The Red Nettle Revolt

From Changeling Venue

Contents 1 The Night of Red Nettles 2 Those Who Escaped 3 Others Who Were Involved 4 What Many Remember 5 Scattered Memories of What Transpired 5.1 What Edria Meredith Recalls 5.2 What Hannah Recalls 5.3 What Nathan Recalls 5.4 What Valentine Recalls 5.5 What Nemo Recalls 5.6 What Longshot Recalls 5.7 What Tristan MacDonnel Recalls 6 The Vow of Bloodied Thistles 6.1 About the Vow 6.2 Wording of the Vow 6.3 Mechanics of the Vow 7 Rumors & Hearsay 8 Contact Info

The Night of Red Nettles

The Red Nettle Revolt, or as some known it the Night of Red Nettles, was an uprising in Faerie that led to the escape of several Changelings, many of whom share strong ties to one another as a result of this shared experience. For some, the memory of the escape is the only clear memory they have in Arcadia, but even those who recall the event do not remember all the details surrounding it. How it was planned, who was involved, and how so many Changelings managed to escape their Keepers that evening remains a mystery. Most accounts from those who escaped during the revolt present conflicting views of what happened, however, some elements remain consistent enough and from them a common story of the Night of Red Nettles has emerged.

What is know for certain is that the no Changeling involved in the Red Nettle Revolt was known amongst those who on this side of the Hedge before the the year 2000. In the months to follow the turn of the millennium many escapees emerged with stories of an uprising of the Lost in Faerie. Their recollection of what transpired was often hazy. Many of their questions were answered as more of them made their way back and shared their memories of the event, only to be replaced with new confusion. A great deal of uncertainty surrounded their escape and it's purpose, and the most suspicious amongst the Lost remained wary of those involved for years to come.

As the years went on, every so often another Changeling would be found who's recollection of their time in Arcadia involved them in the Red Nettle Revolt. Those who have reestablished themselves here in the normal world sought out their fellow escapees out of a sense of responsibility and loyalty to those who had helped them escape in the first place. Some swore a binding oath to one another, an oath now know as the Vow of the Nettled Path or the Red Nettle Oath. This vow states that those who swear it will stay true to one another, and protect their own, in case they ever need to unite against the threat of their Keepers again.

Almost a decade has passed since the first whispers of the revolt, but even to this day newly returned Lost arrive with new insights, adding more pieces to the enigmatic puzzle. The ties between those involved in the revolt remain steadfast, and while not all who made it back have sworn themselves to their fellow escapees, most still retain their ties to the revolutionaries as a whole and help them when able. For many amongst the Lost, the Red Nettle Revolt gives them hope that by working together they can stand against the Gentry and those who helped instrument the revolt are well-regarded. However there are those who still believe all those involved in the Night of Red Nettles are loyal to or puppets of the Others and are simply waiting for the day to strike against their freeholds and reclaim as many as they can for their masters.

Those Who Escaped

In the years since the revolt took place, a number of Changelings have come forward with memories of the event and their involvement with it. Such lost are often known as revolters or red nettles amongst one another. The following is a record of those who have been discovered to date. It remains uncertain how many others were involved and simply haven't been found yet or are still on the otherside of the Hedge still trying to find their way back.

• Garin Engel, emerged in 2000
• Longshot - emerged in 2000
• Nemo, emerged in 2000
• Edria Meredith, emerged in 2001
• Old Hob, emerged in 2001
• Mallory Schadenfreude, emerged in January 2000
• Nathan Glass, emerged in November 2001
• Fragile, emerged in January 2007
• Hannah, emerged in January 2007

Others Who Were Involved

Those who escaped as part of the Red Nettle Revolt are certainly not the only Changelings effected by the event. This mass exodus from Arcadia involved many of the Lost who aided the escapees on both sides of the Hedge. The following is a record of Changelings who were involved in the Night of Red Nettles but were not refugees of the event themselves.

