There are worlds beyond our own, and fragments of life that linger as memory. When the mists rise, the pressure of colliding realms drives old nightmares to the surface. It falls to the agents of Coldharbour to watch over these places – to defend, and even destroy, should the situation call for it…
The London Underground – a modern marvel, whisking commuters and tourists beneath bustling streets. But the tunnels are home to much more than commuters and tourists. The city of the present day is built on the bones of older times, and across the thresholds of distant worlds. Unquiet spirits roam tunnels stinking of burnt dust and sparking electrics. Feral remnants roam disused lengths of track, lurching blindly away from the sudden glare of train headlights.
So much is hidden. So much has been forgotten.
But something strange is happening beneath London. Commuters are vanishing. Some return, babbling of endless mists, black rivers, and crumbling temples. Others are never seen again. Not alive. The hidden denizens of the tunnels no longer flee the lights of civilisation, but roam the platforms. Something is driving them to the surface; something that must be stopped before it’s too late.
This looks like a job for Coldharbour.
The Dark Tube
My family’s always had a profound interest in what you might term the supernatural – spiritualism, myth, ghostly goings-on, and the like. I’m sure you know what I mean. For some of us, interest transcends hobby and becomes vocation. A calling, if you will. This is an old city, and one with secrets that sit poorly with what it pleases us to call the modern era. Some are downright hostile. It’s my job to make sure they remain secret, or else remove them entirely.
-Ernest Blackwood-
Click on an image below to explore the Dark Tube
Defending London (and Beyond)
Coldharbour would be nothing without its agents. Some are officially retained by a government barely aware of the agency’s existence. Others have found themselves recruited at one time or another – not always voluntarily. Without exception, they are outcasts and exiles. A few are scoundrels, criminals and rogues. And one or two quality as human only by the barest definition. And yet they serve – reluctantly, or otherwise – keeping London safe from the dangers of colliding worlds, and its citizens in blissful ignorance of the truth.
Over the years, Coldharbour has been everything from a vast, Empire-spanning affair to little more than a shrunken gentleman’s club, curiously probing London’s secrets. In the early 21st Century, it sits somewhere inbetween, with a sizeable roster of agents and contacts spread across the city. Though the actual operational strength of the agency varies greatly with the passage of time, the individuals below can be considered the ‘core’ of Coldharbour’s current incarnation. There are others, of course, seconded and recruited as needed, but such service is invariably so short (for one reason or another) that there seems little point drawing attention to them…
Click on a portrait below to read the agent’s bio
From the Archives
There are always close calls… slivers of the world beyond drifting up between the tracks. The question is, how much to tell the millions of ignorant commuters?
October 2016 (Passengers Lost: 8)
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