Excelsior is an alternate history Earth type Realm. Current date is 1980.
WW2 went differently. Japan was never in it. US spies discovered the plan for the Pearl Harbour attack and foiled it. Thus the US involvement in WW2 was much less, until near the very end. Britain stood firm against the Nazis, but there was no D day, as without the US forces, the landings were just impossible. And yet the Germans also couldn’t seem to put an invasion together.
So Hilter turned to his scientists, and the Nuclear program leaped ahead, so much that eventually the US realised that they themselves were in danger, so they also pushed ahead with their nuclear program and their rocket program too. In the end, instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were Berlin 1 & 2, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipzig, Hanover, Dresden, and the one that went wrong and landed in the English Channel, a mile out from Dover.
How bad is Germany now?
Germany is a wasteland. For the non-magical and non-Fae, it is dangerous to even be there. The ruins of a civilisation with clouds of radioactive dust floating around. Plant life still will not grow there. Magical barriers have been erected around the whole country, and are maintained by covens of witches from each of the neighbouring countries that border it.
The Czech Republic, Poland Austria and France also suffered badly, due to the proximity of some of the target cities to their borders. There was a huge wave of cancer deaths in all those countries through the rest of the 40s, 50s and early 60s. Those who came out of that are a much tougher, stronger, brighter set of people.
I imagine the English Channel isn’t a fun place either even these days.
No. Water is an excellent damper of radiation, so it is a navigable seaway again now, but Dover is gone. The white cliffs protected the rest of the country from damage.
12 nukes in Germany, plus one more, broke the Realm. How badly broken and in what way? Is it still broken?
The boundaries to adjacent Shadows broke down, and the boundary to the Abyss broke down. Abyss hags emerged from the ruins of Germany, and for a while established a bridgehead at Nuremberg, before a combined army of British, American and Irish warriors drove them back and sealed the breach. There was a famous last battle of that war on December 21st 1945, as King Finvarra and Queen Uonaidh of Ireland, held a circle with the newly elected Prime Minister Selaphiel of Great Britain and Prince Cúchulainn of Ireland and with the newly elected President Bezaliel and Vice President Vehuel, along with Field Marshall Duke John Cathal Graham and his new wife Princess Meredydd, pushing back what looked like a Reich Abyss Army, before closing the hole for good in a massive tantric ritual that combined witchcraft, Fae magic and the Power of Belief.
Two things happened. One – the resident Grigori collectively took the decision that the real would not survive if they didn’t emerge from hiding and become openly and directly involved. and (2) a second Sacred King Sacrifice would need to be made to the Fae, to enlist their aid also. Princess Elisabeth undertook this solemn task, and history records that she was murdered by German Retributionist agents late in 1945.
The realm was saved, but it has a few differences. For one thing, the twenty-second amendment was never enacted. On a groundswell of opposition to the effective extermination of an entire country, and the mass destruction and death that came out of it, President Bezaliel (a man) and Vice President Vehuel (a woman) are now just starting the ninth elected term, being first elected in 1948, and having just been elected again in 1980.
In the UK, Prime Minister Selaphiel is also the longest serving PM in UK history. She has now been re-elected a 7th time just this year. Meanwhile, King Henry IX, now 80 years old, despite the passing of the Royal Harem Bill in 1963, looks likely to die without a living heir fairly soon, which will mean that the throne will pass to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, when that happens.
Meanwhile, the late Queen Margaret’s surviving husband, Prince Anthony, is in NY where he is a society photographer and playboy.
In 1958, with the death of Pope Pius XII, Pope Puriel I was elected at a conclave, and he has led a revolution in the Catholic Church. The vow of chastity is gone. However, Catholic priests are forbidden to marry – they must minister to their whole flock with equality. Also, the Catholic Church has officially recognised the Fae as beings of grace. Some say this was the price the church paid to not get entirely thrown out of Ireland, which still remains the second largest recruitment base for Catholic priests.
That does make a lot of sense.
The Fae rule Ireland. Great Britain gifted Northern Ireland to them when they took control of the Republic, and there is now the Day Kingdom of Ireland and the Night Queendom of Ireland. Government changes twice daily between two complete Courts, both of whom occupy the government
buildings in Dublin in their turn each day.
