“Ealdwic! The mucky jewel of all London's fabled dives that the Celts, the Romans, the Vikings all fought for and most of them never even knew it. We let half the city burn down once to save this place, and that's probably still the back-up plan. You want my odds on what survives the apocalypse: punk, cockroaches and Ealdwic. Ealdwic stop, ladies and gents, don't forget the three L's. Luggage, litter and loved ones.â€
London's secret heart appears much like the rest of the ancient city: where the grunge meets the glorious. Food wrappers and strip club flyers scattered on Roman roads, all-night chip shops shouldered against private bookstores that never open. Pagan incantations bombed on ancient stone, posters plastered over posters dating back centuries. No cabbie with a Templar ring will drive you there the same way - Ealdwic could be anywhere in London. It's a shifting address, a nightmare for the little old lady who runs the Tudor-look post office.
The Templars run the show, sharing patrol duties with a muzzled Metropolitan Police. The society settled here when the British Empire was everything, then never let the dream go. In a rare display of tolerance, though, Ealdwic is open to all regardless of affiliation. And that means all. Agents of secret societies, refugees from pocket dimensions and vanished races. Immortal vagrants and mortal runaways. Constantly in a state of barely contained, barely concealed chaos, London has endured as the social and cultural hub of the secret world. In times of great turmoil, all eyes turn to it for an early storm warning.
Currently, Ealdwic is under complete police lockdown, keeping mundane eyes away from the bustle of activity within. All three of the great societies are mobilising, thrown together on these streets in numbers not seen for centuries. Other parties have come to observe, as infuriatingly cryptic as the ancient sphinxes and oracles. If this is the storm warning, it's going to be a big one.
The source of this information (the secret world website) [1]