KEY ARTICLES
HOUSE RULES

We have a dedicated article on House Rules. These are evolving to meet the needs of players, and to balance various conflicting elements of the Mage and Changeling game lines.

In general, the rules default to those in M20 and V20 - including damage, botches, thresholds, etc.

CHARACTER CREATION

We have detailed articles on both Character Creation for Changelings and Character Creation for Mages. See also Creating Chimerae and Creating Totems and Familiars.

At present, the game is a crossover between Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming. As such, there are specific Crossover Rules that you should read. The game will include changelings from the Seelie Court and Unseelie Court, plus a number of Tradition mages as player characters.

Antagonists and NPCs will gradually be added to the Dramatis Personae section as and when PCs meet them.

There are a number of antagonists and other Night-folk/Prodigals, including vampires (you'll be unlikely to meet any of them except the city's single Kiasyd, Lucas Ardel), lupines and wraiths.

COMBAT

We'll be using M20/V20 rules for combat (including the three different types of damage and the new rules for multiple actions and splitting dice pools). Check out our Combat section for detailed rules on fighting and violence.

MAGIC

Check out our article on Glamour Systems for cantrips and True Magick for mage effects.



SETTING

NB: The 'Cottonopolis' setting itself is based upon a novel-in-progress by ST Adam Lowe. (Cannibalising NaNoWriMo FTW!) The rest of the setting information is adapted from Isle of the Mighty (which is not without its errors - such as locating Manchester in the 'Midlands').

Manchester

AKA Cottonopolis, Coketown, Madchester, The City of the Red Rose, The City of Darkness, etc.

Manchester is part of the Kingdom of Smoke (formerly the Kingdom of Wool), ruled  by King Davey Wheelwright, a Nocker with a fondness for chimerical siege engines and Lady Ellyndil of the Principality of Tears. Manchester is the largest city in Lancashire, in the North West of England. The urban sprawl around the city is known as Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county with a population of 2.7 million. It encompasses ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the cities of Manchester and Salford.

Manchester is a city exploded and rebuilt, comprising the jagged skyline of 1950s towerblocks, the rising sceptres of post-2008 apartments and the glistening architecture of empty shopping malls designed to revive the economy but failing to do much beyond glinting evilly in the sunlight.

Much of Manchester city centre was bombed by the Luftwaffe, and later again by the IRA. In a fit of civic pride, the city began to rebuild, with even loftier buildings and loftier aspirations. Manchester would become, it was hoped, a second city for the UK. It would rival London once more.

Before that, it was a city of warehouses and mills, and one of the world's manufacturing hubs. Its canals ran with ink and the blood of the slave trade that fuelled the local cotton industry. Wraiths of children mutilated by the machines of the mills still linger.

But Manchester is also a city of invention and imagination. Here Alan Turing was born - the genius whose code-breaking helped win the Second World War. Writer Quentin Crisp died here in the bed of one of his fans, who had taken pity on the skin-flint older gentleman and given up his room for him. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters fought for women's rights here. Meanwhile, the Peterloo Massacre was a key fight for civil liberty in Britain.

For visual reference, see images of:

Tariff Street (by the entrance to Cottonopolis)
Piccadilly Basin (also by the entrance to Cottonopolis)
First Street (a key space for arts and culture, housing theatre/gallery/cinema HOME, and a trendy new hotel)
Merchant's Warehouse
The Grand Apartments (for a good view of refubished warehouse apartments)
Deansgate (for a good view of our canalside culture)
Sharp Street (where new meets old)

PLACES

The Albion Well

Read more about the Albion Well under Magic Places.

Ancoats

Ancoats is the area known as Cottonopolis proper: a sea of old mills, warehouses and industrial sites, on the surface it's all brick and steel. But here, beside the canal, the spirit of eureka thrives. All the city's creative potential, its legacy of invention, has left the area awash with Glamour (and Quintessence). It's not just nockers that make this area home, though, as kithain of all stripes set up base in the freehold of the Spindle.

