A Year and A Day: Cailleachan

Changeling: the Dreaming

Homebrew Rules

Character Creation Guide Download: Cailleachan.pdf

Quoth the Cailleachan:

“Shh… Keep it down, my duckie and dry your eyes. You’re crying because it’s cold, and the icy tears will slice your cheeks like razors. Cry not, no reason to get out of sorts… Winter never lasts forever.”

Kith Excerpt:

The Chailleachan are the orphaned daughters of the Cailleach Bhéara– the primordial Hag of Celtic winters. This queen of winter was not quite one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and not quite a Fomori, but was still yet a Goddess in her own way. She exists in al Celtic Lands as a harbinger and ghostly queen. She has ties to the Si tribes ( for which one of the Bean-Si Roths are named) and is said her consort was the child-stealing Bodach (a Thallain family has no answer).

The Chailleachan are the orphaned daughters of this Winter Goddess/Crone. This All-Female Tribe inherited her otherness, and now serve as a between family of Celtic Fae – between all the Celtic Lands, between Seelie and Unseelie, and even between the local prodigals races such as Mages, Fianna Wolves, Wraiths, and others. The Chailleachan serve such roles well as the wisest and oldest of the Celtic Fae.

As she traditionally assumed her throne during the Samhain months, her daughters like-wise are bound by the seasons. These Rime-Hags are formidable, true, but their powers waxes and wane with the seasons. Their Birthrights and frailties are not only limited by age, but also by the turning of the seasons. a

Flavor

“And when approached death’s awful doom,
Her chair was placed within the womb
Of hills whose tops with heather bloom.”
– Jonathan Swift, 1710