Turn The Page
From Changeling Venue
Whenever the Lost speak of the Fen of Brambles Freehold, they invariably talk of Som i'Seely - the fortress that has long served as a central gathering point for the changelings in Tampa, Florida. However, all changelings with any sense about them assume the Gentry had found their way into central Florida before Som i'Seely was ever established.
Folk tales among the native indians, some dating back to a period somewhere in the early 18th century, speak of unknown creatures and men that seemed to emerge from nowhere only to kidnap hapless natives who had strayed too far from their villages. These tales are corroborated, at least somewhat, by an exceptionally worn page of paper believed to have come from the journal of a True Fae who captured wounded Seminoles during intra-tribal battles around the early 1800's. In fact, it is this very document that inspired the nickname for Tampa's Freehold - the "Fen of Brambles" - based on a passage that read:
"...tired of my servants constantly whining about the unending exploring we conduct among all manner of waist-deep muck and thorned foliage. One would think they believe themselves in a position to negotiate with me. I sometimes contemplate denying them sustenance as a means of teaching them the penalties for complaints, but I dare not leave one of them malnourished and unfit to assist me. There is simply more prey left wounded on the battlesfields and hiding quietly in the nearby village than I could possibly capture on my own. I only hope that I can manage to finish enslaving more than my fair share from this insufferable fen of brambles before the existing diseases finish spreading like wildfire amongst those still ensconced in Thlonoto-Sassa."
Thus, most changelings take these stories as indication that the Gentry were pillaging the wilds of Florida long before the city of Tampa was ever even conceived. But beyond the journal page mentioned above, there are scarcely few records - and even fewer actual trustworthy records - proving the presence of the True Fae in Tampa prior to the period when the fortress called Som i'Seely was first founded. And with such tenuous information respenting entire centuries of Florida's earliest history, many Lost scholars are left only with speculation as to how things might have once been.
Thankfully, records and factual evidence increase significantly as attention turns to the middle of the 1800's. Despite the fact there are no documents or plaques directly commemorating Som i'Seely's construction, historians among the Lost generally agree that the fort was built somwhere between 1824 (the year that Fort Brooke was completed) and 1855 (the year that Tampa was officially chartered as a city). Experts on Lost history suggest that this time period makes sense as the fort's construction led to increased peace in the area, which helped attract new settlers to balloon the burgeoning city's population, which in turn provided more potential targets for the True Fae to apprehend. Moreover, it was this increased population that likely prompted a need for the fort in the first place.
From even its earliest days, Som i'Seely acted as a staging point for the Gentry who made use of multiple trods that converged just outside the fortress. The convenience of the intersecting trods not only allowed easy access to the mundane world, but also allowed the Gentry to collect their captives in one location and hold them there pending transit back to Arcadia. Furthermore, once a new captive was taken into custody, the fortress provided an excellent location for the creation of the captive's fetch and its prompt insertion into the world. Though there are clearly no records to support this, modern visitors to Som i'Seely posit that the Gentry could leave the fort, enter the mundane world, capture a slave, take it back to the fort, assemble a fetch, and put the fetch into place before anyone would notice the missing captive.
As such, it is little surprise that Som i'Seely acted as a major hub of Gentry activity for well over 100 years. The continuous influx of new slave-seeking keepers along with a constant train of fresh captives heading back to Arcadia only further reinforced the trods in the area. And much to chagrin of those few unlucky changelings who managed to escape and stumble upon Tampa's trods expecting a quick route home, the regular traffic in the area made it nearly impossible for an escaped slave to taste freedom. In one reputed (but undocumented) case, it was suggested that one exceptionally unfortunate individual slipped out from his keeper's estate while his keeper was headed to Som i'Seely only to get recaptured on one of the trods a short distance from Som i'Seely and then taken to the fortress to be returned to his keeper who was nearby.
