Little Arcadia
(a.k.a. Our Place, the Emerald City Freehold)
On the surface this Seattle appears normal to visitors. But then little things begin the surface and bump up against them. The normal weirdness of the city can be found everywhere, even in the staid neighborhoods outside the reach of the university. The people who live in the East Bay act strangely, more like caricatures than actual people.
Then the vistor discovers that anything outside the city doesn’t exist. The bridges terminate in thickets of thorns or at docks for fanciful ferries that never return. The neighborhoods north and south of the city grow emptier and wilder until one discovers they are little more than cardboard cutouts amid a maze of foliage.
This is the world that a daring and powerful group of Changelings purchased from the God-Machine. How they managed to make a Pledge with such a thing remains unknown but stranger things have been known to happened.
The seasonal Kings and Queens who brokered the deal almost a decade ago and have kept it their secret ever since. It is rumored is that its term may be coming up. What is known that the cost include a yearly tithe one hundred first-born children to be delivered every winter solstice.
The arrogance and inhumanity of this deal has driven these powerful fae to the edge of sanity. With only the barest Clarity they rule the city like mini-Gentry, organizing endless balls, hunts, and other diversions.
Still the promise of freedom, whether from the True Fae or the God-Machine, continues to draw Changelings and Demons alike. They congregate in the markets that open in every nigh in ever neighborhood as well as the many hidden streets that wind invisibly through the city. Trading with Hobs and stranger folk, almost anything can be found here from maps to Hell to lost humanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment