A SOURCEBOOK FOR VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE Rose City By Night: Little Beirut 2 “ SOME DARK SHIT HAS GONE DOWN IN PORTLAND ” -Willamette Week, October 30, 2018 Portland was a lynchpin for kindred hoping to hold the west. It fell in the 2020s. Now what? Rose City By Night: Little Beirut provides a starter chronicle designed to begin establishing a city from scratch. The chronicle introduces core concepts to the game while allowing the players to set up Portland, Oregon, for future endeavors. These concepts can be easily adapted to any number of settings. Within the pages of that follow, you’ll find: • A city setting for Portland, Oregon, complete with history and characters • The Thorn Lords, potential princes of the city with their own motivations looking for legitimacy that the players can give • A look at how Vampire can be adapted to other settings with specific rules • S t o r i e s t a i l o r e d f o r t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f A n a r c h s , Camarilla, Blood Cults, and the Gehenna War • A new blood system based on the Enneagram Rose City By Night: Little Beirut AUTHOR: Kay P. Foulweather and Rachel Judd COVER ARTIST: John Gustin COVER PAGE: articlecats.com PORTLAND UNDERGROUND: Old Town Brewing via Travel Portland https://www.travelportland.com/culture/portland-shanghai- tunnels/ “Desk:” The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/portland-protests-police-violence-tear-gas- oregon-a9624756.html ; France24: https://observers.france24.com/en/20200716-portland-us-federal-respond-protest ; Law and Crime https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/secret-police-in-our-streets-camouflaged-federal-officers-in-unmarked-vans-arrest- protesters-in-portland/ ; Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish- washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/GO3J4TWJFAI6VKBFQ4RAATSBKA.jpg&w=1440 I-5 ROAD TRIP: widest.com https://www.widest.com/wp-content/uploads/Seattle-Washington-at-night.jpg And Justin Hartney, http://michaelpocketlist.blogspot.com/2016/06/portland-at-night-oc-2600x2032.html Inspired Pencil: https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures-2023/oakland-ca-at-night harmonious_photog on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/ak28iq/st_johns_bridge_at_night/ Rose City By Night: Little Beirut Introduction....................................................................... 4 How to Use This Book......................................................... 5 Chapter 1 .......................................................................... 7 History of Portland.............................................................. 7 Chapter 2 ......................................................................... 15 Welcome to Portland........................................................... 15 Camarilla: Prince Alec Cross................................................. 16 Anarch: Baron Velvet Sanguine Sin........................................ 18 Chapter 3 .......................................................................... 20 The City of Roses............................................................... 20 Eight Things to Know About Portland...................................... 20 Blood Politics..................................................................... 23 Geography........................................................................ 27 Southwest Portland............................................................. 28 Thorn Lord of Southwest—Hugo Rigby.................................... 30 Northwest Portland.............................................................. 32 Thorn Lords of Southwest—The Pearl River Mandarinate............ 33 Southwest Portland.............................................................. 36 Thorn Lord of Southeast—Laci Shadi...................................... 39 New Skill—Blood Vintning..................................................... 40 North Portland.................................................................... 42 Thorn Lord of the North—Kubra Zaida..................................... 44 Northeast Portland.............................................................. 48 Thorn Lord of Northeast—Jim Elkins....................................... 50 The Underground................................................................ 52 The Shadow Lord of the Underground—Skink........................... 55 Chapter 4 ........................................................................... 56 The Thorn Patch.................................................................. 56 The Lost Bag—Hugo Rigby................................................... 58 The Chain—Trio.................................................................. 60 Shards of Reality—Shadi....................................................... 