However, the fort did not remain in the control of the Gentry forever. Sometime - and the exact date is unknown - in the summer of 1963, the captives housed at Som i'Seely staged a revolt that subsequently led to the fortress falling under the control of the Lost contained inside. Historians remain uncertain how this event came to be. Some believe that at the time of the revolt, the fortress was particularly devoid of True Fae while simultaneously housing a large continegent of recently recaptured changelings who were well skilled in the various Contracts. Others suggest that the incident began when certain new captives were left improperly secured thanks to declining security standards inside the fortress. A third theory posits that the revolt was the work of several hedge creatures who somehow snuck into the fortress and then released the captives in the hopes of gaining allies to drive the True Fae out of the area.
Whatever the truth may be, the battle that ensued is believed to have been bloody on both sides and ultimately reached a standstill when the Lost barricaded themselves inside the fort's walls while the Gentry began establishing a blockade to starve the captives out. Evidence remains in dispute as to how long this stand-off lasted, but it is believed that the stand-off ended when Som i'Seely vanished right before the eyes of the Gentry camped outside the fortress' walls. Within mere moments, the True Fae standing at the gates of Som i'Seely not only lost sight of the massive structure but also forgot that the fortress ever existed.
To most changelings, the slightest suggestion that such a feat might be possible is normally met with instant ridicule. None the less, the pledge remains in effect even now - though it was recently reactivated (see below) - and visitors to the fortress can still bear witness to the pledge's boon. The prevailing theory is that the Lost inside the fort sensed that they had succeeded only in painting themselves into a most dire corner and so somehow enacted a powerful pledge that completely concealed the fort from the True Fae's detection and memories. Unfortunately, the details of the pledge's exact creation are now considered indecipherable as even the most accomplished occult researchers among the Autumn court cannot replicate the effect. This inability to replicate the oath is severely compounded by the fact that all of the changelings who particpated in the oath are missing and considered dead or forever lost (no pun intended).
To date, no records have surfaced as to how or why this mass disappearance occurred. Using the scant few bits of tangential records left of that time, it has been theorized that Som i'Seelie's occupants all mysteriously vanished in 1973. In fact, a small selection of historians - myself included - believe that the inhabitants of Som i'Seely all disappeared exactly 10 years and 11 days after the Oath of Common Bonds was first enacted. Given that some pledges have been known to last for 10 years and 10 days, often referred to as a decade duration for simplicity's sake, it is possible that the Oath of Common Bonds simply ceased its effect. Why this may have happened is a matter of pure speculation though. However, if the pledge did cease effect in 1973, then there remains the lingering problem of what happened to the fortress for the next two years.
It is well-settled that in the spring of 1975 a great storm of wind and rain swept through the Hedge, which in turn caused a small motley of adventurers known as "The Hedgerunners" to seek refuge. In their quest to find shelterwhile the storm passes, the group stumbled upon Som i'Seely. By this time the fortress had become overgrown with vines and was nearly buried underneath waves of foliage. The fortress was found completely deserted and devoid of any items that might have indicated who previously occupied the location or where they disappeared to. Furthermore. there were no signs of any struggles or battles that might have indicated the mass disappearance was the product of foul play.
Still, even assuming the most dire of ends for the occupants of Som i'Seely in 1973, there is no credible explanation for why the location would have remained unoccupied for nearly two years. Despite the lack of records showing vistations from neighboring Lost and other creatures, common sense sugests that there must visitors to the fortress at some point in the 10 years it was freed from the Gentry. And if so, how is it that no one noticed the disappearance for nearly two years nor did anyone come looking for the missing occupants or seek to re-occupy the abandoned fort afterwards? The sheer lack of any evidence of how or when the disappearance occurred as well as what kept the fortress unoccupied afterwards is truly the most vexing void in the history of Som i'Seely and remains one of the central points of contention among Lost scholars who have studied the topic.
