Picking up inside Chi-Town, Erin Tarn describes the deepest levels of the fortress city. Levels three through one are reserved for the government and military. Research facilities and manufacturing plants are located there as well, forming a heavily secured lower section of the city.
Below even these levels lies what Tarn calls the Imperial Sanctum. She has been told that it consists of approximately five subterranean levels. This is where Emperor Prosek and his family reside, along with important generals, elite troops, and their families. The Sanctum also contains advanced scientific and research facilities, a bionics wing, its own independent life-support system, a power plant, and one particularly important secret: the supposedly destroyed Chi-Town Library.
According to official history, the library was destroyed in a tremendous battle in 77 P.A., five years after Prosek came to power. Tarn says this is a lie.
The library survives.
The Coalition secretly uses it as a repository of lost history and technology while simultaneously forbidding ordinary people from possessing books, historical records, literature, and other recorded information. Possession can result in imprisonment and torture. A second offense can mean death.
To Tarn, the reason is straightforward. Control of information is another way for Emperor Prosek to control the population, and she believes both Prosek and his son, who oversees propaganda, have become extraordinarily effective at doing exactly that.
There is also an important geographical distinction concerning Chi-Town. The fortress was not constructed upon the ruins of Chicago.
Old Chicago still exists.
The ruined city lies approximately eighty miles northeast of Chi-Town. Parts of its old skyline remain, but the entire area is forbidden. Warning signs and barricades surround it.
And there is a very good reason for that.
Two dozen ley lines cut through the ruins, and a ley line nexus occupies what had once been downtown Chicago, only a few miles from Lake Michigan. The magical concentration produces strange phenomena and attracts practitioners of magic, supernatural creatures, and alien beings entering through periodically opening Rifts.
The Coalition keeps Old Chicago under constant observation. SAMAS and sky-cycle patrols cross the skies hourly. Dog Packs, Psi-Hunters, urban assault robots, and elimination squads conduct ground patrols. Spider Walkers protect the perimeter separating the ruins from Coalition territory.
The Coalition refuses to permit any magical, psychic, supernatural, or other independent community to establish itself there.
Part of this hostility comes from memory.
During the Federation of Magic's invasion, the Federation established a stronghold within Old Chicago. Removing it cost Chi-Town thousands of lives.
Now anyone discovered practicing magic within the ruins is killed immediately. Demons and D-Bees receive the same treatment. Ordinary scavengers, bandits, and travelers are generally escorted out, assuming they cooperate. Resistance means death.
Despite these measures, vampires and other supernatural threats continue to appear among the ruins.
From Illinois, Tarn turns to the Coalition State of Missouri.
Missouri is one of the weaker and more timid Coalition members, but its location gives it considerable strategic importance. It provides fertile agricultural land next to Chi-Town and gives the Coalition another friendly territory positioned against threats approaching from the east.
The Coalition has invested heavily in developing Missouri, attempting to turn it into another secure center of human civilization.
Even so, the population remains relatively small. Tarn estimates approximately 225,000 Coalition citizens and perhaps another 50,000 squatters.
North of the Missouri River, farmland dominates. A couple dozen small communities are scattered throughout the countryside, but there is only one major city: New Chillicothe.
With approximately 98,000 civilians, New Chillicothe serves as the seat of Missouri's government and contains a major Coalition military base. Its defenses include SAMAS, Spider Walkers, giant urban assault robots, and a borg squad.
South of the Missouri River, civilization becomes much thinner.
The region is mostly wilderness, broken occasionally by Coalition settlements and military outposts. There are also two small but defiant independent kingdoms around the ruins of what were once West Plains and Poplar Bluff.
The more powerful of these is Whykin, located around old Poplar Bluff.
Whykin is predominantly human and has a population of approximately 140,000. The Coalition has spent considerable effort trying to persuade the kingdom to join the Missouri Coalition State.
Whykin has several things the Coalition wants.
It is a self-sufficient lumber producer with industrial capabilities. Its population is strongly anti-magic. It also possesses a formidable military tradition.
For generations, Whykin has fought demons, D-Bees, and power-hungry practitioners of magic because several major ley line nexus points lie nearby. Roughly forty percent of the population has years of combat experience, particularly against paranormal threats.
This makes Whykin a natural potential ally in the Coalition's continuing struggle against magic and supernatural forces.
The other independent kingdom is Kingsdale.
