Legends of London

Urban fantasy campaign.

Characters

The Skwod

Lillith

Xochi

Gideon

Jack

Villains

Others

Sessions

Session # Session ID Episode Name Date In-game Date Starting Level
1 LOL-111 Midnight Riot R 01-Feb-24 U Feb 1 6
2 LOL-112 Midnight Riot M 05-Feb-24 M Feb 2 6
3 LOL-113 Midnight Riot R 08-Feb-24 M Feb 2 6
4 LOL-114 Midnight Riot R 15-Feb-24 T Feb 3 6
5 LOL-115 Midnight Riot T 12-Mar-24 W Feb 4 6
6 LOL-121 Bite at the Museum W 10-Apr-24 W Apr 10 7
7 LOL-122 Bite at the Museum M 22-Apr-24 R Apr 11 7

Reboot

Session # Session ID Episode Name Date In-game Date Starting Level
8 LND-421a Control / Assimilation / name TBD R 23-May-24 tbd 7
9 LND-421b Control / Assimilation / name TBD F 24-May-24 tbd 7
10 LND-421c Control / Assimilation / name TBD ? 07-Jun-24 tbd 7
11 LND-421d Control / Assimilation / name TBD ? 21-Jun-24 tbd 7
12 LND-421e Control / Assimilation / name TBD F 05-Jul-24 tbd 8

World Information

To be transferred to other documents:

Wizards

The Academy remains in existence, but Wizards--with a capital W--haven't been a very major concern for a while.

At the turn of the 20th century, they were at their absolute height; the "Universal" Academy, strongly centered in Europe, had seemingly conquered the metaphysical world, maintaining the rule of (their) law across the known world, and rapidly conquering the dwindling remains of Terra Incognita across the shrinking globe. The world had been made safe for humanity, and the Wizards enjoyed a monopoly on metaphysical power--so it seemed.

Although they had maintained strict neutrality in prior wars among the mundane powers, the Great War surface such atrocities that investigations were necessary. There were cases of vampires prowling the trenches, and warlocks summoning demons to break defensive lines. Over time, the various wizarding orders were pulled in, and the more nationalistic among them increasingly pressured and occasionally broke ranks to assist their mother countries. With wizards fighting wizards, the vampires made their move, having consolidated their forces for just such an eventuality, feigning weakness for decades to lull their foe into a false sense of security. Lightning raids ravaged wizard populations, especially among the young and the noncombatants.

After the war, the survivors vowed to avoid such a perversion of their art in the future. With ranks notably reduced, they recruited more eagerly than ever before, and, with heavy hearts, resolved to train all new apprentices and noncombatants in at least basic defensive magicks, as the vampiric assault never quite ended. Still, these measures were meant only for defense of the Art and its practitioners--the council foreswore any further involvement in mundane warfare.

That vow did not last long.

In contrast to the first war, where staid, proud orders with minimal direct allegiance to any earthly nation had been gradually drawn in by an increasingly escalated series of atrocities, World War II was planned and prepared for--especially in Germany. Seeking to harness every possible resource for their eventual victory, the Nazis sought young malcontents among the germanic orders, using tried-and-true methods honed among the Hitler Youth to find loyal future soldiers who could also help root out the most dangerous dissident voices before they even knew to resist. In the last few years before the war broke out in full, Nazi-aligned wizards, fully on board with the party's rhetoric and methods, were operating across the world, lending their magic (with, of course, no regard to the traditional laws of its practice) to efforts to undermine the party's enemies, and to acquire any possible advantage, such as magical artifacts and the allegiance of unaligned "primitives" and other neutrals.

With Nazi wizards on the battlefield, there was little hope the old vows would hold; although, it must be said the resolve of centuries-old wizards can be a truly humbling experience in understanding the word "stubborn". Ultimately, much like in Germany, the youths--having trained for battle and remembering the devastation of the first war--led the charge away from tradition. An order of British wizards volunteered to serve the homeland, independent of the Academy and its laws. Contintental practitioners lended aid to the resistance, especially valuable for their ability to slip behind enemy lines and disguise the movement of spies and informants. The Americans, once they entered the war, inevitably brought their cowboy-style wizards to bear, at least the few that could be spared in the sparsely-wizarded nation.