Regardless, once reclaimed by The Hedgerunners, the news of Som i'Seely's re-discovery traveled rather quickly. Several other motleys immediately joined in to help clear the fort of the overgrown Hedge foliage. In the course of the clean-up, the multiple motleys on scene were able to re-enact the Oath of Common Bonds and establish (or possibly re-establish) the Court of the Brambled Fen, which in turn returned the fortress to a secure location. Shielded by the power of the Oath of Common Bonds, Som i'Seely then experienced an extended period of growth, prosperity, and safety as Lost from all across the Hedge of Florida found a secure location in which to gather and reside under the enlightened leadership of the Court of the Brmabled Fen.
It was during this time that Som i'Seely first came into prominence as a trade city in the Hedge. The influx of newly arrived changelings prompted a tremendous need for goods and services, which of course brought goblin merchants by the score. The profit generated by goblin traders during this time led many merchants to seek permamnent shops as they simply could not think of traveling elsewhere in search of a better market. Pressed with a host of needed resources and quickly filling to capacity with permanent residents, the Court of the Brambled Fen of Som i'Seely entered negotiations with the goblins to provide permanent residences and shops for the goblin merchants in exchange for the needed resources to expand the Hollow. While goblin merchants remain somewhat tight-lipped on the exact details of the negotiations with the Court, it is well known that the negotiations ended with Som i'Seely becoming the location of one of the largest, fixed goblin markets in the Hedge sometime in 1982.
The exceptionally lucrative bargain enriched the Court of the Brambled Fen so much that Som i'Seely was expanded and improved - nearly doubling the size of the Hollow by the end of the 1980's. New doors were forged as the wards were fortified as strongly as possible using some of the best sorcerors, who were all paid handsomely for their services. As the size and security of Som i'Seely grew and grew, so did the attention it garnered and the numbers it attracted. These increases in population brought both good and bad with them because as the fort became more diverse in terms of occupancy so to did it become diverse in it needs. By all accounts, it is said that by the atart of the 1990's one could not imagine a luxury of the Hedge that could not be found for sale somewhere in the market of Som i'Seely - including even the more questionable and immoral objects of desire.
Regretably, it appears that the combination of almost certain safety and the excessive opulence of Som i'Seely may well have been the primary factors in leading to yet another unfortunate fate. Starting in the early 1900's, the Court of the Brambled Fen entered a particularly tense period of political turmoil. The four seasonal courts began vying for control of the fortress, and more importantly for the wealth and power that came with it. Though all four courts recognized that the Oath of Common Bonds prevented any one court from establishing dominance for longer than one season, the Lost of Som i'Seely began pursuing pledges as a means of binding the other courts.
By the winter of 1995, the Court of the Brambled Fen had long passed its golden days of enlightened leadership and the motleys and seasonal courts of Som i'Seely had descended to assassination as the sole means of safeguarding poltical might. Faced with the potential of a bloody civil war, the then Queen of Winter - a Wizened Oracle named Euphoria - sought help from the goblin merchants - the only remaining nuetral group within Som i'Seely. While the details of the pledge agreed upon by the Winter Queen and the goblin merchants remains unclear, it is clear that the alliance temporarily helped to stem some of the growing violence within Som i'Seely.
Nevertheless, despite the temporary peace Euphoria was able to put in place, Euphoria was found slain by a blade of cold iron on the eve of the transition from the Winter court to the Spring court's rule. Her death, tragic in and of itself, also served to ultimately shatter the Oath of Common Bonds. It is believed that Euphoria's death somehow triggered a chain reaction of broken pledges and that in the ensuing chaos of the Queen's death and the multiple broken pledges the remainder of the Court of the Brambled Fen descended upon each other with unyielding ferocity. By the end of the night of what would have been Spring's first night as reigning court, the Court of the Brambled Fen was decimated by at least half of its members while the remaining half had fled into the wilds of the surrounding Hedge under the compulsion of the broken pledge's banishment.
