League of Monster Slayers

"TRANSMIT - initiate New England signal - RECEIVE - initiate adolescent frequency - KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN - initiate the pinky promise protocol - WITNESS - The League of Monster Slayers."

- The Bees

The League of Monster Slayers are a now all but destroyed group of child monster-hunters in the MMO The Secret World. The League are made up of the children of the residents of Solomon Island Maine, their base is located in the Black Goat Forest along the Savage Coast district. As the name implies, the League's primary purpose is the slaying of monsters.

Solomon Island History
Solomon Island is a small town off the coast of Maine. It was founded in 1892 by British settlers who claimed the new world as their own, however there was a side to these pilgrims American history has not recorded, these founders of the New World were in-fact member of a secret society known as The Illuminati. The Illuminati were a society who were organizers for, what was at the time the much more prestigious, Templars. The Templars and Illuminati had a falling out and so the Templars began hunting down the Illuminati as witches and heretics, in an effort to save their numbers the Illuminati sent their remaining members to the corners of the world in secret to look for new places to set-up a headquarters where the Templars, and their other rival The Dragon, could not reach them. Ultimately is was the Americas the Illuminati would rebuild in. Solomon Island became the headquarters for the Illuminati during the countries early years. After a century's time the Illuminati moved on to New York City as their headquarters, however the small Maine town had been good to them, and so they left agents behind to maintain the status quo.

The Island would set-up a school named Innsmouth Academy. To the public Innsmouth was a reclusive privately run prep-school but in truth it also function as a magical training institution for those with talent to train as wizards and eventually be shipped out to various Illuminati front-companies and organizations. The Town had a history of cultists, which lead to sacrifices to the Hell Dimensions. Older still was a blackness that dwelt beneath the island, protected for years by the Wabanaki, the indigenous American tribe. Though the island was seized from the Wabanaki, they insisted on staying on their mountain, which was eventually turned into a mine and bought off legally from the Wabanaki. The Mine had beneath it a curse, the very thing the Wabanaki wanted to keep from the white-man, an ancient and terrible evil the Wabanaki had helped seal away long ago - The Filth. The Island became a meeting spot for these three forces, a breeding ground of mortal Magic, the fury of the Hell Dimensions and the Filth. With the Illuminati to keep all these forces secret to the public many strange phenomena began to occur on the Island

Founding
The Magic, hell-rifts and Filth attracted and/or created many monsters. The creatures preyed upon the locals for years. After the Illuminati's main forces re-located to New York, there was no one to curtail the monsters and Solomon Island became a breeding ground for them. Many people turned up dead over the years, as they were the most vulnerable, most of these victims were children. The children had witnessed real-life monsters as responsible, most of the time when they tried to tell the adults the children were thought of as having over-active imaginations or looking for attention. If the children ever did make enough of a scene to make the adults believe they truly saw monsters the children were sent to see therapists, as the Illuminati did not want the existence of the supernatural spooking the masses. Finally in 1983 a boy named William Dexter got together a group of children concerned enough to fight back again the monsters themselves since the adults could not be depended on. The Children built a tree-house deep within the Black Ghost Forest on the tallest, sturdiest tree they could find. The House was build several dozen feet up with a long ladder as the only bridge to entry, easily guarded from above. The children made blood-oaths to watch each-others backs and keep their community safe from the things that went "bump" in the night.

The League of Monster Slayers fashioned stakes, sling-shots and firecrackers as an arsenal. The only way to become a member was with the nomination of an existing one, so positions were often passed on between family members as members grew too old. Members who out-grow the League were found by the Illuminati and conditioned to think of their time there as a the stuff of games and role-playing. The fog of time mixed with various stress-counseling and tranquilizer prescriptions from doctors and psychiatrists bank-rolled by the Illuminati washed the gory details of their time hunting monsters from the minds of former members; yet as there were always new members, the League continued even with knowledge of it washed away from their founders.

History
One of the only adults to help them was Carrie Killian, a witch who moved to the small town and built a home there in 1974. Carrie knew of the supernatural and helped the locals, eventually the Innsmouth made her an offer to join the Illuminati and keep her and her work a secret. When Carrie refused the Illuminati's offer they black-listed her, spread rumors among the locals that she was a devil-worshiper, in order to ruin any future credibility and allow the Illuminati to keep on keeping secrets. As Carrie had continued to help anyone who needed her magics and the League were not hampered by the talk amongst the adults it is extremely likely they members of the League became Carrie's only friendly interaction of locals. In the year of 1987 two of the children were found dead and mutilated though they met their fate at the teeth of a wendigo the official cause of death would be labeled as "animal attack". The adults did not accept the "animal attack" anymore than the children this time, though their minds shifted away from the talk of monsters and towards the devil worshiper who had been seen associating with their boys. Carrie would meet her end when small town superstition turned to fear and mob violence and a fire burned Carrie's house down with her inside.

