The Geography of Death

Raven’s cry Tempest’s roar Harbinger: What word do you bring? .		. Lights flashing Floor creaking Haunter: Who do you fear?
Crying, laughing Raging, sighing Chanteur: What do you sing? .		. Steadfast, watching Patient, waiting Monitor: Who do you watch?
Iron collars Black whips Pardoner: Who do you cleanse? .		. Crash and burn Smash and crack Spook: What do you break?
Sand shining Tattered dreaming Sandman: What lies do you tell? .		. Hammer and tongs Ringing in song Artificer: What do you make?
Cards and crystals Coins and stars Oracle: What do you see? .		. Flesh and soul Parts of a whole Usurer: What do you charge?
Silent stillness Faded glimpses Proctor: Who do you serve? .		. Clip and cut Nip and tuck Masquer: Who do you hide?
Smile and frown Walk and dance Puppeteer: Who do you own? .		. Needing, feeding Lying, desiring Solicitor: Who have you won?
Mildew and moss Rusted and lost Alchemist: What seeds have you sown? .		. Memory and thought Stolen and bought Mnemos: What have you done?

— Originally appeared in Wraith: the Oblivion 1st Edition;
Alchemist, Solicitor, Mnemos by James O’Rance.

The Guilds were once fraternal organisations uniting those who pursued mastery in a particular Arcanos. After a series of uprisings, the Imperator of Stygia’s Hierarchy, Charon, disbanded the Guilds. Though the Guilds are still officially illegal, they were never entirely disbanded and since Charon's disappearance during the Fifth Great Maelstrom in 1945 they have begun to make a comeback.

  Three of the Guilds were banished from Stygia long before the other Guilds were disbanded: the Alchemists, the Mnemoi, and the Solicitors. These Guilds were broken for their crimes against Stygian society, and will never be forgiven. The Mnemoi, in particular, have been hated and feared for centuries, due to their powers to discover and even control the memories of others

The Legions of Stygia

The Legions of Stygia are the military and police force of the Hierarchy. The Legions were orignially created when Charon delegated power to his closest advisors in order to simplify the process of conducting souls through the Underworld. Each Deathlord (as they came to be called) was given jurisdiction over certain groups of souls, divided according to the manner of their deaths. Charon’s reasoning was that in order to resolve the conditions that kept them stranded in the underworld, wraiths needed to confront the circumstances of their deaths and reconcile themselves to their fate.

  When Charon’s Proclamation of Reason outlawed the Heretics and declared, in effect, that Transcendence was a myth, the purpose of the Legions changed drastically. no longer concerned with helping wraiths attain the mythical Transcendence, the Legions became power groups among the Restless Dead. After the disappearance of Charon during the Fifth Great Maelstrom in 1945, the deathlords have become an oligarchy that rules Stygia and the Hierarchy.

  Each Legion has its own style, techniques, artifacts, and special capacities. However, there is a variety of individuals within each Legion; not all members of the Penitent Legion are mad, nor are the Legionnaires of the Grim Legion uniformly prone to violence. Death comes to those of all classes, temperaments, and abilities.

The Emerald Legion •  Victims of Happenstance •  Overseen by the Emerald Lord from the Seat of Thorns The Grim Legion •  Victims of Violence •  Overseen by the Smiling Lord from the Seat of Burning Waters The Iron Legion •  Victims of Old Age •  Overseen by the Ashen Lady from the Seat of Shadows The Legion of Paupers •  Victims of Mystery •  Overseen by the Beggar Lord from the Seat of Golden Tears The Penitent Legion •  Victims of Madness •  Overseen by the Laughing Lady from the Seat of Succor The Silent Legion •  Victims of Despair •  Overseen by the Quiet Lord from the Seat of Silence The Skeletal Legion •  Victims of Pestilence and Famine •  Overseen by the Skeletal Lord from the Seat of Dust The Legion of Fate •  Fate’s Chosen Servants •  Overseen by the Ladies of Fate from the Isle of Eurydice