The news of the carnage at Som i'Seely spread like wildfire. Seemingly overnight the reputation of Som i'Seely was forever tarnished with tales of cold iron assassination, broken oaths, rampant chaos, and acts of such brutality that shocked even those of the lowest Clarity. Some rumors even went so far as to suggest that Som i'Seely as was reported to be haunted by the vengeful ghost of Queen Euphoria and those slain along side her. As one observer quite famously commented, "Som i'Seely is nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Months turned into years and Som i'Seely remained an area believed to be deserted and reviled under a cloud of mystery and shame. But in the winter of 1999 that stories began to circulate of other horrors related to Som i'Seely. A pair of recently escaped Lost reported that they escaped Arcadia and emerged somewhere in the deepest parts of Tampa's hedge. They spoke of being unable to find their way out of the Hedge, and in their many days hiding among the thorned foliage they had encountered the remaining members of the Court of the Brambled Fen. They spoke of how the remaining members of the Court had become mad cannibals lurking in the overgrowth.
Moreover, they claimed that they had witnessed the walls of Som i'Seely and had found no ghosts. Instead they found only goblin privateers who were using the fortress as a base of operations to trade with the True Fae - possibly even to return the fortress to control of the Gentry. The mere suggestion of that possibility caused a fair amount of panic among the Lost. Faced with the prospect that the fortress might provide the Gentry with a strong foothold back into the area, Valel Dragons'ire - a Draconic Fairest of the Summer court - began leading several motleys on reconnaisance missions to determine exactly what was happening at the fortress.
After several months of scouting and investigation, Dragons'ire discovered that Som i'seely was in fact under the control of goblins who were led by a goblin pirate named Nub Sneedlin. he also found that the goblins were in fact capturing changelings and taking them back to the Arcadia using the Path of Black Waters trod. The motleys assisting Dragons'ire attempted to siege the fortress, but found themselves repelled by the still exceptionally potent wards of Som i'Seely as well as a well armed contigent of goblin pirates. Realizing that he could not take the fortress with what he already had at his disposal, Dragons'ire issued a call for support to reclaim Som i'Seely in spring of 2001.
That summer a full scale campaign was launched to first blockade the fortress in order to cut off the goblin pirates, and then to siege the actual fortress. The first months of the campaign went poorly. The goblin pirates seemed to have been prepared for many of the strategies that the orignally small force Lost used. At one point, Dragons'ire commented that the goblins must have struck a deal with the Wyrd itself because it seemed as if Sneedlin's pirates knew what would happen before it happened.
But as the first year of the campaign began drawing to a close, the stories of the continued effort to re-take the fortress called more and more brave warriors to the fray. By the start of the winter of 2002, Dragons'ire finally found his forces outnumbered his opponent 2 to 1. The superior numbers allowed Dragons'ire to both defeat Sneeblin's fleet as well as to blockade the bay while still leaving a sizeable enough contingent of troops to pin the goblins into the fortress.
As 2003 commenced, things began looking very hopeless for the goblins of Som i'Seely. Dragons'ire and his forces were making preparations to retake the fortress at the start of the summer, when the Wyrd would be most helpful to conducting war. In the interest of sparing further bloodshed though, Dragons'ire attempted to negotiate with the goblins if they would agree to surrender Som i'Seely peacefully. Sneeblin accepted the offer in the late spring of 2002, but hindsight has shown that the acceptance of negotiation was solely a delaying tactic for the wily Sneeblin who had no real intention of surrendering.
On the last night of spring in 2003, the night before Sneeblin was to surrender the fortress under the negotiated terms of the truce, a small group of goblin pirates snuck out of the fortress under flag of truce. They claimed they sought asylum from Sneeblin and his men and said that Sneeblin had no intention of surredering. Instead, they said the Sneedlin planned to attack Dragon'ire forces once they entered the fortress and to burn the Hollow to the ground. They claimed Sneedlin had gone mad and that he would sooner destroy himself and all of his men in combat to the death than to surrender to the changelings outside om i'Seely.
