Dusk
  1. Families

Dusk

Changeling

The Umbral Axe • The Glacial Court • The Court of Dooms
“There are no happy endings. That’s why every story between here and the ending has to be worth telling.”
The Umbral Axe doesn’t believe the Lost can win. They believe the Lost can shine — fiercely, briefly, magnificently — in the deepening night before the end. They accept what Spring courts deny and Dawn courts defy: that entropy is winning, has always been winning, and will continue to win. And they laugh about it, around bonfires, between bouts of ridiculous courage. Their membership is split between Gallants who throw themselves at impossible odds in pursuit of glory and Unfettered who take the freedom of the damned as license to do whatever they please.

Patron & Bargain

The Dusk Court bargains with Entropy. The Bargain is narrow and strange: the Gentry’s servants, who are creatures of purposeful design and Arcadian intent, have difficulty comprehending a being who has already accepted defeat and acts anyway. A Huntsman or loyalist who engages a Dusk courtier in direct confrontation must succeed on a Clash of Wills or find their anticipated tactics strangely hollow — they expect their quarry to fear, to flee, to bargain, and when she instead fights with the terrible freedom of the already-damned, their strategies come apart. The Bargain doesn’t make Dusk courtiers harder to kill. It makes them harder to catch alive.

Identity & Philosophy

The Umbral Axe forms wherever changelings collectively decide that the long defeat is real — that entropy will win, that the Wyrd’s slow grinding will outlast every freehold and every motley and every name they care about — and that this fact is not a reason for despair, but a reason for style. The Umbral Court bargains with Entropy itself, which is to say, with the principle that the Wyrd cannot help but admire a being who has accepted defeat and acts anyway. Their Mantle waxes and wanes; the court has gone silent for generations in some freeholds, only to wake when the world darkens enough to need it again.

This is the court’s first hard truth: it does not promise hope, and it does not pretend to. It promises, instead, that whatever ending comes, its members will not meet it alone, and they will not meet it quietly.

“The fire goes out. The sword breaks. The longhouse falls. None of this is news. The question is only what we sing while it happens.”
— Tor Half-Hand, Holder of the Hearth, Reykjavík Freehold

Duties

The court does not ask much, and what it asks cannot be refused.

The Boast

Every Dusk courtier owes the court, at minimum, one Boast per Contention — a public declaration of what she has done since the last gathering, and what she intends to do before the next. The Boast must be true. The Wyrd attends Contentions, and lying at one is a wound the court can feel.

The Bearing

When a fellow Umbral Axe falls in pursuit of a Boast, the surviving members are responsible for retrieving the body, the weapon, or — if neither is recoverable — the story. No Dusk courtier dies anonymously. The story of how she died is collected, kept by the Stonespeaker (see below), and recited at every subsequent Contention until the court’s collective memory holds it permanently.

The Witness to the Doomed

A Dusk courtier may be called upon by any member of the freehold who knows they are dying — by illness, by curse, by sentence — to sit with them in their last days and listen to whatever they need to say. The Glacial Axe is the court that does not flinch from the end. Other courts hand the dying to Dusk because Dusk will stay.

The Maintained Edge

Each Dusk courtier maintains, in working order, one tool of consequence — a weapon, a vehicle, an instrument, a piece of dangerous knowledge — that the freehold may call upon in extremity. The tool is hers, but it is available. A Dusk courtier without a maintained edge is considered to have let the court down quietly, and her Boasts carry less weight at the next Contention.
June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Gatherings

The Umbral Court’s calendar is built around the Contention, which is held more often than any seasonal court’s central rite — every full moon at most, every solstice and equinox at minimum. Beyond the Contentions, three named observances structure the year.

The Greater Contention

Held at the autumn equinox, the year’s largest gathering. Every member of the local Umbral Axe is expected to attend, regardless of distance. Greater Boasts are sworn here; new members are admitted here; the year’s casualties are formally recorded by the Stonespeaker. The Greater Contention typically runs from sundown to sunrise and involves a great deal of drinking, fighting, weeping, and laughter, often simultaneously.

The Lesser Contentions

Held at the other three quarter-days (winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice) and sometimes on the full moons between. Smaller and more functional. Boasts are made and resolved, grievances heard, small business attended to. Lesser Contentions are open to non-members by formal invitation; this is one of the court’s few diplomatic channels.

