The Shadows

Due to rumours of malevolent Shadows entities acting within Napoleon’s court, a consortium of Urielite Hunter families formed a small company working alongside the Mundane British military in 1805. Partly funded by the most powerful Vampire covens, several Werewolves and Changelings also chose to join up. It was a highly unusual situation but it worked for several years, and for a time there were Werewolves in attendance at Vampire balls, Hunter chirurgeons and Werewolf herbalists taking care of wounded Vampires and Changeling ritualists working on new inventions with Hunter weaponsmiths.

It all fell apart on a bitterly cold December day in 1816 at an evening event just outside of London, held to celebrate the ongoing truce. A Romulus werewolf savaged a room full of guests, including the fledgeling heir-apparent to the Radcliffe coven, and several members of the Hawthorne and Davies Urielite Hunter families.

His packmates swore that he had drunk the same potion that they had, which should have kept his shifting at bay until the early hours in the morning but the damage was done. The Radcliffe coven swore revenge and launched a counter-attack the next night, nearly wiping out the entirety of the Exmoor pack. Fearing a widening conflict, whilst also mourning their own dead, the Urielite families called in other Hunter families to help de-escalate the situation.

Several Gabrielite Hunters interpreted the call for aid as an open Hunt for any Vampires that had been attending the event and they laid siege to the house of the Fulbright coven who had hosted the event, killing several fledgelings. The Fullbright coven, fearing for their lives, called in favours from prominent Changelings for spells to protect against the Hunters. They were also able to kidnap two young Hunters, threatening to transform them into vampires, a fate their families would consider worse than death.

Despite several attempts by Raphaelite Hunters, who acted as envoys to Vampires to negotiate for the hostages, the Gabrielite Hunters refused to back down and their children were turned.

It’s been whispered in the years since that the potion was sabotaged, some say that it was a Gabrielite infiltrator that did it, others say that several members of the London Cabal pressed the host of the party to have the event on a full moon, despite the Werewolf guests. Regardless of the truth, tensions have increased and violent attacks have been on the rise.

The increase in tensions, could not have come at a worse. Those who live in the Shadows have found their lives greatly changed in recent years, and have increasingly been forced to have more contact with Mundane life.

The years of the Prince Regent, later George IV, were full of opulence and decadence, rife with political intrigue, particularly in London and the Home Counties. This was perfect for the chessboard manoeuvres undertaken by Lucian and Augustine path Changelings, while also offering plenty of opportunities for Evangeline Changelings to expand their wealth. However, In the five years that followed George’s death, many Changelings have withdrawn from the public eye. Rumours have circulated that their days are spent researching and preparing at their London house for some opulent, esoteric ritual, requiring many years of groundwork first.

Coinciding with the rise of evangelical movements in Mundane churches, many Gabrielite Hunter families have adopted even more extreme views, and young Hunters from these families will often head out at night in vigilante groups, hoping to come across some Vampire or Werewolf that they can hunt. Urielite families have lost influence at the Hunter Citadels, due to the events of the Dark Ball, which caused a rise in the number of skirmishes between the four factions. Raphaelite Hunters have mostly withdrawn to the Citadels but there has been talk of new Missions to several packs and covens, as well as to the London Cabal.

Vampire covens have continued to pull strings from the shadows, with several Sanguine covens deciding to play into the new political party system of Whigs and Tories and finding many new retainers as a result. Claret vampires have found new purpose in their quest to limit their drinking of human blood from the British abolitionist movement. Other vampires, tired of the politics, have cut ties with their covens, choosing instead to become Cruors and stalk the teeming cities at night, where no one misses a Mundane or two.

The Wulver Packs have found the 19th century difficult as industrialisation has gained paced and many of their forests have been felled to supply materials for shipbuilding and other industries. A few packs talked about immigrating to North America, and the Cairngorm pack of Scotland left for the colony of Nova Scotia in 1820. The more traditional amongst the remaining packs head to whatever forests they can find. Other packs have fallen on hard times and have been forced to move to the cities for work, running through the streets at night, hoping that Mundanes mistake them for large dogs. With more frequent Mundane contact, the risk of bites has been higher, with several packs having to adopt new members because of this trend. The Romulus Packs were initially more adept at finding their place in the new century, with many holding commissions during the Napoleonic Wars. However, they have been in disgrace with the other Werewolves packs due to the events of the Dark Ball.