Glamour

Glamour is the creative energy that gives shape and life to changelings and to the Dreaming. It's born from the dreams and hopes of mortals, and so emphasize the beauty or terror of even the most ordinary objects to something straight away from their dreams. It can take physical form as Chimera. Many consider it the antithesis of Banality.

Changelings depend on Glamour for the ability to sustain their fae mien and to cast their cantrips. Without a steady supply of this precious element, changelings soon forget their connection to the Dreaming and fade away into their mortal seemings and mundane lives.

Harvest and Perception

In the Classic World of Darkness, Glamour is a rare commodity. Banality has greatly diminished the supply of Glamour, and changelings spend much of their time searching for new sources and preserving what still exists. Most changelings believe that if they can increase the amount of Glamour in the world, they can reduce the effects of Banality and eventually return the world to its original, magical state. Like most sources of energy or power, Glamour is imperceptible to normal senses. Lacking belief, mortals can't see Glamour or anything created from it. Nevertheless, it's as real as atoms, wind, or thought. Changelings, because they know that Glamour exists, can sense its presence. All Kithain have some degree of faerie sight, or kenning, which enables them to perceive the currents of faerie magic, though those who possess the Kenning Talent are more skilled in its use than others. Kenning allows changelings to see through each other's mortal seemings and recognize their fae miens, as well as to locate freeholds and perceive chimerical creatures and objects.

Glamour is a refined form of Gnosis, also called Chi, Sekhem or Quintessence, just as diamonds are a refined form of carbon.

Put briefly, Glamour is the magical energy that allows changelings to use thier forms of magic in the oWoD system. It is also the antithesis of banality.

What is Glamour?

Glamour is the stuff that dreams are made of. Much like Quintessence, Glamour is defined differently depending on who, or what, you are talking to. The most simplistic definition is that Glamour is creativity, though some prefer to push it in further directions, as they argue it could also come from hope, faith, belief in the unbelievable, fear, uncertainty, or spontaneity. Whatever it is, it's on the decline due to increasing levels of banality in the world.

Knockers subdivide glamour into six different charges based on their effects, much like the atom has been divided into quarks for further exploration. (see: knocker)

How to Get Glamour

Where Glamour Doesn't Come From

Glamour doesn't come out of thin air. There is no ambient glamour factor that changelings can use to fuel their cantrips. Glamour doesn't come from stasis, either. It is an active energy, which leads to active effects.

Getting Glamour from People

Glamour is most frequently gotten by musing people in various ways. The methods used in musing range from the lightest, happiest daydreams to hardcore mutilation and destruction. To get glamour from a human (or, in some cases, other supernaturals, at the changeling's own risk) one has to somehow inspire a person to dream, or alternately destroy their dreams. These dreams don't have to be pleasant -- nightmares are a perfectly viable way to muse in unseelie opinion.

Inspiring dreams, or Musing, usually takes place through the changeling's encouragement of hope, aspirations, dreams, or other gentle prodding to push a human to create, better herself, or change in some way. This takes a great amount of time, however, and work on the part of a changeling. On the plus, a mused human can be returned to again and again for glamour. Fears can also be exploited to good effect on people (if the devil-dog following them proves to be "real" for example).

Breaking dreams, or Ravaging, usually takes place when a changeling slowly kills the hopes and dreams of a human, rendering them incapable of producing glamour for a time. For example, crushing the athlete's dreams of victory, or breaking up a particularly sappy romance would produce a great quantity of glamour.

Changelings can try to muse themselves, though it takes significantly more time and effort on their part to achieve an epiphany than to muse a mortal.

From Dross

Dross is a physical item that has glamour stored within it. These things can be treasures, or by-products of musing someone (art produced by an artist, a home-run baseball). Dross must be broken in order for the glamour inside to be used, and cannot be repaired once broken nor restored in any way to it's original state.

Glamour Ethics

The seelie and unseelie houses have differing viewpoints on the ethics of gaining glamour, based on the faerie code (escheat) and changeling opinion on how mortals should be treated. Specifically, seelie houses demand that glamour be fostered and preserved as much as possible, in an attempt to stave off the Endless Winter and bring about a rebirth of changeling society. Unseelie houses believe that glamour is a free resource, and can be used however the unseelie changeling sees fit.