Changeling: The Dreaming

Changeling: The Dreaming

Changeling: The Dreaming 1st edition cover
Designer(s)	1st edition: Mark Rein·Hagen, Sam Chupp, Ian Lemke, Joshua Gabriel Timbrook 2nd edition: Ian Lemke, Jackie Cassada, Brian Campbell, Richard Dansky, Chris Howard, Angel Leigh McCoy, Neil Mick, Nicky Rea
Publisher(s)	White Wolf
Publication date	June 1, 1995 (1st edition) August 1, 1997 (2nd edition)
Genre(s)	Personal Fantasy
System(s)	Storyteller System

Changeling: The Dreaming was part of White Wolf Game Studio's original "World of Darkness" role playing game line. Player characters are changelings, fae souls reborn into human bodies, a practice begun by the fae to protect themselves as magic vanished from the world. The game explores the balance between imagination and practicality, and the struggle of art and beauty against the dark, mysterious "Gothic-Punk" World of Darkness. Changeling draws primarily from Gaelic mythology, particularly stories of the sidhe and Tuatha Dé Danann, but also uses mythology and folklore from various other cultures including Native American nations, Greece, India and Yoruba mythology of Africa.

On March 5, 2015 Onyx Path Publishing announced that the Changeling the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition was in production.

The fae are creatures of dreams, drawing magical power and their very existence from "glamour", the dreams of mankind. Glamour created and maintains a separate realm of imagination known as the Dreaming, from which the fae originally came to the mortal world. During the Iron Age and the subsequent rise of rational thought and science, glamour became less common in the real world, and the opposing force of banality could injure or kill the fae. In response, the fae nobility (the sidhe) withdrew to Arcadia, their home deep in the Dreaming, and the commoner fae developed "the Changeling Way Ritual", and became changelings. Eventually banality became so strong that the Dreaming was sundered from reality. This time period is known as the Shattering and it is associated with the time of the Black Plague. It was at this time that the Changeling Way ritual was created allowing fae spirits to inhabit human bodies alongside the human host's soul. For many years commoner changelings lived amongst mortals and made their way as best they could in a world where glamour was fading, this was the Interregnum. Then came the Resurgence, man landed on the moon and belief and dreams broke open the doors to Arcadia. Some sidhe were able to return by inhabiting existing human bodies. With the return of the sidhe and their desire to once again rule all changelings, the Accordance War broke out. Commoners and nobles fought for control of the freeholds and glamour until a peace accord was reached by the new High King David.