Revision as of 15:32, 9 January 2016

Hedgespinning

Hedgespun items are tokens of a sort, but rather than being a mundane item infused over time with Wyrd magic and Faerie strangeness, hedgespun are consciously, deliberately made by Changelings themselves. True Fae cannot create them, and Changelings may very well have been Taken specifically to spin such wondrous items for their Keepers' whims.

Fate's Harvest uses the expanded rules found in Rites of Spring p.138, with the occasional House Rule.

Getting Started

It's fate itself you use to weave your hedgespun designs into reality, and fate, the Wyrd, is what binds the world together, the interconnections, the chance meetings which change lives. Changelings, already tied into the Wyrd, shouldn't be surprised to learn that links can go both ways.

Fancy words to say that any hedgespinning or acquisition of hedgespun will be wrapped up within a larger story. You're doing it in the Hedge, sure, with Hedge ingredients, but you're not spinning the Hedge. You're spinning a story out of the vagaries of Fate.

Even if you have all of the ingredients in your pockets, or your spifftabular Hollow of Holding, maybe something interrupts you on your way there and steals one or more of them, or maybe you find that the ingredient is doing something strange, or maybe you run into something much, much more interesting to use as part of your item on the way...

There is ALWAYS a story.

NOTE: if you are a High Wyrd character, remember that you ARE High Wyrd. Your actions and your story ARE influenced far more easily by fate than those of folks who aren't so deeply a part of it. You're FAR more likely to find that what seemed like a simple task is spinning wildly out of any semblance of your own control, and if you're wandering around the Hedge, remember, you're a bright light in the dark. A really, really tasty bright light. Staff WILL expect proof that your ST is taking your Wyrd level into account. This doesn't mean combat every time you turn around, but it does mean you will probably be treated differently by the hobs and beasts you meet (or worse, Loyalists/Privateers/True Fae). Play it up! Wyrd is weird!

Creating a Masterpiece

Once your idea is approved and you have your ST all lined up, it's time to get to work. The actual rolling won't be done until A) after the scenes are done or B) at the very end of the third scene.

You may or may not choose to include Step 3 below as part of your first scene.

Should you choose to forgo the research (maybe you only have a day and a night to get this done before an enemy arrives), there are no penalties for improvising your creation on the fly; you just don't get the bonus.

The following is a direct quote from the 'Rites of Spring' sourcebook, page 140:

Creating Hedgespun
      The act and art of Hedgespinning is an intuitive thing for many, the pushing and pulling of elements together, weaving and warping items so that they come together in a new and unusual way.

Note that a character must be in the Hedge while creating a Hedgespun item. The items will stubbornly refuse to yield if manipulated outside the Thorns. However, once crafted successfully, the Hedgespun token can be taken and used outside the Hedge (though just as all tokens, Hedgespun’s genuine mien is concealed beneath the Mask).

Intangible reagents are made a part of a Hedgespun item by existing in the proximity to the crafting process. If the recipe demands a cry of pain, then that anguished cry must be within earshot of the changeling Hedgespinning the item while she crafts it. If she herself must give something to the item, such as a whispered promise or a lusty gust of breath, she can do so while her hands work to ease the materials together.

...Which brings us to our third step!

Types of Hedgespun

There are a variety of different options to choose from when selecting the kind of hedgespun item which best suits your character and situation. See below.

Hedgespun Automatons

Examples: A spider with a human face capable of frightening away unwanted visitors. A hand mirror that walks on jointed pewter legs and is happy to tell its owner just how beautiful she really is. A fat-bellied red-clay golem useful for bringing drinks, cleaning up, and other menial tasks.

Creating automatons is a little different from creating other Hedgespun items. Mechanically, the process is still the same, though often some particularly unique ingredients go into the crafting of such a "creature." In many cases, parts of dead (or still-living) hobgoblins are necessary. Generally, some kind of "breath of life" is necessary, and this functions as the creature's heart: an everlasting flame, a powerful storm wind trapped in a teacup, a Hedge mouse forever locked in a bottle (and stung constantly by a pair of wasps).

Also, dots spent for such a token needn't be limited at five. Because dots spent contribute to the automaton's overall Attributes and Skills (at a rate of two dots per one Attribute point and one dot per one Skill point), a character could conceivably keep adding dots until the automaton has a wide variety of abilities. Every automaton begins its mockery of life with the following Attributes already in place: Intelligence 1, Wits 1, Dexterity 1, Stamina 1 and Strength 1. The automaton's creator builds upon these base stats.

Stats

• Health, Initiative, Speed etc. are determined by the same addition PC traits are.
• Size can be 1-3 to start. The creation can only be larger by spending dots. 1 dot = +1 size.
• Creation has no Willpower unless dots are purchased in Resolve or Composure.

• If a creation has Willpower, it spends it at the behest of its creator.

• Automatons DO NOT possess Wyrd, Glamour or Clarity.

Limitations

• Every automaton must be fed 1 Glamour every week to keep it animate. It becomes inert and nonresponsive if a week is missed, but will revive if fed more Glamour by its creator.
• No Mental/Social dice pool can ever exceed 4 dice. They are not great thinkers or socialites.

Creators & Loyalty

Similar to a Hollow, multiple changelings can contribute dots to an Automaton. If a conflict of interest ever occurs, its loyalty is to the changeling who contributed the most to its creation. If there is a tie, the changeling with the higher Wyrd wins. If there is still a tie, roll Wyrd to see who manages to wrest control away this time. If there is STILL a tie, roll Wyrd until there isn't!

