unseenlibrarian | Dec. 5th, 2018

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Dec. 5th, 2018

It’s perhaps no surprise that the fae closet to humans- the various crafter elves, leprechauns, brownies, bugawns, etc, etc- have picked up a lot of human ideas. With the general return of magic and magical beings to the world after the Curie incident in 1899, mortal ideas got even more exposure in the working-class fae community. Using Gremlin and Dwarves as spokesmen, the working fae began organizing into unions based on what skilled trade they were best at, eventually establishing a Uniform Council to settle disputes between the unions.

(Perhaps unsurprisingly, the largest and most powerful union is the Cobblers, Haberdashers, and allied Trades. It’s still considered gauche to assume that any particular tiny elf wearing a toolbelt is good at making shoes.)

With the disappearance of the Undersea court, Underhill and the Court of Air and Darkness gave official representation of the Uniform Council as a new elven court, regarding them as a sort of civilized check on the power of the Wild Court. Officially they’re “The Uniform Trade Council of Representatives”. Unofficially, they’re just called the Low Court, with whatever representative who’s been stuck with the job of dealing with the other elven courts getting the title of the Low Monarch. Most of the politicking in the uniform council revolves around an elaborate game of “Not it!” when it comes to the royal title.

1899: Marie and Pierre Curie accidentally discover, and unleash, a process that renders the anti-magic properties of iron and steel dormant. This is what happens when you hold a seance in the same lab you run physics experiments in, and set the tone for much of the next decade. The reaction spreads through the earth’s crust, eventually engulfing the entire world.

1900: The return of the first members of the elven courts. An obscure writer who’s only just released his first book, Frank Baum, is appointed as being their spokesman and ‘royal chronicler’. He’s not particularly happy with the idea, but goes along with it anyway. Around the world, various occult groups find that their spells are starting to work, often far beyond expectations.

1901: The Boxer Rebellion enjoys several early victories as their claims of invulnerability prove true, until Western occultists in the legations are able to counter the effects. In the end, concessions get wrung from the Qing Dynasty to have several lands that were once leased to be granted in perpetuity as payback for the attacks on foreigners.

1902 The first of the sunken lands return- The English Channel is essentially gone as Lyonesse and Ys rise from its waters, forming a land bridge between France and the British Isles. Avalon appears in the Celtic sea. Theodore Roosevelt has a guest with him when he takes the first presidential automobile ride- a Gremlin representative of the Fairy Courts, who made several suggestions on how to improve the vehicle, but was fortunately dissuaded from implementing any of them mid-drive. Human scientists begin studying the psychoactive properties of Fairy Gold..

1903: Oxnard Strike, with union members of different races, inspires the formation of the Unified Trade Council among crafter-fae. More sunken islands appear around the world. First powered flight attracts attention and several attempts to outdo it by both human and non-human inventors.

1904 First bodybuilding competition rocked by scandal when it’s revealed one of the winners has contracted a fae disease that vastly increases muscle mass and bone density- one of the first public cases of Ogreism, also called “Hyde Syndrome”. Russo-Japanese war finds a new stage with the appearance of the island of Buyan. The appearance of this particular lost land would have consequences later beyond those obvious at this time.

1905: Albert Einstein’s Miracle Year- brownian movement, general relativity, and several speculative papers on magic. End of the Russo-Japanese war. Russia is essentially driven out of China, but maintains possession of Buyan as a potential Warm-water port.

The Kangra earthquake heralds the rebirth of Lemuria, the first sunken continent to reappear. Strange weather patterns continue for the rest of the year.

1906: Several major disasters this year as the last of the lost lands rise- Atlantis in the Atlantic and Mu in the Pacific. San Francisco, Chile, Naples, and Hong Kong all suffer massive loss of life and property damage. The Catholic Church releases a statement that part humans, such as Deenies and therianthropes have souls , but specifically rejects the idea that the fae are those angels who did not take sides in the war between heaven and hell. (Reaction of the fae courts generally amounts to “Who came up with -that one- anyway”)

1907: Finland holds first parliamentary elections with women as candidates as well as universal suffrage. Marconi establishes company for purposes of developing transatlantic radio-telegraphy. Physical Mediums, after rigorous study, are determined to be an entirely separate magical school than other spiritualist powers, the foundation of what modern magic calls “The Conjury school” Aurel Stein discovers the world’s oldest printed book, the Diamond Sutra.

1908: The Shackleton expedition sets sail to explore Mu aboard the Nimrod. The Tunguska incident excites the world, with no one quite sure of the cause- some have suggested that it was the awakening of Koscheii the deathless- pointing to his Siberian accent in his Rasputin guise- but others have noted that the immortal had been known to the Tsars at least two years prior. Others suggest that it was the test firing of a weapon by one of the Fairy gold engineers such as Tesla, or some sort of meteroic impact.

