E M E R A L D C I T Y C H R O N I C L E S
T H E I N L A N D E M P I R E
Salmon and steelhead and cutthroat trout. Fir needles. Salmonberries dropping suddenly and being snapped up by trout who think them orange insects. Alder and spruce roots drinking me always their eager thin little rude roots poking at me. Rocks and pebbles and grains of stone and splinters of stone and huge stones and slabs and beaver and mink and crawdads and feces from the effluent treatment plant upriver. Rain and mist and fog and gale and drizzle and howl and owl. Asters and arrow-grass. Finger creeks feeder creeks streams ditches seeps and springs. Rowboats and rafts. Canoes and chicory. Men and women and children. Dead and alive. Willows and beer bottles and blackberry and ducklings and wood sorrel and rubber boots and foxglove and buttercup and rushes and slugs and snails and velvetgrass and wild cucumber and orbweaver spiders and that woman singing with her feet in me singing. Baneberry and beargrass. Thrush and hemlock and coffee grounds. Thimbleberry and heron. Smelt and moss and water ouzels and bears and bear scat. Bramble and bracken. Elk drinking me cougar drinking me. Ground-cedar and ground-ivy and ground-pine and groundsel. Sometimes a lost loon. Cinquefoil and eelgrass. Vultures and voles. Water striders mosquitos mosquito-hawks. Dock and dewberry. Moths and mergansers. Huckleberry and snowberry. Hawks and osprey. Water wheels and beaver dams. Deer and lupine. Red currant. Trees and logs and trunks and branches and bark and duff. I eat everything. Elderberry and evening primrose. Bulrush and burdock. I know them all. They yearn for me. Caddis fly and coralroot. I do not begin nor do I cease. Foamflower fleeceflower fireweed. I always am always will be. Lily and lotus. Swell and surge and ripple and roar and roil and boil. I go to the Mother. Madrone and mistmaiden. The Mother takes me in. Nettle and ninebark. Pelt and peppergrass. She waits for me.
- Mink River - Brian Doyle
J E T C I T Y L O R E
One of the only purely Camarilla cites on the West Coast of the United States of America, Seattle began under the yoke of Camarilla Kindred who were instrumental in building it up from the ashes of the Great Fire in 1899. Dark rumors persist that far more Kindred than easily recorded perished then, though not from the fire, from betrayals far more insidious and plots far more labrinthine. I did say that the vampires ran Seattle from the beginning, didn't I?
Listen, I don't know if there's something in the water there or what, but the idea of civilization, of Standing, even of Prestation itself! Well it is hanging on there by a thread you can't see, like a magician floating a card, spinning around and just waiting to fall. Do yourself a favor and get some insurance before you go.
- Seattle's Former Harpy Mathias Everhart
City of Secrets
What lies beneath? What edges from the East like the hateful sun? What dwells in the watery depths of the Sound? Why do the Shadows whisper here? What calls from the past of pacts once struck with foreign powers? What faith dwindles, is tainted, and yet remains?
Seattle is a city of questions you would rather not know the answers to, Childe. Seattle is a city of Secrets, better left buried.
- Nosferatu Scholar Disdeinen
I N L A N D E M P I R E D O M A I N S
It's a dangerous and cosmopolitan world out there, and Kindred who travel sometimes leave behind little marks and clues about the world around them to urge passerby to avoid an area, or give places quaint names based on the nicknames of the area's locals to indicate it's more than just a town full of hapless mortals. The wariest travelers (usually Gangrel) know that a town that is called 'Millersburg' is likely quiet and sleepy enough to pass through without arousing anyone's suspicion. A drifter can bed down at a Motel 9, close the curtains and put up the Do Not Disturb sign without too much trouble, but a place that other Kindred refer to as 'The City of Trees', when it's 'real' name is Boise, Idaho is like the rattle at the tail end of a snake to the supernaturally aware. It means that the place has a story associated with it, and one not necessarily that a lone Kindred without easy access to their webs of influence and insulation from the road would want to encounter. Yet Kindred have places to go and people to eat, and time doesn't always allow for delays, especially when paying for a privately chartered supersonic jet is out of the reach of all but the richest Kindred (and no complete guarantee of safety either).
One of the many reasons Kindred shy away from the open road near Jet City, known to some Kindred as the Inland Empire, can be found below:
C I T Y O F T H E
B E A U T I F U L V I E W
Bellevue, WA - Unusual creatures of fearsome power and supernatural grace once claimed this Seattle Superburg. Now it's just another part of Seattle's growing number of Kindred-run Domains.
R A T C I T Y
Tacoma, WA - Lupines and other shifters seem to claim this blighted industrial city for their own. Invade their territory at your own risk. Some Kindred have attempted it, only to be shown what can happen when two worlds collide.
A U T H O R I T Y V I L L E
Everett, WA - Row upon row of similar houses, whose occupants rise at the same time and kiss their wives in synchronous goodbye in time to go work make these perfect lawns and uniformly patrolled streets a source of dread to most wise Kindred.
T R A M P H A V E N
Bellingham, WA - Between the nomadic homeless, visiting tourists, invading Canadian shoppers and temporary college students; this town is home to more transients than locals. Supernatural creatures also try to escape notice within her borders, rumor says.
T E R M I N A L C I T Y
Vancouver B.C. - Called Terminal City by it's denizens at the birth of the city because of the terminus of the railroad which ended there. Not officially part of the Inland Empire, or so said Prince Siegfried before Sabbat invaded and slew him, lighting the fires of war.
P D X U N I T E D B A R O N I E S
Portland, OR - An Anarch Baronial Council jointly rules here (some like to say Democratically, but they're still all vampires, after all). Portland is the gateway to the Anarch Free States, and have had more than a few skirmishes with the Kindred of Jet City.
T R A C K T O W N
Eugene, OR - An Anarch outpost. Most of the population of the town dries up when school gets out of this college town, so very few vampires are likely to make it a permanent residence.
H E A R T C I T Y
Yakima, WA - Some supernatural force keeps watch over this town, but no one is sure what exactly. Sometimes gas-stations blow up and Diners go dark in the middle of the night, only to be empited of all life by sunup.
L I L A C C I T Y
Spokane, WA - There might be a small number of Kindred here, though no one is certain. They are likely to be mostly Independents and drifters.
C I T Y O F T R E E S
Boise, ID - Some supernatural force keeps watch over this sleepy town, though no one is certain exactly what. Some travelers destined for other locations inexplicably settle there instead.
S I L V E R B O W C I T Y
Butte, MT - A supernatural crossroads of sorts, once a boomtown, now a town for deserters and outlaws among the various supernatural creeds. Deadly as a stick-colored rattler to the unawares. Whispers speak of a hidden complex here.
T R A I L H E A D C I T Y
Billings, MT - Gateway to the west, there's something supernatural that claims authority here, but no one is sure exactly who, or what it is that calls itself simply, and ominously; "The Gatekeeper".