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LONDON: CITY OF GATES
THE NORTH WEST ESTATE
Traditionally the second Unseelie Estate, the Northwestern estate has been the Domain of disaffected commoners since the end of the resurgence war, and even before that it was renown as a refuge for outlaws and the politically unpopular. House Leaunhaun, always the favourites to slip into obscurity, once ruled the estate and House Fionna were apparently prepared to offer them the territory once more. The House had only a single represent in London, Lady Clotho, and she was still a childling. Placed under the watchful eyes of the Satyr guardian Dante, the Marquise de Soho, she grew up with the Eiluned Brothers Auberge and Darkain. When Auberge became Earl of the Central estate, his Brother the Count was made guardian of his younger 'nursery mate' and ruled the North Western estate for her.
Lady Clotho Leaunhaun was more than a little in love with the dashing rogue and made no mores to reduce his power as she grew older, lending her name and her presence to his stewardship. As the Domain of Count Darkain Eiluned, the Kingdom served to extend the Shadow court's borders Eastward. Darkain however was not a staunch supporter of the Shadow court itself, his Unseelie nature was a result of his opposition to his staunchly Seelie brother and to anything else he could find to rebel against. His eternal lust for change and Chaos was matched by Lady clotho's burgeoning talent for the darker Arts of the Shadow court and their relationship was doomed to spiral out of control.
As the focus of permanent resistance, Darkain attracted a cult following, especially among the young ladies at court and the Commoners who experienced the Chrysalis after the war. His extended Oathcircle struggled to remain outside of the Court systems and to flaunt the Codes of both, and Count Darkain eventually assumed his Brothers mantle as a neutral voice between the Seelie and the Unseelie Estates. Eventually Darkain was drawn back into the political arena by the Hostilities and lady Clotho tired of his lack of attention, shifting her attentions to the Ailil Prince Yrtalin of the Ravenscourt. Not long after the War broke out, she married Yrtalin and has renounced all ties to the Northwestern estates, seeding them to her former Seneschal and Lover.
Before the 70's were out Darkain had shaped his court into a counterpoint to the established tradition, half Motley and half Outlaw Nobility. His peers even referred to his Estate as a Motley, thinking it an insult, but really only serving to increase his legend. Darkain and his coterie of 'Goth' Wilders became strong figures in the Mortal counter culture centred around Camden and they had no difficulty finding Glamour, especially Glamour that smelt of patchouli and clove cigarettes. The arrival of young Garou in Regents park who began fraternising with Darkain's court spread his influence, and so did his friendship with other Gallain such as the Vampires and the Mages. In council, the Eiluned Count continued to be a lone voice but his opinions of the Dreaming's destiny grew increasingly Nihilistic. He refused to grace several important meetings with his presence and those he did attend were marked by his snorts of derision or negative attitude. His circle of friends were no less apathetic than their leader and his gathering of Supernatural pariahs caused such consternation among the other Gallain that emissaries from the Vampires came to the Fae nation to speak of his growing influence on their citizens.
Called before the Throne of the Regent the Unseelie Count gave a resounding and pessimistic speech about how none of the battles of the Tuatha held any merit for the current generation born to certain death. He tore the Seelie and the Unseelie down as outdated and pointless and declared that henceforth the only allegiance he would honour would be for his friends, independent of race, creed, court or species. He called the future an inescapable Abyss around which all creation stumbled in self-affixed blinkers. His circle, he declared, would dance around the edge of that Abyss and live every fleeting moment for itself and not delude themselves with false Hopes. The Edgedancers were born.
CAMDEN: Darkain's Capitol
With an Area of 8.5 square miles and a Population of around 188,600, Camden includes (from north to south) Highgate (in part), Hampstead, West Hampstead, Kentish Town, Camden Town, Kilburn (in part), Somers Town, St. Pancras, Bloomsbury, and Holborn. The route of an ancient Roman highway is partly followed by Watling Street, a section of which (in modern Kilburn High Road and Shoot-up Hill) skirts Camden's western edge. In the southern part, the Holborn district covers an area once occupied by two medieval villages (Holborn and St. Giles) and by three estates-Blemondesberi (Blemundsbury), the Soke of Portlepoole, and the Liberty of Ely Place.
In the 15th century Eton College obtained Chalcot's Farm (Chalk Farm) as an endowment from Henry VI; the prestigious secondary school still owns much property in the area. Historic landmarks include the chapel of St. Etheldreda, which is a remnant of a 13th-century structure, at Ely Place. The Romantic poet John Keats met his fiancee, Fanny Brawne, while residing at Wentworth Place; now known as Keats House, the site was completely restored in 1974-75 and includes a museum. The neoclassical British Museum is within the famous district of Bloomsbury, near research institutes, colleges, and the main offices of the University of London. The central building of the British Library was opened at St. Pancras in 1997. Other notable buildings include Wellcome Institute building (1932) and the well-known landmark of the 620-foot-high BT Tower (formerly the Post Office Tower).
Today the lodging houses, tenements, railway stations, and railroad marshaling yards of southern and central Camden offer striking contrasts with the expensive residential areas in the north of the borough, including the "villages" of Hampstead and Highgate, which have been surrounded by the northward spread of Greater London. Just north of Euston Road in Somers Town are the 19th-century railway terminals of King's Cross (1852), St. Pancras (1868), and Euston, the favourite haunts of the Changeling Beggars banquet.
