First off i want to say i adore the Dresden Files and was over the mmon when i found out about this rpg which is much better than i could have imagined. Working as the GM for my group, one of our players approached me saying that she would love to play a Faerie, mainly a Nixie. We discussed the Changeling Template but she really had her heart set on playing a full Faerie with all the politics and rules of the Faerie Courts. In the end i came up with a new template, albeit still in the rough stages of creation, Former Changeling.
I decided that letting characters play a Faerie right from the start may make the Changeling Template a little useless so i decided that this template the Former Changeling Template would not be available at Character Creation. Basically, this template reflects a Changeling who has become a Full Faerie and yet retained a touch of their old self, mainly some measure of their free will.
The Musts of this template is first and foremost that the Character must begin play as a Changeling and complete two major milestones before upgrading to this Template. Why two? Simple, i decided that the Character to upgrade to this template they must purchase a new power, Bound but Free, a variation on the Marked by Power power which reflects the characters status as a Faerie with some free will but still bound to their court. This power costs -2 refresh and therefore the minimum has to be two major milestones simply because this is the earlesit stage that a character can purchase this power without running out of refresh. Secondly this power must be purchased between sessions and the character is no longer available for a time as either a pc or npc, perhaps they are off in faerie adjusting to court life or have fled from their friends to hide what they have become.
Finally what makes this template quite hard to purchase and stops characters from simply turning all there Changelings into Faeries, you cannot renter play until you have purchased all the powers that are appropriate to you species of Faeries, i.e if you want to play a Nixie you will have to purchase all the powers that are common to a general Nixie, page 47 OW, and the power Bound but Free before you can renter play, so you may have to wait for your group to complete a few major milestones to raise the base refresh before you can reenter the game. For example, our player wants to be a Nixie as i said, playing at a submerged power level, she has a refresh of -1 at the start of the game. After two major milestones, the base refresh has gone up to 12 and she now has a refresh of -3, as she hasn't purchase any new powers or stunts. She upgrade her character to a Former Changeling by purchasing the Bound but Free power. Her character is out of play for now. Looking at the Nixie character sheet we see that the the refresh cost for a Nixie is -10, and with the additional -2 from Bound but Free, she cannot renter play until the base refresh has gone up to 13, so she has to wait till another major milestone has passed before she can renter as a pc. Likewise if it was another species package with a higher refresh cost, they would have to wait even longer to renter as a pc. Once they return to play, their High Concept must have changed to reflect what they now are.
I am looking for feedback and just some advice on ironing out the kinks in the Template, mainly coming up with options for it and working out exactly what Bound but Free power would entail, currently thinking of it as a variation on Marked by Power but if someone else has a better idea, suggestions and comments would be welcome.
