Banality

Changeling 20th Rules for Banality for individual races is different than the 2nd Edition rules. While we have updated the Changeling sphere to C20 rules, staff is NOT updating the rest of the game (and the hundreds of PCs) to the same rules for Banality. If you have a question with regards to your personal non-Changeling PC as banality pertains, please open a +request with staff. What you do in closed-PRPs with NPCs is, as always, up to the ST.

Perceiving Banality

• Changelings and Subrace:Kinain are able to discern Banality automatically and accurately. (+help +banality)
• Others can infer Banality 8+ by the reaction of known changelings/chimera (+help fae). It's not exact, it's not cause for alarm unless they've claimed to be something that averages Banality 5 or less, and anything other than observing the reaction of known changeling PCs counts as sniping (+rules sniping).

Temporary Banality

• Tracked separately on +sheet ("Temp Banality") and starts at 0.
• If it goes over 10, then it decreases by 10 and permanent Banality increases by 1 (submit a +request). (C20 page 258)
  • Reducing permanent Banality requires a Quest adjudicated by staff. (C20 pages 174, 271-274) Cannot go below your Seeming's baseline.
• If your character's temporary Banality score ever exceeds his permanent Glamour score, he may become forgetful, confused, and/or less aware of his surroundings. Roll Glamour vs Banality to remember anything more clearly than the Mists chart. (C20 pages 269-271)

Things that increase it

Long-term exposure (an entire scene) to a person with high (8+) Banality, or multiple scenes in a place strongly dominated by such people, results in gaining a point of temporary Banality (+gain temp banality). (C20 pages 268-269)

• Grumps are immune, but still uncomfortable.
• This does not happen at combat speed. You need not flee like a vampire from sunlight. You may stay in the room and just keep some distance from them, both literally and figuratively.
• Fae-oriented but public hangouts may want to post an OOC notice explaining this status and suggesting that Banality 8+ PCs avoid it. Banality 8+ PCs should generally respect such suggestions.

Triggers that risk increasing temporary Banality:

• Roll Glamour vs 8. Success = no increase, failure = +1 (+gain temp banality), botch = +1 for every 1 rolled. (C20 page 269)
• Invoking the Autumn to resist a cantrip or chimerical effect.
• Failing to overcome a target's Banality while enchanting them (does not include trying to cast a cantrip on them, does not apply to childling NPCs).
• Wilfully destroying a Treasure or any other irreplaceable faerie artifact.
• Killing a changeling's chimerical self (wilders are immune to this trigger under most circumstances).
• Ending a changeling's mortal life.
• Killing one of the enchanted, a mortal Dreamer, or Kinain.
• Wielding cold iron.
• Breaking an oath.
• Violating your personal Antithesis.

Other less common situations increase Banality as stated in canon.

Things that decrease it

When you gain a point of temporary Glamour, you may spend it to decrease temporary Banality by one (+lose temp banality). (Must be decided at the moment you gain it.) (C20 page 174)

Miscellaneous

• Gift of Pan (satyr birthright, CtD 98-99) decreases both permanent and temporary Banality, but these changes go away within a few hours.
  • Under discussion per conversion to C20.
• Curse of Banality (Arcadian Sidhe frailty, C20 page 107): All increases of temporary Banality are doubled.
• Poetic Heart (2 dot merit, C20 page 186): Once per story (+rules time), when your temporary Banality would increase, roll Willpower (difficulty = permanent Banality); a successful roll negates 1 point of the increase.

By race

• Most of these are from CtD 2nd pages 287 (281 for mages).
  • For simplicity, we are ignoring the examples from C20 chapter 9.
• If more than one applies (due to merits), then look at the lowest/highest numbers within any of those ranges.
• These are averages. PCs may be 1 higher or lower by request, but minimum 1 except for chimerical bygones.
• House rule: Faerie Affinity (2 point merit) allows a PC whose average is 6+ (after taking all other factors into account) to be up to 3 lower than normal. It has no other effects (changelings are not obligated to like you, and if they don't then they can still target you with their powers more easily).
• See Also: The Mists

Shifters 2-3 Nuwisha 2-5 Ceilican (Bastet) 3-5 Corax 3-5 Munchmausen (Ratkin) 4-6 Kitsune 7 Most other shifters 7 Wyrm creatures Mortal+ 1-3 Kami (Possessed) 2-3 Gorgons (Possessed) 3 Kinain 6 Sorcerers/psychics 7 Kinfolk 7 Ghouls 7 Fomori (Possessed) 10 Drones (Possessed)

Mage 1-2 Marauders 2-4 Mystics (Verbena, CoX, Hermetics, Dreamspeakers) 4-6 True Believers (Nephandi, Celestial Chorus, Akashic Brotherhood, Euthanatos, most Craft wizards) 6-8 Modern Cynics (SoE, Hollow Ones, VA, many Orphans) 8-10 Technocrats

Vampire 6 Malkavians 6 Ravnos 6 Gangrel 6 Kiasyd 8-9 Most other vampires Kuei-jin 5 Yang imbalanced 6 Yang aligned 7 Balanced 8 Yin aligned 9 Yin imbalanced

Changeling 3 Kithain 4 House Liam 10 Dauntain Demon 7 Most demons Wraith 4 Wraiths 7 Risen Mummy 4-6 Mummies (8 in canon, but that pre-dated perfected Spell of Life) Bygone 0 Chimerical 2-4 Other

Mortal / other 3-5 Children 5 Drunks, lunatics 6-7 Other adult humans (-3) Spirit Sight merit* (-1) Wyld Touched 1-2 (-2) Wyld Touched 3-4 (-3) Wyld Touched 5 (+1) Weaver Touched 1-2 (+2) Weaver Touched 3-4 (+3) Weaver Touched 5 *if not already changeling or kinain

Nightmare Dice

Nightmare represents the Dreaming pulling the character toward the inhuman madness of the Dreaming. The loss of control and perspective functions as a warning of the changeling's path to Bedlam.

Nightmare rating:

• Starts at 0.
• +1 for botching a Glamour or cantrip roll.
• +1 for Unleashing an art.
• +1 for each 10 rolled on a Nightmare die.
• If it reaches 10 or more, reset it to 0, gain a Glamour, and gain an Imbalance (see below).

Nightmare dice:

• When you roll Glamour or cast a cantrip, your dice pool comes from your Nightmare dice first.
  • Example: If your pool is 8 and you have 3 Nightmare dice, you roll 3 Nightmare dice and 5 normal dice.
  • Example: If your pool is 8 and you have 9 Nightmare dice, you roll 8 (not 9) Nightmare dice.
• If you still have at least three normal dice, you can choose to replace three with Nightmare dice for -1 diff on a cantrip.
• Nightmare dice may increase Nightmare rating (see above), but otherwise add/remove successes the same as normal dice.

Imbalances:

• Starts at 0.
• Increased when your Nightmare rating maxes out (see above).
• When you succeed at any type of Epiphany, you may remove an Imbalance instead of gaining a Glamour.
• If your temporary Willpower drops below your Imbalances, you suffer a Bedlam threshold for one scene per Imbalance (may invoke the Autumn to postpone for a scene).
• If your Imbalances equal your permanent Willpower, you are lost to Bedlam (permanently removed from play).

(C20 pages 196, 260-264, 274-275, 294-295)