The County of Islands is a Kithain domain that encompasses the five boroughs of New York as well as the whole of Long Island. It is a land stalked by Nightmares and and withering in the cold winter winds of Banality. However, it is also a land where peace is kept and hope is cherished. It is one of the great centers of Glamour in Concordia and home to a dazzling array of fae.
Important Places
History
For centuries before Europeans first settled in the area, what is now called Manhattan was home to an underground Grotto sacred to the CtD:Nunnehi of the area. The first Kithain to arrive were a group of Pooka who came over as early as the 1650s. The Pooka sold their claim to the Nocker architect, Dr. Zachary Tapp, in 1664. Tapp and paid nearly nothing. Little did Tapp and his associated know, the Pooka had recently stolen the land from the CtD:Nunnehi and had been harried by Rock Giants who believed their sacred place had been defiled. The Nockers inherited these enemies with whom they were engaged in active combat for the next 20 years.
Dr. Tapp soon discovered why the Nunnehi valued the island so highly. He found the Black Crystal Caverns beneath the city, an incredibly powerful Grotto of naturally occurring Glamour. Tapp determined this as the perfect opportunity to finally create a living, moving piece of architectural sculpture. The beginnings of Goblin Towen were only a few stories deep and amounted to basic tunnels. However, the Freehold grew deeper and broader, its tendrils spreading everywhere. Meanwhile, the Nockers grew fabulously rich selling to Kithain and mortals alike. Tapp mysteriously vanished in 1750 but he left his master plans behind. The Nockers kept building according to his intentions.
CtD:Goblin Town remained the only Freehold in the immediate area for decades. In 1733, Trolls established a Lodge named Knightsbridge near the King's Bridge in what was then the Town of Yonkers.
Goblin Town was once centered beneath the streets of Manhattan. It was a vast, sprawling, ever changing labyrinth in the Near Dreaming that sometimes touched the Autumn in unexpected places. Baroness Cadmium Redd had made her pacts with the Sidhe, first with High King Dafyll during his brief, wartime kingship, and then with David. The Freehold drew its power from a deep Grotto once sacred to the Nunnehi and thus they had made common cause with the Commoners for a promise to restore what was theirs. Alas, Nunnehi and Commoners had lost together and the peace allowed Redd her holding. In fact, she was one of the newly minted Nobles meant to show the Sidhe would now share power. At least a little. She had made other pacts aside from those with royalty and dark rumors of secret experiments and strange curses from her or those Nockers who worked with her were common as long as Goblin Town stood.
It had fallen during the Evanescence, not to Banality but to Nightmare. It was now a province of Thallain and Adhene and Nightmare chimera and Nockers given over wholly to te service of the Elder Darks. Other Freeholds had fallen during the battle as had the Count of the time, Raymont ap Fiona.