Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. The 42° north parallel delineates the southern boundary with California and Nevada.
The Modoc lived in southwestern Oregon. They are most remembered for their fierce resistance to being forced onto reservations. The Modoc took shelter in the Lava Beds, where they defended themselves against thousands of soldiers who bombarded them with cannon-fire. Eventually, part o fthe tribe was removed to Oklahoma with the rest left in Oregon.
Oregon is firmly in Camarilla hands.
Eugene Gothic Weekend & Dark Arts Market
Eugene, OR
The Dark Arts Market is hosted by Ghost House at Old Nick's Pub during Eugene Gothic Weekend.
The market features a variety of bizarre and wonderful goods made by local artists.
Sol Sistere Market
Portland, OR
Sol Sistere Market is a new market in the Portland area hosted by Holy Voids. This small and intimate market features a variety of extremely talented vendors ranging from clothing, illustration/design, tarot, plants, and elixirs.
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Mrchrisc
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1 yr. ago
Not from Oregon, so people correct me when I’m wrong.
Oregon has a progressive strip of population in the big city along the coast, and the rest of the population is basically hick redneck white supremicists.
In the 1800’s Oregon was the destination for the American Dream. People wanting to make their own way, line independently, and get away from the government and oppression. Part of the ‘manifest destiny’ movement and the Louisiana Purchase. Also, this was in part driven by the Gold Rush discoveries of the 1800’s.
Reference: Donner Party and other similar disasters.
Of course, there was a lot of tension with the local Native Americans, and you can see how that turned out.
Today, outside of the major cities the people are Insular. Crime and poverty are high. Forestry and mining are big business but dangerous and heavy polluters. Eco tourism gets some outsiders, and not everyone makes it back.
For some inspiration, there was a tv series called twin peaks. The Johnny Depp movie called Dead Man is a good one. Any survival horror like “The Hills have Eyes” should give you a good Black Spiral Dancer vibe. Really tap in to the local native legends and cultures.
Now, all that being said, Oregon is gorgeous and I would love to go there. The state is such a treasure trove of nature, animals, and legends.
Portland has the highest amount of strip clubs per populace of any American city. Don’t know how helpful that will be, but there it is.
When thinking about potential plot hooks for odd npcs or groups you'd find in Oregon, these are a few things that come to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country a cult in the 80s in oregon.
Portlandia - comedic take on life in portland oregon
Podcast about the antigovernment crazies https://www.npr.org/podcasts/606441988/bundyville
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge
While not a native to the state I have lived in Oregon for the last 6 years or so. What some of the other people said is quite accurate for the most part. The Willamette Valley and the coast make up the western side of Oregon and the most progressive. It’s also the most populous with big cities like Salem (the capital) and Corvallis (College town) along with Portland all making it rather liberal.
That isn’t to say it’s all industrial and cities the valley is some of the best land for growing. There are a lot of farms and even smaller towns have rural parts to them. The two biggest exports are Christmas trees and grass seed to give you some idea.
The middle of the state varies from lush forests and beautiful rivers to high deserts and scrubland with still beautiful rivers. The East side of Oregon on the other side of the Rockies is mainly flat ranch land. It’s boring to drive thru so I’ve only done it once.
Culturally is still a racism problem that cannot be understated there are a lot of historic reasons for them but for brevity Oregon was the southern state in the north.
Beyond that there is a different kind of liberalism up here I’ve noticed especially since I’m from California. Guns are common up here it’s easy to get a concealed carry permit and up until the reason ammo shortage people went shooting a lot, I live rural and someone near me shoots on their property for example. There are a lot of weed and vegan friendly places too. I’d describe it as locally liberal. Lots of places care where they source their food from and let you know.
So, what part of Oregon are you setting that in? Western, eastern, coastal, further south, closer to Portland? There's a lot of parts of Oregon and they're all very different, and there's all sorts of potential werewolf fodder all over the state. I'm not a comprehensive expert, but I do live here at least, and have for most of my life. There's a lot of stuff you could factor in in one way or another, what with Werewolf: The Apocalypse's environmental themes and all.
