Archived-McNamara Family

Overview

The McNamara family traces its lineage back many generations to Wales and Ireland. The branch of the family that exists in Australia come over in the mid-1800s with a man named Jonah McNamara. He married a local woman of high status and built a mansion in what is now known as Toowong, which remains with the family even today, and from there founded a lineage that remains one of Brisbane’s prominent if eccentric high society families. The family split into two separate lineages in 1917, when Jonah gave his younger son George McNamara an estate in what is now southern Brisbane. Thus there are now the McNamaras of Gaslight Mansion, who are nearly all Sleepwalkers and tied to the Awakened community, and the McNamaras of Heartwood Estate, who are largely Sleepers and detached from the affairs of the main branch of the family.

The current head of the family is Elizabeth McNamara, the first woman to officially own Gaslight Mansion and a shrewd businesswoman. Choosing not to marry, she was the one who legally adopted the girls who would become Cuffs and Dornelia in 2000 and is the family’s primary contact with the Awakened. Her father Desmond is the traditional patriarch of the family, and his wife Jennifer as the matriarch, though due to their age they remain largely uninvolved in the day-to-day affairs of the family but still take the leading roles in the family’s secret rites and traditions. Elizabeth’s younger brother Gregory is also involved in managing the finances of the family, which are largely maintained through investments and pushing paper rather than direct business.

Gregory’s children William and Sabrina grew up with some of the Awakened children who grew up in the house. William is currently studying his PhD in Law with the intention of becoming a lawyer, whilst Sabrina is following her aunt and father and studying business and economics. Gregory’s wife Agnes was recently killed in an attack on the mansion, along with Delilah McNamara, a distant relative from the Heartwood Estate line.

Mortal nature aside, the McNamaras are hiding plenty of secrets. Their connections to the Awakened are largely unavoidable, at least for the Sleepwalkers at Gaslight Mansion, and they necessitate some unusual rituals. The family never takes photos of their members, and adamantly refuses to be photographed unless absolutely necessary no matter where they go or what they do. Gaslight mansion is thus sparsely decorated with stylised portraits, and rather than photo albums the family keeps scrapbooks to remember the past. This makes them look a bit eccentric to the mortals around them, but any student of the arcane can see the clear actions of people aware of mystic sympathies but limited in their ability to counteract them. A similar but far less obvious tradition is that McNamaras have always paid for home births, and are very cautious about the names of new members. In truth the names that the McNamaras use in public are not their True Names, which are shared only between parents and children in total secrecy to protect them. These are traditions shared by both branches of the family, though only the Gaslight Mansion McNamaras really remember the origins of these practices.

The lands owned by the McNamara family are considerable. Gaslight Mansion, built over a powerful hallow in the late 1800s, sits on a large and well-maintained estate in Toowong and amongst the foothills of Mount Coot-tha. It is an imposing building well-suited to the residency of one of the city’s most wealthy families as well as the mages whom that family patronizes. Heartwood Estate is smaller than Gaslight Mansion, and lacks much of the Mansion’s mystic elements, but it is still a large and impressive property located in the southern suburbs of Brisbane.

Heritage Path: Thyrsus

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Known Members

Gaslight Mansion:

Elizabeth McNamara (NPC) - Owner of Gaslight Mansion, a shrewd businesswoman.
Jennifer McNamara-Stannis (NPC) - Elderly mother of Elizabeth and Gregory.
Gregory McNamara (NPC) - Brother of Elizabeth.
William McNamara (NPC) - Son of Gregory, studying PhD in Law.
Sabrina McNamara (NPC) - Daughter of Gregory, studying business and economics.

Gotham Tower:

Luca McNamara-Baldinotti (NPC) - Married into the family via Samantha (now deceased) of Heartwood Estate. Now works for the Archons.

Heartwood Estate:

Torren McNamara (NPC) - Elderly head of Heartwood Estate.
Lionel McNamara (NPC) - Son of Torren, lives at Heartwood Estate.

