Monthly Archives: September 2007

Changeling: The Lost – The Chance Court

The Court of Chance

The Silver Coin, The Ivory Court, The Court of Fools

We got lucky, simple as that. A lot of folks will tell you that we were more driven, stronger willed, smarter or tougher than those left behind, but that’s a story to tell yourself to feel like you deserve to have gotten free.

But luck isn’t something that just happens. Luck creates opportunities, and it’s best to grab those when they come up. That we’ve done, and that deserves more credit than all the cunning and courage in the world. The trick now is to stay lucky. Keep your eyes open, and take your chances.

The Gentry are not all powerful – the simple fact that the Lost have eluded their grasp is testament to that. For all their power and knowledge, even their understanding of fate, they are still subject to the vagaries of chance that haunt mortals. The Court of Fools finds solace in this small fact, and seek to continue to ‘ride the wave’ of their good fortune, and keep riding it for as long as they must to stay free.

The origins of the silver coin are subject to some debate. Kurt Bones won the concessions of Chance in a thousand bets across a thousand nights, but when exactly this happened is debated. Some stories talk about it happening centuries ago, while other freeholds still have stories of someone who knew a guy who lost a bet to Kurt Bones.

The Ivory Court views luck as the flipside of fate, a lubricant of randomness that allows the skeins of destiny to move smoothly. Matters of luck are small, but they are tipping points. Luck falling one way or another can make all the difference in keeping a changeling’s body and soul intact.

Members of the court tend to combine a seemingly happy-go-lucky air with a diligent level of attention to matters of seemingly trivial importance. Each fool is constantly only the look out for where their luck is going so they can keep moving in that direction. Cynics observe that for all that they attribute much of their success to luck, their “luck” seems to be more of a function of diligence than any sense of probability.

The Fools attribute their success and failure to luck, and write off their own contribution as a given. Luck is something you can help or embrace – it doesn’t just happen. If you are lucky, life will give you the opportunities you need to do what you need to go.

Now, anyone can be lucky, and many envy the luck of the fool, but there are few people who are willing to accept that their fate is so far out of their own hands.

More details, including the Serendipity contract can be found in the vastly prettier pdf can be found here.