Duchy of Cotton

The Duchy of Cotton is a Kithain Fief in the Kingdom of Willows coinciding with the states of Mississippi and Alabama.

Overview[]

The Duchy of Cotton ostensibly includes the states of Mississippi and Alabama. In actuality, this is a duchy under siege by a fiesta duchess determined to wrest the western half away from its duke and claim it as her rightful holding. In this land of hot, humid days and drowsy evenings, the dreams of the Old South atrophy while angry dreams of unfulfilled equal rights battles make themselves heard. The struggle against stereotyping both within and outside the Dreaming, forms one of the major issues in the Duchy.

Physical Geography[]

The Duchy of Cotton's undisputed half (Alabama) forms the eastern boundary of the contested Duchy of Magnolia's Home (Mississippi). To the west, the Mississippi River flows southward to rendezvous with the Gulf of Mexico (through New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta). East of the Duchy of Cotton, across the Chattahoochee River, lies Willow's Heart. The Gulf of Mexico forms the southernmost border of both duchies, while the Duchy of Graceland's (western Tennessee) Memphis-Chattanooga line runs from west to east like a straight-edge across the northern edge of both the Duchy of Cotton and its rebellious western half.

The eastern landscape of the Duchy of Cotton varies considerably, from the mountainous northern region of the lower Appalachians to its southern pine forests and the white-sand beaches along Mobile Bay. The Duchy of Magnolia's Home contains fertile farmlands in its interior, a white-sand coastal strip lined with stands of oaks and, of course, the floodplains of the Mississippi Delta. Many changelings bask in the warmth and sensuous lethargy of the Deep South, and African-American Kinain whose ancestors left in the wake of the Civil War are now returning, bringing with them eshu who have been raised in the North but who feel the pull of their Southern heritage.

Major Cities & Landmarks[]

The Duchy of Cotton[]

A land of cotton fields, bayous, and iron ore, the Duchy of Cotton, ruled by Duke Firedrake ap Fiona, has gradually evolved from a dependency on cotton to become a growing industrial center. Once the focus of man battles of the civil rights movement, today it attempts to put aside the stereotyping of the past and take its place in the modern South. The region's Kithain exemplify the dreams of both the Old and New South.

Birmingham[]

The Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark stands as a reminder of Birmingham's role as the center of Alabama's iron and steel industries until the Depression; now it attracts nockers, sluagh, and a few Dougal sidhe.

A 55' tall cast-iron statue of Vulcan, the largest of its kind in the world, pays tribute to the city's early dependence on the fires of the forge for its livelihood. Local trolls claim that one of their kith served as the statue's model. Pooka enjoy the environs of the Birmingham Zoo (famous for its Siberian Tiger breeding program), while the city's eshu population holds regular storytelling festivals on the grounds of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Montgomery[]

In the heart of plantation country, the state capital of Montgomery also served as the first capital of the Confederacy. The first stirrings of the civil rights movement began in the cit's Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as pastor and organized the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. This site has become a shrine for Kithain inspired by the dreams that changed a nation. Satyrs and Fiona sidhe visit the Hank Williams Memorial, which marks the grave of the legendary country music icon, while literary-minded Kithain soak up the melancholy Glamour of pilgrims to the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum.

Mobile[]

Noted for its lush growth of azaleas and as the true birthplace of the Mardi Gras celebration, the Gulf Coast city of Mobile contains some of the oldest African-American Methodist churches in the country. An annual songfest sponsored by the local eshu community attracts changelings from all over Concordia to its three-day celebration of Southern gospel music, black spirituals, and regional songs. At permanent anchor in the harbor, the USS Alabama forms the nucleus of a 100-acre park commemorating the sea and air battles of World War II. Duke Firedrake himself conducts chimerical war-games within the park.

Other Duchy of Cotton sites[]

Throughout the duchy, antebellum history coexists with signposts pointing to the modern world. Huntsville houses the NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, a haven for Kithain unafraid of the dreams of scientific and technological wonders. The Tuskegee Institute celebrates its commitment to black education; its campus contains the George Washington Carver Museum. Despite eshu claims to the area, House Dougal sidhe (and a few of House Balor) find its environment of invention difficult to resist. Civil rights history runs deep in Selma, Alabama, site of the Bloody Sunday confrontation of March 21, 1965. Although many Kithain attend rallies still held there, several redcap white supremacists occasionally make their presence felt. Wise eshu (and other Kithain) do not walk alone in Selma.

The Duchy of Magnolia's Home[]

See the larger article Duchy of Magnolia's Home

Natural Places[]

The Duchy of Cotton contains many prehistoric sites, including the Mound State Monument, with over 20 earth mounds constructed by the predecessors of the Cherokees and Creeks. In addition, the De Soto Caverns in northern Alabama served as a sacred site for the Creek tribes, who believed that these natural caves figured in the origins of their people. The caverns now serve as a freehold for a group of Nunnehi. Russell Cave, an enormous limestone cavern near Bridgeport, holds evidence of some of the region's earliest civilizations. A satyr archeologist and her team of enchanted mortals are currently examining Russel Cave for evidence of changeling habitation before the Shattering.

Duchy of Cotton

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