1909: First purchase of military aircraft. Founding of several American Magical groups devoted to study and formalizing of occult practices. First modern legislation drafted regarding therianthropic and magical assault- previous decisions drew on old blue laws on the topic.

1910: Death of Samuel Clemens. First horror film- a version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Halley’s comet. Catholic Church introduces oath to be sworn on ordination, forbidding priests from practicing magic of any kind, even if gifted. First criminal caught with the aid of radio. The Fairy Courts announce the Interdict, forbidding anyone from setting foot on Atlantean soil, just as the Terra Nova expedition leaves to do just that.

1911: The Atlantean expedition, captained by one Robert Scott reaches Atlantis- they’re well out of contact with anyone who could inform them of the Elven court interdict, and so make landfall. They set up camp and are almost immediately besieged by a Wild Hunt enforcing the interdict. The M1911 is first produced and becomes the official US service pistol. Faerie Gold is used to prove superconductivity is possible. Italy goes to War with the Ottoman Empire.

1912: Amundsen’s Muvian expedition fares much better that Scott’s visit to Atlantis, finding evidence of a pre-human civilization. One of Scott’s expedition commits suicide by walking into the waiting wild hunt. Cecil Rice, the newly appointed British Ambassador to the US finds himself temporarily reassigned as ambassador to the fae, and immediately recruits poet and self-appointed faerie court expert William Yeats to find a way to save the expedition. Success comes in the discovery of an ancient treaty between the Undersea court and the British Crown. The battered survivors of Scott’s Brittannia expedition are, as a diplomatic courtesy, named a relief force, there to provide aid to the Undersea crown, if they can be located. This diplomatic fiction saves face for all sides, but has unforseen consequences.

1913: Nearly every crowned head of Europe investigates their own ancient records for treaties with the fae- (American diplomats, for their part, focus on establishing closer ties with the Unified Trade Council.) Various factions in every court become entangled with human politics, and several groups have ties to Undersea, resulting in several expeditionary forces being sent to Atlantis on the same excuse as that which saved Scott’s expedition. The debate on the Irish Home Rule act is complicated by disputes over the possession of several of the new Islands in the Irish sea as well as what used to be the English Channel. Woodrow Wilson takes office. Coups in Mexico and the Ottoman empire lead to border disputes and general unrest.

1914: Ambrose Bierce is the first human Puck of Underhill, retained to investigate the death of his predecessor. He continually insists that he’s on his way to Mexico and doesn’t have time for this, but solves the case…and the next one he’s retained for after that. Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated. The addition of the elven court treaties to the already complex morass of early twentieth century European diplomacy means things are about to get ugly fast. The first battles of what will be later known as the Atlantean War or “The Big A” take place when various expeditionary forces who are camped too near each other clash; ultimately, the treaty meant to help preserve Atlantis leads to the first global conflict taking place largely on it.

1915: The factions in the war fall largely into two fronts: The Rivers and Lakes treaty and the Sea treaties- these being ancient factions of the Undersea court, and roughly mapping to the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente that already existed prior to the fae treaty discoveries. However, various Italian rulers had historically had several treaties with the sea fae, leading to that country joining the Sea treaty nations. First use of chemical weapons on a wide scale as the German “expeditionary force” deploys secret stockpiles. Japanese naval ships employed to help transport Australian troops to bolster the Sea Treaty alliance.

1916: Fighting spreads outside of Atlantis at the battle of Gallipoli- the intent was to capture the nearby straights to allow easier access to Atlantis by Russia; this fails. First successful stored blood transfusion. Pershing pursues Pancho Villa across the border after the general raids into New Mexico. Rivers and Lakes treaty nations begin active raiding of merchant shipping to Atlantis, though this is temporarily halted when the US threatens to break off diplomatic relations with Germany after non-merchant civilian vessels are included in the attacks.

1917: The Rivers and lakes resumes unrestricted raiding. The Kingsland explosion in New Jersey is blamed on German saboteurs, though no lives were lost largely thanks to the actions of the company Switchboard operator, Tessie Mcnamara. First woman elected to House of representatives. Zimmerman telegram is intercepted and the US gives up its pursuit of Villa, Pershing with draws over the border.
The Bolshevik revolution dies before it can really be started: multiple attempts to kill Rasputin cease to entertain him, and he throws off his disguise, revealing himself to be Koscheii the Deathless. The Romanovs are set aside and Imperial Russia is now ruled by basically a grumpy immortal wizard. Shit has officially gotten weird. Oh, and the US declares war on Germany, sending troops of their own to Atlantis, including the first all Therianthropic division, but the wizard-king thing is still weirder.

The Cottingly faerie hoax doesn’t happen since everyone’s been taking pictures of faeries for 18 years as it is.

1918: Battle of Bear valley; last armed conflict between US soldiers and hostile Native Americans; the Yaqui, who’d been at war with Mexico for several years, mistook the US 10th Cavalry squadron approaching their camp for Mexican troops and opened fire. They were later sentenced to 30 days in jail for shipping rifles to Mexico without an approved license.