The Hold

Held mid-winter, usually in the week between the winter solstice Contention and the new year. The Hold is the court’s quiet rite — a several-day gathering at the local Hollow or a designated Dusk site where members simply stay together, maintaining their edges, telling old stories, holding vigil for nothing in particular. The Hold has no formal program. It exists because Dusk understands that defiance is a public stance and companionship is a private practice, and the court would not survive on the public stance alone.

The Falling

Held whenever a Dusk courtier dies — never scheduled. The court gathers within seventy-two hours, at the place of the death or the place the body now rests, and the Bearing is performed: weapon, body, or story is collected, and the dead member’s last Boast (whether fulfilled or not) is spoken aloud one final time. The Falling is observed by the deceased’s motley and any Dusk courtiers who can reach the gathering in time. Other courts are welcome to attend silently.
June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Hierarchy

Like Dawn, the Glacial Axe has no monarch and no Crown. Authority belongs to:

The Holder of the Hearth

The court’s first voice, chosen by consensus rather than election, serving until she chooses to step down or dies. The Dusk Holder is, traditionally, the member with the longest and most dangerous record of fulfilled Boasts — but consensus may surprise. Some of the most respected Holders have been quiet members whose Boasts were small but always completed. The Holder’s role at Contentions is to keep order, settle disputes that cannot be resolved through Boast, and speak the court’s collective judgment when one is needed.

A Dusk Holder is first to speak when the court owes someone an answer, and last to speak when the court is uncertain.

Functional offices, held by any member:
The Stonespeaker: The keeper of the court’s memory — every fallen member’s name, every fulfilled Boast worth remembering, every Greater Boast outstanding. The Stonespeaker maintains the actual Witness Stones (see the Contract by that name) that store the court’s most significant memories. The role is permanent until the Stonespeaker passes it on. Most Stonespeakers are Wizened or older Lost; the role attracts members whose memories are already long.

The Edge-Holder: Whichever member is hosting the next Contention. The role rotates. The Edge-Holder secures the location, ensures the central fire is lit, and tends the drinks. By tradition, the Edge-Holder does not Boast at her own Contention — her work is the hosting, and her Boasting waits for the next.

The Voice of the Falling: Appointed by the Holder, this member is responsible for speaking the formal words at every Falling within the freehold’s territory. The Voice carries the weight of the court’s grief publicly so the deceased’s motley can carry it privately. Some Voices serve for decades.
June 1st, 2026

Reputation & Joining

Other courts find Dusk unsettling before they find it admirable, and many never get past the first impression. The Umbral Axe’s habit of speaking plainly about endings — that motley will not survive next chapter, this freehold has six years left in it — makes them poor company at celebrations. Their tendency to vanish for months and reappear in the middle of someone else’s crisis is widely resented. Spring Courtiers find them depressing. Summer Courtiers find them respect-worthy but exhausting to drink with, because Dusk drinks seriously. Autumn Courtiers find them refreshingly honest about fear. Winter Courtiers, like Dawn’s relationship with them, find Dusk uncomfortably familiar — both courts know what it means to refuse the lie of hope, and both court members tend to lapse into long silences when seated near each other.

The Dawn Court calls them cousins. The feeling is returned, and held at arm’s length.

Dusk does not recruit, and unlike Dawn, Dusk does not always accept seekers. A changeling who wants in approaches any current member and asks. The member directs her to the Holder, who hears her reasons and asks one question: what have you already lost that you have not stopped fighting for?

The Holder is not looking for tragedy. Tragedy is common. She is looking for a specific quality of unflinching that the Wyrd recognizes. Some seekers have it without realizing. Many do not, and are sent away kindly with the suggestion that they try Dawn, or Autumn, or any of the more forgiving paths.

A seeker who satisfies the Holder is invited to the next Lesser Contention and given a Boast — a specific deed of consequence she must perform before the following Contention. If she completes it, she is sworn in at the Greater Contention that follows. If she fails, she may try again with a different Boast, but the court remembers. Failed seekers who try a third time are rarely admitted.
June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Quirks & Customs

Umbral Axe members favor simple, durable clothing — practical layers, well-made boots, garments that have already survived something. Their colors run to black, deep blue, oxblood red, and white. They tend to wear a single piece of metal jewelry that is intentionally worn — a ring with a chip, a pendant scored by use, a bracelet that has been bent and re-shaped. New, perfect things are considered slightly suspicious within the court.

