Pre-Modern History (1096-1712)

Occultatum Concilium

The Crusades

Pax Occultum, it was a truly different time. Before the Veil and Unveiled world were estranged, magic was an intimately familiar part of our culture and everyday life. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the great struggle between Christendom and Dar al-Islam; it was as much an era of conflict as it was an era of competition, the quest for religious supremacy, political dominance, and the superiority of mystical arts. This era was known as The Golden Age of Thaumaturgy.

Pope Urban II mandated the sons of God for the conquest of the Holy Land; he opened the path to a profound cultural exchange between Christendom and Islam. Fostering a deeper exploration, the knowledge of the Occult found appreciation in both spiritual reverence and practical utility: Diligent monks and knightly orders alike played a central role in spearheading thaumaturgic practices, giving rise to some of history's most powerful sorcerers who fought in the Crusades.

And so, when King Richard I voyaged back to his Angevin domain, he brought with him the traditions of European Esotericism, the arcane science of Islam, and soldiers of the Crusade. When Jerusalem fell once more to the Ayyubids, the knights of an old Order instead settled down and built castles, finding new life as Occult Lords and Barons of England.

The Council of Cavallon

Battle of Crecy Froissart

The noble houses of Europe heavily relied on thaumaturgy as a display of power and influence, ushering in a unique culture of mysticism. Each family researched and developed their brand of the thaumaturgic art, emphasising the demonstration of power. Knights received tutelage in thaumaturgy alongside history, martial arts, and the humanities. Ritualistic and elemental thaumaturgy became intrinsic to military strategies, frequently changing the outcomes of battles.

As Edward III lay claim to the French throne, so began the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Calling upon the powers of the occult nobility, the Occultatum Concilium provided great council to the kings of England. Knights that once fought side by side at the Golden Age, now unleashed upon themselves the powers that were accumulated and refined over generations, eclipsing even the zenith of the Crusaders. By Henry V's victory at Agincourt, the influence of the Occult Lords of England reached that greatest form, consolidating under the Council of Cavallon.

The War of Roses

It was at the Siege of Orléans that fate revealed itself to have not abandoned France to English designs, and at Castillon that Charles VII stood victorious over England's shattered continental ambitions. Thus, the House turned inward upon itself; A series of civil wars over the throne occurred, known as the Wars of the Roses. The Council of Cavallon was split into a complex set of factions over who should become the king of England.

Battle of Bosworth Field

Through purges and betrayals, the thorns cut deep and bled the English nobility, sparing none, as many of the Occult Houses went extinct without any heirs. In the end, neither of the great houses came out on top, with Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York in 1486 giving reign to the House of Tudor.

The Council of Cavallon will never hold the same level of influence it would enjoy, as Henry VII became wary of the powers of the occult. Scarred by the outpour of Thaumaturgy, Britain grew stranger, besetting the isle with aberrations and supernatural forces. These conditions would make way for Pope Callixtus III's Auctoritas Imperata to enter the fair shores of Britannia.

The Auctoritas in Britain

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam

Emerged out of the lawlessness of the Civil Wars, the English branch of the Auctoritas Imperata was part of an early attempt by the Papacy to establish a grand unified front against the Turkish incursion into Europe through supernatural means — a wealth of strange artefacts laid across Europe, which powers proved vital against the monsters of the Ottomans.

With the loyal followers of Christ, the bishops act to secure English artefacts in the British Isles. Through them, the will of the Church is carried out. The Council of Cavallon, withered by the civil war and outnumbered, was, for the first time, challenged. The authority of the Occult Lords was resisted by Catholic followers who believed the blessed Auctoritas to supersede the aristocracy.

In 1494, Pope Alexander VI issued a decree to the English Isles that any pieces exhibiting monstrous effects were to be declared under Papal ownership, and thus under the Auctoritas. King Henry VII, eager to weaken the Council's influence in the English Court, welcomed Papal officials and helped confiscate centuries-old family relics and cursed artefacts under Church jurisdiction, leading to the First Division in England's occult sphere. As the Auctoritas Imperata continues to establish herself across Europe, the Kingdom of England has always provided reliable support to enact Church policies, finding steadfast allies in Henry VII, the bloody Mary I, and even the Butcher King James I.

His Majesty’s Subjugation Office

The Divider, the Defender, and the Butcher King

Yet the Threefold Separation that defined our history has yet to reach its conclusion. When Henry VII died, the Tudor Crown fell upon Henry VIII. Under King Henry VIII, the Crown expanded England's vaults of forbidden artefacts, and it was he who would enact the Witchcraft Act, which suppressed the contamination of Occult and mundane, a visionary approach to the supernatural.

His greater legacy lay in defying the Papacy. The Act of Supremacy (1534) named Henry VIII the sole head of both Crown and Church in England, severing Rome’s authority and granting the monarchy independence in matters of faith and the supernatural alike.

This ended the uncontested rise of the Auctoritas Imperata, yet Henry gave no favour to the declining Council of Cavallon. Instead, he founded His Majesty’s Subjugation Office (HMSO), claiming for the Crown all artefacts, anomalous or not. This “Second Division” crippled both Auctoritas and Council, completing the Threefold Separation and laying the foundations of Britain as an independent occult power. Even Queen Mary I’s efforts at dissolution could not unseat the sovereignty of the Sceptred Isle.

