Category:North Court

Nickname: The Armor Court, The Stupa, The Court of Constants

Emotion: Suffering

Heraldry: Black & White

Symbol: Black Tortoise

Contracts: Four Directions

Mantle: The Mantle of the Court of the North is, just as its courtiers and philosophies, stark and simple. At Mantle 1 to 3, a courtier may occasionally give off a whiff of dust and ash (similar to those ashes of the Buddha), or appear to bear scars that were never physically earned. Those of Mantle 4+ might show bodies laced with a network of scar tissue or tortoise-shell pattern of bruises and contusions -- and parts of the flesh might appear armored momentarily, like the black glassy shell of Genbu.

At Mantle 1, the changeling can ignore any penalties taken from fatigue or deprivation (the character may still die from them, but he doesn't find his abilities reduced because his mind stays clear and his body sharp even in denying it its necessities). At Mantle 3, the changeling can ignore one die from penalties taken as the result of wounds (so, if she were suffering -2 dice from injuries, she would only really suffer a -1 penalty). At Mantle 5, the changeling may once per scene use his Resolve score as his armor rating for a number of turns equal to his Wyrd (though this doesn't stack with any other type of armor, supernatural or mundane).

The Court of the North follows, to a point, the Buddhist “truth” that all of life is suffering. Human beings are imperfect, and changelings even less so. The Lost are made in the image of the Fair Folk, and this, too, is imperfect. All imperfection leads to suffering; it’s simply the nature of things. This is what the Armor Court claims to see most often: a changeling escapes his Keeper, and flees the Hedge back to his home. Once home, he embraces life too easily. He seeks comfort away from the horrors of his durance. He exhibits great emotion, connects himself with the material world of money, the mental world of love and attachment, the physical world of pleasure. He shies away from the suffering he experienced, and in once again claiming a kind of happiness in this world, as wide or as meager as the changeling can manage it, he once again knows fear. The fear is of losing what he has regained. His life. His money. His loves. His pleasures. The Fair Folk can come out of nowhere — descending out of a bleak fog or crawling out through a broken mirror — and take it all.

The changelings of the Armor Court are often ascetics. Some are obviously so, with flesh exposed to the elements, ribs showing from a lack of food and skin darkened from the sun. But such a level of discipline isn't necessary, and many of the courtiers simply mitigate their desires and live sparely. One might wear all black, and live in a bare apartment with little more than a bed and a toilet. Most of them are simple, sagely, even stubborn in their devotion to freeing themselves from attachments. They tend not to have much money, possessing usually the bare minimum to help them get by. By the Court's demands, they may not fall in love or have physical relationships. (The reality is that this falls apart more often than the Court would care to admit, and at the bare minimum, they ask that the courtiers keep such relationships hidden and temporary.)

The Court only admits those who are willing to commit to this lifestyle. They offer no tests to neophyte courtiers, no trials to test their worth. Any and all are allowed to be a part of the Court, but once a part of it, they must adhere to the Court's demands for a spare life filled with suffering or be ejected from within its ranks. Some have an easier time of it than others. A Tunnelgrub who emerges from the Hedge and lives in the basement of an old theater with little to eat will have a far easier time playing by the Court's rules than some Bright One who immediately assumes an idle, opulent lifestyle (though, one wonders why she would bother to join the Court of the North in the first place, unless she is being particularly troubled by her fetch or her Keeper and seeks extreme measures with which to combat them).

Winter Masques pg 122-124