Their greeting between members is two short knuckles — left hand to right shoulder, the gesture of I see you are still here. A returning greeting is right hand to left shoulder. The exchange takes a half-second and is invisible to outsiders.

They drink dark — coffee, stout, whiskey, mead. They do not eat much at Contentions; the food is for the Edge-Holder’s hospitality, not the court’s purpose. They sing more than they admit, mostly very old songs, and they sing badly on purpose, because singing well at a Contention would be unseemly.

Their heraldry runs to single-bladed axes, glaciers, wolverines, redwoods, Nordic and Slavic runic systems (especially the runes Hagalaz, Eihwaz, Tiwaz, and Nauthiz), and Ragnarok imagery. Local Glacial Axes elsewhere in the world favor their own ending-myths — the Kali Yuga in some South Asian freeholds, the Götterdämmerung in some Germanic ones, the Eschaton in some Christian-influenced ones. The endings change. The acceptance of the ending does not.
June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Mantle

The Dusk Mantle doesn’t compete with other Mantles — it quietly erases them. Within five feet of a Dusk courtier whose Mantle equals or exceeds another’s, that other Mantle’s sensory manifestations simply go silent: music fades, winds still, colors dim, petals drop. Umbral courtiers themselves favor simple, durable clothing — jeans and boots, tunics and leather, plain cloaks. Black and white, deep blue and red. Their heraldry runs to single-bladed axes, glaciers, wolverines, redwoods, Nordic runes, and Ragnarok imagery. The Glacial Axe is not subtle.

Effect: Your character gains a Glamour point whenever she accomplishes something remarkable in circumstances she and her witnesses acknowledged beforehand were near-hopeless.
•  Gain bonus dice equal to Mantle on any mundane roll made in circumstances where your character has openly acknowledged — aloud, to at least one present witness — that the odds are against her.
••  Gain bonus dice equal to Mantle to resist fear, supernatural or mundane attempts to impose the Spooked or Shaken Condition, or any roll requiring Composure or Resolve to avoid breaking or backing down.
•••  Once per scene, your character may act through a Tilt or wound penalty as if it did not apply, for a single roll of her choice. 
••••  When your character would be taken out — dropped to zero health on her last track, rendered unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated — spend 1 Willpower to remain functional for a number of additional turns equal to her Mantle. All damage applies at the end of this period, but the Wyrd gives her the time she declared she needed.
•••••  Once per chapter, your character may reroll a failed roll. Reroll the dice and keep the rolled result, no matter the consequences. 

Mantle Descriptions

• A subtle chill, not of temperature but of attention — the feeling of being watched by something patient. The courtier's shadow is slightly too dark for the ambient light. Sounds near her are fractionally quieter: conversations lower in volume, music loses a touch of its brightness, laughter trails off a beat sooner than it should. Other Lost notice without being able to articulate what changed.
•• The Mantle-dampening effect begins. Within arm's reach of the courtier, other Mantles' sensory manifestations lose intensity — Spring's flowers close slightly, Summer's heat cools, Autumn's whispers go faint, Winter's frost thins. Dawn's golden warmth dims to amber. The effect is noticeable but not aggressive; it feels less like suppression and more like the natural dimming at the end of a long day. Her own clothing seems to darken slightly in her mien, regardless of what she's actually wearing.
••• The quiet deepens. In a room with the courtier, background noise fades — not silence, but the hush of a library, a church, a battlefield after the fighting stops. Her eyes catch light at odd angles, reflecting faintly even in full dark. Metal she carries — weapons, jewelry, belt buckles — takes on a dull sheen, as if recently oiled. Other Lost near her feel an impulse to speak plainly, to stop hedging, to say the thing they've been avoiding saying.
•••• Her presence carries weight. Not physical heaviness, but the gravitational pull of something significant — the sense that what happens near her matters more than it would otherwise. Fires in her proximity burn lower and steadier. Dramatic gestures feel earned rather than theatrical. When she makes eye contact, the other person's first instinct is to hold it. Dusk courtiers at this level are often mistaken for much older or more powerful Lost than they actually are, because their Mantle reads as age even on a young face.
••••• Entropy is visible. Not decay — the Dusk Mantle is not rot — but the quiet, dignified weight of endings. Leaves near her fall. Clocks seem to tick louder. The light in any room she enters shifts toward the golden-grey of late afternoon, regardless of the actual hour. Other Lost in her presence feel the particular calm that comes from accepting something inevitable — not despair, not peace, but the specific stillness of a person who has stopped running. When she speaks at a Contention at this level, the fire burns lower, and nobody looks away.