The Big A heats up as several newly developed Faerie gold-based weapons are deployed to the front; the German weapon, a massive cannon with the range and accurancy to fire anywhere on the risen continent is destroyed in a successful by a joint operation between the Sea treaty nations.. Several countries that were once part of Imperial Russia attempt to break away after Koscheii declares his rule, leading to mass confusion as their troops attempt to desert in Atlantis to return home but are denied access to ship transport. The Baltic nations are buried under endless winter to curb their rebellion, leading to large refugee populations in Finland and Poland. Russian forces begin to withdraw from Atlantis to reinforce the Deathless’ rule, leaving the troops from the provinces in rebellion stranded in Atlantis.

1919: Former members of the Undersea Court that moved to other courts for protection when their own leaders disappear finally take action- selkies and merrow start picking fights with German U-boats and countering their raids on retreating Russian troops.

Romania attempts to annex Transylvania, but troops are repelled at the border by waves of bats and wolves and the sun going out, an event not witnessed by anyone outside of Transylvania.

A later amphibious assault on the Rivers and Lakes treaty base camp results in a complete route for their forces, and an armistice is declared on May 1st, 1919. Negotiations for the final peace treaty are held in Paris. The racial equality proposal from Japan is passed in large part thanks to strong support from the fae courts; pressure from the Unified Trade Council almost certainly played a part to keep Woodrow Wilson from outright rejecting the proposal. This has a knock-on effect of killing the White Australia Policy and several US restrictions on Asian immigration.

As part of the treaty, all sides agree to withdraw forces from Atlantis; the refugee-soldiers from states in rebellion against Koschei the Deathless are provided sanctuary in different treaty signatories until just what’s going on with Russia can be determined. The terms of the May Day accords, as they come to be called, are not as punitive as the Versailles treaty in our own timeline- Europe suffered much less thanks to the bulk of the fighting happening on a largely unoccupied continent. Still, the Rivers and Lakes nations are perceived to have ‘lost’, and are forced to pay reparations and lose some of their colonies. The League of Nations is created as part of the Accords; the US actually ratifies it rather than seeking their own treat. Isolantionism is a less popular stance, since taking part in the league is seen as a way to legitimize and explore claims on the lost lands, proving that not many lessons were learned from the Atlantean conflict.

So the Elves in this setting are divided, not by season or by attitude, but more on some combination of “Where they went to ground when Magic was fading” and “Shared interest”. There are currently 5 major courts- two are fairly new, with the newest having only really organized after the curie effect.

Underhill: This is what most people think of when they think of fae. You’ve got your lordly pointy-eared types, your la belle dame sans merci types, and so on and so forth. They hid in hollow hills, burial mounds, and behind secret doors reachable via fair ring.

It’s ruled jointly by the King and Queen of the Elves, who do go by Oberon and TItania to the public, but these are both almost certainly aliases, or possibly a private joke. Underhill has portals in several major cities (The most famous as of the ‘present’ being the Hollywood Underhills) and has several members with human ancestry- these half elf, half human children are called “Deenies” in popular slang, thanks to an early news report mangling “Daoine Sidhe” and are basically what everyone thinks of when they think of elves, being the type of fae you’re most likely to see in the street.

Air and Darkness: The Court of Air and Darkness, ruled over by the Queen of the Same name, hid in the clouds- the castles of fairy tale giants, the peaks of unscaleable mountains, and so on; all sorts of winged fae and aerial fae are members, as well as the giants who played host. They are aloof, and even today rarely go about on earth, though some pilots during and after the War of Three Caesars reported seeing strange ships belonging to neither side flying at high altitudes- these have been dubbed “Fae Fighters” and are presumed to belong to this Court.

Undersea: The rulership of the Undersea Court has been missing since Atlantis rose- this was the reason for the ultimatum by the other courts that ultimately led to the Big A. While there are hundreds of water-based fae left, most of their nobility was based in Atlantis, and so several have defected to other courts for protection and to have their interests represented, primarily to Hollow Hills based near water, or to the Wild Court.

The Wild: The Wild Court is both quite old and very new; there were always wild fae, faerie who only took animal or part-animal forms, and they often had a loose hierarchy, with their own rulers- The King of Cats, , the Master of Hounds, the various warlords and herd stallions of the fae horses. But they usually bowed to one of the other courts, particularly underhill. Since the disappearance of Undersea, the Wild Courts, bolstered by sea serpents and merfolk joining them for protection, among other political moves, have become more independent, and in fact seem to be working together, with the rulership of all the beastial fae rotating between the various animal rulers. Currently, the Wild Court is run by the Master of Hounds, a Cu Sith.

