~Game Locations~

Up until recently, the main focus of the game has been Marquette, a small city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. The town has been cut off from the surrounding area so that there is no way in and out of the town by road, rail, boat or plane. There are, however, other places around the world which are like Marquette - cut off from their surrounding areas. They are all cut off in the same way - surrounded by 'Loops' (see below for more information).

Whilst all these places in the world are cut off from their surrounding areas, they are not always cut off from each other. Slowly gateways are opening to connect each of these places to each other. Game play is available for all the towns listed below and we accept applications for characters in any of those locations. The main plot focus of the game will shift as necessary, depending on the number and activity of characters we have in the various game locations. If we have a lot of characters in one place, we’ll run more plot for it!

Playable Places

As stated above, the main focus of play is currently Marquette, Michigan (for further information, see here!). If you wish to play characters from other areas, feel free. If we get enough interest for characters based in another area or areas, we will develop these areas more fully - how the game focuses is up to you!

The other playable areas are as follows:-

Manhattan, NY
Quick facts!
Area: Manhattan Island
Time zone: (EST +0 / GMT -5)
Major Powers: varied, depending on location
Population: High, though much decreased from city capacity
Organisation: Small groups of segregated gangs, each controlling their own space. No overarching rule.

The whole of Manhattan Island, NY has been cut off. The Loops around the island follow the paths of the rivers which surround it, cutting off the island from the rest of the world and meaning that whilst the bridge and tunnel systems are still there, there is no way through them. Weirdly, anyone who tries leaving via bridge or tunnel seems to re-emerge through a different bridge or tunnel.

When the Loops first appeared, there was a mass exodus of the population of Manhattan as word spread and panic set in. Nobody knows how many of the refugees from the island made it out, and how many are left wandering around the Loops, months later.

Threats in Manhattan come from a variety of sources. Fiends now rule the subway and sewer systems and often emerge above ground to attack any lone people they see. In other areas, the island has firmly segmented into zones and territories, which tend to be along species lines. Some areas of the island are controlled by vampires, some by demons, some areas by humans. All areas are very actively and firmly defended - anyone who does not 'belong' risks their continued existence unless they are very careful.

Manhattan has no real food growth source, though some parts of the population there are determined to try to start farming the greener parts of the island, such as Central Park, this spring season. The city is, however, a gold mine when it comes to scavenging, which many apartment buildings and homes standing empty and full of stored food.

The Stanley Hotel, CO
Quick facts!
Area: The hotel and grounds to a distance of 1 mile in each direction
Time zone: (EST -2 / GMT -7)
Major Powers: massively increased spirit activity and power. Bound spirits there are not locally bound to their object--they can travel freely through the area so long as the object is inside the loops there.
Population: Low – staff and guests of the hotel
Organisation: The hotel manager tried to organise the people there

Considering the location and it's history, most people who wound up stuck at the famous, haunted hotel weren't that terribly surprised to have found themselves in that position. The staff generally weren't. They got cut off during full swing of the hotel's busiest months, and while they aren't aware of it, the Loops kicked in and shut down much faster and more firmly than anywhere else. It was the first place to truly get cut off, the Loops appearing there much earlier than in other places, as early as last summer, though reports of this didn't appear in the rest of the world until some time afterwards, and by then, there was so much else in the news that it got lost in the shuffle.

Spirit activity is huge there, not only in the hotel proper, but in the surrounding areas. Threats in the area are actually more environmental than supernatural in nature, the worst being the winter months, where the hotel is meant to be totally abandoned because it's on top of a bloody mountain, and in a terribly inhospitable place when it snows. Food is scarce - the place is incredibly isolated, and the hotel stocks ran out some months ago. There were problems with people starving over the winter months and the main food source for the people there these days is either scavenging from other cut off communities, or hunting in the surrounding woodlands and hills.

