Northern Ireland

The largest city and economic engine of Northern Ireland (population of about half a million), Belfast is a major industrial center of the 19th century, with the world's largest shipbuilding facilities (the White Star Line is constructing some of the largest ships ever built here) and linenworks to rival anything Manchester had to offer. Though proposal after proposal passes through Parliament to attempt to ameliorate the rise of political trouble, nothing seems to satisfy all the entrenched and warring factions, and violence is routine and regular.

In the supernatural world, however, the Troubles are just beginning. This as a result of the unforeseen consequences of decisions made by the Twin Princes of Belfast, the Kindred David Sands (Lancea et Sanctum) and John McDonald (Invictus). Belfast's supernatural community, dominated by the Kindred, had long been split along Loyalist and Republican, Protestant and Catholic lines. During the 19th century, however, someone (no one will now admit who) realized that the skillset that went with being a successful paramilitary or terrorist carried over very nicely into the Requiem, and both the Loyalist McDonald and the Republican Sands and their respective allies went on Embracing sprees, using the violence to conceal the disappearances of the choice childer they pulled into the night. Belfast these days is still riven by a shadow war, with Sands and McDonald increasingly losing control of the situation.

The second largest city in Northern Ireland, and the fourth largest on the island, Derry is a flashpoint in the making of Irish independent sentiment. Even the very name is a source of controversy, with the stauncher unionists preferring 'Londonderry' instead (though Derry is the name most commonly used in day-to-day speech). Troubles aside, Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Ireland, located on the site of St. Columba's 6th century monastery. Economically, the city remains a major port and textile manufacturing center, though the constant stress and violence is beginning to damage the city's reputation. There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, as there is a definite strain of art and poetry struggling to make peace in the midst of turbulent politics.

Just how much of this is due to the actions of the Pygmalian Society is open to debate, though the Pygmalians are glad to claim the credit. Founded in Paris in the late 19th century, the Pygmalian Society grew out of Rosicrucianism, believing that art, True Art, can be a path to Supernal Awakening. Serving as muses to mortal artists, the Pygmalians try to inspire their students and proteges to ever greater heights of artistic accomplishment, creating paintings, poems, dances, sheet metal sculptures, whatever one can imagine, to try and prompt the faintest of Awakenings. One day, the Pygmalians hope to use Art to breach the Abyss and lead all of humanity into the Supernal, in what they call the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Over the last few decades years, the Pygmalians have turned Derry into their own little stronghold. The High Court of Éire abandoned the city, the rising troubles destroyed the supernatural community that remained. And so the Pygmalians moved in, and now account for two-thirds of the city's supernatural population.

Pygmalians have a reputation as free-spirited mages of uncommon talent and passion. To be a Pygmalian is to be passionate. But their lack of internal organization means that there is no one monitoring Paradox in Derry, and there have been several close calls already. Furthermore, the Pygmalians have a reputation for going bad. The most notorious British mage in living memory, Welsh poet Enoch Christopher, was a Pygmalian. Christopher believed that strife and pain were essential to true magical inspiration, and acted upon that belief. He died in 1887, but some of his pupils are still active and extremely dangerous. The manuscript of his poetry cycle When I Came Back, It Was Gone is rumored to be a powerful artifact in its own right, bearing a resonance as bleak as its content. Shutting down the Pygmalians is one of the few things that the Carmarthen and London mages agree on, but that's easier said than done.

The length of coastline stretching from Belfast to Derry, the Causeway Coast is one of Northern Ireland's premier tourist sites. It is here that one comes across the famed Giant's Causeway, a geological formation of forty-thousand interlocking, hexagonal basalt pillars, stretching out into the sea as a memory of an ancient volcanic eruption. Nearby are the mystical Nine Glens of Antrim, lush valleys celebrated in poetry and song. A little further inland is the Dark Hedge, an enormous avenue of interlocking trees planted over two centuries ago. Amid the picturesque little farming villages of the Coast one also has a number of archaeological digs, as the area is rife with neolithic ruins.

Not all the archaeologists working on the Causeway Coast are of purely mundane nature. Many in the supernatural community believe that the mythical hero-giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (or Finn McCool as he is anglicized) slumbers beneath the Causeway Coast, alongside his poet-son Oisín and the rest of the Fianna, his warrior-band. Legend holds that when Ireland truly needs him, Fionn and his band will ride forth again. Certainly there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that something is asleep beneath the Causeway Coast. The Giant's Causeway is associated with Fionn's legend, and both the Glens and the Dark Hedge are potent occult locations. Several minor burial grounds have been found, with supernaturally potent bones or tools or weapons. Supernatural beings sometimes dream of Fionn mac Cumhaill, or more commonly Oisín, and some have even managed to communicate with the dreaming beings, learning incredible occult lore in the process. Many of the would-be excavators are interested in finding supernatural weapons or dredging knowledge from mac Cumhaill's dreams. Others are revolutionaries, interested in awakening the giant to cast out the British or the High Court of Éire or both. Understandably, this means that the High Court keeps a close eye on the dubious tomb-robbers of the Causeway Coast -- more disturbingly, so, it seems, do the Fomorians, for the sightings of those aquatic horrors are more frequent here than anywhere else in Ireland.