62 Veteran of the Gehenna War— Kubra Zaida............................... 65 The Breach—Jim Elkins......................................................... 67 Thunder Underground—Skink................................................. 69 Chapter 5 ........................................................................... 72 The Outside World................................................................ 72 SADNESS........................................................................... 76 The Cenacle of Cyprian and Justina.......................................... 83 Here at the edge of this world Here I gaze at a pantheon of oak, a citadel of stone If this grand panorama before me is what you call God. . . Then God is not dead I walked down to a river and sat in reflection of what had to be done An offering of crimson flowed into the water below A wound of spirit from which it floated and faded away - Agalloch, “In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion” Portland has always been a crossroad. The Willamette River, running South to North, spills into the mighty Columbia, East to West. Indigenous Americans had long used these rivers for various purposes, the Klickitat explaining the geological features and different people coming together and conflicting near what is now Portland via the Bridge of the Gods story. The Russians, the Chinese, the British, the French, the Spaniards, and the United States all came to what is now Portland among the native people that also used the rivers and the site called The Clearing. Even as the Clearing gave way to Stumptown, Portland itself was one of many cities all fighting to be the New York of the West. Perhaps it is no surprise that the crossing paths continued after death. Portland has the distinction of being absolutely necessary for any kindred faction to hold while proving almost impossible to grasp. Though the Prince of Seattle, Alec Cross, would certainly love to imagine himself ruler of the region as a whole, the truth is that those with long unlife know that Portland is the older and, in many ways, more established city. The rugged dregs of society, the pious New England settlers, and others make Portland necessary for the Camarilla. The Anarchs are little different, seeing Portland as either an ally or enemy in their war for freedom. Liberating Portland would, in their mind, roll up the West Coast, destabilizing the Camarilla’s tenuous hold for thousands of miles in every direction. Older and more mysterious sects, like the Pearl River Mandarinate, credibly claim to predate the Camarilla and Anarchs both, seeing Portland as theirs, despite the claims of the latecomers. In truth, Portland never really belonged truly to any faction. This made it an easy target for the Second Inquisition, which rolled into Portland and made relatively quick work of Prince Rosemary’s Camarilla court. And then the subsequent Anarch Rebellion. But the disjointed nature of Portland affected the Second Inquisition, too. The Vatican’s Entity Special Operations Group (ESOG) struck Portland first. The Cenacle of Cyprian and Justina still occupies the city. The FBI Special Affairs Division created its own platform for the area, the Northwest Esoteric Security and Suppression (SADNESS). The two portions of the Second Inquisition both see themselves as the legitimate power in Portland and the other as usurpers. However, the Vatican and FBI increasingly view the occupation of Portland as a waste of resources. Portland today grapples with its identity. Is it the same drug-infused human trafficking port called “Doom Town” by the first grunge band, Wipers? Is it a twee liberal democracy, as seen in Portlandia ? Portland at night is no different. Without a strong Kindred movement and the Second Inquisition increasingly becoming redundant, some vampires, quietly known as the Thorn Lords, have risen in the shadows. True to their city, the Thorn Lords have different priorities, reasons for being, and goals. But the Camarilla, the Anarchs, and other national movements will do almost anything to tie themselves to the city. Simply to be able to legitimize a Thorn Lord into a Prince or Baron would give Kindred society standing in a city that can be the balance of power between Asia, Canada, the US, the Camarilla control from Chicago, Anarch California, and more. Introduction This is ultimately a v5 sequel to Rose City by Night by Rachel Judd. Any of the characters from that book could have survived the Second Inquisition and be in hiding. But most have fallen out of power as this book sets up a sandbox in Portland that the players help build as much as possible. The players will need to decide: • Whether they are Anarch or Camarilla • Whether they are a new or established coterie • Which Thorn Lord they will legitimize • How they will end the occupation of the Second Inquisition. After these questions are answered through playing this chronicle, Portland