Summary
Even though the modern world might think otherwise, there are still frontiers to explore. Anywhere the unknown or the hidden still lurks — at the bottom of the oceans, deep beneath the earth, in the unexplored realms of the Umbra, or even in parts of London itself that have been lost or forgotten — the members of the Geographical Society of Great Britain will find a way there, and back, if they possibly can.
History
The Age of Discovery brought Englishmen to the far corners of the world. All too often, the things that came with them were those that did little credit to their homeland — colonialism, imperialism, and exploitation — but the spirit of their ventures has fired the imagination ever since the days of John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake, and Henry Hudson. There’ve always been explorers among the English magi, some of them with darker reputations than others, but not until the Victorian era did it become a unifying principle around which the Traditions of London could rally. The newly-reorganized Technocracy had already begun its march around the world in quest of an empire on which the sun would never set, and whether for selfless or selfish reasons, more and more of the Traditions felt that that march required a more organized oppositon.
Organized in 1866 by Sir Andrew Mitchell of the Order of Hermes and Reverend Dawson Woodward of the Celestial Chorus, from the beginning the Society explicitly positioned itself as a challenger to the older and more distinguished Royal Geographical Society. To 21st-century eyes, the new chantry’s charter and other founding documents have more than a whiff of the same sins that the Union could be accused of, with its calls to enlist “our Savage Brethren around the World” in the struggle, and the attitude of its members toward non-European magi remained distressingly paternalistic for some decades. It would be a fair criticism that until the end of the Second World War, the difference between the Union’s explorers and those of the Society was more the cause they espoused than the methods they practiced — in both cases, lost treasures uncovered or ancient sites of power found were more likely to be brought back to Britain or exploited in service of their respective agendas, with little concern for the wishes of the indigenous people.
As late as the 1930s, the Society’s fight against the Union still had the air of a colonial struggle, with each side vying to uncover new wonders to validate its perspective in the public eye while striving to discredit or expose as frauds those that supported the opposition. The tremendous growth in the Union’s strength meant that more and more, the Society came out on the short end of such exchanges, not only failing to push forward the Traditions’ worldview but losing more and more ground in the process. In spite of that, however, their leadership remained stuck in the old ways of doing things, refusing to adapt even in the face of looming defeat.
The postwar era changed all this. Younger magi, both from Britain and from overseas, increasingly saw the world in terms that were no longer Anglocentric, and while at first this viewpoint represented a minority both in numbers and in influence, over time it became difficult to ignore that it was the only faction in the chantry enjoying any significant successes. In the modern times, the Society has adopted a more balanced approach. They focus more on discovery, rather than recovery — striving to avoid placing their mark on the distant realms they explore instead of glorying in it, and leaving the wonders that they find where they find them rather than bringing them back to London to calcify in the chantry’s trophy room. Which is not to say that they won’t interfere where necessary; destroying threats, and keeping dangerous weapons out of the Union’s hands, are still high priorities. But the current crop of members has fostered a far more inclusive way of thinking about of “threats” and “dangers” than their Victorian forebears ever imagined.
The Executive Council
Rose Corbett
The oldest member of the Society who’s still arguably active, Rose is well over 150 years of age, a grayhaired, forgetful, possibly senile woman who grew up in India as the daughter of a cavalry officer during the early years of the British Raj. She followed in his footsteps to become a big-game hunter, and gained some modest fame for dealing with man-eating big cats both before and after her Awakening. A Verbena who believes strongly in the circle of life and the ethos and purity of the hunt, she spent the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th traveling the world to add to her trophy count. Today, though, the heads and skins have been quietly relegated to storage, and all that’s left is an elderly Englishwoman who can (and does) tell endless and often improbable stories about her adventures in this world and others, but almost never leaves the comfort of her overstuffed leather armchair.
Adrian Lim
In contrast to the stereotype of the Akashayana as monastic ascetics, Adrian is a well-manicured gentleman in his early seventies, rarely seen in any clothes other than a pinstriped suit and a necktie. A researcher par excellence, he’s spent most of his career in a library — whether that of the Society, or those of other chantries that are willing to allow him access in exchange for the benefit of his discoveries. In the years since coming to London from his native Singapore, his work has led to forgotten or believed-lost accounts of dozens, if not hundreds, of Otherworld travelers and the wonders they’ve encountered; the clues he’s found have been directly responsible for the rescue of the survivors of the Mordee Expedition, the recovery of the Scepter of the Underworld, and the finding of the Umbral Realm of Jadawin. Alas, his constant search for more information often takes him away from the city, and he has neither interest or ability to actually venture into the Otherworlds himself.