Running north and south along the state, there's a big chain of mountains, the Cascades. In the past, to the west of this range (particularly in the Willamette Valley) the climate is paradise-like with a dash of raining a lot. Temperate rainforest and oak savanna. To the east, there are more deserts. However, in recent years, temperatures have been getting hotter and the weather in western Oregon has been less comfortable, and there've been wildfires spreading smoke across the land in late summer. Last year, the fires were far worse than they've ever been, and practically the whole state was covered in smoke for a few weeks. It wasn't safe to go outside, anywhere, and the town of Blue River was burned to the ground. That isn't the only way the weather's getting crazier. A couple years back we had a massive snowstorm, the like of which we'd barely seen before, that dropped two feet of snow on parts of Oregon where three inches in a year was a lot. Climate change has hit us, pretty hard too, and we are not very well prepared for its effects.
Our local invasive weeds are blackberry bramble and Scotch broom. The former aggressively grows everywhere and often chokes out more native brambles and bushes, while the latter is noxious and notoriously hard to kill, and neither of them really have adequate predators. Over on the coast, the vast dunes we once had are diminishing thanks to European beachgrass, which stabilizes the sand and allows bushes and even trees to take root, distorting the coastal ecosystem.
On the fauna side of things, I can tell you our most common apex predator is the mountain lion (also known as the cougar, puma, catamount, American lion, and certainly other names), we've got various species of deer from white-tailed deer to Roosevelt elk (note: not moose), and we've recently reintroduced wolves, whose population is slowly regrowing. Roosevelt elk make a haunting, high-pitched whistle noise that carries much further than it should. We also have both black bears and brown bears. Ocean-wise, very significantly we have salmon who swim upstream every year. We have a system of flood-control dams all over the state that use artificial lakes to prevent the Willamette and Columbia rivers from flooding, and we've had to engineer many of those dams to accommodate the salmon when they're looking to spawn. Those same dams also provide us with a very respectable amount of our electrical power.
A large part of our state's geology and geography is fed by volcanoes. The Cascades are a range of volcanoes fed by an offshore subduction zone, which is one of the biggest in the world and is certainly gonna drop a massive earthquake on us someday - in fact, we're overdue, based on the historical average time between the quakes it's made in the past. Aside from that, the Columbia River Gorge and a large swath of northern Oregon was formed when the slowly moving volcanic hot spot that now powers Yellowstone was still further west than it is now - an ocean of molten lava blanketed a huge portion of the state, leaving behind massive, beautiful flood basalt formations as a memory of what terrors this planet is capable of.
There's an evil reason for the presence of white supremacists that other folks have mentioned, and it relates to the founding of the state. It was engineered that way. Among various other things: When Oregon entered the Union, it was the only state to do so with a law prohibiting black people from living here. That was later declared unconstitutional and then repealed. As a result of the founding effect, but also further effects since then, we have this weird contradiction where Portland and Eugene are very left wing as America goes, but large swaths of (mostly rural) Oregon are very right wing. Most of the actual population living here is left wing, but there are leftover right wing power structures - up to and including police unions that, if I am not misled, developed from or were developed by one or another incarnation of the KKK.
… Oh, and about that incoming earthquake … We're not ready for it at all. When it hits, it'll have a ground-shaking emergency warning system in most places, which will be immediately followed by a massive wave of death water coming up the rivers. I'm glad I live on high enough ground that it won't get me. But if and when the big one hits, if we're still at this level of readiness, a lot of people are going to die.
I'm going to disagree with the other people in this thread. Vampires fight different kinds of wars and in different ways, and using their Disciplines wisely they certainly more than match up to any single Werewolf. Don't worry about those matters. It's up to the players to be wise and use their heads. You just focus on creating a scenario in which this matter happens, comes to pass and leaves the players to deal with it.
Let's start with the first point: A truce.
