Changeling the Lost - Swords At Dawn.pdf - Changeling - The lost - RPG

am a blind child .

I am the end of blindness .

My life is measured in minutes .

I am old as the world .

I am the death of dreams .

I am the birth of hope .

Name me .

— The Glass Hangman ’s Riddle

This book includes :

• Details on the wars and conlicts of

the Lost.

• Talecrafting and Fate as means to

expand a character’s legend.

• Glorious objects and terrible relics

from legend and dream.

• New Entitlements, the Dawn

Court, and more

For use with the

World of Darkness Rulebook

52799

9 781588 463708

PRINTED IN CANADA

www.worldofdarkness.com

978-1-58846-370-8 WW70208 $27.99 US

By Misha Handman , Jess Hartley , Jennifer Lawrence , Matthew McFarland ,

John Newman , P . Alexander Scokel , Christopher Simmons , Travis Stout

and Chuck Wendig

Red Sky at

“That’s how you feel about it?” she asks. I nod, sending dust motes spinning about me in the twilight

of the warm October evening. All along the beachfront the neon is beginning to burn with anticipation

of the night. I can almost taste the Glamour beginning to permeate the air. It tastes stale, like a sneeze,

and I add that to the long list of bad omens I’ve racked up over the last few weeks.

I’ve been seeing them everywhere. It started shortly after the equinox, with a dream, a nightmare of sorts,

if only in the sense that I didn’t have control over it. I felt it from the moment I fell asleep, and before I knew

it I was being whisked away through wet darkness, as if submerged in an underground river or caught in a

late-night undertow off Miami Beach. I summoned the wherewithal to build a raft for myself, out of foam,

darkness and dreamstuff, and hauled myself onto it, coughing saltwater from my lungs. I may have lived in

Miami for the last 20 years, but I’ve never been much of a swimmer. I glanced up at the stars, and it only took

an instant to read the lines between them, the correspondences and the conjunctions.

Everything screamed death and change. Since then I’ve seen it everywhere, nestled in the rainbow

twists of oil in parking lot puddles, between the strains of the Spanish songs lilting from cars in Little

Havana, written in the graffiti code that keeps popping up under the overpasses. When you can walk

unseen, you get to see a lot of the city, and the whole damn thing is crying one word: cataclysm.

I bought a new tarot deck from a shop in Little Haiti, partly as an experiment, partly out of curios-

ity. I set it in the Hedge for a few days, just slid it under the Thorns without opening it. It was still there

when I came back for it. So I popped it open. Thing was, every card inside was the Tower, the Hanged

Man, the World or Death. The same four cards, over and over.

And then there were the stories. Nobody but my motley knew the details, but word had gotten

around that Sextus, a knight of Spring, died fighting the Gentry. Everyone had an opinion on it. Some

claimed that it spoke volumes: that Thorne’s people were willing to take up arms against the Fae while

Grandfather Thunder sat comfortably ensconced on his throne, ineffectual at everything except

gathering and maintaining power. Others were spooked, sure Thorne was planning some move against

Eternal Summer. Word was a few of the Vichy Lost in Miami Beach had skipped town; some said they

were flocking to Thorne’s banner out in the Everglades, others that they knew something no one else

did and were getting out before the shit hit the fan. A few claimed that they hadn’t left at all, that they’d

been taken, snatched up from bedrooms and boardwalks and hauled back into the depths of Arcadia.

Then there was Sleet. The Winter King was on the warpath, his whole Court gone to ground after

Ivan, Grandfather Thunder’s favored enforcer, apparently murdered one of Sleet’s lieutenants. Three

Summer Courtiers, each a more staunch ally of Thunder than the last, had been assassinated in as

many weeks. Nobody had claimed credit, but everyone suspected Sleet’s bony hands held the knives.

So when Amy came looking for me this morning, I knew it was just the most recent in the long string

of bad omens.

“Hey,” she said, sauntering towards me like she does, that predator’s walk, confident yet guarded. I

was sitting outside the Calder Library, near the hospital. I’d borrowed a copy of the DSM-IV and a book

on synesthesia, more out of curiosity than anything else, and was thumbing through the latter. I was

Morning

wearing a tweed jacket, hardly appropriate for the weather, and when she approached, wreathed in the

heat of the Summer, I could feel the beads of sweat break out across my brow. I considered shrugging off

the jacket, but she’d see that as weakness. She nodded at the books.

“I didn’t realize you could check out books at the medical library.” She was wearing a one-piece

bathing suit, something sleek and hard that reduced her curves to an aquadynamic simplicity, with a

fishnet tank-top and a pair of shorts. The suit was by far the most expensive thing on her, more so even

than her running shoes. Everything but the swimsuit looked disposable, like she was willing to shed it

in a heartbeat to get into the water.

“I didn’t exactly check them out,” I answered, my voice raw and strained. I winced slightly. I can’t

stand the way I sound anymore. It feels like someone dragging sandpaper across my eardrums. She

nodded again and sat down beside me, sending dust swirling away in every direction. She smelled

slightly of the saltiness of the ocean and the bitterness of human sweat.

“We must look like quite the odd couple,” she said with a grin. “The barely-dressed bald-headed

teen and the professor at least 20 years her senior.”

“A Woody Allen film for the new millennium,” I answered. She chuckled then abruptly switched gears.

“You doing anything?” I glanced down at the open book, then back to her eyes. “I mean, are you

busy?” I shook my head. “You should come with me then.” I raised an eyebrow. She leaned in close,

glancing once to either side. Then she whispered: “Naamah wants to talk to you.” This got both of my

eyebrows.

“She’s sending me messages through you?” I asked. Amy shrugged in response.

“She seems to think you’re less accessible these days, since you joined up with, well, you know.” I

nodded. She meant the Office of the Vizieral Council, a group of occultists dedicated to two things: the

study of fae magic and the neutral assistance of governance. While my Queen would hardly take of-

fense at the former, the latter meant that I spent more time in Thunder’s Court than she found entirely

comfortable for someone as bound to Autumn as myself.

The arrangement was hardly ideal, and had I had the choice, I probably would never have accepted

the Office’s offer of membership. But the Office also offers clarity, and since Sextus died, I’ve felt a

little… off-kilter. I needed something, anything, to ground myself. It worked. Or it has so far, anyway.

“So she picked a member of his Court?” I asked. She flicked both dark eyebrows up for an instant

and shrugged.

“I owe her,” she answered. I closed the book, and a cloud of dust erupted from the cover.

“Then let’s go.”

Cerastes sauntered up to Amy and I when we reached the old Coral Gables home Naamah’s people

are using as a staging area for whatever they have planned. He grinned at me, greeted me with a pass

phrase meant to remind me that I’m being watched, and escorted Amy off, leaving me to find my own

way to Naamah. I glanced about the inside of the home, all wood paneling, peeling white paint and lay-

ers of dust and cobwebs. The very essence of the Court was meant to be off-putting. It was an easy trick

to see through, and I easily followed the faint scent of the Wyrd to the room where the Autumn Queen

awaited me.

She, on the other hand, was a bit of a surprise. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I’d seen

her. She seemed older, more mature. Her Mantle had come in, and, unless I was mistaken, I could even

make out the beginnings of a phantom crown of harvest wheat just above her brow. Her body, on the

other hand, looked much the same as it did the day she took the throne: tall, willowy, skin so white as to

outshine the moon and hair so dark as to swallow stars.

“Vizier Linus,” she greeted me calmly, with only a hint of warmth. “Welcome home.” I bowed slightly.

Changeling the Lost - Swords At Dawn.pdf

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