A traveller in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom may, on straying from the well-worn routes of commerce, society and decency, find himself in the rural English heartland of Borsetshire, whose scenic, rustic and peaceful nature is said by many in the know to be merely a surface, as thin ice may conceal treacherous depths. In the public houses and bars of the region some will speak, usually in hushed tones and only ever after several measures of the local cider, of the darkness that squats like some vast, squamous obscenity on the countryside, casting its horrid tentacles into every area of rural life.
Taking the northern road out of Felpersham, our traveller may then head west, following the swift-flowing River Perch towards Borchester, whose library is rumoured to hold many and varied ancient tomes which contain nefarious secrets which, these old men may say, crossing themselves and looking up from their flagons, man was never meant to comprehend. With the anguished spires of Borchester to his north, he may choose to cross the inexplicably sluggish Am, long rumoured to produce crayfish of enormous size and horrendous appearance, through the benighted settlement of Lakey Green, above which looms the forbidding presence of Lakey Hill. These old men may, casting their eyes about their dim surroundings for fear of being overheard, tell of signal fires high on the Hill, of strange gatherings on the Solstices, the Equinoxes, Yule, Walpurgisnacht and other such haunted dates on the calendar; of eerie chanting, and strange lights in the sky; of weather corresponding to no climatic patterns recorded in the rest of the country. (Indeed, meteorologists have long wondered about the microclimate in Borsetshire; while all around it the rest of the country is alternately bathed and scorched by chaos and unpredictability, the local climate seems to cling, like a stray dog feigning adoration for the sake of a few scraps of food, to whatever may pass for "average" trends for the time of year).
In the shadow of Lakey Hill lies Lower Loxley, briefly notorious when its ancient Hall was the scene of a mysterious death, and which is rumoured to hide secrets of a disturbing and arcane nature. Our traveller may shudder and hurry on, through Penny Hassett, and finally north to witch-haunted Ambridge, lying dead but dreaming in the Borsetshire sward. Events in Ambridge have long been famed in the local area for their polarised nature; while, our nervous drinkers may say, it may seem for the most part to be quiet and uneventful, underneath its veneer lies a blasphemous cacophony of madness, violence and eldritch horror.
The country's state broadcaster has for many decades now been chronicling the events there, but for most outside Borsetshire these are assumed to be naught but fanciful fictions. In fact, Borsetshire itself appears on few maps, almost as if cartographers have conspired to keep its presence, and its reality, a secret from the outside world. Or perhaps to protect the unwary traveller from the hideous threats to his sanity which are said to lurk within.
