Looe Island is about 22 acres – so it’s large enough to sustain a covenant’s population, particularly given the resources of the sea, and trade with nearby ports. Looe, the nearest modern port, doesn’t seem to exist as a legal entity in 1220, but may be one of the many boroughs that Richard of the Romans sets up. He seems to give them a fair. There’s a village at the site before the Normans turn up, and part of what’s now Looe is made up of three Domesday manors, one owned directly by William himself.

There is a second, smaller islet nearby. Historically it seems to have been called Little Island. It’s close enough to be connected with a simple footbridge, and large enough that the magi might build a separate domicle there, if they prefered to live physically separated from their community.

Covenant Boons and Hooks for Sagas Based on Looe Island.

Caves

Death visitor – spectral hare

Haunted – two ghosts described below

Hidden Ways – smuggler tunnels on the mainland (23)

Island

Pilgrimage site – Jesus (26)

Regio –  Hunt records the tradtion that “from Rame-head to the two Looes very fertile valleys are stated to have extended at least a league southwards, over a tract now covered with sea”. On a smaller level the Black Rock in Falmouth Harbour used to be a tidal island.

Resident Nuisance – there’s a blue will-o-the-wisp which pesters people on the island. It may have started with stories caused by smugglers’ lights.

Roman Ruin – Ictis

Insula Ictis

The island is identified by some writers with Ictis, the place where the ancient Cornish set up a trading post to sell tin to international traders. There are some features which do not match the description, for example Ictis is meant to be tidal, but for the purposes of the game, the link might be made. It certainly appears in period, because the Cornish people believe that Joseph of Armithea left his nephew, Jesus Christ, on this island for a while, when he came to Cornwall to buy tin along the coast. This has made the island a local pilgrimage site from early times.

The island belongs to Glastonbury Abbey (from 1144 in real Europe). It is administered by two Benedictines at Lammana Priory. In the real world, the Abbey sold the island to a local landowner, so the covenant could make them an offer. The priory was small, and so was converted to a secular chapel. Glastonbury is the abbey that was so fortunate as to discover the tomb of King Arthur about 40 years ago, and its lucky for them that their good fortunate continued, such that they control the only part of the British isles that the Saviour Himself visited in his lifetime.

Grottoes

A pair of Victorian antiquarians said that Looe has man-made caves in it, similar to those grottoes built by the Etruscans. The last mention of the Etruscan magi is in 408, when the Visigoths came to sack Rome. The Romans heard that Visigothic forces had been scattered from a town (called Narnia, which is modern Narni) by a magical ritual that called down lightning. The priests of the old religion, Etruscan haruspexes came to the Pope and said they could save Rome by performing the same ritual. The Pope said yes, but demanded it be done in secret, or at least in private, so the haruspexes refused and left. The Etruscans (or Rasenna, as they called themselves) are best known in 1220 for their cavernous, decorated graves, one of which might be hidden in the island.

Smuggling

In later periods, smugglers worked from Looe Island, and spread tales of ghosts to frighten off people who might otherwise be attracted to their lights and noise. In Mythic Europe, that’s how you attract faeries. Folklore claims a tunnel to the mainland. mainland.

Ghosts

There are at least three ghosts of Looe Island. There is a dark-skinned man with blood on his face. There is an aristocratic, long-fingered man with long hair who emerges from a blue light. There is a white hare which warns of storms and is the spirit of a girl who committed suicide when wronged by her suitor. Apparently this happens a lot in Cornwall, so there are several of these hares about as potential familiars.