Windreach
Windreach is a district on the northeastern edge of Lundeinjon. It sits on some of the highest ground in the city and has grand views of the inner districts. It is known for its artistic and intellectual communities, with painters, poets, and philosophers on nearly every street.
The district is often described as a place where radical ideas are born, and thus the authorities of the Empire keep a close eye on the area to see what opportunities and problems it might create.
Closer to the city center lies the Maidenwolfe neighborhood, where some of the city's most elite institutions of higher thought reside. At the outer edges the district gives way to the rambling hills of Harrow Heath, where many residents of Lundeinjon go to fly kites in the spring.
Demographics
The people of Windreach are among the most educated in Lundeinjon, though they are rarely wealthy. Students, painters, poets, thaumaturges, and philosophers form the character of the district.
It is more diverse than the districts in the city core, as immigrants who share the same passions as natives are readily welcomed. Windreach also has the second largest concentration of Changelings in the city after Eastbridge, assuming one discounts those locked up in Beedle's Imperial Asylum.
The streets of Windreach are made up of long rows of narrow brick townhouses, originally built for the middle class but long since subdivided into flats and rented to the poor but genteel scholars who live there.
Further out are small cottages on the edge of Harrow Heath where slightly more affluent bohemians reside. It is not uncommon to find the half-wild children of the aristocracy here, living a fantasy of freedom while painting the hills and discussing political reform. Many of them later return to the estates of Kingsward and Crownstairs, though a few become permanent fixtures of the Windreach community.
History
Windreach was well outside the city of Lundeinjon when King Edmund VII signed the Proclamation of Purity in 1510, officially separating the Kingdom of High Albion from The Church and permitting Magic to be legally practiced within its borders.
In the years that followed, many thaumaturges and alchemists chose to immigrate to High Albion, arriving in droves at the port of Lundeinjon. However, while they found that they were legally welcome, the long-standing social prejudice against magicians could not be dissolved overnight.
Seeking the freedom to practice their art unmolested, many of these scholars formed a new community northeast of the city, on the high and windswept hills known as Windreach and Harrow Heath.
The scholars there formed a loose organization known as the Æthereal College, one of the earliest organizations of thaumaturges to truly collaborate in understanding the intricacies of Magic. Over the next century the Æthereal College of Windreach became the center of thaumaturgic advancement in the world.
Eventually the organization was succeeded by the Imperial Society for the Advancement of Wisdom, a chartered organization of The Empire of Albion. By that time, prejudices against thaumaturges had diminished enough that it was no longer necessary for them to isolate themselves from the general population.
In 1687 Sir Edwin Harlowe, a member of the Imperial Society and Chair of Alchemical Studies at the University of Carbury, published the Principia Arcana and revealed the principles of Universal Magic. This began a new age in the Empire, as magic rapidly industrialized and permeated everyday life in an unprecedented fashion.
Today there is no unusual concentration of thaumaturges in Windreach compared to the rest of the city, but the culture of intellectual curiosity that accompanied the Æthereal College can still be felt in the institutions and residents of the district.
Points of interest
Advancing Knowledge
The Maidenwolfe neighborhood is filled with museums, libraries, universities, and institutes dedicated to the advancement of humanity.
One recent addition is The mac Domnall Institute. Founded by the Prince Consort, the institute seeks ways to improve the lives of the lower and working classes by fostering industriousness, sobriety, and curiosity. It has already funded several projects, such as The Henry Homes of Tallowmere, with additional programs expected to be announced soon.
A quarter mile away another project of the Prince Consort is under construction: The Museum of Practical Thaumaturgy. Scheduled to open next year, the museum will explore the transformations brought about by Universal Magic, with the aim of educating the public and inspiring the next generation of industrial magicians.
Not all of the institutions here are newly created. On the very edge of Kingsward stands Somerton House, home to the Imperial Society for the Advancement of Wisdom. This collection of scholars has steadily advanced humanity's body of knowledge since first being chartered in 1640. Many of its members also belong to the nearby Little Alligators Club, a social organization for thaumaturges that boasts a renowned library of occult material and some of the best chefs in the city.
Another venerable institution stands upon Harrow Heath at the city's edge: the Harrowhill Observatory, home to the Imperial Astronomer. For nearly two centuries the Empire has studied the heavens from Harrowhill, and discoveries made there have shaped modern understanding of the universe and what lies Beyond.
