Summary
Known for its history as a place of daring experimentation in both the magickal and the social sense, the Circle of St. Herodias is now focused much more on the research side of things than it is on flamboyant parties that made it famous.
History
The oldest extant chantry in London, the Circle dates back to 1792, in the wake of the independence of the American colonies and the first days of the French Revolution. The Hermetic chantry known as the College of Iron and Brass was at the time the dominant power among the Traditions of London, controlling many of the region’s most powerful Nodes and boasting a roster that included the greatest mages of the British Isles. The outsize influence of the College meant that its tendency towards Hermeticentrism was a constant annoyance to members of other Traditions, while simultaneously making any challenge to its power difficult to contemplate.
It happened that two of the College’s harshest critics were, in the Sleeping world, also members of the same Hellfire Club — a drinking club for high-society rakes who enjoyed “immoral activity” outside the public eye. Over the course of one evening the two broached the idea of using such a group as a front for an association of magi, theorizing that the College would view it as just a way for those involved to satisfy their prurient interests rather than taking it seriously as a potential rival. The more they discussed the idea the more appealing it seemed, and within a week they had made a start on establishing their new chantry, naming it “The Circle of St. Herodias” — after the very-much-not-sainted mother of Salome, who supposedly requested John the Baptist’s head as a reward for her daughter’s dancing.
Their hypothesis proved correct: the College’s leadership was quite accommodating, probably in part because several College members were eager to be invited to join the bacchanals they expected (as indeed they were). The Circle, in turn, behaved circumspectly, acting very much the part of an Ecstatic group, and slowly but steadily gained influence and power thanks to their primarily wealthy and aristocratic membership, with even some Hermetics opting to join what they viewed as an allied group to the College rather than the older, stodgier, and less fashionable chantry. When the eventual struggle between the College and the Order of Reason weakened the former, nothing seemed more natural than for the Circle to take a larger role, eventually absorbing much of the membership of the College before the latter finally collapsed.
From then up until the First World War, the Circle remained perhaps the strongest of London’s chantries, even if it never acquired the same degree of dominance as its predecessor in that position. In its heyday, it was home to magi who were as influential in the Sleeper world as the magickal one, but the decline of the British aristocracy was already written on the wall by the late 19th century, and the war only accelerated the process. Today the Circle still has something of a reputation for racy parties and ostentatious wealth, but the truth is that their standard for “daring” looks rather tame to modern eyes, and a century of steady decrease in its membership’s wealth and influence has made its once-grand chantry house a shabby and crumbling old place. There’s more than a bit of resentment among some members at the success that the other chantries — particularly the Co-Op — have enjoyed while they themselves have lost pre-eminence.
The High Cabal
Bernard R. Martin
A Hermetic of House Flambeau, Bernard specializes in destructive magick, and nearly all his time is spent in a highly secure reinforced laboratory where he refines ever more spectacular means of blowing things up. Or at least, that’s the scuttlebutt around the chantry; Bernard is so much a perfectionist that no one outside the High Cabal has ever actually witnessed him demonstrating these supposed advances, and so reluctant to share credit that the only collaborators he permits are much younger magi with whom there’s no question of who any breakthroughs are due to. Given his reportedly vitriolic temper and impatience with anything less than perfection, it’s perhaps just as well that his social interaction with the rest of the city’s magi is mainly restricted to an occasional scowl and a muttered “I could very easily destroy you all.”
Vera Brannigan
Back in the 1980s and the early 1990s, Vera Brannigan wasn’t just a standard bearer for the Virtual Adepts — she was one of the biggest names in the nascent techno/electronica scene, mentioned in the same sentences as Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Ellen Allen, and Jeff Mills. Both as a technomancer and as a musician, she was reverently discussed as an artist of startling breadth, imagination, and innovation. And then … well, and then the shooting star burned out, and today, forty years later, she’s best known in London as a dissolute, faded ex-celebrity who’s desperately trying to look 30 even as she gets closer and closer to 60, and who’s uninterested in anything much other than her next slice of handsome young beefcake, which club she’s hitting tonight, and who’s paying for her smart drinks.
Sarika Mendenhall
Although well into her 80s, this Sahajiya from northern India — she’s retained her late husband’s surname, even though he’s now been dead for some 15 years — remains vigorous, bright, and energetic enough to embarrass women half her age. Sarika taught philosophy at Imperial College for decades before her retirement in the early 2000s, and still has a decidedly Socratic manner when dealing with younger and less experienced magi. Her particular area of interest has to do with the reconciliation of styles of magic that are completely contradictory and opposed to one another — these days, when she talks about magick at all, it’s in the context of her ongoing attempts to make it work in ways that don’t make sense to her, or, as some of the younger students have described it, “doing magick on hard mode.” Even though her ideas strike most other magi as senseless and impractical, she remains confident that she’s on the trail of something important, and dismissive of anyone who disagrees.
Tsai Chih-hao
Former executive chef at the world-famous Hawthorn restaurant, this Taiwan-born Dreamspeaker never achieved the fame that some of his contemporaries have, although he is notable among aficionados of Japanese television for having twice triumphed on the cult television show “Iron Chef.” Chih-hao loves cooking, loves food, loves the ingredients he combines to make his masterpieces — and they, in turn, love him back, whispering him a constant stream of advice, warnings, and suggestions. So he claims, at least, and even skeptics have to admit that no matter how frightening his cuisine may sound, he somehow manages to make it turn out delicious. Now comfortably retired in late middle age, he’s no less fixated on his lifelong profession — an obsessive traveler and collector of exotic and rare ingredients from all over the world, he’s almost never out of the kitchen otherwise.
Facilities
The Circle’s headquarters is a beautiful old mansion in the Regency style, just across the street from Hyde Park in Westminster. You couldn’t ask for a better location; the view is beautiful, and a house of this size would be all but impossible to build in London today regardless of how much money one had. Unfortunately, the key word in ‘beautiful old mansion’ is ‘old’. Built in 1815, it apparently has not seen much in the way of renovation since. The roof leaks, the place is drafty and cold, the hot water unreliable, and, while there is some central heat in the form of radiators in some of the better-appointed bedrooms, staying warm in the winter requires a lot of blankets and a degree of facility with the fireplaces.
Yes, the grand dining room still hosts some decadent parties from time to time, but there’s a very good reason they’re always at night and always candlelit — seen by daylight, the wallpaper is peeling, the carpets are threadbare, and mold may have taken root in that water stain on the ceiling. Thanks to the astronomical tax bill a property of this size and location incurs, there simply isn’t the money in the chantry to restore the place to its former glory — a situation that isn’t helped by the old-fashioned practice of giving the High Cabal unilateral control of chantry funds, and thus ensuring that merely donating cash won’t help matters; leadership has priorities other than repairs.