The Orphic Circle

The Orphic Circle is a scholarly society that knows a great deal about the mysteries of the Underworld. To gain such knowledge, however, sacrifices are required – often quite literally. Many members sacrifice the living and the dead to obtain information about mortality... and to sate their own curiosity. To them, the highest goal of existence is to rediscover the sacred Mysteries of the Underworld that Orpheus took from Hades. A chief Orphic god is Eubouleus (also known to many as Dionysus). Destined by his father Zeus and his mother Persephone to be Lord Over All, he is now lord of the Underworld, god of Nether World, and god of wine, pleasure, and immortality.   Because some members of the Orphic Circle also hold memberships in other highly secret societies, every Orphic Circle member takes a mystically binding oath of secrecy.   Despite their common bonds, Orphics do not automatically know everything about the nature of their colleagues. Many an Orphic scholar has remained blissfully unaware that the ongoing acolyte he called his protégé was a necromantic vampire or a mage in disguise. In fact, most mortals within the Circle remain unaware that there are vampires and mages in their midst; likewise, many mages are unaware of vampires, and vise versa. Such secrets are even better kept than that of Circle membership. When they aren’t, members die.   The venerable tradition of the Orphic Circle reaches beyond recorded history into the shadows of a more mythic time. Current members believe that its founder was an Egyptian vampire named Lazarus whose fear of the second death led him to descend into the Underworld to seek true immortality. From his belief in the mysteries of the Isis-Osiris religion sprang the Court of the Orphic Circle, whose members even today practice rituals derived from many of Orphism’s Mysteries. The Orphic Circle still retains this time-honored tradition of the descent into the Underworld, after the legend of Orpheus who did the same. Today’s three hundred members uniformly share the desire to discover the true nature of death and immortality, and have come along way toward doing so. Consisting of scholars, vatics, death mages, vampires, and even some wraiths, the Orphic Circle promotes research in the Underworld and, like a well-greased piece of Machiavellian machinery, involves itself deeply and securely in the politics of the Restless.

Ranking System The Orphic Circle has two divisions: the Inner and the Outer Circles. The Inner Circle consists solely of the priesthood (The Ebon Bench), while the Outer Circle consists of the Orphic Circles’ membership. Members of the Outer Circle are all considered equal, although children are accepted into its ranks on rare occasions, and when this occurs, the child must defer to the Outer (or Inner) Circle member who sponsored him. Incidentally, in the Orphic fashion, children are allowed to attend all rituals and festivities held for Outer Circle members. Practices of the Orphic Circle Many of the practices of the modern Orphic Circle are based on the ancient Orphism and the cult of Dionysus. It is said that when the Greek hero Orpheus returned from the Underworld, he brought back with him precious scrolls which outlined the Mysteries of the afterlife and the precepts which mortals should follow in order to enjoy it. From these, the Orphic poems were written, memorised and passed on from one generation to the next. Eventually, a cult grew up around the poems, some of the beliefs of which are: · Upon death we are judged on the basis of our deeds in life. If judged well, we enjoy feasts, sex and other pleasures in the afterlife. · The judge is known as Diké (Dee-kay). Sometimes depicted as a fierce huntress, sometimes as a punitive she-demon (poinai), Diké can be identified by her huge glossy black wings, the short loincloth and long boots she wears in the manner of ancient huntresses. She represents moral responsibility and the darker side of an otherwise very life-centered religion. · Life is joy; if life is not enjoyed, neither shall death be enjoyed. Thus, black clothes shall not be worn at the altar of the gods, and impurities must be purged before all sacred events. · Seek immortality in all things. Most blessed are those who create – actors, playwrights, poets, writers, artists, mothers and fathers. · The cosmogenic egg is most sacred. Appearing dead like a stone to the eye, it is nevertheless filled with life-power, and, from it, the universe mystically originates. Used properly, the sacred egg can restore the dead to life. Also sacred is the phallus, particularly when represented in a liknon (an oblong basket of wickerwork filled with fruit or corn and chaff and covered with a cloth from which protrudes what looks like a phallus) and the mask of the god Eubouleus.

Orphic Oath of Secrecy
  I, <name>, do hereby avow that my life is forfeit should I ever, by commission or by omission, reveal the existence of, the knowledge considered sacred by, or the names of the membership of the Orphic Circle.
  Should I commit such greivous error, I pledge to correct what I may before my execution, under the guidance of the Ebon Bench.
  Under such circumstances, I do consider the Ebon Bench fully entitled to carry out my execution and, should it become necessary, any deserved punishment in the afterlife.

