Mortal History
Much as modern settlements rest over the pot shards and fire pits of ancient civilizations, society itself is built over the wreckage of its own past. The world of Shattered Masquerade has come a long way since 2020, and the Kindred of this Chronicle have been unalive for all of it. What follows is a brief summary of the future history the Kindred of the Free State have born witness to, in the hopes it will help players immerse themselves and their characters in the future nights they will stalk.
2020's - The Blackout Riots and the Great Decline
The roots of the world of 2070 were planted in late April of 2020, when a partial meltdown took place at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York. The partial meltdown did not cause any direct injuries, but resulted in widepsread and rolling blackouts in New York City. In the midst of interruptions to vital services and the fear surrounding the potential fallout at Indian Point, New York City broke out into civil disorder and violence. The New York Police Department reacted swiftly and brutally, a response which provoked outrage in cities around the country as footage of the carnage began to surface. Protests and occupations in cities across North America and then the world tipped into violence, sparking similar riots across the U.S, Canada, and parts of Europe that persisted through 2020, 2021, and 2022. The violence and disorder caused did billions in direct damage and shook confidence in government from the public at large and economic actors. An already sluggish economy fell into recession, posting losses in jobs, stocks, and GDP's through the first half of the 2020's. While global markets began showing some signs of recovery in the late 2020's, the gilded age that defined the wake of the Great Recession had ended and given way to a Great Decline.
2030's - Corporate Consolidation and The Blood Hunts
As lean times from the Great Decline continued, major corporations took advantage of weaker and more pliable government to pursue consolidation on a growing scale. Justifying their actions under the auspices of job creation, Corporate mergers once considered monopolistic and anti-competitive were approved with the tactic consent of politicians either bought and paid for or desperate for anything to revive a flagging economy. While the violent social unrest of the 2020's had cooled to a simmer, other factors drove the persistence of street and mob violence. Among other factors, growing "evidence" that fueled a belief in "Vampires" - all vociferously denied by governmental and institutional authorities - sparked a wave of mob violence against anyone suspected of being one of these supernatural creatures. These attacks - dubbed "Blood Hunts" in the media - often targetted insular and marginalized communities such as immigrants, LGBT communities, religious minorities, and occasionally even wealthy individuals and business leaders. The attacks were often spontaneous and disorganized, making them difficult for police and investigative agencies to predict and stop and further undermining confidence in the ability of governments - and especially the national government - to protect its citizens.
2040's - Privatization and Automation
Taking advantage of the mistrust in public institutions fueled by years of economic and social decline, pro-business legislators and executives began broadening the scope of government services that could be and were privatized. Extreme privatization began at the local level, with police forces lampooned for their inability to prevent the riots of the 2020's or the street violence of the 2030's replaced by paramilitary private security forces under the nominal authority of the police department. With the success of these programs in cutting down on street violence and disorder, privatization extended to education, healthcare, welfare, and the justice and prison systems as a whole. By the late 2040's, most aspects of local and state government and a growing amount of the federal government had essentially be turned over to the handful of major corporations that now controlled the vast majority of wealth. This windfall of profits allowed these budding megacorporations to invest heavily in automation and artificial intelligence, dramatically lowering costs while pushing record numbers of people into perpetual unemployment. With well-armed private police forces wielding expanded powers on the streets and a privatized justice system to mete out harsh punishments, a brief resurgence in civil disobedience and protest was quickly put down. Despite growing unrest, the budding new order seemed stable as then decade came to a close.
