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Old 01-15-2013, 08:33 PM   #41
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: The Shadow Court of HM Queen Elizabeth II

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
I can't help much (wrong nationality, wrong specialty)
I make no demands that all commentary be from informed specialists. In any case, this is modern day Earth, knowledge about which is more Current Affairs and less academic speciality. And if you are the wrong nationality; so are me and my players. We try not to let it get in the way. ;)

I welcome any speculation; informed or otherwise.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
but you might be interested in this link to resources on ancient estoeric traditions: http://rogueclassicism.com/2013/01/1...-in-antiquity/
I am, thanks. I'll look it over.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
What aren't they saying, and what happens when some learned materialist posts a photo of exactly the wrong papyrus on their Academia.edu page asking if anyone can help him interpret this binding spell?
Judging by previous games set in a similar world... adventure happens. ;)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
The date 2005 comes up a lot in your posts.
While the first stirrings of the return of the supernatural were probably fairly near the beginning of the 1980s, it was extremely subtle and low-key at that time. Not until ca 1991 did some far-seeing people among the Queen's confidants began to worry enough about the potential security implications of the discovery to risk a media furor (at best) and legal consequences (at worst) to turn a loose band of confidantes and intellectually curious researchers into a real conspiracy.

The first steps involved collating the relevant data and assessing the threat, which demanded violations of several security Acts. Then some loyal advisors of HM, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and HM the Queen Mother started preparing plans in the event of hostile paranormal action by criminals, terrorists, monsters or even agents of nation-states which have accepted the reality of the supernatural. By the year 1995, several violent incidents which had the appearance, at least to those in the know, of being violent crimes caused by the supernatural, or at least using such powers, had come to the attention of people around HM.

The present and future dangers of the paranormal were by then obvious enough so that the majority of the Shadow Court accepted the need for some kind of emergency plan. The prefered course among most of them at that point would have been quietly convincing the PM and his Cabinet of the need for new policies to deal with the paranormal, but informal approaches by a few of the more courageous conspiracy members to senior Whitehall people revealed that HM's government was nowhere near prepared to believe in any such thing.

Reading behind the lines of crime statistics, police reports and various odd reports from the military; intelligence and security services as well as other government agencies; the Shadow Court observed a constant rise in supernatural incidents. By 1998-2000, the violent crimes caused by the supernatural were so numerous that taken together on a yearly basis, they far outnumbered the harm done by any known criminal group or terrorist organisation in the UK.

Some of the Queen's informal and illegal councilors believed very strongly that something had to be done and the lawful government was not able to do it. In fact, as far as benign works of paranormal defence went, a selected few among those in the know were already taking action and had been since the mid-80s. They served their fellow Britons by performing rituals designed to protect from harm, by placing wards against hostile spirits and even acting to calm or drive out dangerous spirits that sought to harm people. These were things that they could do without subverting the written and unwritten law of the land. After all, there could be no law against blessing people, places or even a whole realm.

Others among the Queen's confidants believed that while they may have already stepped over the boundaries of legality by such actions as collecting data, making plans, doing field research and establishing an informal group of experts which could form a training cadre once the government accepted the evidence of the supernatural, that didn't mean they had to go further. As yet, their crimes were mostly ones of omission, if crimes at all, and at least could be said to be very much in the way of venal ones.

Once everything was revealed, any infractions of the law and of established custom of government would be judged necessary, judicious and restrained. As their actions were in the best interest of the nation, all would be forgiven. Or so they hoped. By contrast, if the group took action in the defence of the realm, as the prefered euphemism would have it, it would amount to acts of violent crime, murder, terrorism, even treason. Nothing could excuse that.

On the 1st of June, 2001, a lot of the opposition to the Shadow Court arming intself and taking an active role in countering the supernatural melted away. Anyone protected only by mundane security, unaware of the paranormal, was potentially in grave danger. Over the next few years, HRH Duke of Edinburgh, aided by a band of loyal Police Protection Officers, former and current military officers and a few other people brought into the know, acted to secure HM and, without their knowledge, the government in Whitehall.

The ever increasing risk posed by the supernatural to 'normal' people, oblivious to the risks and unable to defend themselves, remained a source of intense personal pain for many of those in the know. With their contacts with spirits, the prophetic gifts of some in the conspiracy and the growing mastery of ritual magic of others, the Shadow Court found themselves with advance knowledge of many serious supernatural events, events that resulted in death, agony and heartbreak.

Finally, unable to bear the thought that they stayed their hand when they could have saved some of HM's subjects, some of the people who had been trained and armed to protect the Queen from supernatural dangers were dispatched to handle a threat that the mundane police could neither spot in time nor defeat if they encountered it. This happened in 2005 and it is from that point that the beginning of the Queen's Paranormal Rangers is dated.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
Someone came out with a new Italian translation of the Corpus Hermeticum with some supplimentary Coptic texts in that year.
Did they indeed?

For the most part, the Shadow Court opposes the publication of specific rituals, at least those potentially dangerous. Opinions on that subject, however, differ greatly among the people in the know. Not being a formal agency or organisation of any kind, there is no mechanism to ensure that everyone has the same view about methods, or even goals. The Queen is universally respected, but the knowledge, on both sides, that she can't actually enforce her will against people with different views through any means, legal or otherwise, tends to encourage independence of thought.
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Last edited by Icelander; 01-15-2013 at 09:14 PM.
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