Vital Statistics
Population: 7,129,855
Demographics:
- 45% African-American
- 32% White
- 15% Hispanic
- 7% Asian/Pacific Islander
- 1% Other
- AvastHigh (Construction)
- MaxTech Solutions (Security)
- Redoubt (Bureaucracy)
- Pharisee Robotics (Engineering)
- Becker & Sons (Bureaucracy)
- Calloway & Company (Bureaucracy)
- Lifelike (Engineering)
- Marquis-Clark Recreation (Entertainment)
- OpportunityLink (Staffing)
- Horizons Unlimited (Telecommunications)
- Firebird Group (Private Security)
- Levinson Gordon (Finance)
- Obsidian Inc. (Public Security)
- Republic Energy (Utilities)
- Bountiful (Retail)
- TransLouisiana (Transit)
- Cabaret Productions (Entertainment)
- Southeast Shipping (Shipping & Delivery)
- Arcology (Agriculture)
- Welcome! Group (Hospitality)
Type: Mayor-Council
Mayor: Shirley Guillory (D)
City Council: 12 Members
- 10 Districts, 2 At-Large
- 8 Democrats, 4 Republicans
- District 1 (French Quarter - Southeast) - Jackson Bailey (D)
- District 2 (French Quarter - Southwest) - Don Hutchinson (D)
- District 3 (French Quarter - Northeast) - Bravo Vidal (D)
- District 4 (French Quarter - Northwest) - Aurelia Bouchard (R)
- District 5 (Business District - East) - Jamison Rapaport (R)
- District 6 (Business District - Central) - Pratik Mehta (D)
- District 7 (Business District - West) - Braden LaRoux (R)
- District 8 (Eastside - North) - Jong Lee (D)
- District 9 (Eastside - Central) - Kaitlin Denvers (D)
- District 10 (Eastside - South) - Sofia Gutierrez (R)
- District 11 (At-Large) - Alton Gerard (D)
- District 12 (At-Large) - Titus Paquet (D)
New Orleans in 2070 is split into five "districts" - not official districts or neighborhoods, but parts of the city with similar characteristics. This listing is not comprehensive, and is meant to give a feel for each district and the city to facilitate gameplay - not to be an authoritative accounting of all the city has to offer. Nobody knows everything that lurks in New Orleans, and those who go looking may find more than they bargained for.
The French Quarter
The French Quarter refers to both the French Quarter itself and the surrounding city as far as the former borders of Metairie and the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal to the southern coast of Lake Pontchartrain. The Greater French Quarter is considered New Orleans' upscale district, and its traditional architecture and quaint, colonial visage stand in stark contrast to the modern city surrounding it. In a world where land above the sea level or behind the dikes is at a premium, a clear view of the night sky and a quiet street with cozy parlors and shops are a luxury most mortals can't even imagine. This district contains New Orleans' city government buildings, and most of its universities, museums, theaters, and other cultural centers - to say nothing of the historic French Quarter itself. The greater French Quarter houses only the most lavishly wealthy New Orleans residents, and aggressive private and public security forces are known to waylay anyone who looks "out of place" to protect the comfort and convenience of the elite who reside there and the professionals who seek leisure in its relative tranquility.
The Business District
The New Orleans Business District extends through the entirety of the former unincorporated town of Metairie, going south to the Mississippi River and as far west as Louis Armstrong International Airport. The NOBD is where the city's distinctive, obsidian skyline was built - what you would consider "Downtown". Many of the city's most prominent corporations host their offices and employee accommodations here, making use of the BD's extensive network of above-ground public transportation to shuttle workers from their apartments to their offices every day. Independent apartment buildings contribute to the densely packed urban sprawl, giving shelter to professionals who work at Corporate HQ or in the French Quarter rather than some dismal office. For nights and the weekends, the Business District boasts a bustling, if somewhat sterile, nightlife and myriad options for dining and entertainment. Security presence is comparatively light here, but response times are lightning fast. The Business District is the economic heart of New Orleans, and its rulers will not let any disorder threaten it.
Eastside
On the other side of the French Quarter from the Business District, Eastside covers what was once Seabrook and the Lower Ninth Ward - notoriously paved over in the city's redevelopment. Now safe from flooding behind rebuilt levees and dikes, Seabrook has become the center of manufacturing in New Orleans. While not traditionally thought of as an industrial city, New Orleans has a healthy manufacturing sector that mostly creates industrial-grade technological products. Pharisee Robotics and AvastHigh both operate in-house manufacturing facilities in the Eastside, as well as other corporations operating across the Southeast United States. These make up most of the factories on the Eastside, with some others being operated by subcontractors providing smaller-scale manufacturing of proprietary technologies to New Orleans' other corporate giants. The workers who toil in these factories live in company housing complexes in the Ninth Ward, where amenities and entertainment are minimal. Most of these workers put in seven-day weeks and eat three meals a day at the factory, leaving little room for food or entertainment in the area. A few dive bars and small-scale gambling establishments provide most of what the locals call "fun". Public security is non-existent on the Eastside, making way for company security forces to oversee the workers and crack down on anything that could impact productivity.