Upon her ascension, Queen Elizabeth I renewed Crown support for the HMSO, funding it directly from the Treasury and empowering it through decrees that allowed the forcible acquisition of items of supernatural significance. Under the Act of Superiority, she declared England’s primacy over the occult and her sovereign right to command it in service of the Crown.

As tensions with Catholic Spain escalated into the Anglo-Spanish War, Elizabeth I turned to new means of defence. Guided by Sir John Dee and Sir Francis Walsingham, she forged pacts with thaumaturges, cunning folk, and otherworldly entities. Known as the Tilbury Bargain, these contracts bound sorcerers and elfish warriors to fight for England, while Her Majesty's Nightmarish Fleet of monsters and plunged Spanish vessels into the deep ocean.

The Death of the Invincible Armada at the hands of Francis Drake and the Promise-at-Tilbury

Yet within her forces, noble councils oppressed titleless sorcerers and cunning folk, driving calls for reform. To secure loyalty and prevent division, Elizabeth granted peerage to her occult servants. Bound by the Tudor Vow, they received hereditary titles in exchange for lifelong service to the Queen—thus creating a new aristocracy of Occult nobles, and deepening the rift with the Council of Cavallon.

The Scottish-Faelic Wars

In Scotland, things took a different course. Now believed to have been the victim of an Unseelie, the young King James VI of Scotland grew increasingly paranoid, convinced of a malevolent conspiracy directed against him. Determined to take vengeance on those who sought to assail the crown with black magic, he launched the North Berwick Witch Trials of 1590, which soon escalated into the largest systematic purge of thaumaturges in the British Isles.

Ira deorum

With his doctrine outlined under the Daemonologie, the practice of Thaumaturgy was universally decried as heretical and its practitioners condemned as agents of Satan. So-called "witches", regardless of innocence or authenticity, were snatched by a regime of inquisitors, suffered brutal tortures, and executed under false confessions.

Among the many victims of James VI’s extermination campaigns were the Seelie faeries of Elphame. Pursuing the trails of captured “witches” into the Scottish lowlands, his Black Hunters forced their way into the Otherworldly kingdom. His decree would earn James VI. Thus was the Scottish-Faelic Wars, or the Rightful Cause as it was declared by the James VI.

Thousands of soldiers flooded into Elphame, cutting down the Seelie by the hundreds. The conflict only deepened after James VI inherited the English Crown as James I of England and Scotland, when both His Majesty’s Subjugation Office and the Council of Cavallon were turned against Elphame’s native magics. The murder and sacrifice of the Queen of Elphame banished the Anglo-Scottish army from ever setting foot in the ruins of Elphame, leaving only a third of the inhabitants standing at the War's conclusion.

For the rest of his reign, the Butcher of Faeries enforced relentless suppression of thaumaturgy, driving it into secrecy among fractious noble houses. In contrast to the continent, where the Auctoritas Imperata fostered flourishing study, Britain under James I entered a long decline.

On his deathbed in 1625, James I was seized by a violent fever and, beneath the weight of a thousand curses, twisted into the first recorded Bacchanal. The monstrous being that rose out of its deathbed was known as the Butcher King. It would ravage England and Europe for four decades, its reign of terror culminating in the Great Plague of London (1665–1666). Only the combined might of renowned thaumarchs and Elfish champions finally brought the creature down.

The English Civil Wars

With the death of the Tudors and the rise of the Scottish Stuarts, King Charles I’s absolutist rule soon clashed with Parliament. From 1629 onward, his assertion of divine right provoked resistance on all fronts: the Presbyterian Covenanters in Scotland, the Puritan Parliamentarians in England, and the Catholic Confederates in Ireland. Even His Majesty’s Subjugation Office, long tied to Parliament, turned against him when Charles sold off treasured artefacts for coin and ceded authority over occult affairs to the Council of Cavallon.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine

When the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 opened the English Civil War, Cavallon’s nobles rode to Charles’s side while the Subjugation Office stood with the Parliamentarians under Thomas Fairfax. Yet their vaunted sorcery, once the terror of Europe, was now a shadow of itself. Soldiers spoke of spells misfiring, rituals breaking mid-cast, and nobles more concerned with their titles than with power they could scarcely wield. Tales of generals commanding the dead and whispering with beasts spread like rumour, but in truth, the magic of the age was dim and unreliable.

The Royalists’ overreach soured many who might have stood with them. By the 1640s, several noble houses had already abandoned their traditions or inherited little more than fragments of lore. Disillusioned with Stuart absolutism and with the decay of thaumaturgy itself, the nobility began pressing for separation between the mundane and the magical. It was a movement that coalesced into calls for the Curtain Act.

When Charles I tried to invoke the Tudor Vow to bind the sorcerers to him, he was repudiated. The nobles questioned his right to Elizabeth’s legacy, while many threw their support behind the Curtain Act. The rise of the New Model Army sealed the King’s fate. Organised, disciplined, and increasingly free of reliance on fading sorcery, Parliament’s forces broke the Royalists and their weakened thaumaturges.

In their final desperation, Charles and Cavallon’s remnants retreated into their keeps, squandering lives and resources on rituals that yielded little. When the war was lost, Cavallon’s witch-generals were executed, and Charles himself was beheaded in 1649, his curses forgotten almost as soon as they were uttered.

