Post by Opal on Jan 25, 2016 3:28:03 GMT
FROM THE FILES OF THE WHISPERDARK COVEN
IN REGARDS TO: THE BETWEEN LONDON
The “Between London” is a quaint little term that CAFE uses to refer to areas of faespace accessible within the confines of London, and therefore also within our jurisdiction of the Whisperdark Coven.
These faespaces are essentially pocket universes, some bounded and others boundless, accessible through very particular means. Entrances, or Crossroads, are often hidden, or can only be accessed after a certain pattern of steps has been completed or when approached from a certain angle. The faespaces draw from different points in the timeline of the area that they are found in. Past, present, and future faespaces are all possible, but all reflect the area that their Crossroad is in.
It is very hard to damage a faespace. Usually it can only be done by a massive magical discharge, as any non-magical damage will revert back to a “standard state” by the next sunrise in the place that’s mirrored. This also makes faespaces exceedingly hard to establish permanent camps in, unless you’re a fae.
Indeed, the fae originally lived only in the faespaces, although some of the more curious members of our species ventured out of their realms long before the humans care to remember. However, the ruckus of World War 2 began to draw more of our number out. The Blitz, or the famous Bombing of London, aggravated a great many fae, and as a result they began to cross into the world. But the majority of the fae population remains in the faespaces, meaning they’re incredibly dangerous for mortals.
FAESPACES IN LONDON
There are four major faespaces in London. We call them Nimue, Quetzalcoatl, Blitz, and Horizon, but CAFE has some unnecessary naming system or something. The locations of Crossroads for those four are common knowledge, ask any Coven member to take you there. The locations of Crossroads outside the city are on a need-to-know basis. We will not betray our brethren so easily.
NIMUE: A green and lush landscape hailing from the time of the Picts, the place that CAFE has labelled “Sector 31” is also called “Nimue” by the members of the Whisperdark Coven after the spirit of a woman in white that resides in its central lake. Nimue is filled with a verdant forest, notable for its many ponds and lakes, around which blue crystals grow. These crystals can be harvested for use in magic spells, although certain gangs have begun to take them and grind them into a fine powder. They act like a strong stimulant and highly addictive, much like cocaine. This aptly named “pixie dust” has started appearing on the black market, leading CAFE to want to control Nimue for their own. There are also Pictish burial sites that CAFE has begun to try and excavate.
Many faeliens can be found in the forests, but generally they are just simple forest fae, such as animal spirits or will-o-the-wisps. Although peaceful, they are not intelligent--with a few notable exceptions. Unicorns have been rumored but not confirmed amongst CAFE agents (and they’re reclusive, even around friendly faeliens), as well as some tales about more intelligent or talkative animal spirits. Hidden in deep barrow mounds are the homes of elves and fairies.
Nimue can be reached by stepping through a brick wall in the back of some apartment buildings.
QUETZALCOATL: Sector 31, or “Quetzalcoatl” to the faeliens of London, seems to lead to the Colonial Era. Although at first it appears bright and cheerful with life, it doesn’t take long for intruding humans to notice how if they try and say hello to these people, their faces wither away into skulls and they begin to scream and attack.
Noise is especially dangerous in Quetzalcoatl. At the center of the city, atop a raised plaza of stone, is a brilliant golden idol, believed to have been brought back from Central America as a prize, which is surrounded by heaps and heaps of treasure. This treasure is very difficult to get, mostly because of the large winged serpent with bulletproof scales that guards it. This is how this particular realm got its name, of course.
There are many fae here besides Quetzalcoatl, but they’re mostly semi-intelligent scavengers that pick on the remains that the coatl doesn’t eat. CAFE also sends in parties to try and distract the coatl long enough to retrieve artefacts. Numerous important historical artefacts have been found this way.
Quetzalcoatl can be reached by walking a certain pattern through the alleyways.
BLITZ: Unlike most realms of Between, the Blitz is frozen in a moment in time. To most humans, it is uncanny. The entrance deposits you in a crater made from a bomb impact in the middle of Trafalgar Square, the fires in the surrounding buildings hot but unmoving. The entire place is in black and white, like an old picture, and the fae that live here have evolved to match.
There is something distinctly wrong with the Blitz. Humans and fae both feel it. All of the inhabitants of the Blitz are hostile, some of them even seeming insane. The Whisperdark Coven theorizes something went wrong in this realm of Between during the actual Blitz of London in World War 2.
