Albion
An island from which man ruled the sea, once. Dockyards the size of cities maintained an armada that could overcome any opposition, outcompeting anyone who sought a piece of trade along the southern coasts or up the rivers. The riches of a thousand districts flowed to the shores of Albion in its cargo holds, and distant lands paid fealty to its goddess: Britannia, She of Waves. It was a time of glory for all who bowed to her magnificence.
That time has passed. The Albion of today is a shadow cast over the heavens, a place of competition turned inward rather than outward while its people lose faith in all that made them great. The armadas of yesteryear are no more, unable to match the might of mainland economies of scale. The sea has become a place of horror, and only the waters around Albion itself yield to their fracturing will. Britannia sits alone on her throne, weary with age as songs of prayer fade one by one from her ears.
Twilight has come to the people of Albion, and they cannot even see it.
Politics
Albion is officially controlled by a constitutional monarchy, whose sole representative is the goddess Britannia, reduced to a physical form by the steady decline of her people’s faith in her power. While still a formidable force in a face to face encounter the people have had enough leverage to push through a constitution limiting her to a role that is largely ceremonial. The day to day governing of the district is overseen by a parliament that is a mix of hereditary seats and political party appointments. Over the course of time representation has begun to skew more to the latter as the great and noble merchant houses die out one by one. Divine interference in politics is viewed with suspicion, rather than joy, by those most benefitting from this new status quo.
Culture and Demographics
This district feeds on a foul mixture of nostalgia and misplaced blame. The stereotypical Albioner takes pride in their impressive naval traditions, blames a combination of ‘sea monsters’ and ‘foreign interference’ for the downfall of both them and their district’s place of prominence, and refuses to recognize their own role in the decline of the many blessings which enabled the former and protected them from the latter. They view citizens of other districts with condescension and bitterness, and insist that they would be better off without them. They may even go so far as to say their nation has been reduced to poverty and anarchy as a result of their alien influences.
The reality is a little different than that. Albion is still a safe, stable place to live relative to many other places in the Nexus. Its people have food, shelter, and basic healthcare on a reliable basis. Its coast guard can overcome almost any threat that tends to come its way. Its police are effective, but not overly cruel. It has a supernatural defender who would die to defend it despite the fact that almost half of her citizens don’t even believe in her divinity anymore. Longing for the past has limited their ability to appreciate their present.
The economy is driven by a mixture of services provided for and by their own citizens, the fishing industry, and a number of old shipbuilding businesses that have managed to stay afloat despite Albion’s reduced prominence. Other industries abound, but these are the ones people talk about the most. Of course, their cuisine can be a bit of an acquired taste…
Most citizens of Albion are human. Many of them have distant faerie ancestry, the result of generations of sailors taking on alluring amphibious brides in the days the seas were calmer. Non-humans aren’t explicitly discriminated against, but often will receive strange looks the first time they visit any given part of the district. They may end up being hit on.
While the Church of Albion is still nominally the district’s official religion, more and more people have been driven from their faith in the face of hardship, rather than toward it. This can be attributed in part to the death of Britannia’s oldest avatar generations ago in a great battle against the most terrifying crew of pirates the Nexus has ever seen. Mortality ill suits the faithful, and the power vacuum that followed also saw the rise of secular influences who undermined belief in the goddess in her time of weakness for their own benefit. Still, a stubborn core of believers made of both old traditionalists and sympathetic youngsters remain.
Magic used to feature quite prominently in their society, and modern translations of old sea shanties still echo with remnants of power few still know how to harness. It is one of the lost splendors of Albion - much like its self-respect.
Landmarks
Albion’s capital, Brittany, is a tarnished jewel upon the seas. Its ports welcome ships from all along the southern shores of the Nexus. The Palace of Waves, seat of Britannia’s royal authority, glimmers on the horizon as if to say ‘come, behold the city of our world.’ Once the initial impression fades what truly remains is a sense of awe for the sheer size of the docks. Despite the lapse in profitable shipping over the years they remain almost entirely intact relative to their glory days. Each year the Church of Albion makes a concerted effort to keep beautiful the first vision visitors receive of their once-mighty nation. Gazing upon it from her balcony, visible from the water, is one of the few things that puts a true smile on Britannia’s face.
BritanniaPhysical AttributesStrength: Fantastic
Agility: Heroic
Durability: Fantastic
Magic: None
Magic Resistance: Very High
Willpower: Determinator
Other Abilities Britannian Stoicism: To know the love of Britannia is to know the love of the parent - the single earner who breaks her back to provide for you, who puts on the strong face so you are never hurt by her pain. Those who pray to her share in a shadow of that strength, experiencing increases to their Willpower which help them endure their day to day hardships when they might otherwise falter and fail. The more devoutly they believe, the more of her strength they share until they realize it has become their own. The increase is by one rank per level of their Intimacy toward her, with most of her active and involved church members having lesser intimacies.
Divine Admiral: She of Waves. In the realm of all things nautical there is no better to be found than Britannia, and give her one good crew and a decent ship and she can likely find a way to sink a fleet come hell or high water. She can keep a vessel together against everything short of complete disintegration, preventing it from taking on water or faltering because the wind was against its sails. She can invigorate its crew and protect them from the ravages of long voyages, and extend this to any crew that declares for her name.
A Sailor’s Sailor: Gunslinging, sword swinging, cannons and all, there is no respectable form of fighting which Britannia cannot masterfully manage. A death of a thousand cuts, or bullets, is all too readily a reality for those who thought themselves a threat. In addition to her excellence in a fight she can give form to all manner of swords and firearms that can at least compete with her Strength rating in damage output, calling them forth from her worshipers’ dreams of wars long past.
The Sun Never Sets: There was a time when a sailor’s death on the waves was but a break from their duty to the glory of Albion. Britannia in her prime could call forth from the depths the wrecks of all who’d sailed beneath her flag, and project her loving memory of their fervent spirits to have them take up their ropes and raise their anchors one last time. Those days have long since passed, but she can still invoke this ability at a price. Britannia could, in theory, sacrifice her body to bring forth the Endless Armada one last time. Should her people keep her in their hearts and memories then one day, years later, she could be born again in glory.
If only.
IntimaciesGreater Intimacy: The People of Albion (Devotion)
Lesser Intimacy: Belfast (Self-Loathing)
AvatarsOnce, Britannia was a holy spirit pure in presence. She could not appear in person to her followers, so vast and glorious was her greatness. Instead she acted upon the world through her faithful, through miracles worked through them in her name, and through a series of divine sub-selves who were expressions of her personality and desires at least on the level of her current body. Those days are passed, and the only avatar she can sustain is the one her diminished self uses to act upon the world now.
But one still endures, negligent in her duties to hearth and home and sustained by the will of another. Were it within Britannia’s power she would hunt this being down, strip her of flesh and bone, and reclaim from her every scrap of divine essence to stave off her own inevitable decline just a few years longer. It is not yet within her power… personally.