Character Creation Intro

For a simplified outline of the character creation steps, see Character Creation Simplified.

Character backstory is an important part of a good World of Darkness game. Not only does it flesh out your character and give you a better handle on how to portray them in-game, it can also provide a wealth of interesting story hooks to the Storyteller to tie the game together and get your character more involved. Changeling: the Lost in particular cares a fair amount about certain parts of a character's history.

Keep in mind that, for story purposes, you can have your character not recall parts of their backstory. The less you include yourself, the more the Storyteller can make up to fill in the blanks, surprising you with plot twists.

Abduction, Captivity, and Escape
Just like any New World of Darkness game, you start out human. Your transformation into a changeling kicks off with one of the True Fae taking you to Arcadia, though this can happen in a number of ways.

The most common way, of course, is for the True Fae to come and collect you directly. For one reason or another, one of the Others came through the Hedge, ensnared or seduced you in some way, and carried you back to Arcadia. Another way is for something else — one of the denizens of the Hedge or another changeling — to take you away into the Hedge and sell you to one of the True Fae. A third way is for you to blunder into the Hedge on your own, chasing a child that was taken or stumbling through an active gateway and getting lost, and wandering until found by hobgoblins (and sold) or a True Fae (and taken to Arcadia).

This leads into your durance, or captivity. Most changelings recall very little of their durance beyond brief flashes and emotions — usually pain and fear, but occasionally pleasure or contentment depending on the whims of their Keepers. Your durance will help determine what your seeming and kith are, based on what role your Keeper had you play. For example, a changeling forced to be a living candle could end up as an Elemental, while a changeling forced to scrabble in tunnels could be a Darkling and a changeling taken to be a lover or entertainer could be a Fairest.

As the last step into your transition into playable character, you escaped from Arcadia. Whether you snuck out while your Keeper was otherwise distracted, brute-forced your way through guards and gates, or tricked your Keeper into letting you go somehow, you managed to get out and return to the Hedge. What enabled you to make it from the Hedge back to the mortal world were the memories of your home or the place where you were taken.

And this brings up an important note: while the Others can take a person of any age from any time period, not all of those abductees are able to return to the world of their birth. Children taken too young don't have strong enough memories to lead them back (and may be too used to Arcadia after growing up in it), while those taken more than 100 years ago have memories that no longer match the mortal world — things have changed too much. Such escapees end up lost in the Hedge. For this campaign, please create characters taken sometime after the age of 10 and within the past 75 years or so.

Life after Arcadia
For story reasons, all of the player characters escaped from Arcadia on the same night, using mirrors as the gateway through which you left the Hedge. What kind of mirror and where is up to you — dressing room mirror in a department store, bathroom mirror in a hotel, mirrored ceiling in an elevator, vanity mirror in a vacant-but-furnished house, and so on.

Time flows strangely in Arcadia. While it's very likely that your durance and your time missing from the mortal world line up (or close enough to count), it's also possible that your character returns older or younger than they should be. Having your durance and missing time match has both the benefit and drawback of your fetch being the same age as you. While you can try to slip right back into your mortal life, you also have a fae doppelganger to contend with. Coming back older or younger than you should be brings up the story element of people not recognizing you, making it easier to build a new life while also more traumatizing at the loss of the old one. If your time in Arcadia passed quickly relative to the mortal world, you risk people you knew and loved being dead and gone; if it passed much more slowly, your loved ones won't believe this 40-year-old man is their 10-year-old son.

Your escape falls just under one month prior to the first game session. This gives you some backstory time to try to get back on your feet and adjust to your new circumstances. Some ideas for things you might do in those four weeks include obtaining a new identity (merit), obtaining new lodgings, trying to track down your fetch, learning about changeling life (including the Courts, should you choose to join one), and getting a handle on your newfound powers.

Your Fetch
Your fetch is the magically-crafted Fae construct meant to replace you in the mortal world so that your loved ones wouldn't notice your disappearance (and thus stir up a lot of trouble for the True Fae). As a reflection of you, it can be uncannily perfect as a copy, or it can (more likely) lack something of you in it. Whether it lacks your creativity or your stubbornness, your flair for the dramatic or your penchant for misbehavior, something is just a little bit different. Often this makes the change a worse person than you (such as the ambitious-but-honest grad student who comes back to find her fetch is a cheater who bribed her way into a 4.0 by sleeping with the professor), but your fetch might just turn out a bit better (such as the troubled, rebellious teenager who returns to find his fetch is polite, obedient, and a model student).

Your fetch is an NPC, but you get to have some input in its creation if you want. This can be as little as telling me what's missing from it and what role you want it to play, or as much as giving me some idea of the direction the fetch's life took after it replaced you. Related to this, you can opt to not remember your pre-abduction name, giving me the freedom to introduce family members without you realizing who they are.

Fetches can play several roles in the story, and you can provide some input as to what role you'd like. The usual roles are target, adversary, foil, and sympathetic. Alternatively, your fetch may already be deceased for one reason or another. You're welcome to come up with alternate roles and pass them by me for approval.
 * A fetch as a target exists to be killed, either by you or someone you hire. The fetch may be sympathetic or not, wholly amoral or a saint or anything in between, but you plan to take it out as part of your story.
 * A fetch as an adversary takes a more active role. They sit squarely on the list of antagonists, actively working against you (and probably your motley). Dealing with them should become integral to your personal tale.
 * A fetch as foil is very much like you, but made different choices in life. The key to this role is the feeling of “there but for the grace of God go I.” This type of fetch frequently makes changelings wonder which is the reality and which the faerie-made copy, leading to a story of personal clarity.
 * A sympathetic fetch takes the fetch away from the antagonist list, rather than toward it. Relationships with the fetch are still likely to be rocky at best, as changeling society and the fetch's own nature work against you, but this option does present the potential for a “friendlier” fetch.

Or your fetch might just be dead already. Maybe you killed it in that first month back from Arcadia. Maybe it sickened and died while you were gone, or was killed by another changeling. Maybe there never was a fetch in the first place. For whatever the reason, the fetch is not an issue. Now, instead of the story potential of reclaiming your life from your replacement, you have to deal with the world believing you are no longer among the living.

Suggestions for Character Creation
Inspiration for your character can come from anywhere. Changeling deals a lot in fairy tales, but you can also draw from myths and legends (including urban legends), alien abductions, mysterious disappearances (such as Roanoke, the Mary Celeste, or the Bermuda Triangle), and even certain ghost stories (such as the tales where someone goes into a haunted house and never returns; these stories make for great Darkling inspiration). Your character might also grow from an idea for an interesting durance, or even just a seeming and kith that strike your fancy. Don't feel like you have to stick to known tales. You're more than welcome to make up a new tale just for your character.