Shallow Background: What You Can Elect To Know

This is a file we give to people who want to know what exactly about the situation in Tucson they are allowed to have a new character know when they arrive. Not all new characters know this stuff, though (some Malkavians aren't even sure they're in Tucson at all), which is why we call it "what you can elect to know". Some new characters enter knowing more than this, which is one of the main benefits of having a ST-controlled character generation process.
Most cities in Southern Arizona were founded around a Spanish church or a fort: Tucson was fortunate enough to be founded around both. I won't bore you with the really interesting history of Tucson, although there are dozens of neat things about the town.

From the point of view of the Kindred world, Tucson was beneath the notice of the various sects for many years. This kept both the population of Kindred and their conflicts to extremely low levels. (It was an easy town to live in: half the population slept OUTSIDE until the 1930s, for God's sake. Can you say "buffet"?)

After the postwar housing boom and the equally important invention of air conditioning, the mortal population of Tucson swelled, but the Kindred population stayed low and mobile, preferring to think of it as more of a vacation spot than a place from which to politick.

In the early part of this decade (or was it the late part of the last one...oh, well, what's a couple of years either way when you live forever?), a coterie arose that challenged this attitude. Called the Sanguine Epiphany, this multi-clan coterie stated that they would be taking control of Tucson for the purpposes of politics. Shortly thereafter, a member of that coterie, Tremere Regent Colin McFhearchair declared that he would be Prince and make Tucson a Camarilla city. However, he had overestimated his support (and in some ways, the support for the Camarilla), and division swept the city.

Regent McFhearchair was killed by Lupines on April Fool's Day, 1995, and the question of Camarilla leadership was thrown up for grabs. The Sabbat undertook several forays of various kinds into the city, but was stymied at every turn. Finally, in September of 1995, the Camarilla sent several elder vampires to Tucson in order to formalize the relationship between Tucson and the Camarilla. What went on before, during and after that meeting is extremely controversial and not at all clear except for one fact: that the Camarilla elders signed an agreement (referred to as the Southend Agreement, after its author, Malkavian elder Harold Southend) with the city making Tucson a Camarilla city and allowing local Kindred control of the city.

That local Kindred control took the form of a council for a while, but like most vampiric councils, it fell apart eventually, and a very strange vote approximately one year after the Southend Agreement was signed elected (?) Steven Wurster of Clan Tremere as the Prince of Tucson.

There are also disquieting rumors that Steven has left the city, and that a new Prince is in place.

Certain characters may have more IC information when entering the city (Tremere for instance, will know about the Regent and possibly some of the background of the clan in Tucson.) This is another reason you really want to have a Storyteller on hand when you're generating a character.
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Jason Corley -- corleyj@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu