North America
Contents
Quote
"I'm a no-good coward, an American too. A North American, that is. I'm guilty of murder of innocent men, innocent women, innocent children - thousands of them. My planes, my guns, my money, my soldiers - it's my blood on my hands. It's all my fault. I must not think bad thoughts."
-- X, "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts"
Introduction
No other continent is as much a battleground between Sabbat and Camarilla as North America. Then again, no other prize is as rich. New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. are all worth fighting over; the markets, the media and the missiles are all desirable. There are rich veins of silicon to be mined in the computer firms of California, Washington state and Massachusetts; there are also vast untapped natural resources in the Canadian north and in the wilds of Alaska. The Great Plains are still the breadbasket of the world, and starving an enemy's herds is as good as starving him directly. There are prizes well worth going to war for here, and the master strategists of both sides - as well as those who stand behind them - know it.
In Europe the battles have grown a bit stale and a bit predictable. Here they are still fresh and savage, as even the denizens of longest standing have been here for a mere handful of centuries. Things have not ossified the way they have in the Old Country, nor are there still-potent indigenous creatures strong enough to challenge the Kindred for rule of the night. On a stage mostly cleared of those pesky werewolves, and with the Antediluvian puppeteers not betraying their hands to their puppets, a bloody play is acted out every night by the vampires of North America. Even the bit players find the action intense and deadly.
Geography
Europe's Kindred population often exists along clearly delineated clan and sect lines. Spain? Lasombra and Brujah. Austria? Tremere... and so on. This is not so in North America. Repeated waves of immigration to and migration across the continent, not to mention a decided lack of wars to decide internal boundaries, have thoroughly mixed vampires of all clans and affiliations across the United States and Canada.
Canada
Covering nearly four million square miles, Canada has a human population of just 27 million mortals, and most of them live within 190 miles of the southern border with the United States. Most Canadian territory is putatively under Camarilla control, but in actuality anything above the magic 190-mile mark (and much that is below it) is left to the Lupines. There is a strong Sabbat presence in and bordering eastern Canada; parts of Quebec (including Montreal) and Ontario (including Toronto), as well as major portions of the United States bordering these regions, are under Sabbat control. The so-called Maritime and Prairie Provinces (including such cities as Alberta and Edmonton) and British Columbia are all essentially free from Sabbat taint, but are as sparsely populated by vampires as by humans. The two largest cities in Canada are Sabbat. After all, what do the antitribu care about the fishermen of the Grand Banks?
For Camarilla vampires, the question is whether or not the Masquerade can be maintained. Canada's violent crime rate is much lower than the States', mandating much more caution on the part of Canada's Kindred. In general, they are fewer, farther between and much more reluctant to take human life unnecessarily than their American counterparts. This is not so much an expression of morality as one of selfpreservation; excessive violent crime shocks and mobilizes Canadian society in a way that no longer touches Americans. Fueled by public outrage, the search for a violent criminal will prove relentless until the perpetrator is found.
Canada has vast natural resources and a solid high-tech industrial base. The Prairie Provinces, in addition to Alberta's oil fields, have extensive agricultural industries. Edmonton houses, among other things, the world's largest shopping mall, home to its own criminal (and perhaps Kindred) subculture. On the east coast, the struggles over Quebecois independence and the depletion of the Grand Banks fishing shoals have severely damaged the economy of the Maritime Provinces. Quebec and Ontario, though, remain prosperous rivals in the heart of the country even as the one repeatedly threatens to secede and the other works diligently to get Quebec to remain.
The Quebecois separatist movement, countered internally by the Federalists and externally by the rest of the country, centers around the French-speaking minority's attempts to secede from the rest of Canada to form a Francophone republic. A referendum on secession in late 1995 showed the province's population to be narrowly in favor of remaining part of the Canadian union, for now.
As stated earlier, most of the vampiric population is concentrated in the cities and towns along the U.S. border. There is no Sabbat presence west of Lake Huron, meaning that the Camarilla rules the Prairie Provinces uncontested. The population is the usual mix of the seven main clans with a smattering of others, but all are on their best behavior. The miles between the cities are too long and too Lupine-infested for ready travel from city to city on the ground. Blunders can lead to exile, and exile usually means death here. Plus, with such intense potential pressure from the kine, Canadian Kindred will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their princes in punishing offenders. After all, there's nowhere for them to run either.
Infiltrated by Japanese vampires, British Columbia stands outside the wars of the Sabbat and Camarilla. Ruled by the independent Prince Sigfried, the city of Vancouver is a model of efficiency for other princes. Effectively free of sect entanglements, the city is ruled by its prince alone.
United States of America
New England
A region of contrasts, New England houses dead factory towns and the Green Mountains, has a reverence for tradition and boasts a Malkavian prince in its biggest city. Heavily infiltrated by the Sabbat, Massachusetts contains a large portion of the region's high-tech industry and population. Further north, Maine is entirely Sabbat, but this means little; most of the state's human and Kindred population is clustered "Down East," far from ravaging Lupines. Connecticut is the most prosperous non-Sabbat state in New England, but it does border on the Sabbat-controlled New York. The home of many insurance agencies and financial houses, as well as a great many wealthy ghouls who commute to New York daily, Connecticut is a staging point and supply dump for New York City's beleaguered Ventrue.
Mid-Atlantic States
Sabbat-infiltrated if not controlled, the most densely populated region of the country is also among its most violent, particularly in the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Camden. The last was purged of its Kindred population during the late '70s and early '80s by a band of hunters with a predilection for arson, but the last few Camarilla vampires in Philadelphia have since fled across the Delaware to take up residence. At the southern border of this region rests Washington, D.C., so far theoretically immune to the Sabbat's depredations.
The South
- The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware
- The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.
There is a difference between the South, which can be defined as the areas around the charming cities of the Atlantic Seaboard such as Charlotte, Charleston, Richmond and Atlanta; Appalachia, which rests to the west, nestled in the Appalachian Highlands; and the Deep South, consisting of the Florida Panhandle and states like Mississippi and Alabama. Southern Florida, with its dense populations of Cuban immigrants and elderly retirees from the Northeast, is not considered to be part of the South at all.
Unlike the other two regions, "the South" is relentlessly progressive, economically speaking, as jobs and industry migrate southward in search of lower costs and more relaxed environmental standards. With these industries, the Ventrue have moved en masse as well, attended by Toreador and Tremere who also sense opportunities.
The Deep South, on the other hand, is predominantly rural, with only a smattering of industry in cities like Birmingham. What Kindred exist outside the industrial areas tend to be Gangrel or Nosferatu. These vampires also predominate in Appalachia, though that territory is unquestionably Lupine dominated. In the cities are ragtag Ventrue and Brujah in equal numbers; the former from the heritage of plantation owners, the latter from the convicts who were the original colonists of Georgia.
- -- Alt-1920s New Orleans -- The alternate reality Big Easy in 1916 to the 21st Century.
The Great Plains
Neatly purged of Kindred during the 1930s, the Great Plains have only rebuilt their unliving populations during the past three decades. Kansas City and St. Louis, in particular, have heavy vampiric populations. The large number of Kindred in Kansas City is at least somewhat understandable, given the wholesale slaughter of cattle that is one of the city's main industries. St. Louis, on the other hand, is more of a puzzle, particularly since its Camarilla contingent is heavily tilted toward Brujah and Nosferatu.
Further north, the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are Ventrue-dominated to an extent unmatched anywhere else in North America. Current rumor holds that a nonaggression pact has been struck with the city's Glass Walker Lupines, leading to unprecedented cooperation between the two Awakened species. The effects of that supposed cooperation are potent indeed; the Twin Cities are prosperous, clean and popular hunting grounds.
There is a small anarch free state centered around Madison, Wisconsin, with a bare dozen or so permanent residents. Ruled by a balding, stooped and feathered Gangrel who goes by the nickname "Vulture," the Madison Free State is, however, a home base for more than 20 anarch gangs who use it to reload, refuel and recruit.
The Southwest
Much of American industry, when it relocates domestically, comes to the American Southwest. Phoenix in particular is a hub for Kindred-influenced firms. However, southwestern Camarilla Kindred tend to keep strictly to city borders for several reasons. Outside their cities are heavy Uktena and Wendigo presences, and the greater part of the Sabbat's strength rests just across the Mexican border. Indeed, part of western Texas has already fallen to the Sabbat, and certain of the more paranoid Kindred of cities like Dallas and Albuquerque wonder what's keeping them from taking more.
In all probability, those Camarilla worthies would be much happier not knowing the answer to their question: A council of six Lasombra antitribu, all under deep cover in the Sabbat, meets annually in Santa Fe to discuss ways to keep the border stable. All six of these vampires are at least of conquistador vintage, and no one has yet uncovered their motive for thwarting the persistent Sabbat initiative. After all, they are conclusively not linked with the Camarilla, having deliberately funneled the influx of new Kindred into Phoenix and Tucson rather than allowing it to spread across the entire region. Those few Inconnu who are aware of this council of six are watching them very carefully, and there has been some debate as to what these vampires uncovered so long ago that they are trying so hard to protect from others' influences.
A geographic oddity persists in the state of Utah: The entire state is devoid of Kindred. Camarilla, Sabbat, unaligned - it doesn't matter. There are no vampires anywhere in Utah. At least, there aren't any that anyone knows about.
California Free State
Home of the first and most successful Anarch Revolt in North America, the California Free State had its genesis in Los Angeles. However, the tide of revolt soon swept up and down the state, and today all of the Redwood State is either independent or contested. San Francisco in particular is a contested city, but the war there is more political than overt. Deals are made in clubs and boardrooms as the Camarilla attempts to purchase, rather than conquer, the City by the Bay.
The rest of the state is less than safe for most Kindred. While the freedom from Camarilla strictures can be exhilarating at first, the lack of structure provides room for bully-gangs of Brujah and Gangrel (most of whom, ironically, wander in groups reminiscent of Sabbat packs) to pick off visitors and immigrants.
The Pacific Northwest
While Oregon is firmly in Camarilla hands, Washington state is up for grabs. Threatened by the strong Technomancer presence outside Seattle, the vampires of Washington have turned in among themselves. Unsure of whom to ally with or which enemy is most pressing, they war among themselves in a constant series of anarch uprisings that unseat prince after prince. Many disaffected anarchs flee here from California, and their discontent helps keep the pot bubbling.