2050's - Rising Tides and Rising Walls
The greatest challenge to this new order had been quietly creeping up on it for years. While mostly ignored amidst the social and economic chaos of the 21st century, coastal communities, farmers, and other people most vulnerable to a shifting climate had been facing increasing difficulty with each passing year. The scale of the emerging threat became a public emergency in August of 2051, when Hurricane Cassidy struck New Orleans with fallout rivaling that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The levees that protected the city failed once again, flooding nearly all of it outside of the French Quarter, While Hurricane Cassidy was a crisis unto itself, the failure of the water to recede in much of the city called attention to diminishing coastlines around the country. In response, massive federal and local contracts were given out to protect the nation's coastal cities from these waters through the construction of unprecedented dike and levee systems. Massive building projects also took place in the cities themselves. With land above sea level now at a premium, entire neighborhoods were vacated to make room for the neon-and-obsidian high-rises that would come to dominate American skylines in the 2050's/ Small coastal cities and towns, however, received little if any protection. The reality that smaller coastal communities had been left to sink drove their occupants out in massive numbers, swarming cities like New Orleans, Miami, and New York that were both in need of massive amounts of labor and would be protected where their communities were not. These laborers had nowhere else to go once construction was completed, settling into their cities as a new underclass living in the flood-prone shadows of the engineering feats they had built.
2060's - The New Normal
The 2060's were, for the first time in a short lifetime, a period of calm and stability. While little was done to address massive, structural problems facing the growing number of poor and destitute, most Americans were able to make some sort of living without fear of violence in their daily life. And those who weren't were silenced, left forgotten and unheard in the growing slums and favellas of America's great and growing metropolises. Even Vampires, still denied by the government even as a the public at large accepted them as fact, had by now become a normal part of society for rich and poor alike. But few, living or damned, expect that stability to last.
Future History
Future History
Alex - Your Friendly Neighborhood Storyteller
Re: Future History
Kindred History
A foreward...
While we won't go too much into the history of the Anarch Movement beyond that which is discussed in Vampire: The Masquerade, 5th Edition, it's worth understanding the backdrop of the Movement heading into 2020 and then into 2070. What follows are a few bullet points and vignettes on the state of the Movement in the modern era and the factors that led to the Third Anarch Revolt.
The roots of the Third Anarch Revolt are planted firmly in the last great offensive of the war between the Camarilla and the Sabbat in North America. With the capture of Mexico City by a daring band of Camarilla neonates and the end of Sabbat threats in former bastions such as New Orleans, Atlanta, and Tijuana, the Sword of Caine had been relegated to its holdings in Quebec, Toronto, and Miami on the continent with stragglers in Havana and the Caribbean. With the Sabbat firmly under control, the Camarilla's Inner Council called the Convention of Prague to be held in January of 2020. The goal of the Convention was to decide the new order of the night post-Sabbat and to assess the challenges posed by the Second Inquisition and its decimation of Clans Nosferatu and Tremere. The Anarchs who had bled to end the cultish Sabbat expected to be disappointed by the Convention, but the outcome shocked even the most jaded and skeptical in the Movement. At Prague, the Camarilla welcomed the defection of Sabbat Montreal and Toronto, placing its Archbishops as Princes, and welcomed the Old World Lasombra and Tzimisce into the fold with the promise of representation on the Justicariate at a later date. The Convention of Prague declared that the Second Inquisition was enabled by violations of the Traditions, and in commanding Princes to enforce the Traditions at all times and in all places the Convention had declared the Anarch Movement anathema. For their sacrifices, the Anarchs were to be exterminated now that the Camarilla could focus on stamping them out.
For several months after the Convention was closed, things remained tense. The Anarchs almost universally believed that they could not hope to face a united Camarilla, even without the Warlocks at their disposal as they once were. Some advocated a mass movement to the California Free State to hold what little they could. Others held out hopes that negotiations with the Brujah and Gangrel Justicars, rumored to have been against the proclamation, would soften the blow. But the tension between the Anarchs and the Camarilla seeking to end their Movement simmered...
The Fall of New York
New York City had long been contested between the Camarilla and Sabbat. America's largest city was simply too large, too populous, and too deep in complexities and intrigues for either side to ever truly stamp the other out. And while the Camarilla had taken the city back from the Sabbat in 2001, they did so with the aid of a sizable community of Anarchs. Now those Anarchs and the Camarilla were beginning to clash as the Camarilla sought to enforce the will of the Justicars at Prague. While this same story played out across North America, the nocturnal realities of New York - and an unforeseeable disaster - brought simmering tensions to a boil in the Big Apple.