will have a character and plenty of hooks for future stories. Anarch or Camarilla? Before the game starts, the players should know this. Ultimately, for the purposes of this chronicle, it doesn’t matter beyond the window dressing at the beginning (see below). In either case, the players will be sent into Portland by one of the factions into Portland in order to legitimize a Thorn Lord. There are Thorn Lords that the Anarchs or Camarilla may be more ideologically aligned with than others. But Portland is an occupied city, and both factions are far more interested in establishing a presence than anything else. They will follow the recommendations of the players’ Coterie, even if reluctantly. After all, you can always betray the new Baron or Prince later, but you can’t do anything if you’re not at the table. New Or Established Coterie? There are virtually no vampires remaining in Portland aside from the thin-bloods and the Thorn Lords. The players may be Kindred, who escaped the Second Inquisition when Portland fell. Or they may be outside specialists that an Anarch or Camarilla patron assembled or some combination. Watchmen and Champions are a good fit, but it won’t matter that much. Anything that the players agree upon should work. Part of figuring this out will probably mean establishing the characters' relationship with the city. Did someone from Portland embrace them? Were they originally from the city? Are they loyal minions of a prince or baron that have come to spread influence? Perhaps their patron has hidden motives. How to Use This Book The Thorn Lord Legitimization The players will choose which of the Thorn Lords they want to recognize. Ideally, the players will choose an area of the city to reside in and be summoned by the local Thorn Lord. After this occurs, the first Thorn Lord’s rival may approach the players. And from then, each Lord will Take their turn meeting the players. Each Thorn Lord will have a task for the players to test them before offering to be a patron. This should be enough for the players to make a determination. It’s possible, though it would be difficult, for the players to choose themselves. The bulk of the subsequent game will probably be the players and their new patron neutralizing the other Thorn Lords. This can be done in many ways, by violence or by stealth. Perhaps attempting to use the Second Inquisition as a weapon as well. When the dust has settled, the city will have a new Prince or Baron. The Second Inquisition The root problem will still exist by this point: Portland is still occupied by the Second Inquisition. Fortunately, the occupation has gone on long enough that the Vatican and FBI are both questioning whether resources need to remain in a seemingly sleepy city. Also fortunate for the coterie, the Second Inquisition is harshly divided. The FBI’s SADNESS division and ESOG’s Cenacle of Cyprian and Justina both see the other as illegitimate and blocking the other. If done deftly, it’s possible that the players can use this to their advantage. It’s also possible t o o v e r w h e l m e i t h e r o r b o t h p a r t i e s , t h o u g h reinforcements probably would not be welcome. Finally, a devil’s bargain is possible in some way, though one would wonder how long such a deal would last. However, but this time, Portland will probably have its own problems of your own creation. Holy Ghost Father Bertout (Bertout) : You targeted the vampire known as Osmanna, is that right? Ka-li-tan : Her and her kin. Bertout : When did you start, and how many... Ka-li-tan : I met with you because the church has long had a good relationship with the native people of the Pacific Northwest. It’s true that you worked with us when the Americans came to kill us. That the founding event of this land was the Whitman Massacre...The very name implies my people did something wrong. And you were with us on the scaffolding at the end of the war. We appreciate that, but do not take this to mean that you get to dictate our work. We were fighting what was in the night long before Jesuits with crosses came to our land. Bertout : Please understand my goal is to archive all of them. They are a corruption of holy communion, a feeding upon human blood, while salvation lies in the blood of Christ. Every last one must be accounted for. Ka-li-tan: In the old times, the women tended the Salish wool dogs. And on that island, there we were trained to be hunters of the undead. There are no more wool dogs, but we still exist. I was charged with finding Osmanna, but you are the one who found her. You were the one who killed her and the other nuns that lurked in the library of this empty university. You purified her line. There is no more, and now I may rest. Bertout : Of her line? Or at all? Ka-li-tan: You speak in absolutes. My people do not. I put the dead to rest, that is true. But it is not our way of thinking that all must be destroyed, that