Firstly, a truce requires open war where both sides see the benefit in bringing the fight to an end, or someone with enough skill manages to make both sides agree to stop. There's a few ways you could do this:
The old Prince is actually a Kinfolk to one of the Garou Elders at the time. At first, the Embrace of the Kinfolk causes conflict, with Garou out for blood and Kindred hunkering down, but it doesn't take the local Kindred long to figure out why the problem occurred in the first place and realise that the Garou value… Maybe even need… Their mortal families and suddenly mortal gang wars are springing up where, just by happy coincidence, people sharing blood connections to Lupines are getting caught in the cross fire. As the number of Kinfolk start to dwindle and the Garou begin to fear for their future and start pulling them off the streets, they start to lose ground on influence and control in the city and, suddenly, the Vampires are shifting their focus to targets given to them by Blood Bonded and Dominated Kinfolk - safe houses, Carens and pack homes. Hunting down individual Vampires is proving a slow and costly enterprise and, when they do track one down and kill it, there seems to be little effect on the Kindred as a whole…
… Things look grim, except…
The Kinfolk that was Embraced suddenly returns to his Tribe. Naturally, their first instinct is to slay him, but he begs them to stay their hands and explains that he, having been welcomed by these Leeches, knows of a few important ones that won't be such hollow, meaningless victories, killing ignorant Neonates and the odd, unlucky Ancillae. He can help them find the ones orchestrating the war. With his help, the Garou suddenly have targets to track and names and faces to offer Spirits and Questing Stones, making them much more deadly and effective. At first the war was Garou killing Kindred, then, after a year of brutality, it swung to Kindred devouring the ranks of Kinfolk and taking control of important locations and rutting out directionless Werewolves, now, at last, it's come full circle and nobody is having a good time! The Garou fear for their Kin, their own lives and the few pure places left. The Kindred are suddenly without a Prince or Primogen and any one of them could be next…
… Which is when the Kinfolk offers to broker peace. If the Kindred will put him on the throne and the Garou will agree to a truce, he can bring this war to an end and the Lupines can go back to fighting real conflicts against active Wyrm minions while the Kindred can once again walk the city streets without fear. The Garou haven't lost too many actual Werewolves, but each loss is felt 100 times more keenly than the Kindred losses, who move quickly to consume the power vacuums left with glee… But Kindred are selfish and paranoid and none of them feel safe with the fearsome Lupines about to burst out of thin air in their Havens at any moment… Both sides, reluctantly, agree.
The Kinfolk becomes Prince, the Garou slink back to their Caren to breed and hope for new warriors, the Kindred snap and bicker over the empty chairs… The only real winner here in the Kinfolk! He saved his own unlife from his rampaging cousins who would have, once they had him back like they originally wanted, certainly have killed him, and he secured the throne of the city in doing so.
Many years pass. The Truce becomes the status quo for the Garou, who honour it because none alive remember how it began, only that their Elders warned that there were greater threats to worry about and that slaying all Vampires was folly. Some of the Kindred remember how it began, but they have shiny new titles now and don't plan to rock that boat, so long as it sails the direction they want. All seems well… But Werewolves are natural killers, and Vampires are natural deceivers…
To nobody's shock, the truce is broken in small ways a few times. A pack of Garou stumble on a Vampire and the Vampire is slain. A Vampire seduces a Garou or Kinfolk and feeds off them and there's a mess. Everyone rattles their sabers and hisses and howls… But eventually they always back down. Each time things threaten to escalate a little more, but, in the end, the Kinfolk Prince uses his knowledge of the Garou to placate… Or in some cases, blackmail… Them and the Elders of the Garou heed the warnings of the Elders before them and make peace. Until, finally, the unthinkable happens:
Everybody assumes it was just another momentary lapse in the truce. One of the Garou goes missing and her pack can't seem to find her. The Totem spirit claims she is dead, but the Questing Stone seems to be tracking her location still, it's just that it acts as though she is hiding and loses her tracks somewhere in the heart of the city, becoming vague and directionless as it often does the closer it gets to the target, leaving the Pack mourning for her. Eventually all the members of that Pack pass into history, meeting their fate in the war against the Wyrm, except one who goes on to become a trainer of young Cubs. It's him/her who first recognises their old Packmate - pale, cold and with hard, fierce, predator's eyes! An Abomination!!
This is the straw that breaks the camel's back! Honouring the words of the ancestors be damned! It's war! The only problem is that once the war starts, it goes the same way as before - The Kindred don't even know they are at war until they start to vanish off the streets and, finally, someone manages to report that it's Lupines. As soon as that happens, the Kinfolk Prince, now at Humanity 4 and more concerned with his own power and well being then his old family, skips straight to the end game and starts to target the one remaining Caren in the city!