The Low Court, aka the Uniform Trade Council: Truly newly organized, the Uniform Trade Council was organized as a group of, well, unionized worker-fae. Dwarves, Brownies, bauchans, Gremlins, shoemaker elves. Every sort of crafter or housework-based spirit, and the ones most strongly associated with humanity. The Low King is an appointee, and is uniquely chosen for their inability to weasel out of the position, as it takes them away from their workshop or lab- the position’s usually held by a Gremlin or Dwarf, since they’re closest to human sized and thus easier for other rulers to take seriously.

There are some positions that stand both slightly off to one side of the court structure

The Three Sisters: In ancient times, there were only the three courts: Underhill, undersea, and Air and Darkness. The Three sisters were advisers to the rulers- the Fates and Soothsayers to the crowned heads, reflecting the court they advised but not being part of it. It’s a sort of hereditary position- when the old sisters die, three new ones are called. With the seeming loss of the Undersea Court, for now, the third sister is advising the Master of Hounds (They’re not quite sure what to make of the Uniform Trade Council, and whoever heard of Four Fates? Not whatever magic calls the sisters, that’s who.)

The Puck is usually appointed by the King of Underhill, but operates independently and has jurisdiction within all the courts. Essentially, he (or she) is a crown investigator, with authorization to look into crime and dubious circumstances, even if one of the royals might be involved. It’s not a job with a long life expectancy, nor is it a desired one, despite the power of the position.

More than once, the first case a new Puck takes is to investigate the death of his predecessor on the job. There have also been cases of one-time pucks who are brought in on a specific case, then freed of the title. Usually these are mortal investigators, and one or two have even survived the appointment.

Therianthropes- that is, humans who, voluntarily or involuntarily, turn into some form of animal- are the most common non-fae magical being in the setting; they’re common enough that, for example, in the US, most major cities have a “Changetown”, a therianthrope-only neighborhood. (They often have large doors that lock from the outside in case of lunar-calendar based accidents.)

But -why- are they so common?

Basically it boils down to the fact that a lot of ancient wizards just weren’t all that creative when it came to hitting their hated enemies with curses. #1 item in the playbook? Ironic animal transformations. That shit leaves a mark.

And let’s not even get into the folks who invited animal spirits into their bodies for power.

As a result, hundreds, if not thousands, of family lines had -some- sort of shapeshifting curse in their history-.curses that were interrupted when iron and steel became common enough to impede magic.

That sort of curse doesn’t got away, though. it lingers. It waits. And when the Curie effect spread across the globe, well, eventually, you had werewolves, and berserks, and what have you suddenly finding out that the old stories about their great-great-great–great grandpa Snorri being a real bear on the battlefield were being literal. (In at least one unfortunate case, a high steel worker in New York discovered his ancestral ability to transform into an enormous salmon on the 31st floor of a still under construction highrise.)

As therianthropy became more common in the second decade of the twentieth century, said battlefield applications became a large part of what lead to the general acceptance of therianthropes in society- just about every soldier who fought in the Big A had ‘Thrope story about the time a werebeast saved their unit.

Not everyone was happy about the presence of therianthropes- for example, conflicts over the union status of shapeshifting actors vs. animal wranglers was one of the major conflicts in 40s and 50s Hollywood, at one point leading to a large section of the LA Changetown being burned down- but that’s getting well ahead of the timeline.

Many people class Ogres as a type of fairy, albeit one large, muscular, and prone to eating human flesh. This is not entirely the case. What Ogres are, or rather, what Ogreism is, is a kind of magical disease that infects both humans and elves, with slightly different results. Some believe it is a disease native to Underhill, others believe it’s some sort of curse developed by a mage that only started working again after the return of magic. In either case, when someone is infected, the disease causes them to grow much larger and stronger, often accompanied with either an increase or complete loss of body hair. In the latter case, the ogre’s skin will often become scaled or rubbery, though this is by no means always the case. Often it will trigger strange bone growths under the skin, sometimes with horns or spikes that painfully break through. In all cases the teeth and digestive system become adapted for a carnivorous diet, with sharpened teeth or even tusks.

How the disease is spread is something of a mystery, as outbreaks are usually contained to only a handful of cases, and very rarely does it seem to involve contact with other ogres. The current leading theory is that the virus spontaneously manifests when certainly environmental conditions are met, similarly to the ectoplasm produced by conjurers.

There has almost never been a case where an ogre was infected after adulthood- the condition manifests in children, usually before puberty. This is believed to be an explanation for the somewhat limited intellect of the typical fairy tale ogre- they are children, and usually ones who were driven out of their home after they began to change. Modern understanding has allowed ogres infected since the the Curie effect to have something of a normal life, though many of them have been drawn into criminal gangs simply because of the advantages their size and strength affords the mobs.

When a fairy, or human with magical potential is infected by Ogreism, their magical powers are in no way diminished; ogres with magical abilities are often called trolls, and many were Leenie or Deenie children before contracting the disease. Trolls tend towards the ‘hairless and scaly’ end of the ogre spectrum, but this is again, not a hard and fast rule.