As had always been the case when one Sect seized New York for itself, the Sabbat of New York had never truly gone. Faced with overwhelming odds, many of the chosen of Caine went to ground and hid within the city's teeming mass of humanity. While many were hunted down in the end, the most cunning and capable of the Vampires were able to wait until the Camarilla was satisfied in its victory. Once it was, they began crossing the line into Anarch territory. The Anarchs never tracked membership the way the Camarilla had, and it was not uncommon for unfamiliar Vampires to turn up claiming to be Anarchs. These Vampires had always been welcomed, and the former Sabbat were no exception. As Anarchs, these undead agitated the tense political situation further and spurred violence against the Camarilla. While none knew it at the time, the Sabbat interlopers had bolstered the numbers and the resolve of the New York Anarchs to fight. And even without them, the fledgling Prince Maximilian Rockwell of New York had already underestimated the numbers of the Anarch Movement in his Domain. And as violence began to break out between the two sides, the power went out.
The Indian Point Meltdown cast New York into darkness, causing panic among the humans that was met with an overwhelming response. Without their usual mortal pawns to call on, the Camarilla panicked in turn. History has forgotten if it was a draconian decree by Prince Rockwell, an Anarch beating by his Sheriff Jubal Creed, or a senseless murder by the notorious Gangrel Scourge known only as Mange that provoked the uprising. But the long-simmering powder keg of the Domain of New York went off with explosive force. The Anarchs revolted. With intelligence possessed by the former Sabbat, contacts among the Anarchs with sympathizers in the Camarilla, and the cover of street violence in New York, the Movement slaughtered the Elders of New York and sent whatever Camarilla weren't killed or defected fleeing the city. Survivors described Anarchs going haven-to-haven, casually murdering thralls and nailing Elders to their roofs to meet the sun. While their ghastly tales appalled the Camarilla, they brought the Movement something very different. A rare thing among the damned. Hope.
War Across the Continent
The consequences of the Indian Point Blackout and subsequent riots among mortals and the Fall of New York traveled close together, like the shockwaves of an earthquake...or maybe a bomb. Most cities had the same ingredients as New York in small numbers - Sabbat survivors, Anarch sympathizers, and foolish Court officials. But the backlash to the NYPD's tactics during the blackout added the final element of human chaos needed to tax Camarilla resources and give the Anarchs an opening. While the Anarchs never organized riots, occupations, and insurrections, they often contributed to pushing peaceful efforts over the edge into violence. Long-term Sabbat cities in the United States - those where Anarchs had led offensives and Camarilla presence was still tenuous - were the first to fall. New Orleans, Detroit, and Vancouver were early victories for the Movement. But soon much safer territory began to buckle under the weight of chaos. The long-contained California Free State broke out, burning the Prince of San Diego at the stake at Elysium and seizing Tijuana before their Camarilla even learned of San Diego's fall. Long-suffering Camarilla neonates in San Fransciso shocked the Anarchs and Camarilla both by forcing the famed and brutal Prince Vannevar Thomas to flee the city and welcoming a wave of Anarchs to take it for themselves. Now trapped between Anarch bastions in Vancouver and San Francisco, Portland and Seattle were liberated in the 2020's, and by 2040 the Anarchs had seized Las Vegas and Phoenix from the Tower's grasp. Elsewhere, the successful revolt in New Orleans inspired copycat rebellions across the coastal south. While Camarilla Atlanta held firm against the Anarchs, Miami - still held by its Sabbat Archbishop - defected to the Movement and brought with it the Sword's Caribbean holdings. Backing from the powerful Vampires of Miami tipped the balance in Florida, handing it over to the Anarch Movement. And in the cradle of the Revolt, the Anarchs of New York began to export their revolution. With New York's massive resources, the Anarchs washed over Providence and as far west as Indianapolis. The Camarilla proved ineffective in retaking lost territory, its attention split between evading Hunters, coping with the gradual fall of the Masquerade, and protecting their herds from the chaos that defined the early and mid-21st century. In the midst of disorder among humans, the Anarchs were able to come back from the brink and challenge the Camarilla that had sought to destroy them.
One Movement, Three States
By the 2040's, the battle lines between the Camarilla and the newly independent Anarch Movement had been forged. While all Anarchs claim membership in the Movement and are nominally on friendly terms, they have organized into three "Free States". These Free States are differentiated by geography and culture both. While all Anarchs are Anarchs, the principles of their Movement have shown through in different ways in each.
The Pacific Free State
Now celebrating 130 years of independence from the Camarilla in some form or another, the former California and now Pacific Free State is the most traditional of the three Free States. Its cities are almost all true to what Anarchs consider to be a "pure" form of government - Gangs and Cells holding down different parts of cities, doing as they please in their territories and coordinating for mutual defense from Hunters and the Camarilla. While the Pacific Free State has no explicit leader, its most celebrated champions are the legendary Brujah Vampires Jeremy MacNeil and Salvador Garcia. MacNeil is the most respected Vampire in Los Angeles, wielding enormous influence earned from over a century of fighting in the trenches with his fellow Anarchs. Garcia, meanwhile, has become the Movement's most prominent philosopher and thought leader. Neither has sought power, instead letting the Pacific Free State claim itself as the birthplace of the modern Movement and its purest expression.
The Empire Free State
The Empire Free State runs from Providence to Detroit and Indianapolis, in cities as far north as Buffalo and south as Lexington. But its center of gravity in power, prestige, and its own mythology is the crown jewel of North America - New York City. Made up mostly of Movement Anarchs and Camarilla defectors with a small portion of former Sabbat, the Empire Free State is still young and beset on all sides. Perhaps this is why it's the most organized Free State, with an Assembly made up of representatives from each of its cities that make decisions in New York. This nascent Kindred democracy has limited larger-than-life figures from gaining prominence, instead making the Assembly and the Free State itself primary. Its Kindred consider themselves the most modern, progressive, and accomplished of the Movement, and continue to press the Camarilla on all sides into these nights.
The Caribbean Free State
The Caribbean Free State is perhaps the Anarchs' most diverse, eclectic holdings. Running from New Orleans into Florida and then the islands of its namesake sea, the Caribbean Free State hosts the Movement's largest contingent of former Sabbat. While most of these Vampires now proudly identify as Anarchs, their faith, traditions, and history have become woven into the Caribbean Free State and a part of unlife along the southern seas. Its northern cities are its most conventionally Anarch, with large minorities of former Sabbat still integrated into its patchwork. In the islands of the Caribbean, Havana's Central Committee is the only link between the Movement and the reclusive Kindred who stalk the West Indies' nights. Miami is a force unto its self, its former Archbishop Mateo Dominguez still presiding over what he has billed a New Carthage - a popular pilgrimage for Anarchs seeking spiritual release or to cavort as they please in a city the now-Suffet Dominguez claims to rule from the shadows.
Enemies Without
While the last fifty years have had the greatest impact on the Anarch Revolt for which Kindred will remember them, the Camarilla and what remains of the Sabbat have changed with them. Many Anarchs may never encounter these other Kindred deep within the Free States personally. But those Anarchs fighting in Camarilla cities and unliving in places where the Sabbat's ashes have not yet been scattered bring news of these enemies to the Movement as a whole.
The Camarilla
The Anarchs' former bedfellows are their greatest competitors, and are still the most powerful Sect of Kindred on the planet. In these nights, the Camarilla holds firm on the Atlantic Coast of North America and the greater Midwest in the United States. Whatever ground they lost in the States, however, they've gained elsewhere from a combination of conquests in Mexico and defections in Canada and Europe. With hegemony over the old world and a dominant position in North America, one would think the Camarilla is poised to win the Jyhad. But the fall of the Masquerade has complicated the Camarilla's position and drained its resources. Additionally, the defection of the large majority of Brujah and Gangrel Kindred despite their Clan leaders remaining in the Tower has taken some of their best soldiers. And so, the Camarilla is down right now. But the Tower is far from out, and with the world entering a new normal it may soon be on the offensive once again.
The Sabbat
The Sabbat is dead. The Sabbat's institutions are gone, its ritae are powerless, and its leaders have vanished. But there are certainly Vampires who believed and still believe in the Sabbat and its mission. While most of the former Sabbat defected to the Camarilla or the Anarch Movement, many chose instead to go into hiding. The alien Tzimisce were the most likely to go into self-imposed exile, with a small minority of Lasombra and a smattering of antitribu following them. These vagrant Sabbat - called Post-Sabbat broadly - have been known to gather into groups resembling terrorist cells, militia, and cults and launch attacks against mortals and Kindred alike. As the Masquerade has weakened these attacks have become increasingly open and flagrant. These sects have no leaders, do not often cooperate, and even their most barbarous acts have been isolated. But the massacres and atrocities they commit are a ghastly reminder of their origins. The Sabbat is dead, but the Kindred know that the dead can return.
The Big Question
While skirmishes continue in cities controlled by both the Camarilla and the Anarch Movement, the borders of the Free States and the Camarilla have remained stable for decades. But as the 2000's come to a close, there are signs that the Camarilla is regaining its footing and preparing to take more serious action against the Anarch Movement. This raises what Anarchs call the Big Question - the question of what comes next for the Movement. Few, if any, Anarchs believe that the Movement should ever rejoin the Camarilla and return to its former form. The centuries where the Anarchs existed as an extension of the tower are looked back upon as a mistake or painful necessity at best, and a Camarilla plot worked from the inside at worst. But even with that option off of the table, there are many questions that occupy the political discussions of the Movement...
A foreward...
While we won't go too much into the history of the Anarch Movement beyond that which is discussed in Vampire: The Masquerade, 5th Edition, it's worth understanding the backdrop of the Movement heading into 2020 and then into 2070. What follows are a few bullet points and vignettes on the state of the Movement in the modern era and the factors that led to the Third Anarch Revolt.
- As there are no Kuei-Jin or separate Eastern Kindred, there was never an invasion of the Anarch Free State from Asia. Nonetheless, the California Free State did lose ground in the late 80's and early 90's. By 1999 the Free State was confined to he Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, as the Sabbat had seized San Diego and the Camarilla the Central Valley. Los Angeles remained a stable Anarch holding, but the larger expanse of the Free State had been effectively curtailed.
- Outside of the California Free State, Anarchs existed in a model that was standard for them after the Convention of Thorns. Anarchs were nominally part of the Camarilla, and Camarilla Princes granted Anarchs a plot of Domain in the city in which they could do as they pleased, so long as it did not endanger the Masquerade or impact the Domain's affairs. These Anarch Grants were usually overseen by a Baron, who was responsible for maintaining order. Scuffles between the Camarilla and Anarchs around the limits and rights of these Grants were somewhat frequent.
- During the 1990's, the Sabbat's success in seizing the United States East Coast and making incursions into the United States from Canada and Mexico pressured the Camarilla, but opened opportunities for the Anarchs. The Anarchs were generally more willing and able to combat Sabbat on the ground than the Kindred of the Camarilla. Many Barons cracked deals with Princes for expanded territory and rights in exchange for taking the front line against the Sabbat.
- After the Sabbat receded in the 2000's, the Camarilla launched offensives into Sabbat territory around 2010. Anarchs in many cases led these offenses, promised increased territory, more rights, and even entire captured cities in exchange for their service to the Camarilla. Anarchs were instrumental in victories in Vancouver, Detroit, New Orleans, and long-held Sabbat cities in Florida.
- During the offensive of the 2010's, the Second Inquisition fell upon Vampires of all kinds. Anarchs were not spared, and their relative youth and inexperience were turned on them. While the Hunters were able to inflict large-scale casualties on the Anarchs, the Sect's diffuse nature and horizontal leadership prevented it from suffering the same institutional failures as the Sabbat, Clan Tremere, and Clan Nosferatu. The Anarchs quickly adapted to this new reality and continued to fight the Sabbat.
