'm a big fanboy for Clash's On Her Majesty's Arcane Service, to the point of having a light hack of it I'm working on pretty often elsewhere.  But I want to hack the setting, too, right from the ground up, with a bunch of stuff added in.  Figured I do that here, where I can get lots of eyeballs on it.  And, to take advantage of said eyeballs, I have some questions for people in general on what they'd want to see.

So here we go.

Note that when we hit "the Arcane Service", that's the player characters.

Before The Beginning
Henry the VIII, father of Queen Elizabeth, reigned in England from 1509 until 1547.  Attempting to acquire a son, he took six wives in series.  To allow him to divorce, he split the English church from the Catholic, spreading many church holding among his nobles and emptying out many monasteries.  These actions made for some tumultuous times in England after his death.

A Most Rapid Succession
Henry's son Edward (the VI) was a protestant, crowned at the age of ten, and died at the age of sixteen through illness; he faced rebellions and unrest over his continued protestant reformations.  
 He was succeeded by Lady Jane Grey, his half-sister, by his own wishes, who was Queen for nine days before her claim was challenged and ended, by Mary I.  The Lady Jane Grey was executed shortly afterwards for treason.
 Mary (the I), also a daughter of Henry, and a Catholic, took back the kingdom, declared it Catholic again, and began to burn protestants – for which she gained the sobriquet "bloody Mary".  Mary I reigned for five years, died of a tumor, and the throne passed to Elizabeth.

The Rise Of Elizabeth I, And Her Circle
Elizabeth, the remaining child of Henry, raised a protestant, became queen in 1558, two years ago.  Her innermost circle may be said to consist of:

• Sir William Cecil, Lord Burley, a moderately stuffy and conservative fellow who seeks stability in the nation, and encourages Elizabeth to marry for such cause.  Burley also works to advance his ally, a certain Lord Walsingham, a ruthless, ambitious, and bloodily loyal maestro of spies.
• Lord Robert Dudley, Elizabeth's favorite, but not favored for marriage for plain reasons of politics.
• Doctor Johnathan Dee, the Queen's Astrologer, a noted arcanist.

Consolidation
Naturally, the foremost aims of this young queen are centred on consolidating her powers and her country.  Her Majesty goes about these ends through a fairly simple stratagem.  She has enacted a number of sweeping reforms, and now seems to be playing for time.  At present, her pattern is to accept any major power as an adviser, and listen to what they have to say, but make almost no changes or take any actions of significance, as her early reforms slowly become the status quo.  So, let's look at the three greatest reforms...

Religious Uniformity
To the great aggravation of the Catholic church, Elizabeth has passed a new settlement of religious uniformity.  It echoes the break her father made with Rome, but grants significantly more leniency to priests wishing to employ various Catholic trappings (in the real world, Elizabeth's settlement is enduring; this marks the real foundation of the Church of England).

Uniformity establishes a common book of prayer, common rituals, and much else.  Officially, England is Protestant, and there are legal penalties for non-conformity.  However, these penalties are both relatively lenient (no Catholics are burned, for example), and are not usually applied at all; it seems in general that Elizabeth is perfectly fine with variety in faith, so long as it keeps it's head down.

Naturally, Uniformity is not popular in Rome; the Catholic church has declared that Elizabeth is not Queen, and that Mary Queen of Scots ought to be.  This has fomented a fair bit of support among the discontented and those unwilling to convert to heretical Protestantism, and it is likely that Elizabeth will see a number of revolts and uprisings through her reign, relating to this claim.  There are, in addition, always rumours of Jesuit assassins, of gold from Rome to pay for raising of forces in unrest, and much else besides.


Magical Regularity
England is home to a vast profusion of temples, lodges, fraternities, and societies given to the study of Thaumaturgy, Theurgy, and Fairy matters.  Many of these societies possess actual magicians – other possess mystical lore.  Such societies often lay claims as inheritors of the Druids, the Rosicrucians, or of the Templars.  Others are far more foreign, and at least one, Freemasonry, is a wholly new synthesis of older groups.

