The Free Folk are an enclave of unaligned Changelings who have established a colony in San Francisco centralized in the Golden Gate Park and surrounding areas. It also has a large presence in Fishermen’s Wharf, where Selkies are known to pose as sea lions and do tricks for tourists. The Free Folk are not exclusively Changeling, though, and welcome any who eschew the hierarchy of the mainstream world in favor of freedom and community.

​

The Free Folk were established even before the city itself by Lady Joan, a Clurichan who traveled from the East Coast to the new city. On her way, she gathered a group of followers who, like her, wanted to be free from the Kithain power structures that held commoners in the grips of the Sidhe. Once in the new city, she drew from the power of the land and her own ability to create the Golden Gateway, a barrier that kept out not only the Sidhe and their supporters, but the True Fae and those from Arcadia as well. For nearly 100 years, the barrier has held strong and Lady Joan has led a free and happy life among her followers.

​

Firmly embracing the hippie lifestyle of the era (though one could say that the hippie lifestyle is more modeled after the Lady herself), Lady Joan and her followers would be impossible to pick out of the crowd at Woodstock. Known for their free spirits and anti-authoritarianism, the Free Folk tend to stick to themselves and not cause problems with those who don’t cause problems with them. 

However, since Lady Joan’s disappearance and the sudden attacks from the Gallain, the Free Folk have grown uneasy and restless. Some have even begun to lack faith in the free lifestyle Lady Joan had cultivated. Under the new de facto leadership of Lady Joan’s right hand, Antimony the Brewer, resolve has never been shakier. The very way of life of the Free Folk is at risk as the barrier that protects it crumbles.

​

As Antimony desperately tries to search for Lady Joan and a way to fix the Gateway, blame for the Gallain attacks is coming in hot on the Free Folk -- an easy target, being so decentralized and so close in nature to the Gallain. Some even believe that the Free Folk are causing these attacks, though the Free Folk have denied this adamently.