The Sept of the Changing Seasons is a caern on Blanket Mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was originally a sealed caern of the Uktena that was reclaimed in the 1940s by Alexander Whitemane.[1]
History[]
The early woodland tribes who wandered through the Smoky Mountain region left little evidence of their passing, so light was their step on the land and so gentle their touch upon the wilderness that surrounded them. The Cherokee, who migrated south from the Ohio Valley, made their homes in the mountains' shadows, in the fertile river valleys and along the foothills. Deep Creek campground, once the site of Kituwha - the first town established by the Cherokee - lies just within the boundaries of what is now the national park. Called Shaconage, the "place of the blue smoke," the Great Smoky Mountains provided rich lands for hunting. More importantly, the mountains fed the spirits of the Cherokee, for they were home to the Little People. These creatures of the Dreaming, in the time before the white men came, dwelled in harmony with the Cherokee and preserved their legends and their history. Every year, Cherokee Dreamspeakers and other wise ones of the tribe journeyed to the Chimney Tops, deep within the mountains. There they shared stories and knowledge, and there they sang and danced with the Little People, who passed on their stores of ancient wisdom and forgotten lore in return for new stories.
Other faerie creatures bean to make their appearance in the Smokies, driven westward by the growing tide of disbelief in the spiritual world. These creatures found a second home in the place of blue smoke, so like the highlands they left behind in the isles of Britain. In many instances, the European faeries wanted only to share the land with the native children of the Dreaming, but this was not always the case. Presaging the actions of the invaders to come, many of these newcomers wrested land for themselves from the Little People, setting up their own faerie castles and fortresses amid the lush mountainscape.
The coming of European settlers to the region marked the end of the idyll. Little by little, the Cherokee were driven from their lands and lost access to the mountains which had fostered their souls. Many of the Uktena, who had lived among the Cherokee as teachers or who had tended Gaia's sacred places unhindered by the need to stand watch over their human charges, reluctantly sealed their caerns and traveled west with their Kinfolk. The Little People, too, were driven into hiding by the pale-skinned settles, who brought with them the beginnings of a scientific rationalism and cultural materialism that fostered a strong tide of disbelief in things unseen. Like their European cousins, the native faeries learned to clothe themselves in mortality to withstand the onslaught of mundane rationalism brought by the settlers to the mountains. Only a few Europeans, who held to the old beliefs in magic and dreams, ever made contact with the Little People. Soon, however, even causal encounters between the Little People and the white settlers dwindled as the cold iron of the railroads began to carve pathways through the mountains, forcing all the creatures of faerie into deep hiding.
The 19th century saw the domination of the mountains by European claimants, who famed the arable land to exhaustion and then cast their covetous eyes on the rich fields of timber that lined the mountain slopes. The lumber companies moved into the mountains; Champion Lumber, the largest of these enterprises, laid claim to nearly one-fifth of the land which would eventually house the national park. Railroads, logging roads and sawmills soon defaced the forested slopes, destroying thousands of acres of timber and exposing the rest of the forest to the ravages of fires.
In the early 20th century, however, a few far-sighted individuals began to recognize the treasures that were disappearing beneath the blades of the axe and the teeth of the saw. The journalistic writings of Horace Kephart, along with his popular book, Our Southern Highlanders, alerted idealists to the need to preserve a dying culture and a dying land.
The formation, in 1923, of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association awoke a hope in the lovers of the wilderness that land lost to progress could once more be reclaimed. The local Garou - mostly Fianna, Silver Fangs and Get of Fenris - and their Kinfolk threw their support behind efforts to fund the park and reacquire the designated mountain lands from the lumber companies and commercial interests that occupied them. Other interested groups, including some resident Verbena, other mages and the faeries (now known as changelings), lent their natural and supernatural influences to the creation of the park as well, seeing in its formation the possibility of strengthening the weakening ties with the spirit realms. Even more clandestine support came from a few Kindred in the region, who saw the park's possibilities for increasing the human population of the nearby cities.
Public monies from North Carolina and Tennessee as well as funding by private groups, including a five-million dollar contribution from John D. Rockefeller, enabled to purchase of the chosen park site. Many families who lived in the region readily sold their land; those who didn't faced eviction as their homes wee condemned by the state. Of the eighteen lumber companies in the area, Champion Paper held out the longest, but they, too, eventually conceded their territory to the park's supporters. In 1934, Congress authorized the park's development, and in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Once it became clear that a national park would be a reality, the Garou who had been driven from the region by the presence of the lumber companies returned to search for places to open a caern. The depredations of the logging industry had destroyed many sites, while the protective enchantments woven by the Little People blocked other sacred places from even the Garou's keen Umbral senses. Finally, the diligence of the Garou was rewarded: Salamander, whose children flourished in the cool, moist temperate climate of the Smokies, led a Silver Fang Theurge, Alexander Whitemane, to a pool near the top of Blanket Mountain. Whitemane sent out a call which was answered by a number of local Garou; the resulting Rite of Caern Opening created a caern of healing, vital to the recovery of the land. Thus was born the Sept of Changing Seasons.
Today, the members of the sept face a number of challenges as the popularity of the Great Smokies National Park brings millions of visitors to the mountains each year. The construction of a road through the park linking the towns of Cherokee, NC and Gatlinburg, TN not only destroyed the park's integrity, but also brought the pollution from exhaust fumes and burning rubber that much closer to the wild places. The sept has attempted to encourage their Kinfolk and any other sympathetic souls to fight future road construction through the national park. In the meantime, they are also considering the possibility of searching for a second caern on the other side of the park, even though this would mean dividing their already meager numbers.
In addition to the national park, members of the sept also try to keep an eye on other regions of the Smokies, a difficult task in a vast area filled with mountains and swift-running rivers. The sept's greatest fear is that concentrating their efforts on one small part of the Smokies will result in the eventual loss of other areas beyond their ability to protect. Some of the younger Garou are beginning to consider forging an alliance with other supernatural creatures to create a network capable of blanketing the entire region. Because they fear their elders' disapproval, they are keeping their efforts a closely guarded secret. Ironically, they are unaware of the strange fruit their dreams have already borne.
Sept Members[]
- William Banecrusher, Silver Fang Ahroun, Sept Leader
- Bathsheba Heart-of-the-Trillium, Silver Fang, Warder
- Michael Spiritsinger, Children of Gaia, Gatekeeper
- Grainne Dances-in-Moonlight, Fianna Ragabash, Master of the Challenge
- Patrick Sheehan ("Striker"), Fianna Ahroun, Keeper of the Land
- Forest-Runner, Red Talon, Master of the Rite
- Linden Silvercrown, off-and-on member of the Sept, Wolf Pooka pretending to be a Silver Fang Ragabash
- Jorgen Hammersong, Get of Fenris Galliard
- Alexander Whitemane, Silver Fang Theurge, Past member who opened the caern
Former Sept Members[]
- Neil Crier, Wyrm-tainted Fianna Ronin, exiled
References[]
- ↑ WTA: Rage Across Appalachia, p. 49
- WTA: Silent Striders Tribebook, p. 5 (Comic: Twilight Running)
- WTA: Litany of the Tribes Volume 3, p. SS: 5