A similar variation in form occurs when a potential therianthrope is infected; rather than gaining the ability to shift between human and animal form their animal form alters the final form of the ogre, leading to the appearance of a 'beast man.’ Ogreism is particularly common among wereboars, resulting in a not insignificant number of 'pig-headed’ ogres.

Ogres tend to form their own small communities- isolated dead end neighborhoods or one-horse towns. It’s easier to deal when everyone’s your size and people don’t complain too much when you break things because they do too. This is only a tendency, and not a general rule- you’re as apt to see an ogre on the street as a Deenie, and maybe more often, since the Deenie can pull his hat over his ears but there’s only so much an ogre can do to hide his appearance.

In the late 1920s, there was a major innovation that made life both easier and worse for therianthropes of all kinds- particularly those that had involuntary transformation as part of their condition. Sterling-Winthrop started public testing for WIN 23769: Aconite pills.

An exhaustive study over the previous decade had determined the minimum dosage and the species with the strongest effects required to revert a therianthrope to their baseline form, and created a universal palliative that could cancel involuntary transformations. Just one pill a day during the portion of the lunar cycle that the ‘thrope would transform during would completely suppress forced transformations. It was hailed as a fantastic success and used as political pressure to try and get restrictions lifted from The Changetowns, the walled ghettos most shapeshifters lived in.

Of course, there were side effects; someone regularly taking the Aconite pill suffered from ongoing numbness in the mouth; it was easy to tell a shifter on the pill as they’d drool nearly constantly and have trouble with their speech while on the pill. And of course it was deadly to normal humans and certain strains of fae, so it came with a lot of warning labels.

Naturally, it wasn’t long until someone figured out how to abuse it, but surprisingly, it wasn’t the over the counter form. At the same time as the pills had been developed, a liquid version, meant for sale to police and private individuals for use in tranquilizer guns for therianthrope defense. This version was mixed with a potent tranquilizer, which had a synergistic effect with the numbness caused by the aconite, resulting in a sort of lethargic high.
Naturally, this version was pulled quickly, since no one wanted shapeshifting junkies deliberately attacking police to get shot, but someone figured out how to make a street version of the drug, and soon “Riding the Aconite express” was a popular pastime in Changetowns.

Much has been made of Marie Curie’s work at the turn of the century; while she and her husband are best known for the event that spread across the world, erasing the impedance effect of iron and steel on magic, it was not their first discover, in fact, it was sort of an incidental effect of their true discovery, which is that you shouldn't hold seances in the same laboratory you're doing your research on the unique properties of certain ores in.

As it turns out, one of the samples of pitchblende ore they commissioned for their research was contaminated by more than a trace of what has become known as fairy gold.

Fairy Gold, being rigorously studied, sampled, and focused on like no piece of the metal has before or since, in an effort to locate other metals thought to be hidden in the sample. All that attention focused on a material that attempts to become just what the user wants.

And of course it was also being exposed to what the Curies would dub radioactivity.

Frankly, we’re probably lucky that all it did was re-enable magic on a global scale.

Thanks to Koschei the Deathless crushing the Russian revolution and declaring himself the new Tsar, there wasn’t a 1919 Red scare. Without that, and without the Soviet union, there wasn’t one in the 40s, either. Communism was just one of several political affiliations, no more remarkable than any other, save for the fact that it had the unofficial endorsement of members of the Low Court- The Uniform Trade council had organized itself after human unions, after all, and the rights of workers was an important point for both groups.

Which meant that Joe McCarthy and HUAC needed something else to focus on.

When Joe McCarthy waved around his list of 205 names, it was of people who were known members of the Fairy Courts, yet working for the state department. (In many cases, this membership amounted to “My grandfather was an elf who met Oberon once”, but it was enough.) The focus on Hollywood was similar; many nonhumans lived in LA, hoping to get their big break, to become a star; there was one block of neighborhoods called “The Hollywood Underhills” because the fae population was so high. Who knew who they might be loyal to?

(Even blacklisted, however, it was easy for Leanhaun sidhe to set up a front, inspiring a new set of screenwriters, and some Deenie stars like Wendell Doyle were basically untouchable.)

The Farthest Shore movement may have been tailor made for their suspicions; a xenophobic, anti-human group of fair folk who did terror strikes to try and drive humans out of the country, in order to claim land they believed to be Tir Na Nog, the land of the young was the perfect adversary to point to if you wanted to persecute elves and question their loyalty.

(Danny Kaye was famously held in contempt of congress for the following exchange, when being questioned about an elven co-star:

“So this group, Mr. Chairman, the Farthest Shore, they want to kill us all and take our land?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what could be more American than that?”)

McCarthy’s downfall began when he was upstaged on national television; as it turns out, shortly before he went on See it Now, the current Puck of the Courts delivered the Farthest shore leadership to the FBI, along with enough evidence to convict all of them.

Not a single member was someone McCarthy or HUAC had accused of sympathies with the extremist group. His angry, defensive reaction when Morrow confronted him with this turned much of the public against him. This eventually led to his censure, and his decline in turn led to HUAC’s loss of prestige.

