Fleeting Spring Contract (Spring)

These Contracts are derived from the pacts the Court founders made with their respective seasons. Each Court has two associated Contracts, the Fleeting Season Contract (associated with emotions) and the Eternal Season Contract (associated with more physical aspects of that season).

Court Contracts also have prerequisites that a character have the right Court's Mantle at a rating equal to one less than the rating of the clause. When a clause has a required Mantle rating, characters from other Courts may substitute the appropriate Court Goodwill rating at two dots higher. Anyone may learn a Court Contract's one-dot clauses -- they are teasers, and they occasionally draw new members to a Court.

If a character's Mantle or Court Goodwill ratings change (most likely because the character has changed Courts), the character will find it harder to use his Contracts due to something similar to a no-compete clause. If a character's Mantle or Court Goodwill rating ever falls below the amount required for a particular clause, he must pay the difference in extra Glamour points every time he uses it. This extra cost cannot be circumvented in any way, even if the character is somehow able to use a catch or otherwise reduce the cost of the clause. In addition, the clause can no longer generate an exceptional success result even if the player rolls exceptionally well, the extra successes are still counted but the result is treated as equivalent to a regular success and receives no additional benefits.

Repeated use of a clause without meeting the Mantle or Court Goodwill prerequisites nettles the appropriate Court. If a character uses a clause that he is no longer "entitled to" within the sight of a member of the appropriate Court, the Court becomes wroth with him. He can no longer gain any bonus Social dice from appropriate Merits when dealing with members of that Court, until he has somehow regained their favor (usually by accomplishing some difficult task for the Court's benefit).

The Contracts of Fleeting Spring allow changelings to manipulate and evoke feelings of desire within others.


[ 1 ] Cupid's Eye ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 149 )

This clause takes the first step in fulfilling a person's desires -- or teasing him and stringing him along -- by revealing what those desires are.

Prerequisites: None

Cost: 1 Glamour

Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd vs. subject's Composure + Wyrd

Action: Contested

Catch: The character has kissed the subject within the past 24 hours, or the subject's object of desire is the character.

Dramatic Failure: The changeling receives false impressions, becoming absolutely sure that the subject's desire is something it is not.

Failure: The character cannot discern the subject's desires.

Success: The changeling learns one of the subject's desires. See the suggested modifiers list that follows for specific depths to which this power can plumb.

Exceptional Success: Exceptional success at Cupid's Eye provides the character with two desires of the targeted level, or the knowledge that there is only one desire at that level.

Suggested Modifiers: The character has a pledge with the subject (+1); The character learns a desire not currently concerning the subject (-1); The character learns a specific kind of desir, such as sexual, employment, etc. (-1); The character discovers a desire the subject recognizes but generally keeps hidden (-2); The character finds a desire the subject hides even from himself (-3).


[ 2 ] Growth Of The Ivy ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 149 )

Humans are fickle creatures, changing desires with the day or the season. This Contract allows the character to direct a subject's desires somewhat.

Prerequisites: Mantle (Spring) 1 or Court Goodwill (Spring) 3

Cost: 2 Glamour; add 1 Willpower for a supernatural subject

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Mantle (Spring) - subject's Resolve

Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive.

Catch: The character is acting to make the subject desire her or is doing so to resolve a pledge.

Dramatic Failure: The target develops an active dislike for or aversion to the subject of the intended desire.

Failure: The subject's desires do not change.

Success: The subject's desires change in a manner of the character's choosing. See the suggested modifiers list that follows for guidelines on how a character may affect the target. The change lasts for one day per success rolled, though natural interaction may be able to prolong the desire beyond the point where the supernatural effect ends.

Exceptional Success: The change is instead permanent. The inflicted desires remain until the character chooses to release them, and they may then become natural.

Suggested Modifiers: The character changes a momentary desire (+1); The character changes a desire concealed from others (-1); The character changes a desire moderately, e.g., from wanting a cat to wanting a Nintendo (-1); The character changes a desire the subject conceals from himself (-2); The character changes a desire significantly, e.g., a desire for the Nobel Prize becomes the desire for a family (-2); The character eliminates a desire or creates one from scratch (-5).


