The Walpole Club
Originally established in the early 1600s by Queen Elizabeth, and
under the auspices of John Dee, as Her Majesty’s Fortean Defence Service, the Walpole
Club has changed name and form several times over the intervening centuries. This
incarnation engages the trappings of a High Society Gentlemen’s Club to keep
its true purpose obfuscated.
The Club’s public face is that, while it is well-to-do, it is a
little salacious, with its lax policies about women and foreigners becoming
members, and being welcome at any hour. Its private face is far more learned
and business-like.
The role of the Walpole Club is to defend Great Britain for all
threats of the more unnatural and un-Godly variety, and to ensure that the
population at large remains unaware of the true horror so tantalisingly close
at hand.
Its members range from the well-travelled gentlemen of the Great
Game, to former soldiers, to scholars, historians, alienists and mathematicians
of note, to a surprisingly large number of Natural Historians. Their ranks also
include a smattering of Society types, paying close to attention to the
diversions of the powerful, to ensure that any incumbent threat may be dealt
with promptly. There is also a small cadre of writers and artists, whose role
is to ensure that the encounters of the Club could only be regarded as fictions
by all right-thinking citizens.
Do you have what it takes to answer the call? If so, the Walpole Club
wants you!
with thanks to Charles Stross for all the inspiration
with thanks to Charles Stross for all the inspiration
