A Study in Cosmology
Loeilham
I’ve been trying to figure out just what caused the writing to appear in this book back in Discord. I’m someplace new now, but so far no luck. I guess I was writing in it, so we’re trying that.
Nothing? Okay then let’s keep going. I honestly wasn’t sure where to head next, so I figured I’d show the journal to Flora, see if she had any ideas. Griffin mentioned a few other realities when he discussed Discord, and she definitely recognized most of them.
And I quote: “Of course I know them. I came from this one.”
Apparently, it’s a little rough around the edges, but civilized. She offered to go with me, but if I don’t start doing things on my own then I never will. I gotta say, it’s pretty weird. Flora said Loeilham would be different, but this is
Loeilham is perpetually stuck in a period of time that I would consider “historical,” though I suppose that label might not make sense to some. From my frame of reference, this particular reality resembles a specific period of history, which gives one the sensation of stepping back into the past.
Okay, that makes me wonder… who the hell is this guy? Sure, he’s a ‘great’, potentially immortal magus. I guess maybe the better question is: who was he before all that?
Apologies if this shorthand makes no sense to you. I will not, however, be delving into the specifics of what that means. There are plenty of books that can illustrate far better than I.
Different realities acquire their names in many varied ways. However, the most common way is simply to name it after a central location, the area that the entire reality expands and contracts around, if one exists. In Loeilham’s case, it is the city of the same name.
Loeilham is a city divided, both physically and metaphorically. Physically by the Athain River, metaphorically by its inherent duology. The city was originally founded by trappers and fur traders. However, being on the north end of a very central river draws industry, which in turn draws wealth, which draws art, education, and most of all, crime. The mafia also found the placement at the head of the river very useful.
And so Loeilham is a city divided into east and west. The east bank is home to Athain University and the artistic, academic, and dare I say occult side of the city. Meanwhile, the west bank is where the mafia runs most of their operations, and where the slightly diminishing industrial district is located. Of course, the mafia, in particular the De Luca family, is running a tidy business in perpetuity, as prohibition will always be in effect.
Okay, based on what he already said and what I’ve seen myself, I figured that “historical time period” he mentioned was most likely the late 20s or early 30s. But what did he mean by “in perpetuity”?
It will never end specifically because Loeilham is stuck, as it were, in a specific frame of time. The actual year may vary from visit to visit, but the latest year I’ve ever seen is 1932. This does not seem to bother the inhabitants of the reality, even if the discrepancy is brought up.
(Was that a response? Or a lucky guess?)
This brings up another interesting trait I’ve discovered in multiple realities, but is especially extreme in Loeilham. Within this one, small reality exists an entire world. Someone may invite you on a trip to Europe, and you could accept, go there, and spend a lovely week. However, when you left the reality of Loeilham, you would observe that it simply doesn’t exist. In some ways, it appears that the reality expands and contracts as needed. I have several theories on why this occurs, but this is neither the time nor the place for it.
(All of these things he’s saying remind me a little of home. I wonder if it’s the same way?)
Regardless, I bring this up merely because the residents of Loeilham have much reason to venture beyond the confines of their city, perhaps more so than in many other realities. The west bank’s shadier characters must have dealings on the outside, as Loeilham acts more as a home turf rather than their actual site of business. Chicago and New York are still the leading ladies of the mob world, after all.
More importantly, however, is Athain University and the general academia surrounding it. In the first place, it is strange—though not unheard of—for such a highly regarded university to spring up out of a nearly frontier town. Loeilham is one of the last major cities on the way west before one hits miles upon miles of plains. As the last bastion of civilization before the west coast, it can be slightly rougher than most cities of its size. And yet, Athain thrives.
Primarily, Athain is known for its studies of history, art, and perhaps most importantly for our discussion, occultism. The interesting part is that, unlike most locations that draw the seekers of the supernatural, Loeilham is a perfectly ordinary city. It is not built on indian burial grounds or the site of a crashed alien spaceship. Rather, the people brought the bizarre with them.
Mysterious artifacts repeatedly arrive from far off places to grace the exhibition halls of Athain, and the rooms of private collectors. It seems that even the very layout of the city itself was designed with some potentially ritualistic purpose in mind. The propensity for the strange has grown so strong that it is leaking into the hearts and minds of scientists and artists alike.
In my time wandering its streets and speaking to its people, I heard one too many whispers of strange dreams and nighttime visitations. In any other circumstance I might chalk it up to an energy in the air, a disturbance in the atmosphere, perhaps. But in Loeilham, I blame a different culprit.
It all comes down to a chicken and egg sort of problem. The concentration of tinged artifacts and art pieces, the very architecture of the city, and the presence of many “sensitive” individuals is causing Loeilham’s reality to thin, rendering it very easy to accidentally slip out. But is it the presence of said disturbances that is truly causing it, or are such disturbances being drawn in by the thinness? At this stage of my investigation, it is impossible to say for sure.
(If I had the time… or knowledge, I might tackle it myself…)
It is truly a curious phenomenon. If it was a simple pooling of sin, as on Ravden, I would be able to understand it. Luckily, no rifts or other inconveniences have appeared yet, like they have on H’Thalee. But given a little more time, they may start to.
If I didn’t know any better, I would almost say it was engineered, but I have no evidence to make that assertion.
Alas, it may be too late to change Loeilham’s trajectory. The academics at Athain have become too obsessed with the acquisition of knowledge and the city’s socialites too enticed by the hedonism and glory of funding them to suggest a course correction.
Ah, that’s right. I was discussing the east bank. Apologies for the digression.
The east bank posits itself as a bastion of science and culture, but in reality it is just as two-faced as the west. Its populous is simply better at hiding it. Speakeasies are hidden behind tea parlors and fancy restaurants instead of drug stores, but they exist all the same. The elite fund expeditions and hold art galas, but are ultimately simpleminded hedonists at heart. A true Discordian might find themselves quite at home here. Though perhaps it should be the other way around. Because of the aforementioned thinness of reality, more than a fair share of daemons originated on Loeilham.
(Which would lead to cultural crossover.)
Unlike those from Discord, Loeilham socialites don’t know when to leave well enough alone. They play with rituals and occult knowledge as if they were entertaining diversions, and the asylum a few miles from the city is growing—frankly—rather crowded.
The only members of “society” that have any brains in their heads are the mobsters that are slowly encroaching from the west bank. Life is much harder and rougher on the west side. It is filled with factory workers and gangsters. The life expectancy is drastically shortened simply by the number of shootings that occur regularly during turf wars. It’s no wonder those of a more affluent persuasion are attempting to move across the river.
Of course, these “self-made men” don’t always fit in well, and many easterners are actively against their participation in society. But what is one to do when they have more money than you?
The city is entering a period of chaos. The west is tearing itself apart with drugs and violence, the east is tearing itself apart with debauchery and poorly-understood occultism, and the whole thing is slowly unraveling at the seems from the sheer gravity of it all.
I fear for this reality. I truly do. Yet I have no idea what is to be done. Ultimately, I suppose it will succumb to the fate of all realities, perhaps just a little sooner.
Okay, I’ve been waiting for about five minutes and nothing else has shown up. I feel awful knowing that this huge city might just be sunken back into the Other, just… gone. All those people… But if there’s nothing a great magus like Griffin can do about it, then what could I hope to accomplish? I guess that’s why I’m trying to track him down in the first place…
It really gets me wondering though. Flora is from this reality. I wonder just where she fit into all of this…?
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