To Weep for Joy at the Return of Summer

I've spoken often of West End Games' Star Wars Roleplaying Game was my entrance into the world of roleplaying games. I have a deep and fierce affection for that game. It set me on the path I now walk today. It awakened me to the world of dice and paper, friends and dreams. I will be forever grateful to West End Games for this gift. But, I want to speak of another game as dear and important as my beloved Star Wars. It was not the game of my childhood, but the game of my adulthood: White Wolf's Changeling: The Dreaming.

In 1995 Changeling: The Dreaming was released in what appeared to be the final book in the World of Darkness line. It was a huge departure from the other games in the line. It featured full color fae torn from myth and legend, living in disguised skins among mere mortals. The danced to silence music and dueled with unseen swords. They dared to look into the darkness and scream for hope and love and life in a world of despair. Nevermind that their memories would fade. Nevermind that iron would steal their souls. Nevermind that their own mortal meins would one day reduce them to husks of their former selves. Today - Today! - there is hope.

This transformed me as deeply as any fae Chrysalis. It walked beside me as a boy transformed into a man. Changeling: The Dreaming was beside me when I abandoned all I knew to chase romance half a country away. Changeling: The Dreaming was with me when I swore an oath to defend my country. Changeling: The Dreaming was with me when I walked through the door and fell in love at first sight. Changeling: The Dreaming taught me that even when when there is no reason to believe, no reason to have faith, no reason to go on that dreams remain. As long as dreams remain, there is hope.

And that most simple of defiances - that hope - is more powerful than anything the world can throw at me. It has sustained me for as long as I can remember. Through failures both minor and cataclysmic. Through thoughts of suicide. Through months of homelessness. Through every struggle I've ever faced in my life. I dared to dream then and I dare to dream now, tomorrow and forever. That is what Changeling: The Dreaming means to me.

Changeling: The Dreaming will live on in my life forever. And summer shall return again to gaming tables with Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition. Won't you join me in the Dreaming once more?