The Blitz can be reached through falling from the roof of a certain apartment building. It is thought that the bomb that made the crater in its entrance entered this way.
HORIZON: Sector 100 is extremely interesting to CAFE because it actually shows the future. A dismal cityscape, filled with the skeletons of skyscrapers, with the sun constantly hovering half above the horizon, this realm is a ruined concrete jungle. Crawling with hostile fae and hostile guard robots from the future, CAFE’s advanced technology can be attributed directly to tech recovered from Horizon. Because of these advanced inhabitants, Horizon usually only hosts intelligent fae.
CAFE is also interested in Horizon because they want to try and prevent the ruin that it shown in this realm from ever coming about.
Horizon can be reached by doing the Elevator Game in a certain business skyscraper.
FROM THE FILES OF THE WHISPERDARK COVEN
IN REGARDS TO: THE OTHER
To the untrained eye, the Other may seem very similar to the Between. It’s true that both are pocket dimensions of unknown origin and host magical creatures. However, there are a few important distinctions between the two.
First of all, the Other is filled with exclusively hostile demons that seek to harm whatever comes into contact with them, even other demons. Second, the landscape of the Other is very chaotic, from what can be understood of the babbles of those who have seen it, not fixed in a certain point in time like a realm of Between. Lastly, the Other cannot be accessed physically, and shouldn’t be accessed mentally.
The Other is permeated with magic, even more so than the faespaces, drawing many magicians to study it. Some believe that it is a progenitor faespace, from which all realms of Between broke off and anchored to the real world. Others think that it is a faespace whose anchor was destroyed, or that was anchored to the mind of a madman.
Either way, the demons of the Other are trapped there, unless they are summoned into the world by Warlocks or possess some unfortunate Chirographer. Occasionally, demons escape or overpower their summoners and start to haunt an area, leading to aggressive poltergeist activity. Exorcists are capable of banishing demons back to the Other.
Not much else is known about the Other. Those who have extensively studied Ritualism, Psionism, and Chaosmancy can briefly project their mind into the Other, but there has been no recorded occurrence in which they did not come back mentally broken and physically weak. Normally, such a projection ends in death, and such an end can be considered a mercy, since the magicians have a tendency to babble and scream about the horrors they have seen.
THE OTHER & SACARON
At first, many assume that Sacaron, the realm of the demons, is synonymous with the Other. However, the Other is far more disturbing than Sacaron. While Sacaron has a physical reality, albeit a dangerous and terrifying one, the Other is much less defined. The Other can be thought of as a sort of sea where all the demons of Sacaron reside. It is a thin film between the conglomerate realm of Sacaron and the other realms. Sacaron is corrupted, and the interdimensional space treats it like an abscess, naturally attempting to create a barrier to section it off. The Other is this barrier. While it works in preventing most passive movement between the realms, the film is not nearly strong enough to withstand a direct attack.
The main concern for demons is that the act of going through the Other is incredibly difficult, especially if it involves their entire consciousness and corporeal form. Some demons prefer to only slip their consciousness, or perhaps even just a fragment, into a proper vessel in another realm. This causes possession. However, exorcists can forcefully expel a demon from their stolen form. Without the power and protection of the demon’s body and in conjunction with the struggle of the exorcism ritual, it is nearly impossible for demons to find their way back to the Other or to Sacaron after being exorcised. In that sense, an exorcism is like death for demons.
Other demons sacrifice a portion of their power in order to get through to the Other. In most cases, this results in a number of minor spirits being created in a physical realm. These minor spirits are mostly a nuisance to deal with, sometimes being used as training practice.
However, the corporeal demons are much more powerful: the act of moving a body through the Other and into a realm shows their immense power. Their power is second only to what the humans call the “pure demons”--demons who use the Other as a type of looking glass, creating avatars to use, rather than putting their consciousness at risk.
No matter the type of passage, each demon brought into the world creates a sort of “hole” in the protective film of the Other. As more and more holes are created, it becomes easier for new holes to form as the barrier weakens. This sort of cascade is a big concern for humans and fae, as it’s generally undesirable to be enslaved and have your realm be formed into a conglomerate and unstable mega-realm.
((IMPORTANT NOTE: A lot of the information above about the Other is unknown to human scientists studying it. CAFE is just beginning to understand its nature, and the fae have been feeding them information to convince them of its threat.))