The Amazon Jungle, Brazil
Quick facts!
Area: Unknown
Time zone: (EST +0 / GMT -5)
Major Powers: unknown
Population: unknown, assumed low
Organisation: none

Not the whole Amazon jungle - just, apparently, a proportion of it. Nobody is entirely sure where exactly it is, or how big the area within the Loops is, but it does seem to be one of the deepest parts of the Amazonian rainforest.

By all appearances, the area has no natural human population, though there may be a few small settlements that people haven't noticed yet. The rainforest is thick and densely populated with both flora and fauna. Nobody really knows what's lurking in there, but it is a rich source of fresh food for those who manage to navigate it.

The Destroyed Town(Capel Curig, UK)
Quick facts!
Area: Unknown
Time zone: (GMT +0)
Major Powers: none - though it should be noted that no supernatural powers work in this town.
Population: almost negligible - no natural survivors
Organisation: none

Nobody knows where the town is, though it looked like it might have once been a remote Welsh village. All that's left now, though, is rubble. This town was burned to the ground on March 22. There are no survivors left - any who did survive the attacks from vampires and rakshasa which the town had been subject to before the end fled through the inbetween to become refugees in Marquette. Now, the town is slowly being reclaimed by nature.

Since April 4, no supernatural powers at all have worked in the town. What does this mean? This works along the same lines as the abilities of a dead zone (see the psychics character pages!), but throughout the whole town. Witches can't use magic, lycanthropes cannot change form, psychics can't use their abilities. Anyone who depends on their abilities to survive should not visit this place! Anyone who wants to get away from the supernatural probably would consider this place heaven, for all that it's a wreck.

Manchester, UK
Quick facts!
Area: Around a quarter of the city centre
Time zone: (GMT +0 )
Major Threats: vampires
Population: medium
Organisation: the vampires basically run the show to their advantage with the human population either in hiding, on the run, or kept as cattle. Many have been turned. Outside the city, in the UK as a whole, the political situation has been overturned and some elements of the upheaval have made their way within the Loops

A large segment of Manchester city centre has been caught in the Loops, but, strangely, not all of it. The areas caught in the Loops is a ragged and ill defined area which seems to stretch from the hospital (Manchester Royal Infirmary) to the south, through the student district of the city, to the library (Manchester Library) in the city centre to the north, then east to west the are within the Loops runs from the Deansgate Railway Station in the west, to Piccadilly Railway Station in the east. What is contained within the area is a strange mix of places of learning, bars, nightclubs, apartment buildings, some offices and, running through the heart of the area, a canal. It is a small but heavily built up area, with little in the way of sustainability and few green areas. Some people have had look pulling fish from the canal, but most have survived from scavenging from around the area what they can.

Of note for this area is that due to the UK gun laws, there are no firearms of any description that had not been brought in through the inbetween. Any Mancunians who are armed are armed with knives or makeshift weapons. This has made fighting back against what has been attacking a particular challenge, but those who have survived have quickly have to develop particular skills in hand to hand combat - or hiding.

This area of Manchester didn't see much in the way of heavy trouble before the Loops cut it off from the rest of the world. Mostly, it was a lot of business as usual and watching events unfold elsewhere. Sure, they had a few attacks and a few bad times, but mostly, it was things happening elsewhere. The Loops came on very suddenly, and later than in some other parts of the world. In this area, the Loops appeared and entirely cut off the section of the city at midnight on New Year's Eve. The people inside the Loops at the time were a mix of residents, people who worked in the area and party goers. And, unfortunately, a few vampires. Nobody knows how many, but in the intervening months, their numbers have been spreading. Whichever vampires started it, they had a penchant for turning people. It does not appear that the vampires in Manchester are of any specific bloodline, but they are the main threat to the populace there.

Notes :

• Gateways - There are a series of doors set into the outside wall at Deansgate Railway Station.
• Politics - After New Year this year, when areas of the UK were completely cut off, and following a rash of attacks, conversions and disappearances in various other parts of the country, the government of the day put in emergency measures to put the country into a state of lock down.