"The old park has been gripped by an infestation of beetles and needs to be remade." The EPA advise. "But don't worry, We promise a new, even more beautiful and accessible park with sporting grounds, walking trails, a greenhouse…"
"… And no Lupines!" The Kindred say with a sneer.
Now your players enter in the middle of a war! Can they convince the Prince to see the light of his old ways and help the Garou find whoever Embraced this Lupine? Can they stop the mad rampage of this poor, insane Abomination? Who Embraced it? Did they hope the war would end with the death of the Prince like the old one did? Or was it the work of some Garou who wanted an excuse to go to war again? It's true that the Lupines suffer humiliation when having to negotiate peace with Leeches, and certainly some Garou have died and not been avenged in the name of this disgusting Wyrm peace! Is someone in their number so far gone they would convince a Vampire to do this in order to excuse their actions? Or is this the work of some third party? Are there Black Spirals showing up on subway walls as they snicker from the shadows and push their foes towards each other with sickly smiles?
With this scenario, you not only have to focus on the vampires and werewolves, but also the spirits. A caern is not just a place for Garou to meet, it's a spiritual place where, depending on the Caern, can be exceptionally dangerous based on the totem spirit. A good example of this was the caern near Saint Helens, where in one of the games I played, where it took place back in the 00s, the story went that vampires were trying to destroy the caern so as to build the Kelso/Longview city out. This in turn caused the sleeping spirit of the Caern to reawaken and outright decimated the vampires who had tried to sneak into the area to destroy it, thus causing the volcano to in turn reawaken and become active once again. Other caern spirits greatly help the garou in protecting it through buffs or weakening any wyrm tainted creatures.
Unconfirmed rumors indicate there may be a Bone
Gnawer caern somewhere in Portland Underground.
If there is, however, no one has ever found it (or has
chosen not to speak of it).
More prevalent are the ghosts of the Portland Underground.
In its heyday, the tunnels saw all manner of
violence, exploitation… and death. Anyone who spends
any length of time in Portland Underground will swear
the place is haunted. The most notable ghost appears as a
Native American woman, wearing a distinctive perfume
– and baring a bloody gash where her throat was slit
literally from ear to ear. The other most prominent ghost
is another woman wearing ratty petticoats and a corset
which shows off her bosom, pushing a baby carriage and
singing softy to whatever is inside. The ghostly mother
tends to ignore those around her in favor of her infant;
while the Native American woman tries desperately yet
futilely to communicate to those who see her.
Apart from these two apparitions, a myriad of
unexplained activity happens regularly within the
tunnels. Electricity seems especially cursed. While
those in the shanty towns to the North have found
setting up a rudimentary plumbing system to be quite
easy, the electricity keeps failing. Indeed, any attempt
to wire the Underground outside of the tourist areas
seems doomed to failure.
Urban spelunkers sometimes end up caught in
a maze, going round and round in circles and slowly
panicking before they somehow emerge unscathed to
the surface. They’re grateful to be safe, but can’t help
but feel that some force first trapped them, then guided
them back above ground.
Tillamook State Forest - wendigo
Though the profusion of nature is welcome by the
mortals who live there, the side effect is of a Kindred
population kept frequently on edge when they travel
outside the city. Lupines adore the area – or, more specifically,
adore the many parks and wildlife preserves.
Sauvie Island, Tillamook State Forest, Silver Falls State
Park, Clatsop State Forest and Mount Hood National
Forest, along with their nearby towns.
I wanted to add, before I pressed save or comment or whatever, something about the white supremacy. It was too long, before. And I wrote some about my life there, but I'm not going to add that yet.
Oregon is a very strange place. Eastern Oregon is filled with people that will sound (or try to sound) like they're from the south. Their ideals are similar to the worst of them. I'm here in the south now, and I can tell you that the two aren't very far from one another on occasion. There are a lot of people that are very vocal about things like immigration and whatnot, and there has been a lot of labor in Oregon (and a lot of hardship) by immigrants that suffer. The Chinese people came and worked on the railroads then suffered, for example.
Western Oregon is like that too, just more… professional. So the racism is much more profound. The Pearl District used to be very industrial and now it's very artsy. NE Portland was gentrified just recently though I couldn't tell you how completely.