IN REGARDS TO: THE BETWEEN LONDON
The “Between London” is a quaint little term that CAFE uses to refer to areas of faespace accessible within the confines of London, and therefore also within our jurisdiction of the Whisperdark Coven.
These faespaces are essentially pocket universes, some bounded and others boundless, accessible through very particular means. Entrances, or Crossroads, are often hidden, or can only be accessed after a certain pattern of steps has been completed or when approached from a certain angle. The faespaces draw from different points in the timeline of the area that they are found in. Past, present, and future faespaces are all possible, but all reflect the area that their Crossroad is in.
It is very hard to damage a faespace. Usually it can only be done by a massive magical discharge, as any non-magical damage will revert back to a “standard state” by the next sunrise in the place that’s mirrored. This also makes faespaces exceedingly hard to establish permanent camps in, unless you’re a fae.
Indeed, the fae originally lived only in the faespaces, although some of the more curious members of our species ventured out of their realms long before the humans care to remember. However, the ruckus of World War 2 began to draw more of our number out. The Blitz, or the famous Bombing of London, aggravated a great many fae, and as a result they began to cross into the world. But the majority of the fae population remains in the faespaces, meaning they’re incredibly dangerous for mortals.
FAESPACES IN LONDON
There are four major faespaces in London. We call them Nimue, Quetzalcoatl, Blitz, and Horizon, but CAFE has some unnecessary naming system or something. The locations of Crossroads for those four are common knowledge, ask any Coven member to take you there. The locations of Crossroads outside the city are on a need-to-know basis. We will not betray our brethren so easily.
NIMUE: A green and lush landscape hailing from the time of the Picts, the place that CAFE has labelled “Sector 31” is also called “Nimue” by the members of the Whisperdark Coven after the spirit of a woman in white that resides in its central lake. Nimue is filled with a verdant forest, notable for its many ponds and lakes, around which blue crystals grow. These crystals can be harvested for use in magic spells, although certain gangs have begun to take them and grind them into a fine powder. They act like a strong stimulant and highly addictive, much like cocaine. This aptly named “pixie dust” has started appearing on the black market, leading CAFE to want to control Nimue for their own. There are also Pictish burial sites that CAFE has begun to try and excavate.
Many faeliens can be found in the forests, but generally they are just simple forest fae, such as animal spirits or will-o-the-wisps. Although peaceful, they are not intelligent--with a few notable exceptions. Unicorns have been rumored but not confirmed amongst CAFE agents (and they’re reclusive, even around friendly faeliens), as well as some tales about more intelligent or talkative animal spirits. Hidden in deep barrow mounds are the homes of elves and fairies.
Nimue can be reached by stepping through a brick wall in the back of some apartment buildings.
QUETZALCOATL: Sector 31, or “Quetzalcoatl” to the faeliens of London, seems to lead to the Colonial Era. Although at first it appears bright and cheerful with life, it doesn’t take long for intruding humans to notice how if they try and say hello to these people, their faces wither away into skulls and they begin to scream and attack.
Noise is especially dangerous in Quetzalcoatl. At the center of the city, atop a raised plaza of stone, is a brilliant golden idol, believed to have been brought back from Central America as a prize, which is surrounded by heaps and heaps of treasure. This treasure is very difficult to get, mostly because of the large winged serpent with bulletproof scales that guards it. This is how this particular realm got its name, of course.
There are many fae here besides Quetzalcoatl, but they’re mostly semi-intelligent scavengers that pick on the remains that the coatl doesn’t eat. CAFE also sends in parties to try and distract the coatl long enough to retrieve artefacts. Numerous important historical artefacts have been found this way.
Quetzalcoatl can be reached by walking a certain pattern through the alleyways.
BLITZ: Unlike most realms of Between, the Blitz is frozen in a moment in time. To most humans, it is uncanny. The entrance deposits you in a crater made from a bomb impact in the middle of Trafalgar Square, the fires in the surrounding buildings hot but unmoving. The entire place is in black and white, like an old picture, and the fae that live here have evolved to match.
There is something distinctly wrong with the Blitz. Humans and fae both feel it. All of the inhabitants of the Blitz are hostile, some of them even seeming insane. The Whisperdark Coven theorizes something went wrong in this realm of Between during the actual Blitz of London in World War 2.
