River-Walled Cincinnati [The Day After Ragnarok].

River-Walled Cincinnati – Google Docs

River-Walled Cincinnati

[The Day After Ragnarok]

 

City: Cincinnati, Ohio

Population: 90,000/510,000

Controls: SW Ohio, a small portion of NW Kentucky

Government: Machine

Problem: Hostile City (Dayton)

Heroic Opportunity: Mercenary Work

City Aspect: Ambitious and militaristic.  

Thanks to flood controls installed during the Great Depression, Cincinnati weathered the Serpentfall (and the subsequent violent flooding of the Ohio) in surprisingly good shape. The city expanded rapidly to take over adjacent counties, using forces from Fort Thomas Kentucky (just across the Ohio River).  Cincinnati’s old nine-member city council (now known as the City Fathers) is no longer really democratically elected; various important factions in the Mayorality send their own representative (the former US military forces in Cincinnati have three).  The City Fathers still remain legitimately popular, mostly because they haven’t made any major mistakes yet. The ‘Mayor’ of Cincinnati is a ceremonial position that is only filled when the Mayorality has its American Legions out on campaign.

 

The City Fathers of Cincinnati think of their city as the last vestige of the United States in the Poisoned Lands, and it is their ambition to bring Ohio back into the Union.  By any means necessary. Naturally, Cincinnati pays well for reliable mercenaries — they have no interest in ones that are too ambitious. Currently Cincinnati is planning for another set of ‘border adjustments’ with Dayton.  Assuming that they can keep Dayton’s planes out of the air this time again.

 

Cincinnati also pays well for technical experts for their Voice of the Union project.  This powerful shortwave station was built in 1944 in Butler County, Ohio (which Cincinnati made a point of taking over in 1946); while it is not running at full capacity, its WHIO broadcast can be heard all over the Poisoned Lands. Programming is a mix of pro-American and pro-Cincinnati propaganda, whatever pre-Serpentfall music the station can get their hands on, and a popular serial radio show called “Two-Fisted Tales.”  This last is a thinly-fictionalized recounting of various adventurers’ tales in the Drowned Coasts and Poisoned Lands, and is wildly popular even in places where VotU is formally banned.

 

Finally: it is merely Chicagoan propaganda that the City Fathers of Cincinnati only appear in public wearing togas and laurel wreaths.  It is not propaganda that Cincinnati’s schools and newspapers seem prone to promote the virtues of Republican Rome almost as much as they do the virtues of the United States. This is not as apparent in WHIO’s broadcasts, but it’s there if you know where to look.

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