Seeds from the charnel pit was the game held at Flatland Fantasy 4 (aka FRAGcon) on April 25, 2008.
The population of the Lost in Regina has traditionally been small and fragmented, individuals and small bands without outside contact. Then a call came out from Arthur Preta, a wandering Augur.
“Testing… Testing… Greetings my local cousins, the lost children of two worlds. Given what I have seen, I suspect that this may be the first time that any of you have encountered a Radio Free Fae transmission, and Blue tuning. As such, I suspect that you are scared, alone and vulnerable, and this is truer than you think. We cannot stay like this: I can hear it in the pulse of fate, in the story that drives our changed reality, the Wyrd. It says that our moment is now, that a decision must be made. The destiny of this city, be it to be glorious freehold or eternal wasteland will lie in our hands. I call us all out to meet this situation. Meet me April 25, and have a say in this. Or be a victim of the fate decided. The choice is yours. I’ll be in touch.”
Numerous lost answered this call. All told, their numbers were about 20. Concerns about vampires, privateers and numbers were bandied about. The vampire issue was sorted out through some clever pledge work. The others did not get so clean of a solution. The lost are not trusting individuals, and this had the possibility of being a trap. However, these suspicions were allayed, and the task of building a freehold began. There were some dissenters to the chances of the Freehold succeeding, particularly from Dmitri Rattrap, former Winter Champion of Bridgeberry. His opinion was that the local lost were too weak to survive on their own.
The locals decided that they disagreed, and a charter was struck. The freehold of Queen’s Castle was sworn in that night. The rulers of Queen’s Castle were decided in many ways, and came from across the gathered numbers: Spring was Sally In-time from the vase children, who found herself allied with Spring only that evening, a bit of a shock as Sandra Melete was the favourite before the evening for such a role. Summer fell to Sammy Jackals, who defeated Erin Sodturner in a hedge duel to earn that title. Autumn was a contest of who wanted in less, and ultimately Joshua Urania took the title. Winter Fell to Shifting Ghost after a very brief amount of debate with the others of the court, as the bigger debate within was whether they would stay or not. The rule was decided to be a traditional rotating court. It is unclear what the directional courtiers decided to do… it is whispered that they may have went to Bridgeberry.
The Wyrd decided to sanctify this freehold in a special way: it sent the Goblins. The kings each offered something of value to the freehold, but like many goblin deals, the price was higher than they thought. Sally offered to fix any one thing, Sammy offered Vampires, Joshua offered his suspicions and Shifting Ghost offered his past. These were enough for them.
For his dissent, they met Rattrap with suspicion, and released him from his obligations to them, allowing him to return to Bridgeberry. Before he left, he noted that Graverot, one of the Vase Children, had somehow gotten his hands on some notable items from Bridgeberry’s past. One, the Diary of Annabelle Clarion, ended up immediately in the hands of the Scarecrow’s pet. The Glasses of Tommy Kraut remained in his hands, but the winter king was going to offer a price for them.
As the prophecies said: the seeds of the charnel pit will sprout, giving rise to Aubergine or Belladonna, depending on the Gardener’s hand. The next day, the prophecies answered back “Aubergine”.