Deceased:

Bailey McNamara (NPC, deceased) - Twin brother of Gregory. Died in 1982 war with the Seers.
Agnes McNamara-Baines (NPC, deceased) - Wife of Gregory and retainer to Cassandra. Died 2014 in banisher attack.
Delilah McNamara (NPC, deceased) - Daughter of Lionel and retainer to Cricket. Died 2014 in banisher attack.
Desmond McNamara (NPC, deceased) - Elderly father of Elizabeth and Gregry. Assassinated in 2014.

History

The McNamaras have a long history, and trace their lineage back to landed Irish and Welsh gentry. Their history in Australia begins in 1860 when Jonah McNamara, really a mage of the Silver Ladder going by the shadow name Lyre, moved to the fledgling colonies with the intention of spreading the Silver Dream. When he arrived in what would become Brisbane, he quickly located the most powerful hallow he could find and purchased the land with his considerable wealth. It was on this land, in Toowong, that he built Gaslight Mansion, originally his sanctum and later the home of his family as well.

In 1873 Jonah married a local woman of good heritage, named Margery O’Connor, and there began the lineage that descends to the present day. Unfortunately the nature of Jonah’s life as a mage, which had to be kept largely secret from his Sleeper wife, meant that they only had a single child; a son named Elias who was born in 1874. Regardless, Elias was born a Sleepwalker and grew into a strapping young man gifted with superior knowledge of the world by his father. Almost as soon as he was of age 1893 he married a woman named Ada Stirling. His first son Daniel was born in the same year, and between 1893 and 1903 he had a further five children; Marianne, George, Levi, Alison, and Sean. Daniel and George were, much to the delight of their father and grandfather, born Sleepwalkers whilst the rest were born Sleeping. Over the years the girls were married off into other wealthy families, whilst Sean joined the Catholic Church as a priest and never had children.

In 1908 a young woman named Elaine O’Donnell turned up at the mansion, battered and bleeding but begging for sanctuary. Known for his sense of charity but also some eccentricity, it was no surprise to anyone that Jonah took the young woman in to his household. She became a permanent guest at the Mansion, and Jonah used his legal influences to ensure that she could do so safely.

A few years later, in 1912, Margery passed away in her sleep. It was a tragic event and the family collectively mourned her passing, especially Daniel and Elaine. In the last few years the two had grown close, started a relationship, and soon planned to marry with Jonah’s blessing. The wedding was held the next year in 1913, and a year after that Elaine bore her first child; a Sleepwalker boy named Randall. It was also in 1914, with this birth, that the family began their tradition of giving children a secret True Name and then legally registering their shadow names. Thus the McNamara lineage became far more integrated into the Awakened World.

When the Great War broke out in 1914, there was much call for young and able men to enlist to serve the Empire. It was fortunate for the McNamaras that their wealth shielded them considerably from this, but also the influence of Jonah as a member of the Silver Ladder. Even if they couldn’t say it precisely, it was Jonah’s belief that the War was engineered by the Seers of the Throne and that fighting in it would only be serving their purposes and disregarding the important lessons of the Precept of Diamond. Thus none of the McNamaras served in the war, and have not served in any mortal war since.

In 1917 George McNamara married a sleeper woman by the name of Selina Harris. Wanting the best for his younger son but realizing that Gaslight Mansion needed to be a safe place for the Sleepwalkers and Awakened who would be using it in the future, Jonah purchased a large plot of land south of Brisbane and gifted it to the newly wedded couple for them to live in. George named it Heartwood Estate after the many ironbark trees growing on the property, and happily moved there with his new wife. He had been a Sleepwalker his whole life and understood why it had been done, and appreciated the gesture as well. By keeping his family away from Gaslight Mansion, the sleepers who would descend from him could be protected. Over the next few years Elaine gave birth to two more children, Brianna and Sarah, whilst Selina bore her only son, Donald. Sarah and Donald were both born Sleepwalkers whilst Brianna was born Sleeping.

