CtL Shard Locations

Shard Locations

The following list are a list of publicly known locations. If you'd like a location added please let the team know.

The four known, "Stable" Shards appear as the city of San Francisco circa 1906, 1929, 1967, and 1989. These years map to momentous events Ironside and in Changeling society - The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Black Tuesday (The Stock Market Crash), The Summer of Love, and the Loma Prieta Earthquake, and, respectively, the destruction of the Solar Courts, the disappearance of the Directional Courts, the Midwinter Massacre, and the Uprising of ‘89. Time flows strangely in the Shards, with the exception of the fourth, which always covers the final month of the Old Crowns’ reign; sometimes time passes at a normal rate, and sometimes weeks or months may pass by for the Shards even as mere days go by for the modern City by the Bay and those who come from it. Regardless of how fast or how steady time passes in the Shards, however, roughly every thirty days that pass by in modern-day San Francisco sees the Shards ‘reset,’ erasing any changes made to them in the previous ‘month,’ alongside the memories of the Shards’ residents.

• Players are freely permitted to roleplay in the four Stable Shards, without Storyteller involvement. Visiting an Unstable Shard requires a Storyteller.
• The Shards extend slightly beyond the borders of the city of San Francisco, but attempting to travel beyond these boundaries results in a Changeling finding themself back in the local Hedge, on the Trod leading to the Shard.
• Shards will ‘reset’ at the start of each calendar month, no matter how much time has passed in them subjectively.
• Mortals can visit the Shards, but it is a dangerous prospect for them as they must traverse the Hedge to reach them.
• Any injuries suffered in the Shards by those visiting them remain once that visitor leaves the Shard; death in a Shard is as real as it would be Ironside, and anyone Taken while visiting a Shard faces the same fate as someone abducted from the Hedge or Ironside.

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1906: Out of the Ashes, The Summer Court

Name: 1906: Out of the Ashes Venue: Changeling Type: Public Owned By: The Summer Court Headquarters: The Flood Building Common NPCs: Nico, Leonard

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Special Mechanics Here.

Description:

Did you know that there used to be other freeholds in the City? There was a predominantly Mexican Freehold, the Solar Courts, that shared the city with the Seasonal.They didn’t survive the fires after the earthquake, most were crushed or burnt by natural forces, but some were last seen being dragged off by creatures that shouldn’t have been able to cross Ironside. It kind of makes you wonder if those creatures are still out there. - Tizita Honestly, I low-key hate our shard. Watching a city topple and burn while everyone is running around in a frenzied panic kinda hits a little too close to home, ya know? But if you can last a loop or two without going crazy, well then there’s a lot you can handle. It ain’t great but it works. - Nico April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California tried to return the land to the sea. While many cities were damaged during the great quake, none were hit harder than San Francisco. The earthquake alone was devastating, but the fires that swept the city afterwards nearly wiped SF off the map. Many of the fires were started by things such as burst gas mains and toppling lanterns, but an inept use of dynamite to create firebreaks added to the inferno. Also, most people didn’t have earthquake insurance so many set their homes ablaze in order to have a legitimate insurance claim. The fires burned for several days and whole districts were consigned to the flames. On the Changeling side of things, the earthquake flung every dormant hedge gate wide open, the fires poured into the Hedge searing the thorns and driving many hobs and hedgebeasts into a panicked stampede. Many mortals found themselves lost in the brambles, but just as many Hedge denizens became stranded Ironside. In the weeks of chaos that followed, many of the Keepers sent their Huntsmen and an unusually large number of Lost were dragged back to their captors. When the ash settled, the Solar freehold had entirely vanished, leaving the city to the Seasonal and Directional freeholds.

1929: Fear in a Handful of Dust, The Autumn Court

Name: 1929: Fear in a Handful of Dust Venue: Changeling Type: Public Owned By: The Autumn Court Headquarters: The Hunter-Dunlin Building Common NPCs: Lenora, Tizita