• Lord Valentine had prophetic dreams in 1999 regarding the breakout, and thus forged a Trod with the help of the Blackguards and Draco Archer.
• RedWolf, aided the escaped in Arcadia, thru the Hedge
• Tristan MacDonnel, along with his Motley-mates, participated in the revolt, but didn't make it out with the other escapees. Tristan only has vague memories of leading a pursuing group of loyalists away...or maybe they just got turned around, or lost. Things in Arcadia are always so fuzzy.

What Many Remember

This is the tale of the Red Nettle Revolt that has been cobbled together from the memories of those who experienced it first hand. While vague in detail, it gives many something to compare their own accounts of the even to in hopes of make sense of what actually took place.

The Red Nettle Revolt

Long had those who are slaves to the Others whispered of a revolution, in moments when they were as assured as they could be that their masters' eyes were not upon them they would trade tales of those who had tried and ultimately failed. Never had any of those taken from beyond the Hedge succeeded in such a lofty goal, for the Lords and Ladies of Faerie were like unto forces of nature - unstoppable and undeniable.
Yet the price of freedom was worth any cost to some, and they began to speak of what they had seen. Of those who had broken free and fled back Home and how they had done so. Tales of escape became their shared language, and encoded within these shared stories were plans for their escape.
They were few at first, these harbingers of the revolt, but their plan spread far and fast on the lips of those who's Keepers kept less watch over. When the night finally came, many slaves and servants of the Gentry knew to look for the sign: nettle leaves stained red with blood.
Things started off quiet at first. Chains were rent with crude tools, weapons were taken from slumbering sentinels and hidden repositories, and as many of the Lost as could be found were freed and led from their master's estates. In the midst of their efforts, however, the horns of the Wyld Hunt began to echo throughout Faerie as they descended upon those attempting to flee.
What no one in Faerie expected was for these broken souls to make stand rather than run for their lives. Together they fought back against the maddening forces that were loosed upon them; just as the original harbingers had planned. United in their effort to escape their waking nightmare they held their own within the borders of the Hedge even as Others emerged and struck against them with unbridled wrath.
The strongest amongst them held the way for as long as they could, giving no ground to their unearthly captors until they could withstand their fury no longer and were left with fleeing or being slain. The rest forged their way through the hungry briars side by side amidst the madness unleashed upon them. No one was left behind, no one abandoned unless they simply could not be saved.
But as their defenses were exhausted and the Others and the Hunt closed in, the fellowship of these escapees began to fall apart. Fight turned to flight and anyone who could escape did, watching as the monstrous thralls of the Gentry tore their fellow changelings limb from limb. Panicked, they fled in all directions with several large groups emerging across the Hedge together while others emerged in pairs thousands of miles away and often months or years later.

Scattered Memories of What Transpired

What follows are individual accounts of the Night of Red Nettles as gathered from amongst those involved or who at least witnessed the event as it took place in Faerie. These recollections are often skewed and distorted by the perceptions of the individual Changeling and cannot be considered a wholly factual recount of what took place.

What Edria Meredith Recalls

"How do you write down something you can barely remember even when scourging your mind for details? How do you remember what most of your spirit and soul tries to repress as some horrible nightmare? Except I know when I wake in the night, seized by the inescapable knowledge that something is after me, that I am in many ways correct. I remember a bit more than many, and not as much as some and I cannot decide if that is blessing or curse. I remember the glittered halls and the whispered messages, though not what they said. I remember that Sable and Aster's hold on me was finally slipped enough for me to try again. I remember thinking I would not go alone this time. There is fog then, haze, pleasure and agony, a night in a golden cage. And then I am running, running, running, trying to keep up with them. I see hands reach to help me as I stumble. I pull others along. There's a group of us, all linked in quiet whispers of planning, and now in the flight for terror. I remember losing them in the hedge as we all ducked thorns and the baying of the hounds in all their inhuman glory. I stayed with one or two a bit longer but in the end most of us were alone again, lost in the brambles. Eden, Eden, Eden. I've a sister you know. Somewhere out there, captured by them. Maybe alive. Maybe dead. I was whispering her name when the Rattenkonigen found me and brought me back through to home. But then it wasn't really home my dear reader, not ever again."

