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Post by Lorekeeper on Feb 13, 2009 21:29:39 GMT -8
Freeholds are places of wonder and Glamour, where changelings may escape from the drudgery of the world. It is here that they may gather and feel safe from Banality, which constantly tears at their faerie souls. Freeholds are very special to the Kithain. Not only are they fonts of Glamour, but they are also gathering places. Changelings of all kith come to freeholds to be around others of their kind. There are many varieties of freeholds, each as unique as the pattern of morning dew. There are the lofty courts of the noble Sidhe, respendent in thier finery; rustic taverns, where commoners meet to gather around a warm fire and talk of ages past, before the return of the Sidhe; and many things in between.
The Mists shroud mortal eyes from seeing a freehold for what it is, just as it shrouds a changeling's fae mein. An abandoned warehouse might actually be a magnificent fortress, or a treehouse in a spiraling tower. Anything is possible with the Dreaming.Freeholds and Hidden Glens - Page 5The Freehold of RosesLocation:
The Freehold is located in the mountains North of Luna. Sextant Coordinates: 122o 47'N x 12o 26'W On Malas Zoomable Stratics Map
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Post by Lorekeeper on Feb 15, 2009 0:06:16 GMT -8
The Nature of Freeholds
According to popular opinion, all freeholds are pretty much the same, once you strip away all the colored birds and ribbons and creative use of space. I'm sure you've heard that the decorations are just incidentals, peripheral to the real function of all freeholds: the storage and production of ambient Glamour, right? Most of us are in such a hurry to get that Glamour that we barely even notice the dancing shadows and the twiddlebug towns that flourish in the wrinkles of our holds. We nod appreciatively at the details in the Dreaming, but never seem to have time to look at them. The world outside the hold makes us tired and hungry for Glamour, makes us feel like there's no even enough time to savor it before we breathe it in.
I'm sure we've all been in that position, but the first law of holdcraft is that this is the wrong way to handle a freehold. Once again, popular opinion has got it backwards -- granted, a freehold with no indoor rose gardens or rainbow frogs might theoretically still provide us with Glamour, but it definitely wouldn't smell as sweet. Or, to put it another way, reducing a freehold to a big Glamour collector site might be just as filling, but it wouldn't taste so great anymore.
Furthermore, it wouldn't even be filling, because it wouldn't be a living freehold any longer. Your freehold is a freehold only so long as it has the pomp and circumstance and irrational touches. The twiddlebug towns evoke the Glamour in your freehold, rather than the other way around. Killing or ignoring the twiddlebugs will make your hold sick and your Glamour run dry. In my work with the Invisible Census, I've probably been to 600 holdings in Concordia alone and exchanged notes with other T.E.'s worldwide regarding several hundred more.
That said, one freehold is not "pretty much the same" as all others, or any other. If freeholds were the same, they wouldn't be freeholds. Every one is unique. The stronger it is, the more unique it will be.
Affinities That said, holdcrafters and other sorcerers do find it useful to classify each freehold according to its "affinities," or the qualities that distinguish it from all others. This classification, then, tells us a great deal about the inner nature of the given hold, its true name or "heart." If your hold were a person and not a place, the map of its uniquenesses would reveal its personal nature; what we are after in the inner truth of geography.
Knowledge of this sort is useful for communication with the hold, forging alliances with it or simply making use of its internal magical preferences when you are weaving Arts. While there have been cases where this knowledge was used to damage or even destroy holds, I should not have to remind you that such action is among the greatest crimes you can commit against the Dreaming. No enemy can be so loathsome to you taht you should attack him through his freehold. The enchanted places remaining to the earth are fragile, and not even the most corrupt of them deserve to be unmade.
Generally, as with everything else about Faerie, the affinities that might describe an enchanted place can be classsed into the Realms of Actor, Fae, Prop, Nature and Scene. A small or sickly freehold that has little Glamour to spare can be built out of only one or two Realms -- a color, perhaps a material (like wood, paper or fire), or a type of plant or animal. Stronger freeholds naturally partake in deeper dimensions of uniqueness, with the stronger of them being built out of five or more affinities.