In the Restoration, Charles II reclaimed the throne. Unlike his father, he embraced the Curtain Act, dissolving the Council of Cavallon and decreeing that the public should be shielded from the supernatural. With that, the veil was officially upheld.

The Royal Congregation of Sorcerers

The court ceremony celebrating the establishment of the Royal Congregation of Sorcerers.

The years of the Stuart Restoration were marked by bureaucratic strife, as the Curtain Act forced the HMSO to draw hard boundaries between the mundane and the supernatural. Parliament sought to restrain the Crown, while the monarchy itself, wary of another Cromwellian collapse, worked to keep the occult firmly under control.

Oversight fell to the King’s Shadow, charged with containing rogue remnants of the Interregnum and extinguishing curses that lingered in Britain’s scarred landscape. Operating independently of both court and Parliament, the Shadow began shaping the doctrine of separation between the seen and unseen.

Meanwhile, the Subjugation Office found itself overextended, pressed by colonial ventures abroad and outbreaks of sorcery at home. Thaumaturgy in Britain was not exterminated as it was when under the Jacobians. Yet, it remained heavily suppressed, practised only in secrecy and always under threat of exposure.

By the opening decades of the 18th century, it became clear that neither brute suppression nor ad hoc oversight could contain the spread of thaumaturgy. In 1712, under Queen Anne and the HMSO, the remnants of the old Council of Cavallon were reconstituted as the Royal Congregation of Sorcerers (RCS). The Congregation was established as a permanent high command for Britain’s occult world, empowered to license or forbid thaumaturgic study, to decide what was to be veiled and what permitted, and to serve as arbiter between Crown, Parliament, and Office.

With its creation, Britain entered what scholars later called the Modern Age of Thaumaturgy: an era where sorcery was neither fully underground nor wholly free, but regulated by a Congregation whose rulings carried the weight of law.

CLASSIFIED

Early-Modern History (1712-1899)

The Colonial Thaumaturgies

Britannia Rules the Waves – Nicholas Habbe, 1876

Though the Curtain Act veiled Britain at home, it did not prevent the Crown from pursuing sorcery abroad. As the Empire expanded, so too did its hunger for occult knowledge. From Virginia to Calcutta, the Subjugation Office and the East India Company plundered rites, relics, and traditions, grafting foreign thaumaturgies into the British corpus.

By the century’s end, Britain stood as the preeminent occult power of Europe, but its supremacy rested upon the foundations of plunder. From the New World’s witches to the Maroon sorcerers, from Indian Thuggees to Aztec night terrors, every act of desecration left a mark. Every curse uttered in chains, every rite severed from its homeland, lingered like a shadow over the HMSO and the Crown’s occult dominion.

By the early 19th century, Britain’s vaults swelled with relics from every corner of the empire. Parliament, wary of royal monopoly, forced the Subjugation Office into the Atlantic Compact of 1721, dividing artefacts between monarch, Company, and Commons. The Compact checked absolutism, yet it also accelerated corruption: sacred traditions were transformed into commodities, dissected, weaponised, and displayed in London’s halls of power.

The HMSO, swollen on colonial spoils, mistook abundance for mastery. Yet the arts they absorbed were not inert knowledge; they were living pacts bound to land and lineage. Torn from their origins, they festered, and centuries of distortion, corruption, and oppression finally bled into the heart of Britain itself.

This was the birth of the Hanover Curse. It allowed the sons and daughters of Britain to drink deeper from the cup of thaumaturgy than any other, their minds and souls filling quickly with forbidden knowledge. But every cup has a bottom, and those who drank too deeply found themselves undone. In their excess, they were transformed into Bacchanals, monsters whose very forms bore witness to the ruin that follows when empire feasts too long upon the sacred.

French Competition

The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) marked the first true global conflict of thaumaturgy, but Britain’s triumph was not unchallenged. Every colony, every frontier was a duel with France. Not merely for land, but for relics, grimoires, and living wonders. French magisters, financed by Bourbon gold, scoured the Americas, Africa, and India in pursuit of the same occult spoils the Crown desired. Many of the rarest finds: fetishes of Dahomey, idols from Bengal, even fragments of druidic lore. All of which fell into French hands, denying Britain the monopoly it sought. The Empire brought the Subjugation Office wealth, but rivalry ensured its vaults were never full enough.

Then came Napoleon Bonaparte. In his rise, the scattered powers of Revolution were bound into a single imperial engine. His rule would give rise to his personal Légion Fantôme and the supernatural wonders they'd utilise in their war against the rest of Europe. Napoleon’s Phantom Legion plundered Egypt, Italy, and the Rhineland, bringing back relics older than Christianity itself. Paris became a second Rome, its vaults swollen with wonders stolen from three continents. Against this, Britain could only struggle to keep pace, its own imperial thaumaturges stretched thin from Bengal to the Caribbean.

28th Regiment at Quatre Bras — Elizabeth Thompson, 1875

Britain endured, but only narrowly. The Battle of Waterloo closed the age of Bonaparte, yet France’s shadow lingered. The great competition had shown that Britain could not rely forever on foreign plunder. If the empire abroad was contested, then the empire must be sought within. And so, in the aftermath, the Subjugation Office and the Congregation turned their gaze homeward to the forgotten Otherworlds of the Isles, where power older than Rome and older than Christ still lingered.

