out of the arrangement after consultation with the National team.

The Presence of the Duchy in Local Games

In addition to the leadership role of the Duke, every County in a Duchy can benefit from the
presence of the Duchy in their local setting in terms of ducal courtiers and ducal estates.

The Court of the Duke

The Ducal court includes Player Characters such as some of the local Nobility. But ducal
courts also allow VSTs to create a variety of standing Non-Player Characters (NPCs) to
facilitate their local games outside of formal court settings. When the Duke is not in
attendance, VSTs can still showcase the presence of the Duchy by means of stewards, knights
errant, or even Kinain relatives of the Duke. VSTs of Counties in a Duchy should sketch out
these pools of NPCs and keep each other informed, as affairs of the court ​will​ travel--that’s all
part of the fun!

Ducal Estates

Stock Locations allow VSTs to represent the Duchy’s presence in the County. This may be
one of the Duke’s personal Freeholds… or their local night club! This is a great way to provide
spaces for local characters to interact.

The Duchy as an Economy

In ​Changeling: The Dreaming​, basically two commodities can be exchanged: Glamour (usually
Dross) and time. In a Duchy (or Metropolis), these can be a large driver for roleplay.

Glamour

Although Concordia currently has no imperial or royal ​scutage​ requiring Kithain to pay Dross up
the fealty chain to the Crown, the practice is not banned. This means that some Counties and
Duchies of Concordia may indeed continue the practice. In many cases, this may be to the
advantage of the Kithain vassals and subjects of the realm, because they can be confident that
part of their Nobles’ job is to gather a stockpile of Dross for the realm and to secure it against
the Banality of the world, so the Kithain can weather Winter, or even another Fomorian War
someday. Thus, ​scutage​ can serve as a major political question for roleplay in a Duchy.

A Duke also has access to another steady supply of Glamour: Balefires. Because Dukes have
access to more Balefires than most Kithain, another boon they can offer their vassals and
subjects is simply time spent at a Balefire under the Duke’s control.

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Time

Under the steady pressure of Winter’s Banality, ​time ​is precious for all Kithain. Thus when a
Kithain commits their precious time to the service of another (see Lending Aid to an Ally, p.
229), it is a meaningful and significant act. When more time and service is committed, usually
by means of an Oath, the value is further magnified.

In a feudal society, leadership is a double-edged sword of responsibility and power. To reflect

the latter, a Freehold Leader (Baron or Mayor) gains +1 Downtime Actions. The greater
authority of a County’s leader (Count or Governor) grants an additional +1 Downtime Action.
Finally, to reflect having hands freed thanks to the numerous courtiers of the Ducal court, the
leader of a Duchy or Metropolis (Duke or Executive) gains an additional +1 Downtime Action.

Final Note
Changeling: The Dreaming​ is about how wonder, imagination, and hope exist in the World of
Darkness for characters whose world and soul are built of them. Day to day, the bulk of that is
personal stories best told at the local level by VSTs for their local players.

But there’s more...

For wonder to exist, grandeur and doom must be on the table. For imagination to exist, we
have to be able to look past our immediate surroundings. For hope to exist, we have to know
that we’re not alone. As the fulcrum connecting characters’ local deeds to the grand political
and mythic themes of the Dreaming, the County and Duchy serve all these purposes and more.