Editing Supernatural Law: Main Page (section)

===Cosmology, Politics and Supernatural Beings===

So the governments have treaties with the powers of alien realms. What are those powers like? Well, the answer is "numerous". For example, Fey Realms is a blanket term that covers countless Courts, as the Fey call their realms. Simply due to their number, it is not uncommon to find gateways to Fey realms, but they are strange places where time flows at a vastly accelerated rate but nothing really ages. Visiting is not recommended.

More specific and unique realms exist, but they tend to be harder to reach. Somewhere out there are Asgard and Avalon, although the only known gateways to those realms exist in Northern Europe and British Isles, respectively.

Generally, human nations tend to have treaties with any Other Side realms that see at least semi-regular traffic through known gateways from within their national borders. However, there are two powers that everyone has to treat with. The Hosts. Hosts of Heavens and Hells. Angels and Devils.

====Angels and Devils====

[https://bit.ly/2ihnQpF '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the angels.

[https://bit.ly/2FDQzDa '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the devils.

Heavens and Hells are the most powerful realms, and the oldest. It is possible that they have always existed. Among the multitude of Other Side realms, they are the nuclear armed superpowers that no one wants to provoke.

The hosts are competing powers, hostile to each other. But they do not fight wars. Not anymore. Legends tell that they once did and universes fell, but they are evenly matched. The conflict always ended in peace talks and treaties. And now their relations and behavior towards each other is bound to countless treaties and agreements, and they are bound to them in a way humans would have difficulty understanding. Literally unable to break them. So they maintain civil relations. Exchange envoys. Maintain embassies.

The hosts still compete though. They are embroiled in an eternal cold war. Diplomacy. Espionage. Sabotage. When human nations started negotiating with the Other Side, it was the Hosts that laid out the rules. And they maintain an active interest. Even Boston has Consulates for the Consuls of Heaven and Hell. (There are actually multiple Heavens and Hells, but in common parlance they get lumped together.)

There are two main reasons for the Hosts to have an interest. First, human souls. The Hosts collect souls. For what purpose, no one knows. They neither explain nor allow visitors to the parts of their realms where the souls are taken. But there are no pacts written in blood involved in the process of soul collecting. The hosts have treaties for the division of souls. There is a realm, dubbed Purgatory by humans, where the souls claimed by the Hosts go for eventual processing, division and transportation to their final destinations. The Hosts do not claim all the souls, and their rules are as mysterious as their reasons.

The second reason for the Hosts to have an interest is proxies. The Hosts are kept from conflict by their treaties, but humans are not bound by them. Both of the Hosts have created and maintain distinct bloodlines of Hell- or Heaven-empowered humans. Devil Blooded and Angel Blooded. Despite their empowerment, they remain human enough not to be bound by the treaties, and the Hosts engage in limited conflict through them. Raids, commando strikes, assassinations. However, sometimes the Host-Blooded balk at following the orders of their patrons and strike out after their own destinies. They are not bound, after all.

A research published in the 1950s claims that in their natural state, both Angels and Devils are immaterial beings that resemble geometric shapes. But the research was based on confiscated Nazi research papers and is considered of questionable reliability. It has never been confirmed and the Hosts are not very forthcoming with information. What makes it hard to say anything reliable about the natural forms of Angels and Devils is that they are expert shapeshifters, capable of assuming numerous shapes both material and immaterial.

The Hosts also have ranks. While they are in common parlance all dubbed Angels and Devils, it is actually rare for Hosts of that rank to visit. In Boston, the only known ones are the two Consuls. Above them are Archangels and Archdevils, but little is known of these beings, or whether there are more ranks above them. The activities of the Hosts on Earth are most commonly performed by their human and half-human agents, and on the occasion that Hosts take direct action, the beings sent are their foot soldiers. Devas and Asuras, a step below actual Angels and Devils.

Devas and Asuras lack the shapeshifting abilities of their superiors. They have only been observed in human forms, and even that is a single form they cannot change. It is possible that they cannot create physical forms themselves and are provided with ones when sent to our world on a mission.

As a rule, all the Hosts prefer to be flight capable, and even Devas and Asuras can manifest a pair of glowing wings with a carrying capacity far exceeding their size.