The Solicitors

Even in shadowed Stygia, the Solicitors enjoyed a reputation that was dark. Always more of a cabal than a guild, the Solicitors were sought out by the great for the ways in which their special talents might tip the balance of intrigues. At the same time, common citizens avoided them, unwilling to become pawns in the games of manipulation that the wielders of Intimation played.   After the Mnemoi were discovered to be corrupt and cast out of Stygian society by Charon, things began to look grim for the Solicitors. If one Guild could fall, then so too might others. By the turn of the seventeenth century, the Lords and Ladies of the capital of the dead became unwilling to tolerate the risk of the Solicitors’ presence any longer and declared them banned from Stygia. Though all Guilds had been officially disbanded by this time, any who practiced or even held knowledge of this now forbidden Arcanos were made unwelcome in Stygia. This did little to alter the status quo, other than to raise the Solicitors’ rates for services rendered. Even today, if the art of manipulating desire is needed, a Solicitor can be found in almost any locale... assuming, of course, that one is willing to risk dealing with them.   The payment that Solicitors take is twofold. They will generally ask for some exorbitant price in oboli, relics, Artifacts, or services, with this being their official fee. In addition, the Solicitor always takes care to demonstrate explicitly for the potential client precisely what she is purchasing, generally by demonstrating on the client herself. Usually this treatment has the desired effects: namely, to impress upon the client the power of Intimation and to make her pliable to the Solicitor’s will for future occasions. In this way the Solicitors have enlisted many, many wraiths as their tools and agents over the globe.   The symbol of the Solicitors is a stylised catherine wheel, denoting their power to bend others to their will. Solicitors will often conduct psychological warfare on targets by causing toy wheels to be rolled past at appropriate moments. The effect is generally similar to that of the legendary fish wrapped in newspaper. In person, Solicitors can sometimes be identified by their gaze; unless pains are taken to disguise it, a Solicitor’s left eye is always a blazing, poisonous green. — Wraith Player’s Guide, page 153.

“We can make Charon reverse his decision. It will be difficult, and it will be expensive, but it can be done.” Salazaar, the head of the Solcitiors’ negotiating team sits at the head of the table wearing a pensive expression. “I cannot tell you the cost at the moment, for we have only dreamed of doing something on this scale, and never planned it.” He permits himself a small chuckle. “Or budgeted it, either.” Salazaar is an old man dressed in Spanish style, with a neatly trimmed white beard that emphasises the sharp angles of his face. behind him stand others of his Guild, hard-eyed men with hawklike faces, all of them. Each bears the glowing green eye that is the Guild’s sign, a sign that no one has yet been able to disguise save beneath the rags of the blind beggar. Minos of the Mnemoi sits at the other end of the table, cloaked in majesty and suspicion. He is alone. "“It is a generous offer,” Minos says. “But I wonder what I have done to earn your sudden generosity, Don Salazaar.” “You? Nothing.” The Solicitor smiles without humour. “Your damned judges and double-damned inquisitors have cost us many of our finest. Were circumstances otherwise, I’d pump the bellows for Nhudri just for the privilege of watching your transformation into a paving stone. But we must deal with the circumstances at hand, and the fact of the matter is that your banishment sets a bad, bad precedent. Charon has never cared about corruption before – look at the pack of thieves he'’s elevated to the Senate. I must confess I was surprised to hear that our esteemed Judge of judges was among those implicated, but never mind that. If Charon has a new love for law and honesty, that puts my people in a bad situation. If he can banish a Guild based on evidence as flimsy as that brought against the Mnemoi, then he can banish another one, and I can prmose you that we’re his real target. You'’re the test case, dear Minos. If he succeeds with you, he can move against the more difficult target with impunity. If he reverses your banishment, it’s reconsideration of a foolish policy move. If he exiles you and then recalls us, no matter how subtle we are, someone will cry foul. No, this needs to stop now if it will ever stop at all.” Minos closes his eyes. “No, Salazaar,” he says. “I appreciate the offer, but should your attempt fail, it would only make matters worse for,” he pauses for a smile, “me and mine. Besides, I think I will enjoy seeing your people banished, when Charon feels he has the strength to do so. Look for me in the dark places when that day comes, Salazaar. I’ll be waiting for you.” — Ends of Empire, page 127.