That must make Ireland an incredibly strange land to live within for non Fae. Incredibly nice during the day, scared to live there at night.
There are a couple of exceptions – Taoiseach Mór Ríoghain is the head of both governments. And she has a daughter Áine who is the ambassador of both governments to the United Nations
Do Ireland still have a human population there?
No. It’s fair to say that there was been a mass exodus over the years, leading up to the Invocation of Tara’s Hill in 1975, when the Fae officially declared Ireland a Fae Realm, and moved all their inter-human diplomatic resources to New York in the US. At this point, only the Fae may set foot in Ireland.
Liverpool and Glasgow now have a much higher Irish populations, as does the North Eastern United States.
NY is where the United Nations has its world headquarters. Cardinal Jemiel, a handsome and dashing son of the Pope, is both the head of the Catholic Church in the US, the bishop of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Ave, New York City, and is also the Vatican Ambassador to the UN.
Where has that left magic with this -emergence’ of ‘magical’ beings? Is there a magical awakened community?
Magic is much more common. Sorcery is recognised, taught and licensed. Columbia University in NY has become a major centre for sorcery research and teaching. It is to sorcery what Harvard s to law teaching. Kings College Cambridge is the same in the UK.
Also, ritual magic is not uncommon. Witchcraft is not frowned upon, and the magic of belief is also widely accepted as being in existence.
Superheroes are in existence. Basically, Nephelim, who have ‘powers’ based on the Magic of Belief. Also Supervillains too, naturally.
How has the tech evolved?
More slowly, with magic getting involved. Tech is more like the 60s than the 80s. The mobile phone is probably nowhere on the horizon, because there is magic that can do that already.
New York. What is New York like and who are the significant people in New York beyond the Bishop?
Well, for one thing, the Government in Exile of the Surviving Germanic Peoples is in New York, led by Chancellor Kassandra, who has been very vocal in condemning the Retributionist movement, and putting forth the policy of forgiveness and tolerance between the Germanic people and the Capitalist Murdering Bastards who wiped out their nation and their ancestors, and rendered the Fatherland a Nuclear desert for the next thousand years. Kassandra’s popularity has been helped by her being one of the very obvious lesbian lovers of Queen Thrud of Scandinavia. Also, now, there is Adele Ulrica Adler, Führerrin of the Surviving Germanic Peoples, who was found alive in a bunker, in the radioactive ruins of Berlin, in 1954, when the magically NBC suited historians finally managed to reach there and start breaking through the layer of glass that had been formed when all that concrete that the Nazis loved got superheated by two nukes. Adele, it seems, is also a girl’s girl, and has been welcomed into Kassandra and Thrud’s bed. In fact, Adele is resident in the German diplomatic enclave, whereas Thrud is only an occasional visitor.
Kassandra was a young Wermach officer in occupied Northern France, who surrendered to the British and Americans when they landed in crossings from Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Humberside, after the blasts (Dover and the rest of the Kent coast being a write-off at that point). A very charismatic woman who became a focus for the mass sympathy that broke out towards the remaining German people, after the nation’s total obliteration. If you happen to notice a certain resemblance between Kassandra and one Princes Sand of Amber, then such resemblance is entirely coincidental and without relevance or significance. [And if you believe this, I’ve got this bridge I’d like to sell you :-)]
The bunker Adele was found in had her as the only living thing in it, extremely thin and emaciated. Nobody has ever come out and asked her to her face if she survived by eating everybody else in the bunker, and all the rats and rodents that she could find, and eventually anything else organic too. Books. Wooden chairs and tables. Fabrics from clothing. You name it. But, for those that know, there is almost no other plausible explanation to how she survived 9 years in an underground bunker in a nuclear wasteland. There certainly was hardly anything else of an organic origin down there with her.
At this time, Excelsior has not developed DNA profiling, so Adele’s ancestry is not publicly known.
In the time since Adele was discovered, the relationship between Adele and Kassandra has deteriorated in a spectacular fashion, to the point that Adele has basically retired to Scandinavia, and Kassandra remains in New York, and the two of them denigrate and insult each other on an almost daily basis in the popular press.
