A Maze of Thorns part 1: General Topography

Virtue knows he follows softly

Through the steaming woodlands

Travel light the deathly shudder

Down the leafy pathway... 

~Comus "Diana"

 

The hedge is a dangerous place, a seemingly endless maze of thorns with an ever changing topography constantly in flux between two seasonal extremes...the hedge is not a place any sensible Lost would wish to find themselves. Yet by want or necessity many will at some time or another be required to venture outside the walls or the banality of the mundane world into this beautifully terrifying place. Some Changelings do venture into the hedge often, gaining themselves a reputation for being either stupid or foolhardy, and for those who can make a trip in one piece it can be quite profitable in terms of hedge bounty. However, what these so called 'rangers' will not tell you is that one can never hope to learn or master the hedge but merely survive it.


A Change of Seasons
The local hedge is a brutal and desolate place defined by two seasons.
In the summer it is a rank and humid swamp buzzing with life, the area surrounding the freehold becomes a vast lake like bayou rich in hedge fruit but also fraught with danger as the larger aquatic hedge beasts appear from hibernation. In the past, claim the older members of the city, one would stick to the streams that resonate with echoes of technology while avoiding the lights of willow-the-wisps, however with the expansion of street and road lighting many an unfamiliar traveller has drowned mistaking a guiding light for a more sinister illumination. When the fog rolls in many a wise hedge explorer docks their boat on a patch of firm ground (or better yet in the port inside the walls) and waits for clearer waters.
In contrast winter turns the hedge into a bleak tundra come marshland. The local fauna (excluding the thorns) die off and the suicide trees bloom their withered and gangling branches. Those in need of hedge bounty must either stray out into the wilderness battling sub-zero temperatures and razor sharp winds for a sheltered grotto or face the perils of the vast subterranean complex beneath the freehold itself. Many have set off in good spirits never to return, drowning in underground lakes or peat like bogs, freezing due to over exposure or meeting a fate even worse…

"Navigation"
Amongst the rangers of 'The Tower' there is a simple code of received wisdom for those wishing to venture out and 'navigate' the local Hedge. It is by no means exhaustive but does lay out some of the common feelings towards hedge travel.

1. Never stray from the path, cause there is no guarantee you'll ever find it again.
2. Don't touch anything that you don't know what it is.
3. Avoid large groups and people who can't keep their wits about them. Two's and Three's are good but more people and the more chance someone's going to get lost...or attract trouble.
4. Don't venture with someone who can't look after themselves, they're your responsibility otherwise.
5. If you can't look after yourself always make sure you can catch a glimpse of 'The Tower' that way you can find your way home.
6. If you see the Blood Thorn steer well clear of it, that means Old Nick's abroad

Those who get lost find their glamour depleting on the thorns, their sanity can fold under the reality warping topography and their panicked cries cause hedge beasts to swarm like carrion birds. While those who play 'escort' can find the thoughts and feelings of their companions befuddling their judgement. Some have likened the Hedge to a predatory creature in its own right, displaying an malevolently sophisticated decree of sentience that leads its prey on a merry chase; causing divisions amongst friends, ensnaring them in their isolated states and slowly harvesting them for glamour and blood.

 

Mechanically Navigation is an extended [Intelligence + Survival] roll with bonuses (such as traversing well maintained Trods) or penalties (such as territory belonging to 'hostile' forces) depending on the Changelings circumstances, with each roll pertaining to 1 hour of hedge travel.

 

Trods
While a well maintained trod can be the life blood of the freehold, lack of use or maintenance can soon see a trod disappear or more worryingly become inverted into some sort of trap by loyalists or even the hedge itself. Rangers and the wild hob tribes attempt to maintain the Trods but at the same time will seek to profit from them with the establishment of ambushes or 'toll bridges'. After all, one who has poured blood sweat and glamour into maintaining a trod is well within their rights to capitalise on such an investment.
Trods have a rating between 1 and 3, which can be improved with maintenance. This requires DT actions and carries with it a small degree of risk as you will be spending a prolonged period in the Hedge. While you will be physically maintaining the Trod the actual maintenance is a side-effect of your presence and will. [Wits + Wyrd] is the roll and requires successes equal to the quality rating you wish to impart x 5. Each roll is a DT action, and requires a payment of 5 times the quality rating in glamour at the end of this process; the glamour may come from multiple sources.

 

Lost Colonies

'The Watchtower Over the Water' was once the capital of a legendary kingdom of the east. It was said in those times the Free lost held multiple hedge settlements connected by the Trods. Amongst the more dogmatic and zealously traditionalist of the City this golden age ended with the arrival of the 'Great Seasonal Courts of the West'. It is said that those of the former colonies irrevocably turned their backs on god and the old traditions of the Seelie and Unseelie courts. For this act of hubris they were cut off by the Blood Thorn and never seen nor heard of again. Many of the names of the Colonies have since long been forgotten but one that is remembered is Seager-ma-hole where the house of God and the city of sin was reclaimed by the waters.

Old Nick

Out in the deepest hedge, far beyond the reach of any path, something has made its abode. The Citizens of 'The Tower' call this creature "Old Nick", the devil that tempts the Lost to fall back into the bondage of Arcadia. Nobody is quite sure what exactly "Old Nick" is; a powerful hedge beast, one of the Gentry or something altogether more Wyrd and terrifying. But what is know comes from the lips of the deranged and the unsavable in their last confession before undergoing the Freehold's mercy. One thing for sure though is that "Old Nick" warps the hedge around it creating the dreaded Blood Thorn. A Crimson plant that laments a blood red pus with a sweet putrid stench. To some "Old Nick" is just propaganda to keep Citizens from venturing too far from the City's smothering embrace but to those who have claimed to have seen the Blood Thorn they are more than happy to comply.