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Old 01-08-2013, 06:40 PM   #71
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Default Re: British Military Combatives in the Queen's Service

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Which castle would be a good fit and could the twin dragons of expense and gossipy tradesmen somehow be overcome?
Wikipedia has a handy list of castles in Scotland, which includes location, date of construction, current state, current use, and current ownership.
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Old 01-08-2013, 06:48 PM   #72
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One thing that merits some thought is how these paranormal discoveries interact with the common religion of the UK. The country is still predominantly Christian, and has what amounts to a national church, though people aren't forced to join. And the queen is at least on paper the head of that church.
While HM does not give statements to the press, what evidence there is about personal life and worldview indicates that her Anglican faith is real and a source of inspiration for her. She has mentioned her faith in the context of her public addresses, for example, while she has avoided any other potentially contentious subjects. Memoirs of people close to the Royal Family also indicate that she has taken solace in her faith in times of personal distress.

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I suspect that when she was first discovering her powers, the queen would have turned (perhaps discreetly) to the practitioners of the only supernatural tradition she was familiar with, namely Anglican clergymen. What did they tell her? Did she delve deeper into Christian mysticism? Did anyone assist her?
She certainly did. I'll have to track down a plausible clergyman to serve as the Queen's private confessor, spiritual mentor and advisor in matters arcane, during the period when she began to accept that her dreams, visions, intuition and odd feelings were not indications of madness or early senility, but actually constituted paranormal gifts.

The final outcome of such consulations, however, was that while the Queen was privately convinced that her gifts ultimately stemmed from a benevolent deity, she realised that the supernatural had many forms and could not be pigeon-holed as either holy or profane. The supernatural existed and study of it revealed many methods of manipulating it, with this knowledge being a tool that could be used for good or evil.

The setting's interpretation of the Queen's personal faith is fairly 'modern' and permissive, in that she is less interested in dogmatic points of doctrine or strict observence to outer forms of worship than in trying to live according to the central message of the faith as she sees it. She is also sincere in believing in the right of everyone to find God in their own way, though she makes no secret (among her close circle of intimates) that she personally prefers Anglicanism.

Among her Shadow Court there are people with agnostic and atheistic views as well as plenty of Christians of varying levels of observedness. There might also be Buddhists, Muslims or Jews, depending on what research turns up about real people with interesting background and connections to the Queen (either direct or at one or two removes).

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Also, how does common religious practice fit in with magic?
Many religious people believe that their magic is granted by their faith or perhaps by their deity personally, with magical aptitute representing divine favour or a special destiny. Scholars have so far found no objective evidence either way, in that all the observed effects of religious rituals have rough equivalents that exist in the context of partially or purely secular traditions.

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7
Are churches and mosques actually magically potent places or not?
They have a better chance than modern apartment buildings and old and storied places of worship certainly are often useful for magic that exists within that culture and milieu. Potent places of power, however, are just as likely to be 'secular' locations of historical significance and colourful folklore.

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Do religious rituals actually work? (And if not the new stuff, then what about the deeper traditions?)
With the caveats noted upthread, i.e. that living languages are poor for magical workings, religious rituals may work. Mostly, however, the rituals that are performed in dialy worship are not meant to have any specific magical effect and the worshippers neither expect them to do so nor focus their will in a way that is useful for working magic.

Specific rituals that are believed to have supernatural effects, not just in a metaphorical sense but an actual effect in this world, often turn out to work just fine. This applies particularly if the language used is at least somewhat obscure. As a consequence, various religions where belief in an active paranormal powers endured as part of the received learning have been in the forefront of magical knowledge as magic returns.

For example, faiths with a belief in evil spirits and rituals for the exorcism of such beings have found that not only do the problems that believers complain about seem much more real and terrifying, but their traditional methods actually turn out to be somewhat useful against them.
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Old 01-08-2013, 06:56 PM   #73
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Could the public account of plans under way for Ardtornish be a cover story?
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Old 01-08-2013, 07:14 PM   #74
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Wikipedia has a handy list of castles in Scotland, which includes location, date of construction, current state, current use, and current ownership.
Thank you. I'll look over them.

I'd also love suggestions for any castle in Great Britain if posters had some knowledge about local legends or reasons why the castle was particularly suitable for using magic related to defence (specifically of the Crown, land or the people in it), knowledge and far-seeing.

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Could the public account of plans under way for Ardtornish be a cover story?
They certainly could.

Love the grounds, the new village is just the right size for the new full-time people arriving through the accelerated pace of recruiting* and neighbours are hardly a problem.

The 'castle' itself, though, lacks a bit of punch. It's also solidly Victorian, which means penalties for being built post-Industrial Revolution, not to mention a much lower likelyhood of having positive modifiers for Sacred Architecture or long-time use as a Ritual Space.

Still, it's nice possibility to keep in mind. Also, the sustainable development bit sounds suspiciously like a large-scale use of landscape Sacred Architecture, as well as being a cover for avoiding the use of nasty-bad complex technological artifacts that interfere with magic when making changes on the grounds. The estate-manager's dad was a famous Cambridge Don who specialised in pre-Socratic philosophy, which means Pythagoras and his mystical theories, not to mention even more esoteric stuff. And while I have no evidence that his son's interest in landscape development using back-to-nature methods has anything to do with dad's theories of Pythagorean sacred ratios, I have no evidence that it is not connected, either.

How much do you think it would set Her Majesty back to acquire the whole estate? And how much would she have to convince some NGO/charity/rich sponsors to fork over for the sustainable-energy hullaballoo village? Ballpark? Order of magnitude close, at least?