Is there information regarding the High Command in Germany in the war (and Hitler’s close friends)?
Yes. Quite a lot of it. The old government of USA declassified it all in an attempt to justify the nukes. And Excelsior is a much more Enlightened world anyway now than St. James is.
It is indeed.
Hitler was Cornelian. Most likely one of your nephews, because it seems his father was Führer Dieter Kasimir Ritter of Germania, who is a Brand kid. In fact, twin brother to Wolfgang von Strucker, actually.
This is specifically Hitler on Excelsior, correct?
It might not be. Delwin was also experimenting with cloning. He’d discovered that all the Thrud’s throughout shadows were clones …
But if they were clones, some of them were certainly less unstable than others. Sanity was a big variable between different versions of Hitler, that was for sure.
I didn’t know they were Twins….. Identical or just similar looking twins?
Non-identical.
And it would appear that Hitler’s mother was Führerrin Countess Volumnia Fitz-Hendrake.
Ok. That is interesting.
The genetics were there for Hitler to have been a very powerful character. But most versions of him were not stable.
And it seems that Eva Braun was also Cornelian. She appears to have been a Delwin daughter, born around 1912.
But that is all conjecture, because as far as you can tell, there is no perfect fit for Adele that you think should have been in that bunker. It was Hitler’s bunker, and he and Eva were both there. They did marry in 1945, and according to a very damaged diary found in there by the archaeologists in 1954 when they discovered it, Hitler and Eva married in there, and had a wedding night, before he killed himself, in what feels a lot like an Abyss Sacred King sacrifice. Eva lived on and had a baby. The diary entries stop there. But if that was Adele, she should have been a nine year old when she was found, not a mature young woman of utterly indeterminate age due to the malnutrition.
An Abyss ritual might have meant time in the Abyss, who knows.
Yes, it might. And once ten nukes went off within a few hundred miles of each other, there was definitely Abyss Access to Excelsior for a while. And an environment that was probably really only accessible to people used to living in the harshest conditions. Like, oh, perhaps, Abyss residents
Incidentally, Hitler had a sister, Paula, who was also supposedly in that bunker.
So, lots of possible options, and maybe even ones we don’t know about.
Could well have been ‘war of the Involuntary Shape Shifters’ as far as we know (and who ate who).
Very possible. Particularly after the Abyss holes were sealed, and the bunker people were cut off and on their own again.
I take it that Thrud is a muscle bound as on other worlds.
Actually, Thrud is not muscle bound at all. On St. James she is a walking blond wet dream babe. And it seems she is like that on Excelsior too. She is a goddess, after all:
Yes, definitely best to see how pissed off she is with House Hendrake.
And find out about her history in comparison to the others….
She’d been hiding in plain sight, steering the Viking way of life in the shadows. She’d seen the Nazi rise, and decided they needed to step up their game, so she instituted the Scandinavian Defence Rituals that protected Scandinavia from Nazi aggression, and as it happens also protected it against the fall-out and the blasts when the nukes came.
When she saw the Grigori step out of the Shadows, she decided to do the same, and once she did, a reunited Viking Nation of Scandinavia was not long in coming. Christianity was rapidly eclipsed by worship of the old gods, and the Viking way of life. Effectively, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Greenland form ‘United Scandinavia’.
So, she saw the rises of National Socialism in Germany, and reacted against it, but is now sharing a bed with 2 ‘german’ Cornellians.
Who are the notable Fae in and around New York?
Obviously, Ambassador Áine is in NY. But also, both Cúchulainn and a Warrior Princess called Meadhbh seem to have moved in there. Cúchulainn seems mostly to be Seelie, and Meadhbh is definitely Unseelie.
The Irish Embassy is on the East side of Central Park, and the daily change of diplomats and workers seems to take place in Central Park – they must have established a Hollow Hill entrance somewhere in the Park. They come and go through ‘The Grotto’ in Central Park.
Good to know. Do they have any bars/pubs they inhabit outside of hours?
Yes. Obviously not the same ones for the Seelie and the Unseelie. There are some pubs and bars that are really dangerous at breakfast time, being as that is where the Unseelie go after their work shifts.
