Adventure Seed: Linby Docks Artifact.

Linby Docks Artifact

Widely reported as an embarrassing intelligence failure at the time, the German attack on the “Linby Docks” (two decidedly inland, artificial streams with no maritime or other mundane strategic importance) in World War II was in fact entirely deliberate; and it had nothing to do with the docks.  The Nazis were aiming at the ley lines. Obviously.

Well, yes, obviously.  Linby is a small town in the middle of Nottinghamshire that had three railway lines going through it; surely everyone here is already aware of the Victorian Freemasonic habit of piggybacking their railways on the backs of ley lines, yes?  …No? Ah.  

To recap, then: the Victorians always thought it best to follow pre-existing esoteric channels when they were laying out the railroads.  If you’re wondering why their railroads aren’t razor’s edge straight as a result, it’s because ley lines aren’t actually straight, either.  Ley lines are natural supernatural magic, which means that they flow and curve and dip to follow the contours of the land.  

I see that the feng shui adepts are nodding, there in the back of the room.  Yes, it’s similar to that. But it’s only somewhat similar, so please don’t go using region-specific geomancy outside of region without supervision.  It can get painfully, and sometimes briefly, messy if you do.

Moving on: the Nazis knew that there was a place in the Linby area that served as a nexus to at least three ley lines; their hope was to bomb it, temporarily disrupt the lines themselves, and hopefully set up a cascade where disruptive ley line energies would wash up and down the lines. This would likely cause more damage to the British ley line network — and, by extension, Britain’s magical defense system.  They weren’t expecting to blow up the entire thing in one night, but then they never expected that bombing one ammunition factory would cause a chain reaction that would sink the British Isles into the sea. The idea was to wreck British defenses faster than the Brits could fix them.

In this particular case, the Nazis missed entirely.  You can dowse, using the assumption that the Earth is Hollow, and that we’re on the inside — but only if you’re personally navigating to the point that you’re trying to dowse. It’s the observation effect in action, and all that.  Since the Luftwaffe (admittedly reasonably) refused to put untrained navigators in the appropriate slots for bombing runs, the bombs were never quite aimed at the right targets during esoteric missions*.  Frankly, the Nazis were terrible at thaumatology.  It’s a miracle they didn’t end up covering all of Europe with a giant snake, or something similarly ghastly.

But why is this coming up now?  Well, they recently found an unexploded bomb from that raid.  Yes, it’s quite the find: it still has the original navigation sigils still on it! It also has an ungrounded occult charge on it that could stun a leviathan, so extracting and stabilizing the bomb promises to be quite the chore. 

Some of you will be helping with that extraction; others, the stabilization.  The rest of you will be keeping away the inevitable greedy hands. Gently, if at all possible — Linby is scarcely a suitable place for a Wizard’s War, or whatever people call that sort of thing now — but needs must, yes?

*In case you were wondering: the British worked similar problems on their end via the use of specialized commando units; the Americans found all the dowsers they could and trained them to also be competent navigators; and the Soviets simply put down their heads, gritted their teeth, and stolidly advanced until they were in a position to throw ten thousand half-drunk infantrymen at the problem.

7 thoughts on “Adventure Seed: Linby Docks Artifact.”

  1. Side-question sir. What imapact could the railroads following ley-lines have on their magical strength? Traditionally, strips of cold iron and steel tend to have effects on fae phenomena.

    1. Not much, besides that. Victorians came up with all that stuff about flower fairies and whatnot for a reason; it was part of a two-pronged attack against the vicious bastards.

  2. So out of curiosity…

    How many of the famed Navajo “code talkers” in the Pacific just “coincidentally” happened to have some familiarity with Navajo mysticism prior to their recruitment by the US military?

  3. Good luck with that.
    In my experience, members in good standing of most Indian tribes are very guarded on the subject.
    It’s an achievement to even get traditional folk tales out of them.
    .
    But in general, any adult member of a tribe will have been inducted into their tribe’s particular flavor of animism/ancestor worship.
    (I can’t give you much regarding the Navajo specifically. While I had a friend and roommate who was one, tribal business and beliefs were not things he was willing to talk about. Well, outside of damning Marxism, anyway.)

    1. My sister had a Navajo classmate. He took umbrage when she implied that he came from a bloodthirsty, warlike people. “We herded sheep,” we’re his words. The man was also a Christian, so he might not be the best resource about their mystical beliefs.

      1. You’d be surprised.
        Animism implies the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent God, and syncretism is very much a thing.
        .
        The Lemhi, Nez Perce, and Coeur d’Alene tribes are Christian.
        That’s just not quite all they are.
        They still hold ceremonies that echo the ancient past. I know a friend received a name at one, but of course not the details nor the name.
        .
        At the extreme end, most Haitians or Oaxacans very much identify as Christian. (In both cases, vocally Roman Catholic!) Voodoo and Santeria are still part of their daily lives, and it’s only hidden to the extent that people refuse to look.
        (There’s definitely a huge divide in the Hispanic community, with the mostly illegal alien Oaxacans being an object of superstitious dread. I’m not even exaggerating. There’s palpable fear.)

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