In Changeling: The Lost...

In Changeling: The Lost, why is security in Arcadia so crappy that literally hundreds of slaves are able to escape back to Earth, enough to form entire societies?

Because it's Faery land, not near-future panopticon scifi.

Because humans are beyond comprehension for True Fae, that's why they can't create life and drag humans into their lair, which also means they can't trick them forever and will eventually loose grip on them.

Because the True Fae are whimsical, autistic, child-like god-things obsessed with whatever entertains them at the time.

Give a toddler with extreme ADHD a toy, then wait a week. The toddler cares roughly as much about that toy as one of the Gentry cares about a Changeling under their care. It's still their toy and of course they want it back if they realize it's missing, but it's ultimately not a big deal to them.

Also they tend to throw them away on a daily basis, sometimes a little too far to reach them.

A couple of things-
The Fae have absolutely no trouble replacing lost changelings. Ordinary mortals don't typically escape, and plenty of them disappear into the hedge. There isn't a lot of motivation to keep your changelings inside the fence unless you're worried about running out.

Fae are creatures of story and myth. The myth of escape is part of that, they can't completely avoid the possibility without becoming something fundamentally different.

Changelings likely cooperate inside Arcadia, giving each other the opportunity go go free even at some possible cost to themselves. Fae can't really work together like that, and may not be able to anticipate when it's going to happen, they only have the ability to react to it. You can know it's a possibility all you like and still be completely surprised when it actually happens.

Exactly.

If you try to make an efficiency, passionless, calculating and tacticool True Fae that's super high security and uses Changelings to generate glamor as optimally as possible, you're doing a True Fae wrong. Not only that but Princess Snowflake, the Butcher of Bamberg, Willy the Sly and all of the other True Fae in the neighborhood are likely to put aside their differences, gang up on the fucker and beat the shit out of him for being a stick in the mud. They might even revoke his status as one of the True Fae and cast him out because he's too boring.

That is weird, isn't it? What if they WANT you to escape, for some unimaginable reason? What if you only think you've really escaped?

"Hey guys, heard about Bory Zachary recently ?"
"Nah what about him ?"
"He just made cells with electrified bars for his Changelings so they can't get out."
"What ?! But that's so boring."

Simon The Warden was upset that the other True Fae didn't like his meticulously crafted maximum security prison.

Making a meticulously crafted maximum security prison is totally fine, if it fits into the persona and the character of the Gentry in question. Hell, a part of him probably wants a Changeling to escape the jail he's crafted for them, solely because a prison break would add more drama to the story.

Yeah but it's all part of his game, of what he wants to play that day.

I used a True Fae of my own brewing once whose thing was to recreate myths and stories with really loose accuracy. That's how I ended up with Little Red Riding Hood wielding Excalibur and wearing the head of the Wolf as a hat last time around.

If I recall correctly changelings are essentially part of the fae reproductive cycle so they do in fact have a reason to let some escape.

>drama
And this is the key thing, the Gentry need conflict for their stories.

That's fine, as long as it's just him playing a role and playing a game.

The moment that turns into calculating and optimal prison management and glamor production without having some ridiculous and convoluted story to explain his behavior, is the moment he stops acting like one of the Gentry.

And that's the moment when the others kick his ass out for being a buzzkill

Yeah. There are Fae out there that are exiles, for all sorts of unknowable reasons. One of the more obvious reasons is that their comrades probably stripped them of their power for being too dull.

One True Fae in my campaign got kicked out because he started feeling human emotions and falling in love with mortals. OK it usually didn't last long but he did marry them before giving them the enchanted key to his secret cabinet, telling them not to go there under any circumstances.

Yeah I like adapting tales in Changeling. A lot.

>the Butcher of Bamberg
I'm sitting there right now. Did you just make him up, or does he exist?

I was wondering, how powerful would a group of mages have to be not absurd that they kidnapped a True Fae?
(not necessary with raw power, an agreement with other True Fae and similar being possible for instance.)

Oh, he's just a tale.

They say that he knocks three times, once for your eyes, twice for your teeth, three times for your skin. That's why we all answer the doors quickly, here in Bamberg. He only visits those who have said his name. I'm only telling you this, because they say he never visits twice, and he already took my eyes.

Made it up on the spot, although you could technically give it to Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, who was in charge of the witch trials there in the 1620s.

That's a pretty high level achievement that's only really possible outside of Arcadia.

Look up some of the sample True Fae and decide for yourself.

You know, this wouldn't be so creepy if I lived in one of the student accomodations instead of an old house in the old part of town that actually once was a butchershop.

Oh, that's actually a very nice idea.

I had one that had discovered a copy of "Alice in Wonderland" at some point in the last century or so and found it utterly delightful.

Enough so that it basically turned its realm into a giant staging of the story, with changelings playing all the roles. The only problem was that it didn't quite fully grasp the notion of "fiction", so its "retellings" were basically giant deathmatches between Alice and almost every other character in the story, as she ran the gauntlet of encounters from the story against largely brainwashed rabid changeling versions of the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Mad Hatter, etc, all the way up to the Red Queen.

Alice dies? If she was entertaining enough, she gets put back together (along with the salvagable "minor characters") and they start over. An Alice that "wins the story"? Becomes the new Red Queen, and it starts all over again.

The True Fae's role?

...

Man, that's a lot like my True Fae that had previously been exiled, and clawed his way back into Arcadia, but had been infected with a glimmer of human capacity for love.

Who had seven wives that all bore a striking resemblance to each other and had the full run of his property...except for one room, which they had been forbidden to ever open.

Huh.