Generally, Cúchulainn is a Fae Superhero in NY. Champion of the Irish exiles, friend of the downtrodden, and focus of female adolescent fantasies.
There is much speculation that Meadhbh runs the Irish Mafia, and the Irish Underworld. The Don does not have unopposed control of organised crime on Excelsior, even though he does have Donna Sophia stationed there as his representative. Plus, there are an unhealthy number of unaligned independent villains, due to the large number of Nephelim on this world.
Ok, then I guess the UN would be one of the major foci for things happening in New York?
Yes. Every country that exists has representation there. It’s not completely like our UN, because it seems to have more teeth.
I rather expect there may be more hooking up and casual sexual liaisons at this UN given the nature of many of the ‘major players’.
Very much so.
It makes a lot of sense. I take it that for those who can read it, there are cadre of Nephelim who are linked to each Grigori principle.
Yes. But there’s also cross fertilisation between the groups too. The first generation children have been quite clearly fucking each other, to spread the genetics. So the second generation come in varying strengths of Nephelim genetics.
Does there appear to be any Fae/Grigori cross fertilisation?
Not at the Grigori level, but at the Nephelim level, it’s probable.
However, Fae genetics don’t quite seem to work that way. As you cross breed, it still seems that you are either Fae, or you aren’t. There don’t seem to be Half-Fae as such. At least, not on Excelsior.
There are Fae that live in the human world, but they’re still Fae.
The World Defence Force was set up initially by Britain and America after WW2 ended, but it was soon put under UN control, and a lot of the Nephelim Superheroes work for it. Agents of Shield actually exists on Excelsior.
Cool……
Are there other significant places in New York that seem to be significant to Excelsior?
What do you mean?
Ok, stuff that would be different from St James NY.
Like the major hangout bar/’club’ for the city being a 5 story monstrosity where everyone who is anyone goes…. There is indeed. It’s called ‘Seks’ and its on 5th Avenue, right in the one of the richest parts of town. It’s actually ground floor, two floors above and two levels of basement. The top and bottom floors are all private rooms for hire, and the rule is that anyone who goes off the ground floor must wear a mask. Only the club staff know all the names. Upstairs is called ‘Vanilla’ and downstairs is called ‘Spice’.
Ok, now that definitely is intriguing. Who is the owner, or who fronts the club?
There are two of them. Prince Plato Seks runs Vanilla, and Princess Venus Seks runs Spice. They both claim their titles from being children of King Temeluchus of Greece, who is another of the resident Grigori on this world. They came to NY on an immigrant boat from Europe in 1955, changed their surnames to Seks a year later, bought the premises of the former ‘Saks, 5th Avenue’ department store, which had gone bust due to the financial ruin of its owner, the Hudson Bay Company, after the war, when a lot of old money ran in to trouble being as it could be linked to nuclear movement.
Hudson Bay company was into munitions manufacture. They were heavily involved in the rocket designs that were used for the nukes fired at Germany. In the post war shake downs, when that news came out, they went into financial meltdown. Consumer boycotts, private investors dumping their shares like they were contagious. By 1950, the Hudson Bay company was no more.
That’d do it.
It is a clothing optional environment throughout. No under 16s allowed (The age of consent in NY is 16 for both sex and alcohol consumption, and many other things actually, including voting). The ground floor is bars, disco, lounges, booths, VIP suite, and a general place to meet new people and hook up. No cover charge to get into the ground floor. NY allows recreational drug consumption within a licensed premises, so weed, cocaine and heroin are also available and legal within the premises.
President Belaziel campaigned that ‘If we are going to ask our young people to join our military and go and die for our country, defending the peace and the rights we all enjoy, then we should at least have the decency to let them do anything else that an adult is allowed to do in this great nation. They should be allowed to drink what they like, smoke what they like, have sex with who they like, and vote for who they like.
These are the rights we all take for granted, so let’s do our part to be sure that we can all take those rights for granted, regardless of the colour of our skin, our gender or our age’.”
We do like President Belaziel, or at least that part of his policies. It must have made a very different America over the years even with the inevitable resistance from some groups.