I wanted to touch on human magical styles, because they really haven’t been broached yet, in large part because in the stuff already written and played in this setting they haven’t really come up, so I never needed to get it down before. So here’s a few magical styles, in roughly alphabetical order:

Atavism: Not really full explored until the twenties and thirties, when belief in reincarnation became fashionable, Atavists are a sort of…physical mage. Men and women who channel what they claim to be the memories of a past life from a pre-historical era, before magic had fully faded. This past life they channel grants them enhanced physical strength, coordination, and endurance, all at or above the peak of human performance, usually at a cost of mental trauma related to the memories of the past self. Robert Howard is perhaps the best known Atavist sorcerer.

Bargainers: Not so much a school of magic as a sort of long con run on a non-human being, Bargainers have no magical power of their own, but instead are researchers into the taboos of various fae or other supernatural beings; essentially, they coerce their victim into using their inborn abilities on their behalf; or even transferring the abilities to Bargainer, where it’s possible. Have an unsurprisingly short life expectancy, and is illegal in many jurisdictions.

Conjury: Originally believed to be part of the Spiritualist tradition, it turns out that the ability to summon and shape ectoplasm has nothing to do with that sort of psychic phenomena.. Conjurers can create objects and creatures out of thin air. The school of conjury originated out of an odd mixture of European and American ‘physical mediums’, who manifested ectoplasm- and Japanese Onmyōdō and the summoning of shikigami- many practictioners use that name for the beings they create, though others prefer “Daimon” or simply “Spirit”. (It’s been proven to the satisfaction of most western religious authorities that the spirits are nothing of the sort, but instead are simply impressions of the conjurer’s mind onto ectoplasm. Whether this is actually true or not is open to question.)

Conjury may be the school with the most 'one trick’ practitioners- those who can only conjure one thing. For example, Manna-callers summon 'food from heaven’- a form of edible ectoplasm; it lasts long enough to be digested, but can’t be stored without fading away. Hexgunners can keep any weapon that uses ammunition stocked up with ectoplasmic rounds, and so on.

Spiritualism: This school was around since before the Curie effect, and while, yes, many practitioners are complete frauds, there are others with the powers they pretended to- one paper on the subject suggests the school is a -result- of so many people pretending to have such powers- it shaped the magical field when it returned. In any case, most of the extrasensory psychic powers fall under this school of magic- remote viewing, hearing and projecting thoughts, and the ability to see unmanifested ghosts and spirits and see through fairy glamours. Offensively, they are largely limited to projecting mental illusions, though some spiritualists have allied with poltergeist bodyguards.

Thaumaturgy: This is the school for your blessings and curses (Blessings may lead to everfull purses but this is not guaranteed. It’s a weird conjunction of various practices- your basic laws of contagion and sympathy school of magic. Cause painful physical conditions, hex someone to be more attractive to diseases. (You can’t kill someone outright with thaumaturgic magic,but you’d be amazed what you can live through.) Grant various boons of the fairy godmother variety. It’s suspected that early forms of thaumaturgy were much more powerful, as several therianthropic lines were almost certainly started through this style of magic, but the school as practiced today isn’t capable of such things. New discoveries and breakthroughs are made all the time, however.

There are overlaps between schools,but the approaches are different; for example, if a spiritualist and a thaumaturge both wanted to control someone, the former would either telepathically insert thoughts that the victim mistakes for his own, or have them possessed by an allied ghost. The latter would physically usurp the other’s body, usually through a cursed doll or similar artifice, or perhaps just resort to a curse and extortion. (Needless to say these are not recommended practices and most police departments have a Magical Crimes unit in place by the mid-thirties as this sort of thing became more common.)

Everyone assumes that, when a dragon gets called “The bookwyrm” it means he’s literary. “Oh, he must collect books and rare literature, they say, picturing a winged-fire-breathing lizard sitting in a well-appointed library, or maybe lounging on a giant pile of books like Fafnir on the Nibelung Gold.

Those people would be real disappointed to meet the one who actually goes by that name.

The Bookwyrm, as near as I can tell, regards illegal gambling operations in Southern California as his hoard, and either runs or has a significant piece of the action in every numbers game, racetrack till, underground casino and mob-run craps or poker game from LA to fucking Fresno. He talks like a stock player out of a Cagney gangster flick, and supposedly has his lair in a secret cave under the Santa Anita Tracks, where he can fix the races by being vaguely dragonish at the horses from underground. Not that anyone’s ever proved anything on that front.

I’ve never met the big lizard, but I accidentally did him a favor once and now every couple of months I get a racing form with certain horses circled or a numbers ticket in my office mailbox. It’s never a grand slam winner, but often as not they’ll cover some recent expenses. Like, for example, being just enough to get a new desk after an ogre smashed my old one to show me that his boss was serious, or fixing up the fire damage after a mook thought Solly Donovan was Henry II and I was Thomas A’Becket and decided to burn down my place.

