Cranberry Cove

An Emergency Landing in New England

I was in the Time Vortex aboard the Fallen Hour when a strange feeling of dread came over me. No sooner had this happened than the time capsule suddenly began the procedures for an emergency landing. I materialized on the rocky coast of a New England town, circa the early 21st century. The name of the place was Cranberry Cove.

It was, I believe, a 20th century Earth writer who observed that all sufficiently advanced science appears, to more primitive people, to be magic. This may be so, but the line between the two is nebulous. Is psychic power a form of magic? What about the sonic spells of the Carrionites? My entanglement with the Cult of Dagon in New Babbage proved to me that forms of magic can and do exist, especially within the bounds of Linden Space. So it was only mildly surprising to me to discover that I had been drawn to Cranberry Cove by a curse.

The Bed & Breakfast I used in Cranberry Cove

Taking up residence in a local Bed & Breakfast, I presented myself as a historian researching the colonial period of the town. Over time, I was to learn of the curse. In the 17th century the town fell victim to the witch hunts of the period, but apparently managed to ensnare one genuine witch, who laid a heavy curse upon the entire community. Their lives would forever be tainted by the thing they sought to stamp out..."magic." Worse, people descended from the original inhabitants of the town would find themselves inexplicably and irresistibly drawn back there once the older generation had died. For example, if you have a father in Cranberry Cove and he passes away, you will be compelled to return. As a result, the scattered descendants of Cranberry Cove went out into the world and were plagued by all sorts of supernatural phenomena...vampirism, lycanthropy, the fae, hauntings, etc. All these things they brought eventually back with them to the town.

The result is a picturesque New England town that is seething with the very darkest secrets.

Naturally, the question now is why was I drawn there? Certainly I cannot have any ancestors from the community. I have one suspicion...if I was present for the original curse it might affect me. And since I haven't been there yet, it means I will likely be paying Cranberry Cove a visit in the 17th century in the future of my own personal timeline.

In the meantime, however, I will continue to pass myself off as something else while exploring there.

Al Raqis: The Deep Desert

The Desert World of Al Raqis

The Fallen Hour materialized, and a simple scan of the outside reported an extremely arid atmosphere and soaring temperatures. Fortunately, I had just the thing to wear.

I had landed, apparently, on a barren desert world, but decided to explore it anyway. Things in the Linden Continuum are seldom as they appear. That truism proved correct again, as after wandering across the great wastes I discovered a very technologically advanced city.

A Settlement

The residents informed me I was on Al Raqis, a world which orbits "Lo Parabirra, one of the binary pair of stars in the Mu Draconis stellar region...Al Raqis is a dry and hostile environment. Water is almost as precious as the planet’s most sought-after mineral, Raqismanna, colloquially known as “the spice.” It was a valuable and highly contested world because of this rare commodity, and lay "at the border of several large star-faring empires, each claiming some right to the planet but most unable to back up their claim and take full control."

Independent prospectors search for this spice while factions compete for control of planetary and off world trade. Political and economic competition sometimes flares into open warfare all under the watchful eye of natives who want Al Raqis for Al Raqians.

The major political and social powers on Al Raqis are the Great Houses. These powerful corporate noble families obsess over economic dominance of interstellar commerce to finance their private troops, luxurious living, and ambitions to power. Each House has private armies and large off-world holdings including other planets.

I spent some time in the presence of a moderately successful spice prospector, who explained the complex political intrigues woven through Al Raqui life. I was also warned of the dangers of the desert, including hostile life forms. I had been extraordinarily lucky in getting there in one piece.

Fortunately, my host offered to return me to my ship via his prospecting ship the next day. After a pleasant evening, I returned to the Fallen Hour with every intention of returning to this world again.

New Babbage

The Metropolis of New Babbage

I have mentioned previously that the steampunk city of New Babbage was the place the Fallen Hour chose to plunge into when first she carried me from the confines of my own universe into the strange parallel of Linden Space. As such, I came to think of it as a home away from home. The name I have taken belonged to one of her citizens (until steam-driven parallel Daleks destroyed him), and many of the affectations adopted by both my regeneration and my TTC were influenced by that city.

She is a bustling metropolis, technologically poised in the midst of the Industrial Revolution but with scientific anomalies and oddities that astound and amaze. Composed of Babbage Square, Babbage Canals, Babbage Palisade, New Babbage (proper), Clockhaven, Wheatstone Waterways, the Academy of Industry, the Vernian Sea and Vernian Deep, Port Babbage, and the forbidding North Fells, she is one of the larger places of her kind. One can wander endlessly among her streets, stumbling across shops and pubs, mansions and mad scientists, street urchins and secret societies. And of course there is adventure. I have found myself in peril several times there, such as "The Black Heart," "The Dark Aether Falls," and "Shadow of the 13." Not to mention my entanglements with the Esoteric Order of Dagon, which is active there.

I have since moved on, since the death of Flora at the hand of cultists there. But such is my bond with New Babbage that I know I shall return again.

A view of the city

Port Babbage, on the Vernian Sea

A view from above

A clockwork Dalek