[Icelander]

A somewhat interesting factor of Sanderson's Vile Vortices and their locations around the world is that none of them are very close to Western Europe or North America. The closest is the 'Bermuda Triangle', near the US Atlantic Coast.

Of course, this fits very well with my setting assumption of technology and the supernatural as opposing forces, with areas with largely secular populations usually having far lower incidences of paranormal phenomena than parts of the world where belief in witchcraft or voodoo, for example, might be widespread.

However, in play, various PCs have also encountered various geographic areas that despite being fairly heavily populated and urban, sometimes with comparatively secular inhabitants, but nevertheless a far greater concentration of odd things than elsewhere in the campaign. Those are not Vile Vortices, in the traditional sense, at least not fitting Ivan T. Sanderson's map of them, but they are nevertheless larger than typical Places of Power. We might call them a 'Mana Eddys', as they are often explained as places where multiple ley lines meet and/or places where historical resonances create circumstances conductive to certain types of magic.

Examples encountered in play include London, Boston, Galveston and such historically significant areas as the Fertile Crescent / Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, mostly), Egypt and the Holy Land (modern Israel and Palestine). And while the PCs have no direct experience of it, they suspect that such areas are fairly common throughout the British Isles, in that the UK and Ireland seem to experience more supernatural phenomena per capita or square mile (whichever you use) than neighboring countries like France, Germany or the Benelux countries.

Occultists theorize that places that in the past were saw heavy use of magic by humans or even inhuman beings before recorded history, might still retain a residue of these events. The British Isles and the Middle East are all places associated with legends of ultraterrestials of some sort living alongside humanity in the ancient past and teaching them miraculous things (e.g. Fair Folk, Tuatha Dé Danann, Anunnaki, Egyptian gods, etc.).

Also, Great Britain and the Middle East may well have been centers of occult studies at various times in human history, if we assume that some recorded historical occultists were practicing an effective form of magic, not just dabbling in superstition. In that case, Alexandria was well known as an ancient center of occult studies, Babylonia was famous for astronomy and sorcery and as for Great Britain; Roger Bacon, John Dee, Isaac Newton, Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland (9th), Sir Francis Bacon and a host of other figures all practiced in the same limited geographic area, i.e. London.

However, this doesn't explain such New World mana hot spots as Boston and Galveston.* One theory might be that both of them might have been the sites of ultraterrestrial settlements before recorded human history there and/or that before the start of recorded history there, they might have been sacred or ritual spaces for one or more local nations.

I was wondering if forumites could think of any other important spots in the world that are very likely to be 'Mana Eddys' or 'Mini-Vortices', even if they are nowhere near one of the Vile Vortices postulated by Ivan T. Sanderson.

*What does explain them is that I've set one campaign exclusively in Boston and my Caribbean at Night campaign started off in Galveston. But we're concerned with in-setting explanations, not explanations on the metalevel.