Temper Traits (Willpower, Glamour and Banality) define three fundamental aspects of your character’s make-up. A character’s Willpower rating determines how strong-willed she is. Her Glamour rating expresses the strength of her connection to the Dreaming and all things fae. Finally, the Banality rating represents the extent to which she has been trained by the banal in the mundane world.

These traits are used differently from other types. The Temper Traits use a split scoring system, with each having both a permanent and a temporary rating. A character’s permanent rating describes her total potential, whereas her temporary rating expresses her current state of being. At character creation, you assign the character’s permanent Temper rating based on her seeming and any freebie points you spend in the Trait. A character is then assumed to have a number of temporary Temper points equal to the number of permanent Temper points. Throughout the course of a chronicle, both a character’s permanent and temporary Temper ratings may fluctuate.

Although at times, your ST will ask you to make a roll by adding the rating of one of your Tempers to your Dice Pool, more often than not, you will merely be spending the points from either your permanent or temporary score. Once spent, these points are lost to your character, and she must employ one of the means of rebuilding her score (as detailed on pages 150- 153 of the core White Wolf rulebook, Changeling: the Dreaming).

Your character’s temporary and permanent Willpower ratings measure her ability to control the urges and desires that threaten to overtake her. They represent her strength of will in the face of opposition, her ability to steel herself against manipulating forces, and her determination in the face of temptation. Like the other Temper Traits, a character has both a temporary and a permanent Willpower rating.

When you use a point of Willpower, you spend it from your temporary pool, not from your permanent pool. The permanent pool merely serves as a ceiling on the amount of spend able temporary that a character can have and defines her maximum potential. Any time your character is requires to make a Willpower roll, you should use the permanent pool unless the rule specifically states otherwise. Temporary Willpower fluctuates a great deal during play. If a character has no Willpower left, he can no longer exert himself the way he once did. He is mentally exhausted and can’t rouse himself enough to give a damn.

* Weak.

** Timid.

*** Unassertive.

**** Diffident.

***** Certain.

****** Confident.

******* Strong-willed.

******** Controlled.

********* Iron-willed.

********** Unshakable.

The stuff of dreams, the magical clay, the energy of awe, the workings of wonder, the breeze that blows the cobwebs of disbelief from our eyes - Glamour is all these things and more. The ability to live your dreams, to perceive the true and fantastic essence of the world, abides in Glamour. Everyone can create it, even normal humans. Only the fae, however, have the ability to give it form, to use it, and to wield its progeny as a weapon. Only the fae have a connection to and a command of Glamour that no other creature shares.

Raw Glamour can take physical form, and changelings can not only perceive it, but also see its presence. It appears to changelings as multi-coloured flickers and tentacles of ever-changing energy. Unlike an aura, raw Glamour does not radiate, but seems to caress over and wind through things and beings, never still, ever evolving. When imbued in a cantrip, Glamour sparks and flickers around both the caster and the target of the cantrip. For this reason, it becomes very difficult for a changeling to cast a cantrip without all other changelings present realising exactly who did it. A changeling has to be extremely subtle to hide the use of his Glamour from other creatures of the Dreaming.

Once infused into an item or being, Glamour becomes more rigid, but nevertheless maintains a certain ethereal quality. For example, a chimerical sword swung through the air will leave a trail of shimmering Glamour behind in a wake.

Banality:

Television, doctors, lines at the bank, money machines, traffic, malls - all of these things carry the taint of Banality and negatively affect changelings. Anything that removes the wonder from the eyes of a child, anything that teaches us not to believe in magic or faeries is a source of Banality in the world and is a bane to changelings. The effect of Banality upon a character is measured by her temporary Banality rating. It describes to what extent the mundane world has tainted the character’s ability to dream and to find wonder in the things around him.