Believing the story told to him, Dragons'ire demanded that Sneedlin and his goblins evacuate Som i'Seely without weapons and surrender outside the fortress. When Sneedlin refused, Dragons'ire ordered his forces to attack the fortress without mercy by both land and sea. Overwhelmed by the superior might of Dragons'ire assault, Sneedlins goblins did their best to fend off the Lost who fought tooth and nail to gain entry into the pallisade walls of Som i'Seely. But just as it seemed the walls would be breached, a great horn that echoed through the Hedge and announced the Call of the Hunt.
Within the blink of an eye a great hunting party of True Fae began to surround the battlegrounds outside the fortress. Great ships of gleaming gold and silver began firing cannons that erupted with wicked green fire. Massive flocks of winged True Fae descened from the sky snapping up changeling from the exterior of Som i'Seely much the same way a hawk snatches a mouse from the ground. Gentry emerged from the depths of the waters and the dense thickets of foliage, bringing the very black waters of bay and the throned foliage of the Hedge with them to serve as foot soldiers.
The sight was at once both otherworldly in its beauty and all too real in its horror. Many of Dragons'ire soldiers stood helpless in awe while others collapsed in terror. Morale among the attacking changeling broke, and many of the bravest warriors fled into the Hedge never to be seen again. The scene quickly became a whirlwind of panic and chaos which prompted Sneedlin's goblin to throw open the gates as they fled for concealment in the Hedge carrying withever baubles and treasures they could hold onto.
At that moment, Dragons'ire realized Sneedlin's plans. The goblins who had come seeking asylum the night before had been purposely sent outside of the wards of Som i'Seely so that they could Call the Hunt. Sneedlin certainly had no intention of surrendering, but he also had no plan of fighting to the death either. Dragons'ire realized that the Hunt had been called so Sneedlin could escape amongst the chaos of the moment. Dragons'ire ordered the majority of his forces into Som i'Seely in order to barricade themselves. And while most changelings ran in terror for the safety of the fortress, Dragon's ire rallied the few Lost still around him that were not gripped with fear and made a mad dash after Sneedlin as he disappeared into the underbrush of the Hedge.
It is uncertain what became of Dragons'ire or those who followed him into the Hedge. Neither his body nor his possessions were ever found. The changelings who managed to flee into the walls of Som i'Seely succeeded in finding safe refuge from the Gentry who pillaged the landscape at the edges of the Hollow. Some can even recall hearing Dragons'ire voice rallying his men to courage in face of the danger they must have encountered. But hidden safely behind the walls of the fortress, most of the changelings who survived the battle can say only that they heard the cries of the wounded and the helpless as they were drug back to Arcadia kicking and screaming.
In the aftermath of the battle, many of the Lost who particpated in the battle left the area. Some wished to return to the lives they had put on hold in order to assist with the campaign. Others simply could not bear the suffering they now associated with Som i'Seely. Still, a select few remained behind. Uncertain if Sneedlin had survived, the changelings who remained at Som i'Seely set about re-swearing the Oath of Common Bonds so that they might reassert control over the fortress and pledge's power. And though those who stayed at the fortress feared Sneedlin's return or another Call of the Hunt, the Lost of Som i'Seely have found a way to prosper after all they have endured.
This is not to say that Som i'Seely has been without it hurdles in its latest incarnation. But for over four years now the court of Som i'Seely has transitioned from the leadership of one season to the next without incident. The multiple doors in and out of the Hedge have been re-activated while the wards of the fortress stand as potent as ever. The court has even allowed goblin merchants to come and conduct business within the walls once again, which has helped to Som i'Seely come one step closer to the prosperity it once enjoyed as a premiere trade city in the Hedge in the 1980's. Given the dark portions of the Hollow's history, one wonders whether Som i'Seely will ever truly become a place a place of "blessed dreams" or if the city is forever cursed to repeat tales of woe and loss.
But as I often say, history can only be read with hindsight and so we must wait to see.
-A.F.
