Changelings refer to themselves individually and in groups as “Kithain,” a word derived from “kith” which denotes a member of a faerie race. The nine kiths that comprise the majority of Western changeling races are:

• Boggans — Known as practical and home-loving helpers of those in need, boggans are also inveterate meddlers in the affairs of those they help.
• Eshu — Their sharp wits and innate canniness make eshu shrewd bargainers, while their talent for being precisely where they need to be at the proper time sometimes leads their companions down unexpected paths.
• Nockers — Skilled crafters and smiths, nockers seek a perfection that they can never achieve, and often prefer the company of their creations to social interaction.
• Pooka — The pranksters of the changeling community, pooka share an affinity with animals and a love of tricks and practical jokes.
• Redcaps — Their bloodthirsty behavior, coupled with their amazing ability to ingest virtually anything that they can fit into their oversized mouths, wins redcaps few friends outside their own kith.
• Satyrs — Shameless hedonists, satyrs live for carnal pleasures and sensual gratification. Nevertheless, they are valued for their wise counsel and musical talent.
• Sidhe — Epitomizing the beauty and grace of the “classic” faerie, these aristocratic changelings exude an aura of authority and nobility regardless of their true status in Kithain society.
• Sluagh — Secretive and sly, these odd changelings seek out dark and hidden places. Able to speak only in whispers, sluagh collect information with a passion and disseminate it only for a price.
• Trolls — These giants of the fae possess incredible strength and determination. Once they offer their loyalty, nothing can sway them from those whom they have sworn to protect.

Sometimes creative thoughts and dreams assume solid form or are deliberately shaped into objects, places or creatures. The unreal given reality, these fanciful creations are called chimera. Birthed by changelings or other beings touched by the Dreaming, chimera may be animate or inanimate. Some are formed intentionally.

Some spring into being spontaneously. Others seem to come to life almost against their dreamers’ wills. Chimera are seldom what their creators expect; they may be beautiful and friendly, or dark, twisted and inimical. Chimera may even be dangerous to changelings, especially chimera given form through unresolved fears or vivid nightmares.

Regardless of how they come into being, chimera created within the confines of reality must relate to the material world in some fashion. Inanimate chimera, such as rocks, forests or houses, have little choice as to their interactions. Animate dreams-come-true, such as animals, often take on lives of their own. They can even become real to humans on rare occasions.

Disbelief threatens the very existence of changelings. The curtain of doubt and rationality that humans raised centuries ago to explain away their fears not only separates the mortal world from the Dreaming, but also snuffs out the spark of creativity that ignites into hope and imagination. Changelings call this universal negation of the creative spirit Banality, for it seeks to reduce the marvelous to the mundane, the miraculous to the ordinary, and the inexplicable to the impossible. Many old Kithain refer to this destructive force of disbelief and cynicism as the Endless Night or the Long Winter, for it epitomizes darkness, dreariness and relentless cold. Banality is the death of the spirit.

Banality clouds the minds of mortals to the wonders of the world, and blinds them to the possibilities of making their dismal lives better. Banality imposes the belief that everything is the result of cause and effect. Evolutionary processes and entropic decay follow fixed patterns, and all things will eventually come to a grinding halt with the death of the sun. Banality is the wet blanket of the cosmos. In more immediate terms, Banality prompts a jaded parent to destroy a child's belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. It forces a talented student to lay aside his dreams of becoming a great writer or musician in favor of joining the work force because his advisors counsel him to make “realistic” decisions about his future.

Changelings are creatures of dream, trapped in mortal flesh. Born of two worlds, they live in the mundane, but truly exist in a world of fantasy and chimera.

This fantasy world is called chimerical because nonenchanted mortals cannot normally experience it. Although changelings occupy mortal flesh in order to stave off Banality, their true selves lie within their fragile, englamoured souls. Despite their mortal shells, the fae perceive the chimerical reality of the world. They do not shift viewpoints back and forth from banal to chimerical, seeing a street with broken pavement and sagging storefronts, and then a golden avenue lined with palaces. They normally see the true magic anima that exists within every object, place and person. Changelings recognize the inherent nature of people, places and things, weaving those perceptions into a greater whole.