The Society of Unchained Dreams
  This surreptitious group is a private club of upper middle class and lower upper class thrill-seekers who have grown bored of the tame perversions that can be found in clubs such as Des Esseintes in Soho. The Society exists to uncover the primal, unrealised desires of its members, then to enact them in private “entertainments” held in a labyrinthine house in St. John’s Wood or specially-arranged locations elsewhere in London. These enactments are of questionable morality and are highly illegal – they often involve mind-influencing drugs and hired escorts pressed into service as extras in some degenerate script. Even eager participants in the enactments sometimes require medical treatment or counseling afterwards.

  Members of the Society uninvolved in a given enactment spend the evening’s “entertainment” in an uninhibited dinner party, usually but a few rooms away. Society gatherings often involve drug use – typically cocaine or designer drugs, provided by members of the Society. A few members are addicted to an exotic stimulant that they don’t like to talk about.

  The Society of Unchained Dreams includes among its members a highly-placed member of C.I.D., an experienced surgeon, several executives in the entertainment sector, a Minister of Parliament, and a highly respected psychiatrist, Dr. John Devereux. In addition to counseling members who come out of an enactment badly shaken, Devereux helps to discover the suppressed desires and forgotten dreams that inspire the enactments in the first place. Naturally, all of these high-profile careers would be ruined if details of the Society were to be made public, a threat sufficient to keep most members in line.
Necropolis London

 Seven million people live in London. The vast majority don't become wraiths when they die – less than one soul in 20 emerges across the Shroud in an environment as relatively calm and peaceful as Great Britain in the last decade. Far more people become wraiths in times of great suffering and calamity, and wraiths can last a very long time, with a little care and luck. In the modern day, about a million active wraiths inhabit the London Necropolis, including those who work directly for the Hierarchy, independent wraiths, Guildwraiths and wraiths in Thralldom for specific periods of time.

  About 50,000 wraiths occupy the Necropolis as short-term residents at any given moment. Thousands of messengers move through the Necropolis, or rest and recuperate before embarking on the next leg of their journeys, acting on behalf of Citadels, Legion garrisons, Byway inspectors and all the countless other branches of the Hierarchy. Hundreds of messengers also move on behalf of the Guilds, Heretic cults, Renegade bands and other groups not officially sanctioned. On most days tens of thousands of mercantile wraiths carry their goods, licit and otherwise. The Hierarchy attempts to track the movements of independent wraiths, but inevitably loses track of many and never detects others at all.

  A third of the wraiths in London died either in 1914–23 (The Great War and Spanish Influenza plague) or 1939–45 (World War II). The rest span the gamut of history from yesterday to pre-Roman antiquity.

  Living London forces constant change upon Necropolis London. Grand schemes for redevelopment of slums and run-down areas slam new walls through old Haunts, and when the walls enclose new spaces for commerce and living, Skinlands traffic follows to take advantage of them.

  The Thames runs approximately west to east through London. Haunts cluster most thickly along its banks in the central and east-central districts, from Blackfriar’s Bridge and the Tower of London to the Thames Barrier. The north bank holds more and larger Haunts than the south bank, since the north bank includes more large commercial facilities and official buildings of various kinds, with more large empty spaces that the living leave alone. The gradual decline of the London docks created opportunities for wraiths, since it proved cheaper for Skinlands businesses to develop new docks than to rehabilitate the old ones.

  While the docks host may of the city’s wraiths, every district of the city (and the metropolitan sprawl beyond city limits) hosts some Haunts. The crush of population and demand for space mean that few tracts of land remain undeveloped for long, but whenever there’s a run-down wing of a big building or a neglected neighbourhood, wraiths find shelter.

  Many East End wraiths are Renegades or even Heretics and hold no great enthusiasm for the Hierarchy.

