The Hebrides

Sometimes referred to as the Western Isles, this is a pair of small island chains just off the western coast of Scotland, looking out towards Ireland. The Inner Hebrides (including the Isle of Skye) are closer to Scotland, sheltered from the worst of the storms, and are characterized by dense forests, rocky hills, and both cliffs and sandy beaches that attest to the islands' volcanic origins. The cooler Outer Hebrides (including the Isle of Lewis) replace those dramatic landscapes with gentler, rolling hills and bracken moors, the beaches now smooth stone. The islands are sparsely populated, just fifty-thousand people on all of them, and there are numerous uninhabited islands out there, over fifty sizable, empty islands in the Outer Hebrides alone. The local economy is mostly based on fishing, shepherding, and shale.

Despite possessing the same advantages of solitude that the Shetlands and the Orkney Islands offer, the Hebrides are almost deserted by most of the supernatural. A few selkies make their way down, the odd mage or fae settles, almost always in Skye. This is due to the fact that it is the Hebrides that are most exposed to the ravages of the Fomorians of the Irish Sea. According to myth and legend, the Fomorians were the original, semi-divine rulers of Ireland, chased into the sea by the Tuatha Dé Danann. They are said to dwell there still, awaiting their chance for revenge. Whether the things that dwell in the Irish Sea are actual Fomorians (and what would they have been? Deposed Gentry? Incarnae banished into flesh?) is a matter of debate, but what is known is that there are terrible creatures that dwell there, giant monsters of incredible power and obscure motives. They seem to desire tribute in souls, gold, and flesh, and they avoid large concentrations of mortals or modern technology. Even sightings are rare, as one more commonly meets their slaves and servants, whether drowned men with a single arm, a single leg, or a single eye, mortal cults bearing weapons of deific power (which rarely look like weapons), or sea monsters of ferocious aspect. The most documented Fomorian is Craoch, a creature that attends to several cults in the Outer Hebrides, though whether it is priest or outcast or simply the Fomorians' tax collector is a matter of conjecture. Craoch is described as a ram-headed man three stories tall, with webbed hands and feet, three eyes (two on the left, one on the right), and human skulls for teeth, bearing an axe capable of cleaving a house in twain and whistling up hurricane-force storms. For obvious reasons, few lesser supernaturals want to risk such surly neighbors, but the Fomorians' servants have been seen in Ireland and Scotland both, especially up by the Orkneys.