Cumbria and Lancashire
Sometimes simply called the Northwest of England, this is the region north of Liverpool and Manchester but still south of the Scottish Border, up along the Irish Sea. An ancient area (Lancaster was one of the UK's most prominent medieval towns), in the modern era the place is something of a land in between. It lies between England and Scotland, it's landscape of smaller industrial towns and farms is somewhere between fully urban and fully rural, its economy is hardly wealthy but not quite as benighted as that of the South. The area is somewhat notable for the number of military installations in the region, with several military bases, and with the defense industry as the single largest employer.
Cumbria and Lancashire is also home to a number of werewolf packs, an unruly mixture of Pure, Ghost Wolves, and Forsaken, in roughly that order of prominence. The local werewolves are disorganized, with all the usual issues that small packs have (the median pack lasts less than ten years from formation to dissolution or destruction). They also have a decided siege mentality, with no shortage of enemies between periodic Fomorian incursions, ghosts pouring in from the Scottish border, and the occasional supernatural crime ring thinking that Blackpool is an easier place to work than Manchester. The local werewolves, regardless of pack, tend to be decidedly hostile to strangers, and they usually take the mythology of Pure and Forsaken very, very seriously.
The Lake District
An area in Northwest England, the largest and deepest lakes in England are to be found here (Windermere and Wast Water respectively), as well as plentiful other lakes (often called meres), mountains, and forests. The place is also deeply associated with the poetry of William Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets, and is a popular holiday spot.
In the Shadow around the lakes of Cumbria, a number of Other Landmarks can be found. Some of them are prone to move, although the spirits of Lake Windermere and Wast Water always seem to know exactly where the landmarks can be found at any given moment. All of them are sources of valuable knowledge. All of them are in the territory of the most xenophobic and hostile packs.
A Brass Post with a cast dragon’s head atop it stands on one of a number of hilltops between the Shadows of Devoke Water and Seathwaite Tarn. The post stands with its mouth open, it fangs bared. Its tongue and many of its teeth are broken off, but the post can be heard to speak. It knows the true names of every demon that ever stood on the British mainland in the material realm. The post will answer without argument, but only if the right words are said before; and it will only answer once in any individual’s hearing.
A spirit-reflection of a Great Northern Railway Locomotive lies, wrecked, far from any rail line, somewhere near Whitefell. The spirit is dormant, but other spirits leave it be. The speaking tubes still work, and a patient listener can hear voices echoing from long vanished carriage cars.
Somewhere within 10 miles of the Shadow of Hobcarton Pike, a great stone hand, some 20 or 30 feet high, rises, fingers outspread, from the ground at the bottom of a valley. Chipped and grown with moss and algae, surrounded by grass-covered rubble as if the hand burst from the soil long ago, the hand’s location changes monthly. One pack of the local Pure makes a point of finding it each time it moves and repelling anyone who tries to get near with extreme force. The hand is well-known, but none of the Forsaken have ever gotten close enough to it to find out exactly what it does.
Above the Shadow of Swinside Stone Circle, huge, tangled strands of linen hang in the air, 20 or 30 feet above the ground. There’s something written on them. The Ghost Wolves who keep the locus that surrounds the Circle don’t know what the writing says, and will resort to murder to make sure that no one else ever does.
Worms
Some say dragons do exist, though in a form less romantic than myth and legend portray. From time to time, someone in the countryside catches distant sight of a wriggling serpent, sometimes no bigger than a boa constrictor, other times as big as a bus. Others don’t see the beasts themselves, but witness their leavings: slimy scraps of sloughed-off skin, furrows made by rough bellies, livestock bitten with deep fangs and drained of fluids. These worms have been seen in the Lake District, Linton, Lambton, Penmachno and near St. Michael’s Mount.
What are they, and where do they come from? Nobody knows. Only one tale sheds a little light on the subject: one man, traveling by bicycle through the moors, saw one of these worms disappearing over a hill, down one of the old Roman roads that cross the area. The creature was a white thing, as pale as the moon and bulbous as a maggot. The man, scared but curious, stepped off the bike to see what he could see. He found nothing but a trail of greasy plasm — he rubbed a little between his fingers and, believing the sight to have been a trick of the moor mists, got back on his bike and pedaled on.
What happened then transpired in front of several witnesses that night in the Ring of Ponies Pub in Lambton. After telling the story of what he saw, the cyclist began to heave. He bent over the bar top and vomited up a bloody knot of squirming worms. Each worm was eyeless, but had a snapping mouth full of curved fangs. The squirming clot dissipated; most were killed, stomped by boots, but a few made it out the door and wriggled into the earth. The cyclist died there on the bar, his face frozen in a retching rictus.