genocide... Bertout : I only need to know if the infection has spread to places beyond the vampire court and the others. The West is a crack. If Portland is cleaned, Seattle cannot stand. And California is already divided. Then East, into the sun. Ka-li-tan: You cannot see. You have not been here long enough, let the darkness of the trees and the bright planes nourish you. You mention the city of Seattle but cannot understand the man’s words. He said, “And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless.” I believe that because it is true. Portland is haunted by the ghosts of my people. We are still here, even if you cannot see us. And that is true of all things. Bertout : If Portland needs an exorcist, I can fill that role. Let’s meet in the city where The rivers cross bridges there Let’s float down into the stream Of rich and poor pioneers A kid from a western town Wants to be seen and go out - Sleater-Kinney, Light Rail Coyote Chapter 1 Portland is the least religious city in the United States, yet it is haunted by religion. This is true of the living and the undead. The First Nations in the area had their own traditions, and when the fi rst Christians came, they were Iroquois converted by the French and European Jesuits were not far behind. In the 1820s, the undead Prince of Montreal, Strathcona, was also looking to change religions. Being in this New World, he began to picture a greater role than that of a parasite. With this in mind, he converted and joined the Sabbat. Within a decade, with no time at all for a kindred, he selected a Gangrel at his side—Dagrun—to move west with the Nosvaratu Skink and Aurel the Tzimisce to bring the Sabbat to the far ends of the continent. At about the same time, Father Francis Blanchet and Father Modests Demers were arriving in what was to become Oregon, ready to spread Catholicism to the First Nations. Their tactic was different than it had been in Latin America. The Catholic priests would move in pairs or as individuals to live as Natives. They would learn the language, eat the food, understand the traditions, and only then begin the conversion process on terms that their hosts could understand. In the fl edgling United States and among the British, Protestants were enraged at the success the Catholics had and vowed to convert on their own lines. Like the Catholic priests, the kindred needed to be accepted into the population they wanted to occupy. In the case of Dagrun, she found herself in almost impossibly small European communities along the Columbia River in what would become Portland. It was dangerous work to feed three vampires with the excuse of the occasional accident, though she was successful and though Portland had a tension between Protestants and Catholics by day, it was Sabbot by night. The 1840s were a violent time in the city. The Cockstock Affair, an argument between Native and African Americans, resulted in European Americans creating the first military force in Oregon and a confusing mix of anti-Black Laws that, though never enforced, made the intentions of European settlers clear. Blacks, Indigenous people, and Catholics were grouped together as a threat to the American community that was unaware that they should have been more worried that Dagrun had converted Cooper, a ghoul from the Hudson Bay Company, and was solidifying the hold of vampirism in the area. The founding event for the area was the Whitman Massacre of 1847. The Whitmans had come to Oregon territory in the hopes of swaying the Cayuse from the sway of French Catholics. Unlike the priests, Protestants like the Whitmans came with families, and those families wanted land. This, along with two accidental poisonings of the Cayuse, led to bad blood between the Protestant Europeans and their Native hosts. When the Whitmans attempted to give a measles vaccine to the Cayuse, the latter had no trust in the Whitmans and attacked the settlement. This only fed fears of a Black-Catholic- Indigenous conspiracy to rid the land of white Protestants. Cornelius Gilliam, a Baptist minister notorious for his hatred of Natives who was later favorably compared to the Catholic killer Oliver Cromwell, led a military force to exterminate the Cayuse and end the conspiracy that did not exist—unaware that the actual conspiracy led by Dagrun to sustain a kindred settlement was going smoothly. Adding to the mortal con fl ict in Portland, Daniel O’Connell in Ireland demanded that Oregon fall into British hands. This, again, seemed to feed the fears of conspiracy at the hands of Catholics in Oregon. Many Irish turned on O’Connell’s proposal and came to Oregon to defend it against the British, led by Steven McCormick. The next year, 1848, the Mexican-American War broke out. Oregon’s border suddenly became no longer Mexico but the United States. The Lupines native to the region, white in color like the Salish Wool Dogs, were invaded by European