OK. When you start looking in that much detail, you will realise that there is an Amber Broken Pattern somewhere on Excelsior, and that is the only reason the whole realm didn’t completely fall into the Abyss when those nukes struck. This will make the place both more stable, and also more difficult for you to work. Not impossible, because it is only a Broken Pattern, but definitely more difficult, and also more permanent once you have worked it, so more difficult to go in and do modifications when you decide you didn’t quite get it right and want to alter it.
Incidentally, attached is a map that often appears now in school history books. The red blotches are the total destruction zones from the individual nukes, the yellow stain is the blast damage destruction zone, and the brown stain is the fallout dispersal / cancer zones. Within the red zones 100% of people died, within the yellow about 50% of people died and 25% were seriously injured, many never fully recovering, and within the brown zones 50% of initial survivors had died of cancer by 1955, and 25% more died by 1965. And of the survivors, something like 90% of them were sterile.
So, when they say that Germany was wiped out, they are not strictly accurate. Of the roughly 75 million people in Germany in 1945, about 18 million were still alive in 1965. Between the sterility, ageing, continued cancer reducing that further, the number for the Germanic peoples in 1980 is about 5 million. Most of them now live in Austria, which, with them included, has just about doubled its 1945 population of around 7 million, to 14 million. They all live in southern Austria, south of the mountains.
Czech Republic and Poland have also had huge problems with cancer and sterility. By 1980, their populations are still below the WW2 levels, and are not yet rising again. Czech republic was 11 million, now around 3 million, and Poland was 34 million, now around 9 million.
And that fallout plume from the Dover blast made a mess of Belgium, southern Netherlands, and the northern corner of France too. Nothing like as a high a proportion of population lost though – is was only one bomb and it did land in the sea.
Dover is still a radioactive grave yard though. Nobody but NBC suited archaeologists and military can go there.
Gun rules are stricter than real life. Private security firms have to have any operative pass a mandatory gun proficiency test annually. Also, the require psyche screening, and 2 references, before a commercial carry permit is issued. And in nearly all cases, part of a commercial carry permit includes the wearing of a recognisable uniform indicating that you are an individual that is armed as a part of your work.
Even private gun owners need to pass a mandatory gun safety course before getting their first permit, and concealed carry is pretty much not available to any except the police and military, and licensed superheroes.
Private detectives can get concealed carry permits, but they’re on the same annual proficiency review that the police have to pass. That includes friend/foe exercises. You fail, you lose your permits.
You have a right to bear arms (in a recognised militia), and the constitutional right to join the national guard reserve is the interpretation of this right. Two weeks a year service in the reserve gets you the right to have your military issue weapon securely in your gun safe in your own home. It better not show up out on the streets with you.
Hunting rifles are allowed, again extra training and permits and psychological screening. Same for shotguns.
So, basically, private citizens don’t have an easy time being legally armed in 1980s America on Excelsior.
That’s good. How comparable is magic and how is that legally regarded?
Magic is also regulated, but it depends exactly what magic you have, as to how the regulation is done.
Heroes and Heroines have to register their Superpowers, and there is a Superhero code of practice that governs how and when they can use them, if they are able to be used as weapons.
Sorcery is regulated through a government department, that also overseas the registering and assessing of students by the various mage colleges, and keeps records of mage signatures.
Witchcraft is regulated, through town and city district covens. It’s like the medical profession – there are standards, malpractice suits and liability insurance for witches.
Demonic is pretty much banned everywhere. The Fae really hate demons, and the presence of this much Fae involvement in world affairs basically means no demons allowed.
Most cities have a superhero squad, that are pretty much all Nephelim, as far as you can tell.
Interesting. Does NY have multiple superhero squads given it’s size or just 1 very good/large one?
NY has Batgirl, with the Bat Team, which comprises a Batman and a Robyn.
There is also a Batgirl Chicago, and a Batgirl LA.
Washington DC is a special case, because the Secretary of State is Kara Zor-El, who is apparently one of the President’s daughters.:
She has a Superhero team that is part of the State Department.