June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Saga-Worthy (• to •••••)

Prerequisite: Mantle (Dusk) •+
Your character's deeds have begun to accumulate weight. The Boasts she has made and kept, the endings she has witnessed without flinching, the edge she maintains — the Wyrd has started paying attention to her specifically, the way it pays attention to a story that is building toward something. Each dot represents a deeper entanglement between her legend and the Wyrd's expectation of how it will end.
• The Edge Is Ready. Your character's Maintained Edge — the tool of consequence she keeps in working order for the freehold — gains a mechanical benefit. Once per chapter, when she uses her Maintained Edge in a scene where the freehold's safety is at stake, she gains a bonus die on the first roll she makes with it. The Edge must be genuinely maintained (cleaned, sharpened, repaired, practiced with); if she has neglected it, the bonus does not apply and the Wyrd's attention dims.
•• The Boasts Echo. When your character fulfills a Lesser Boast (per the Contract), her reputation ripples outward. For the rest of the chapter, changelings who have heard of her (directly or through freehold gossip) treat her Social rolls with a +1 bonus, as someone whose word has demonstrably meant something. This bonus increases to +2 if the fulfilled Boast involved genuine danger. The bonus does not stack with itself across multiple Boasts — only the most recent applies.
••• The Falling Honors You. When a fellow Dusk courtier dies and your character participates in the Falling (the retrieval of weapon, body, or story), she may choose to carry the deceased's last unfulfilled Boast as her own. If she does, she gains all the mechanical benefits of a Lesser Boast targeting that deed, without needing to invoke the Contract or spend Glamour. She does not suffer the Shamed Condition if she fails — the dead do not shame the living for trying — but she gains no Willpower reward either. Only the satisfaction of finishing what someone else started. She may carry only one inherited Boast at a time.
•••• The Stonespeaker Knows Your Name. Your character's fulfilled Boasts have been formally recorded by the court's Stonespeaker, and her name carries weight among Dusk courtiers beyond her own freehold. When she meets a Umbral Axe member from another freehold for the first time, she may invoke her record: roll Presence + Mantle. On success, the other courtier recognizes her name and treats her with the respect owed to a proven member — mechanically, she gains the Connected Condition (Changeling, p. 335) with respect to that freehold's Dusk Court for the rest of the story. Additionally, once per story, she may call upon any Dusk courtier she has met this way for a single significant favor, which they are honor-bound to grant if it does not conflict with their own Boasts.
••••• The Wyrd Expects a Good Ending. The Wyrd has decided your character's story matters, and it does not want to see it end badly — which is to say, it does not want to see it end quietly. Once per chronicle arc, when your character faces a situation the Storyteller agrees is a genuine climax of her personal arc — the final confrontation with her Keeper's agent, the resolution of a Greater Boast, the defense of her motley against overwhelming odds — she may invoke this effect. For one scene, she gains the 9-again quality on all rolls, cannot be affected by supernatural fear or compulsion, and her Mantle manifestations become visible to mortals (the temperature drops, axes gleam, the sound of distant drums). At the scene's end, regardless of outcome, the Wyrd marks the moment — other Dusk courtiers across the world feel the echo of something significant happening, though they do not know what or to whom.
June 1st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Common Contracts

Sense the Inevitable Doom

The changeling’s fatalism becomes supernatural sensitivity to every disaster waiting in ambush.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: One scene
The changeling cannot be surprised by mundane dangers and gains bonus dice equal to her Mantle to detect supernatural threats, traps, and ambushes. The sense grows stronger as she moves toward danger; it doesn’t reveal specifics but indicates that some choices are worse than others.
Loophole: The changeling has consumed caffeine within the last hour.

