Important Details About the Arcane Town of Redbower: Part 1

Let’s talk about the town of Redbower.

Its location is secret but is rumored to be somewhere deep in the forests of Canada. You can only find it if you’re sent there by the Arcane Guild or if somehow, Redbower finds you. Redbower consists of two districts, The Village, and The Lights. The Village is the older part of town and was built when the founders arrived in 1703.

Who were the founders of Redbower?

The founders were chosen by the senior members of the Arcane Guild which is the governing body of all the supernatural races. They chose one witch, Hazel Guidance, one werewolf, Luke Silvermoon, and one vampire, Vlad Pedescru.

Each founder was allowed to bring ten of their own kind to Redbower. These could be family members, acquaintances, or even complete strangers. The only stipulation was that they were willing and able to be part of an experiment that might lead to the supernatural races revealing themselves to humans.

With a mixture of magic and building skills, Redbower was created with a view to adding humans when it was better established. Nowadays, the witches still control the weather and general atmosphere in Redbower, the werewolves live mostly in packs in the forest and the vampires are rarely seen in The Village. They consider the place to be beneath them and prefer to operate in the darkness of the busy Lights district.

Some Important Landmarks of The Village

After a few cottages were built the first building to be added to The Village was The Tavern. Morgan Stewart owns it now and has added a herb garden, but for years it was part of the Guidance family’s holdings. More stores were quickly built on Arcane Street which are now filled with a bookstore, haberdashery, chemist, a few gift shops and a Doctor’s surgery. There’s a multi-denominational church with a community hall and a graveyard. The church is well used by community groups but the covens tend to meet outdoors. A few humans attend Sunday services, but they’re getting fewer and fewer each year.

In recent years, a small, modern hospital, a vet, and a large supermarket have been added to The Village. As the human population grew, these organisations became necessary. Some of the humans that live there were brought in by the Guild but, interestingly, many of the humans that find themselves in The Village are mostly loners and outcasts. It’s almost as if the town draws them to a place where they know they will be safe, a place where they can be themselves and not have to worry about being deemed weird or strange.

It used to be that the supernatural races had to apply to the Arcane Guild for permission to live in Redbower. That’s all changed now. The Guild largely ignores the town unless it wants to exile someone or if they need information that they can’t find anywhere else.

There’s a weird atmosphere in The Village. It looks all vintage and cosy but there’s an underlying current of mystery to the place. As if the town itself is holding secrets. Many of the humans will tell you that they feel safe there but they still remember to lock their doors at night even though the crime rate is almost nonexistent. Well, that the humans know of.

How citizens come to find themselves in Redbower

There’s also a few supernaturals that make their own way to Redbower. These are the broken ones. The witch whose spells cause more harm than good. The werewolf with the lame leg. The vampire with too conspicuous a kill count that needs to find somewhere to hide for a while. All are welcomed with open arms, open mouths, and the usual amount of suspicion that you’ll find in most small towns.

The witches that live in The Village are a mix of the magickal kind and the faith-based kind. They get on well with the humans, in general, but there’s only one or two of the humans that know the other races exist. When, or if, the Arcane Guild gets round to allowing the supernatural races to “come out” it will be interesting to see how the humans of The Village react.

The werewolves do business in The Village and they own a lot of the stores on Arcane Street. Some of them have beds in their back rooms or in flats above their stores but most of them sleep in the forest with their packs. The werewolves try to get on with the witches but incidents, unfortunately, do occur.

The Vampires rarely venture out of The Lights, but I’ll tell you more about that next time.

In love of shadows,

Fiona