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"The Depression hit SF hard, but people never talk about how much harder it was for immigrants. The 20s already saw a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment, the Depression just made all that worse. There used to be a thriving Directional freehold in the City, but it didn’t survive the troubles. Now I’ve heard rumors there’s a few old Directionals still hiding in Chinatown, anyone wanna help me find them?" - Mike "The Roaring Twenties,’ they called them, and their oh-so-dramatic demise. I remember the stories Nonno Lorenzo would tell of those days, and I always longed for the excitement those stories promised. Always be cautious what you wish for, darling." - Lenora October 24th 1929, also known as Black Thursday, signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. While the country in general was already heading for recession, California was still having an economic boom when the market crashed. San Francisco didn’t feel the effects of the crash initially, many believed the City would remain untouched, but this was not to be the case. As the months of economic strife ravaged the country, SF’s insulation began to erode and soon even the shining city of the West found itself struggling. To confound matters, people fled from the poorer parts of the country, hoping to find work and comfort in a city that already had a reputation for taking in immigrants. This led to a huge disparity between the number of jobs and the number of job-seekers, giving rise to corrupt unions and unfair labor practices. Immigrants and the poor felt the sting of this more than the city’s elite, and anti-foreigner sentiments, be they from another country or even another state, grew. Eventually this would lead to fights between workers and the corrupt unions, with the workers triumphing. On the Changeling side of things, Fear gripped the city and the Autumn Court glutted itself to near-immobility. The warnings of another Fae incursion were plain to anyone paying attention, but most Changelings were too busy simply trying to survive to notice. At the height of the panic, Hunter’s horns sounded in the dark, and nearly overnight the Directional freehold based in Chinatown disappeared. The Seasonal courts quickly blamed the Directionals for their own disappearance; what foolish magic had these strange Lost employed that attracted the Others? That many Seasonals also disappeared only fueled anti-Directional sentiment, and it would take decades for people to start truly questioning what actually happened.

1989: Shadows of a Shackled City, The Winter Court

Name: 1989: Shadows of a Shackled City Venue: Changeling Type: Public Owned By: The Winter Court Headquarters: The San Francisco Armory Common NPCs: Frankie, Stasya

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"Look, honey, let’s not mince words: as much as I know the Eighties are popular now, don’t let nostalgia get you killed or worse. If you weren’t there in the bad old days, you can’t appreciate how dangerous this town was then. If you just have to go see Batman in theaters, be careful, but otherwise, leave it to the professionals." - Frankie "It takes a special something to make 1989 Moscow look better in comparison, and yet here we are." - Stasya October 17th, 1989, seemed a perfectly normal day in San Francisco. The population turned their attention to the World Series game between San Francisco and Oakland, with none but perhaps local seismologists suspecting the chaos that was about to unfold. At 5:04 pm, the city was rocked by the Loma Prieta Earthquake. The quake killed dozens and left billions of dollars in damage in its wake, devastating freeways and bridges in particular. On the Changeling side of things, the day would come to be remembered as the ‘Uprising of ‘89,’ the day in which the Royal Circle led the local Lost in deposing the Old Crowns of the City of Shackles. The Uprising of ‘89 would lead to the end of the City of Shackles and the birth of the City by the Sea and the crowning of the Royal Circle.

1967: The Summer of Love, The Spring Court

Name: 1967: The Summer of Love Venue: Changeling Type: Public Owned By: The Spring Court Headquarters: Pagoda Palace Common NPCs: Jericho, DD, Mike

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"Folks say the Summer of Love was the golden age for the Antler, and I’m not one to disagree. But while I enjoy reliving the glory days, for me the nostalgia is bittersweet, the beginning of it all tarnished by my greatest failure…" - Jericho "The Summer of Love was fun, at least the parts I remember of it. Oh right yeah the Privateer thing, yeah that was less fun, lost some good friends, made some lifelong enemies. Fun fact, there’s some fetches made out of LSD tabs running around the city, and they’re not the ones you’d think they’d be." - Sr. Tijeras January 14th, 1967 saw those who would one day be called ‘flower children’ and ‘hippies’ descended on the Polo FIelds of Golden Gate Park for the ‘Human Be-In.” More than 20,000 people gathered that day to listen to future luminaries of Sixties counter-culture, and many would come to stay in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The event would be the start of the Summer of Love in San Francisco, and its effects would echo out to the nation beyond. San Francisco’s image in the popular imagination would be changed forever by the events of the Summer of Love. On the Changeling side of things, the Hedge grew wild and vibrant and Glamour flowed like wine, but the shadow of tragedy would hang over the city despite the vibrancy the Summer of Love would bring. The Human Be-In would become known as the ‘Midwinter Massacre’ to the Lost of the city, for a great number of Privateers and Loyalists entered the city under the cover of the event, and while they would claim few Lost victims, a horrifying number of mortals who attended the event were dragged away through the Thorns despite the Freehold’s best efforts to save them, leaving Fetches in their place who would go on to return to the fold of mortal society at the Summer of Love’s end. The Massacre, and its perpetrators who remained in the city in its wake, would ensure that the Courtless would never be truly welcome in San Francisco again.

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