  Some wraiths manage to make do in the midst of London’s busiest districts. Churches, museums, and other public buildings offer many chambers with ceilings that soar far above the level of pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Enterprising wraiths cobble together scaffolds and platforms, connected by elaborate systems of cables carrying handcars and gondolas of various sizes. They risk discorporation only when living people come up to clean a ceiling or perform some maintenance chore. The rest of the time, the space overhead belongs to the Restless Dead. London’s “roof wraiths” can observe the ceremonies in St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament, attend the shows in West End theatres and delve into the stacks at the British Library with very little risk of interference from the Quick. Occasionally a particularly sensitive human might sense the presence of dead things overhead, but that’s just part of the ambiance of life in an old, busy city.
  Even further removed from ground level, whole communities flourish underground. Wraiths gather in abandoned subway tunnels, bomb shelters and other underground fixtures. Throughout the centuries, it’s often been cheaper to simply seal up an old tunnel and dig a new one than keep re-fitting existing tunnels to accommodate changing technology and uses. The pace of obsolescence sped up with the Industrial Revolution. Behind Skinlands locks and barricades, countless miles of prime Haunt space wait for wraiths: old tube tunnels, two complete sets of back-up government offices constructed during eras of international tension and wartime quarters for tens of thousands of refugees.

  Many of these spaces have never been entered since they were closed up, and the only visitors to most of the rest are surveyors, historians and the occasional thrill-seeker. Wraiths get virtually all of the abandoned realm for their own exclusive use. Most of the construction took place in highly emotionally charged circumstances, so the warrens’ ghostly inhabitants get a steady diet of residual Pathos as well as sanctuary.

The London Citadel

  The London Citadel marks the western end of the Necropolis’ area of densest wraith population. An Arizona entrepreneur bought London Bridge and moved it out of the country in the 1960s. London’s Monitors struck a quiet deal with the Citadel: In exchange for the Anacreons pardoning some captured Guildwraiths, the Monitors took advantage of the bridge’s disassembly to convert it into a relic. The physical structure of the bridge now stands in Arizona, but the essence of the bridge, the care invested in it over centuries, stayed behind.

  Citadel engineers erected relic and Artifact structures all around the ghost of the bridge, leaving room for the replacement bridge and Skinlands shipping. Soaring towers stand at each end of the bridge, holding watch rooms, offices for the Citadel’s most senior wraiths and mustering points for elite military units. Smaller outbuildings stretch along the banks and even below water level. Work space in the Citadel is one of the great tokens of personal prestige, and Hierarchy wraiths compete vigorously for the prize.

Westminster Abbey

  Westminster Abbey is a shrine to the departed artists and dreamers of Britain, as well as a favourite meeting place for the religious. Poets, artists and even politicians come to the area known as Poet's Corner for inspiration from the countless monuments to English creativity housed there. Writers, composers, and architects are remembered here, and their wraiths return to the Abbey nightly to feel the warmth that remembrance brings. In turn, they bring inspiration to those who pay homage to their memories.

  The Abbey has an almost palpable aura of sacredness to it, and even the presence of “Abbey Guided SuperTours” at £6 a head and up has done little to mar the atmosphere. Though not as important to most Christians as Canterbury, the Abbey remains a potent symbol of the English national devotion to God. Though faith has lessened in recent years, the Abbey remains a point of great national pride.

The Tower of London

  Beyond its historical significance, the Tower is loaded with wraiths, a few of whom include the “little princes” (reportedly murdered by King Richard III), Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Gray, Catherine Howard, Sir Thomas More and the Earl of Essex. Although in many other areas wraiths would be banished as quickly as possible, the Restless who haunt the Tower are honoured guests. They are an integral part of the stories surrounding the Tower, and to drive them out would be to diminish the power of their tales.

  The Hierarchy would dearly love to have the Tower of London for its own. Hierarchy agents do manage to keep it closed for repairs for years on end, but inevitably Skinlands popular pressure leads to its being reopened. While most mortals cannot consciously sense the accumulated Pathos in the place, they can recognise a certain “something.” Wraiths understand that something far better, and want to draw on it for sustenance and power.

Highgate Cemetery

  Not far from the homes of Freud and Keats, Highgate cemetery is another spot more famous for death than life. It therefore comes as little surprise that most of the repeat visitors to this area possess interests that are on the macabre side. George Elliot, Karl Marx, and countless others whose names are less familiar lie buried beneath crumbling tombs, cedars and ivy. Mortals and supernatural beings come here to reflect upon mortality, death, and what comes after.