Charlotte Storey
By day a professor of mathematics at University College London with a specialization in topology, by night the soft-spoken Ms. Storey is the senior member of the Order of Hermes in the greater London area, referring to herself as an “Umbral cartographer.” Combining her knowledge of Sleeper mathematics with the sacred geometry of the Hermetics, she’s developed a theory of how the layers of reality shift, interact, and move with one another. Or, to be more accurate, she’s developed a number of such theories, all of which are borne out in practice to some degree, but none of which holds up well enough to make for a set of practical guidelines. Most of her time is spent in her workshop, where she constructs elaborate maps, models, and charts purporting to illustrate the different real-world implications of her theories. Her own expeditions into the Umbra are stodgily safe and extremely dull (remaining in one spot for a full 24 hours so that she can take measurements), but she will bombard anyone she knows to have recently traveled to the other side of the Gauntlet with rapid-fire abstract questions about what they experienced — for as long as they’re willing to tolerate it, anyway.
Omphile Bankole
Of Xhosa ancestry, Omphile is as much a native-born Londoner as any Anglo-Saxon, right down to his East End accent and the red-and-gold Arsenal tattoo on his forearm. Although now in his mid-forties, he’s still got a youthful energy to him, and on the rare occasions when he’s willing to stand and talk, he’s an amiable fellow with an abiding love for the Hammer horror films he watched growing up. That doesn’t happen much, though — most of his time is spent doing research, construction, and testing on his perpetually incomplete ethership, which he’s been at work on ever since coming to the Society. Despite the massive effort he’s putting into it, he never seems to get any closer to completion, and he’s steadfastly refused offers to join anyone else’s expeditions, even those led by other Etherites. The rumor is that he’s under some sort of curse or vow or geas that requires him to work on his spaceship, but not to actually go into space.
Others
Eos
A tiny horselike creature that bears a more than passing resemblance to the Eohippus angustidens of Earth’s fossil record, Eos has been the Society’s unofficial mascot for as far back as anyone can remember. No one is quite sure where she came from, but the general assumption is that she was brought back from an expedition to the Otherworlds at some point in the Victorian era, and has lived here ever since. With a white-spotted brown coat, long legs, a tufted tail, and what on a modern horse would be a rather short neck, she’s about the size of a large cat; attempts to read her mind or communicate with her magically have thus far always failed, although she is clearly intelligent — at least as smart as a bright border collie. Her personality is a touch mischievous (she regularly kicks the leopard enclosure’s glass to spook Rudy), but friendly, and she will happily nibble baby carrots or pieces of apple from visitors’ hands, or even sit in their laps to be petted if they aren’t too offputting. Members and staff have strict instructions not to let her into the public areas of the chantry, but she has been known to escape from time to time, necessitating a hurried recapture.
James “Jim” Perkins
A strapping young man in his mid-twenties, Jim Perkins is Omphile’s newest apprentice. To his great misfortune, his apprenticeship to date has consisted mainly of being assigned to keep order around the headquarters building, feeding Rudy the leopard, making sure Eos stays where she’s supposed to be, and otherwise assisting with the wrangling of all manner of exotic and dangerous creatures brought back from the four corners of the multiverse. More often than not, “assisting with” becomes “taking sole responsibility for”, since the Executive Council members have better things to do with their time. In spite of the dangers to which this has subjected him — leaving him with several dramatic scars and even more dramatic stories — Jim remains resolutely cheerful, mostly agreeable, and generally happy to assist the Society’s members when they need help with something that probably won’t get him killed. It’s a nice change of pace.
Facilities
A small but pleasant compound in western Greenwich, the Society’s headquarters has much of the stodgy old academic venue to it. Outside, there’s a a tree-shaded courtyard, a fountain, and memorials to the distinguished dead and missing. There’s a dedicated observatory building at one end of the quad, housing one of the largest refracting telescopes in Great Britain, although light pollution from the city has made this spot a good deal less desirable for stargazing than it was when first built. The main building at the opposite end boasts a lecture hall that dates from the old days when the public lectures and exhibitions given by members drew an audience of more than just elderly cranks and conspiracy theorists.
Inside, things are comfortable in an old-fashioned way: dark wood polished smooth by generations of explorers, brass fittings, Persian carpets, and overstuffed leather chairs and sofas — exactly the sort of place where Victorian gentry would find an appealing place to retreat to, without anything that would have smacked of baroque excess at the time … although to modern eyes it’s a bit over the top. Stocked with trophies of the Society’s previous expeditions as well as maps and records of their many journeys (only some of which, alas, are reliable — and determining which are and which are not is no easy task), it’s a well-kept and cozy place to get away from the modern world for a while.