In Camden Town the production of tourist-oriented crafts has displaced former furniture and piano-making trades. Hatton Garden is the centre of London's diamond, gold, and silver trades. Tottenham Court Road has developed into a specialist shopping area. The shear weight of Artisans, dreamers, Crafters and Artists within the Borough makes Camden and the Entire North West estate a glitering Prize.
About one-sixth of Camden's area is maintained as public open space, a ratio that suits both the fae and the Garou. Among the borough's green areas are Primrose Hill, the eastern end of Regent's Park, Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Coram's Fields. The Fitzroy Square area has been noted for its association with such artists and writers as Roger Fry, John Constable, and George Bernard Shaw. Karl Marx, who spent most of his later years in Camden, is buried in Highgate Cemetery, a favoured haunt for active Wraiths and for the Sluagh.
BRITISH LIBRARY
Plans for a central library complex were first requested in the 1960s from the architects Sir Leslie Martin and Colin St. John Wilson, but these designs, and others in 1973, met with resistance from local residents and various politicians concerned over the preservation of existing buildings and the expenditure of public funds for the project. Vampires who feared the loss of their monopoly over the information held within the British Museum library fuelled part of this hold up. The British museum fell under the control of the London Tremere, but the new site for the Library would be in the Dominant Ventrue's territory. Land was purchased beside St. Pancras Station in 1976, and new plans by Wilson were officially approved two years later. Money for construction was held up until 1982, however, and the project was plagued by further shortages of funding and political support.
During construction its architecture was decried by some-most notably by Charles, prince of Wales-but other critics applauded its modern style and its conveniences. At the time of its royal opening in 1998 the library complex had nearly 1,200 seats for readers (about one-third the number originally planned) and, unknown to the mundane world, a large hole in its inventory. That being so, the British Library still holds more than 25 million printed books as well as hundreds of thousands of periodicals, microfilms, rare manuscripts, and titles in electronic form. Its special offerings include the Oriental and India Office Collections (transferred from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1982), the National Sound Archive (formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound, incorporated into the library in 1983), printed music, a map library, and philatelic materials. Its restricted collections include the greatest public collection of Occult and Magical; texts in the world as well as countless Medieval Demonologies, Bestiary and Grimoire.
The Vampire prince was forced to deal with the local Changeling's for access to the Library but she held a lot to bargain with and the two Supernatural groups came to a mutually satisfying arrangement. The Edgedancers stewardship over the Library allows them to deal with other supernaturals and to have a modicum of control over foreign Fae. Lady Julia drake of House Fionna often visits Darkain in order to use the Library and her influence among the Colonial Changelings is well established. Vampires are proscribed from hunting within the Library and have, at times, managed to share research with other Nocturnal readers from among the Changelings and the Mages.
THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM
CAMDEN MARKET
THE NORTH EAST ESTATE
The North eastern estate has been a table scrap fought over by the less powerful factions since the first days of the City. Stoke Newington was a site of Paleolithic settlement, and it later became a Saxon village. In the 18th century, Roman remains were discovered in the Hackney Marshes in the eastern part of the borough, an area that now contains football (soccer) and cricket fields. Shoreditch takes its name from a ditch that lay just outside the London wall as part of the city's medieval defenses. When the King first dealt out the positions of Sheriff for the control of the estates, the Northeast was the domain of House Liam.
Throughout the interregnum the estate was in the hands of the Sluagh, with a large population of Boggans in the southern portion. Hoxton was listed in Doomsday Book (1086 CE) as pertaining to the canons of St. Paul's Cathedral. The first Elizabethan playhouse, the Theatre, stood in Shoreditch from 1576 to 1598. Changelings from as far a field as Hibernia came to bask in the Glamour that would eventually inspire the Bard of Avon amongst others. From the 16th century onward many mansions were built in Hackney and, later, in Stoke Newington, proving a canvas for those whose Muse liked to dabble in architecture. The writer Daniel Defoe resided with a Nonconformist community in Stoke Newington and was educated at Newington Green, where Edgar Allan Poe also attended school from 1817 to 1820.
The Commoners who had been all but ignored by the Liam fared better under house Balor and were for the most part Unseelie in outlook. This way of life made it easy for the Unseelie house to re-establish its domain after the resurgence but not for long. In the centuries of independence the locals had grown accustomed to self-rule and they threw the members of the Balor household from their Freehold within a year of the war ending.
With the members of House Balor gone, the local Sluagh reclaimed their territory and their allies among the other kiths returned. Areas such as Upminster and Dagenham are populated by Commoners who are employed by the Royal household to watch over Kinain affairs.
HACKNEY
Hackney, with an area of 8 square miles has a wide ethnic diversity both among its mundane and its supernatural communities. It lies north of the City of London and Tower Hamlets, and its eastern boundary is the River Lea. Hackney includes such areas and historic villages as (from north to south) Stoke Newington, Upper Clapton, Lea Bridge, Lower Clapton, Dalston, Homerton, Hackney Wick, Hackney, Kingsland, Haggerston, Hoxton, and Shoreditch. Shoreditch, near the City, is industrial and commercial in character, whereas the rest of Hackney is largely residential with pockets of industry, notably along the Lea valley.
In Stoke Newington the glory of Sluagh rulership rises from the mist in the shape of pumping works on moated mound designed to look like a medieval caste. The building, complete with elaborate staircases and detailed tiles has been transformed into an indoor climbing centre, complete with multicoloured walls and Technicolor stones. This psychedelic community centre, now called the Kersal, is the aboveground portion of the Sluagh freehold and the sportsmen who frequent it make up a large part of their Dreamers.
EPPING
BARKING
WEST HAM
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