In retrospect, accidentally doing a favor for him was probably a good idea, since my count of pissing off dangerous people just keeps going up.

…in American jurisprudence that ghostly testimony cannot be the sole evidence of guilt for a crime, going back to the days before there -was- American jurisprudence. Even the well-known case of the Greenbriar Ghost relied on the ghost’s mother convincing an attorney outside of the courtroom of the need for further investigation.

The ability to speak to ghosts thus does not make one a good detective. You still need to do all the same legwork, gather all the same evidence, and, well, ghosts are no more reliable a witness and just as subject to petty motivations as the living, so you can’t trust them any more than human eyewitnesses.

But there’s no rule that they can’t point you in a new direction in a stalled case. They might have knowledge of a motive, or a new point of view on existing evidence, or even point you at a relationship you didn’t previously know about that changes your perspective on a case.

Of course, you have to be very careful as to how you present this new-found twist in your investigation. The skill most spiritualist detectives develop is a finely honed sense of just how to sell a judge on the need for a search warrant based on a ghost telling them about the murder weapon.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the one school of magic that just about anyone can use, regardless of talent or knowledge is the one that no one likes, with its users often just lumped as crooks and grifters. A guy who made any sort of careful study of the sociological implications there could get real depressed.

But on the other hand, a lot of Bargainers, the folks who make deals with supernatural powers to borrow their abilities, aren’t all that picky about where they draw their power from, and some of them do take advantage of naive young demons who think they’re coming up to the surface to make a few quick souls and get bound into contracts that squeeze them dry of magical power in exchange for jack and shit, and usually they’d accidentally default on a condition that cut Jack off the menu.

I’d helped with a few such cases when contracts needed to be renegotiated, and so I was the number one mark for any dwimmerlaik or dybbuk with a sob story about how they just didn’t know how tricky humans can be.

There’s just one rule I’ve got for that sort of thing: All transactions are cash only, non-negotiable, half up front half on conclusion of the job. No fancy deals like the ones they made with the plaintiff.

After all, they’d just gotten lessons on the sort of stuff that can be done with that kind of bargain.

The Three Caesars War was also called the Gremlin’s War- it was the first post-Curie Effect conflict where Fairy-gold based esoteric devices were deployed in wide use on the battlefield. And when you’ve got a material that tries to become the best material for the needs of the person working it, well, some of those devices could get very esoteric indeed- for example, the radio control collars used on the bats that started the Great Tokyo Fire, or the Knights of the Mountain, automaton soldiers employed by Frederick Barbarossa controlled by the brains of select best soldiers. Even Koschei, who largely employed magic stolen from Baba Yaga, kept a few Gremlins and half-Gremlins on hand just to counter the efforts of his enemies.

As a result of everyone recruiting their own mad scientists, there’s a lot of unexploded death rays sitting around in the aftermath, and a lot of people trying to clean up the mess they made and are still making. Esoteric Investigations- the field of poking weird things with sticks and seeing if they need to be destroyed or quarantined- is something of a growth industry these days.

Most tech companies, the largest universities, and governments have their own Esoteric Investigations department- in a default campaign, the PCs would work for one of them.

A few example groups:

Hughes Aerospace Special Projects Department: The oldest Esoteric Investigations team, Hughes’ special projects existed even before the war, and is probably the one most likely to employ Esoteric devices in the pursuit of other, more dangerous esoteric devices.

“The Project”. It has a name, but it’s been so heavily classified that no one actually working for it knows what it is. The Project is the US Government’s answer to Esoteric Devices, and seem to move from agency to agency depending on need. Currently it’s based out of the Department of Fish and Game.

Esoterika: Given that Koschei largely left his Gremlin and Half-Gremlin servants to their own devices, there is a serious issue with stray Esoteric devices in Russia and areas formerly under Russian control. The recently crowned Tsarina Anastasia and her parliament have formed Esoterika to try and get it under control.

MI8 (e): Military Intelligence Division 8 has been tasked with forming a new subdirectory specifically for esoteric investigations. (The MPs responsible are old enough to regard wireless radios as newfangled esoteric devices, and declared that it was ‘natural’ for it fall under MI8′s purview.)

The Lead Wall: Japan’s Esoteric Investigation department is named for hopefully blocking X-rays, based on the name of the project responsible for releasing radio-controlled incendiary bat bombers loose on Tokyo during the war.

So the Fairy court of Air and Darkness, those who retreated above the clouds, during the time of iron, has had little contact with humanity even after the Curie Effect made it possible for them to live on the ground once again- those who have are mostly sylphs and similar airy spirits, who have traveled with the winds and might just as quickly vanish again There’s been no direct contact with the current Queen of Air and Darkness, or of her retinue, though unlike undersea, there’s been no sign that their holdings are abandoned, either. (Not that it’s entirely possible to check- their castles sit on high mountain peaks where the air is thin, or even atop the clouds, and no one’s quite worked out the formula for magic beans.)

