Shadows of Eville

The World of Darkness.

What is it?

Or, a better question, what is it to us? In all likelihood you’ve already picked up the core World of Darkness book or there’d be little reason for you to have interest. So you already have at least some idea of the intention behind the World of Darkness. Hell, the name itself immediately sets the framework. But different people have different perspectives, different interpretations. What the World of Darkness is to you may be quite different from what it is to us and I know full well that what it is to us has changed over the years, as we have come to better understand the “reality” of the place.

So we start with the basic assumption, drawn from the name… it is much like the world we walk through every day of our lives, just darker. But what does that mean? Darker? To some people it means a total wash of bleak and forboding evil. But that doesn’t do it for us. Instead, we focus more on the shadows. Everything casts a shadow. And in that observation you come to realize that there is a little bit of darkness that lurks behind everyone and everything.

THAT is our World of Darkness.

It isn’t a place where everything sucks and nothing happy ever occurs but a place were even the good things are touched by something dark.

Evansville, Indiana

So what is Evansville like in the World of Darkness?

Apart from the ever-present shadows, as mentioned above, Evansville is a much different place in our World of Darkness. For starters, it is bigger. In the real world, the City of Evansville counts just under 120,000 people, the current mark of a slim but steady population decline that started in the 1960s. For our World of Darkness, this trickle of loss never occurred and, instead, a firm pace of expansion was established. Evansville, for our purposes, is about twice its real world size and population. But, as we said, there is a shadow behind everything and more people means more shadows. More business, opportunity, and sophistication come alongside more corruption, crime, and abuse.

Likewise, the Evansville Metropolitan Area must accommodate our changes in its World of Darkness persona. Some neighboring communities, like Darmstadt or Newburgh, are prime avenues for Evansville’s growth and will have their populations absorbed. Others, such as Booneville or Fort Branch, may not have been so lucky and may have seen their populations stripped away. Still others, like Mt Vernon or Henderson, remain distinct enough to retain their individual identities while still benefiting from the greater prosperity in their own ways.

That all being the general case, why do we care?

As players, nearly all of us have a connection to Evansville. We live here or once did. We have family here and visit with some regularity. That familiarity breeds the interest in developing what our fictional city is like. We want to see how the people and places have changed when their shadows harbor a little more darkness.

For our characters there are more variables and so things can be more complicated. There are a lot of possible reasons why an individual’s story may find them in Eville at this time. Until recently the area had a reputation for being unremarkable and, as a consequence, was also known for a relatively relaxed atmosphere. Lacking many of the burdens that came with supernatural societies in greater regions, it drew those fleeing such troubles while maintaining enough desirable qualities to provide them reason to stay. It became a place to go when you didn’t want to be bothered. A haven for the nomads, pariahs, fugitives, and hermits of all walks and makes. Overlooked such as it was, few understood just how rich the area is in untapped resources. By ancient design or peculiar coincidence, Eville and its surroundings are thick with wellsprings, flows, and sites important to supernaturals of all types.

In the last decade, though, this has changed. Change sparked fires and Eville has burned in the ensuing chaos. Now the Vampires are destabilized, many Courts all vying for the necessary superiority to claim the Domain as their own. Long-standing Werewolf Packs have become fractured or decimated, leaving key territories unguarded and untended. Scattered Cabals, unfriendly and distrusting, are incapable of forming a Consilium to manage the encroachment of the Abyss. Changelings huddle in their Holds, besieged by Loyalists and fearful of stalking Fae. The Bound and their Geist companions navigate the death that all of this has wrought, the Twilight Network wary and overwhelmed. And Hunters, outnumbered and outgunned, find their dedication both tested and rewarded by such a excited, target-rich environment.

Those are the broad strokes.

The fine details are left up to us.