This Explains A Lot

[drcpunk]

I've started reading Lords of Summer, a supplement for the rpg Changeling: The Lost. For those of you who don't follow the current White Wolf World of Darkness universe, a changeling in this game is someone who was kidnapped by the fae and eventually escaped, fighting his or her way back through a mystical hedge to the current world.

There's a brief paragraph on the changelings of NYC, a rather small group. The authors blithely state that nearly all changelings can drive, something I, for one, would never take for granted, given that they come from all times and places, not to mention varying stages of sanity and functionality, not to mention that whatever they spent ghu only knows how much time doing before they escaped, it was not likely to be driving any kind of normal motor vehicle. However, I was enchanted by what followed.

In order to help each other out and to have a logical reason to spend time with each other, the changelings of my fair city have bought themselves a small taxi company. So, the first job a changeling who escapes through the thorns and the hedge to NYC is likely to get is taxi cab driver.

I wish I had a camera to take a picture of the expression on jlighton's face when I explained this to him.

Also, any Pynchon fans out there reading the Changeling supplements? Am I the only one who thought of W. A. S. T. E. when reading the section on changelings choosing symbols by which to identify their groups?

Cross posting to labcats, with minor changes.

Comments

[kyrielle]

*scratches head* Um. Given the age at which most were likely taken, a newly-escaped changeling strikes me as likely to make a stereotypically-poor cab-driver since, as you note, when did they learn to drive? That assumption seems...very, very implausible. The cab company setup is cool, but the skill just...befuddles me.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Well, if one presumes that it isn't hard to learn the basics of making a car stop, go, and turn, and if one further presumes that the changelings use their unspecified illegal connections to get their people licenses, what you get is a bunch of taxi drivers who scare people with their driving, which is not that odd in NYC.