Victorian London's Dark and Curious Things.

Unwelcome Encounters for the Kindred of Albion — 1838

London belongs to neither the living nor the Kindred alone.

Beneath the streets are Roman foundations, forgotten wells, burial chambers, cellars built atop cellars, Fleet Ditch, sewers, abandoned tunnels and passages that have been hidden for generations. The Victorian Age Vampire Companion deliberately reminds Storytellers that the World of Darkness contains far more than vampires. Its section “Other Things Dark and Curious” describes London as a place where rumors of strange creatures can be dismissed as superstition—until something actually crawls out of the darkness.

For Albion Victorian Vampire, these encounters are useful because they give Kindred problems that cannot always be solved through Clan politics or the Traditions.

The Giant Rats Beneath London

London's ordinary rats are bad enough, but some tales concern animals far beyond normal size. The Companion presents the Giant Rat of Sumatra, an enormous and unusually intelligent rat associated with others of its kind. These creatures are not simply oversized vermin; they possess an unsettling intelligence and can become genuine predators.

For Albion, smaller colonies of unusually large rats can inhabit abandoned cellars, Roman tunnels, and sewer passages. A Kindred might initially dismiss missing servants as the work of mortal criminals—until discovering bite marks no ordinary London rat could have made.

Worse, the rats may recognize individual Kindred and learn which tunnels lead to their Havens.

Demon Lichen

Far stranger is Demon Lichen, an intelligent subterranean growth found beneath cities. The Companion describes it as a fragile plant-like organism that survives in darkness and spreads through underground spaces. It produces tendrils and spores and can consume or influence living creatures unfortunate enough to encounter it.

The danger for a vampire is not simply being attacked.

A patch discovered behind the wall of a Haven might have been growing unnoticed for decades. Destroying the visible growth may accomplish little if tendrils have already spread through cracks in the masonry.

Imagine waking one evening to discover pale growth covering the inside of your coffin—and realizing that your Retainer has been tending it willingly.

The Eyeless Urchins

The creatures sometimes described by London Kindred as “ghoul children” are more accurately called the Eyeless Urchins in the Companion. They are not ghouls in the normal Vampire sense and should not be treated as blood-bound servants.

They resemble filthy, abandoned children and gather in London's forgotten spaces. They move through narrow alleys, drains and hidden passages with alarming ease. Their victims may first hear children's voices or laughter from somewhere they should not be able to reach.

Individually they may seem pathetic.

In numbers, they become frightening.

A Kindred chasing one beneath Whitechapel may suddenly discover that twenty more have quietly gathered behind him.

The Brotherhood of Penitence

Not every danger beneath London has claws.

The Brotherhood of Penitence is a secretive mortal organization concerned with vampires. It possesses ancient records, gathers information on Kindred activities, and maintains members with different responsibilities, including Archivists, Watchers, Balancers, and more militant agents. The Brotherhood judges vampires according to its own strange moral standards and can reward, observe, punish, or destroy those it considers dangerous.

Their greatest weapon is knowledge.

A young vampire may discover that the Brotherhood possesses a record of his sire.

An elder may discover they have records concerning deeds committed two centuries ago.

And unlike ordinary vampire hunters, members of the Brotherhood do not necessarily attack every vampire they encounter.

Sometimes they simply watch.

That may be worse.

Four Additional Dark Curiosities for Albion

The following four are Albion Chronicle additions, created in the same spirit as the Companion rather than being creatures specifically described in that sourcebook. None are vampires, ghosts, zombies or other undead beings.

The Thames Blood-Eels

Dockworkers occasionally speak of pale eels found beneath old wharves along the Thames. Most are ordinary animals, but a few have reportedly grown nearly as long as a man.

They are almost blind and possess no supernatural intelligence, yet they have developed an extraordinary sensitivity to blood in water.

For mortals, they are merely dangerous animals.

For Kindred, they create another problem entirely.

A vampire who disposes of bloody clothing, drained animals or the remains of a feeding victim in the Thames may unknowingly summon them. Once several gather around a particular drainage outlet, sewer entrance or riverside Haven, observant mortals may begin wondering why enormous eels continually gather there.

Nosferatu have therefore developed a simple rule:

If the eels begin following you, change your route home.

The Bell Foundry Spiders

In abandoned basements near old workshops and foundries, unusually large black spiders have begun appearing.

Their bodies are rarely larger than a man's palm, but they build extraordinary communal webs. Hundreds may inhabit a single cellar.

The peculiar part is not their size.

It is what causes them to move.

Strong vibration—bells, machinery, carriage traffic or even heavy footsteps overhead—can cause an entire colony to shift simultaneously through walls and ceilings.

A vampire searching an abandoned building might therefore hear something like rainfall.

Then discover that the sound is thousands of legs moving above him.

Their venom is unpleasant but usually not deadly to a Kindred. Their real danger is panic, entanglement, ruined clothing, blocked tunnels and the possibility of driving a vampire into frenzy at exactly the wrong moment.

The Lantern Men of Fleet Ditch

Not everything strange beneath London is supernatural.

A small fraternity of sewer workers, scavengers and former rat-catchers has spent years mapping forgotten passages beneath the City. They call themselves the Lantern Men.

They carry hooded lamps, ropes, chalk and heavy iron hooks.

Most believe London's underground contains smugglers, criminals and dangerous animals.

A few know better.

The Lantern Men have begun marking certain tunnels with chalk crosses whenever they find strange footprints, inexplicably bloodless corpses or doors that are only opened after sunset.

They are not vampire hunters.

Not yet.

But they are producing something potentially more dangerous:

a map of where the Kindred sleep.

Killing them would be easy.

Finding every copy of their maps afterward might not be.

The Ash Dogs of Newgate

For generations, large mongrel dogs have lived among slaughterhouses, markets, prisons and refuse yards surrounding parts of London. Recently, stories have circulated about several coal-black animals called Ash Dogs.

They are entirely alive.

They simply dislike vampires.

An Ash Dog confronted by an ordinary mortal may growl or retreat. When a Kindred approaches, however, its reaction becomes immediate—hackles rise, teeth show and the animal begins barking violently.

Several together become much more dangerous because their barking attracts people.

An Ash Dog does not need to kill a vampire to threaten the Masquerade.

It only needs to stand outside a vampire's townhouse every evening, barking at precisely the same window.

Attempts to poison or trap them have created another disturbing rumor.

Someone appears to be feeding them.

These kinds of threats can make Albion's London feel larger than Kindred society itself. A Ventrue may command politicians, a Toreador may dominate a fashionable salon and a Brujah may terrify half the East End—but none of that necessarily matters when something unknown is scratching behind the bricks of the Haven.

London's vampires have existed for centuries.

The mistake is believing that everything beneath London therefore belongs to them.