Yorkshire

Originally a wool-trading and manufacturing center in the 17th and 18th centuries, Leeds is today the fourth largest urban economy in the United Kingdom. It's one of the country's main legal centers, largest manufacturing economies, and has generally seems well positioned to transition into the modern economy. It's also an extremely diverse city, with one of the highest shares of non-white population outside of London.

It is also in Leeds that the Urbiphage was summoned. The best theory is that the summoner, whoever it was (and they might still be alive), was trying to spare Leeds the environmental decline that afflicted the rest of Northern England. If so, then the ritual actually worked. The cost, however, was dire. The Urbiphage is a creature of unknown origin, not quite a spirit, not quite a demon, but possibly kin to the Strix but on a far vaster scale. Most perceive it as only a thin and cloying mist, but diviners and seers can see it as an enormous batlike creature spanning the dome of the sky, its wings coming down to envelope the city. Its power is staggering, its mind alien and incomprehensible. It is drawn to supernatural power, and when a sufficient concentration is noticed, it devours it (the how is a bit unclear, due to the paucity of witnesses or survivors, but is usually accompanied by extreme weather events, enormous fires, and other natural disasters). It tends to roost in Leeds, as the ghosts and spirits of the city provide it plentiful sustenance, but it's occasionally drawn out elsewhere into Yorkshire. Needless to say, the few supernaturals left in the area try very hard not to draw it out.

Founded by the Romans as Eboracum in 71 AD, York was a provincial capital and one of the great cities of Britain throughout the Medieval period. The Archbishop of York was one of England's leading clergymen, and the Plantagenet Kings held the title of Duke of York. In the 19th century, York became an important railroad juncture, and somewhat unexpectedly, a confectionary center. Today, York still maintains much of its industry, along with a considerable dose of tourism-based history, especially to the Cathedral, the famed York Minster. It has a population of just under a quarter of a million, and relatively low crime rates.

It is also home to the Society of St. William, named after the Archbishop of York who lived in the 11th century. Consisting of perhaps a dozen supernatural beings of all sorts, they live in York against all odds, defending it against the wandering ghosts and spirits and making sure that the supernatural scene is spread out enough to avoid the Urbiphage's attention. Originally founded as a self-defense union following the advent of the Urbiphage, the Society of St. William has grown a trifle strange over its years of isolation, becoming closed-off and inward-looking, and believing that the Urbiphage might just be the first sign of the Apocalypse. Despite that, they're really very nice people, hospitable to strangers, just so long as those strangers don't cause trouble in York and leave promptly. If they don't, bad things tend to happen.

A small seaside village of about fourteen thousand people, Whitby survives despite its remote location on the strength of its port facilities, the small amounts of semiprecious jet that can be found in the area, its historic abbey (in ruins, but a thousand years old, and built on the site of a yet older abbey dating to the seventh century), and its association with Dracula. Bram Stoker's book had the Count spend some time in the town, drawing on elements of local folklore in his writings. It's not much, and Whitby is a quiet place even today, but it's enough for the town to get by.

For the Dragons of the Whitby Academy, life is not so quiet. Prince Darren Albright rules over about a score of Kindred who watch over the extremely interesting supernatural happenings at Whitby, (their covenant's founder's residence at the town was not a coincidence). They keep an eye on the Things in the harbor, mine the supernaturally active jet, and hold odd ceremonies in the ruins of the Abbey. They also have to constantly deal with wandering ghosts and spirits, with visiting werewolves and mages, and even stranger beasts, and they have to keep the supernatural levels low enough that the Urbiphage doesn't come calling. All this, Prince Albright does despite the fact that the Whitby Dragons are generally rather retiring scholars, if perhaps a bit fae. Albright himself is uniformly considered one of the most promising Dragons to arise in the last century. He has a truly brilliant mind, but it's brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that is broken.