All Hosts are exceptionally dangerous beings. The only thing in our world that can harm their otherworldly physical forms is fire, and even that does not have full effect. Magic works just fine, and hosts have even trained their human proxies in the distinct disciplines of Devil Slayers and Angel Killers, and this training has since spread to other people. It is debatable whether destroying their physical bodies truly kills the Hosts, however.

Hosts are expected to obey our laws while in our world and are subject to arrest if they break them. The Consuls have diplomatic immunity, but even that has limits. By the Edinburgh Treaties, Hosts are forbidden from influencing secular authorities. (Religious authorities are fair game.) They tend to circumvent this by influencing a person before he becomes a secular authority and then just let him run. But manipulating such a person into a position of authority is a treaty violation, and blatant tampering like that has been known to happen.

====Demons====

[https://bit.ly/2ZqiVaK '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the demons.

Some beings you should never enter into pacts with. Demons being the most well-known example. They are notorious soul poachers who subsist on suffering.

Devils do not do deals written in blood, Demons do. They appear to have no realm of their own, but flit through other realms, looking for gullible or desperate people to trick into bargains. Demonic bargains are always heavily lopsided in the demon's favor, but this is not always immediately apparent.

Demons are highly individualistic and difficult to categorize. Some appear harmless, others terrifying. Some are brutish and violent, others cunning and subtle. Some are immaterial beings who possess people, others can manifest physical bodies. Some focus on collecting souls, others go around causing misery and suffering that they take nourishment and pleasure from. But there are similarities between them too. Such as the fact that any pact with a demon always ends in suffering. And when demons are concerned, not even death is an escape.

Even worse, some demons are capable of just plain stealing a person’s soul, no pacts or agreements needed. Most often this is done through an elaborate ritual murder. And in such a case, freeing the stolen souls is possible as long as the demon does not manage to smuggle them out of our realm.

Everyone takes a dim view of the soul stealing the Demons do, both human authorities and the Hosts. And one time when human police officers might find themselves working with Hell Cops or Agents of Heaven - or even both - is when a powerful demon slips through.

====Elementals====

[https://bit.ly/198Yu0X '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the elementals.

Volatile and dangerous beings. Except for earth elementals, who are deeply philosophical and devout pacifists. For a long time, mages used to summon them to do their bidding. Even after the treaties, for the elementals have little society, no government, and no force to represent them. They are, however, self-aware and intelligent. And summoning them away from their native environment causes them physical and mental anguish and robs them of their freedom of action. So it did not take long for the Elemental Rights Movement to form. The summoning of elementals was banned in most parts of Europe after World War II, and in Canada not long after that, but in US an influential lobby group funded by wealthy mages and corporations specializing in arcane or alchemical products has resisted such legislation, citing the damage it would do to US business interests.

The elemental workforce has been largely invisible to the common mage community, and the lobby group managed to have its way for decades. It took social media to undo their efforts. After an image of earth elementals passively resisting in a sitting strike even in the face of physical abuse went viral in the younger mage community, the law against elemental summoning was finally passed late last year. In the tradition of Boston as a center of the abolitionist movement, many Boston mages supported the Elemental Rights Movement, and for them the law was a cause of great celebration. But many people represented by the failed lobby group were utterly incensed. It is highly likely that in the near future the law will get broken often. Perhaps even publicly, in an attempt to force a supreme court case.

====Liches====

There is a millennia-old ritual, reputedly dating from ancient Egypt. The ritual of Lichdom. It allows a mage to cheat death by anchoring her soul into a special object called a phylactery. While cadaverous in appearance, a liche does not fully die as long as the phylactery remains intact. But there is a cost. Every time the liche would die, by accident or violence, someone else dies in her stead. And the liche has no control over who dies. It could be anyone within several miles of the phylactery.

Liches are extremely few in number. The ritual is difficult, even for a powerful and experienced mage. And the costs of failure may be worse than death. Few people try it, even at advanced age or while facing a terminal illness. Even fewer succeed. And liches are not immortal. They need copious amounts of alchemical substances to maintain their bodies. And should their phylactery be destroyed, they die instantly.