The League of Monster Slayers went to avenge their fallen comrades and the only adult they could trust. The monsters nearly wiped out the entire League, however, one boy Jackson Miller, a student at Innsmouth broke his oaths and unleashed his magics on the wendigo. The beast lay dead, and in the flash and smoke of the firework bombs none of the students were able to tell that magic had been used. Jackson would admit to breaking his oaths at school, the beast's body was incinerated in the school furnace and Jackson received a small reprimand, however rumors spread among the students and Jackson became a legend with-in the closed Illuminati grounds as the "the Boy who killed the wendigo".

Though original an all-boys group, the Leagues "No-Girls" policy would change the years that Nika Vasquez joined. Nika had pestered the League for membership no less than nine times. On her tenth time she brought with her the disembodied finger far too long to belong to anything human and with that the "No Girls rule was repeeled with Nika as their first female member.

The Fog
A group of sailors aboard the ship known as The Lady Margret had been lost-at-sea but eventually came back, it's crew barely alive and barely sane having witnessed eldrich horrors out in the Atlantic. With them they bought a glowing golden sword from the middle of the primordial fog that had swallowed them. The blade called out to them and they took it aboard. Originally they saw it as a sign of providence but as they went home they came to realize it was cursed. The crew gave the sword over to town-hall, who hurried it off to be sealed in Innsmouth while they determined it's nature. Unbeknownst to both the sailors and the Illuminati contacts in town-hall, the sword was in-fact what the Fog and the beasts within were attached to and it followed the Lady Margret back to port.

It was Danny Dufresne, then current leader of the League of Monster Slayers who noticed there was something off about the Fog that rolled back into town with the Lady Margret. Danny disappeared for a day to do research at the tree-house. He found the Fog would soon irrupt in an invasion of sea-demons called Draug -twisted monsters made from dead mariners; Most of them ancient vikings who had journeyed to the Americas to help the Wabanaki seal the Filth and become infected in the process. The blade was theirs when alive and as such it carried their curse with them. Danny warned his friend Carter, a student at Innsmouth and Andy Gardener a local policeman who had been looking for Danny after he disappeared. Being a magi-in-training, Carter believed Danny right-away. Andy was a little more skeptical but he was also somewhat naive and so able to convinced to ask for help. Andy's supervisor Helen Bannerman, who was in-the-know about keeping Illuminati secrets secret, curtailed Andy's concerns but still had Innsmouth watched for any "suspicious characters".

The Draug washed ashore eventually and produced a "siren song" it placed residents in a trance and lured them beneath the waves where they drowned. The only people not affected by the song were either asleep, restrained or protected by magic. The Fog infected the dead and turned them to zombies. The Draug used some of the zombies as incubators, impregnating them and hatching new Draug out of them, the remainder of the zombies were used as troops to kill the remaining townsfolk and dig up the dead, thus creating more zombies and more incubators for the Draug. Danny had been home sick, it is unclear if he was asleep and recovering in bed, he had barricaded his house against the invasion he knew was coming or he had left-over magical wards from the League's stores, whatever the reason Danny was not affected by the song. His years spent training in the League of Monster Slayers combined with his foreknowledge that the Draug were on their way saw Danny survive the invasion by fighting off the monsters and setting up improvised traps all over town. Carter fled to the Academy where the staff would protect her. The remaining members of The League of Monster Slayers are not encountered in-game and presumed dead making Danny not only the last leader, but the last member of the League of Monster Slayers all together.

Legacy
The League of Monster Slayers had been investigating several foes before the Fog came and their research can be used to complete the hunts. A death cult within the Atlantic Island Amusement Park had been investigated by the League of Monster Slayers, following a the League's collection of old newspaper clippings will reveal that the cult is still "alive", or rather undead and needs to be put down. The A'kab, giant insects bread to fight the Vikings and Wabanki have made their nest in the Black Goat Woods, the creatures are afraid of the League and instinctively swarmed the territory once the members were no longer around to protect it. As revealed in the game The Park, a prequel to The Secret World, The League of Monster Slayers had been hunting down the Bogeyman who stalks the Atlantic Island Park and preys on children. The League has a book entitled "The ABCs of Monster Slaying" with complete powers and weaknesses of all the monsters the League had fought. The League's safe has in it instructions for weapons in case of an emergency. Going to uncover them will reveal these weapons to be Golems, giant living composites of the elements themselves. Danny refers to himself as "The Last Man Standing" though until information is found on the League of Monster Slayers, it is unclear what he meant by that.