Lost Orleans
City: New Orleans, Louisiana
Population: 500
Controls: New Orleans
Government: Squatters
Problem: Unrest
Heroic Opportunity: Arcana
City Aspect: Dead.
Well, first there was the tsunami. And then the Mississippi changed its course, which ironically kept New Orleans from drowning further. And then almost everybody who survived those two disasters died of the plagues, then either reanimated or converted into ghouls.
‘Almost’ being the important point. There are two main groups of survivors: the first is a cult of magicians called the Masters of Flesh (usually lumped in with Serpent Cultists, although the Masters themselves consider that to be unfair) who have learned the rituals and spells necessary to control the local ghoul population. They’re also in the process of finishing their conversion into a cult of cannibal magicians, which they feel is likewise an admittedly awful but ultimately justifiable response to the incredibly difficult situation that the region is in right now. If it’s any consolation, they mostly just eat the ghouls. Regular humans are generally off of the menu, unless the Masters are provoked somehow.
And then there’s the other, larger group. The all-female Sisters of Xavier attribute their survival to a flat-out miracle that kept their woman’s college from being destroyed in the flood and upheavals, and they have had some success since then in keeping the swamp at bay. The Sisters are likewise converting themselves into an Amazon clan, or possibly a Marian-devoted Catholic lay order; only women have so far been able to master the miraculous powers demonstrated by the Sisters’ top adepts.
The Sisters and the Masters live in a fairly wary truce; the Masters can’t match the Sisters’ numbers, and the Sisters would lose too many fighters to the ghouls if it came to an actual war. In the meantime, the two groups largely stay out of each other’s way — as much as they can, at least. The Masters are not absolutely exclusively male, and the Sisters are not absolutely exclusively female, but it seems to work out that way. The Masters would probably welcome a female mage, but none have come forward; and the Sisters do not hate men, but neither do they find most of them all that useful.
Complicating this situation is that New Orleans, despite being a pestilent, corroded swamp of a ruin, has quite a remarkable number of arcane artifacts, ingredients, creatures, and lore accumulating within it. Someone who can, ah, stomach being taught by the Masters can pick up any of the spells listed under Arcane Background (Magic) (page 20). The Sisters are likewise able (if not always willing) to teach a suitable female candidate any of the miracles found under Arcane Background (Miracles) (page 20-21).
Both groups are an excellent source for the mutated herbs that grow in the swamps (and the ill-tempered giant nutria that feed on the herbs, but that’s a different story entirely). There’s profit in Lost Orleans, in other words — if you can get there, and if you can get back.