It’s funny: I have nothing against this city whatsoever. It just felt right to keep dumping on it. As in, aesthetically right. I apologize to anybody who likes the place.
Rotten Spartanburg
City: Spartanburg, SC
Population: 10,000/70,000
Controls: Spartanburg County
Government: Strongman
Problem: Gangs
Heroic Opportunity: Trade Goods
City Aspect: Corrupt
If Spartanburg burned to the ground tomorrow, its neighbors would all gather together to rake the ashes and throw a barbeque. The ‘Governor’ of Spartanburg is an amazingly corrupt former staff officer (Lt. Colonel Robert Cathcart) from the nearby Fort Croft training/POW base who took power via the use of German POWs promised freedom and cushy jobs after he took over the city. Gov. Cathcart then promptly attempted to double-cross his mercenaries, which ended as such things usually do: that is, with a gang of ‘Werewolves’ in the countryside, causing trouble and harassing the strongman’s more conventional forces.
They can get away with this because the Werewolves are secretly being supported by a secret consortium of textile mill owners who would enjoy very much being able to get their workers in actual chains. Which they can’t quite do because Cathcart has taken care to well-arm the local black population’s ‘defense militias.’ Not that Cathcart has any use for black people, outside of using them in order to keep any of the other crabs from getting out of the bucket. He certainly doesn’t care if the defense militias double as bandit gangs, which they pretty all much do.
Then again, the local sport of Spartanburg’s stout yeomanry is to ambush unwary salvage groups coming back from the ruins of Charlotte to the Northeast. There’s a lot of loot in Charlotte, so this will probably all go ticking merrily along for a bit longer, at least until the salvage groups wise up and stop using the city as a base, or at least stop selling juicy details about other salvage groups to the Governor or the Werewolves or the textile barons or the bandit gangs or the freelance bushwackers. It’s that kind of situation, in other words.
Please note that all of this would of course appall the good citizens of the Spartanburg Mayorality, except that the last one of those died last year after a mule fell on him.
Spartanburg was a perfectly normal and not particularly uniquely wicked city prior to the Serpentfall, by the way. There’s no karmic backlash and/or cosmic justice in play here, either. Some places just don’t handle change well. But, on the bright side? The nice thing about a Mayorality full of rotten people is that you don’t feel so bad when one of them faces your consequences to their actions.
Just maybe boil the water twice while you’re there? You know. Just in case.