Lupines led by James H. Lappeus. Lappeus had fought in the Mexican-American War and took to leading his group, The Hounds, on a genocidal mission to remove History of Portland LITTLE BEIRUIT Little Beirut was the racist nickname given to the city of Portland by the elder Bush administration during the notorious anti-war protests of the 1 9 9 0 s . T h e c i t y e m b r a c e d t h e designation and became a notorious thorn in the side for politicians since. In this setting, Little Beirut is not only a nickname for Portland, but it evokes the occupation of the city by forces of the Second Inquisition. Latinos from California. Though he was chased out of California, he became Portland’s fi rst police chief. By the time of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, a deal had been reached. The Catholics could be Oregonians if they counted enough white settlers to apply for statehood and keep Oregon out of British hands forever. The Chinese, whose communities in the Northwest predated those of the Europeans, were allowed to stay, as were the Black population, which had become invisible due to the threat of unenforced anti-Black laws. Dagrun and her Sabbot had also found stability and success in the community, though it fell short of Strathcona’s vision of a Sabbat haven. The Civil War saw unity in Oregon day and night. But after the war, things began to fall apart. No longer needing Catholic support, the Protestants turned viciously against Catholics as foreign agents who could not be trusted as Americans. The Know-Nothing movement followed in the rest of the United States. This manifested in the rise of the Southern Lords at night. Kindreds that had been invested in slavery, the Southern Lords, came in the name of the Camarilla, unaware of Dagrun’s control of Portland. Shunned by Strathcona and on her own, Dagrun declared herself Sabbot Archbishop of Oregon in 1872. The Southern Lords and Dagrun’s forces had a series of con fl icts, culminating in an invasion of Portland’s underground. They were no match for Skink and his forces, though the battle started a great fi re in 1873 on the heels of the great 1872 Portland fi re. Above ground, the Irish that had been entrusted with protecting the city in the fi re turned against their Chinese neighbors, who were now championed by the Protestant ruling elite. The Irish were rightfully jeered for their actions, and the Catholics in the community were brought to heel. The Golden Era of Portland in the 1880s The great Northwest metropolis, now seemingly shed of its French Catholic in fl uence, could properly be called a colony of New England as some of its founders had always intended. New settlers from the Midwest came via oxcart and were brought in as respectable middle-class Americans. Well-educated, and easily scandalized, these were the Portlanders that were advertised in of fi cial publications. However, there was another Portland that was known for vice. These were loggers and sailors coming into town looking for booze, drugs, and sex. Though prostitution was illegal, nearly a third of Portland’s women were sex workers. Another Portland was also developing, which was in Chinatown. The so-called “Tacoma Method” of ethnically cleansing towns in the Northwest of Asian people never happened in Portland. Instead, Portland of fi cially welcomed the Chinese, and Portland’s Chinatown was the second largest in the United States. Moy Back Hin, who paid for the transportation of Tacoma’s victms to Portland, hired attorneys to represent the Chinese and toppled the Chinese consul-general in San Francisco and made himself a national fi gure in both China and the United States. The Chinese communities put together a bounty for European Americans guilty of anti-Chinese attacks and even started the only recognized Asian military force in the United States and probably the continent—the American- Born Chinese Brigade, which was integrated into the Oregon National Guard. These three communities worked together. The well- heeled European Protestants worked with the Chinese elite to facilitate opium, which was legal but taxed, and human traf fi cking. The human traf fi cking and opium went to those looking for vice and ultimately to feed Dagrun and her Cainites. The result was a well-maintained party system run by Jonathon Bourne Jr. and packed with his men. Portland Underground First, build a basement. Then, build a second basement. Then, build a tunnel connecting the two. For ease and discretion of transport, build another tunnel leading out to the waterfront. Then, the new tavern across the street built its own basement and tunnel. Before long, an entire complex, multi-story network existed beneath the city, all overseen from the shadows by Skink. Skink set aside some of these tunnels for Cainite use, but they were primarily a mortal development he encouraged and took advantage of. The tunnels were dark and