Concert of the Caliburn Union

The Matriarchs of Avalon – Nicholas Habbe, 1876

In 1814, the thin ley threads of the long-lost Avalon re-emerged to the bewilderment of scholars of the Royal Congregation. This discovery seemingly confirmed the theory set forth by the renowned thaumaturgist Sir Johan Eccleston: a hidden forth "leyline node" that may prove to be the key towards subjugating the entire Celtic Otherworlds.

Sir Eccleston's breakthrough ignited imperial ambition. The Subjugation Office declared that the Otherworlds must be treated as colonies-in-waiting, their resources and relics too rich to be left untapped. The overly eager sorcerers began to plan for a grand expedition into Avalon, promising Parliament new dominions more majestic than India itself.

In 1818, the Lusitania Company, organised and funded by the Royal Congregation, made significant efforts to colonise the island of Avalon, much to the retaliation of the Avalonian natives, starting a conflict known as the Anglo-Avalonian War. Every ship that drew close to the island was immediately obliterated by the island’s residents.

Picture of King James of Avalon

In the August 1818, after losing too many men and resources in the war, the Grand Sorcerer of the Royal Congregation intervened and personally met with 9 enchantresses of Avalon. The Avalonians agreed to join forces with the Royal Congregation to find the truth behind Avalon's return to Earth.

Their investigation led to the remains of John Quibell, a British soldier in the Sicilian campaign and a victim of the 1814 Malta plague epidemic. Furthermore, in his posthumous possession was the legendary sword Excalibur, the key behind Avalon's salvation through the process of Convergent Synchrony.

So it was with the Concert of Camelot (1819), Avalon agreed to extend the peace and lend the Royal Congregation a small piece of land in exchange for the custody of 14-year-old James Quibell, John's orphaned son. James was crowned king of Avalon, where he would soon face a challenge when Elphane faeries from the fractured realm of Elfame invaded, seeking to claim Excalibur for their own salvation.

Proving himself on the battlefield in full control of Excalibur's power, James secured the surrender of the Elfame belligerents, naming himself the Lord Protector of the Otherworlds and guarantor of Elfame's future in place of their deceased, but still revered Queen. Under the guidance of King James of Avalon, the newly created Parliament of the Elfame Commonwealth voted to unite with Avalon, forming the Caliburn Union with the Lord Protector at its head on April 23, 1819.

As Quibell was an honorary member of the Royal Congregation and is now the constitutional monarch of Avalon, the relationship between Britain and the Otherworlds became friendlier. King James of Avalon was given the responsibility of keeping the peace between the Otherworlds, maintaining the welfare of Britain, and protecting baseline Earth from the curse of malicious influences, among many other things.

Avenger of Rigor

Picture of Queen Jessamine of Avalon

On December 27th, 1830, King James I succumbed to the culmination of multiple curses and malevolent influences, predeceasing his heirs. The mantle of the crown subsequently fell upon his niece, 15-year-old Jessamine Chalon, hailing from a venerable Thaumaturgist lineage.

Henceforth, the right to wield Excalibur would be inherited by descendants with noble blood tracing back to King Arthur. Yet, none among them would endure beyond the age of 30, as they, too, fell victim to the malevolent influences and curses that inexorably drained the life force of the sword's wielder.

Tales of the Caliburn Union spread far and wide until Queen Jessamine was approached by Rhodri Dyfed, an officer from the Otherworld of Annwn, seeking the aid of Avalonian knights to overthrow the aged oligarchs of the towers after the fall of their capital to Y Ddraig Wen of the dreadful Fomorian monsters. Queen Jessamine pledged her support in exchange for Dyfed's loyalty.

Queen Jessamine embarked on the journey with an army of Avalon's finest knights, threading leylines together to form a direct path into Annwn. She arrived at Annwn and basked in the light of dawn. With the power of her sword, she dispelled the Sea of Chaos and slayed Y Ddraig Wen, becoming the Avenger of Rigor and Duke of Battles, while her knights deposed the tower chiefs. Thereafter, Rhodri Dyfed was elected the new Chief of the Fair Folks, where in the presence of his compatriots, Dyfed swore fealty to the Queen of Avalon, joining Annwn to the Caliburn Union in 1839.

Still, Queen Jessamine sought further expansion of the Caliburn Union, sending diplomats to the empire of Tír dé Danann that spans both Earth and the Otherworlds. Their initial warm reception ended in disaster soon after when Queen Jessamine's lack of knowledge of the Old Irish, the prestige tongue of Tairngire, gravely insulted their High King Diarmaid Dána.

After she died in 1842, a new succession crisis emerged. John and William, the posthumous twins of James I, wrangled the Lord Protectorate from the Chalons with backing from the powerful Orllyn family. John II the Longlived would be crowned by the Ennarchy and foster a greater era of peace between the Otherworld and the nations of Earth. Under the ministry of his son, the "stoneheart" Prince Arthur, both Avalon and Annwn saw rapid industrialisation.

The Gates

The first Gate came to light in 1821, when workers excavating beneath London’s Fleet Ditch for new sewer works broke into a vast stone chamber. Inside was an archway sealed by sigils of non-human design, pulsing faintly as though alive. The floor was littered with fragments of long-dead entities, bound to the threshold in perpetual suspension. Initial scholarly opinion suggested Roman origin, perhaps tied to the cult of Mithras. Yet HMSO thaumaturgists quickly disproved this, noting that the inscriptions bore a striking resemblance to the runic scripts used in the Faerie Courts.