In 1924 Elias McNamara passed away, an event seen as particularly tragic since he had been survived not only by his children but also by his father. Jonah understood the nature of the situation, being in truth a Thyrsus, but was still saddened by the event nearly as much as when his wife had died twelve years earlier. In 1926, to protect his family from undue interest, Jonah used magic to fake his own death. Legally, Jonah McNamara died in his sleep and ownership of Gaslight Mansion passed to his eldest grandson Daniel. In truth, Jonah had long been using Life magic to prolong his lifespan and it was beginning to show up too much. He continued to live in the Mansion, however, and remained there in secret whilst his still Sleeping family members were around.

In 1934 Ada, Elias’s widow, passed away in her sleep. The last adult Sleeper in permanent residence at Gaslight Mansion, her passing allowed the Awakened and the Sleepwalker residents a lot more freedom to act in the Mansion. A year later, in 1935, Randall McNamara married a woman named Margret Holsworth. It was the first time that the McNamara family had organized a relationship and subsequent marriage based upon a combination of the outside party being a Sleepwalker and the use of Fate and Time to ensure that the marriage would produce more Sleepwalkers, but it set a precedent that has lasted.

When the Second World War started in 1938, the response of the McNamara family was the same as it had been in earlier years. Through a combination of wealth and ideology, the McNamaras remained uninvolved in the war. Even when Japan attacked and the focus shifted from the British Empire to the Pacific, the family remained uninvolved. The unification of humanity, not its division, was the focus of the Silver Ladder and the McNamaras would have no part in affairs that threatened that unity.

In 1940 Randall and Margret had their first and only child, a Sleewalking boy named Desmond. A year later Randall’s cousin Donald McNamara married Gabrielle McKnight, also a Sleepwalker found through divination and subsequently chosen for a potential relationship. A few more years later, in 1945, Donald and Gabrielle had their first and only child. Also a Sleepwalking boy, they named him Torren.

In 1951, at a fairly old age, Daniel McNamara passed away in his sleep. The patriarch of the family, with his death ownership of Gaslight Mansion passed into the hands of his son Randall. This was also the point at which Gaslight Mansion and Heartwood Estate started to become more distant, as the owners and thus heads of the respective branches of the family became more distant relatives. In 1954 Elaine O’Donnell is recorded as having passed away in her sleep, much as her husband had three years earlier, survived by her four children, although there are no records of a funeral. This dark decade ended with the passing of George McNamara in 1959, and the subsequent handing of ownership over Heartwood Estate to Donald McNamara.

1960 was a bittersweet year that began with the passing of Selina less than a year after her husband George and ended with the marriage of Desmond McNamara to a Sleepwalker woman named Jennifer Stannis. In 1962 Desmond and Jennifer had their first child, Elizabeth, and in 1965 Jennifer gave birth to twin boys, Gregory and Bailey. All three were born Sleepwalkers, furthering the traditions of the family for another generation. It was also in 1965 that Torren of Heartwood Estate married Clara Fischer, which would be the last time the Heartwood Estate McNamaras sanctified a marriage through the use of magic though they would continue to use the tradition of secret names for several generations more.

The Vietnam War, like the earlier World Wars, passed the McNamara family by with little event. None of the family members were drafted, and none enlisted to go and fight. The family did not participate in any of the demonstrations against the war, however, as they regarded such behaviour as largely uncouth and not likely to achieve much in the long run. In 1967 Torren and Clara had their first child, Samantha, followed by Lionel in 1971 and Bradley in 1973. Their first two children were Sleepwalkers, however Bradley was born a Sleeper, and it is believed that this was the beginning of the gift of awareness leaving this branch of the family. In 1977 Margret passed away peacefully, a few years ahead of one of the family’s worst times.