The Blitz can be reached through falling from the roof of a certain apartment building. It is thought that the bomb that made the crater in its entrance entered this way.
HORIZON: Sector 100 is extremely interesting to CAFE because it actually shows the future. A dismal cityscape, filled with the skeletons of skyscrapers, with the sun constantly hovering half above the horizon, this realm is a ruined concrete jungle. Crawling with hostile fae and hostile guard robots from the future, CAFE’s advanced technology can be attributed directly to tech recovered from Horizon. Because of these advanced inhabitants, Horizon usually only hosts intelligent fae.
CAFE is also interested in Horizon because they want to try and prevent the ruin that it shown in this realm from ever coming about.
Horizon can be reached by doing the Elevator Game in a certain business skyscraper.
FROM THE FILES OF THE WHISPERDARK COVEN
IN REGARDS TO: THE OTHER
To the untrained eye, the Other may seem very similar to the Between. It’s true that both are pocket dimensions of unknown origin and host magical creatures. However, there are a few important distinctions between the two.
First of all, the Other is filled with exclusively hostile demons that seek to harm whatever comes into contact with them, even other demons. Second, the landscape of the Other is very chaotic, from what can be understood of the babbles of those who have seen it, not fixed in a certain point in time like a realm of Between. Lastly, the Other cannot be accessed physically, and shouldn’t be accessed mentally.
The Other is permeated with magic, even more so than the faespaces, drawing many magicians to study it. Some believe that it is a progenitor faespace, from which all realms of Between broke off and anchored to the real world. Others think that it is a faespace whose anchor was destroyed, or that was anchored to the mind of a madman.
Either way, the demons of the Other are trapped there, unless they are summoned into the world by Warlocks or possess some unfortunate Chirographer. Occasionally, demons escape or overpower their summoners and start to haunt an area, leading to aggressive poltergeist activity. Exorcists are capable of banishing demons back to the Other.
Not much else is known about the Other. Those who have extensively studied Ritualism, Psionism, and Chaosmancy can briefly project their mind into the Other, but there has been no recorded occurrence in which they did not come back mentally broken and physically weak. Normally, such a projection ends in death, and such an end can be considered a mercy, since the magicians have a tendency to babble and scream about the horrors they have seen.
THE OTHER & SACARON
At first, many assume that Sacaron, the realm of the demons, is synonymous with the Other. However, the Other is far more disturbing than Sacaron. While Sacaron has a physical reality, albeit a dangerous and terrifying one, the Other is much less defined. The Other can be thought of as a sort of sea where all the demons of Sacaron reside. It is a thin film between the conglomerate realm of Sacaron and the other realms. Sacaron is corrupted, and the interdimensional space treats it like an abscess, naturally attempting to create a barrier to section it off. The Other is this barrier. While it works in preventing most passive movement between the realms, the film is not nearly strong enough to withstand a direct attack.
The main concern for demons is that the act of going through the Other is incredibly difficult, especially if it involves their entire consciousness and corporeal form. Some demons prefer to only slip their consciousness, or perhaps even just a fragment, into a proper vessel in another realm. This causes possession. However, exorcists can forcefully expel a demon from their stolen form. Without the power and protection of the demon’s body and in conjunction with the struggle of the exorcism ritual, it is nearly impossible for demons to find their way back to the Other or to Sacaron after being exorcised. In that sense, an exorcism is like death for demons.
Other demons sacrifice a portion of their power in order to get through to the Other. In most cases, this results in a number of minor spirits being created in a physical realm. These minor spirits are mostly a nuisance to deal with, sometimes being used as training practice.
However, the corporeal demons are much more powerful: the act of moving a body through the Other and into a realm shows their immense power. Their power is second only to what the humans call the “pure demons”--demons who use the Other as a type of looking glass, creating avatars to use, rather than putting their consciousness at risk.
No matter the type of passage, each demon brought into the world creates a sort of “hole” in the protective film of the Other. As more and more holes are created, it becomes easier for new holes to form as the barrier weakens. This sort of cascade is a big concern for humans and fae, as it’s generally undesirable to be enslaved and have your realm be formed into a conglomerate and unstable mega-realm.
((IMPORTANT NOTE: A lot of the information above about the Other is unknown to human scientists studying it. CAFE is just beginning to understand its nature, and the fae have been feeding them information to convince them of its threat.))