Editing Toronto

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{{infobox location
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| type        = City
| location    = Canada
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| web serial = [[Bonds 1.1]]
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'''Toronto''' is a real city in [[Canada]], and the temporary setting for arcs 4 through 7 of [[Pact]]. The [[Lord]] of the city is [[Conquest]].
== Geography/Description ==
Toronto is the largest city in [[Canada]]. It is located in southern [[Ontario]] on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario, a couple of hours west of [[Jacob's Bell]].
== Residents ==
The [[Toronto Council]] are the major practitioners and [[Others]] who oversee the city, with the [[Lord]] being Conquest.
*Conquest
**his servants and slaves
*[[Sisters of the Torch]]
*The [[Jeremy Meath|High Priest]]
*[[Isadora]]
*[[The Shepherd]]
*The [[Astrologer]]
*[[Queen's Man]]
[[Blake]] and his friends also lived in Toronto:
* [[Paige Thorburn|Paige]]
* [[Alexis]]
* [[Tyler]]
* [[Tiffany]]
* [[Evan]] (prior to death)
Other notable residents include the [[Knights of the Basement]]. Toronto was also home to several [[Demons]] and the quasi-demonic [[Hyena]] which the locals hadn't bothered to deal with.

[[Alyssa]]'s family lives in Toronto.<ref>“Oh no,” Alyssa said.  “When do we break the news that in exchange for me coming this summer, I’ve negotiated for you to come to Toronto for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and March Break with my family?”

Booker laughed. - excerpt from [[Shaking Hands 9.4]]</ref>

==Points of Interest==
===University===
Full name of the university is not specified in story. Home to [[Isadora]], and often visited by members of the [[Sisters of the Torch]] and the [[Cult of Dionysus]].
===Hyena's Park===
A large park where a dangerous Goblin called the [[Hyena]] resided. Many of it's victims are forced to roam the woods, in pain and anger. It's original name is unknown.
===Sisters of the Torch Demesne===
The [[Demesne]] of the [[Sisters of the Torch]] is located in Toronto and serves as the meeting place of their group, with [[Elder Sister]] at the head.

In appearance it appears to be simple and restrained modern elegance in design, a "church without religion", of cherry wood with traces of gold, water running along gutters on either side of the hallway glowing with reflected candlelight.<ref>The Sisters had no such delusions, and the architecture seemed like a 
pointed statement to that end.  Not a homage to the past, whatever their
 traditions.  Only present and future, here, in a church without 
religion, cherry wood with traces of gold, water running along gutters 
on either side of the hallway, almost gold as it reflected candlelight. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/void-7-10/ excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]</ref> The number of candles make it seem like it's daylight inside and the temperature matches.<ref>I wanted to think that the simple and restrained elegance of it 
seemed more imposing than Conquest’s alien realm, but that wasn’t quite 
true.
I felt like, if the Elder Sister somehow became Lord, like she’d planned, then it would be.
It was hard to breathe in here, and that had nothing to do with the <em>ridiculous</em> number of candles that made it seem almost brighter than daylight.  - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/void-7-10/ excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]
</ref>

=== [[The Astrologer|Astrologer]]'s Abode ===
A squat one-story building on the outskirts of the city.<ref>Our first stop put us outside a little building on the outskirts of 
Toronto.  Between picking up Maggie and then making the trip, we had a 
long enough drive that we had to stop for lunch on the way.

[...]

The building was only one floor, squat, with a sloped roof.  The<em> snow </em>heaped over it had greater dimensions than the building did.

I knocked.

The Astrologer answered. - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28 Excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]
</ref> Cramped and musty, filled with old technology and notes.<ref>We sat, in chairs or on the edges of desks, 
where we could find the room.  The room wasn’t much larger than my 
parents’ one-car garage had been when I’d been growing up, and it was 
chock full of computer towers, shelves and boxes.  Where those things 
alone didn’t take up enough space, the place was further littered with 
errant books and stacks piles of paper, a lot of it from some old 
fashioned printer where the paper connected as a series of sheets, end 
to end in one long feed with holes at the side so the machine could 
manipulate it better.  The printouts themselves were faded, featuring 
reams of calculations, and many piles had words written on the sides in 
marker.

[...]

The computer monitors, even, were old CRTs, some black and green.  The 
place smelled like tea, ozone and mold.  The whole setup, including the 
vaguely rounded pile of snow above the building, struck me as being a 
kind of high tech hobbit hole.

[...]

“I like it,” I said.  I wasn’t lying.

“I do too.  Aesthetically.  In terms of 
usability, though, a lot of it’s grandfathered in.  My mentor was 
cutting edge, but cutting edge <em>then</em> is archaic today.  I’m not 
sure if it’s easier to let go of the sentimental attachment or wizard up
 some kind of power up to the equipment.”

