The Safe House

The Safe House is a Freehold located on the Western edge of Russian Hill in Downtown San Francisco. It is one of many small Freeholds that are the property of Baroness Greengold, a pleasant, if slightly eccentric, Grump Sidhe Noblewoman. She owns several such houses across California, but this is the only one in San Francisco.

Baroness Greengold allows Commoners to ‘look after’ her holdings in return for maintenance and protection of the Freeholds. She despises the Shadow Court and has been advised by King David to allow Changeling’s to pass through the Freeholds, in order that there might be a source of folk for more ‘glorious affairs’ against the Unseelie factions.

The Safe House is a Painted Lady, a Victorian Town House painted in a pastel green colour. It sits on it’s own small grounds, but is just one of two dozen Painted Ladies in the area. To the eyes of the Fae, the Safe House changes colour during the day, from a dull red in the morning, to a bright blue in the midafternoon sun to a brilliant orange-red at sunset. It shines brightly even through the all-too-common fog. During the night, it is a deep midnight blue colour.

Within, the Safe House is beautifully kept. The ground floor rooms look untouched by time, regardless of the number of residents the house has had over the years. The lounge and dining room are kept in Victorian manner, with no sign of technology beyond that era. The kitchen is well equipped, however, and is full of mod-cons. Upstairs, four bedrooms and a bathroom alos look well kept. The doors to each bedroom is locked magically, and if opened by one who is not allowed to do so, the room resembles only a well-kept lace-ridden Victorian bedroom. Otherwise, it appears as the owner left it. The top floor, or attic as it is really, is reached by climbing a small spiral stair, and opening a door at the top. Again, to unwelcome eyes, it looks like a dusty, but empty attic. To others, it appears as two separate rooms, distinguished one from the other by a short hallway.

The Basement is reached by a stairway beneath the main staircase. It contains an old boiler, which is made from chimerical metal. It resembles cast iron, but of course is no such thing. However, deep within it, the Freehold’s Balefire roars and spits, filling the house with Glamour as well as heat.

The Safe House can support six Changelings, and so is considered to be a Level 3 Freeold. It is invunerable to fire, flood and earthquake, but is very suspcepible to the Banality of sightseers.


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