by Carrie Schutrick

Created on: April 23, 2009

In "Lords of Summer", the next-to-last book of the Changeling: the Lost series, White Wolf looks at the organizations changelings build for themselves: freeholds, Courts, and Entitlements.

First chapter's all about freeholds. What does the name that a freehold chooses for itself mean? How are freeholds organized? Why do some cities have more than one, when there are few enough Lost that they're dividing themselves dangerously? Then there's a look at freeholds with atypical Court setups, such as the Canadian city that has three months of Summer and is ruled by Winter the rest of the time, and those where power passes only when the champion of the incoming Court can defeat the champion of the Court currently ruling. There are hints on how to use a freehold as symbolism to enhance the themes of your game, and discussions on what sucessful and unsuccesful freeholds usually look like.

The chapter on the Seasonal Courts is very interesting, in that it takes the material from the core book and expands it. Instead of just saying that Summer's emotion is wrath, it goes into depth about what "wrath" really means to the changelings of the Summer Court, and how they go about harvesting it. There are details about each Court's relationships with the others that goes well beyond the quick stereotypes the core book gave, plus notes on the internal organization of each Court and special bits of lore that only insiders know. Each Court also has a list of positions or officers it commonly has-sure, a small freehold doesn't have enough changelings for all these positions to be filled, but for fleshing out a large, bustling or powerful Court it's right on. And last but not least, Court-specific takes on other supernatural denizens of the World of Darkness, like what exactly the Autumn Court thinks of werewolves anyway.

Last but not least, "Lords of Summer" includes a good dozen new Entitlements. Some are focussed on a job or trade, such as the courier Guild of the Sacred Journey; some are more about an attitude, like the Barony of the Lesser Ones which tries to foster diplomacy with the inhabitants of the Hedge. And there's one, the Court of the Solstice, that's trying to carve out a place for itself as a full-fledged Court instead of just an Entitlement; whether that's even possible to manage is, of course, up to the Storyteller and the group.

"Lords of Summer" is a little less thrilling than some of the other books in the Changeling line, but it offers ideas and information that can be put to good use by almost any group.

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