London, as it was, is no more. Now, the once great city lies in ruins. A massive, sinister gash in the fabric of our reality swirls and churns, dominating the horizon as it blends into a permanently darkened sky. The Invasion, the unspeakable cataclysm that befell London, eventually engulfed humanity. This capitol of a once powerful nation has been eradicated, and The Burn – the transformation of our world into theirs – has begun.
Hellgate: London takes place in a futuristic and apocalyptic version of London, England. The layout of the in-game map is based on real-life London! In fact, every location draws its inspiration from the real-life streets, subway (tube) stations, and parks that dot this famous city. The underlying basis for the game’s map is the London tube system, which branches out all over London, moving tens of thousands of Londoners daily. In the game, this grid is also responsible for both your movement and the movement of Hell’s minions.
The City[]
History of London[]
Settled by the Romans sometime in the middle of the fi rst century AD and called Londonium, London had its ups and downs (being burned to the ground, for example) over the next several hundred years. After the Romans left the area, London was pretty much abandoned, but by the seventh century, locals had built up Lundenwic near the site of the old Roman city.
Fast-forward a few hundred years or so and William the Conqueror (the guy who won the Battle of Hastings in 1066) is crowned the king of England in Westminster Abby and celebrated by building a castle in the city. That castle later became the Tower of London as we know it today. By AD 1300, London was a thriving and huge city (by those day’s standards) of over a hundred thousand souls. Unfortunately, by the middle of the fourteenth century, the first wave of the Black Plague decimated the population, decreasing it by over a third.
The mid-seventeenth century was tough on London, what with the last of the great Black Plague outbreaks and the Great Fire of London both taking a heavy toll. Disaster wasn’t to be, however, because the gritty Londoners continued to fl ock to and build up the city until by the late 1800s it had a population pushing 3 million. With the industrialization of England and the building of sewers, subways, and aboveground trains, the city continued to grow unabated until the Battle of Britain and Hitler’s V1 and V2 Rockets pounded the British capital.
Still, as you might expect, despite the difficulties and the damages of war, London has grown into one of the world’s largest and most important cities and indeed is set to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. It’s a great place to be—that is, until all Hell breaks loose.…
Locations[]
Covent Garden Market[]
The Covent Garden Market district is a typical example of the devastation that was wrought during the demonic invasion. Buildings are in various states of disrepair, fires of infernal origin still burn under a perpetually darkened sky, and creatures of the underworld lurk the abandoned streets. There are few places to hide or find cover, and any unarmed adventurer has an extremely short life expectancy above ground. Shattered windows, desolate store fronts and hastily erected defenses can be seen in the eerie avenues, as well as evidence of the hard-fought battles that seemed to rage everywhere in the once proud city of London.
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Bloomsbury[]
Bloomsbury is an area of central London, in the borough of Camden. The area contains some of London's finest parks and buildings, and is particularly known for its formal squares. These include the large and orderly Russell Square, the smaller unusual round Bedford Square, Bloomsbury Square dominated by the grand Victoria House, Queen Square home to many hospitals, and Gordon Woburn and Torrington Squares, which are home to parts of University College.
The Bloomsbury district was once served by numerous tube routes, but today is only accessible via the Picadilly and Central lines. Holborn Station is the closest secured site to this area, although recent changes due to The Burn may have unearthed a secret tunnel that is part of the disused British Museum tube station.
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The British Museum[]
The oldest museum in the world, The British Museum was established in 1753 and was based largely on the collections of the noted physician, scientist and collector Sir Hans Sloane. His work in the field of botany, and especially his study of chemistry at the Apothecaries Hall in London, laid the groundwork for what would be the core the early museum’s collection.
The British Museum is home to over seven million objects from all continents illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. Many of the artifacts are stored underneath the museum due to lack of space. Though it principally became a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities, the British Museum was founded as a 'universal museum'.
After its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including ancient relics and antiquities. From Roman and Greek artifacts to an extensive collection of Egyptian sculptures. Amongst its more notable acquisitions were the Rosetta Stone and the infamous Elgin Marbles.
The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is a covered square at the centre of the British Museum designed by the architects Foster and Partners. The roof is a glass and steel construction with 1,656 pairs of uniquely shaped glass panes.
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The Tubes[]
History of the "Tubes"[]
The London “Tubes” (sometimes referred to as the underground) opened up for business in early 1863. The reason for the name “the tube” is clear once you’ve been to one of the underground stations and have seen the tubelike shape of the train tunnels and the various tunnels that lead around the stations.