Throughout the 1820s, more chambers surfaced in Edinburgh, York, Dublin, and Bath, each discovered during civic works or church restorations. Common traits emerged:

• Each Gate was sealed around a central reliquary, often a body radiating spiritual energy (saints, monarchs, or thaumaturges).
• Each exhibited suppression fields, reducing the thaumaturgic flux within its radius.
• Each was tied directly into local ley-lines, as though the city itself had been founded around the Gate.

The Rite of the Gates of Albion.

By 1829, HMSO formally designated these chambers “Gates of Albion.” The official doctrine stated they were "ancient fortresses against the intrusion of realms inimical to man," and their continued function was deemed critical to national security. The Gate would become an integral part of the Royal Congregation and HMSO's ritualistic rites.

Privately, internal memoranda reveal concern: the discovery that new Gates could theoretically be constructed was already whispered within Black Hunter circles by the early 1830s, starting with the construction of St. John's Gate beneath the foundation of what would later become the Elizabeth Tower.

The Black Hunters Corps

Picture of a Scottish Black Hunters Corps officer.

The reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) saw the peak of the Hanover curse, with one-tenth of Thaumaturgist agents within Great Britain succumbing to the Hanover Curse and turning into Bacchanals.

With the help of Prussia’s witch-hunting organisation, the Schwarz Jägre Freikorp, the Royal Congregation was able to suppress the monsters with the newly formed Black Hunters Corps, a branch of the British Army that deals with supernatural threats with the use of specialised sorcerers and weapons, many of whom were trained by la Grande Armée thaumaturgists in the art of taboo magic.

The public’s growing fascination with the occult gave rise to cunning folk, charlatan magicians, and secret societies that thrived in defiance of the Royal Congregation’s censorship; with extra-terrestrials, rogue thaumaturges, faeries, and even foreign gods slipping unnoticed through London’s backstreets. Across Britain, clandestine groups devoted to necromancy, daemonologie, and other forbidden arts flourished, often tracing their origins to Masonic clubs of the French Revolution or heretical hermetic churches, eventually coalescing into sects within the broader Nihil cults.

While the Royal Congregation kept its grip on London, the cities of Birmingham and Manchester turned into refuges for unregistered thaumaturgists and faeries, and even minor gods, where thriving black markets in anomalous materials took root. To keep Bacchanal outbreaks from consuming these growing population centres, the Black Hunters Corps struck hard, arresting or purging anyone at risk of becoming inebriated by the Hanover Curse.

It was during this era that the unofficial name Monarch Security came into use as an umbrella term for the numerous agencies that emerged within Britain’s veiled theatre. Although this title would not be officially recognized until 1964, multiple documents used it to describe their allegiance.

CLASSIFIED

Modern History (1899-)

Trenches of the Western Front

Military Intelligence Section 13

As the British Empire gradually consolidated, the government in London saw the need for a comprehensive study of the strange phenomena rumored to preside over the imperial periphery. The Department of Occultism and Phenomena Affairs (OPHA) was founded in 1899 under Lord Shepley, who embarked on the great survey of anomalies that would come to be known as the Black Domesday.

More pressing, however, was the growing Anglo-German rivalry and recognition of the strategic significance of occult warfare. As signs of anomalous militarisation by the German Reichsokkultabteilung (Imperial Occult Agency) grew abundant, the British government sought to expand its organisational capacity to counter the threat of Wilhelm II.

First in 1905, British government established the Bureau of Anomalous Research Operations (BARO), aiming to centralise the procurement and production of offensive thaumaturgic / anomalous technologies; Second in 1910, then-Secretary of State for War Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman replaced OPHA with the creation of Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 13 (MI13), a secretive intelligence branch, tasked with gathering information on hostile anomalies and other such supernatural threats employed by the Central Powers, particularly the veiled forces of the Ottoman and German empires. This network of organisations worked tirelessly to ensure Britain's parity with Germany in the occult theatre.

On the outbreak of war, the Ministry of Information intensified the promotion of British patriotism, exalting the virtues of wartime soldiers. This drew resonance with the thaumaturges and faeries of Britain, leading to the formation of a dozen Faery Volunteer Regiments.

Other-Front

In 1915, Eochaid mac Cathbhóthach, the embittered High King of a dwindling Tír dé Danann, was swayed to join the Central Powers, convinced by Freiherr von Schwarzwald of the IOA that the conquest of Avalon would rejuvenate his declining empire. There, he declared the last Imperial Wild Hunt, commanding the faeries of continental Europe to attack Entente territories.

From the Otherworld of Tairngire, the IOA invaded the Caliburn Union with their new specialised military corporation. The Avalon Campaign consisted of a joint German-Tairngire occupation of the Fair City of New Camelot (Jan 11, 1916 – Feb 28, 1916) and a naval attack on the island capital of Cadelswith. The Caliburn Union was accompanied by His Majesty's Nightmare Fleet and fought the IOA Fleet in the Battle of Avalon (Jan 30, 1916 – Feb 5, 1916), which concluded in a decisive Entente victory.

His Majesty's Nightmare Fleet at the Battle of Avalon

Enraged by this unprovoked act of aggression, King William II declares a total embargo on Tír dé Danann using Excalibur, closing off all ley line access to Tairngire Otherworlds, leaving the vassal kingdoms isolated. Joint French-Anglo-Avalonian forces descended upon peacemeal Tairngire territories like birds of prey, eradicating loyal faery Wild Hunters one stronghold after the other.

