To the north and south of the County of the Gristmill, neighboring counties watch for signs of weakness. Rochester is a rich, ripe fruit ready for the picking, and smaller in both mortal & fae population than Buffalo or Syracuse. The Realm of the Lake Queen in Buffalo is a neo-Arthurian-style court, with high chivalric traditions bolstered by Victorian romantic tradition. Members of their court tell the legend that, centuries ago, when the Western fae first came to the new land, the land of the glorious falls was run by a child-queen, a ghille dhu who made her court by the waters. This queen suffered neither mortal nor fae death, but one day, finding the press of civilization too harsh to bear, simply slipped into the water to rest, to wait until Summer came again. In acknowledgement of her sovreignity, rulers of her Realm rule only as Regents, awaiting her return. The current Regent of the Lake Queen's Realm is an arrogant, sleek, mink-like Scathac sidhe, a Greywalker so grey that even his hair is silver, Lord Mateus ap Scathac. By his side stands his eshu advisor (and some say lover), Amanarhialentha. Mateus also keeps a mistress, a concubine mouse pookah named Gwendolys who is as fair, as blonde, as sweet, and as adorably useless as Amanarhialentha is dark, strong, devious, and competent. The three of them form the center of their neo-Arthuran court, Arthur, his Morgan le Fay, and his Guinevere - a silly conceit, but one no-one in Buffalo laughs aloud at. Syracuse, on the other hand, is run by a loose democracy that's more of a despotism - a coatlition of mostly trolls, redcaps, and nockers led by the strongest, much in the manner of an Anarch Free State.