The roots of the Third Anarch Revolt are planted firmly in the last great offensive of the war between the Camarilla and the Sabbat in North America. With the capture of Mexico City by a daring band of Camarilla neonates and the end of Sabbat threats in former bastions such as New Orleans, Atlanta, and Tijuana, the Sword of Caine had been relegated to its holdings in Quebec, Toronto, and Miami on the continent with stragglers in Havana and the Caribbean. With the Sabbat firmly under control, the Camarilla's Inner Council called the Convention of Prague to be held in January of 2020. The goal of the Convention was to decide the new order of the night post-Sabbat and to assess the challenges posed by the Second Inquisition and its decimation of Clans Nosferatu and Tremere. The Anarchs who had bled to end the cultish Sabbat expected to be disappointed by the Convention, but the outcome shocked even the most jaded and skeptical in the Movement. At Prague, the Camarilla welcomed the defection of Sabbat Montreal and Toronto, placing its Archbishops as Princes, and welcomed the Old World Lasombra and Tzimisce into the fold with the promise of representation on the Justicariate at a later date. The Convention of Prague declared that the Second Inquisition was enabled by violations of the Traditions, and in commanding Princes to enforce the Traditions at all times and in all places the Convention had declared the Anarch Movement anathema. For their sacrifices, the Anarchs were to be exterminated now that the Camarilla could focus on stamping them out.
For several months after the Convention was closed, things remained tense. The Anarchs almost universally believed that they could not hope to face a united Camarilla, even without the Warlocks at their disposal as they once were. Some advocated a mass movement to the California Free State to hold what little they could. Others held out hopes that negotiations with the Brujah and Gangrel Justicars, rumored to have been against the proclamation, would soften the blow. But the tension between the Anarchs and the Camarilla seeking to end their Movement simmered...
The Fall of New York
New York City had long been contested between the Camarilla and Sabbat. America's largest city was simply too large, too populous, and too deep in complexities and intrigues for either side to ever truly stamp the other out. And while the Camarilla had taken the city back from the Sabbat in 2001, they did so with the aid of a sizable community of Anarchs. Now those Anarchs and the Camarilla were beginning to clash as the Camarilla sought to enforce the will of the Justicars at Prague. While this same story played out across North America, the nocturnal realities of New York - and an unforeseeable disaster - brought simmering tensions to a boil in the Big Apple.
As had always been the case when one Sect seized New York for itself, the Sabbat of New York had never truly gone. Faced with overwhelming odds, many of the chosen of Caine went to ground and hid within the city's teeming mass of humanity. While many were hunted down in the end, the most cunning and capable of the Vampires were able to wait until the Camarilla was satisfied in its victory. Once it was, they began crossing the line into Anarch territory. The Anarchs never tracked membership the way the Camarilla had, and it was not uncommon for unfamiliar Vampires to turn up claiming to be Anarchs. These Vampires had always been welcomed, and the former Sabbat were no exception. As Anarchs, these undead agitated the tense political situation further and spurred violence against the Camarilla. While none knew it at the time, the Sabbat interlopers had bolstered the numbers and the resolve of the New York Anarchs to fight. And even without them, the fledgling Prince Maximilian Rockwell of New York had already underestimated the numbers of the Anarch Movement in his Domain. And as violence began to break out between the two sides, the power went out.
The Indian Point Meltdown cast New York into darkness, causing panic among the humans that was met with an overwhelming response. Without their usual mortal pawns to call on, the Camarilla panicked in turn. History has forgotten if it was a draconian decree by Prince Rockwell, an Anarch beating by his Sheriff Jubal Creed, or a senseless murder by the notorious Gangrel Scourge known only as Mange that provoked the uprising. But the long-simmering powder keg of the Domain of New York went off with explosive force. The Anarchs revolted. With intelligence possessed by the former Sabbat, contacts among the Anarchs with sympathizers in the Camarilla, and the cover of street violence in New York, the Movement slaughtered the Elders of New York and sent whatever Camarilla weren't killed or defected fleeing the city. Survivors described Anarchs going haven-to-haven, casually murdering thralls and nailing Elders to their roofs to meet the sun. While their ghastly tales appalled the Camarilla, they brought the Movement something very different. A rare thing among the damned. Hope.