1982 brought with it a great deal to Brisbane on the whole, but unseen by the Sleeping masses a tragedy befell the Pentacle and the McNamaras in particular. The Seers of the Throne launched an all-out attack on the local Awakened. At the eye of the storm and well protected, the McNamaras of Gaslight Mansion kept their children close as a shadow war raged around them. In the end the Seers failed to breach the last line of defence, but not without claiming the lives of dozens of mages as well as two of their own; Sarah and Bailey McNamara. Sarah’s death was reported as a result of heart failure, not improbable given the woman’s age, and Bailey was reported as missing. A year later the police declared the case cold, and recorded Bailey as “missing, presumed deceased”. The truth has never been revealed, even to younger generations of McNamaras and the McNamaras of Heartwood Estate who were spared from attack during the conflict.

The remainder of the 1980s went well for the McNamaras. Gregory fathered two children with his fiancé Agnes Baines, a son named William in 1986 and a daughter named Sabrina in 1987, before marrying her in 1989. It was also during this time that the newly formed Lighthouse Cabal moved into the Mansion, and those mages who had sheltered here in 1982 became permanent residents. Thereafter the Mansion became very much a place of secrecy and magic, only entertaining guests from other high society families occasionally and when necessary.

In the aftermath of the battle of 1982 a young policeman, Luca Baldinotti, had been revealed as a Sleepwalker when he distinguished himself assisting the mages. After the incident Luca moved in as a security guard, and following a romance with Samantha McNamara, of Heartwood Estate, married into the family in 1985; Luca taking the family name and Samantha moving to Gaslight Mansion.

In 1988 a young boy, later known as Phillip Longfellow, orphaned by the untimely death of his parents but legally considered to be a nephew of Cricket came to live at the mansion. There he was inducted into many of its secrets, though never fully as he was an outsider and considered to be there only on Cricket’s influence.

In 1990 Donald McNamara passed away in his sleep and passed ownership of Heartwood Estate on to his son Torren. Now largely separated from the main line of the family, it wasn’t until the 1991 double marriage of Lionel and Bradley McNamara to the sisters Cassie and Lauren Stone that the Gaslight Mansion and Heartwood Estate sides of the family had come together almost in their entirety since 1982. In 1992 Lionel and Cassie had their first and only child, a daughter named Delilah who was born a Sleepwalker and regarded as likely to be the last of her branch of the family. Later that same year Gabrielle, Donald’s widow, passed away. It wasn’t until 1997 that the next major event occurred, when the venerable old Randall McNamara passed away and left ownership of Gaslight Mansion to his granddaughter Elizabeth.

In 2000 Elizabeth McNamara surprised many by adopting two girls, one aged ten and the other fifteen. In truth these girls had been rescued from terrible circumstances, one a Sleepwalker and the other was Awakened, but because of Cricket’s connections they had been passed through witness protection and fostering and made to look like regular adoptions. Like the boy in 1988, they were adopted due to Cricket’s influences and although considered to be legally members of the family, they were never inducted fully into the family’s rites and traditions.

In 2002, after a few years without much interaction, Cassie passed away from illness and Lionel sent his daughter Delilah to live at Gaslight Mansion. This latter event was also passed off as being due to a supposed belief that she would be better cared for at the Mansion, but really so that her gifts as a Sleepwalker would be better nurtured and developed.

Also arriving in 2002, another mage, Archived-Strider, turns up (literally appears) on the doorstep of Gaslight Mansion in the early hours of the morning, harrowed from his Awakening. After he recovers, Strider also moves into the mansion and studies under the Lighthouse.

In 2008, after Harp had retired as Hierarch, Samantha and Luca took a well-earned sabbatical to travel the world. Unfortunately the trip ended in tragedy, with Samantha being killed in a car accident in the United States. After returning to Australia Luca became fairly reclusive, and did not return to active duty, until many years later he started working for the Archived-Archons.