Oh, and I should mention that there seems to be a worldwide quality super-villain out there called Nightmaere. Been operating for at least the last 20 years (since the early 60s) and nobody knows nutin’ about her. Except that there is a fanzine that had an apparently ‘authorised’ real picture of her. The photographer credited with the shot turned up dead in his apartment the day after the fanzine issue hit the stands. Apparently, he’d been strangled with his own small intestine, which had been extracted with perfect keyhole surgery, while he was still alive.
There is a general ‘not killing people’ thing in Excelsior. Riker’s Island in NY is a specialist centre for imprisoning Super-villains. Alcatraz does the same on the West Coast. Death warrants are only issued if the Villain is a serial killer. Most Super-villains tend not to be. It’s bad for business.
Iron Heights Penitentiary is also on the list of Super-Villain prisons. Brutal and horrible, it’s located near DC [not surprisingly 🙂 ] pretty much where the Pentagon would have been built in our world. Due to the war ending so differently, the Pentagon didn’t get built. At least, not above ground 🙂 Iron heights is famous for the brutality used to keep the prisoners secure – Leavenworth was very similar on St. James. In this case led by its Governor Gregory Wolfe, famous as a Super-villain hater, making much publicity about the fact that it is necessary not just to confine villains, but also to punish them severely, for the rest of their natural lives. Needless to say, Iron heights is the Federal Penitentiary, whereas the rest are the state ones.
Wolfe himself is a registered Super Hero – Super Strength, Super Charm, Super Intellect, and Shape Changing.
Given the Wolfe name, what’s the bet that Iron Heights and Gregory have some secrets and not pleasant ones. I take it that there definitely seem to be some Wolfe lineage to his face?
Well, that is Ray Winstone playing him, and Ray Winstone also played Protector-General Raymond Wolfe (RIP). So I’d say that’s a yes.
Testimony by Princess Ragnhilde, the foreign secretary of Scandinavia.
“It was a very strange time to be alive. Hitler and the Nazis were bad. No two ways about it. D-day hadn’t happened, but there was definitely something Supernatural going on.”
“I was 40. I was an officer in the Danish army, so I was part of the force that was heavily guarding our neutrality. Even though there were still separate Scandinavian nations at that point, Thrud had reached an accommodation with Hitler that placed a rigid border just North of Hamburg.”
“Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were stuck. And for sure, the Nazis had their own nuclear research going on. For some reason though, they hadn’t got to the point where Hitler was willing to launch anything.”
“I’m close to certain that Roosevelt didn’t tell the rest of his allies that he had given the order to launch. But Churchill was clever, and when the US forces started pulling back from the coast of Britain, Churchill had the Brits do the same. Stalin got greedy and he had his lot stay put, and even try another push.”
“And then, for us on border guard, the ground shook, and the sun rose again 11 times that day, in the southern skies. And word immediately came from Thrud that every Viking who knew how was to stop whatever they were doing and enact the ritual of Hearth and Home wherever they were on as much of the border as they could. And to keep doing it for as long as we could stay awake. And when the blast waves and the dust clouds finally came rolling north to our lands, winds sprang up out of the west and blew the dust eastwards, and none of it passed into our lands.”
“Only later did we actually learn what had happened. And about the deep dark holes that opened up where some of the German cities used to be.”
“It took about a month before the riots started in the US. In the ’44 elections, Belaziel’s new political party of remorse won every seat contested in both the House and the Senate. Within weeks, the measure to prosecute Roosevelt and Wallace for genocide was passed, and the hearings in took 4 days, before the guilty vote was passed. That was the start of President Belaziel’s rule of America.”
“In Britain, Winston Churchill actually resigned, and at his urging, Selaphiel was appointed the next Prime Minister. Churchill remained a national hero, and was a respected statesman until his death in 1966.”
“In Russia, it was mayhem. The pride of the Russian army died over the next several years, either from the initial blasts in the Eastern part of Germany, or from the cancer that came with the plume that resolutely blew eastwards over Poland, and the Czech lands. And international pressure managed to stop Stalin from being replaced by more of the same.”
“Oppenheimer, and the American nuclear scientists are all in Iron Heights. Those that are still alive, at any rate. 40 years in, it would seem that nuclear science was never a very safe branch of research. Many of them gifted their deaths to science, as we all learned more about the effects of radiation, than we knew before.”