Eulogy in Advance

The changeling looks at a person, place, or thing, and speaks aloud, in the present tense, how it will end. The Wyrd writes it down.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy + Mantle vs. Composure + Wyrd (if a person; otherwise unopposed)
Action: Instant
Duration: Until the prophecy resolves or is averted
The changeling speaks a brief sentence — twenty words or fewer — about how something present will eventually end. This bar will burn down. This man will die alone in a hospital. This marriage will fail in three years. This deal will rot. The pronouncement must be plausible given current circumstances. The Wyrd does not invent endings; it only confirms ones that are already on the path.
On success, the changeling learns one of two things, at her choice:
  • How long until the ending? She receives a rough sense of timeframe — minutes, days, years, decades — clear enough to plan around but not exact.
  • What would prevent it? She receives a single specific intervention that, if taken, would change the trajectory. The intervention may be impractical, costly, or repugnant; it is simply what would work.
The Contract does not compel the ending. It only sees the path the thing is already on.
Loophole: The changeling pronounces her eulogy at a public gathering — a bar, a party, a meeting, a funeral — loudly enough that strangers nearby can hear her. She does not have to be believed. She only has to be heard.
Dramatic Failure: The Wyrd accepts her sentence and adjusts the timeline forward. The thing she described ends faster than it would have — possibly within the current scene. Whatever she just spoke into the world, she just hastened.

Drink With Me Before the End

The changeling pours two drinks — wine, beer, mead, coffee, water, whatever — and offers one to a companion. While they drink together, both speak the truth about what is coming.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: As long as both parties drink together, up to one scene
On success, both the changeling and the willing companion enter a brief state of unflinching honesty. Neither can speak a deliberate lie, and both find themselves unable to not answer questions about what they fear is coming, what they regret, or what they have not yet said aloud. The Contract does not extract secrets through interrogation — both parties retain the option to remain silent — but neither can deflect or dissemble while drinking.
Both parties also gain the Steadfast Condition (Changeling, p. 344), regardless of what is said.
Loophole: The changeling pours the drinks from the same vessel, into containers she has personally chosen, and toasts something or someone she expects to lose.
Dramatic Failure: Honesty becomes corrosive. Both parties suffer the Shaken Condition (Changeling, p. 344) as the truths surface faster than either can handle.

The Last Light Holds

The changeling kindles a fire — a literal one, a flame she can shield with her hand — and dedicates it to staying lit through whatever is coming. While it burns, she remains conscious.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Stamina + Survival + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: Until the flame is extinguished, or one scene
On success, as long as a small flame the changeling has personally lit continues to burn — a candle, a lighter, a campfire, a flame the size of her palm or smaller — she cannot be knocked unconscious by any means short of damage that would outright kill her. Sleep, sedation, supernatural unconsciousness effects, fear-induced paralysis, the Knocked Out Tilt, the Insensate Tilt, and similar effects all fail or break their hold as long as the flame burns. She can be hurt; she can be terrified; she can be at zero Health on her bashing track. She does not pass out.
If the flame goes out for any reason, the protection ends instantly, and any pending unconsciousness effects she has been holding off resolve immediately and simultaneously.
Loophole: The flame is lit using a match, lighter, or flint the changeling has carried on her person for at least one full day before invocation.
Dramatic Failure: The flame catches, but it catches wrong — it consumes its fuel at five times normal speed, and the Contract still ends the moment it goes out. The changeling has only minutes of protection instead of a scene, and she may not know it.

What Death Owes Me

The changeling has killed before. She names a death she caused — by hand or by choice — and calls in the debt.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: One scene
The changeling speaks the name of someone whose death she caused, directly or indirectly. The Contract draws on the weight of that death without resurrecting or invoking the dead person themselves — only the Wyrd-debt that accrues to a killer who never balanced the books.
On success, for the scene, the changeling gains the 8-again quality on all rolls involving:
  • Combat actions against creatures of the same type as the one she killed (mortal humans, fae, undead, etc.)
  • Investigation rolls related to violent death
  • Intimidation rolls against creatures that have themselves killed
She also gains a faint, unsettling aura — those near her sense, without quite knowing why, that she has killed and is willing to do it again. Bonus equal to her Mantle to any Intimidation roll she makes while the Contract is active.
The changeling may not use the same name twice in the same chapter. She must call in a different death each time.
Loophole: The changeling carries an object she took from the dead person — a piece of clothing, a possession, a lock of hair, a piece of weapon — and shows it openly during invocation.
Dramatic Failure: The dead person’s attention turns toward her in some form the Storyteller chooses — a vivid haunting dream that night, a ghost manifestation, an unwelcome visit from someone who loved them, or an inexplicable physical mark appearing on her body. The Wyrd does not forgive debts so easily called in.