stuffy, lit only by candles and portable oil lamps. Wandering mortals had to fi nd their way using wayposts carved to be felt out in the dark. No one came to the tunnels by choice; they were the home of the desperate and friendless. Most popular, at least among the mortals, were the underground opium dens. These dens are connected to a reasonably legitimate establishment above, usually a brothel or tavern. Sometimes a store that secretly offered gambling. After discreetly buying a dose or two of opium, a user would be led down into the basement. There wouldn’t be much here: bunk beds stacked by the three, a basin with some brackish water, and a rough wooden stand with a dim lamp. Lucky users could chase the dragon in peace; unlucky users often faced a much worse fate should they cross the path of a crimper. Others took to the tunnels out of need. Criminals hiding from the law, prostitutes hiding from cruel pimps or madams, sailors needing a place to lay low until their ship left, those who had no other options took to the underground. The tunnels were a maze, made even more so by using slab-wood: rough-cut timber which could be easily moved to create new walls or barriers when it suited Skink (such as when the Southern Lords staged their invasion). Dagrun’s cathedral was located down here, as were the havens of many other Cainites – some who lived there full- time, others who only maintained panic rooms and bolt holes. The population of the Portland Underground was even more transient and invisible than the most wretched mortals above, making feeding quite a bit easier for those who hunted in the tunnels. On a good night, a Cainite might stumble across a cell of imprisoned, half-drunk and drugged loggers and feast until the crimpers came to cart the men away to a new life at sea. Turn of the Century Night would fall on Chinatown as well. A kindred cult stemming from immigrants from near the Pearl River in China worshipped a fi gure called Taotie, who they believed was a Yama King that may rise as the Demon Emperor of the Sixth Age. Worshippers of Taotie believe in excess, and two kindred, Jeremiah Jones and his childe Astrea, came i nto contact with this blood cult. They interpreted Taotie as a mask of Set, and set themselves up as worshipers of Abd-al’Sobek. Dagrun aimed to unite the kindred against this cult, though stopped short when Jones and Astrea offered to solve a blood problem as steamships began to replace the crimping that Portland's kindred relied upon. The 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition was a wild success, bringing in millions of tourists and a lasting migration pattern into Portland. However, Dagrun's human contacts had died or reformed: even Jonathan Bourne Jr. fought to reform the city against the corruption that he had fostered. This left much of the business and government under the sway of Jones and Astrea, while Dagrun was left with little political power. Worse, the Camarilla and Anarchs were organizing in the suburbs outside of Portland. Astrea began covertly working with the Camarilla to overthrow Dagrun, speci fi cally targeting a Toreador named Thera Rosemary. Meanwhile, Jones pushed his in fl uence into the underground, competing with Skink. Whitney, the nominal Baron of the Anarchs, began working with the growing union movement in the city while Dagrun fl ailed. As the city changed, in 1907 Chinatown began to be dismantled by its own corrupt elite, anti-Chinese laws that encouraged the breakup of Chinatown, and a City Beautiful movement bent on eliminating the Chinese that the local elites had once depended upon. And the Catholic Church, still the largest denomination in Portland despite having been kept from power, were essential in the1908 rehabilitation of the Society of Leopold. Through the twentieth century, tension continued to mount. Dagrun attempted to cultivate a strong prohibition movement in the city in order to undercut Jones. But prohibition only made alcohol and the corrupt city of fi cials The Shanghai Tunnels The Shanghai Tunnels are an innately racist term, though it is what the tunnels are known for, especially their role in crimping. When a ship arrived in Portland, the sailors would be lured to brothels and bars. The captain of the ship encouraged this, knowing that he didn’t have to pay their wages if he could not fi nd them. New sailors were provided by crimps—criminals that would kidnap people and force them on to ships where they would have no choice but to work on the ship. This process was known as “Shanghaiing” since Portland had close trading ties with Shanghai, China. This human traf fi cking, among other things, was said to happen underneath Portland, hence the name “Shanghai Tunnels.” Crimps would often work for the boardinghouses that lured the sailors away from the ships in the fi rst place. Their salary was known as “blood money” which was a portion of the