A History of Misfortune

The Free States of America attempt to secede, leading to the start of the Second American Civil War.

Washington DC is destroyed by a nuclear blast, sundering the United States forever.

Using pacificed prison labour, Greenfields Sciences creates massive farming operations to help stave off starvation.

First documented discovery of Outsiders sharing knowledge of arcane secrets with humans. A coven is unveiled in the Chicago multiplex when they use petty sorceries to commit a string of armed robberies shortly before they are dismantled by WATCHTOWER. The survivors are sequestered for study and never seen again.

Massive heat waves devastate the midwest. Refugees who cannot find safe haven within the major metroplexes are forced to flee to either coast as large stretches of the midwest become uninhabitable. The Midwest Alliance is stretched thin attempting to cope. The ensuing famines push supply lines to their limits as Greenfields struggles to meet demands and crops fail around the world. Neo Vegas government estimates that, unless some kind of countermeasure is perfected, the city is doomed to become uninhabitable.

Mount Charleston, west of Neo Vegas, is chosen as the building site for a new development project promising prosperity and stability. Dubbed the Cloud King Project, rumours about it abound until scraps of concrete data leak out, confirming that Neo Vegas leadership is attempting to recreate the promise of weather manipulation that Sunshade failed to deliver on decades ago. Millions of credits are poured into its construction. The city partners with various corporations but does not give any of them a majority stake in the project, ensuring no one gets the full blueprints. The project would take five years to complete and many thousands of workers, all of whom underwent mandatory cyberware installation to ensure their memories could be selectively edited.

Collapse of the Midwest Alliance as members begin seizing one another resources in a desperate bid for survival. The FSA and the Great Lakes Compact take advantage of the chaos to acquire territories. Major city centres collapse into barbarism. Those that remain cohesive only do so through martial law. Neo Vegas declares its independence.

Present Day. The conflict between the Free States and the Eastern Alliance has cooled to a cold war state. Neo Vegas remains a proud and free beacon, dominating the Greater Sonoran desert. The Midwest is a desiccated wasteland, inhabited by roaming clans skirting the territories of the few petty fiefdoms eking out an existence in crumbling metroplexes. WATCHTOWER cannot effectively contain the permeation of the Bleed into modern society as more unregistered covens seem to spring up daily, and focuses their attention on the most dangerous threats to social order.