What Hannah Recalls

"The Revolt... I remember it, kinda. Some people came into my Keeper's parlor and I saw them through the glass of the mirror I was trapped behind. I started banging on it, hoping they'd hear me. I'd known they were coming because someone, I don't remember who, told me about it days before it happened. He said to look for the red nettles or something like that. I know I told him something important he needed to know but I have no idea what it was. Anyway, I managed to get their attention and one of them threw something into the mirror to break it and I came falling out. They told me to follow them if I wanted to go home. So I did. I remember the sound of broken glass echoing for a lot longer than it should have and the my Keeper shouting at someone. I told them where some more people like us were and I helped get some of them free. We got out of the manor, somehow, and took off for the Hedge. People were fighting against monsters our Keepers set loose to catch us. Scary things. Big things. It all really hazy after that.
I saw someone made of lightning wrestle with an enormous serpent that tore up out of the ground. Some giant stabbed a huge spear into a woman made of screaming faces who was closing in on us. A shadowy knight on a flaming horse grabbed at a girl beside me - but I pushed her down just as he reached for her. We both tumbled down a hillside and were helped up by someone with cold hands and a wicked smile. He pushed us both forward; I don't know what happened to her. I stumbled into a wolf who told me to cross a stream of tears and keep heading left past a tree made of brass, so I listened to him because he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. I saw Fragile cutting through the growth behind us and knew he sent her after me. So I ran from her. Someone screamed nearby and I heard what sounded like a cannon being fired just a few feet from me. I ran faster and kept thinking of Home. Someone told me to do that...I think it was a lady with really intense eyes. I ran for what felt like hours before I saw a door knob sticking out from behind some thorns, so I grabbed it and pulled the door open and found myself back Home. Well, sort of."

What Nathan Recalls

"I don't remember much by that point. I know I was always cold, and that being cold made it harder to remember. My life was glimpses of warmth. So the setup I can only guess at... First I recall is shattered glass, a hint of warmth as someone grabbed my hand and pulled me through. There was a group of us, strangers, and we were to be let through by... someone. A guard, or a guide. But it was a trap, it was always a trap, and he captured us somehow. Or locked us in. I don't know. I remember that I kissed him, brought my cold lips to his mouth with my bloody hand. I kissed him before he could say anything, I breathed in warmth and desperate life and I didn't stop until he went limp. I remember every detail of his face, shocked and frightened. The group of us ran past his body.
It was chaos outside, I didn't dare run straight to the Hedge. I thought I saw Fae gods among the guards and hounds that were hunting us down. But that is impossible... if the Lord Oblique was aware of our flight, we would never have made it out. So my path wasn't straight, I went around, back in and out of the manor, trailing a maze that had always eluded me before. I was warm, and strong, and I ran ahead of the group. I think I was the only one to make it out, certainly no one arrived with me at Maleperduys."

What Valentine Recalls

"I remember one morning, in 1999, waking up with a fit of sweat upon my brow. I had been plagued that evening by troublesome dreams. In my mind's eye, I envisioned an exodus of changelings - all struggling to get out from the Hedge but not finding their way. I consulted a number of my fellows on this dream that I could not shake. Eventually I spoke to a fellow by the name of Draco Archer and discussed blazing a trail for these escapees to a place of sanctuary... my very own Fox Hole. Though we burnt a path through the Hedge and watched it carefully, it was many months before any sign of traffic. At first they came in a trickle - some having been injured or delirious with madness - then there came a flood. Soon our coffers and our manse was overflowing with these people and transformed the very nature of our Hollow - but that is another story."

