From: msrfx@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Charlie Ball) Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf Subject: Odd places in the UK - WOD-style. Date: 3 Feb 1996 17:06:17 -0000 Organization: University of Warwick, Coventry, UK NNTP-Posting-Host: holly-fddi.csv.warwick.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (This is part of something I've been working on eternally - a guide to how to play UK characters - but here's some strange stuff I've come up with recently). XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Part 1 : Wigan, Lancashire. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Wigan is, initially, an undistinguished industrial town in the North-West of England, about 15 miles west of Manchester, and about the same distance east of Liverpool. There's no good reason why it should be exceptional in any way - it was a Roman fort, Coccium, during the occupation, with no distinguishing features, and no real artifacts of value. Since the turn of the century, Wigan keeps getting noticed. It was the only town in the North-West to declare for King Charles against Cromwell, and, even then, it resisted for months. George Orwell inexplicably chose to use it as the model for urban decay in "The Road To Wigan Pier". Wigan is still, to many people, the stereotypical Northern town, and the place has passed into UK folklore. For no good reason, the popular 70's musical movement, Northern Soul, was based, if anywhere, at the Wigan Casino Rugby League, an increasingly popular sport, has Britain's best team based in Wigan. They are probably the most successful and dominant professional sports team in the world. Why Wigan? Why not St. Helens, or Bury, or Bolton, or Burnley, or Preston, or Oldham or Warrington, all very similar towns within 30 miles of Wigan - why do these things (amongst others) keep happening to the place and not to any of it's neighbours? Is there a reason? Yes. Wigan is the centre of a unique and strange magical phenomenon. NO magical effect or supernatural ability has ever been successfully utilised in an area of approximately a square mile and a half around the town centre. There is no known Node or Caern here. No Wraiths have ever been observed. Mages find that they cannot successfully use magical effects. Kindred simply don't go there. There are no Garou within 20 miles anyhow. It has no connection to Arcadia, and the whole town is pretty Banal anyway. The area is roughly defined, and it seems to be growing, albeit slowly. There is no obvious centre of the effect, and no explanation for it. The only people really qualified to study it are the Mages, the only tools they can use don't work. It's not that they don't happen, but, far worse, that they go wrong. Anything a Mage tries to do will not work as planned, and will, most likely, botch. Paradox behaves in much the same way here, however..... Naturally, those who know about it (and few do), are obsessed with it. Furthermore, the place seems to be deliberately attracting attention, increasingly as time goes by. Wigan is rarely out of the news for very long, never for anything especially major, but always there. No Mages have ever been born within this boundary. A cabal of four Marauders set up here once. One was killed crossing the road, one accidentally got dragged into the Umbra and was never heard of again, one took a heroin overdose and one inexplicably became cured of her main psychoses and killed herself. The Nephandi have never apparently come here, and if asked, refuse to acknowledge the existence of such an effect. The Kindred of Wigan avoid the area, as their Disciplines do not work properly, even though the Prince (who is the Brujah prince of Manchester and Liverpool, Ranulf) has declared the area Elysium. Some Hermetics have made a theoretical study of the area, and believe it to be tied to the Wyld in some way - but why in the centre of an industrial town? And what happened to the Marauders there? The Sons of Ether believe that a magical effect will eventually be uncovered that will allow the secrets of the place to be revealed. The Verbena believe it to be the work of an Oracle of Entropy or Prime, and maybe they have the right of it. The Garou think it amusing. But they don't go there either. The Technocracy hate it - but what can they do about it? No-one's sure what the Umbra around this area is like, as you can't get to or from it here......... Someone must know. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Comments are absolutely welcomed, but there are deliberately no specifics. Cheers, Charlie (*) Some of the Australians may disagree! But Wigan dominate here.