money that would have gone to the original sailors if they could have been found. Dagrun and her kindred were reliant on the constant revolving door of sailors that needed to go missing to make it work. She took on a ghoul named Larry Sullivan. Sullivan was a ruthless gangster, who made the endeavor into a science, keeping all the crimps in the city in line. He added an innovation using the corrupt police force to jail unlucky sailors. Sailors in jail could be used to extort sea captains who could no longer claim the wages of sailors that had once been shuttled away by crimps. Once the jailed sailors had served their purpose to extort the captains, they were sometimes paid and sometimes drained. Dagrun was so successful that she became a minor celebrity, and the wealthy in Portland pro fi ted from the chaos so much that they moved out of the core, leaving it to the party machine to run. The steamship made the entire crimping business collapse, but the Shanghai Tunnels still remain. The New Deal and World Wars helped strengthen the unions that Whitney had patronized, and the Anarchs grew stronger in the region. Further complicating things, the Camarilla grew impatient with Astrea and sent Jim Elkins to Portland in the 1930s to begin laying the groundwork for another Camarilla invasion that would stick. The Night of Betrayal In desperation, Dagrun took control of who was allowed to embrace in her faction. This was a step too far, and she was challenged in a ritae by one of her followers, Three Slugs in 1948. Astrea, Jones, and Rosemary were secretly in attendance. When it seemed that Dagrun would be victorious, Rosemary emerged and attacked the archbishop. This forced Astrea and Jones to fi ght as well. Most of the present Sabbots were turned to dust, while others like Three Slugs, Astrea, and Jones fl ed never to return. Dagrun may have won the night had Skink not emerged to end her unlife. Though there was a brief contender named Redbeard that was quickly fi nished, Rosemary won the night and the Camarilla took of fi cial control of Portland. The entire ordeal was a major Masquerade breach that happened in Anarch territory. Rosemary consolidated her victory by leaning on Elkins to sabotage the levies, leading to the Vanport Flood that destroyed all evidence of the fi ght and cleared Whitney's in fl uence from the city. The Rise and Fall of Prince Rosemary's Court The Camarilla domain was secure, and Rosemary became Prince of Portland, happy to appease the Camarilla and make Elkins Seneschal as he secured Portland’s famous vice as a foundation for the Camarilla. Tehmina was made Sheriff. A scholar, she spent some of her spare time in the hidden dark library under Marylhurst University, with Kindred nuns controlled by a dark Mother Superior named Osmanna. Prince Rosemary’s territory extended at least sixty miles in every direction, with the exception of Vancouver where Baron Whitney held out hopes that the Anarchs would prevail in Portland. The Portland tunnels were largely left to Skink, though rumors persisted that Astrea's temple to Set below the city remained. Nonetheless, Rosemary had support from the Camarilla who desired to make sure that the Anarch rebellions in California would be contained. Camarilla dependency on Rosemary was boosted by Seattle’s Camarilla nearly completely falling to the hands of Technocratic Union in Seattle starting in the 1940s after navel experiments opened the mage disciplines up during World War II. In the 1950s the Technocratic Union in Seattle attempted to consolidate their control of the Northwest by taking Portland, leading to a confrontation with Rosemary. Elkins throttled the attempt using his vast power over law enforcement and criminality to protect the court, remove the Technomancers from Oregon, and keep the masquerade in place. However, it brought a lot of attention. A movie being fi lmed about Elkins was released in 1957. Though it was successfully throttled and very few saw it, Elkins bowed out of the scene, surrendering his title in exchange for exile. Portland was conclusively Camarilla, an important foothold for the entire West Coast with Seattle up for grabs between Technocratic Union holding court and California falling to the Anarchs. This also made Portland a target. In 2008, the Society of Leopold, leading the Entity Special Operations Group (ESOG), and secular government forces moved against Vienna, London, Las Vegas, Paris, and Marseilles to clear the cities of Cainites. As London fell, Archibald Billingsworth, Prince Rosemary’s sire, fl ed hoping to fi nd protection with his estranged childe. ESOG worked for the Vatican, which thought in terms of centuries instead of years. Still smarting at the betrayal at the hands of Protestant Americans, it was eager to set up shop at Marylhurst University, where the priests were surprised to fi nd that the vampire scholar Tehmina, Prince Rosemary's