What Nemo Recalls

"I can't say I remember much of livin' in Faerie, and I certainly don't remember anything before it. That's always the part that burns me the most... I lived as a slave for who knows how long, and was taken too young to really remember any details of before. Something so important to who I am now, you'd think I'd remember that night better, but even as I escaped past the thorns I was trapped in the slave-mind of a beast of toil far beneath the waves. I know I made it out of my Keeper's realm by myself somehow, a hurt and angry thing that swam to freedom only to find himself tossed out into the Hedge and gasping for breath, only I'm not sure if I was breathing water or air at that point. As I started to black out, I saw a fight coming my way... I think. I'm not even sure I haven't just made this up myself, to make sense of it all afterwards, but I've had to make up everything that I am since I escaped so I don't really see how it matters so much whether it's fact or fiction."

"I saw some people... well, sort of people, if'n you know what I mean... and they were fighting, some trying to run and others trying to drag them back. An' I knew what I was doing, I was running, so I figured those people running probably had at least as good of an idea of where to go as I did, choking and suffocating at my first breath of free air since the Drowned God took me. I must have figured right because here I am, and one thing I do remember was the first blow I landed for the cause of my own freedom. I was running with them all as they made their way... I don't know where... somewhere. A black knight with a dog's face felled the winged woman next to me, and pinned her to the ground with his lance then came back for more. His lance was pointed at me next, and hell if I was going to go down without a fight... so I ducked the point and jumped up into the saddle, and I think I ripped his head off with my bare hands. I was strong... nightmarishly strong, but I think we'd agree this was a nightmare. I went back for the woman, and pulled the lance from her. She was bleeding something fearsome... and something blue, if I recall. I dragged her onto the back of the horse and we ran back with the rest of the group. I think that's when they accepted me as part of their struggle instead of just some trap lying in wait for them... I'd saved one of their own and come back with her, proving my mettle to them or something. The rest is all red... blood and anger and pain. A lot of blood, and a lot of pain, but we got past that. The anger still lives inside me... but that's my problem, and not one I'm prone to talkin' about."

What Longshot Recalls

I don't remember much but what I can remember is the cell door was open I was in a lot of pain that day from being whipped by my keepers.So when I saw my door was now open I went out.It seemed odd I could not see anyone but I could feel I was being watch by someone all know is I did not care why so I ran out. I got out of the house that I was in going into the woods.All I could feel was pain like I was being ripped open from the in side. When I made it to earth all I know is I passed out. I am not sure who it was someone came to me waking me up asking if I was ok. In fear for my life I ran off into the city. Hearing the person yell to me to stop he was not going to hurt me it did not mater all I want to be free and I did not know this person running after me.

What Tristan MacDonnel Recalls

I've got no idea how my motley got involved. All I know is, everyone was running, all at once. There were a few of us, running in one direction together for a while. Then, I remember being pursued, a not unfamiliar sensation. I kept running, the instincts just taking control as they so often did for me in that...place...and thinking in the very back of my head, the part that remembered to *think*, that they were going to catch us. Then, she was begging me to turn, to go a different direction, to lead the chasers off away from some of the others. She's always like that, trying to make me a better person. I didn't make it out with the rest, and neither did she, so I must've done what she said...all I know is the chasing didn't end there, and I didn't get out for a while after that.

More to come soon...

The Vow of Bloodied Thistles

About the Vow

Changeling who participated in the Red Nettle Revolt are often known for the trust they place in the Lost who escaped with them on that infamous night in Arcadia. Responsible for one another's freedom, many revolters remain loyal to those who helped them escape out of a fear that one day their Keepers may come to fetch them all and they will once more have to work together against overwhelming odds. These sense of loyalty to their fellow escapees is often expressed in the form a pledge known as the Vow of Bloodied Thistles. The vow of Bloodied Thistles is known to most revolters and is upheld by as many long returned veterans of the Night of Nettles as well as newly found escapees still covered in blood-soaked brambles. Some claim it was first sworn by the three changelings who planned the Night of Red Nettles in Faerie, and that it was this pledge that gave them the strength to see the revolt through and free themselves and so many others.