World War II was, by far, the deadliest wizarding conflict ever recorded. The nationalistic armies clashed, and--staffed as they were by young, partially-trained warriors, armed with powers far in excess of what normal soldiers could wieled--their battles were brief and devastatingly decisive. With their population advantage and the time and effort spent in preparation, the Nazi wizards found an early advantage on the continent. Russia's relative magical might had been squandered during the first war when the lashback against Rasputin and the Romanovs caught the burgeoning school of new wizardry in the old empire off guard. The Bolsheviks did not look kindly upon practitioners, and did not field any official wizards at the outset of the Second War--much to their major disadvantage.

Heroic efforts in the interim between the fall of Paris and the eventual D-Day invasion kept the Nazis stymied, partially owing success to independent efforts by Americans and other neutral powers who'd been clashing with the Nazis since before the war. The dwindled ranks of the Allied wizards could provide much-needed experience and leadership as fresh blood was drawn from America, India, China, and other allies and neutrals, eventually finding a tipping point and shifting the balance against the Axis. A key development was the late (but not unwelcome) fielding of Soviet agents in the form of the Night Witches--hardly traditional wizards, but more than capable and extraordinarily willing to combat the Nazis who'd ravaged their homeland. This largely female unit fought with magicks and tactics unknown to most of wizard-kind; large-scale thamaturgical combat had never before been recorded, but it was clear the witches had trained and prepared to battle and defeat wizards on even footing. One had to wonder how long they had been prepared to do so.

The metaphysical front of the Axis collapsed much as its mundane counterparts did. In the mid and late war, their main objective from on high was to attempt to provide increasingly unlikely superweapons and surprise advantages to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, with very few successes. While weaponizing magic at scale is very much possible, the Axis leadership asked the impossible, turning dangerous summons and treacherous artifacts into reliable weapons with far too little time to experiment and understand the power they wielded. The experiments--when they weren't entirely foiled by heroic, adventuresome Allied wizard raids--were as likely to harm the Axis powers as help them. Once the dam broke with D-Day, the mundane armies never stopped retreating, and alongside them, the Axis wizards were perpetually on the back foot, always rushing too quickly into some crazy project to halt the advance, never accomplish much of anything.

With the war's end, the Nazi wizard orders were all but obliterated--many survivors were suspected to have escaped, but with the power of magic, it would be all too easy for them to slip into obscurity and evade justice. Having abandoned their cause, they left little reason for the Allied wizards to risk their lives on the front, as the writing was clearly on the wall for the Axis.

Worthy of note, however brief: the Empire of Japan did not field a significant metaphysical force, having gutted their nation of the resources that may have become such a force during the Meiji Restoration. Their many practitioners tended to be on the side of the Samurai and other traditional forces, and even where they weren't, they were seen as backwards, and in need of pruning to remove obstacles to Japan's growth and modernization. In turn, America did not field many of their own agents, although some small-scale operations were attempted on both sides, especially in the Phillippines campaign, which often encountered stalemates in need of magical solutions. Predictably, few of these provided much relief favoring either side. Ultimately, the weapons developed for that campaign dwarfed anything wizards could imagine producing. A number of wizards simply walked away from their colors at the first unveiling of the atom bomb.

When the dust settled, and all the treaties were signed, it was clear the Academy as it had once stood was simply a thing of the past. But for the grace of their obscurity, they may have been signed away into oblivion, like the Empire of Turkey and other casualties of the peace treaties. Rather, they still technically exist, but their constituent schools never really recovered. Houses of learning that were built to teach hundreds or even thousands of students now found themselves with mere dozens of survivors. Not that there weren't plenty of up-and-coming talents to train--the population of the world ballooned in the post-war era, providing more candidates than ever in wizarding history. Rather, there just weren't enough teachers, and neither were any of the proud traditions of old healthy enough to continue.