Here, the great spirit called the Seamstress keeps the magic of Cottonopolis alive, and its vast spinning machines moving. The Steamstress controls the district of Ancoats, but is (in theory at least) a subject of Count Jake Carmine, whose territory spans the entirety of the city. The Seamstress is allowed the freedom to do as she pleases on her own turf - which her entourage has taken to encompass the nearby Northern Quarter too. She employs a coterie of 'spinsters' and 'tailors': mortal hedge mages and Nockers who serve as her elite guard. Strangely, however, there are no other true mages in the Seamstress' ward.

To find Cottonopolis, you need a guide. The entrance is shrouded in magic. But there are those who have sailed canal boats under the influence of good wine and a fine summer evening, only to find the waters running purple with die and the geese replaced with patchwork turtles. To carry on would be to find Cottonopolis, and the fae who call it home.

The Gay Village

Pookah have taken up residence in the Richmond Warehouse on Richmond Street, just behind the city's infamous Canal Street. (More information forthcoming.)

For more information on the history of The Gay Village, read this article.

Chinatown

Manchester's Chinatown is next to the Gay Village, and is home to eshu and at least one circle of hsien. While it is said the hsien guard some ancient Chinese god, nobody believes a word of it, of course. (More information forthcoming.)

Tatters

Opened by bartender Rodney Haversham as Tapestry, Tatters is a cafe and cyber cafe that, during the 90s, became a hangout for Virtual Adepts and pooka. Over the years, however, the venue changed hands, and now it is a hipster bar called Tatters. Rodney Haversham bought the business back at the end of 2012, and so the bar still serves a mean coffee during the daytime, but gone are most of the Virtual Adepts, to be replaced by sluagh and at least one or two ghouls.

Salford

Just across the river from Manchester is the neighbouring city of Salford. Less wealthy, but benefiting from the recent investment that has come from the building of MediaCity UK and the Imperial War Museum. MediaCity UK is the new home for the BBC and ITV outside of London, where most of the BBC's programming is made.

Salford is governed by House Leanhaun of the Unseelie Court, with Countess Roisin Gravely claiming the area as her domain. She and the Seamstress have an accord and often work together, although each is thought to privately the other's sphere of influence. Roisin recognises that the Seamstress is the real player in Manchester.

FAE AND THE CITY

Formerly known as The City of Darkness, a resurgence of glamour and creativity in the city has seen its local fae population embracing an older name: The City of the Red Rose. As the largest city in the county of Lancashire, seat of the House of Lancaster, the city's emblem is the red rose. Traditionally, the city has entertained a playful rivalry with Leeds, the largest city in Yorkshire, the seat of the House of York whose emblem was the white rose. (Note: Although York is the 'seat' of the House of York, it is much smaller than Leeds, which has emerged as a serious contender for 'second city' status in the UK. Likewise, the competition between Leeds United and Manchester United has played a large role in this rivalry.)

Manchester is thought to have the highest percentage of Autumn People in Albion, with a large population of Dauntain too. Count Jake Carmine teamed up with the Seamstress and Countess Roisin Gravely to help counter this problem, and there appears to have been some degree of success. The Banality of the city appears to be somewhat on the decline, although nearby cities such as Blackburn, Preston, Bolton and Wigan have reportedly become more Banal as a result. Countess Gravely has also been known to complain about increased intrusions by the Dauntain into some of the poorer areas of Salford.

MAGES IN MANCHESTER

The Traditions

The Traditions have a strong presence in Manchester. Verbenae, Sahajiya, Hermetics and The Society of Ether all call the city home, but it is perhaps the Virtual Adepts who are most powerful, claiming this as their own 'Turing Town'.

The Technocracy

The Technocracy largely leaves the Traditions alone - or, at least, has done historically. The city's presence at the forefront of technology and progress, however, means that they've had it on their 'To Do' list for a while.

MORE INFORMATION