Thus changelings do not see a tattered old book of fairy tales with a torn cover, but the warmth and pleasure that countless children have derived from reading the book. Each child has left some impression on the book, some tiny spark of imagination or inspiration that the book evoked for her. Changelings revel in that aura, which may cause the book to appear new and crisp, with freshly painted colors. Likewise, changelings may smell luscious strawberries on an “empty” plate, or may dance to a symphony played on crickets' legs.

Changelings experience the world as a magical, mystical place filled with amazing and exciting things. They see things from a fae perspective that colors everything. Trees are not merely wood and leaves, but glowing green-topped pillars shot through with golden, life-sustaining sap. Moreover, should a changeling use her faerie sight to look deeply into the essence of a tree in search of its faerie nature, she might find it to be a resting dream-being, arms thrust skyward, feet planted in the earth. Butter knives might be silver daggers. An old stuffed animal might be a prancing faerie steed. An old raincoat might be ornate armor. As most people cannot perceive such things, they dismiss changelings' reactions to the chimerical world as playacting, miming or just plain insanity.

There are those who argue that chimerical reality is actually a greater or more expanded reality than the one we know. Neither compartmentalized nor tightly tucked into a common consensus of what is “real,” this altered state of sensibility contains stories, tall tales, legends, myths, childhood playthings, imaginary companions, hopes and dreams. It also consists of fears, monstrous horrors and the darkest imaginings of humankind. All exist within chimerical reality, and all are as real as any objects found in the mundane world. This “reality” is all that remains of the age of legends — the fragment of Arcadia still on Earth. As a faerie king once said, “Anything is possible within the Dreaming.”

Interacting with the Real World

Changelings may live in a chimerical world, but they are aware of the banal world. Changelings respond to stimuli that mundane people cannot perceive, but this does not mean they are ignorant of real-world objects, people or dangers. Changelings don't ride their faerie steeds along airport runways, oblivious to the aircraft taking off and landing all around them. Nor can they ignore a mugger with a gun.

Changelings don’t have some sort of double vision that lets them see the mundane and magical at the same time. Rather, magical aspects are paramount, superseding the mundane reality of the objects and people with whom changelings interact. Yet magic does not eradicate the presence of the mundane. It is almost as if changelings' bodies “remember” worldly details, while their minds reach beyond. A car is still a vehicle, even if it appears to changelings that the car glows orange and that its hood is fitted with antlers.

Solid objects exist in the mundane world and must be accounted for. This often causes problems for changelings whose faerie bodies are larger than their mortal selves. This is especially true for massive kith such as trolls. A changeling who is imbued with Glamour always defers to his faerie mien and makes every effort to compensate for its mass. Respecting mortal seeming instead causes a break from the Dreaming. It is therefore possible for a seven-foot-tall troll to climb into the back of a Volkswagen Bug, but in doing so he denies his faerie existence, giving in to mundane reality. Such acts can be dangerous for any changeling, for falling back on the mundane invites Banality.

The mundane world offers little room for dreams. Humans exist in a reality that they can explain rationally, but still cannot understand. All the “great” institutions conspire to tell them that the good die young, the brave come home in boxes, and that only the financially strong survive. Dreams — such as they are — come in sanitized, pre-programmed packages: the corporate dream, the jet-set dream, the dream of retirement and the virtual dream.

For most people, dreams are a luxury they cannot afford. The young have nothing to look forward to except unemployment or, if they're lucky, meaningless jobs that pay minimum wage. When a military career looks attractive, things are dull, indeed. The old must deal with unfulfilled lives and a society that turns its back on them. Even those who have it made — CEOs, rock stars, drug lords, politicians — are surrounded by tawdriness and mundanity. The high aspirations that once fueled human achievement and creativity have degenerated into the lowest common expectations.