Broken Citadel Game
Stirring Graves
The Dead remember. The Dead linger on, beyond the ken of mortal consciousness. Past the Shroud dwell the Restless Dead, wraiths and ghosts of fearsome disposition and unquenchable passions. They are the spirits of the deceased, locked into this world still for personal reasons and needs that must be fulfilled.
The Restless are scattered throughout the world and its reflecting Shadowlands. Kansas City is a great necropolis, a city of the dead, in the Shadowlands. Twenty years ago, the city was taken back from the strict rule of the Stygian Hierarchy. Now it is the province of individual wraiths, Renegades, Heretics, and Guilds. Each freewraith and each organization pursues its own agendas, but strong forces among the Masquers and certain Renegade Gangs insures that at least practical observation of the Dictum Mortuus is kept. The last thing the dead need to do is replace the fear of Legionnaires with fear of ghost hunters in the Skinlands.
There are thousands of wraiths in the Kansas City necropolis and its metropolitan area. Many are faltering, dimly-emoting folks -- people who lingered as wraiths, but their passions and fetters are only barely impressive. Many of these wraiths unfortunately end up as Thralls. But there are several hundred wraiths who have a natural talent for the afterlife, who have passions and goals great enough to survive the pull of Oblivion. They are the leaders among this chaotic crowd of wraiths.
Skinlands
To date, the Restless Dead have had a mixed relationship with the Quick. Their ties to vampires has been marked by a handful of diabolic Giovanni and Sabbat necromancers who tried to enslave wraiths. Both groups of Kindred were eventually met by the raw force of angry spirits, and the vampires learned to keep their ghostly "allies" to a very small and unnoticeable handful. The Dead's relationship with mages and other supernaturals (such as Sluagh) has been a touch more friendly and even beneficial. Indeed, over a decade ago when the Malfean, ERTU, arose to threaten the necropolis, it was the assistance of the Awakened that helped defeat that beast.
Shadowlands
The Shadowlands of Kansas City can be deceivingly plain. Save where the few old structures manage to take root in the Underworld, the Shadowlands are a vast barren plain. The gray earth matches the empty sky, and they seem to be two endless planes of nothingness: a horizon of dismal and infinite gloom. It steals away hope and has been known to lure wraiths away into madness and dissolution. The necropolis is a welcome sight from that sense-tearing spiritual desert, for at least it breaks the monotony of the empty universe.
Special Events
Special events are annual (or more frequent) holidays or special ritual days that the main group or groups observe as a whole community. Attendance and participation is often expected of all members, and sometimes required.
Masquerade
Halloween is a powerful event in the Shadowlands. The Fog lessens with the Shroud. The Masquers Guild, perhaps the most prominent force in the necropolis, take this opportunity to play up their “artistic skills”, making wild, wonderful, and just plain terrifying “masks” for themselves and anyone else, with which they frighten each other and the Quick. It’s rumored that even spectres are afraid to tread the Shadowlands on Halloween, but more likely it’s an opportunity for the sneakier ones to also Moliate themselves and corrupt the revelries. Regardless, the necropolis overwhelms with a festive mood of parades and trick-or-treat spirit. Mostly “trick”.
“Our time is now! The signs of Armageddon are upon us, and so many ghosts would Slumber through it. It is our duty to pave the way for the hand of fate, for one final laugh in the face of Oblivion before the world is consumed in shadow.”
-- Sardis, Awakeners Guild Leader