Kingsdale presents almost the exact opposite philosophy.
Its population is roughly half non-human, and about thirty percent of the overall population practices some degree of magic, mostly relatively inexperienced practitioners.
The kingdom also maintains approximately two thousand mercenaries. About half are Headhunters, roughly a quarter are Juicers, and the rest are assorted mutant warriors.
Kingsdale itself appears to manufacture Juicers and possesses a small but highly skilled cybernetics and bionics industry, including medical facilities. This helps explain its ability to maintain so many Juicer and Headhunter mercenaries.
Moving south, Tarn reaches Arkansas.
Most of Arkansas has become forest wilderness, but it contains a surprising number of human and non-human towns and tiny feudal kingdoms. Hunters, trappers, Wilderness Scouts, and Cyber-Knights are common sights.
The largest settlements are found toward the south.
Most important is Fort El Dorado, an independent kingdom allied with the Coalition.
Approximately 120,000 people live around the ruins of old El Dorado, with another 80,000 scattered through villages along the border. About eighty percent of the population is human, while the remaining twenty percent consists of loyal D-Bees and mutants.
Fort El Dorado's real power comes from resources.
It controls oil fields and refining facilities, along with sawmills and a natural gas operation. That industrial base makes it valuable to the Coalition and gives the kingdom considerable regional influence.
Arkansas also contains Coalition military forces positioned to protect the region and watch the surrounding wilderness.
From Arkansas, Tarn's account moves west into Texas.
Texas is no longer the unified territory it once was. Much of the region has become the domain of independent communities, raiders, mercenaries, bandits, and petty kingdoms.
The Coalition has a presence there through Lone Star.
Lone Star City is unusual even by Coalition standards. Its human population is approximately 50,000, with a notably high literacy rate. The facility's importance, however, goes far beyond its civilian population.
Lone Star is one of the Coalition's great scientific centers.
Its most important work involves genetic engineering.
This is the birthplace of the Coalition's Dog Boys.
The facility breeds and develops the mutant canine soldiers used throughout Coalition territory. Its scientists conduct genetic experimentation and pursue other biological research largely hidden from the outside world.
Lone Star therefore represents something different from Chi-Town's massive fortress or Missouri's agricultural development. It is a specialized scientific installation, protected because its work contributes directly to Coalition military power.
Beyond the Coalition-controlled region, much of Texas is dominated by what Tarn calls the Pecos Empire.
Calling it an "empire" is somewhat misleading.
It is less a conventional nation than a vast collection of raiders, bandits, gangs, settlements, and violent factions spread across the territory. The population includes humans, mutants, D-Bees, monsters, psychics, and supernatural beings.
The infamous Pecos Raiders are its most visible inhabitants.
Raiding bands generally contain somewhere between ten and sixty members. Humans account for less than forty percent of the raiders. Juicers, Crazies, Headhunters, rogue Dog Packs, Psi-Stalkers, mutants, monsters, D-Bees, and assorted brutes can all be found riding together.
The entire Pecos Empire may contain more than a million inhabitants, although only about one-third are actual barbarian raiders.
Their reach extends far beyond Texas.
Pecos Raiders have been encountered as far north as Iowa, east into Alabama, and west into Nevada.
They rarely venture south beyond the Rio Grande.
There is little there for them to steal.
More importantly, that territory belongs to vampire bandits.
The typical human Pecos Raider is essentially a highly capable wilderness fighter. Horses remain common, but motorcycles and hover vehicles are used as well. Their weapons can be anything from swords and bows to explosives and energy rifles.
Only a minority of the human population consists of specialized warriors such as Juicers and Borgs. Much of the Pecos Empire's strength comes from its diversity, including D-Bees, psychics, mutants, supernatural creatures, demons, and monsters.
Several recognizable kingdoms survive inside Texas.
New Del Rio was built among the ruins of the old city. Tarn describes it as impoverished and controlled by a tyrannical, decadent ruling family. More recently it has also become a refuge for outlaws.
Los Alamo, built near the ruins of Austin, is considerably stronger.
It possesses technology and industry roughly comparable to the early twentieth century and has hydroelectric power. It can create Juicers and possesses limited cybernetic knowledge. Its population is approximately 76,000 and predominantly human.
The old Texas coastline has changed dramatically.
Beaumont, Bay Town, Port Arthur, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, and Matamoros in Mexico have been destroyed and lie beneath hundreds of feet of water.