  Civil liberties have been officially suspended. Citizenship registration and identity schemes were implemented almost overnight. Great Britain was already a surveillance state with more CCTV cameras watching the populace than any other country in the world, but this year, all movement was monitored. The only areas exempt were those which had been cut off by the Loops – and even then, groups were put on standby to watch for a way through the Loops. This happened in March this year and when the Loops went down for just 24 hours, these teams of government officials were sent in to ‘register’ all those within the Loops. Once the Loops went back up again, these teams were trapped, but with sufficient resources to complete their tasks and, cut off or not, they are working their way through the areas. The choice is registration (no matter what you are) or death. There is no in between.

  On the outside of the Loops, movement of peoples is strictly limited, and enforced on a neighbourhood-wide scale. It is like neighbourhood watch gone mad. Each household has a legal responsibility to ensure the safety of all other households in the area. The police strictly punish any laxity. If someone goes missing, either the neighbourhood as a whole must find and restore that person (or provide an explanation why they could not prevent their death with all reasonable efforts), or the neighbourhood takes the punishment. This is usually in the form of nominating a citizen to be taken away (nobody knows where to). One person for each of the disappeared. It means that nobody leaves, but few people go missing anymore.

Hohenschwangau, Bavaria, Germany
Quick facts!
Area: Exact dimensions of the area unknown
Time zone: (EST +6 / GMT +1)
Major Powers fae
Population: medium
Organisation: the area is ruled by the fae

When the fae made their return to this world, they chose a location to be their main base. They wanted somewhere which they could make their own, which they could rule - make into their idea of a model society. And, of course, somewhere pretty. They chose Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, a fairytale-looking castle which sat on a high peak overlooking a lake and a village. For years it had been used as a tourist attraction for simple humans, and the fae wished to restore it to its former glory.

Of course, it had the added advantage for them that, whilst Loops surrounded it out in the countryside, the Castle itself had been constructed on the site of one of the world's main fae gateways. From the main hall of the castle, the fae would be able to pass and repass to the Dreaming without delay or hardship.

Anything not of fae blood is considered a second class citizen. Fae outnumber any other group in the area, normal humans of course being the second greatest population. The courts are highly unforgiving, and the society structure is generally cast back to medieval times, with the upper class being very upper class, and the lower classes being dismally underprivileged. There have been a few attempts at uprisings--all of which have failed and failed hard.

The area itself has also gotten much stranger. the running theory is that the heavy presence of the fae and the gate there has started affecting the immediate area, but no one really knows for certain. There's something of a fantastical feel to the place the closer one gets to the castle, and odd occurrances happen much more often. Whether it really is the dreaming starting to enroach on this place or not, all anyone does know is if you're allergic to the Weird--you don't want to go anywhere near that castle. Of course, if you happen to be a fae, the opposite is true...

Whoever you are, the one thing that is clear is that the fae rule this area, and they run it according to their rules. And, in a strange way, it works. At least, on a day-to-day basis, as long as you're happy being either the master (the fae) or the slave (absolutely everyone else). If the area is attacked, the fae rulers lead a coordinated defence of both castle and village, and if the threat is substantial enough they shelter their vassals within the walls of the castle. It is a feudalistic structure that does work - it just doesn't sit well with modern sensibilities, not well at all.

The Loops

Nobody knows why some areas of the world got cut off. Most of the world doesn't even realise that some areas of the world got cut off. Certainly nobody knows how common these areas are. For those on the outside, local to these areas, it simply became the fact that if someone tried to enter a certain place, often they didn't leave again. For those on the inside, it was like the rest of the world went away. They were stuck.

The Loops are the colloquial name for the boundary that separates each of these places from their surroundings. There is no official name, and the Loops has been widely adopted by word of mouth. This boundary is invisible - it cannot be seen by anyone, regardless of any abilities they may have. Nobody knows exactly where the boundary is, but locals generally have a good idea about when it's likely to start.