When it first opened, the Underground broke new ground in that it contained a simple yet detailed map of the entire train system so that passengers could see exactly where they were and where they were going with relative ease. The style and content of this map was so ahead of its time that its basic structure is still in use today nearly 150 years later.
Over the years, the tube system continued to grow with new stations opening up regularly in order to serve the growing London public. During World War II, the deep and fortified Underground stations became a safe harbor for tens of thousands of Londoners driven below ground during the German bombing runs. Nowadays, the Underground system serves over 3 million people daily and employs thousands of workers who do everything from drive and maintain the trains to ticketing agents, police, and fluffers.
Fluffers have the most interesting (albeit not the most glamorous) job. As the trains zip through the tunnels and past stations underground, large amounts of wind blows across the people standing on the platforms and riding in the trains. With so many people in the Underground system every day, a large amount of human skin and hair gets blown into the tunnels. Believe it or not, if that isn’t cleaned up regularly, it can lead to dramatic and highly dangerous explosions!
Fluffers must go into the darkened tunnels late at night (when the trains aren’t running) to clean up—by hand—the vast amounts of skin and hair. The skin and hair tends to ball up into “fluff,” which is where these workers get their name. Fluffers’ jobs haven’t changed that much in over 150 years, but without them, the London Underground wouldn’t be safe.
The miles of track and supporting infrastructure that makes up the London Underground Transport system has survived the demonic Invasion fairly well. Although there are signs of the devastation everywhere, it is not uncommon to come upon storerooms that are still completely intact. There are also remnants of power sources set up by the Templar during their retreat beneath the earth that can be discovered by those curious – and brave – enough to search the demon infested subways.
Locations[]
Covent Garden Service Line[]
This terminus is little more than a servicing depot for trains. Its proximity to danger, however, is a reminder that the threat of the demons is ever-present and very real.
Northern Line[]
This line stems off from the Leicester Square station outpost. Running roughly beneath St. Martin’s Street, several new offshoots have been discovered that lead to once-sealed locations. There are rumors of a Primus constructing a hideous torture chamber somewhere along the line, although no one has yet found its location.
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Leicester Square Line[]
Providing a conduit between the Covent Garden and Leicester Square stations, the only traffic these tracks see are of dark origins. The muggy air here hangs heavy and is tinged with an ominous reddish hue. While travelers can still make their way to points south within London using this line, they only should do so if heavily armed.
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Underneath London[]
History of the London Underground[]
For hundreds and hundreds of years, the personal waste of London’s population was dropped out of windows from chamber pots and deposited on the city’s streets. As the population grew, large and disgusting cesspools began to appear all around the city. By 1858, the city’s population was in the millions, and without a sewer system, the situation soon got out of control. A particularly hot summer in 1858 caused what has become known as “the Great Stink of 1858” when unrelenting heat and a stagnant and dead Thames River caused Parliament to close down due to the smell.
The man who came to the rescue was named Joseph Bazalgette. He was a civil engineer who came up with the idea to create six huge sewers traveling over 160 kilometers through the city, thus draining the huge amount of sewage, rainwater, and anything else into better places.
The project took over 10 years, and by 1865, there were over 700 kilometers of sewers sprawling out over the city of London. This sewer system was so profoundly effective that it is still effectively serving London to this day. Apparently, Bazalgette achieved this by figuring the largest sewer system the city would need in his lifetime, and then he tripled the size from there!
In addition to the Underground tubes, London is crisscrossed with an endless array of other subterranean tunnels. From underground Roman sites, to Victorian-era sewers and pedestrian tunnels, to secret mail tunnels, there exists any number of appropriate and visually interesting settings.
Locations[]
The Sewers[]
Though long dry, these subterranean thoroughfares are literally everywhere beneath the city of London. The survivors of the Invasion have been exploring them in hopes of discovering hidden caches or others that have fallen beneath the notice of the demons. It seems that the forces of darkness have recently begun to take an interest in these locales as well, making for some unexpected and unfortunate encounters.
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Underground Stations[]
The first section of the London Underground was opened on January 10th, 1863. It was built from then on in great part by the Freemasons. While this provided a convenient and economical means of transport for the inhabitants of London, it also marked the fevered conclusion of the Templar scheme to protect the capital city of England.
John Fowler and Benjamin Baker, the chief engineers and designers of the London Underground, came from families deeply associated with the Freemasons. Every batch of cement used in the initial construction of the tube stations were personally inspected by one of them, ensuring that a very specific alchemical mixture was being used. The secret of this formula was passed along over the next century, allowing future generations of Templar and Freemasons to create a safe haven against the forces of Hell.