Shadow Britain

Given that most supernaturals usually don't stand still for a census, what follows is something of a 'best estimate' about the Britain and Ireland's supernatural populations.

• Note on Terms:
  • The British Isles: This is a geographic term, and refers to the two big islands and lots of little ones off the northeast coast of Europe.
  • Great Britain: Also a geographical term, this is the bigger island, containing the historical nations of England (the center), Wales (the round bit off to the west), and Scotland (up in the north).
  • Ireland: The other island, which contains diverse ancient kingdoms of the Irish, currently under forced union with the United Kingdom.
  • The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: The name of the country, which consists of the four sub-nations of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Britain is used as a short-hand for either Great Britain or the UK, depending.

Obviously, this all gets muddled up, and people are rarely precise in their terms. That said, calling a Welshman an Englishman will get you punched, while calling them British is completely acceptable and correct (unless they're a Welsh nationalist, in which case you may still get punched).

The UK

There are approximately 5,000 people in the full supernatural society of the UK. This number includes the big four of changelings, mages, vampires, and werewolves, as well as selkies, ghouls, and 'clued-in' occultists like W.T. Stead and Aleister Crowley. This does not include mortal cultists, and this does not include Outsiders such as ghosts (who outnumber everything else by about 100 to 1) or spirits (an entire ecosystem of them, but mostly on the far side of the Gauntlet).

• Of these five thousand, about 1200 live in London, split into the various major factions and minor packs and cabals. London outweighs pretty much every other supernatural community in the UK by a factor of ten, and the major factions in London are easily the rivals and often superiors of places that have their own cities or regions.
• Another 1500 or so live in the other large supernatural communities, such as the Selkies of Finfolkaheem or the Argent Collegium in Edinburgh. These are usually about 100-200 people each. These places have some semblance of organization, are in loose contact with one another, and have a degree of stability over the years.
• Another roughly 1500 live in small groups of 10 to 30 individuals. These are werewolf packs, cabals of mages, lone faerie circles, and so forth. You find them in smaller communities, places where the population doesn't rise over a quarter million. While some of these groups are organized and in contact, more often they have only a cursory knowledge of other supernatural creatures in the world, and their small size means that they are prone to going 'skewed' in ways both mundane (turning into personality cults or adopting weird beliefs) and occult (corruption by the Abyss or similar).
• The remainder (maybe 800 souls) live on their own, or at most with one or two others, usually in tiny backwoods corners of the British countryside. Everything said about small groups applies two-fold to these hermits. While some are cosmopolitan retirees from larger supernatural communities, many came into their powers and lived their lives without ever encountering anyone else supernatural, and in this stew of solitude and ignorance it is entirely possible for some very twisted things to occur.

The Dominion of Ireland

Considering its importance in the supernatural community, Ireland should be taken as a separate entity from the rest of the UK. There are perhaps 1000-1200 supernaturals in Ireland, but the numbers there skew very, very heavily to the Fae. Some 80% of Ireland's supernatural population consists of changelings, with werewolves (often Briar Wolves) and mages (in druidic and witchcraft traditions) making up most of the remainder. With very few exceptions, all swear allegiance to the High Court of Éire.