Ritual of lichdom is illegal in Boston, no permit of residency for a lich has been granted, and even getting a visitor visa is a hurdle. Not that liches generally travel, most are paranoid about the security of their phylacteries.

There is one regular liche visitor to Boston though, the local laws and regulations against his kind not being of much concern to him. He is Sir William Christie, the head of FBI's Arclight task force.

====Spirits and Homunculi====

Many beings of the other side are immaterial. Some can manifest physical forms but most can not, and when visiting our realm the latter are either severely diminished or even completely incapable of entering unless they can obtain a physical body. For much of history, this was done through two different methods. The first method being possession, an involuntary takeover of someone’s body. Often highly harmful to the host person. The second is channelling, where a person forms a link with a spirit and voluntarily cedes partial control of his body to the channelled spirit. The latter method usually involves a pact of some kind.

Modern era has brought the third alternative. The Homunculi.

There have always been people who have mixed magic and science. Alchemy, the mixing of magic with chemistry, is the most widespread and well known. But magic has also been combined with other fields of science. Many names have been suggested for different combinations and some, such as technomancy, have caught on. But in common parlance, and somewhat misleadingly, people tend to just add “alchemy” to the name of the field. Mixing biology and magic would be called Bio-Alchemy, and so on.

Homunculi are created by Gene-Alchemy. They are half way between Flesh Golems and clones. In effect, a homunculus is a lab-grown human body with just the most basic autonomous functions and no consciousness of its own. Ripe for possession.

Some magi create homunculi in order to summon and bind spirits to them, creating supernatural servants and minions. Others offer them for sale to the beings from the Other Side willing to visit our world. Every homunculus is an expensive creation, but powerful beings from the other side have ways of paying the price.

By Law, homunculi are required to be tattooed with serial numbers and registered, so in case of trouble the police will know where to go asking questions. But there is a thriving black market trade for unmarked homunculi, to be used for purposes the police would object to.

====Vampires and Werewolves====

Though these beings are powerful, they are also cited as examples of what happens when one wants too much out of a pact. For while mages are still mostly human despite their otherworldly powers, and most definitely inhabitants of our world, vampires and werewolves are no longer quite human although they can pass as them. They also have difficulties surviving in our world, needing special diets to keep their otherworldly part of falling ill, and possessing strange vulnerabilities.

No one knows for sure what people entered into pacts that turned them into vampires and werewolves or when exactly this happened, but most theories suspect primitive tribes living in what is today Eastern Europe. Nor is it known what being or beings they made pacts with, although the answer is unlikely to be anything good. It stands to reason that the timeless Hosts would know, but both Angels and Devils steadfastly refuse to answer questions about the subject. It is possible that vampires and werewolves were created as proxies in some otherworldly conflict, for they seem to have an instinctive loathing of each other. While this does not make them automatically fight each other upon meeting, it does make coexistence strained and violence more likely to happen.

=====Vampires=====

[https://bit.ly/2KMjbdi '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the vampires.

Physically powerful and capable of enduring damage that would kill a human twice over, vampires can still die of injuries other than decapitation and a stake through the heart, although anyone who has faced one can understand where the rumors about their unkillability come from. Vampires also eat food just like anyone else, but they also need a daily diet of fresh blood to keep from wasting away. The blood needs to be from a human and freshly drawn from the veins. Animal blood is useless to a vampire and stored human blood rapidly loses the mystical qualities a vampire needs.

Vampires are also vulnerable to sunlight and certain symbols. Particularly holy symbols. And this does not in any fashion depend on the religious views of a vampire or the person brandishing the symbol. An atheist vampire would be repelled by a Buddhist waving a crucifix. In fact, the symbol does not need to be brandished by anyone. Stepping into a house of worship or a cemetery would be impossible for a vampire. At least a young one, for they build up resistance as they age. A young vampire would suffer burns at sunlight and recoil hissing from the sight of a cross, but an old vampire would merely suffer extreme discomfort at sunlight or within a church.