[ 3 ] Wyrd-Faced Stranger ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 150 )

The changeling appears as whomever the subject most desires to see at that moment.

Prerequisites: Mantle (Spring) 2 or Court Goodwill (Spring) 4

Cost: 2 Glamour

Dice Pool: Presence + Subterfuge + Mantle (Spring) vs. subject's Composure + Wyrd

Action: Instant

Catch: The character has recently offered food to the target and the target has accepted, or vice versa.

Dramatic Failure: The subject instead sees the character as the person he would least like to see right now. The character is not aware of the failure.

Failure: The character appears as herself, and she is aware of the failed attempt.

Success: The subject recognizes the character as the person he would most like to see at the moment. The character has no say over who she becomes, she just knows that she is recognized as the desired individual. This lasts for one scene. When using this power on a group of observers, the changeling chooses one as the subject but subtracts the highest Composure in the group from her roll. Success indicates that all observers see her as the same person. Acting in ways foreign to the visage donned allows reflexive Wits + Composure rolls from people who know whomever the character is pretending to be. These rolls suffer a dice penalty equal to the successes on the character's activation roll but gain a +1 or +2 dice bonus for actions flagrantly out of character. Note that the changeling does not always appear as someone the subject knows. The character may appear to be the dark, handsome stranger the target was secretly wishing would appear and whisk her away or the "federal agent" that the beat cop wants to take a murder off his hands. In such cases, the changeling's actual appearance becomes whatever the subject assumes the desired person would look like.

Exceptional Success: The deception lasts as long as the changeling would like to maintain it.

Suggested Modifiers: The character knows the subject's current desire(s) (+1).


[ 4 ] Pandora's Gift ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 150 )

The changeling creates an object that another person truly desires out of nothing but emotion, dreamstuff and random materials.

Prerequisites: Mantle (Spring) 3 or Court Goodwill (Spring) 5

Cost: 2 Glamour

Dice Pool: Wits + Craft + Mantle (Spring)

Action: Extended (2+ successes, based on the complexity and size of the object; each roll represents 10 minutes of effort)

Catch: The subject has recently (within one week) given the character a gift. This gift comes with no strings attached, including any expectation of this gift.

Dramatic Failure: The character creates the desired object, but it is destined to fail its wielder at an appropriately dramatic moment -- the gun jams at the last minute, the masterpiece painting discolors in the sun or the key breaks off in the lock.

Failure: The character makes no progress.

Success: The character makes progress toward creating the desired object. The number of required successes is equal to the object's Size + rough complexity, 1 being no moving parts and 10 being a high-precision pocket watch. Things created through this Contract last for the rest of the scene (or longer, based on modifiers) before returning to their original states. Until that time, they function perfectly as normal.

Exceptional Success: The character makes significant progress toward creating the object.

Suggested Modifiers: Exceptionally appropriate materials (+1); Exceptionally inappropriate materials (-1); Object is exceptional (per point of equipment bonus above normal) (-1); One-hour duration (-1); One-day duration (-2); Two-day duration (-3).


[ 5 ] Waking The Inner Faerie ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 151 )

The changeling makes a target pursue his greatest desires, regardless of other considerations.

Prerequisites: Mantle (Spring) 4

Cost: 3 Glamour + 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Dice Pool: Intelligence + Expression + Mantle (Spring) vs. Composure + Wyrd

Action: Contested and Extended (subject's Willpower in successes, one roll is made each turn); resistance is reflexive.

Catch: The subject of the Contract has voluntarily and without coercion confided his desire(s) to the character.

Dramatic Failure: The Contract backfires, affecting the character for one scene instead of the subject.

Failure: The character rolls fewer or equal successes than the subject. The character makes no headway.

Success: The character rolls more successes than the subject and makes headway. If the character reaches the required number of successes, the target feels the immediate impulse to try to achieve one of his greatest desires. He abandons other responsibilities and rational thinking to obey that urge. See the list of suggested modifiers below for guidelines on the effect's duration.

Exceptional Success: The character rolls many more successes than the subject and makes great headway.

Suggested Modifiers: The character knows what the target's greatest desires are (+1); Five-minute duration (+1); One-hour duration (-1); One-day duration (-2); Two-day duration (-3).