Rosebriar: Town Square Park
You remind me of someone I used to know.
Description
Within Old Town sits a shrine to better times. A square of green breaks up the grid of fading houses and tight streets with wide spaces and shady trees. Numerous statues commemorate the glories and prominent citizens of yesteryear. Children play while their parents look on from their picnics. An old couple feeds the pigeons. A city worker on her lunch break bites into a thick juicy sub. A warm breeze rustles the trees.Town Square Park owes its existence to one of Rosebriar's early luminaries. Once part of Buck Gold's estate, the gold miner left it to the town in perpetuity. Some say the African-American adventurer was blessed and that his blessing passed to the park. The grounds stay verdant all spring and summer no matter how dry the rest of the region gets. Autumn decorates the trees in red and gold while winter snows seem to linger a bit longer here, just in time for green shoots to arrive to begin the process again.
Roughly twenty acres in size, several century old trees still stand from the original estate. These stately oaks and slender birches loom over their surroundings while below people lounge on park benches, play volley ball or jog along the cement paths.Those who visit find it strangely peaceful, losing themselves in reveries and thoughts of the past.
Local Hedge
Wide trails twist through this small corner of the Hedge, intersected by sunlit glades. Vine encrusted statues occasionally emerge from the borders, cast in the garb of an earlier age. Somewhere a radio plays tunes from a couple of decades ago and every so often travelers discover a toy, photo or other memento of theirs flapping in the breeze, pierced on a thorn.Those travelling here find passage easy, gaining a +4 bonus to navigate the Hedge. Few threats are to be found within but strangely the region resists the creation of Hollows, destroying all work overnight.
Damnation City Stats:
Physical: Access 3, Safety 1Mental: Information 2, Awareness 2
Social: Prestige 1, Stability 2
The major avenues of Rosebriar run swiftly to and from the park and nearby downtown. A small band of volunteers keep the trails and paths are kept clear and diligently remove any traces of trash. Patrol men from the police station across the street prefer to eat their lunches here on warm quiet days, dissuading criminal activity. Most of the park is only lightly wooded allowing long sight lines and plenty of space for volleyball and other sports. Three circular bulletin boards scattered about the park brim with flyers for activities and other announcements. The dim glow of hope ameliorates the view of the neglected surroundings.
Vice: Distant. Rosebriar has grown away form the park and Old Town, something reflected in the people here. Passersby are friendly but keep others at arm's length, unwilling to embrace strangers. The transient nature of encounters at the park makes friendships slow to grow.
Virtue: Hope. The park remains wholesome even as Rosebriar loses its small town charm. A symbol of hope and purity, it continues to brings smiles to the weary citizens. Perhaps with enough work and some luck, all of Rosebriar can be this way.
Site: The Statue of Alice
Type: MonumentHistory: This stone statue of a girl stands near the southern end of the park. The child Alice lifts her arms out before her in supplication. Her plain face looks up slightly, her wavy hair cascading behind her. A product of local folklorist and sculptor Alfred Gleik, it was installed in 2011. Gleik based it on a local legend about a desperate drought in Rosebriar's history. Supposedly Alice was a willing sacrifice to a local Native American tribe for one of their own who perished. She wandered off and disappeared. Shortly afterwards the drought lifted.
Those with a talent for it feel the pull of Fate around the statue. Pledges and Oaths made here feel stronger. If two people make a pact here they both benefit from an additional minor boon (such as Adroitness). One sided pledges gain no benefit.
Story Seeds:
A Drop of Memory: a rumor spreads among the fae that sleeping in the park overnight restores lost memories. With so many Changelings missing parts of themselves after their Durance, the park soon becomes crowded. Unfortunately it turns out that the worst memories return first, often starting with the sanity wrenching horrors of Arcadia. Those who make it to dawn recover recollections of the best parts of their mortal lives but at a terrible cost. Then there are some who seek the memories of Arcadia, broken souls who wish to become like their Keepers.The Diggers: many believe there is something magical about the park. Some believe that literally. Lately a team of men has been spotted digging around the park at night. They claim to be working on the public utilities in the area. If confronted they flee. Those who manage to corner them learn that they seek an artifact they believe is buried beneath the park, something their master needs. They refuse to divulge anything more about their 'employer' but a search of their persons turns up tattoos in the form of an Egyptian hieroglyphic. Who are they? What is their master? Is there really an artifact?
Legacy of Gold: Buck Gold's statue stands near the south end of the park. People still talk about him and his gold fortune. For years after his death treasure seekers would dig around his estate seeking the fabled hoard of riches said to be buried there. But that particular treasure never existed. But there is a boon he has yet to bestow. Unknown even to himself, Buck was touched by the fae and a Kith lingers around his legacy for one willing to take up the mantle. Those able to divine the riddles of fate discover that they can seize this prize in a contest of martial prowess. The winner of the annual wrestling match at the summer fair feels a momentary twinge of power upon being awarded their trophy. Facing down the hauntings of the Bishopsgate cemetery where Mr. Gold is buried brings another such rush. Finally they must display their prowess before the one who would have been his Keeper: the lady of the Ruby Throne. With the final rush of power they gain the Draconic Kith.