Perhaps the clearest sign that the Court of Air and Darkness still exists is the fact that one of the Three Sisters still claims to represent them, even as she refuses to say how she communicates with them.

Since the tail end of the Three Caesars War, strange vessels have been seen in the night sky, often dogging military or civilian aircraft. These dish-shaped vehicles make no radio contact and do not attack, but move at high speeds and with a blissful disregard for standard rules of acceleration, stall speeds, and the presences of other aircraft. It’s a common superstition among those that have seen them that these strange airships are the manufactured by the Court of Air and Darkness, thus resulting in the most common nickname for them: Fae Fighters.

In the aftermath of the Three Caesars War:

They weren’t able to actually kill Emperor Barbarossa, just put him back into an enchanted sleep until the hour of greatest need comes again. His body is guarded by Swiss pikemen on loan from the Vatican. A similar plot to revive Arthur failed during the war, but many suspect it wouldn’t have ended well for those attempting it.

Koschei laid a death curse on Russia, saying that only a child of Tsar could take the throne from him, confident that none of them still lived. Unfortunately for him Anastasia happened, and plans to abdicate for the Prime Minister of the Duma as soon as they’re sure the curse has been lifted.

Japan had to move the capital to Kyoto for several years because Tokyo had been burned down by project X-ray. No nuclear weapons were deployed. The first giant monster movie in 1954 was called “Koumori” and featured a giant fire-breathing bat.

Solly “King Solomon” Donovan is probably not the first guy who springs to mind when you think of a mob boss. For one thing, he looks like a pig farmer, because that’s his day job. But not just any pigs. See, Solly Donovan is president of the Animal Handler and Trainers Union, and any time you need a hog, boar, or particularly photogenic piglet for your movie, he’s your go-to-guy. But as it turns out, owning a pig farm is a real good way to dispose of bodies you don’t want anyone to find, and when you control that, you can leverage it to take over the rackets, if you’re so minded, and Solly Donovan just happened to be so minded.

There’s a lot of stories about how he got his nickname- the must popular one is that he cut a man who owed both him and the bookwyrm exactly in half, but that’s bullshit. Solly Donovan’s a Bargain Mage, and one who’s grabbed the brass ring- his bargain contract’s with one of the big Goetic demons. Which one, no one’s sure. But word is he’s looking to make deals with the rest, and that’s why they call him King Solomon.

He’s also why I haven’t been in a movie for three years, even a bit part of “Thug #2″ or “Threatening Man with gun.” It started as a simple jurisdiction thing- the wranglers wanted some input on bringing in shapeshifting actors, since that sort of thing directly threatened their livelihood. I didn’t figure it involved me, since I’m just a Cheney, and I mostly just do stunt work, taking hits and falling off of buildings for better looking guys. But Solly Donovan didn’t see it that way, and that was just where things started.

With no stunt work or bit parts coming in, I had to fall back on hanging out my shingle as a private eye. And somehow, I kept running across operations that Solly Donovan had his fingers in, which lead to them getting busted up, so at this point I figure he’s just keeping me from working in my actual chosen profession out of spite.

The feeling’s mutual, so now I go out of my way to poke my nose into any of his nonsense I catch wind of.

We’re probably going to kill each other, someday.

There are a number of small winged humanoids among the fae of Underhill, ranging from the bioluminescent inch-long pixie to the nearly foot and a half long Fairy.

The one commonality that these all have is that they are hive-based intelligences, becoming smarter and more self-aware when in a swarm, or in the presence of a queen. The pixies are perhaps the most extreme case of this- any given pixie drone is generally no smarter or self-aware than, say, an individual bee or wasp away from the hive. This can be exceptionally disturbing to naturalists investigating underhill ecosystems, as both fairies and pixies resemble delicate, scaled down, winged humans, but the former will cheerfully catch and eat the latter, or even be gifted still living candied pixies as a special treat by other fae.

An individual fairy, on the other hand, is intelligent enough that they’re commonly employed as messengers and for odd jobs where their size will not interfere, but definitely become more intelligent in a flight.

Atomies and Sprites cover the full range of sizes between pixy and fairy, and originally started as a breeding experiment (Gremlins may have been involved.) Atomies treat full sized fae as members of their swarm, becoming more intelligent in the presence of Deenies and fae royalty. They’re somewhere between “Pet”, “Personal secretary” and “Living fashion accessory.” it’s said that the Queen of Air and Darkness was attended by an entire swarm of atomies, though no one has seen her since the return of the fae courts.

Sprites are an offshoot of whatever program created the atomie that went a bit wrong. They still become more intelligent in the presence of other fae, but actively find this painful to their hive intelligence, and will go out of their way todo do whatever a six inch to foot long winged fairy can do to drive any other fae out of their territory, starting with obnoxious pranks and escalating to violence. It’s probably best not to let yourself confuse one for the other.