Roanoke, Valley of the Missing
City: Roanoke Valley, VA
Population: Ruin (Ghouls)
Controls: Nothing
Government: None
Problem: Monsters
Heroic Opportunity: Trade Goods
City Aspect: Abandoned and Grim
The Roanoke Valley should have been one of the most important Mayoralities in the post-Serpentfall world: it’s surrounded by barrier mountains, convenient to coal and water, had a robust railroad infrastructure, and had plenty of manufacturing capacity. During the bad days of 1945, the city of Roanoke reported via radio that it was keeping the valley under harsh martial law and ‘quarantining’ what refugees survived the drowning of coastal Virginia. Most Mayoralities in the Poisoned Lands started out the same way; Roanoke seemed hardly unusual.
But in November of 1945 the entire valley fell silent: every working radio just stopped operating over the course of a weekend, with no explanation or indication why. Some of the settlements in West Virginia sent down a scouting party the following ‘spring’ to find out what happened, and when it didn’t come back the West Virginians decided that the answer was ‘monsters’ and didn’t investigate further.
It wasn’t until recently that a plane from the AAF forward base in Princeton, West Virginia could be spared for a flyover of the valley, and what the pilot reported was interesting. The valley was deserted, but also surprisingly orderly. Most of the buildings looked in good shape, there had been surprisingly few fires, and much of the city of Roanoke appeared to be oddly untouched. Oh, and no mass graves (everybody in the Poisoned Lands knows what one of those looks like by now).
The pilot also reported monsters: ghouls, for certain, and twisted plants like swamp-devils and devil-flowers. Some of the pictures brought back from the photographer in back suggest that even more monstrous creatures might be lurking in the haunted valley of Roanoke — but there’s a lot of potential wealth in an unlooted industrial city. Some of the settlements in West Virginia are now agitating for another scouting mission. One that was preferably better-armed, and definitely made up of outsiders whose demise wouldn’t harm the status quo any. On the bright side, the pay’s good, if a little theoretical; anybody who goes and comes back will get a generous percentage of the loot recovered.
Of course, they’d have to actually come back.