Welcome to the Hollow!

Welcome to the Athens of Florida

DeLand is a small, quiet town, situated in the heart of Central Florida. No high-rise buildings downtown, no glitzy tourist attractions. No mall for the teenagers to hang out in. It boasts a high school. A private university. A historic downtown section, full of quaint shops, wine bars, tea rooms, music stores, theaters, and art galleries. Murals on the sides of buildings. Plenty of parks, the trees hung low with Spanish moss, manatees drifting lazily in the water. Tiny, winding side streets dotted with wooden houses dating back to the turn of the last century.

And beneath the surface of it all, a vibrant, thriving Changeling population.

History


In the mid-1800's, the tiny rural settlement known as Persimmon Hollow was nothing but a still-wild clearing near the St. John's River, accessible only by steamboat - and that's how the elusive Changelings living there liked it. Named for the persimmon trees ("Closest thing the real world has to a Hedge fruit, and that's the truth," to quote Captain John on the subject) that grew wild in the area, the Lost of the Persimmon Hollow Freehold sought safety in isolation, reveling in silence and solitude and the swampy Floridian wilds.

Everything changed when a pair of Spring Courtiers, the charismatic Captain John Rich and his wife Clara, built a log cabin amongst the persimmon trees in 1874. Where other Changelings saw peace, they saw opportunity. Captain John received the Spring Crown early in 1875 (although he never did go by the title "King," preferring to simply be called "Captain"), and began agitating to see the area grow. "What good is it escaping back to the real world," he'd cry, "when you won't live in the real world?" To the Spring Court, he sold the bright beauties of society and art; to Autumn, the promise of libraries and scholarship. The Summer Court, he berated and shamed for withdrawing so thoroughly from the world and from the fight - were they afraid?? The Winter Court presented the hardest challenge - even the lure of drawing enough people there that they could slip amongst them unseen, a nameless face in a crowd, did not sway them. Until one day, with no reason given, the Onyx Court unanimously declared in favor of opening Persimmon Hollow to outsiders and settlers. It is rumored that Captain John or Clara made some terrible bargain with the Court, gave them some dire secret or powerful weapon, but whether there is any truth to the rumor remains a Court secret... and it is the business of Winter to keep secrets.

Captain John began sending letters by steamboat up the river to an old friend, a chatty Wizened called O.P. Terry. Terry visited a year later, bringing his brother-in-law, the business magnate Henry DeLand, with him - and they just "happened" to come upon the Rich's log cabin come nightfall. Prompted, no doubt, by his brother-in-law's urgings, DeLand fell in love with the area, seeing in it great potential for citrus and feeling that the settlers there would be perfect for the center of art and culture he was envisioning. By the end of the next day, he had bought 159 acres of land...

...and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today


DeLand never did become the bustling metropolis its namesake dreamed of, although the educational and cultural ambitions certainly did pan out. Despite its slow Southern charms and small-town feel, there is something decidedly eccentric about the city. It has character - and characters! Sit in a coffeeshop and watch the world go by, and among the small-town crowd you may see a man in a striped top hat lazily pedeling a unicycle down the street, weaving amongst the pedestrians without anyone so much as raising an eyebrow. Strange coincidences happen in DeLand; you might put your hand down at random in a bookstore and find the tome you've spent the last five years searching for, or bump into an old lover you thought you'd never see again while admiring the same blown-glass sculpture at the art festival. And some of the locals swear that once in a while, the roads shift and change, leaving you unable to find your destination no matter how long you try.

Meanwhile, hidden from mundane eyes, the Persimmon Hollow Freehold is still going strong.

Game
The links below lead to pertinent information for the Persimmon Hollow Changeling game:
 * Forum - where the actual roleplay takes place!
 * House rules - what's the same, what's different
 * Setting lore - facts, rumors, and myths about the area
 * Locations - all the fun places to explore, relax in, hang out at, or possibly destroy
 * Player characters - a place for players to list their PC's and share information about them
 * Non-player characters - everyone else (...ok, not EVERYONE else) living in the area