Birmingham and the World of Darkness

So first off, why is this game set in Birmingham (and the wider West Midlands area)?

The short answer for this is that as a person who currently works and lives in the centre of the city, I have the ability to use real places and locations that you can actually look up on Google, visit in Street View and research to give yourselves a sense of realism. Every location that I list will be a real place, with a real website, Trip Advisor page or location on Street View for you to explore.

A longer answer is that it’s an unexplored part of the World of Darkness. As everything seems to be LA, New York or London in most of the source material, I thought it would be interesting to explore a new part of the world. Birmingham’s a large city, with the metropolitan area covering a population in the millions. It’s a place of dirt and glass, urban decay and post-industrial decline rubbing shoulders with new investment, gentrification and redeveloped areas of the city. Birmingham was at one point the literal womb of the Industrial Revolution, where the materials of Empire and the mineral wealth of the North was transformed into machines, metals, guns, engines and fabrics in quantities never before seen.

But Birmingham is often overlooked, both nationally and internationally – Manchester, Liverpool and the cities of Yorkshire all draw attention further north whilst London (a mere two hours away by car) draws attention further south.

In the World of Darkness, this is little different. In 2019, the World of Darkness in the UK is a strange place for the Kindred. Two shocks in quick succession have rocked the landscape; firstly the Beckoning has drawn many of the Elders away to the east. Vampires who have sat at the top of the food change for centuries have left their seats empty and vacant. The Princes and courts of the ancestral seats of York, Chester, Nottingham and Middlesborough have all left to answer the call, and many of the movers and shakers from all clans have either withdrawn from the front lines of Kindred politics or vanished altogether.

The second shock was far more traumatic for the Kindred of the British Isles. It happened when London fell to the Second Inquisition. With brutal efficiency and ruthless zeal the combined forces of the Society of Leopold, FIRSTLIGHT and MI5 combined to purge the city of London of its Kindred population. A city of over a hundred Kindred was reduced over a series of nights to a mere handful of survivors, left clinging to the wreckage. Rumour says that Queen Anne of London and her court all perished in the slaughter. London now exists as a ghost town and wasteland

This has left the remaining Kindred of Britain in a state of paranoia and panic. Few Kindred remain on the Island with more than two centuries of experience, and those who do linger have no interest in engaging with the neonates and ancilla who find themselves in sudden positions of power and opportunity. For some Kindred, this chaos has provided them a ladder and opportunity to stake their own claim for the first time in uncounted years. For others, they’ve seen their worlds crumble around them.

Birmingham has a population of Kindred that can be counted in the dozens. They are spread across the footprint of the city, with overlapping territories and domains. In the leafy suburbs of Royal Sutton Coldfield in the north of the city and Solihull to the south, Ventrue and Toreador make their homes. In the wilder places of abandoned and ruined factories and foundries of the Black Country, Nosferatu and Gangrel stalk. In the middle of the thriving city centre, Brujah rub shoulders with neonates of all clans. The recent instability of the last few years has meant that much of the territory of the city is now up for grabs and claims by those who can hold them.