Spectacle Core Setting

Spectacle's Setting Summary
Spectacle is set in a fictional 1970s Scotland, most specifically the Lowland area in a rectangle surrounding Glasgow and Edinburgh. The exact year is intentionally vague; people, places, and things that factually existed in 1969-1979 Scotland can be used or referenced to. Flavor > Realism is at work here.

Until 1500 years ago, Scotland's human societies worshipped the Old Gods great and small. Things began to change drastically when Christian missionaries like St Ninian, St Kentigern, and St Columba converted everyone to Christianity. Whether the Underhill (also called Elfhame) had always existed separate from the terrestrial world is uncertain and the source of debate and conflict among its denizens. The result, however, is that by the end of the 10th century (900-1000 AD), the most venerable Old Gods had abandoned Scotland and the lesser gods were sealed away into the Underhill, leaving humanity more or less to its own devices for hundreds of years.

The Fae Folk of Scotland were active landside enough in 1658-1662 to cause an outbreak of witch-hunting and persecution. As first the Reformation and then the rise of Modernism brought a downfall to the Cult of Saints, the Fae found themselves free to return, at least in certain times, places, and ways to the terrestrial world. Doing so was not without its own dangers. But the practice of wearing bags or amulets containing "fairy dust" or barry, helped minimize them.

By the 1800s, the city of Glasgow was claimed by the local Unseele Court and the city of Edinburgh by the Seelie Court. The rivalry between the two cities, the distinctly different cultures developing in both influences and were influenced by the denizens in the Underhill of each locale. The practice of taking human lovers either by kidnapping them to Underhill or pretending to be human and seducing them landside was now a common practice once more. The babies born of this union almost unanimously showed a greater affinity for their mother's race. Babies born of human mothers by Fae Folk fathers were still "gifted" or "special" or "original" compared to other children. Not all became witches or sorcerers and not all witches or sorcerers had Fae blood. But most were in one form or another.

By the 1900s, the Seelie Court feared the return of the Cult of Saints or another kind of Christian resurgence and began to put laws into effect regarding how all Fae should deal with humans. They tried to enforce these laws of the Unseelie. This didn't go well. And after 1915, a war exploded between the Fae of Glasgow and the Fae of Edinburgh which is ongoing to this day.


 * Spectacle's VIPs & Character Templates


 * Spectacle's Metaplot|