Basic Information
In Austin, Texas, there is a neighborhood just up the hill from Zilker Park. If you wind up through these quiet streets, it seems like a normal neighborhood built in the 1950s; indeed, many of the residents assume it is so. However, every few years, a group of children, usually mostly boys, will discover that there is a small patch of woods in an inner cranny of their neighborhood, just down the street from Jimmy Vaughn's house (you'll know it from the purple panels and yellow trim on the garage). Some have called it The Hideout.
A sewer lets out in The Hideout, just below street level, into a little ravine on the left. On the other side of the ravine is some person's back yard. The woods work their way down the hill to Robert E. Lee Dr, which borders Zilker Park pretty near Barton Springs. Occasionally, homeless people can be found further back in the woods, but mostly, it is very quiet and peaceful.
History
The Hideout was owned by a family named Umlauf. They lived just on the other side of Barton Blvd, which hardly deserves the name, as it is one-way by their house. Mr. Umlauf was a sculptor, and in the mid-eighties] they gifted their house and land to the city, which turned it into a museum. The nearby plot of forest was left empty and kids ran around in it a lot until in 1991, they build the Umlauf Sculpture Garden on the land.
Sources
Game and Story Uses
- Easily, in an Urban Fantasy game, this wood could contain a gateway to Fairy.
- It could also be bigger within the wood than it should be.
- Historical figures associated with the woods could appear here (like Robin Hood).
- In a literal campaign, it's a handy place away from the bustle of the city, yet very near its center.
- It could, of course, be a place that children go to muck about in the woods, if that fits the PCs.