Vampires do not breed in normal fashion but they can create new vampires by draining a human of blood and then infusing the victim with some of the vampire's own blood - and a hefty amount of the mystical power that courses within a vampire's veins. The process is taxing, but even a single vampire can eventually repopulate their numbers. Despite this, they are rare creatures. Largely because their vulnerabilities make it difficult for vampires to hide if people become aware of them. Yet they cannot live far away from humans either because of their daily need for human blood. A single vampire needs a herd of several hundred humans to feed from without adversely affecting their health. For a long period of history this made vampires solitary creatures, because another vampire in the area meant competition for the blood source. So they lived far apart, either as warlords ruling over a territory and exerting a tribute in blood, or as champions of primitive tribes, protecting their people and being supported by them. The spread of civilization largely brought such arrangements to end. Either vampiric lords and protectors were no longer needed or wanted and they perished in uprisings, or they died defending their territories against more numerous and better armed opponents.

One might perhaps think that the era of large cities would have led to a population boom of vampires, but that was not the case. The large number of human residents can in theory support a large vampire population but it also brings a threat of discovery. A single vampire needs a herd of several hundred, and the members of their herd come in contact with countless people. The more vampires, the greater the risk. Younger vampires, with their more blatant weaknesses, are especially prone to attract notice, so in the era of cities, few were created. To add to the problems, the authorities are perfectly aware that vampires exist, even if they contribute to keeping it secret. So assuming that vampires are even allowed residency, in the cities they usually have to live under highly restrictive laws.

So it is actually rare to find vampires living in cities. Mostly they live as they always have, in small communities. Either they find a remote small town or village where they can build a personal relationship and deal with the human authorities, or they form their own communities, such as by setting up a cult compound.

=====Werewolves=====

[https://bit.ly/31j15a3 '''Theme music'''] This is the theme music for the werewolves.

Werewolves have an easier time passing off as human because although they are capable of turning into fearsome monsters, they look outwardly human. And their vulnerability to silver is not as blatant as the vampiric vulnerabilities. But they have their own dietary needs. Every week, a werewolf must eat copious amounts of raw, freshly killed meat. It does not have to be human flesh, animals work just fine as a food source, but the meat must be unprepared and from a fresh kill. Stored or cooked meat loses its usefulness.

Another problem for werewolves is that their change is in part instinctive. Although they can fight the instinct, they feel an urge to turn at stressful situations and when they are physically injured.

A third problem is that werewolves can only have children with other werewolves. They can actually turn a human into a werewolf by biting and then infusing the bitten victim with a large amount of their mystical energy reserve, but that does not result in a true werewolf, but instead a terror weapon or a disposable shock trooper. Infected werewolves have no conscious control over their transformation or what they do when transformed. They are driven only by rage and instinct. Only natural born werewolves have control over their change and actions.

Since werewolves do not need humans as a food source, can only breed among their own people, and usually face restrictive legislation at best when living among humans, they are an even rarer sight than vampires in human cities. Usually they live in remote rural areas, in their own insular communities. Werewolves are highly clannish, but different clans and families strive to maintain good relations and intermarry regularly. They have to, for werewolves face a constant threat of inbreeding. And inbred werewolves turn increasingly less human and more monstrous.

=====Vampires and Werewolves in Boston=====

Boston does not outright ban entry from vampires and werewolves, but it does legislate them heavily. Visiting ones need to apply for a visitor permit beforehand. Becoming a resident also needs a permit. Residents also need to check in with the police regularly. Although with well known long term residents this is largely a routine visit to the station every month or two. Creating new vampires or infected werewolves is outright forbidden as a form of murder.

Boston sees an occasional vampire visitor and has three long term residents.

Siobhan is the oldest vampire in Boston. She claims to have been around when the City was still just a frontier town, although back then she was running a traveling brothel in a wagon train. These days she gets by as a high class call girl and feeds on her customers, most of whom are rich visitors to the City. She regularly changes her surname. At the moment, she is going with Dunn. And has a habit of announcing her arrival for her check up visits to the station with a "Dun Dun Dunn!"

Siobhan is a somewhat short redhead. As tends to be with older vampires, her apparent physical age is difficult to pin down. She looks like she might be anything from mature twentysomething to well preserved fortysomething.