The Vow of Bloodied Thistles allows the Lost who swear it to continue to aid one another as they did during the night of their escape. Watching out for the safety and well-being of their fellow changelings is symbolic of the the trials they endured escaping back through the Hedge and reminds them how they could not have done it by themselves and how integral trust is to their continued freedom. It also keeps revolters vigilant for any signs of trouble they could endanger them all as the threat of the Others is something they cannot escape. In return for upholding the ideas that made the Red Nettle Revolt a successful effort, they find themselves aided in maintaining their freedom and avoiding the dangers the Gentry and the Hedge pose.

Nearly all revolters fear their uprising will bring the wrath of the Gentry to bare against them sooner or later and one disloyal participant in the revolt could reveal many harmful secrets to the Others and their servants. As such, swearing this vow is often a way for a changeling to ensure to his fellow Red Nettle escapees that he or she won't betray them. Though those who don't swear the oath aren't shunned by the survivors of the revolt, they are never fully trusted either. Only those who break this pledge are seen as betrayers and true threats to the safety of their fellow escapees. Though few, if any, Lost have ever broken this pledge, knowing that in doing so they'd forfeit what safety they have on this side of the Hedge.

Wording of the Vow

Traditional: "On that fateful night we escaped from the Gentrys' monstrous grasp and the hungry thorns of the Hedge. Hand in hand, back to back; we fought, we fled and won our freedom. So do I pledge myself to my fellow escapees, their trust earned and returned in kind; I shall watch over them as they watched over me, aid them as they aided me. Their trust I will not betray, else my blood will run as red as the nettles for which that eve is named."

Simple: "I remember what we went through that night and how none of us could have done it alone. I won't turn my back on anyone who helped me escape and I'll help them when and where I can. I won't sell any of them out, and if I do I realize I won't be safe from them if they want revenge."

Mechanics of the Vow

Type: Vow

Tasks: Alliance, Medial (-2, must help and defend other participants in the revolt when they are in need of such); Endeavor, Lesser (-1, Must keep a look out for other Lost who were part of the revolt and for information that may concern other revolters);

Forbiddance, Medial (-2, cannot reveal information regarding participants in the revolt if it could or would threaten their safety).

Boons: Adroitness, Lesser (+1, the changeling gains a +1 Survival); Adroitness, Lesser (+1, the changeling gains a +1 Stealth); Adroitness, Lesser (+1, the changeling gains +1 to a combat skill); Blessing, Medial (+2, the changeling gains the Danger Sense or two-dot Fleet of Foot merit).

Sanction: Vulnerability [Violence], Greater (-3, those who betray their fellow escapees will find no protection against the vengeance of those they betrayed).

Duration: Year and a Day (+3).

Invocation: 1 Willpower.

Approval #: USA-SE-LC-0802-87343

Rumors & Hearsay

• In Hedge near where many of the escapees emerged dark red nettles grow. When held in the presence of one who escaped that night they become quite sharp and sometimes drip with fresh blood.
• The Gentry allowed the Red Nettle Revolt to take place, hiding many loyalists amongst the ranks of those who escaped that they can later use against the Lost when the time is right.
• Some who took place in the revolt made it back prior to the turn of the millennium, arriving back Home in the late 1990's. However, all who have openly claimed as such have gone missing or wound up dead not long after.
• Mia Jenkins, secretly working off a debt to the Gentry, was a driving force behind the Red Nettle Revolt.

Contact Info

The Red Nettle Revolt is an idea that's still be developed/fleshed out by those involved. To get involved with this group of escapees and contribute to the idea please join the Red Nettle Revolt Google Group or contact Justin Melton for more information.