Intersecting Paths: there is something about the park that brings up the past. Those who visit it often encounter old friends, classmates from grade school and other individuals from their earlier lives. This affects Changelings as well and they encounter people who remember who they used to be. This can lead to awkward questions as well as arousing the suspicions of any fetches they possess. On the other hand it presents an opportunity to reconnect with their lost humanity. Do they choose isolation or the comforts of the past? Remember that things change.
NPCs:
"Tom": Smiling in his flannel coat while building a snow man or climbing trees under the summer sun in shorts and a T-shirt, the boy can be seen at the park almost everyday. Golden hair tops the ten-year old's broad freckled face. Day in and day out, year after year he comes back. A few locals have wondered if he is the same child they saw last year or last decade. Local legend calls him a ghost and claims he died either from a fall from a tree or from a cold caught one wintry day. The truth is that no child has died within the park.Tom, a name he often responds to, isn't a ghost. He's a memory, specifically a shared memory of childhood when life was full of adventure and long days of play. A composite of images of childhoods, sons and brothers, and friends gone by, he is lost in a haze of happiness, a fact clued-in Changelings use to their benefit, siphoning off Glamour for their own ends. Others wonder if there is more to the child and if he perhaps knows truths about Rosebriar and the park that others do not.
Alice Ruby
Background: Alice's life is entwined with Rosebriar. Fate and time snarl in her history in ways foreign even to Arcadia. A little girl, a changeling, a Keeper, an exile, banished and slain, Alice has been all of these things and none. To find the beginning of her story one must reach into the waste paper basket of history.
Once there was a little girl who lived with her parents in the small settlement of Rosebriar. Only a few years before her birth the colonies won their freedom from the British and the new nation was finding its feet. Her parents were simple craftsmen, more preoccupied with the deadly drought that threatened their community than larger events.
Relations with a local tribe of natives has soured with the dry spell. One of their children died in an incident the tribesfolk blamed on the citizens of Rosebriar. To restore peace, Alice was volunteered to take the place of the lost child. The tribe accepted.
She did her duty but after a few weeks was led to the edge of the forest and left there by her new family. Scared and confused, she was surprised to hear someone calling from the woods. She walked towards the sound and was never seen again.
She found herself the prisoner of a cruel resident of Arcadia, who tormented and shaped her over the centuries until she lost all connection to her mortal life and became like him. She won a title, calling herself Alice of the Ruby Throne. She stole others from our world and removing their humanity and replacing it with magic. For untold ages she reigned as a queen, a goddess, and a shameless manipulator. She took the role of the lady in need of rescuing, setting many lovers and innocents to kill each other in an effort to "protect" her.
Then things went wrong.
She crossed a more powerful fae, ruined a gala, and was exiled from Arcadia. She returned to Rosebriar, manipulating the magic there to regain her power. She failed and her former slaves murdered her.
But the True Fae don't die like normal beings.
Alice returned to the world believing she was an ordinary mortal. Even as she learned what she was again, she felt like this was her true nature, what she truly wanted to be. Using the last of her power, she made a deal with a mad changeling. He would be able to rewrite time to get his happy ending and she would live out her life as she was supposed to. It didn't work out well for either of them.
Alice awoke after the rewriting to discover herself a young teen at the dawn of the 19th century America. The drought had just ended though none could say how. The first few years seemed perfect. But gradually events began to diverge from her expectations. Her parents passed away of an illness. She moved to be with family in Bishopsgate. When she returned as a young woman, people seemed to think that the little girl Alice died to save the town. They began to forget her, as the earlier history reasserted itself.
Then came the first time skip.
Alice went to sleep one night, thirteen years after she was 'taken'. She awoke to discover herself a child again and that four years had passed. She managed to find a home again and tried to form a new life. Then it happened again.
She tried to kill herself but awoke whole and young again at the end of the next time skip.
Each time she lost everything. She began to hide resources for her future self and plan how to fix the broken record of her life. She no longer possessed any magic, except her seeming immortality. She consulted with diviners, traded with Hobs, and plotted. In the 1960s she went to NYC and planted a seed of something that could liberate her. She saved an infant, one whose children the seers claimed could undo this mess.
She again failed. She thought she could become mortal if she just rewrote time correctly. But her would-be agents chose to seal away that power instead. What will she do now?
She has a year before the next time skip.
Description: Once she possessed a dazzling beauty. Her hair shone gold. Her right eye was a deep blue, while her left eye blazed red. Her voice was trapped in eternal song and a deceptive aura of fragility and innocence surrounded her.
But now mostly mortal, she resembles an ordinary young woman, attractive but with heterochromia iridum.
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 4, Resolve 3
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 4, Composure 4
Mental Skills: Academics 2, Crafts 3, Investigation 3, Medicine 1, Occult 3, Politics (Arcadia) 3
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Larceny 3, Stealth 3, Survival 1, Weaponry (staff) 4
Social Skills: Expression 1, Intimidate (commands) 3, Persuasion 3, Socialize 2, Subterfuge 4
Merits: Striking Looks 2
Willpower: 7 Integrity: 8
Virtue: Hope Vice: Greed
Initiative: 7 Defense: 5
Speed: 10 Health: 7
Aspirations: become truly mortal, get Lada Petrov to stop following her
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