Southside
Southside is the polite term for the vast, sprawling slums south of the Mississippi River. Extending as far as the local wetlands, Southside's streets are veritable maze, walled in on either side with rows upon rows of micro-houses, tenements, and the occasional company outpost or gas station. Southside houses New Orleans' underclass, the destitute and occasionally employed barely scraping by. Much of Southside is below sea level and remains prone to flooding despite improvements made to the New Orleans levee system. The majority of the population is not reliably, legally employed, either getting irregular jobs doing strenuous day labor of making a living on the black market. The latter comprises a majority of economic activity in the Southside, and despite the lack of capital has fostered a vibrant trade of grey-market products and non-permitted businesses. Public security is slow to answer calls in Southside, and are known to turn a blind eye to the illegal trades and criminal activity there. Civil disturbance and any behavior that could lead to rioting is met with force, often extending to unofficial reprisals against the locals to discourage future misbehavior.
The Wetlands
Beyond the boundaries of New Orleans in all directions are the southern Louisiana wetlands occupying decommissioned National and State Parks and various unincorporated land. Once practically pristine, the lifting of environmental protections has opened these regions up to squatting. The most destitute of New Orleans often trickle out of the city, starting up small colonies of shanties in the swamps to eke out some kind of shelter. These bidonvilles are often hand-made, and flood over in even moderate rains. The residents are also easy pray for traffickers and criminals, for local wildlife, and for other things that stalk the living from the depths of the swamp. The authorities rarely pay these settlements any mind, only sending security forces to wreak havoc if they become havens for radicals or particularly dangerous criminals. The worst-off in New Orleans are left to their own devices - it's usually easier for the powerful to let the swamps claim them than to do anything themselves.
Groups and Organizations
Cities and the mortals that live in them are more than their geography. And like any city, New Orleans is rife with groups and organizations of interest to both the living and the damned. What follows are some of the city's most prominent groups of interest to the Anarchs of New Orleans, and what the Kindred know of their agendas. Some are friends, some are enemies, and some have agendas that may fall on either side of the Movement. But all are felt in the nights of New Orleans in some way or another.
The Council for Public Safety
Formed in the 2060's, the Council for Public Safety is one of the newer forces in New Orleans politics. While there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans these nights, there are still powerful groups that influence officeholders through favors, donations, bribes, and other means. The Council for Public Safety was founded, in its own words, as a response to the growing danger posed to New Orleans by the depraved and hedonistic left unchecked. While nobody would dare utter the truth, it is well understood that the CPS is a reaction against the growing acceptance of Vampires. It is one of many public interest groups growing across the country. These groups are currently fragmented, but generally support moralist agendas and measures around surveillance and "public decency" that would make it harder for Vampires to exist. The CPS has yet to have succeeded in its goals, but its influence seems to be steadily growing.
Horizons Unlimited
Horizons Unlimited is the largest local telecommunications provider in New Orleans, a corporate offshoot of the massive companies that that own America's fiber and satellites. Horizons is the result of a turf-splitting agreement between these titans, a localized entity that essentially holds a monopoly on the city's telecommunications and prevents competition against its own providers. Like its brethren, Horizons has often been accused of complicity with government surveillance and espionage programs - and has faced similar claims that it has used those same capabilities against potential competitors and even personal rivals of its higher-ranking members. Horizons obviously denies such claims, but the prospect of their dirty laundry being aired has made the government more unwilling to tackle Horizons than most companies. The corporation is more than a money-making entity. It could be a powerful tool for the personal agendas of those on the inside.
Obsidian Incorporated
Obsidian Incorporated was one of the city's first conglomerates, formed by a group of private security companies that merged under the auspices of Perimeter LC and the venture capitalists who bought it. Obsidian Incorporated is a public security firm that specializes in police work, and has been the default contractor for the city's police force since it was privatized in the 2040's. Obsidian has maintained this position despite being one of the less exploitative of the city's megacorporations, repeatedly earning comparatively high marks from what few, feeble watchdog groups scream into the void for accountability. These policies are enabled by its reclusive owner Benjamin Kind - its majority shareholder and final decision-maker. That said, Obsidian police are still the first line of repression for the disgruntled and the poor in New Orleans, and their troopers are often just as corrupt and brutal as one could expect when their managers' backs are turned. Like any conglomerate, Obsidian looks out for itself in the end.