*Because the supernatural has become a problem that no small organisation can hope to contain and it's therefore clear that no matter what anyone wants, the big secret of its existence is going to come out soon and in that case, the little secret of what the Queen has been doing might not be worth preserving, not if the alternative was being able to provide real help with the nation's next steps.
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Old 01-08-2013, 07:21 PM   #75
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I am not sure how effective it would be against supernatural nasties, but the one former SAS member Ive met boxed and said that boxing was an exceptionally popular activity back when he served, so I would think it would be quite reasonable for people to know boxing
As a form of martial sport that is useful for conditioning as well as instilling a proper aggressive spirit, I think knowledge of it would be second only to rugby in popularity in the British armed forces. Unfortunately, rugby is a lot more useful as practice for monster hunting the way the QPR do it. Teamwork, rush 'em together and try not to get knocked down yourself. Add blades to taste, though that's frowned upon in actual play.
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Old 01-08-2013, 08:01 PM   #76
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The 'castle' itself, though, lacks a bit of punch. It's also solidly Victorian, which means penalties for being built post-Industrial Revolution, not to mention a much lower likelyhood of having positive modifiers for Sacred Architecture or long-time use as a Ritual Space.
Besides the Victorian mansion, there are two genuine castles on the estate: Kinlochaline (12th century, ruined in 1690, rebuilt since the 1990s under the supervision of Historical Scotland, now a "private residence") and Ardtornish (15th century, abandoned at the end of the 17th, still ruined).

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Old 01-08-2013, 08:48 PM   #77
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Besides the Victorian mansion, there are two genuine castles on the estate: Kinlochaline (12th century, ruined in 1690, rebuilt since the 1990s) and Ardtornish (15th century, abandoned at the end of the 17th, still ruined).
Splendid!

Either would do, I suppose, depending on size and how ruined 'ruined' means. The rebuilding of Kinlochaline could, of course, have been at the behest of the Queen and done in a way that would not interfere with the use of parts of it as a magical sanctum.

But what are we talking about in money terms? Tens of millions? Hundreds?

She could maybe 'disappear' (or at least avoid the press discuss the use to which she put it) a million or two a year from some combination of Privy Purse, Civil List, income from the Duchy of Lancaster and grants-in-aid, assuming her Treasurer is onboard with her, but beyond that, she has to rely on influencing others to shovel it out. Granted, she has truly monstrous influence with various charities and semi-governmental trusts and organisations, but still, moving large sums of money for murky purposes is one of the best ways to end up blowing something clandestine sky high and onto page one of the Sun.

Of course, one or more of the early conspirators might have been stinking, filthy rich and not using his private fortune at the moment. And the Raven family who own the place could be involved in the conspiracy, of course, which means that there would be no need to buy the estate. And the sustainable energy project looks like it would be the kind of thing someone could 'invest' in without any questions being asked, even if he never recoups the investment. As a bonus, the use to which a lot of royal land in Scotland has started to be put recently is connected to sustainable energy (windmills), which could have provided a way for the Ravens (pioneers in the field, active in various charities connected to it) to meet various early conspiracy members within the Royal Household.

Even so, what do you reckon fixing up a castle or two, adding various features*, concealing a small Killing House somewhere on site and then building a bunch of housing for your scores of secret people would come to, roughly, in pounds?

How much could you save by having maybe ten to twenty people (maybe five of whom could be chosen partially for their handiness) willing to do a lot of the weirdest and most mystical stuff themselves, over a period of some ten years, for no monetary recompanse beyond consideration by the Queen when it came to sinecures and maybe jobs within her power to influence? Or just from loyalty to the Royal Family or Her Majesty alone or such loyalty combined with a recognition that researching the supernatural (and later, defending others from it) is worth doing, even it must be done in secret.

*Like a wing without any modern amenities, constructed using only 'traditional' building methods and then another with every piece of communication eqiupment and digital gadget you can imagine. And a cellar for containment, a morgue and some labs.
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Old 01-08-2013, 09:25 PM   #78
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Default Re: British Military Combatives in the Queen's Service

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But what are we talking about in money terms? Tens of millions? Hundreds?
Building a ~10000 square foot room in a modern factory nowadays (without any production equipment, but including actually installing it and utilities) using all the modern tools available and prefab construction materials runs you about 2.5 million USD.

I'd say extrapolate that to only hand/ye olde timey tools and refurbing ruined ancient architecture, you're looking at least at two orders of magnitude increase. 250 million USD, conservatively, per 1000 m^2.
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Old 01-08-2013, 10:22 PM   #79
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In the nineties you could buy a remote and ruined castle with a few hectares of land for £45,000, and restore it (as a medieval fortress, not an 18th-century mansion) for £400,000. Run-down Victorian mansions in remote areas were under half a million. Estates in Scotland incapable of producing agricultural income weren't selling for millions either. I'd guess that a million pounds would easily have bought Ardtornish in 1995, and another million rebuilt Kinlochaline as a magical worshop and refurbished the mansion as an HQ and accommodations.

Estates and ruined castles are marvellous when that's what you need, but they are hard to make money out of, and hiring staff to maintain them is an incredible money-sink. This being the case, there isn't really very much competition for ones that come on the market, unless they are favourably located and graded to allow redevelopment as hotels, resorts etc. A château in wine country or 20 km from Paris is worth millions, a desolate estate in northern Scotland is not.

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Old 01-08-2013, 10:33 PM   #80
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Here's an article about the costs of buying and restoring castles and the values of the results: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...817825976.html.

I read a bit about a conference about making income out of estates like Ardtornish. It seems to be hard to get any return other than by subdividing and selling real estate. In other words, the people who have millions of pounds aren't going to spend them on remote estates.
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