The Gulf of Mexico now extends approximately fifty miles beyond the old twentieth-century coastline.
Interestingly, Texas contains relatively little ley line activity.
The ley lines that do exist are found north of the Sabine River, and a small nexus exists around old Texarkana.
That relative absence of magical energy makes Texas particularly attractive to the Coalition.
Then Tarn reaches one of the most dangerous regions in North America.
The Magic Zone.
The Mississippi River has become an enormous waterway stretching from the Gulf of Mexico north toward Xiticix territory in Minnesota. It is roughly three hundred feet across at its narrowest point and can exceed a mile in width.
More importantly, the river has become a corridor of magical energy.
Hundreds of ley lines and several nexus points follow the Mississippi. Major concentrations occur between St. Louis, Missouri, and Illinois, continuing south through Arkansas into northern Louisiana.
Another major concentration follows the Ohio River eastward and dominates the Ohio Valley.
At the center of everything is East St. Louis, Illinois.
More than two hundred ley lines intersect the region.
Within an eighty-mile area are thirteen nexus points.
The largest and most powerful is associated with an old Native American mound in East St. Louis. The Indian Mound Nexus is reputed to be one of eleven exceptionally powerful nexus epicenters.
The amount of magical energy concentrated there has made the region virtually uninhabitable for ordinary humans.
Demons and supernatural creatures emerge from the nexus points. Other monsters simply migrate there because they are attracted by the enormous quantities of magic.
Certain astronomical events make everything worse.
During the summer and winter solstices, eclipses, and planetary alignments, the thirteen nexus points and surrounding ley lines become so bright that their glow can reportedly be seen from a thousand miles away.
During these periods, all thirteen magical locations become active Rifts for twelve to twenty-four hours.
And more supernatural creatures enter Earth.
One of the strangest permanent dimensional phenomena lies directly across the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri.
The old Gateway Arch still stands.
But now it contains the Devil's Gate.
A dimensional Rift fills the opening beneath the ancient arch.
Some Ley Line Walkers believe this was no accident. They speculate that occultists knew about the magical energies at the location before the Great Cataclysm and deliberately constructed the Gateway Arch there as a kind of magical megalith.
Whether that theory is true or not, when the Time of Rifts arrived, a dimensional portal opened at the site and permanently fused itself to the Arch.
The magical forces also made the structure virtually indestructible.
Centuries later, the Devil's Gate remains open.
The Coalition has tried to close or destroy it.
It has failed.
The entire Magic Zone remains a constant source of fear for Chi-Town and the surrounding territories. Few ordinary humans willingly enter southeastern Missouri, Arkansas, southern Illinois, or the magically saturated Ohio Valley.
Practitioners of magic go there.
Psychics go there.
And, as Tarn puts it, so do the foolish.
Beginning in 68 P.A., the Coalition spent seven years attempting to establish a military containment force in the region. The idea was to destroy supernatural creatures as they emerged from the Rifts.
The losses were catastrophic.
Too many soldiers died. Too much equipment was destroyed.
Eventually, the Coalition abandoned the attempt.
Reconnaissance missions and military fly-bys continue, but assignment to the Magic Zone has become one of the most dreaded duties a Coalition soldier can receive.
And immediately east of it lies the Ohio Valley.
Southern Ohio and Indiana form the eastern extension of the Magic Zone. Hundreds of ley lines and nexus points cover the territory.
The Coalition largely avoids it.
Small towns, villages, and farms exist, but relatively few people deliberately choose to settle there.
That lack of Coalition control has produced an unintended consequence.
The Ohio Valley has become a refuge.
Practitioners of magic, psychics, and people fleeing Coalition persecution disappear into its wilderness.
But something else is there too.
Something Tarn believed had vanished generations ago.
The Federation of Magic survived.
And according to what Tarn has personally witnessed, at least some of its surviving members have become necromancers operating throughout the Ohio Valley and farther east.
She has seen their mutilated victims.
She has seen their sacrificial shrines.
Their practices include unnecessary human sacrifice, and Tarn describes them as thoroughly evil individuals concerned primarily with satisfying their own desires.
Among their ranks are said to be Ley Line Walkers, Shifters, Mystics, and extremely powerful psychics.
The organization that once nearly destroyed Chi-Town is still alive.
It has simply been hiding in one of the most magically dangerous regions of North America.