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New Orleans 2175(negotiable title)
Imagine if you will a sprawling city by the ocean, bigger than anything for thousands of miles. This is the Mega City New Orleans. The big easy has certainly grown and is considered one of the biggest party cities in the world now. Mardi gras dominates American television and the dozens of casinos and 'pleasure' hotels in the city build up an economy that inflates the rich of new Orleans to new heights. To understand what a mega city is you have to hear the story first. After hurricane Katrina and the 3 others that followed new Orleans has been rebuilt several times, some of the changes included better protection from nature while others were made to quell riots. None of these changes have worked as planned, Police caches of anti riot weapons are broken into constantly to the point that most of the now huge city is less without protection in case of riots or social violence. The Sea wall made to protect against hurricanes and other such natural disasters while standing are in bad repair due to budget cut backs. In a nutshell the city is a house of cards from a government standpoint. This is exacerbated by the population that is double what the city was built to manage.
Over 2 million currently live in the area known as the new Orleans city. The city was meant to built to handle less than half that and the high population has been caused by new Orleans being the first test city of the mega cities being built around America. In 2110 when the mega city was built up over what is now called old Orleans it attracted people from around the world to move there looking for a better life in the new factories opening, huge banks, and company headquarters that sprung up overnight. 60 years and a massive deficit from mismanaging of the city funds have turned half the city into a slum. The dockside area of new Orleans is considered a gangland war zone in all the areas where private companies don’t maintain private police forces. The lower parts of the city where the poorest people are forced to live are overcrowded to a massive degree. The people of the lower city live under the poverty line on menial labor jobs and little chance of advancement or higher education. The higher you go in the city though the better things better. Night clubs, fancy apartments and massive skyscrapers. When the megacities of New york and San Angeles were built New Orleans lost much of its majesty but you wouldn’t know it from uptown Orleans.
Notable Groups
The police(aka The Crushers)
Practically a small army the NOPD are understaffed by a huge degree but still number almost 90,000 members. The patrol officers move around the city as best they can but some areas rarely ever see police presence. Riot squads are constantly on alert and equipped with military grade armor and vehicles. Normal officers wear bulletproof vests at all times. Gangs in the lower levels are not afraid of the police in the least and refer to them openly as crushers. It has become a sign of rank in some gangs to collect badges with bullet holes through them. These problems sparked the state congress allowing the legal creation of Corporate police forces as long as they do not go over 500 members.
Kindred
The Vampires of new Orleans have fallen on hard times, The last prince was killed in a major coup and his fall and the subsequent power vacuum led to the final deaths of 90% of the remaining vampires in the city either through infighting or far too public action attracting vampire hunters and shifters. As of now there is less than 30 vampires in the entire city and most of those barely survive in the lower areas of the city as clanless squatters hunting the homeless and the drecks of mankind. The remaining powerful kindred are trying to piece together the remains of there wells and resources. Its a good thing most of the hunters have moved on with brand new fang necklaces. The only Covenant with holdings in the city if the Lancea Sanctum who control The Diamond Church on the upper reaches of the city which caters to the richest populace of new Orleans. The Ordo Dracul pulled there largest library out of the city leaving several sites sealed up because blast doors made to look like riot stashes or just collapsed the entrances in the hive that is the ruins of old Orleans. The invictus keeps a close eye on the city but none of the larger councils want to risk entering the city yet until the dust settles and order is restored among the kindred. The Carthians are already trying to restore the city as they were the previous rulers of the city, This has been met with resistance from the few remaining kindred who don’t want to repeat the debacle of the last regime. The Circle of the Crone which had a very small populace in the city last time aren’t in any hurry to run back into the war zone.
Werewolves and other shifters:
Its difficult enough to hide in small towns, and being a shifter is harder now than its ever been before. Werewolf packs try to control small areas of the city cleaning up the messes left by spirits and trying to keep the few healthy areas of the city sane. The breed though have a much harder time, the larger ones cant shift 90% of the time and even when they can most shifters cant maintain much time with a healthy example of nature outside the municipal parks and the ocean. With the parks being patrolled and constantly vandalized they have there work cut out for them maintaining them while the ocean is a polluted mess from the mass transit in the area.
Changelings:
If any supernatural group can say they are honestly better off in an overcrowded city its the lost. They flock to these areas to avoid attention and some of them even thrive. Winter members open charities and attempt to keep the slums from getting worse while trying to guilt the rich into donating, The summers form street gangs holding areas of the city by sway of getting around faster than humans can and using magic and rage to keep the areas 'safe', Autumn and spring members though tend to flourish in the middle and upper reaches of the city, Autumn members run huge scams or even small churches where they create semi stable areas of control with them at the top, springs just keep moving up the ladder of the city though using there natural magics to bring the rich to them and slowly gain there trust before joining a brothel/hotel or opening businesses that are tailor made to draw in rich idiots.
Mages
Even in the best of times mages can flourish, This is hardly the best of times but the mages of New Orleans do alright. Spread around the city leaving each other alone for the most part. The concilum isn’t well organized in the city and mages tend to clean up messes from the hundreds of minor cults that spring up and using the magic that comes natural to them only to carve a comfortable niche for themselves.
Notable world changes over the last hundred and fifty years
Private police act of 2059
stipulates that businesses that qualify may start and fund private police forces that must be overseen by the municipal police. These are used much like Private military corporations to protect parts of major cities that these companies have major assets in and operate as normal if much better equipped police. This law is protested every year as more and more of these private forces are used to strong arm areas into doing what the corporations want and sometimes they are worse than the mafia.
Megacities founding bill of 2108
A bill that allowed the creation and private funding of huge walled in cities. New Orleans was the first due to the already massive damage done to it by numerous natural disasters. Its success brought for the merger of San Francisco and Los Angeles to form San Angeles and the 3 artificial islands that now form the New York Island Hives. Other countries have followed suit and Tokyo was slowly rebuilt into the Kanto Mega city. These cities are truly massive in scale and none has a population of less than 150million.
The body Modifications act of 2173
Genetic manipulation had gotten to the degree that people could change skin and eye colors with ease to the point that it became a fashion. This has almost removed race issue but sparked national outrage as people saw there racial identity be ruined by doctors around the world. While this has also limited genetic problems such as autism and downs syndrome it brought with it something that people thought would only happen in science fiction, People started splicing animal genes into their bodies. This wasn’t a big deal at first people adding striped or cat eyes was seen as a minor issue. But people started adding muscles, scales, and night eyes. This has been seen as a sign of gang affiliations around the world as Low level Yakuza members give themselves 'dragon' scales action taken from sharks or komodo dragon DNA, Mexican mafias give themselves gorilla muscles or bulldog bones making them tougher. This law is up for repeal to make it illegal to genetically modify a living person but the industry makes billions a year and it is unlikely to stop. No rich kid wants to give up those sexy cat eyes.
Technology has obvious progressed by leaps and bounds. The future section of the armory will be able to be used by players and some additions will be put in such as cybernetic implants(robotic arms and such). This will also breed new drugs, methods of crime, communication and even stealth.
Note to players this is a brief write up to describe the possible setting. The full one will be much longer with several locations and notable NPC's
