Public Transport And The Tortured Souls Of The Damned

Public Transport and the Tortured Souls of the Damned

Have you ever been sat on the Underground, or Metro, and noticed that the car’s windows create an infinity mirror, with your reflection repeated on forever into the dark? Be careful not to stare to long or too hard, lest you see your reflection staring back. 

The modern mass transit system has many drawbacks; smelly passengers, other people’s music and the chance that a daemon may chose your body as its vessel to escape the mirror realm. We can all do our part to minimise these inconveniences and make every journey a pleasant one! So remember, keep your luggage in sight, be mindful of your fellow passengers, and look away if your reflection starts to reach out towards you.  

Good luck, safe travels and remember never to take directions from a Duegar, Wisp or Flibbertigibbet.

Sky-ways, by-ways and the Wild Hunt

London’s streets and squares are endlessly fascinating, bustling and full of life - but they are also tiring. Those seeking solace from the crowds and looking for a quieter pace of life could do worse than taking to London’s roofs. 

Britain is an ancient land and, as such, is riven, crossed and scrawled about with common lanes, by-ways, green roads and forgotten paths. These ways have traditionally been the preserve of the Fae. Humans, however, have a terrible habit of building right across these paths - generally without ever noticing that they are there. 

The Fae are an adaptable folk, though, and have found ways of making do. Wisps, wraiths, Hyter Sprites and the less mundane of London’s residents sometimes simply follow the same routes - walls, buildings and other impediments notwithstanding. Those that can shift or pass take the new roads. You might have passed many a Hob, Brag or Elf in the streets and never thought to look twice! Those that are left have taken to the Sky-ways.

Choose a still and moonlit night and find yourself a perch on one of London’s roofs. Look out across the tiled slopes, chimney pots and battered weather vanes and try to filter out the street sounds from below. On a good night all sorts of London’s less sociable denizens should be visible - presuming that our reader has either the good fortune to have been born in the Chime Hours, or keeps a Hag Stone to hand. Barghests and Wyverns are common sights and the lucky might see London’s own peculiarities -  Gog and Magog striding among the tower of Canary Wharf, or Spring-Heeled Jack leaping across the streets. Those that came prepared with deer’s blood, holly wreaths and a bone horn could summon a glimpse of the Wild Hunt. A spectacular sight, though one that comes with the risk of one being called to the hunt as well. In particular, it is a good idea to avoid the gaze of Hearne the Hunter and to never take his hand. 

So good luck, happy watching and remember never to pay a Brownie. 

Update: the Shadwell Ogre

Situation: an Ogre has occupied the parking lot on Whitechapel road, Shadwell, London. He is demanding tolls and refuses to vacate.

Update: while still maintaining the official non-existence of Ogres, the local council has attempted to negotiate. So far they have offered alternate accommodation for the Ogre and the Ogre has offered to remove their heads and impale them by the ticket barrier. 

Sensing an impasse the council have decided to nominate a champion to deal with the situation. The leading candidate is Paul Jefferies, from Licensing and Compliance, who used to study Kendo.  

Witchcraft and the Industrial Revolution

In the cataclysmic change of the Industrial Revolution people were torn from the land they had worked and lived on for generations and swept into the great new metropolises forming across Britain. This torrent of humanity carried the witches along with it, forcing them from their rural parishes into the narrow valleys of terraced houses and the looming shadow of the factory stacks. Magic that had been tied to trees and stones and mountain streams had to find new roots. Hedge witches that had practiced their craft for thousands of years had to find new rituals. 

As with all change, some rose while others fell. The Rooted Gods of the forests and hills were forgotten and passed into a deep reverie. The more humanlike of the Fae, however, found new pleasures, new pastures and new hunting grounds in the sprawling townships of England. Magics that had lured unwary travellers from a woodland path worked just as well on late night revellers and unwatched children in a crowded street. 

Some witches were quick to find their place in the new world. In the 1890s the Southwick sisters discovered that weather magics and smog were a potent combination and conjured clouds of smoke and ash to cover acts of theft and grand larceny. Similarly, at the turn of the century the sorcerer James Heath found that the water spirits still answered his call from London’s pipes as well as from natural streams, and caused a lot more damage when asked to overflow their banks. 

People move, places change, but life goes on. Old magics are forgotten and new ones created. The spirits of the wild places might be in decline, but a new breed of urban Fae will rise to take their place. The only thing that is constant is change. 

Lophiiform Faerie - Bestiary Entry

The Faerie’s illicium form is that of a beautiful human, with flawless skin, sparkling eyes, and long supple limbs. This glamour acts as a lure - concealing the Faerie’s true form until the prey is too close to escape. At close quarters the glamour dissolves and the trap is sprung. 

The sparkling eyes are revealed to be fixed and compound, the angles of that perfect face are composed of keratinous plates, and the enticing whispers descend into a dry hiss. As the prey is engulfed by the Faerie’s many limbs they realise that the lithe form they glimpsed in the shadows is nothing but markings on a pulsating thorax. Then the needle toothed jaws open impossibly wide and the hunt is over. 

Fabre demonstrating the effects of cordyceps infection to his students. This particular strain only affects aphids, otherwise he’d be wearing heavier protection.