Example Automaton

A vicious little beetle-shaped defender made of sharpened bark with claws cut from briar thorns.

Name: Beetlezebub

Attributes Intelligence 1, Wits 2, Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 1

Skills: Brawl 2

Size: 2

Health: 3

Defense: 2

Initiative: 2

Speed: 9

The total merit dots necessary to create it would be eight (+6 total for the 3 extra Attribute dots in Wits/Strength/Dexterity, +2 for the 2 Skill dots in Brawl 2).

Hedgespun Art

A portrait capable of speaking to those who gaze upon it. A sculpture that shifts and changes given the mood in the room. A burbling fountain whose mustytasting waters are capable of sharpening the mind. Art spun from the dreams and nightmares of the Thorns is often quite strange. Even when inactive, such art carries a veneer of the bizarre such as how the eyes in a painting seem to follow you across the room or how the shape of a sculpture is impossible in the same manner of an Escher design. Such art rarely affects a single witness, instead spreading its effect to all who gaze upon it, or even everyone within a certain radius (base radius is 50 yards).

For the most part, Hedgespun art is much like clothing; it's a way to drop a Merit dot on something memorable and cosmetic for the simple purpose of showing off.

Additionally, you may spend dots to:

• Increase the radius of the effect (+1 dot = +50 yards of effect).
• Add to/subtract from the skill dice pools of all nearby (Mental/Social/Physical).
  • Effects may be mixed. If you want people slow of mind but quick of tongue, use Mental penalties and Social bonuses.
• Leeching Willpower from those who look upon it.
  • 1 dot leeches 1 Willpower from anyone who looks at the art.
  • 2 dots allow the above, plus the art stores the Willpower so the art's owner can draw upon the reserve at a later date.
• Leeching Glamour from those who look upon it.
  • 2 dots leeches 1 Glamour from anyone who looks at the art.
  • 4 dots allows the above, plus storage/retrieval by the art's owner, as above.

Hedgespun Machines

A clock whose ticks and tocks are whispers pulled from the unconscious minds of those around it, speaking them aloud for all to hear. A toy monkey whose clapping cymbals release thunderclaps. Spinning machines from within the Hedge is no easy task. For the most part, simple machines are generally doable. A doorknob is just a wheel and axle, and maybe when such a knob is placed on a hard surface, the doorknob opens a door into a character's Hollow. A handheld trebuchet is just a lever, and maybe that token flings Hedge pebbles that never miss.

The creation of complex machines is far more difficult.

A vehicle is not just one complex machine, but several, and would require the creation of multiple Hedgespun items and the integration/combination thereof.

Creating a complex machine incurs an automatic -3 on the rolls to build it. Creating a complex machine with electronics incurs -5, and the machine will not always work as planned, regardless.

A 1-dot machine is essentially the same as an ordinary machine, but with a distinctly fae appearance or quirk.

Additional dot bonuses:

• The item provides an equipment bonus to ONE SKILL at a rate of +1 dice per dot spent on acquiring this bonus.
• Durability rating may be increased one for one.
• Durability-piercing may be increased one for one. For each dot spent, it can ignore 1 point of an item's Durability.

Hedgespun Raiment

Pauldrons hammered from broken dreams and the fingernails of giants. A delicate and diaphanous mask sculpted from the steam that rises from hailstones. Thigh-high boots of stitched together red ivy, the catgut laces dyed with the blood of a Keeper.

Hedgespun raiment — any kind of clothing or armor spun from elements found amongst the Thorns — can be found on p. 203 of Changeling: The Lost. Below, however, are a few additional ways the Storyteller might allow one to spend dots purchased in the Merit.

Per dot spent on each effect below:

• +2 bonus to Initiative
• +2 bonus to Speed
• +1 to Subterfuge-based Disguise attempts (see WoD p.87)
• +1 to a particular type of Social roll (blood-spattered robe may add to Intimidation, a musky animal pelt girdle may add to Animal Ken, a flower skirt may give off a heady fragrance which adds to Persuasion, etc.)

Hedgespun Weapons

A garrote made from creeper vine and goblin-gut. A knife that steals its victim's will every time it draws blood. A clockwork revolver whose bullets turn to biting grubs inside the target's body.

A Hedgespun weapon starts off with a +1 equipment bonus, and its lethality is determined by the type of weapon (a maul made of an Ogre's skull does bashing, a rapier whose blade is a lacquered dragon's tongue is clearly lethal).

Dots purchased in a Hedgespun token weapon could go toward the following:

• Adding to the equipment bonus. Each dot spent can increase the equipment bonus by +1 (two dots would give a weapon a +3 bonus, then, since each Hedgespun weapon starts its existence with the +1 bonus already in place). If the weapon's only benefit is this equipment bonus, the weapon likely doesn't require activation.
• A dot can be spent to increase the weapon user's Defense. Defense cannot be more than doubled with a Hedgespun weapon's dots.
• Dots can add to the weapon's Durability.
• Dots can be used to reduce the Durability of objects that end up the target of the weapon.
• The weapon delivers poison or another toxin. Each dot spent toward this adds to the Toxicity of the weapon by +3 (three dots therefore means that poison delivered has a Toxicity rating of 9).

As for the more esoteric abilities, pitch them to staff. They will require an activation cost, and may be better off qualified as official Tokens rather than Hedgespun tokens, depending. Staff will not approve truly twinktacular weapons, so please don't ask. If you can kill someone by scratching them once, that is not going to happen.