In 2014 Gaslight Mansion was attacked by a Banisher cabal under the direction of a mage calling itself Selestus and claiming to be a Supernal Angel. Agnes, Gregory’s wife who was a trained nurse in her youth and in her later years served as a retainer to Cassandra, was killed defending the Mansion. Also killed was Delilah McNamara, daughter of Lionel McNamara from Heartwood Estate who was living at Gaslight Mansion where she acted as a squire to Cricket of the Lighthouse whilst pursuing a mortal career in human movement studies.

Public records indicate that Agnes died in her sleep, while Delilah was listed as missing after a solo camping trip with the presumption of having died of exposure. Their true funeral was a quiet affair attended only by family.

Sanctum Sanctorum

Gaslight Mansion

The primary residence of the McNamara family is known as Gaslight Mansion. A large estate located on a hill in north-west Toowong, the Mansion is one of the oldest buildings in the city. The three-story tall mansion boasts over a dozen rooms and has an extensive garden which surrounds the “H” shaped building. The borders of the property are marked with a two-and-a-half metre tall brick fence topped with a wrought iron spiked fence. Between the points of the wrought iron fencing and the brick is a well maintained but narrow hedge which has grown to conceal a row of razor-wire. Crossing the fence uninvited is no easy prospect.

The mansion’s lawn is well maintained, but minimal. Most of the grounds are actually gardens composed of native plants and trees, many of which are as old as the original mansion. Walking along the trails through them gives a sense of being amongst the wilderness despite only being a few kilometres from the middle of Brisbane. Intruders who make it past the mansion’s fencing may experience a rather unpleasant sensation passing through these native grounds, caused by them being the territory of a very protective guardian spirit and often frequented by other spirits of its chorus.

The actual mansion is a huge building composed of a central structure and two large wings, arranged to look like an “H” from above. The main entrance of the mansion, facing towards the road access to the property, contains a large water fountain. Built along with the original mansion, this is the powerful hallow around which the structure was built. The water of the fountain is imbued with mana, and it was here that many of the Awakened in Brisbane learned to perform oblations in accordance with their path natures. The hallow has been locked by the Lighthouse, however, so a mage could not simply sneak onto the grounds and steal the mana without their knowledge.

Internally, the mansion is decorated in a modern style with a distinct lack of photographs. There are plenty of pictures of places and things, but not a single person. There are portraits in some of the living areas, but every single one is done in a stylized manner that would make it a poor representation of the actual person. This is an eccentricity to most people who would visit the mansion, but an obvious protection against sympathetic attacks to others. There are a great many rooms and chambers, and despite its age the mansion is clearly in very good maintenance with many state of the art security features. It also features many very traditional security features, such as solid doors and reinforced locks and a labyrinthine layout that could easily confuse someone not familiar with the building’s layout.

By passing through a secured and rather obscured door, it is possible to access a basement not shown on any layouts of the building. Down there is a three room basement, referred to by most of those who know about it as the Mansion’s ‘Inner Sanctum’, which once contained the Lighthouse’s Demesne. Made from stone, the main room has a large pentacle carved into the floor with five cages on the ceiling that once held the soul stones that anchored this place to the Supernal Realms. There is a room off to each side, which contains additional space for arcane practices that require the use of a demesne to perform safely.

The whole structure is heavily protected by wards, which are anchored to Atlantean runes built into the very structure of the house and supplemented with an array of Bans designed to prevent all manner of foul creatures from entering the house.

Heartwood Estate

Located in the southern suburbs of Brisbane, Heartwood Estate is a smaller and less magically secured building than Gaslight Mansion. It is still a very well protected building and shows some of the same traditions as Gaslight Mansion. Photographs of people are very rare inside, whilst stylized portraits are fairly common ways of representing people and scrapbooks are more prominent than photo albums. The grounds are about as wild as those of Gaslight Mansion, with many ironbark trees dominating tracts of natural vegetation.