England

• The Greater London Area: The home of our game, controlled by the London factions.
• The Home Counties: Relatively low-supernatural population area, controlled by London factions.
  • Brookwood Cemetery: Organized ghosts.
  • Canterbury, Kent: The vampire Shadow Archbishop of Canterbury, Francis Rose.
  • Oxford, Oxfordshire: Several feuding secret societies, the most stable the Mysterium, Ordo Dracul, and the Keirecheires demonic cult.
• The Isle of Wight: Azlu
• East Anglia: Masquerade-light villages following the Old Way (think Wicker Man)
  • Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Nasty genius loci
• The West Country: Technically under the Sodality of the Tor, really a kind of battleground for them, the London factions, the High Court of Éire, and the Sparrowclaw Circle.
  • Glastonbury, Somerset: The Sodality of the Tor, GotV-aligned witch lineages, now decayed into infighting and ineffectiveness
  • Bath, Somerset: A strange supernatural called the Vampire of Bath, and various other supernaturals who vacation here.
  • Quaere, Wiltshire: A large cemetery for supernaturally-charged corpses, run jointly by the London GotV, the Carmarthen Consilium, and the Argent Collegium.
  • Stonehenge, Wiltshire: Used to be a powerful ritual area, now drained and ruined.
• Cornwall & Devon: The Sparrowclaw Circle, a powerful pack of Bale Hounds with allies among vampires and wizards.
• The Midlands: Revolutionary violence, short-lived rogue states, general chaos
  • Birmingham, West Midlands: Used to be the Worshipful Company of Kindred, now it’s a big mass of Carthians infighting (the Brotherhood of Enlightened Self-Interest, the Hive, and the Bodhisatcracy), while the Invictus Birmingham Corporation quietly comes back to power.
  • Leicester, Leicestershire: A very new group of Ghost Wolves known as the Pariah Dogs, who have kicked out the vampires.
• Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Cheshire: Supernatural crime rings, mostly
  • Manchester, Greater Manchester: The Estate is a group of Forsaken human traffickers, and their main rivals are the True Blood, a xenophobic Pure street gang. The Lost Boys, feral changeling street children, are the wild card.
  • Liverpool, Merseyside: The wizard Fat Harry Hopkins runs most of the local crime scene, but is opposed by the Red Firm, a spirit cult dedicated to football violence and with heavy werewolf membership.
• Yorkshire: The Urbiphage, a monstrous ephemeral entity that eats smaller things is the big fish here, and due to general supernatural depopulation, there are a lot of ghosts and spirits.
  • Leeds, West Yorkshire: Where the Urbiphage tends to roost.
  • York, North Yorkshire: Slightly weird cult in the form of the Society of St. William, which runs York as a safe haven.
  • Whitby, North Yorkshire: The Ordo Dracul, who keep Whitby safe but are a bit crazy here.
• Cumbria and Lancashire: Various werewolf packs, not very friendly. Mild Fomorian troubles.
  • The Lake District: Some very weird local Shadow terrain
• North East of England: A lot of occult ruins
  • Newcastle-upon-Tyne: The Gulls, a group of sea-faring vampires
• The Isle of Man: A small, mixed-supernatural group harassed by Fomorians.

Wales

• North Wales: Werewolves, mostly Pure. Most important packs are Black Mountain (Pure) and Blaidd Drwg (Forsaken)
• South Wales: The Consilium of Carmarthen runs the urban areas, with werewolves in the rural hinterlands.
  • Carmarthen: The Consilium of Carmarthen, though most of the mages live in Swansea or Cardiff. Free Council and Mysterium are the main influences here, very decentralized, democratic.
  • Rhonnda Fach: Pontycythraul -- Something extremely nasty that only appears every so often.

Scotland

• The Lowlands: Lots and lots of ghosts, most notably Sawney Bean and Michael Scot. The Argent Collegium and the Freehold of Elphame both claim it, but can’t back it up.
  • Edinburgh: The Argent Collegium, an academic group of mages
  • Glasgow: The Other City, a periodic alternate cityscape, is the main thing here, along with some extremely insane supernaturals such as the vampire Laird Alan MacLeish.
  • County Angus: Rumors of a ‘Madonna of the Wasps’
• The Highlands: The Freehold of Elphame, a group of loosely united changeling clans.
  • Inverness: The Freehold’s capital, but rarely used due to a dangerous Wyrd Curse.
  • Loch Ness: A large and dangerous Each Uisge cult.
• The Orkneys and Shetland Isles: Selkies are the unified faction here, but there are lots of supernatural hermits on the outer islands.
• The Hebrides: The Fomorians are too frequent here for anyone but lunatics to really settle, but there are some Fomorian cults, old weapons, and so forth.
  • The St. Kilda Archipelago: There’s a destruction-worshipping cult at the military base here.

Ireland

• Northern Ireland: Used to be run by the High Court of Eire, but they’ve been pushed back due to the Troubles, and werewolf packs and the Twin Princes of Belfast have partially moved in.
  • Belfast: The Twin Princes rule the city, Catholic and Protestant vampire Princes who embraced a few too many die-hards, and now can’t control them.
  • Derry: The Pygmalian Society is in charge here, artist-mages without any governance
  • The Causeway Coast: Lots of ruins and relics of Fionn mac Cumhaill here, leading to interest from supernatural archaeologists and from the High Court.
• Southern Ireland: The High Court is pretty much the only show in town, and it is extremely powerful.
  • The Hill of Tara: The High Court’s headquarters in the Hedge.

The Great Powers is a loose term for the supernatural organizations in the British Isles that are capable of exerting power outside their home environs. The Great Powers are the three main factions of London (the Invictus, the Mysterium], and the Freehold of New Jerusalem), the Carmarthen Consilium, the Argent Collegium of Edinburgh, and the Freehold of Elphame in the Scottish Highlands. They used to include the Worshipful Company of Birmingham and Glastonbury's the Sodality of the Tor, but they have fallen low in recent decades, while Newcastle's Gulls and Manchester's Estate are rising stars, though not yet strong enough to become Great Powers themselves. The High Court of Éire, meanwhile, is very much the supernatural superpower in Western Europe, by virtue of its size, unity, and supernatural prowess.