The Battle of the Somme (Jul 1, 1916 – Nov 18, 1916) proved especially brutal, but just east of Verdun was the Battle of Arthur's Pass (Jun 4, 1916 – Dec 14, 1916), where elfish soldiers faced fire and steel from the Kaiser's 'dragons' and 'tinmen'. The Great War left the faery population of Europe in a vulnerable state, leading to a gradual exodus to the New Camelot.

The conclusion of World War I marked a turning point. The Treaty of Buc, signed by Tairngire and the Entente (though notably excluding Avalon), renounced Tír dé Danann's control over remaining Otherworlds across the Atlantic, fully cementing the Caliburn Union as the definitive overlord of the Celtic Otherworlds. Following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, BARO underwent a transformative phase, merging with MI13 and gradually absorbing additional offices built during WW1.

The Draíocht Comission

IRA supporters defending Tairngire's ley network from MI13.

The Easter Rising of 1916 marked the first open rebellion in modern Ireland against British rule. Though suppressed by force, the executions of its leaders radicalised public opinion. Among them, Éamon de Valera was the central figure in the revolution. In the occult theatre, de Valera entered into a covenant with High King Eochaid, who regarded Ireland as his rightful vassal in the baseline realm. The pact guaranteed Tairngire’s recognition of Ireland’s sovereignty in exchange for Ireland serving as the Emperor’s earthly proxy.

During the War of Independence (1919–1921), the Irish Republican Army carried out a campaign of guerrilla warfare against Crown forces. Behind the veil, revanchist Wild Hunters and thaumaturgic auxiliaries backed the IRA, while Britain relied on Black Hunters and infantry detachments to secure Gates and suppress Aos Sí-aligned insurgencies.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State. In response, the newly crowned High King of Tairngire, Airgthech Imlech, formally aligned his court with the liberated Irish state. He rejected full integration into the Caliburn Union and insisted that all future negotiations be conducted through Dublin, effectively securing Tairngire’s independence.

Following these events, HMSO, MI13, and the BHC ceased to exercise federal authority in Ireland. In their place, the Irish Government established the Coimisiún Draíocht, charged with the regulation and administration of Ireland’s domestic occult affairs.

The Anomaly Boom

Upon the discovery of the Anomaly Boom. Image courtesy of the Authority Research Division.

Shortly after the conclusion of WWI, the BARO and MI13 observed a concerning surge in anomalies, accompanied by a steady decline in thaumaturgy and ley-adjacent systems across the Western world. Increasingly, paranatural phenomena began manifesting in ways that could not be detected through conventional thaumaturgic methods. Many within the Royal Congregation panicked, calling it the death of magic, and the birth of the anomalous.

While Britain’s exposure to this phenomenon was somewhat negated by its strong thaumaturgic presence, organisations such as the Authority, the US Department of Abnormal Occurrences (USDAO), and their Russian-German counterparts underwent rapid internal restructuring to address the crisis. Britain, however, remained slow to adapt and soon lagged in what became a global arms race for anomalous technology.

The crisis reached a diplomatic flashpoint during the League of Nations assembly in London, 1920, where the French delegation proposed strengthening the Brussels Convention in an effort to slow the accelerating rise of anomalies. The motion, however, ultimately failed to pass, and only left the clandestine agencies of the globe to further expand their occult agendas.

Crossfell Revolution

Queen Maribel during the Treaty of Recompense

Events of the Great War unnerved many within the Caliburn Union, especially by the devastation incurred upon the European faeries. The dramatic loss of Otherworlds and the surging influx of refugees into the Avalon; Many aspirants became disillusioned, seeing the Caliburn Union as a thin veneer for British imperialism.

Calls for an end to the Anglo-Faelic alliance mounted after the sudden death of Elfame First Minister Nehemiah James, who was a proponent of Elfame sovereignty.

In the 1920s, two factions arose, those being the Royalist and the Patriot Party. This conflict would be known as the Crossfell Revolution (Mar 16, 1921 – Jul 6, 1927)

• The Royalists, led by the Quibells and Chief Hywel of Annwn, believed in the Union's continued cooperation with the British Empire. They saw themselves as the guardians of tradition, advocating for the traditional ties that bound the Union to the Commonwealth.
• The Crossfellers, led by intellectuals in Eccleston University such as Sir Owain Crossfell, sought independence for the Union, viewing the British Empire as an oppressive force limiting their sovereignty. They argued for self-determination and the right to chart their political destiny.

Tensions reached their breaking point when Unseelie irredentists carried out an assassination on the royal family, killing three of the Quibell-Orllyn heirs, leading to a period of intense insurgency as Avalonian-Annwfin soldiers cracked down on the Crossfellers.

As the conflict eventually rested, the newly coronated Queen Maribel I and King George V came together in signing the Treaty of Recompense (July 6th, 1927), withdrawing British military presence from New Camelot, whilst the Caliburn Union reaffirms its commitment to the Monarch Security.

Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley, Gerald Gardner

Unveiled Occult Circles

Before and during the Second World War, Britain experienced a resurgence of occult and thaumaturgic organizations operating openly. Unlike the covert occult conflicts of the Victorian era, many of the circles that emerged between the 1920s and 1940s unveiled themselves to the public. This shift is widely attributed to the crisis of faith that followed the Great War, which fractured public trust in traditional religious and institutional authority.