Her Majesty has taken the advice of Dr. Dee in regards to these groups, and has passed an act of Regularity.  This act has a number of different effects; the three greatest are:

First, in order for a human being to practice arcane or fairy magic in England, they must pass examination, and swear an oath of loyalty to the crown, and register in a census.  They can be drafted in time of need.

Second, the examination in question is to be administered by an arcane college that is chartered by the Crown.  A large number of such colleges were created on the day that Regularity was passed – these were, in truth, existing groups that had been carefully screened, and endowed with lands (specifically, empty monasteries remaining from Henry's break).  

Third, such arcane colleges are to be overseen by a Master chosen by the Queen; in addition to overseeing those colleges, that Master will also hire and maintain agents to enforce these rules and deal with oddities and incidents.  These agents are referred to as Her Majesty's Arcane Service.  The first Master of Arcana is John Dee himself.  

Those arcane groups which possessed relatively significant power were almost all chartered into schools, and those without have now been given an opportunity for gain.  As a result, Regularity may be said to be a qualified success, much as Uniformity is.  

There are magicians offended by the idea of examination – and those that fear it due to some malign or infernal dealings in their past. As of yet, not a single fairy that teaches magic has shown any interest into sending their pupils into this new system, nor have any of the arcane schools yet managed to acquire a fairy professor (and when one does, there's likely to be some trouble over that, too).  These objectors are often capable of voicing their grievances by supporting revolutionaries, by setting up their own underground schools, and by desperately grasping for more power, the next couple of decades will likely be interesting, to say the least.

Fairy Ambassadors
Kings and Queens in England have long treated fairies as enemies; as agents of demoniacal evil on one hand, and of foreign powers (the fairy lands) on the other.  Elizabeth, however, has a general policy of keeping communications open with the enemies of her state, and does not consider fairies to be demonic.

There are many fairy kingdoms that lead into England by one route or another, but two of these kingdoms are both ubiquitous and powerful – the kingdom of Oberon, and that of Mab.  Both of these kingdoms have been invited to send ambassadors to Elizabeth's court, and both have done so.

Mab, who once mentored Morgana leFay in the days of King Arthur, is also known as the Queen of Ice and Darkness, a title that is borne out in her lands.  The interests of her court in England have traditionally been the taking of human servants by force, and swapping of fairy and human infants, in order to place potential agents throughout the country.  With changelings rapidly embracing the new Regularity, and spreading knowledge of the means and routes by which her raiders enter England, her usual methods are stymied.  Mab's ambassadors, newly arrived at court, seem to simply be trying to learn the shape of human politics.  Mab herself has not yet visited; it is unknown what she plans beyond trying to understand the changing shape of affairs.

Oberon, often called the Summer King, visits court regularly, where he seems to delight in verbal sparring with the Queen and her advisers.  Over the course of seemingly endless debates on minute points of law and land, claims and rights, it appears that Oberon's court is building, one tiny deal and agreement at a time, a solid foundation for regular interaction between his court and England.  

Many of the resultant compacts of law between fairy and human are reflections of tradition, now formalized  For example, it has been determined that should a craftsman leave out milk, entering his workplace on the same night he does so, expressly in order to aid his work, even without his knowledge, is not necessarily criminal, something a number of Oberon's boggans and knockers insist upon.  There is some question whether Oberon is engaging in playing an absurdly long joke, but relations have been much improved regardless.

Of course, the petty Kings and Queens of smaller fairy lands, having heard of all this, take their non-invitation as the greatest insult.  Their plotting and raiding have increased hugely.

And now, the Questions:

Anything here that makes no sense to you - stuff you can't follow?

Anything here strike you as especially hot or as no damn use to you?

The next bit would be "what the Arcane Service actually end up doing" - adventures, basically.  So, what kind of adventures would you want to know are available in this setting, as a player of GM?