episode 71 — changeling: the celtic cycle

And now for something rather different... we're stepping out of the Changeling canon and into the wonderful world of late 90s/early 00s homebrew with Changeling: the Celtic Cycle. Written by three World of Darkness authors, CtCC radically re-imagines the world of Changeling: no Glamour and Banality, no Dreamers to cultivate, no Dreaming separate from the Umbra. Instead, the fae in this version of the game are directly inspired by Celtic mythology and epic. The supplement was released in three installments as part of a zine, in all its early-days-of-desktop-publishing glory, and is as much an interesting historical artifact for that context as for its contents. But the authors also went on to be involved in Book of Lost of Houses, Dark Ages: Fae, and Changeling: the Lost, with all of which we see a few subtle connections...

The text is findable online, but we'll also have it available in our Discord (link below!). Some other links include:

• A few homebrew books by Pooka that poke at a couple of these themes are mentioned in this episode, which you can snag at https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/381967?affiliate_id=3063731, https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/418295?affiliate_id=3063731, or https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/412055?affiliate_id=3063731.
• While the links provided in the notes at the end of the supplement are mostly defunct or broken, a couple of them have stood the test of time... we would point you in particular to https://pantheon.org/, the Encyclopedia Mythica (a one-stop source for many a folkloric tidbit before Wikipedia was a thing), and https://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/, a hefty collection of Irish myth in particular.
• Need some Irish curses on the spot? Take your pick from https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/donncha/focal/features/mallacht (the modern one) or https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/sengoidelc/donncha/maldacht (Old Irish).

As always, our own passel of social media links:

• Discord: https://discord.me/ctp
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082973960699
• Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@ChangelingPod
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/changelingthepodcast
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChangelingThePodcast

your hosts

Josh Hillerup (any pronoun) went looking for Changeling: the Danish Cycle, but only found a kith that could shapechange into flaky pastries. Pooka G (any pronoun/they) favors the Branch of Rhiannon, for which one sympathy is to wear a full-on Stevie Nicks ensemble.

High on the mountain stands a boat But are they gods or real folk? We can't see the fire but we smell the smoke Who'll take the plough? Who'll be the yoke? –Horslips, "Trouble with a Capital T"