War Across the Continent
The consequences of the Indian Point Blackout and subsequent riots among mortals and the Fall of New York traveled close together, like the shockwaves of an earthquake...or maybe a bomb. Most cities had the same ingredients as New York in small numbers - Sabbat survivors, Anarch sympathizers, and foolish Court officials. But the backlash to the NYPD's tactics during the blackout added the final element of human chaos needed to tax Camarilla resources and give the Anarchs an opening. While the Anarchs never organized riots, occupations, and insurrections, they often contributed to pushing peaceful efforts over the edge into violence. Long-term Sabbat cities in the United States - those where Anarchs had led offensives and Camarilla presence was still tenuous - were the first to fall. New Orleans, Detroit, and Vancouver were early victories for the Movement. But soon much safer territory began to buckle under the weight of chaos. The long-contained California Free State broke out, burning the Prince of San Diego at the stake at Elysium and seizing Tijuana before their Camarilla even learned of San Diego's fall. Long-suffering Camarilla neonates in San Fransciso shocked the Anarchs and Camarilla both by forcing the famed and brutal Prince Vannevar Thomas to flee the city and welcoming a wave of Anarchs to take it for themselves. Now trapped between Anarch bastions in Vancouver and San Francisco, Portland and Seattle were liberated in the 2020's, and by 2040 the Anarchs had seized Las Vegas and Phoenix from the Tower's grasp. Elsewhere, the successful revolt in New Orleans inspired copycat rebellions across the coastal south. While Camarilla Atlanta held firm against the Anarchs, Miami - still held by its Sabbat Archbishop - defected to the Movement and brought with it the Sword's Caribbean holdings. Backing from the powerful Vampires of Miami tipped the balance in Florida, handing it over to the Anarch Movement. And in the cradle of the Revolt, the Anarchs of New York began to export their revolution. With New York's massive resources, the Anarchs washed over Providence and as far west as Indianapolis. The Camarilla proved ineffective in retaking lost territory, its attention split between evading Hunters, coping with the gradual fall of the Masquerade, and protecting their herds from the chaos that defined the early and mid-21st century. In the midst of disorder among humans, the Anarchs were able to come back from the brink and challenge the Camarilla that had sought to destroy them.
One Movement, Three States
By the 2040's, the battle lines between the Camarilla and the newly independent Anarch Movement had been forged. While all Anarchs claim membership in the Movement and are nominally on friendly terms, they have organized into three "Free States". These Free States are differentiated by geography and culture both. While all Anarchs are Anarchs, the principles of their Movement have shown through in different ways in each.
The Pacific Free State
Now celebrating 130 years of independence from the Camarilla in some form or another, the former California and now Pacific Free State is the most traditional of the three Free States. Its cities are almost all true to what Anarchs consider to be a "pure" form of government - Gangs and Cells holding down different parts of cities, doing as they please in their territories and coordinating for mutual defense from Hunters and the Camarilla. While the Pacific Free State has no explicit leader, its most celebrated champions are the legendary Brujah Vampires Jeremy MacNeil and Salvador Garcia. MacNeil is the most respected Vampire in Los Angeles, wielding enormous influence earned from over a century of fighting in the trenches with his fellow Anarchs. Garcia, meanwhile, has become the Movement's most prominent philosopher and thought leader. Neither has sought power, instead letting the Pacific Free State claim itself as the birthplace of the modern Movement and its purest expression.
The Empire Free State
The Empire Free State runs from Providence to Detroit and Indianapolis, in cities as far north as Buffalo and south as Lexington. But its center of gravity in power, prestige, and its own mythology is the crown jewel of North America - New York City. Made up mostly of Movement Anarchs and Camarilla defectors with a small portion of former Sabbat, the Empire Free State is still young and beset on all sides. Perhaps this is why it's the most organized Free State, with an Assembly made up of representatives from each of its cities that make decisions in New York. This nascent Kindred democracy has limited larger-than-life figures from gaining prominence, instead making the Assembly and the Free State itself primary. Its Kindred consider themselves the most modern, progressive, and accomplished of the Movement, and continue to press the Camarilla on all sides into these nights.