Whilst the area cut off is variable in both size and shape, the Loops throughout the world work in exactly the same way:-

• You cannot see the Loops - eg, if you are looking down a road and the Loops area crosses that road, you will simply see the road continue on into the distance, just as you would have done before the Loops appear. there will be no apparent barrier.

• The Loops are of undetermined thickness - they may only actually be several feet thick at any one point, but this does not affect the effect of the Loops of anyone who enters them.
• A person who walks (or drives or however else they entered the Loops) into the Loops will get 'lost' - that is, they will walk into the Loops and then keep going. They will not simply walk (drive, fly, sail etc) back out the other side.
• A person can wander around lost in the Loops for an indefinite amount of time. Some people get lost for hours, some days, months, years etc. There is no apparent correlation between point of entry and time spent there.
• Whilst in the Loops, a person will not starve to death. The Loops themselves will not kill you.
• There are dangers in the Loops. Everything that can exist in the world, can exist in the Loops. So, yes, you can be attacked by monsters and demons whilst you're there. Yes, they can kill you.
• If you find your way out of the Loops (which usually means that the Loops spit you back out of their own accord) then you have no control of where you exit - you may end up back in exactly the same place that you started, you may end up at another point of the Loops, or you may succeed in getting to the other side of the Loops. Destination and time to get there is random.
• You cannot enter the Loops of one town and exit from the Loops of another!

Getting Past the Loops in Other Ways

Dependent upon people's abilities, they may be able to deal with the Loops in various ways. For more information, see the individual write up for each character type.

Gateways

Each place which got cut off by the Loops started off thinking that they were the only one. They were wrong. There were many places around the world which got cut off. Around the world, on the last Winter Solstice, the Loops appeared. At first, it was just the case that some people had trouble entering and leaving certain places, but the severity of the Loops increased until, by the Spring Equinox just gone, the Loops would take everyone who tried to enter or leave a place, at least for a time. These areas (see below) are now entirely cut off from the wider world.

They are not, however, cut off from each other. Around Spring Equinox, when the Loops were complete, gateways started to open. These gateways each lead to the inbetween, and from the inbetween, they lead to other gateways which open into other areas, each of which are cut off by the Loops.

You can get to any of the places cut off by the Loops through any of the gateways, since all gateways lead through the inbetween and each place has multiple gateways. Sometimes, new gateways appear, and new places are discovered. (For the sake of this game, the only places which are accessible are those listed below!). A gateway may be described as being 'the door to [a place]', but that is simply because that destination will be the first one available through that door. if you keep on walking through the inbetween, you will be able to find door to the other locations. So, for example, the door to Manhattan in Marquette is in Harlow Park, but if you walk through that door, you get to the inbetween and the first door out of the inbetween you come across will lead to Manhattan. if you don't take that door, but keep on walking, you will find other doors, one of which leads to the Stanley Hotel. So you can access the Stanley Hotel through Harlow Park, you don't have to go to the door at Lakeshore Drive to get there.

Each Gateway to any specific location looks the same from place to place.

• The door to Marquette looks like an old log cabin door.
• The door to the Stanley Hotel looks like a fancy door, painted white.
• The door to Manhattan looks like an old, beat up metal fire door. It reads 'in case of fire' in faded letters and looks like an exit, as opposed to an entrance.
• The door to the Amazon looks like a door painted for a child, a 'jungle' mural on it.
• The door to Capel Curig looks like a normal front door to someone's home.
• The door to Hohenschwangau looks like a very tall, ornate arched door. There are ancient fae runes carved into the doorframe. Each door appears in an outside wall of a prominent church.
• The door to Manchester looks like a set of finely crafted french doors.

You can find the exact location of each doorway in each location by checking the game map (except for the Amazon, we figure you don't really need to know exact which tree a door is in...).