Alfred Bloom, the second eldest, arrived in the 1800s from Europe as an industrialist. He claims to be British, and certainly speaks with such an accent, but the truth is that Bloom's original name, history and country of origin are not known to anyone. He still runs his company, even if it is through a proxy acting as the real owner. The company is known for good pay and benefits to the workers, especially healthcare. The company has its own infirmary. There is just the additional condition that everyone has to donate blood regularly to keep the infirmary stocked with the correct blood types.

Joe is the youngest. He still gets a bit twitchy in presence of holy symbols. As he is fond of telling to anyone who listens, he is the sole survivor of the volunteer unit formed close to the end of World War II when Nazis got desperate and started turning the SS troops into vampires in droves, and the Allied command felt they needed their own bunch to counter that. The final battle was epic, Joe tells, bemoaning that he has been geased not to tell about it. And the post war treaties banned vampires and werewolves from military positions because no one wanted to see that shit again, and Joe was let go.

Joe still looks close to his original age of early thirties. As a veteran he has a small pension and government-arranged living quarters in the campus of a federal research facility where the staff sees to his dietary needs.

Joe is a bit of a problem case. He tends to miss his regular check ins and needs to be reminded, and on occasion he gets reported as missing by his minders. As a rule, he is found drunk somewhere, either hanging out with some winos telling war stories to them, or sitting in a bar telling the same stories to an empty chair. Joe is a peaceful person with a respect for authority though, so he is more of a nuisance than a serious problem.

Boston sees werewolf visitors more rarely. At least announced visitors. Unannounced visits can be a problem, because if a werewolf from the countryside visits the city, gets into trouble and flees back home, then no matter what he did, his clan will protect him. Although they may never allow him to leave home again.

The only residents are the Grunwalds. A family of four. A married couple with a teenage son and daughter. The registered visitors tend to be their visiting relatives. 

Herman Grunwald and his wife Isabella, parents of high school age Mona and Manfred, are cemetery groundskeepers. Like Herman's parents before them. The old couple is now retired and living in the countryside. In fact, for generations the Grunwalds have been groundskeepers for the cemeteries in Boston. All of the cemeteries.

The Boston region has some of America's oldest cemeteries, with a handful stretching back to the early 1600s and a goodly proportion launching well before the 1900s. The cemeteries also contain a huge number of notables: presidents, poets, war heroes, jurists, academics, athletes, musicians, Benjamin Franklin's parents.

And there is one big problem with the cemeteries. They attract ghouls. The ghouls are not native to our world, but something about especially the oldest cemeteries attracts them, and occasionally a pack slips through from the other side. Ghouls are usually not dangerous to living people unless starving or threatened, and prefer to avoid people. But the authorities are not happy about them taking up residence in the graveyards, so periodically they need to be eradicated. And for an ordinary groundskeeper this would be a highly difficult and dangerous job. Ghoul burrows are difficult to find, narrow and filled with traps, and ghouls can be deadly if they attack.

A werewolf, however, makes short work of a pack of ghouls and can literally sniff out their presence. So the Grunwalds make regular circuits of the cemeteries. Often at night when they can work unhindered. This is occasionally a rude surprise for young mages who decide to take advantage of the ambient energies within the old cemeteries for some ritual. The groundskeepers won't allow that either. The smart mages depart peacefully when caught. If they are not smart, the department may get a nightly call to come pick up some very frightened young mages for trespassing.

The Grunwalds rarely cause problems themselves. The family owns a number of artifacts. Collars that prevent transformation. They nicely prevent accidental werewolfing, but are somewhat conspicuous. Although this is not much of a problem for the present day family. They play the part of middle aged metalheads with their like-minded children, which is not far from the actual truth, and dress like a metal band, with lots of leather, chains and spiked studs. The collars do not stand out at all.

There are very likely unannounced vampires and werewolves in Boston. Recently, Charlestown Mob, a largely Irish organized crime group dating from the prohibition era, has been clashing with a group of Hispanic newcomers calling themselves Red 13. Judging by what has been arriving in the Morgue, Charlestown Mob is wielding at least one vampire, and Red 13 appears to include werewolves.