From the initial email I received, it looks like part of the Dresden Files playtest is going to involve city creation. While I’ve lived in a lot of different cities over the years — Hong Kong, Geneva, New York, London and, um, Dundee — I’m leaning towards using Milton Keynes for the playtest. No, really. Hear me out.
For one thing, MK is the easy option: it’s where I’ve lived for the last seventeen years, and it’s the one shared place that everyone in the Thursday night group knows well, so coming up with details of life here will be pretty painless. Also, more importantly, Milton Keynes is a bloody strange town and making weird stuff happen here will be a doddle.
If you’ve never heard of Milton Keynes, haven’t been here or have only passed through for long enough to get lost and complain about all the roundabouts, here’s a quick guide to the things that I think make MK such a good candidate.
It’s a collision between the past and the present
The history of Milton Keynes goes back a long way. Parts of an old Roman settlement have been uncovered about a mile from my house. We have pubs here that were built before the Americas were discovered. Parts of the English civil war were fought on its soil. Stony Stratford, in the north of the town, saw the abduction of the young princes murdered by Richard III as well as the origin of the phrase “A cock and bull story”, coined from the names of a couple of local pubs. The village in which I live, New Bradwell, was largely built during the early Victorian period to house the workers who built and maintained the railway rolling stock for most of Great Britain. Bletchley Park, in the south of the town, was the centre of Britain’s codebreaking effort during the second world war and saw the creation of the first electronic computer.
And, despite all this, Milton Keynes as a town only came into existence in the 1960s.
The British government of the time decided they needed to built a new town to house workers from London. Bletchley had already been used for this since the 1950s, but a project was started to combine all the smaller villages in the area into one large community. Even now, forty years on, Milton Keynes changes and grows at a staggering rate. It’s now home to about 250,000 people, with plans to double this by 2025. It’s the kind of place where a seven-year-old child can look out over a housing estate and say, “I remember when this was all fields”. As a result, MK is a mix of old, historic villages and sites embedded in an urban sprawl where most buildings are younger than their residents.
It’s a collision between man and nature
Milton Keynes is probably the greenest town in the UK. I don’t mean “green” as in ecologically friendly, but that every estate is surrounded by trees, there are large areas of parkland all over the town and the main roads are all bordered by grass and flowers, even in the central reservations. Hell, even the roundabouts are almost all explosions of foliage. And once you get outside the town you’re immediately in the countryside of Buckinghamshire, with green fields and woodland all around.
On the other hand, the first time I came to Milton Keynes, back in the late eighties when going to a David Bowie concert at the MK Bowl, I walked out of Milton Keynes Central railway station, looked around at all the low, long concrete buildings and thought, “Where’s the airstrip?”. The centre of town looks like something out of one of J. G. Ballard’s wet dreams. The character is changing slightly as some taller buildings are being allowed now, but the airport feel remains. Even once you get outside the centre, the new estates are generally geometrical arrangements of largely identical, modern-looking structures. The fact that they’re surrounded by greenery detracts from the ugliness, but it’s still apt that Charles Stross called his story about MK The Concrete Jungle.
It’s quirky
If you mention Milton Keynes to almost anyone in the UK, the first thing they mention will be the concrete cows. Milton Keynes will always be identified with them, and they’re quite an apt symbol for the town: not only do they represent the fusion of artifice and nature I mentioned above, but they’re also pretty damned weird, and Milton Keynes is a pretty damned weird place. I’ll give you a few examples.
- I’ve been living here for most of my adult life, work here, spend most of my time here and even learned to drive here, but I still get lost regularly when driving around town. Part of this may be down to natural ineptitude on my part, but in my defence, other that the city centre and the old villages, everywhere looks the same. The near-identical estates, which are completely hidden from the road by trees anyway, are all connected by near-identical dual-carriageways connected, in turn, by near-identical roundabouts. You can drive for ages and not see a single landmark or identifying feature. Add to this that the city is, I think, the only one in the UK laid out almost entirely on a grid system, and unless you know the layout of the grid and relative locations of the estates you can drive around in circles for hours and never know.
- The few landmarks we do have are pretty odd. I’ve mentioned the concrete cows, but if you dig around you’ll find large, brightly-coloured dinosaurs, concrete snails leaving paths as their trails, a large pagoda in the middle of a park, a newly-built stone circle, and a statue of a family watching TV hidden in the middle of the woods. One of the first landmarks to go up in the centre of town was a giant red neon pyramid. After a while here, you start to think of these things as normal.
- Almost everyone here is from somewhere else. This is changing as the town gets older and kids are brought up here, but this is largely a place that people come to, not from. This gives it an oddly evanescent feel.
- This may apply more to the village in which I live than Milton Keynes in general, but maybe not. The UK is a pretty secular society; more that sixty percent of the population profess no religious affiliation. In New Bradwell, which has a population of around 2,500, we have five churches, a mosque and a thriving community of neopagans. If this extrapolates to MK in general, then we seem to be aberrantly spiritual in comparison to the rest of the country. Maybe there’s a good reason for this.
As I mentioned earlier, I moved to Milton Keynes about seventeen years ago with no particular intention of making this my long-term home. As I’ve grown to appreciate what an odd and unique place it is, though, I can’t imagine myself moving on again. I just hope that our group can communicate some of this as we try to turn it into part of the Dresden Files universe. I’m not sure we can make it much stranger, though.