After all, with so many vows made and broken, so many laws tested and ultimately ignored, so many lines crossed--the will to rebuild was weak. And although many did try to do just that, there seemed to be an easier path forward.

In the early days of the American colonies, the nascent populace created a microcosm of the homeland in matters metaphysical, just as they did with every other organization. Boston hosted the first American wizarding school, amidst the undercroft of Harvard University. That would remain the only "true" European-style school in the states; other population centers in the south didn't really have the right culture and populace, and all of the exceptions were just that--exceptions, like New Orleans, no slouch in the magical department, but with an utterly unique way of managing it.

And then, of course, the 19th century happened, and America grew much, much larger than its population could possibly fill. It is difficult to impress upon 21st century people just how sparse America was at this time--boasting few population centers comparable to Europe coming into the century, with most of the country rural, the U.S. suddenly grew many times larger, further reducing the population density to absurd lows. Even the leaders who signed the treaties couldn't quite believe the audacity of this tiny nation, claming so much land. Without the unique geography of the U.S. (and of course the horrible diseases that had ravaged the native population ahead of the English colonization), it would never have been thinkable. But it was thought, and it was done. By the mid-century, America stretched to the Pacific coast, even though roads to reach said coast would be decades behind the changing of the maps.

America simply could not attempt to mirror Europe's approach to magic. What would be the purpose of a magical school in the "population center" of a massive state like South Dakota, when said center was Deadwood, population 250? In those times, an entire county was lucky to have a single wizard of note. Western towns (reminder: "western" for most of the century meant anything west of the Mississipi, and sometimes not even that far west) might be visited by an intinerant wandering wizard who ranged over vast areas. In such times, it made far more sense to entreat and befriend all magical entities that may otherwise be threats--from native tribes to vampires, to villages of convivial sasquatches, or expatriate warlocks from the Old Country looking for a quiet stretch to escape the politics back home. Still, combat was not unknown, and much like the mundane lawmen they resembled (and often literally were, in the same person), they took a cowboy's approach to magical combat, speaking softly and carrying big iron.

Coming into the 20th century, while there were certainly a few well-established American cities with burgeoning magical populations, the "Cowboy Wizard" style prevailed, with the eventually formalization of regional wizardry; i.e. titles such as "The Wizard of Chicago" and "The Wizard of San Francisco". Effectively, the new order was simple: the biggest, baddest wizard in the area was its magical "sheriff", responsible for all forms of magical security, and also for training any apprentices and up-and-coming practitioners in the area, and always keeping in mind a line of succession, should the worst happen. In larger cities, there was room for larger, more bureaucratic organizations to handle the trainging, and even provide a formal network of deputies to help the Sheriffing. But even in the largest cities like New York, the simple model of the magical "Sheriff" prevailed. Each large city and county has a senior wizard, and so too does each state, usually the oldest and most powerful of the constituent wizards.

This model was considered quaint and appropriately backwater by the rest of the world--until after World War II, when it suddenly seemed a lot more practical than the old ways.

Officially, this new model is a different way of organizing magical schools. All magical schools under the Academy are required to follow the basic laws of magic, and to obey certain regulations meant to expedite working relationships between the schools, and these new regional schools are no different. They're just...simpler, smaller, and less populated.

And it isn't as if the old traditions have been abandoned. While the great schools of old are largely abandoned, tradition dies hard, and most still exist in some form, attempting to go through the motions, pretending to their ancient stature as if nothing had changed. But things have changed. Smaller organizations that were traditionally sidelined--such as minor knightly orders like the Order of St. George--are a more relevant part of the Academy now. When they (rarely enough) speak with one voice, they can sway opinions notably. And of course, much to what would certainly be the shame and horror of many departed wizards of old, countless orders of witches, native practitioners, hedgecrafters, etc, have registered with the Academy, pledging assistance in vital matters such as mutual defense, tracking warlocks, etc, but calling for modernization and nuance in the rigid laws and traditions of old, demanding democratization of the world of wizardry and witchcraft.

In London, in particular, there are a number of ancient orders to know of, with varying presence in the modern world:

Notes:

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