The Caribbean Free State
The Caribbean Free State is perhaps the Anarchs' most diverse, eclectic holdings. Running from New Orleans into Florida and then the islands of its namesake sea, the Caribbean Free State hosts the Movement's largest contingent of former Sabbat. While most of these Vampires now proudly identify as Anarchs, their faith, traditions, and history have become woven into the Caribbean Free State and a part of unlife along the southern seas. Its northern cities are its most conventionally Anarch, with large minorities of former Sabbat still integrated into its patchwork. In the islands of the Caribbean, Havana's Central Committee is the only link between the Movement and the reclusive Kindred who stalk the West Indies' nights. Miami is a force unto its self, its former Archbishop Mateo Dominguez still presiding over what he has billed a New Carthage - a popular pilgrimage for Anarchs seeking spiritual release or to cavort as they please in a city the now-Suffet Dominguez claims to rule from the shadows.
Enemies Without
While the last fifty years have had the greatest impact on the Anarch Revolt for which Kindred will remember them, the Camarilla and what remains of the Sabbat have changed with them. Many Anarchs may never encounter these other Kindred deep within the Free States personally. But those Anarchs fighting in Camarilla cities and unliving in places where the Sabbat's ashes have not yet been scattered bring news of these enemies to the Movement as a whole.
The Camarilla
The Anarchs' former bedfellows are their greatest competitors, and are still the most powerful Sect of Kindred on the planet. In these nights, the Camarilla holds firm on the Atlantic Coast of North America and the greater Midwest in the United States. Whatever ground they lost in the States, however, they've gained elsewhere from a combination of conquests in Mexico and defections in Canada and Europe. With hegemony over the old world and a dominant position in North America, one would think the Camarilla is poised to win the Jyhad. But the fall of the Masquerade has complicated the Camarilla's position and drained its resources. Additionally, the defection of the large majority of Brujah and Gangrel Kindred despite their Clan leaders remaining in the Tower has taken some of their best soldiers. And so, the Camarilla is down right now. But the Tower is far from out, and with the world entering a new normal it may soon be on the offensive once again.
The Sabbat
The Sabbat is dead. The Sabbat's institutions are gone, its ritae are powerless, and its leaders have vanished. But there are certainly Vampires who believed and still believe in the Sabbat and its mission. While most of the former Sabbat defected to the Camarilla or the Anarch Movement, many chose instead to go into hiding. The alien Tzimisce were the most likely to go into self-imposed exile, with a small minority of Lasombra and a smattering of antitribu following them. These vagrant Sabbat - called Post-Sabbat broadly - have been known to gather into groups resembling terrorist cells, militia, and cults and launch attacks against mortals and Kindred alike. As the Masquerade has weakened these attacks have become increasingly open and flagrant. These sects have no leaders, do not often cooperate, and even their most barbarous acts have been isolated. But the massacres and atrocities they commit are a ghastly reminder of their origins. The Sabbat is dead, but the Kindred know that the dead can return.
The Big Question
While skirmishes continue in cities controlled by both the Camarilla and the Anarch Movement, the borders of the Free States and the Camarilla have remained stable for decades. But as the 2000's come to a close, there are signs that the Camarilla is regaining its footing and preparing to take more serious action against the Anarch Movement. This raises what Anarchs call the Big Question - the question of what comes next for the Movement. Few, if any, Anarchs believe that the Movement should ever rejoin the Camarilla and return to its former form. The centuries where the Anarchs existed as an extension of the tower are looked back upon as a mistake or painful necessity at best, and a Camarilla plot worked from the inside at worst. But even with that option off of the table, there are many questions that occupy the political discussions of the Movement...
- Should the Anarch Movement seek to continue expanding? To defeat the Camarilla in North America, or even further? Or should the Anarchs simply protect what they have?
- If the Movement doesn't want to conquer every city, is there room to negotiate with the Camarilla? Even if a deal was reached, could the Camarilla ever be trusted?
- Can the Free States, particularly the Caribbean and Pacific Free States, survive without some kind of organization? Can the Empire Free State remain free with it?
- It's generally, but not universally, agreed that the three Free States need to work together more than they currently do. How could that work without one Free State imposing itself on the others?
Alex - Your Friendly Neighborhood Storyteller