Affinities give us the shape of the Dreaming's Glamourous vision for a given enchanted place. Affinities are how the freehold "feels," what it, "likes," what it surrounds itself with. Cantrips grounded in the Realms to which a place feels an affinity are easier to cast and endure much longer that "unaffiliated" magic. Furthermore, chimera created in a freehold with which they share Realm affinities tend to be healthier and less fragile than ones created elsewhere. In fact, free-wandering chimera who find a hold that feels an affinity for them often settle down permanently, which results in sometimes extensive colonies of chimerical creatures who fit the personality of the freehold. There are hundreds, in not thousands, of specific aspects of the world with which a freehold might feel an affinity.
Guards and Wards Now that we are all acquainted with the fundamental affinities of holdcraft, it might be time to say a few words about the way they ar most commonly used by holdkeepers: as guardians and monitors to ensure the sanctity of the hold itself.
The ease of spinning cantrips out of those aspects of Faerie with which a hold has an affinity means that most of the guards and wards of established freeholds partake in the local affinities. A hold with an affinity for fish takes on various types of aquatic chimera, which could mean anything from mermaids to sea monkeys to giant, intelligent carp as its defenders. A hold with an affinity for small, claustrophobic spaces defends itself with a labyrinthine tunnels and hidden entrances. On the other hand, a Fae hold typically resorts to riddles and magical bans to enforce its sanctity, and so forth.
Most of you have inherited an established freehold, with its own affinities already ingrained in its structure. As such, you should already have access to at least the raw materials for all the guards and wards you require -- you need only look into the corners of your holding to see what is already available, then press it into service. If there are chimerical beasts, train them to act as your guardians (hire them, if they are intelligent; in any case, befriending the aboriginal chimerical population is always a good idea). If there are chimerical plants, coax them to grow in thickets and snares, or simply harvest them for their defensive magical properties. If there are disembodied voices who speak in riddles, enlist them to your cause. Convince them to watch for intruders, make them challenge strangers.
The most important rule here, as always, is to work with what your freehold provides, never against it. In time your holding's affinities will shift to better suit your own unique affiliations withing the Dreaming (or, rather, you will shift toward them), but, for now, use what the Dreaming gives you.
For those of you who are birthing freeholds out of your own Glamour and need, the issue is almost too simple. Your new hold's affinities are largely of your own design, so choose them wisely. If you are building a dream-fortress, choose affinities for strength, to better raise mighty guards and wards. If you are building for comfort or beauty, choose otherwise -- or else combine any or all of these functions in the same freehold.
The Secret Life of Freeholds After affinities, the most important secret of the enchanted places to keep in mind is this: Your freehold may not breathe, but it, like every other aspect of the Dreaming, is alive. It might not think in the way that we do, but it feels. Freeholds have minds and memories. They have geographic hearts.
Attunements It is not for nothing that we say "the liege and the land are one." It is a deep truth of the Dreaming that, once one of our kind claims an enchanted place (through attunement, the right of discovery or some other work of holdcraft), the place and the person grow increasingly similar. Not only does the temperament of the liege cause the freehold to reconfigure itself to match, but the affinities of the freehold have a complementary effect on the persona of the liege.
The two grow to act and think as a unit, almost as though they were bound by the Oath of Truehearts. In a way, the Oath of Truehearts and Investment (by which a changeling becomes attuned to a freehold) are quite similar in effect. Both create reciprocal magical bonds between the object of the oath and the one who swears it. You are all familiar with the ballads of freeholds falling in love with their lieges and cloaking themselves in affinity-granted human forms in order to press their suits; such tales are not idle gossip. There is a strongly romantic element to the relationship between liege and land.
This relationship manifests differently for every freehold and every holdkeeper. The more common effects range from the freehold teaching its liege its affinities in the form of Glamour Realms, to the liege actually merging physically into the substance of the freehold and reappearing only when necessary.
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Freehold Characteristics
Affinities Nature: ***** Water *** Stone * Snakes
Guards & Wards Caryatid A draped female figure supporting an entablature, in the place of a column or pilaster.
Winged Guardians Stone winged statues bearing swords.
Attunements Sage Irulan Aurora - Ghille Dhu, Grump
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