Token-Making

Token Crafting

Optional Merit: Token Maker (•••) Most tokens are crafted by the Fae or found in the Hedge and put to use by those clever enough to recognize their potential. Some changelings, however, learn the ability to create tokens themselves, a useful skill that often puts them in great demand by their peers (and by the True Fae who would prefer such craftsmen remained in their own “employ”). Creating a token is a long and arduous project that requires not only great skill but a commitment of personal energies as well. First, the character must be able to accurately create some sort of plans, recipe or blueprint for the creation. Creating a recipe from scratch is an extended Intelligence + Occult roll, with one day required per roll and total successes required of five per dot in the token. This research cannot be interrupted until complete, or all successes are lost. In some cases, the crafter may be able to discover a plan that some other changeling has created, and work directly from that. Such a discovery may be the focus of a story — and may result in an object with unforeseen quirks reflecting the unknown author. Tokens are created as an extended action (Wyrd + Crafts) with each roll representing two weeks of work and a target number of 25 per dot of Token. Thus a twodot token such as a Lantern of Ill Omen would require 50 successes to create. Token Makers must expend at least one point of Glamour per two weeks into their work, and may expend up to five per month. Each point of Glamour above the first counts as an automatic success toward the total. The character must work for at least eight hours each day; working 16 or more hours a day adds an additional two dice to the roll per week that the character can maintain this schedule. If the crafter leaves off in the middle of her project, accumulated successes remain — but if she fails to pick up her tools again and resume work within two weeks, the successes are lost as the Glamour flees and her inspiration leaves her. Changelings possessing the Workshop Merit below may additionally halve the time per roll (if working on a token made of a material which falls within one of their Workshop’s Specialty areas) should any points in Workshop focus on that specialty. Example: Annie Bumble wants to create a Curious Paw Token (p. 207 of Changeling: The Lost). She’s a passable taxidermist and has a nicely appointed taxidermy table set up in her Hollow (one dot in Workshop: Taxidermy). She sequesters herself in her Hollow to work on it. Because she has a dot in Taxidermy allocated to her Workshop Hollow, she halves two weeks, making her time per roll one week. At the end of the first week of work, she spends one Glamour for the required investment and five more toward automatic successes. Her player rolls Annie’s Wyrd (3) + Crafts (4) + Crafts Specialty: Taxidermy (1) + Workshop (Taxidermy) (3) and gets 4 successes on the 11 dice. Adding in her automatic successes, Annie has now accumulated nine successes toward the 100 required to complete the Curious Paw. At the end of the next week of work, she spends another Glamour (with the option of spending up to five more) and makes another roll, accumulating the successes until she has reached 100 and the Curious Paw is complete. Drawbacks: Token drawbacks are not within the control of their creator. They are a result of the cagey nature of Glamour, and cannot be guided by the token’s maker’s hand or will. As tokens are forged in part out of the maker’s own Glamour, however, the drawback often reflects a connection to the maker in some way. One Darkling craftsman’s token might cause temporary blindness after being used, while another item by the same artisan might attract spiders to the user’s home. For already published tokens, such as those found on pp. 202–209 of Changeling: The Lost or in Chapter Four of this book, Storytellers have the option of using the listed drawback or creating one that more closely ties the token to its creator’s nature.