During this period, numerous thaumaturgists broke away from MI13’s proxy organizations to establish independent orders. Most of these new circles traced their lineage to the Chaos Magicians of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the largest thaumaturgic society of the Victorian age.

Among the most notable unveiled circles were Dion Fortune’s Fraternity of the Inner Light, Aleister Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema, and Gerald Gardner’s New Forest Covenant. Although these groups were publicly engaged in a prolonged cold war against one another, the Royal Congregation was unable to intervene. Parliamentary directive redirected their attention toward the escalating crisis that would soon become the Second World War.

In an effort to prevent the further proliferation of thaumaturgic circles and the disclosure of classified occult knowledge, Lord Protector Mary II enacted emergency measures, sealing all gateways to the Celtic Otherworlds except for New Camelot. This decision was driven by the fear that public confirmation of fae existence would plunge Britain into deeper social and political instability.

Meanwhile, the unveiled thaumaturgic circles petitioned Parliament for alliance and asylum. They pledged to erect a spiritual barrier around Britain to counter foreign occult forces in exchange for protection from the Royal Congregation’s investigations. Parliament accepted this proposal, formally suspending all inquiries into the unveiled circles for the duration of the war. Parliament, under the wartime leadership of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and later Winston Churchill, accepted this proposal, formally suspending all inquiries into the unveiled circles for the duration of the war.

Globalization of the Occult War

Unity of Strength Together

With Führer Adolf Hitler’s rise and disruptive manifestations and militarisation anomalies across Europe, Britain was forced to take a stand against the Axis powers. The Deutsche Anomalieforschungsabteilung (German Anomalous Research Division), established in 1933 from the remnants of the Imperial Occult Agency, quickly abandoned all notions of containment and turned its efforts toward the systematic creation of anomalous weapons. To the Royal Congregation, this posed a threat to the integrity of the veil itself.

In response, the Black Coats were formally brought into the British war effort. MI13 operatives were dispatched across occupied Europe to monitor, sabotage, and dismantle GARD initiatives, often working in concert with the Authority and other Allied occult agencies under the RPC Authority Volunteer Army for the Allied Forces (RAVAAF) banner.

Although the combination of the British Empire and its Commonwealth was critical to the allied-efforts, the same can't be said about the unveiled theatre. The Axis powers were of advancement than anything Britain had ever seen, having taken advantage of the Anomaly Boom and the new world of occult science attributed to it. The Black Coats could no longer hold an entire legionary front as they had during WW1, and instead, they were relegated to supporting the unveiled armies.

Operation Barbarossa (Jun 22, 1941 – Dec 5, 1941) transformed the war into a metaphysical catastrophe. The Eastern Front became one of the largest occult battlefields in recorded history. German forces attempted to penetrate deep Eurasian ley concentrations, believing control of these zones would grant permanent regional dominance. Entire regions of forest and steppe became non-Euclidean warzones, where distance, time, and physical law fluctuated as rifts in reality began cracking as a result of the GARD's experiments.

The Blitz

St. Paul Destroyed

In 1940, Nazi Germany began bombing British civilians to try to get the United Kingdom under their submission in an event known as the Blitz (Sep 7, 1940 — May 11, 1941). Britain's defence was inadequate to German aerial bombing. At her darkest hour, Britain would see rapid, grassroot efforts across the entire national occult theatre. Efforts from the Inner Light Fraternity and Operation Cone of Power led by Gerald Gardner, contributed greatly to civil occult defence.

However, many bombs struck many HMSO stations, and some even managed to destroy the Gates that housed hostile entities. In response, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered a mass item relocation to be initiated under Operation Blackveil, and a third of all British military Thaumaturges were recalled to London in order to suppress the escaped anomalies.

The operation was slow and strenuous. Black Hunters Corps agents suppressed the monsters threatening the nation, even as the bombs continued to fall. However, by early 1941, the majority of escaped anomalies had been either destroyed, recontained, or had escaped permanently, never to be seen again.

The End of the War

Londoners celebrating VE Day

The final turning point came with the great Allied offensives of 1944–1945, when the combined forces of Britain, her dominions, and her allies broke the last strength of the Axis in Europe. From the west, the liberation armies advanced steadily across the continent, while from the east the German war machine collapsed under relentless pressure.

Eventually, Britain and her allies would emerge victorious in 1945. Through sacrifice, industry, and unyielding resistance, the United Kingdom withstood the fury of the Axis powers, defended its homeland, and helped carry the war from the ruins of Europe to final triumph.

UNAAC Assembly

First session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In the aftermath of WW2, the United Nations Anomalous Activities Committee (UNAAC) was established with the primary goal of fostering international collaboration, maintaining peace and security within the community of official anomaly-centric agencies, and upholding the global veil of secrecy surrounding the supernatural realm. The organisation's founding members included MI13, The United States Occult Community (USOC), and the Soviet Iron Initiative.

Although MI13 and HMSO would continue operations as separate governmental entities, the two agencies will continue operations as one under the new world order brought upon by the emergence of the UNAAC. From this point forward, MI13 emerged as Britain’s international face. In diplomatic sessions, policy negotiations, and multilateral interventions, it was MI13 that spoke on behalf of the HMSO, Royal Congregation, and Black Coats.