Radical Ideas
Another theme found among the institutions of Windreach is the embrace of radical ideas.
Some organizations challenge social conventions and mores. The notorious Midnight Society meets in the Crow & Castle to explore ideas of radical freedom from Society's rules. Nearby, The Orphans of Kemet gather at the Kemet Club of Starr Hall to plan raids against the remnants of the Cult of the Leviathan and the reclamation of Kemet for its children.
In Foundation Hall The Fraternal Order of the Common Need maintains its Grand Lodge of Albion. While the group professes to be devoted purely to charity and fraternal aid, there is great secrecy surrounding its true mission. This purpose is referred to obliquely as "The Work" and is explained fully only to those who reach the highest rank within the Order's complex hierarchy.
No such secrecy surrounds one of the newest and strangest additions to Windreach: The Grand Tabernacle of the Osinborgians. This sect arose a century ago in northern Elbid and is a signatory to The Declaration of Convocation. Its followers claim that the sect was founded by a Herald Incarnate and that the world has already ended, leaving humanity living in the aftermath of an unseen apocalypse.
The Osinborgian faith places great emphasis on the power of love and wisdom to achieve personal salvation. This belief structure appeals to many residents of Lundeinjon, and hundreds of converts gather at the Tabernacle each week, some traveling for hours across the city to attend.
Finally there is Braid's Heliographic Studio. Heliography has been, in its own way, as transformative as the railway, and Braid's is the foremost heliographic studio in the city. It is known both for the sophistication of its equipment and for the provocative heliographs it produces, works that have convinced many that this new technology is not merely a recording device but the tool of an entirely new form of art.
The Edge of the City
At the very edges of Windreach the streets give way to the rolling hills of Harrow Heath.
Here lies The Windreach Necropolis, a vast tract of land set aside as the principal cemetery for the city. Graveyards within the city proper have long been overflowing, and the necropolis is intended to provide burial space for generations to come.
Though three square miles are reserved for the cemetery, most of this land remains wild. Only 305 acres have so far been cleared and prepared for burials. The sections used by former members of high Society are distinguished by their abundance of Gothic tombs, crypts, mausoleums, statuary, and cenotaphs. Areas reserved for the middle and lower classes have more modest markers, sometimes only a numbered stone marking the grave of a score of paupers buried together.
A rail line connects The Windreach Necropolis to North Cross Station for the use of the Lundeinjon Funereal Service.
Near the necropolis gates stands the slender and elegant steeple of St. Malcolm-on-Heath, considered by some to be the most beautiful church in the city. Its high position provides an unparalleled view of Lundeinjon. Artists can be found here day and night sketching the skyline or the church itself, and some claim there are more images of the city from this vantage than from any other.
Another popular subject for artists is the abandoned Ladsbroke's Hippodrome, a racetrack built just north of Fairstrand. It operated for only five years before closing, leaving the surrounding buildings to decay. Several artists have found the resulting desolation inspiring, and paintings of the empty course have fetched higher prices than the racetrack ever did while it operated.
Finally, along the border of Fairstrand, much of the Lundeinjon Zoo lies within Windreach. While the official entrance stands outside the district, the surrounding hills provide excellent views into the enclosures, and no admission fee is required.
- Braid's Heliographic Studio
- Crow & Castle
- Foundation Hall
- Harrowhill Observatory
- Ladsbroke's Hippodrome
- Maidenwolfe Constabulary
- Somerton House
- St. Malcolm-on-Heath
- Starr Hall
- The Grand Tabernacle
- The Little Alligators Club
- The mac Domnall Institute
- The Museum of Practical Thaumaturgy
- The Windreach Necropolis
Kingsward
Northgate
Related Articles
Visions of Windreach
Below are paintings of Windreach by some of Lundeinjon's most prominent artists.
Crow & Castle by Georges Deoille
Final Sentinel of Death by Maex Darles
Kites in the Park by J.S.A. Carver
Ladsbroke's Hippodrome by J.S.A. Carver
Somerton House by Georges Deoille
St. Malcolm-On-Heath by J.S.A. Carver
The Alligator Fountain by J.S.A. Carver
Comments
Author's Notes
Thanks to Daernhelm for making the images in "Visions of..."