The Labyrinth
  The Labyrinth is an opening onto the Void, the twisted, spiraling vortex at the centre of the Tempest. The maze of tunnels and twisting coridors, caverns, chambers and endless stairways wind through the Tempest, emerging in dozens of inhabited realms, and ultimately lead to the dark heart of Oblivion. These were burrowed from the Utter Darkness by the Malfeans at the dawn of history.

  What most wraiths call the Labyrinth is only the most visible part of the twisting realms of Oblivion. The Labyrinth has never been accurately described. Wraiths called Doomslayers venture into the Labyrinth to fight Spectres on their home territory, but no wraith has ever descended into the true depths and returned to tell of it. Sentries are posted at known entrances to the Labyrinth, charged with ringing great gongs to sound the alarm in the case of Spectral attacks or an oncoming Maelstrom.

The Lake of Cold Fire

  This zone within the Tempest looks like a misty blue lake. Blue and orange flames flicker over the lake like wavelets, rushing to cover whatever touches the surface. A bluish fog quickly settles over the lake, preventing any wraiths caught within from leaving until it is done with them.

  The cold flames are soul-searing, setting alight one of the Passions of any wraith touched by them. The Passion is brought to the forefront of the wraith’s mind, forcing her to defend it against the onslaught of the flame – a brief, dream-like experience. Only by being burned by her Passion or watching it burn out can a wraith escape from this zone.

The Sea of Broken Glass

  A region of the Tempest, the Sea of Broken Glass was encountered by the werewolf Katsiu as she searched for Sarah’s soul, and it proved an insurmountable obstacle to her. Razor-sharp shards of soul-steel flow within the plasm of the Sea, slicing into any wraith foolish eough to test its waters. In communication with the powerful voudoun spirit Ghede, Annaleigh learned that the Sea of Broken Glass sometimes surrounds deeply hidden islands within the Tempest, and that it is as much a state of the soul as an actual location.

  The Sea of Broken Glass has been traversed with difficulty by Valentina della Passaglia, and twice by Jessica – once with the Ferryman Severus, and once on board the Gran Grin. It surrounds the ancient land of Amenti, and the shadowy city of Enoch, and perhaps other unknown places.

Stygia

  Among all of the realms in the Underworld, the greatest is that of Stygia. Founded, according to tradition, by Charon himself, it is the seat of the Deathlords, and its power looms over the world of the dead as a modern-day Roman Empire. In building Stygia, Charon’s original intent was to erect an eternal city in the image of the great lost cities of the world, as well as that era’s metropolitan masterpiece – the magnificent capital of Rome. Symmetry and beauty were his guiding principles, and resulted in many beautiful edifices such as the Great Library of Stygia, the Palaces of the Deathlords, the shattered and scorched Temples of the Shining Ones by the shore, and Charon’s Onyx Tower.

  However, the passing centuries andf the need to defend against the Great Maelstroms have left their marks upon the city’s architecture, often to the detriment of its once “classical” character. Dark skyscrapers rise to pierce the skyline, squat Dickensian factories have overwhelmed whole blocks with their ugliness, and in their own sector of the city soulforging foundries blow the stench and oily smoke of their furnaces throughout the lands of the dead.

  Originally situated atop the Isle of Sorrows, Stygia has since outgrown its island confines and now encompasses the lands along the shoreline of the Sunless Sea. Despite its expansion, most Stygians consider the original boundaries of the city to be the “real” Stygia; the rest is just hinterlands and urban sprawl. Surrounding the island of Stygia is the Sea of Souls, a vast, nightmarish miasma of mindless spirits, flowing over and under one another like water. The safest and most numerous Byways throgh the Tempest are those that conduct the traveller to the shore of Stygia, for they are the most often travelled, and the best maintained.

The Tempest

  The Tempest is the nightmare realm of chaos and shadow that stirs beneath the Shadowlands. It is dark and extremely cold. Howling winds lash through the sky, sometimes bearing Spectres or strange creatures known as plasmics. Distance and space are meaningless in the Tempest, for it is shaped by the ever-changing visions and fears of those trapped within it. Travelling through the Tempest is an exercise in confronting demons both within and without.

  Throughout the vast expanse of the Tempest are said to exist other realms, islands that provide refuge from Oblivion. They are the hells and heavens, the Valhallas and Nirvanas of coutless cultures. Although all wraiths have heard rumours of the Far Shores, and many believe in them, few know anything for certain of their true nature.

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