The Boast (Lesser)

The changeling speaks aloud, before witnesses, a specific deed she will accomplish before the scene ends. The Wyrd holds her to it — and rewards her if she keeps her word.
Cost: 1 Glamour
Dice Pool: Presence + Expression + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: Until the boast is fulfilled or the scene ends
The changeling speaks a specific, achievable deed she will accomplish before the scene ends, in clear hearing of at least one witness who understands what she is saying. The deed must be something her character can plausibly accomplish but is not certain to — I will fell this man before the song ends. I will be first up that wall. I will save the dying woman.
For the scene, the changeling gains a bonus equal to her Mantle on all rolls made in direct pursuit of the boasted deed. If she accomplishes it before scene’s end, she regains all spent Willpower. If she does not, she suffers the Shamed Condition (Changeling, p. 344) until she fulfills the boast or makes formal amends to her witnesses.
Loophole: The boast is made before a member of the changeling’s motley, and the deed serves the motley’s interests rather than her own glory.
Dramatic Failure: The boast is heard not only by her intended witnesses but by something else — a hostile listener the Storyteller chooses appropriate to the chronicle. The boast cannot be unsaid, and now something is watching to see if she keeps it.
April 21st, 2026 June 1st, 2026

Royal Contracts

Hero’s Stand

The changeling formally challenges a single enemy to single combat.
Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Resolve + Brawl or Weaponry + Mantle vs. Composure + Wyrd
Action: Contested
On success, for turns equal to successes, the changeling gains a bonus equal to her Mantle on Brawl or Weaponry against the challenged target only, and the target suffers −2 to Composure rolls if they flee, refuse to engage, or take actions unrelated to the duel.
Loophole: The changeling stands within a clearly marked five-foot space — a thrown blanket, a chalked circle, a hólmgang square. Leaving the space ends the Contract.

The Greater Boast

The changeling rises before her company, takes the cup or the horn or the bottle, and speaks a deed she will accomplish before the next Contention. The Wyrd binds her to it. The deed will happen, or she will die trying.
Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Presence + Expression + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: Until the boast is fulfilled or the changeling dies
The changeling makes a Boast at a formal Dusk gathering — a Contention, a freehold meeting, or any moment where members of the Umbral Axe are gathered as witnesses. The Boast describes a major undertaking, larger than a single scene: I will recover the stolen Crown before the moon turns. I will burn down the loyalist stronghold at Caverns End. I will find my brother’s killer and look him in the eye.
For the duration:
  • The changeling gains the 8-again quality on all rolls made in direct pursuit of the Boast
  • She gains a number of bonus successes equal to her Mantle on the first roll she makes against the Boast’s primary obstacle each chapter
  • She cannot be turned aside by mundane fear, fatigue, or social pressure from her course; mind-affecting supernatural powers attempting to redirect her gain no successes unless they overcome a Clash of Wills against her Resolve + Wyrd
  • She cannot regain Willpower through her Thread or through rest — only through pursuit of the Boast
If she accomplishes the Boast before her next Contention, she regains all spent Willpower, gains an Aspiration (or its equivalent in your chronicle) that resolves automatically as fulfilled, and the Wyrd marks her — other Dusk courtiers across freeholds will know her name.
If she dies pursuing the Boast, she dies well — the Wyrd grants her a clean death rather than a slow one, and her companions feel her last moment as a benediction rather than a tragedy.
If she fails to accomplish the Boast and is still alive at her next Contention, she suffers the Persistent Shamed Condition until she accomplishes a comparable deed in penance, and her Mantle’s sensory manifestations dim by one degree (treat her Mantle as one dot lower for Bedlam, Contract, and effect purposes) until restored.
Loophole: The Boast is made in pursuit of avenging a specific wrong done to another person — not the changeling herself.
Dramatic Failure: The Boast is bound, but bound wrong — the Wyrd attaches it to a different primary obstacle than the one the changeling intended, of the Storyteller’s choice. She is now committed to a deed she did not mean to undertake.