The Great Smog of London

Picture taken in December 7

On December 5, 1952, the Sea of Chaos seeped out of the Lord Protector’s gaze and consumed the whole of London. What to the outside world lasted four days stretched into a full decade within, the city looping into endless repetitions of its own streets and alleys. This event would be known as the Great Smog of London.

On the first day, officials rushed to confine the populace indoors, but by then time itself had slowed, and a barrier had already sealed London from the rest of Earth. St. John’s Gate became a haven for those who managed to reach it, as its personnel hastily armed themselves to hold against the existences from beyond the fog. HMSO officers and unregistered thaumaturges were forced into uneasy cooperation to contain the tide of frenzied Bacchanals that emerged across the city.

Only a few hours after the Sea of Chaos was detected, London was under full lockdown, the fog pressing harder, the city stretching further. Every neighbourhood seemed to lead only into more of itself, a labyrinth without end. The Black Hunters Corps and Royal Congregation fought street by street, but the scale was beyond any one force.

On December 9, after nearly ten years of being trapped inside, Lord Protector Gliton I, the Radiant descended upon the city with his Black Coat armies. The barrier began to fracture under his presence, and for the first time, survivors felt the fog beginning to recede.

On December 10, the fog collapsed. Time lurched back into place. UNAAC and the Authority entered London alongside the Royal Congregation, working frantically to restore order, reposition displaced survivors, and excise memory of the event before the rest of the world could notice. Nearly all veterans thaumaturges of the Second World War were lost in the fighting, and the residue of the fog lingered in survivors as festering illnesses. Survivors of the Great Smog - the Class of '52, be it a blessing and a curse, continues to stand as the pinnacles of thaumaturgy to this day.

Monarch Security

The opening of Monarch Security. 1964

On December 1st, 1964, after decades of bureaucratic friction and jurisdictional overlap, the newly inaugurated Queen Elizabeth II decreed the consolidation of Britain’s disparate occult organs into a single command. Her Majesty’s Subjugation Office, the Black Hunters Corps, and the Royal Congregation of Sorcerers were folded into a new body christened Monarch Security, a name that was colloquially used to describe the larger body of Britain's multiple agencies since the Victorian era. The unification ended nearly a century of inter-office rivalry and created, for the first time, a centralised veiled authority for Britain.

This decision, however, provoked unease among the governmental bodies of the Caliburn Union. The Lord Protector, Catherine I of Avalon, voiced strong concern on behalf of the Otherworld territories. She warned that Queen Elizabeth II's centralisation of the empire’s occult organs threatened to tip the balance of power, transforming the Caliburn Union from an alliance of peers into a vehicle of British dominance.

Elizabeth, unwilling to fracture the Union nor yield her consolidation, reached a compromise. The monarchy’s place within Monarch Security was defined as institutional rather than absolute, ensuring that the Caliburn Union retained its autonomy. Thus was the legislation of the Round Table Act of 1964, which created the High Command of Monarch Security.

The Economic Reforms

Argentine military personnel after the capture of the Falkland Islands

The Economic Reforms of the 1980s brought lasting consequences to Britain’s anomalous establishment. In the course of wider government restructuring, BARO was formally dissolved, HMSO budgets were reduced, and a number of research facilities were either closed or transferred into private hands. Anomalous sciences, once maintained within the state, began to fragment into corporate and academic sectors.

The UK government’s control over its populace had steadily increased since the 1970s, leading to mounting opposition and social unrest. MI13 came to fully adhere to Parliament’s directives, a stance that often put it at odds with the broader priorities of Monarch Security and created tension within the organization.

The Falklands War (Apr 2, 1982 – Jun 14, 1982) was a clear example of this dynamic. Parliament ordered extensive deployment of both conventional forces and anomalous technologies to reclaim the islands. While the operation enjoyed widespread public support, it sparked internal controversy within Monarch Security over the overuse of anomalous assets, highlighting the growing internal tension in the agency.

The Modern Theatre

The Royal Congregation in the 2020 Address

By the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the balance of power within the veiled world increasingly shifted in favor of the RPC Authority. The study of anomalies became better understood, prompting Monarch Security to pivot its focus toward anomalous research rather than thaumaturgy.

This reformation was a slow process, as MI13 continued to depend on the British branch of the Authority for support. Much of Monarch Security’s research into non-thaumaturgic anomalies was shared with the Authority, which showed diminutive interest thaumaturgic arts as an independent field of research.

It was only in 2018 and 2020 that Monarch Security fully regained its footing in modernization, as MI13 became more involved in the global theatre than at any time since the Second World War. This was also the period during which Parliament sought to reconcile with the broader Monarch Security, fearing it was becoming more loyal to the Caliburn Union than to the United Kingdom and Commonwealth.

By that time, nearly 11% of Monarch Security’s staff consisted of faeries and humans from the Otherworld, who regularly moved and worked between the two realms. This was followed by increased censorship of the faery population, prompting many members of Monarch Security to withdraw from the mainland.

In the end, a compromise was reached in the 2020 Address: Parliament conceded greater operational independence to Monarch Security in exchange for the establishment of formal oversight committees and regular reports to Westminster. The Parliamentary overseer was granted expanded authority to direct MI13’s activities as a global entity, while Monarch Security’s remaining departments, with the exception of the Royal Congregation, were reoriented toward domestic responsibilities.

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