Jennifer Quail

Strange Roads and its sequel The Demon That Is Dreaming take place in Washington, D.C. and the nearby Virginia and Maryland suburbs.  On first glance this might seem like an odd setting for vampires, magic, and adventure.  To most people Washington is either a symbol for governmental gridlock or the destination for a high-school field trip.  Elaine Gates didn't expect much beyond a vacation in familiar, painful surroundings, and Alan Graves was slowly learning  that idealistic dreams of saving the world mostly came to Washington to die slow, cynical deaths.  But even without dark castles, misty moors, or other fanasy trappings, D.C. is the perfect home for the magic, the powerful, the villanously ambitious and the undead.  

 

Washington sits on the Potomac  River, on land selected by General Washington to build a new capital city for the fledgling Republic.  Despite legends and myths and numerous quasi-academic  studies, there is no indication that the layout of the city has any mystic properties . . . but in the world Alan and Elaine occupy, it managed to be built on a center of magical energy anyway.  Whether this was done to attract the powerful or the powerful were drawn to the place by accident, it wasn't just those interested in earthly power who followed its lure.  Magic artifacts, creatures tied into the supernatural world, and trained users of the powerful energies that converged on the spot were drawn to the site.  Families with a long history of having the gift often settled in the city or nearby.  Buildings like the Capitol and the White House have dozens of legends of ghosts and mysterious activity.  It's small wonder that, even through seeming coincidence, D.C. drew in the new Lord and Lady and was still the home of one of the only remaining vampires.  Nor is it a surprise they found the place was already occupied by those drawn to power and with less than noble intentions for its use.

 

 

“What power are you talking about?” They almost certainly meant energy, Elaine thought, as power related to force and movement of mass, but now was not the time to quibble over physics terms.

 

“Your power. There’s no name for it as a whole, not that I’ve ever heard. The parts that you are concerned with are called Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire."

 

                                                Strange Roads

 

In the world of Omens in the Night, magic is manipulation of energy by those born with the ability to sense the different types .  The four correspond to the Four Elements, and are referred to by the same names:

 

Earth: Earth magic is the most ubiquitus, permeating the ground and most things that grow from it.  Ley lines, "rivers" of energy, flow through the earth like underground streams, and places where they converge are centers of power that frequently attract the magically-inclined.  Earth Mages are the most common among the fully gifted and many of those considered "hedge mages" are mildly sensitive to Earth magic.  Earth is most closely aligned with Fire.

 

Wind (Air): The most etheral of the four energies, Wind, sometimes called Air, is the rarest among individual gifted.  Closely tied to weather, Wind is  generally perceived as  gold or yellow tones, often in motion.  Wind Mages are the least common among the fully gifted, but an ability to sense and utilize the element is sometimes found, particularly among certain warrior sects.  Wind is frequently entwined with Water, and is most closely aligned with it.

 

Water:  As abundant as Earth, but less easily controlled, Water, like Wind, is a fluid element that can be as destructive as Fire in its own way.  Just as plants and animals are formed from Earth-infused matter, they're also suffused with Water, necessary to life and forming the basis of blood.  While Earth Magic generally deals in structure and grounding, Water is mutable and nearly as suited as Fire to offensive magic.  Even more than Air, Water can mold itself around and through obstacles, magical and mundane, and requries less time and force to have an effect, and can often accomplish it more subtly than Fire, without as much potential backlash for the user.

 

Fire:  Nearly as rare as Wind Mages are the Fire Mages.  With Fire, though, it has less to do with the instability of the element than the instability of the weilders.  Unlike ethereal Wind, grounded Earth, or equally-destructive Water, Fire seldom flows as much as it explodes in powerful outbursts.  Learning to control Fire is probably the most difficult of all, and young Fire Mages are most likely to be lost accidentally while training, while experienced warriors are both the last to be deployed in a fight, and the most likely to go out in a literal blaze of glory.

 

The Lord and Lady Mage:   As a rule, a true Mage (as opposed a a mildly sensitive person who might become a talented warrior or a gifted herbalist-magician) will have a dominant affinity for a single Element.   Once in a great while, generally at least two or three generations apart and often more, a pair of Mages will be born where each has an affinity for a pair of elements.  They are referred to as the Lord and Lady, and the elements are always coupled as Wind and Water, and Earth and Fire.  The two more fluid elements, and the most stable and most volatile.  The appearance of the Lord and Lady frequently presages a cataclysmic magical event.  Their importance was such they were frequently the focus of magical attacks, protection by other Mages and by vampires recruited for the good (most commonly by the one called the Praetorian), and generally the ultimate consequence of whatever crisis they face is that the Lord and Lady rarely have the privilege of dying of old age.