The Long Defeat

The changeling lays down her last reserves and fights anyway. Pain, exhaustion, and despair stop being obstacles. They become fuel.
Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Stamina + Resolve + Mantle
Action: Instant
Duration: One scene
For the scene, the changeling ignores wound penalties from her own Health damage. She does not suffer the Beaten Down Tilt, the Drained Condition, or any other condition or tilt that would represent her body or will failing. She does not regain Health, Willpower, or Glamour during the scene — the Contract does not heal her — but she does not feel what she has lost.
Additionally, while the Contract is active:
  • Each level of damage she has already taken becomes a bonus die to her Resolve and Composure-based rolls, to a maximum of her Mantle
  • She cannot be disarmed by force; her grip on whatever weapon she is wielding is supernatural
  • If she reaches her last point of Lethal Health damage during the scene, she does not collapse; she remains upright and active until the scene ends or she takes a single additional point of Aggravated damage
When the scene ends, all of it lands at once. She immediately suffers the Exhausted Condition, takes one Lethal damage from accumulated strain, and falls unconscious for at least eight hours.
Loophole: The Contract is invoked while the changeling is alone — no allies, no witnesses, no help coming.
Exceptional Success: The unconscious-for-eight-hours requirement reduces to four hours.
Dramatic Failure: The Contract activates but inverts; her existing damage becomes her wound penalty calculation immediately, and she suffers the Beaten Down Tilt at scene start regardless of her current state.

The Witness Stone

The changeling places her hand on a stone — any stone, a pebble or a boulder — and binds her memory of a single event into it. The stone will speak when she cannot.
Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult + Mantle
Action: Instant (takes one scene of focused meditation to perform)
The changeling chooses a single event she has personally witnessed within the past lunar month and binds her memory of it into a stone of her choosing. The memory copies — she retains it, but the stone now holds it as well, in perfect Wyrd-attested truth.
From that point forward, anyone holding the stone and concentrating on it for one full minute experiences the memory in full sensory recall, as the changeling experienced it. The Witness Stone’s memory cannot be lied about; the Wyrd attests its accuracy. Hobgoblin courts, freehold tribunals, and even some mortal authorities (at the Storyteller’s discretion) accept Witness Stone testimony as evidence beyond reproach.
The Contract lasts indefinitely. The stone retains its memory until destroyed (the stone itself must be physically pulverized) or until the changeling dies, at which point the memory fades over the course of one lunar month.
A changeling may maintain only (Wyrd) Witness Stones at any time. Creating a new one beyond this limit causes the oldest to lose its memory.
Loophole: The event the changeling is binding into the stone is one in which she suffered significant harm — physical, social, or spiritual — without retaliating.
Dramatic Failure: The stone takes the memory and the original; the changeling forgets the event entirely, retaining only the knowledge that something happened that she chose to record. The stone still holds the memory faithfully, but she now needs the stone to remember her own life.

Last Charge of the Doomed

The changeling commits, fully and irrevocably, to a single final action. Every reserve she has — Glamour, Willpower, Health, every Contract still unused, every advantage she has been hoarding — burns into this one moment.
Cost: 3 Glamour + 2 Willpower
Dice Pool: None (see below)
Action: Instant
Duration: One turn
The changeling declares a single specific action — an attack, a leap, a feat of speed or strength or persuasion. The action must be something her character could plausibly attempt in normal play, even if she could not realistically succeed at it.
When she takes the action this turn, she rolls a number of dice equal to her current Health (all undamaged boxes) + her current Willpower + her current Glamour, all added together, plus her Mantle. This pool is rolled with the 9-again quality. The roll bypasses any Defense, contested Resistance, supernatural concealment, or environmental penalty short of complete impossibility.
After the roll resolves, regardless of outcome:
  • The changeling’s Glamour falls to 0
  • The changeling’s Willpower falls to 0
  • The changeling takes Lethal damage equal to one-third of the dice she rolled (rounded down), which can be applied to her last Health track and will drop her unconscious or dying
She cannot use this Contract more than once per chronicle arc. Once committed, she has spent it.
Loophole: The changeling has explicitly accepted that she will not survive this action when she invokes it. The acceptance must be sincere, spoken aloud or thought clearly, and witnessed by at least one other person.
Dramatic Failure: The dice pool builds as normal, but the target of her action perceives her intent in the moment before she acts. They get one free action to respond before her roll resolves, against her undefended position.
June 1st, 2026 June 2nd, 2026

Members

5