The Circle of Truthseekers
The Circle of Truthseekers - known colloquially as The Circle - began in the 2020's as a small club of spiritualists who followed the traiteur Catherine Chevalier and her teachings on voudoun, magic, and philosophy. For most of its early days, the Circle was small and close-knit, and overwhelmingly made up of middle-and-upper class women. But in the early 2040's, Catherine Chevalier welcomed her Right Hand Michelle DuBois to the Circle. Under Michelle's influence, the Circle grew as a sorority of sorts and began to reach out into print and online media, publishing books, newsletters, pamphlets, and other guides to its philosophies. These nights, only the inner circle know of Catherine, her history with the group, and her nature as a Vampire. To most, Catherine is a legendary figure considered to be either elderly, dead, or perhaps to have never existed - though true believers have their own theories. And in these nights of the shattered Masquerade, those concepts elicit fear in as many as they excite.
The Desrosiers Society
Founded in the 20490's by African-American entrepreneur Lucien Caine, the Bonaparte Desrosiers Society for Free Black history began with the unearthed writings of the Civil War-era Black landowner that it was named for. In a time that the rich were becoming richer, affluent New Orleans cultural figures flocked to the society for its differing take on the history of Black Americans in the time of slavery. While more socially progressive groups have panned the Desrosiers Society as minimizing the human cost of slavery and deplatforming slave perspectives in favor of a sanitized view of Black life in the Antebellum South, the Society has become a favorite with the city's elite. Its strict policy against the use of digital technology during its events have also made it popular with politicians and others looking to have private conversations with their audiences. Not even those under his thrall, though, know that Bonaparte Desrosiers himself is pulling their strings from beyond his grave.
The Big Cats
In the eternally fluid gang wars of the Southside slums of New Orleans, a gang has to have real power to last more than a few years. And the Big Cats are one such Gang. Based in the former Bridge City, the Big Cats began their existence as the New Orleans Blades in the early days of the 2050's. The Blades were known for their trade in vice and their ruthlessness, running extortion rackets and flooding the streets with drugs in the aftermath of Hurricane Cassidy. But in the early 2060's, the second in command of the Blades - Leon Breaux - killed his boss and took power for himself. Renaming his gang the Big Cats in honor of himself, Leon has proven to be every bit as vicious as his predecessor and perhaps even more cunning. The Big Cats still run the southwest slums of the city, based out of the Lion's Den club. From there, Leon plies the poor with narcotics to fund his gang's increasingly obtuse interest in the occult, the arcane, and the paranormal.
The Caimans
Gangs in Southside form for a variety of reasons. The Carimans are one of the New Orleans' slums' ethnic gangs, made up primarily of youth from the Latino communities in its central portions. The Caimans are one of the older gangs in Southside, formed in the late 2040's as an unnamed self-defense militia that protected the slum's Mexican-American community. That protection force eventually took on a life of its own, beginning operations in counterfeiting and courier work and arming itself for battle on the dark streets of Southside. The Caimans are neutral in the struggles between the Big Cats and the Dark Carnival, and their leader Octavio Guzman is seen as a hero in his own neighborhood. He may well have ambitions beyond it.
The Guardians
In the rapidly-shifting morass of gangs that lord over the neighborhoods and ghettos of Southside, the Guardians are one of its few constants. This unconventional street gang came to be in the 2050's, with Bailey Spencer taking charge of some retired soldiers and others who wanted to improve their communities. After peaceful means were met with violent resistance, Bailey led those veterans and do-gooders to war. The Guardians don't have clean hands in the nights of 2070's - they peddle drugs, contraband, and raid their rival gangs just like any other. But the Guardians have kept their impact on the community low, have avoided collateral damage, and have gained the respect of the people - and the ire of other gangs - as they fight for safer nights.
The Dark Carnival
In the former New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers, one gang has risen to prominence over the others in the regions. The Dark Carnival is one of the city's odder gangs - the outgrowth of a mishmash of rejects and outcasts it traces its roots to. Algiers gained a reputation as a hotbed of supernatural activity in the 2030's, luring in an eclectic collection of mortals. Mortals who believed in and even worshiped Vampires, Juggalo fans of the Insane Clown Posse from Tampa who reveled in its lawlessness and strangeness, and others came together in the growing slum to stake their claims. The Juggalos would end up giving the gang its enduring name, while other enthusiasts influenced its voodoo aesthetic. The Dark Carnival does most of its trade in illicit technology, cutting-edge but often untested and dangerous. Its where Andrew Romanov and Alexis Delacroix keep most of their assets, and while not directly controlled by the Anarchs is likely the most sympathetic to them.
The Black Hand
The Black Hand of New Orleans is one of hundreds of small, radical groups that grew out of the Antifa movement of the late 2010's and the general political disenfranchisement that has defined the mid-21st century. Made up of a small group of young, angry mortals with various talents, the Black Hand calls itself a resistance group and is labeled as a domestic terrorist cell. Its members rarely meet in person, keeping coordination offline and off the radar. But they have proven themselves capable of corporate espionage, industrial sabotage, kidnappings, and large-scale destruction of property. The Black Hand owes its radical definition to Corinne Brown, its unnamed leader, who has turned her mortal charges against oppressors living and undead.