Dauntain

These are the changelings who, unable to cope with the fae reality, fled to the safety of Banality. Their perceptions are twisted by their own fears. They are two types of Dauntains, the ones who know what they are facing, and the ones who don't. Oddly enough, the second type is much more dangerous because the lack of belief, causes Banality to be extremely strong within them.The others believe in what they are facing, thus decreasing their resistance to changeling cantrips. However, they are knowledgeable of changeling weaknesses and often carry iron weapons.The second group is spearheaded by psychiatrist Dr. Anton Stark. Several years ago, worried parents brought their daughter to him for evaluation. It seemed that she was living in a very complex fantasy world in which magic, elves, unicorns and other creatures of faerie were very real to her. After several session with the girl, Stark decided to use extreme aversion therapy, electro-shock therapy and several varieties of drugs as the treatment to shock her mind back to reality, where it belonged. Within two years he reported complete success: the girl had lost touch with her fantasy world and could live in the "normal" day-to-day world. Over the next several years Stark discovered a few dozen more cases like his first patient. In all cases, onset of symptoms was rather abrupt, often leaving the victims in a state of shock as they adjusted to the fraudulent information their brains were giving them. His book, titled Chimera: Living Within Our Dreams, detailed the treatments of these patients based on the information "given" by them. The book gained attention among colleagues of his profession, and they begin identifying others who were suffering from this very same problem. Now, Stark lectures at schools, universities and to community groups in hope of helping them identify this disorder before it renders its victims unfit for human society. Some groups have protested the extreme measures used to eliminate the disorder, but none can deny the treatment's success rate. It should be noted that most of these doctors do not believe in the supernatural, and all are infused with an incredible amount of Banality. Some have been known to cause trods to wilt simply by passing through. High King David has decreed that these people are not to be directly approached, as the power of their Banality could destroy changelings. However, any changelings captured by them are to be rescued, if at all possible, before they are lost forever to Banality. The first group of Dauntain is more dangerous in that its members believe in the existence of changelings, but believe them to be evil creatures who devour the force of human creativity for their own dark magics. Most of these are either survivors of a Ravaging, or someone close to them was destroyed by such. They are quite aware of the dangers such beings pose to humanity. A few of these latter Dauntain sometimes even develop a small facility with Kenning, as their belief enhances the intrinsic Glamour existing within them. They use news stories to find changelings. They look for signs of Ravaging (such as a crowd riot at a soccer game in England) and move in on the area armed with cold iron weapons, searching for the changelings responsible for the attacks. While they do not always find those responsible, they are very skilled at digging up the nearest changelings in the immediate area and "destroying" their menace. Such Dauntain are vulnerable to changeling magic, for they believe in it and are therefore less strongly influenced by Banality. In fact, some of these have surprisingly strong Glamour ratings. On occasion, Dauntain form into small cooperative teams. These teams are extremely deadly when they locate changelings. A recently formed team is organized by Alex Hayward, a survivor of a Ravaging after an Exquisite Agony concert. The team's members, who had been the opening band for the concert, were attacked by several Ravagers as they returned to their dressing rooms. The band survived, but were somewhat changed by the experience. They researched the subject, looked for similar occurrences and deduced the nature of their enemy. They have already subjected a changeling to death by iron, and have seen evidence of changeling abilities. While this has tempered their enthusiasm a bit, they still act without mercy or apology when they find one.