Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Cheshire

Founded by the Romans in 79 AD, until the 19th century Manchester was a sleepy village of little import. Then the Industrial Revolution hit, and in short order Manchester became the textile capital of the world, and the world's very first industrialized city (a distinction it contests with Birmingham). People from all corners of the British Isles flocked to Manchester, Englishmen and Scots and Irishmen alike, looking for work. To this day, Manchester, with two and a half million people, is the UK's most populous city after London (a distinction it also contests with Birmingham -- it depends how you measure). This influx of political and cultural opinion from around the empire has brought the local troubles to rest in Manchester, and as a result it has become a local battleground for the simmering underground battles occurring around the topic of Home Rule for Ireland across the sea.

The supernatural side of Manchester is a patchwork of dueling occult crime rings, uniformly savage and thoroughly unashamed of their criminality. The largest, most powerful, and best organized is The Estate, a Forsaken 'super-Pack' of some forty werewolves, who are engaged in human trafficking, run brothels, deal drugs, and sell guns. Based on Manchester's Moss Side and led by the charismatic and psychopathic Harry Gallagher, most people figure that if The Estate aren't Bale Hounds, they ought to be. Their main rivals for supernatural dominance are the True Blood, a Pure-backed street gang with less organization and more indiscriminate violence, led by the racist, xenophobic, and smarter-than-he-looks thug Talons of the People. They likewise deal in drugs and run a protection ring, but their favorite trick is beating to death any Forsaken, immigrants, homosexuals, or people that look at them funny that they can catch. The spoilers in the little werewolf war are the Lost Boys, a group of feral changeling street children and their increasingly numerous mortal hangers-on, few older than fifteen, driven by fae madness to perform various bloody and disturbing rituals throughout the city.

If Manchester is the great industrial center, then Liverpool is the port through which all of its goods pass. Liverpool is one of the great crossroads of the world, home to Britain's first African community, and to the very first Chinese community in Europe. Every day millions of tonnes of shipping pass through the enormous stone quays, bringing goods from every part of the Empire to the Home Islands, and shipping finished goods out to every other part of the world. This booming business has led to a riot of multi-culturism, with locals warring against low-cost immigrant workers and the occasional race riot fueled by economic disparities and cultural differences.

The dean of the local supernatural community, 'Fat' Harry Hopkins, an easy-going proprietor of nightclubs, brothels, bars, and drugs, who also happens to be a fairly powerful Mastigos. He serves as arbitrator and general peacemaker between the different gangs and supernatural cabals of Liverpool, primarily by means of judicious bribery and by paying the police for well-timed crackdowns. His biggest problem is with the Red Firm, a football club where half the hooligans are werewolves and where the club president is Everyman Vinnie, a greater spirit of mob violence who accepts football-related deaths as human sacrifice.