sheriff, had an occult library hidden deep beneath the building. ESOG neutralized Tehmina and quickly went to work to exterminate the vampire court entirely. Eventually, the ESOG took full control of the university, excluding all students and setting up a new set of rules that bene fi tted their clandestine activities in 2018. Operation: Columbia Fire As the only kindred left, Hiram James Whitney’s dream of an Anarch Portland came, but at the expense of his unlife. His decision to live outside of Portland’s Camarilla proved to be his undoing when members of the extreme rightwing group Patriot Prayer murdered him. Though successful, the militants were alarmed to fi nd the black man they attempted to kill was not entirely human. They alerted the FBI’s Special Affairs Division (SAD). Though SAD successfully seemed to persuade the amateurs that Whitney was simply an extremely good fi ghter, SAD began investigating Portland—eager to seem to ful fi ll the Trump’s administration’s vendetta against the city. It is widely believed that Trump’s broad declaration of Portland being an “Anarchist District” was a misunderstanding the president got from stolen documents about the rise of Anarch vampires in Portland. In Vancouver, Conspiracy Theorist vampire-hunters remain active. The 2020 George Floyd protests coincided with the rise of the Anarchs in Portland. Now leaderless, they were happy to establish an Anarch Free State like the one created in California. To counter this, SAD set up Operation Columbia Fire. Anarch vampires were identi fi ed and taken in unmarked vans. Humans taken by mistake were let go, while the vampires were eliminated. The operation went on for months while, unrelated, ESOG were combing through the underground, eliminating any blank body activity they could fi nd. Of fi cially, both groups believe they have eliminated more than 99% of the Licks in Portland. However, the Prince's domain was vast, and more probably remain. Both ESOG and SAD have remained in the city, though how much of that is to spite each other and how much is to keep the city free from Kindred activity is dif fi cult to say. After Operation: Columbia Fire Portland is a Sheepfold city these nights, though the Second Inquisition was never united. ESOG remains active in former Marylhurst University, though seethe that SAD fi nished the job they were preparing for. SAD fi nds ESOG as a foreign force that’s in their way as historic anti-Catholic rivalries in the Northwest manifest. Both SAD and ESOG bristle at the far-right Conspiracy Theorists who are active in Vancouver who release information on ESOG and SAD, perpetually confused as to what is going on but limiting the power of all Inquisition organizations. Informant BB-D721: First, look, I’m only talking to you because fuck those patriot fucks. I know I’m beat, but if I can take those assholes with me, all the better. Okay. The last days of my life were in the 1970s. They used to call Portland Doom Town. Wipers did a song about it. You know them? Okay, anyway, it was also called Skinhead City for the obvious reasons. I was pretty young when I left home. I didn’t want to work on the port, you know? But there was no poing in going to school or any of that shit. So I went into the city. It was smaller at the time. Watched the local circuit of professional wrestling that used to come through. It was from that scene that I was introduced to punk music. And that really changed my life. I eventually moved into this old mansion that was just falling apart. A real piece of shit. I couldn’t even tell you who owned it. No hot water, I don’t know how many of us there were. But we had shitty jobs, we’d drink lots of beer. Henry’s, and we’d rage all night. There were concerts all the time if you knew where to look. I spent a lot of time in people’s basements, our living room, and of course, more of fi cial shows. It was great. I don’t know, I was in my twenties when we kept running into these white nationalist fucks. They would go to the punk shows and try to recruit people. It would often turn into a brawl. People, you know, until recently, people didn’t get the “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” slogan. But that’s really what it was. They’d come in pretending to be punk and then talk this shit. This shit would get real. Like, it got tense. You didn’t know whose house you were in sometimes. You could be there having a beer, and then someone would start going into this white-nationalist shit. You may have thought he was cool, or she was cute, but there you were. Things got worse in ’88 when those fuckers killed Mulugeta Seraw. Now, it wasn’t just Doom Town. The whole fucking world was looking at us. We were getting de fi ned by those assholes. Anyway, one night we were at a show. Smegma, actually. I remember these assholes came in. Acting like they were real purists about the whole thing, you know? That Smegma w