Eternal 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 Eternal Spring provide powers of growth and rejuvenation to the changeling, just as Spring brings growth and rejuvenation to Earth.


[ 1 ] Gift Of Warm Breath ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 151 )

The character's power rejuvenates a single living target, filling the target with energy and vigorous life.

Prerequisites: None

Cost: 1 Glamour

Dice Pool: Resolve + Survival + Mantle (Spring)

Action: Instant

Catch: The subject of the Contract has freely offered the changeling some form of sustenance since the last sunrise.

Dramatic Failure: The subject suffers starvation and fatigue as if he had been without food and sleep for a number of days equal to the changeling's Wyrd, and without water for half that long. For things that can endure longer periods of deprivation without penalty, increase the base time until they are adversely affected (cacti, for example).

Failure: The character does not aid the subject.

Success: The Contract's subject gains energy. He becomes as healthy and alert as though he has just risen from a full night's rest and had a full breakfast. All fatigue penalties disappear, and any bashing damage or damage suffered from food or water deprivation is fully healed.

Exceptional Success: The subject gains +1 Stamina for the duration of the scene.

Suggested Modifiers: Each point of fatigue penalty the subject suffers (-1); Each point of damage from deprivation the subject suffers (-1).


[ 2 ] New Lover's Kiss ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 151 )

The character calls a rain down from even a cloudless sky.

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

Cost: 1 Glamour

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Survival + Mantle (Spring)

Action: Extended (5+ successes; each roll represents five minutes of imploring the sky)

Catch: A mortal human has commented, within the character's hearing and within the past hour, that it looks like rain.

Dramatic Failure: The extended roll fails. It does not begin to rain, and the character cannot use this Contract again for 24 hours.

Failure: The character makes no progress toward her goal.

Success: The character progresses toward making it rain. The character chooses the number of successes required ahead of time. Five successes yields a light, pleasant rain. Every additional five successes increases the ferocity of the precipitation until, at 25 successes, the character summons a true deluge that could flood local lakes and rivers and wash away unsecured objects.

Exceptional Success: The character makes exceptional progress toward her goal.

Suggested Modifiers: Extensive cloud cover (+1); Exceedingly clear day (-1).


[ 3 ] Warmth Of The Blood ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 152 )

The power of Spring is strong enough to heal injuries and soothe pain. This clause allows the changeling to channel the verdant might of Spring into a person's body, mending his wounds. This power works only on living creatures of flesh and blood.

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

Cost: 1 Glamour + 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Wits + Medicine + Mantle (Spring)

Action: Instant

Catch: The target has honestly professed a heartfelt and deep love, romantic or familial, for the changeling.

Dramatic Failure: The clause's effects go astray. One point of damage is upgraded from bashing to lethal; if all wounds are lethal, one is upgraded to aggravated.

Failure: The clause takes no effect.

Success: Each success on the roll allows the changeling to downgrade one of the target's lethal wounds to a bashing wound, or to remove one bashing wound entirely. Thus, a changeling who rolled four successes could turn two lethal wounds into bashing wounds (two successes) and then remove both bashing wounds (two more).

Exceptional Success: The changeling may also use successes to convert aggravated wounds into lethal wounds. Each aggravated wound converted to lethal requires the expenditure of an additional point of Glamour.


[ 4 ] Yesterday's Birth ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 152 )

The changeling endows a living object or creature with a season's worth of growth and maturing in an instant.

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

Cost: 1 Glamour or 3 Glamour + 1 Willpower dot

Dice Pool: Wyrd + Medicine

Action: Instant

Catch: The character spills two drops of blood on the target object and cups it in her hands.

Dramatic Failure: The target object dies in an obvious manner. Seeds are immediately overcome with rot, and insects fall over with bloat. Birds or mammals of Size 2 or larger do not die, but are wracked with hunger.

Failure: The target object does not grow.

Success: The target object grows the same amount it would over a full season with optimal care. The object ends its growth as if it were in the height of Spring, so plants are flowering. Insects lay grubs in this time (if they are able), which also grow. Subjects of this Contract require a great deal of sustenance during or after the growth, equivalent to about three full days' worth. Plants in soil of only moderate fertility or less may drain their resources and soon begin to wither. This clause can be used on human beings, but the changeling must pay three points of Glamour and one Willpower dot. This cost cannot be averted by invoking the clause's catch.

Exceptional Success: The target object experiences up to a full year's worth of growth (as much between one season and one year as the changeling desires). The full cycle of the year is visible and may provide fruit or other benefits.

Suggested Modifiers: Object fits entirely in the palm of the hand (peach pit, mayfly grub) (+1); Each point by which the target object/creature is greater in Size than 1. (-1); Each additional object (affecting a group of seeds or a small group of ants) (-1).


[ 5 ] Mother Of All Deaths ( Changeling: The Lost -- Page 152 )

The character makes the region around her extraordinarily verdant and rouses it to fight on her behalf.

Prerequisites: Mantle (Spring) 4

Cost: 3 Glamour + 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Mantle (Spring)

Action: Instant

Catch: A man bled to death on this soil within the past year.

Dramatic Failure: The plants the changeling attempted to control turn on her. They make a single grappling attack on her each turn for the rest of the scene. See below for more details.

Failure: Nearby plants gain a few years' worth of new growth over the next few minutes, but most of it dries up within the next hour and the plants to not move abnormally.

Success: Plants around the changeling grow at an extraordinary rate, quickly enough for vines, roots and the like to grow around people and entangle them. Each turn, the character may designate one grapple attack on any creature or target within 10 feet of a plant in her sight in addition to her normal action. She may sacrifice her normal action to designate two grapple attacks, and if she does that she may also sacrifice her Defense for a third. Plant grapple attacks use a dice pool of the changeling's Wyrd + 1 - 3 equipment bonus for the plant (vines are excellent, branches less so). This lasts a number of turns equal to the changeling's Wyrd rating. Over the next hour, all but one year's worth of the new growth dies off.

Exceptional Success: The plants fight for the character for the rest of the scene, and all new growth remains afterward.

Suggested Modifiers: Bountiful plant life (rainforest) (+1); Weak plant life (city trees) (-1); Controlled plant life (city park) (-1); Sparse plant life (city street with occasional fenced-in trees)