Changeling the Lost - Campaign - Post 2 - Conceptualising the True Fae

What attracted me most about Changeling the Lost was the concept of the True Fae. As a student of ancient languages, culture and mythology, the stories told about the True Fae and the Changelings reminded me strongly of, among other myths, Ovid's Metamorphoses: Omnipotent, callous beings (Greek/Roman gods) pursue and abduct humans, who are changed beyond recognition as a result (Daphne, who is turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo is a perfect example of an elemental Woodblood; Arachne, who beats the Greek goddess of wisdom, warfare and weaving, Athena, in a weaving contest, is turned into a spider because Athena was so enraged that she had lost. Arachne would be your perfect Skitterskulk or Venombite beast).

Other tropes come to mind as well: The Greek gods especially were, even in Greek times, feared and considered immoral and callous (they tend to laugh a lot in Homer, but this Homeric laughter is not really all that merry or positive). Being immortal and forever unchanged, they cannot understand the human condition no matter how much time they spend with humans. They do consort with them, sire children with them, but usually, the mortal partner is not going to be all that happy afterwards. Anchises, whom Aphrodite had fallen in love with, tried everything to avoid a union on account of mortals always suffering after a union with a god. Seeing as Aphrodite as the goddess of sexuality and lust had decided to seduce him, his efforts were, of course fruitless.

The True Fae are very much like that as well: Immortal and omnipotent, they don't need anyone or anything else to live a life that is agreeable to them (in fact, the only thing that they hate is boredom). Seeing as they are completely autonomous, they are unable to empathise with anyone else (human or Gentry). They are described as positively solipsistic. This inability to understand another's needs leads to behaviours that, to humans, may seem totally alien and cold and inconsiderate and possible even cruel. A Keeper might have brought a lovely human to Arcadia to be their lover, but being unable to truly love them emotionally, the human will suffer emotional neglect. Whether this is true cruelty, which, to my mind, implies that the person inflicting the cruel abuse is able to understand what this behaviour causes in the other, or whether it is just inadvertent, but "normal" behaviour, is unclear. The True Fae remain ambiguous. And this is what makes them so terrifying and wonderful at the same time. Many of them are terrible and beautiful to behold, many durances are both wonderful and horrible for the Changeling. Not all Keepers abuse their Changelings, some treat them very well indeed and dote on them, what makes the stint in Arcadia unpleasant is the fact that the Wyrd inflicts changes on the human that change them inadvertently into something else. Imagine an "Old Lady in the Woods"-type Fae who abducts a young boy and dotes on him like she would on a cat, as a result, the boy is turned into a beast True Friend Changeling. He is exceptionally well-treated, but he is stripped of his humanity entirely. This, in itself, is terribly cruel, but was it intended? Hardly.

What makes the Fae formidable is the fact that they are so different and alien that humans and Changelings can never hope to understand them. This leads to great opportunities for gaming. The True Fae can be whatever the troupe want them to be. They could behave completely unpredictably. They could even come through the Hedge and walk right past a motley, merely ignoring them unless challenged, because, at that moment in time, they have their sights on something else. They could even ally themselves with a motley for a while for their own gain. And some Changelings might even choose to stand with their former Keepers in a conflict because their durance was not bad at all, they just escaped because they wanted to go home again.

As far as antagonists go, the True Fae are among the best.