[...]

Diana reached backward and grabbed a scrap of paper, scribbling her 
email down. “Don’t feel offended if I take a few days to reply.  My 
modem only does twenty-eight kilobits a second, and I only have so much 
patience.”

I don’t think anyone present wasn’t horribly affronted by the idea.
“Like I said, grandfathered technology and sentimental attachments,” Diana said.

- [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28 Excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]
</ref>

==History==
===Past===
Toronto was a site of conflict in the past, with the English conquoring the native population; and then struggling with other colonial powers, most notably in the War of 1812 where Toronto was a major site. This conflict birthed and fed the [[Incarnation]] of [[Conquest]] who came to rule the city as [[Lord]].<ref>“I wouldn’t imagine Conquest is a great fit for Toronto,” I said.
“It was, once.  The English presence in North America is young, and 
Others can be very old.  For some, it wasn’t long ago at all that we 
wiped out the Aboriginal people and took their land.  It wasn’t long ago
 that there was war over what European country would claim sovereignty 
over this land.  Toronto was a site in the war of eighteen-twelve, and 
Conquest continued to gain power after it was released, with immigrants 
coming in to reaffirm the invader’s claim to the land.”
- excerpt from [[Collateral 4.1]]</ref>

[[Rose Thorburn Senior]] visited the city a few times, and was well known there. Her bloodline carried with it permissions to be in the city.<ref>"Even having you here, I feel like we’re hurting ourselves.”
“But?” I asked.
“But your grandmother has visited from time to time, and I can’t 
refuse you and yours an invitation, now that her titles have passed on 
to you, along with the according rights.”
- [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28 Excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]
</ref>

As a teenager, [[Charles Abrams]] provided a growing teenage gang in Toronto with bloody supernatural assistance, until one of their victims returned as a [[Revenant]] and wiped them out.<ref>“Mine were human,” Charles said.  “Well… technically, it was a revenant.  She came after us, licked with flame like she’d just been set on fire.  This was… I was barely over sixteen, I think.  A gang in Toronto was on the rise, and whenever they got stumped or ran into something strange, they’d come to me.  I’d tell them, hm, you know, I’m thinking of one particular asshole, he’s a real monster.  If you want to leave an indelible mark in their minds and hearts, this would be just the bastard. [...] Revenant came tearing through.  Horror movie stuff, custom endings for each of us, starting with the lowest rank guys, then moving up.  Attacked our business, our alliances, stock, money, revealed secrets.  [...] She got the third, second, and the top guy.  I pulled out all of my tricks.  A few of my monsters, and she still got me.  Decided I wasn’t directly involved enough to die, so she’d leave it up to fate.  Handcuffed me in the electrical room of an abandoned warehouse with a lot of the evidence.  Cops eventually came, and I got my first stint in prison.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/05/gone-ahead-7-x/ excerpt] from [[Gone Ahead 7.x]]<br /></ref><ref>I got to my mid-teens, my mother never changed, I got fed up paying for her and me, I left too.  Met some kids who would find isolated houses where the families were going away, break in, and throw big parties with a small entry fee, trash everything, three hundred people who’d steal everything that wasn’t bolted down.  One of the houses had books on practice.  I took as many as I could load into the car.  They stopped throwing the big break-in parties after we had too many burglar alarms in a row, used the money they had to start selling drugs instead.  We amicably parted ways.  Then I started summoning Others to help them out for a cut of profits.  I’d tell them I knew someone scary that’d deal with any problems they had.  That ended badly. [...] Me summoning Others opened the door for a revenant to rise up to get revenge against them, I think.  It hurt their innocence, left them vulnerable.  It was a wake up call for me.  I started trying to do better, be better. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/10/false-moves-12-6/ excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.6]]</ref>
===Toronto Arc===
This major city served as the battleground during the contest between [[Blake Thorburn]] and [[Conquest]]. 

Their combat on the spiritual plane caused chaos and destruction on the real city.

Others started flocking to the city as a result of this chaos.

With Conquest bound the problem didn't go away, and probably got worse with no ruling Lord. So many problems surfaced that the Sisters speculated it might be demonic influence.<ref>“Define ‘greater good.’  Because we’ve had anonymous threats to our families.  Others are settling in the city, and you’ve brought nothing but pain and chaos with your arrival in the city.  To me, that kind of endemic problem suggests demonic influence.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28 Excerpt] from [[Void 7.10]]</ref>

===Pale===
At some point [[Abraham Musser]] manages to take over the city and declare himself [[Lord]].<ref>“Yes.  Musser has taken Toronto and the surrounding regions.  Nearly half of the remaining territories capitulated immediately on hearing. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/01/15/left-in-the-dust-16-10/ Excerpt] from [[Left in the Dust 16.10]]</ref>

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== Trivia ==
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