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I think each of the estates have their own ‘character’, their own little pecularities of construction or road design that distinguishes it from the the others. NOt that you’d know that from the grid roads. That’s another thing – the design of the newer parts of the Milton Keynes positively discourages ever leaving the grid roads and entering the estates unless you really have to. (The roads inside the estates are a mess of twistiness.) It’s quite easy to imagine an estate, even in the middle of Milton Keynes, that is simply cut off from the rest of the town and no one will notice. And there’s also the weirdness implicit in the fact that the train station, the place from where hundreds if not thousands of people commute to London each day is placed in Elder Gate. (No one drives to London unless they really have to.) Where else might people be commuting to?
Posted 26 Jul 2008 at 8:53 pm ¶Good points!
That reminds me, I did mean to mention some of the bizarre place names in MK. The street naming in the city centre seems to indicate that the town planners were hippies or pagans, with Elder Gate, as you mentioned, as well as Avebury Boulevard, Midsummer Place, Witan Gate and Silbury Arcade. It all has a kind of Wicker Man vibe to it.
Some of the estate names are also pretty evocative. I can see Winterhill and Bleak Hall touching on the Nevernever for a start.
Posted 26 Jul 2008 at 9:08 pm ¶Heh, speaking of which, yonks ago I ran a game of Nobilis where Milton Keynes was enchancelled. I’m not sure how much of this stuff will be useful, but here’s my notes on various locations in alter-MK:
Ashland
It is said that a foolish mortal once opened a gate to hell in an attempt to save his love. That story’s end is lost to the mists of time, but it is assumed to be a tragic one. It is said that the Ash Lands were where that gate was opened. Though the fires has long since died, choking heat still fills the air of that place. The cinders have lain cold and still for as long as anyone has known, yet tormented screams still carry on the breeze. Flames writhe at the edges of vision, disappearing if one tries to focus directly upon them. Pain and terror drift like smoke in the wind.
Bleak Hall
Laughter and smiles are forbidden within the domicile of the Bleak Lord, as is music, hope, and any speech above a whisper. It is rumoured that his wife left him for another. It is rumoured that he lost a son. It is rumoured that an angel stole his laughter for a necklace and his smile for a ring. There are many rumours. Whatever the truth of the matter, you would be wise to abide by his laws when under his roof.
Bradwell, Bradwell Common, New Bradwell
There is a giant chained beneath the earth. Over time, wells have been sunk through the rock of his prison and deep into his veins. The first was drilled into his heart, and conferred immortality. The second was drilled into his groin and granted fertility to even the most barren of people. In time each ran dry. A new one has recently been dug, into his eye, and the rich, red fluid bubbles and steams at the up to the surface. It is rumoured to grant Sight, but with it, madness.
Eaglestone
At first glance, many mistake the great bird for a mere statue, albeit an exquisitely carved and painted one. If one is patient, however, and watches closely for a while, it becomes clear that the wings are slowly, so very slowly, starting to unfurl, that the bird is in the process of taking to the air. One word is carved upon the plinth: hope. It is not known what will happen when hope takes flight.
Monkston
Few who see the dark brothers return to tell the tale, yet there are still those who attempt to seek them out. It is said that the monks have the power to give the worthy their heart’s desire, to change an old life for a new one, to offer a second chance, the opportunity to atone for past mistakes. No one knows how they judge who is worthy and who is not.
Rooksey
In the centre of a blasted plain stands a tower. Not that you could tell what shape it is beneath the seething mass of rooks that roost upon it. It is whispered that the birds of rooksey know the future. For a price – the eye of a drowned child, the heart of an honest man – they will tell you your fortune, good or ill. It is said that all who visit here come to regret it.
Stony Stratford
A river of liquid stone meanders its lazy way towards the horizon. The river may be crossed by stepping on the boulders of solid water – not ice, water arrested mid-flow – that protrude above the surface.
Winterhill
Few pass through this place where Old Man Winter is said to make his home. Cold reigns here, even when a few steps beyond is sweltering beneath the summer sun. Frozen statues, scattered here and there, serve as a reminder of why it is unwise to tarry here.
Wolverton
Tread carefully in the land of Wolves that Walk Like Men. ‘Tis true, they seem a friendly enough folk, but beware those wide smiles and firm handclasps. Refuse – politely, mind – that offer of refreshments and a soft bed for the night. And, whatever you do, don’t run. Yes, I know we had no trouble, but the sun was blazing down. At night, well, that’s a different story. Night is when they Change. Night is when they hunt.
Wolverton Mill
Posted 27 Jul 2008 at 1:16 am ¶Home of the Wolverton miller. He’ll grind your bones to make his bread.
Linked in from the dresdenfilesrpg LJ community.
MK sounds like it would be a fascinating location for Dresden-style RP. The supernatural community would be severely off-balance. A dozen ancient powers were sleeping securely, when suddenly (almost instantly, from an immortal perspective), they were overrun by people and construction. And, of course, where you have people, you have power, and lots of supernatural elements who were too small to make it in London look at MK as fresh pastures to start empire building with little competition.
Yeah, lots of potential in there.
Posted 29 Jul 2008 at 4:04 pm ¶Thanks for the insight, Sam!
I’ve only just started thinking about the supernatural elements, but I can see hedge witches, werewolves and faeries fitting in naturally. As you point out, we’re a bit on the small side, so the various vampire courts probably wouldn’t bother with a presence (or much of one) which could make it a good hidey-hole for exiles and runaways.
I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into some research. With the long history of the area and bloody battles that have been fought around here, there must be a rich seam of ghost stories to mine.
It’s going to be a week until the group gets a chance to do some brainstorming, and I’m wary of running the risk of deciding stuff before then, but I can’t stop the ideas sparking either!
Thanks for reminding me about the LJ community — I’ll add it to my links.
Posted 29 Jul 2008 at 4:16 pm ¶Post a Comment
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