London

The Halls of London

The Halls of London refers to the vast network of catacombs that lie beneath the City of London and its neighbouring Burroughs, such as Westminster, Islington and Southwark. Nobody knows just how big the Halls truly are, as the Halls bleed into other realms and pocket dimensions, wrapping around Underground stations and utility lines.

The Halls were constructed to tap into London's ley line and its status as a hub of world commerce and politics to stretch out in impossible ways. As such, the halls are constantly changing and expanding. As cities rise in prominence, new corridors will reach out towards them, bending the space between them. As other communities fall out of importance, the pathways to them are shuffled away to the far reaches of the network. Outside of the central reaches, it is easy to get lost and turned around, only to find oneself opening a door to a back alley in Bangkok or the Winter Court of Faerie. While the Halls don't connect to every city in the world, it's almost guaranteed that every community over half-a-million has at least one doorway that leads to the Halls. And that's presuming the Veil Treaty hasn't designed to set up their own connections through rituals, building connections where few existed before.

The Halls are the home of the Veil Treaty, the government of the supernatural world, and for the most part resemble a vast warren of offices, meeting rooms, bureaus, bullpens and storage rooms. Entire sections are given over as embassies to various supernatural nations, such as the Faerie Courts, the Lycan Nation, the Parliament of Shadows, and the elemental kingdoms of the jinn. Other factions who are signatories of the Veil Treaty, such as the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, the Assassins, the Society of the Green Dragon, and the Orders of Atlantis also have permanent representation here. This makes the Halls a hotbed of politics and intrigue, filled with spies, lobbyists, double agents, blackmail, bribery, and the occasional "mysterious disappearance."

However, things are kept in check by the Veil's enforces, the Black Cloaks, or, as they're more colloquially known, the Men in Black. The MiB are headquartered in the lower levels of the Halls, and there one can find the offices of their leadership, operation centres, armouries, laboratories, containment cells for individuals of special importance, and the like. While the MiB do have offices across the world, including several secure containment sites for artifacts, anomalies and dangerous individuals, their nerve centre is located in the Halls. Most of the MiB's elite agents are also headquartered in London, making use of the Hall's twisting corridors to quickly travel across the globe and voyage into other realms.