Denver

Ghostwalker now rules as a single sovereign, with the Zone Defense Force, and his own personal force of drakes, acting as his enforcement arm. He hasn’t settled on a police force contract, but it’s down to the big two, Lone Star and Knight Errant, though Lone Star is the current favorite with their new connections to DocWagon. Whoever gets the contract is likely to have a smooth start, but nowhere stays calm in the Sixth World for long. The government isn’t likely to change any time in the near future, but Ghostwalker has set up district blocks and set them to selecting representatives. While they’ll have no official power, they’ll be a little closer to the dragon’s ear (and subsequently his jaws). Since the takeover, it’s gotten pretty calm. GW has brokered lucrative deals with most of the megas to operate within Denver, the reassignment of SINs has been relatively uneventful, and the gangs have been calmer than usual after GW ate the leader of the local Ancients club for associating with a certain clown-faced elf. Local politics are shifting, and GW, despite some issues with temperament, seems committed to maintaining Denver’s place as a hub of international relations. This has been complicated for several nations who have been reluctant to re-engage due to the method of reclamation

Let’s make a quick rundown across this century. Denver, called the Front Range Free Zone, now encompasses cities from Colorado Springs in the south to Boulder up north, along with Aurora and out past Golden to the east and west respectively. It played a huge part in the dismantling of the United States and rise of the Native American Nations. It was first used as neutral ground for a treaty, and then split into sectors for the various par- ticipants to govern together. They had a few issues over the years, including the sectoring process damaging the Spirit of Denver, Zebulon. But nothing came close to the arrival of Ghostwalker in late ’61. He pretty much took a dragon-sized drek on the treaty and claimed Denver as his domain with an assertive hoop-handing for Aztlan’s sector, forcing them to beat feet. Things never got much better with the Zone Defense Force (a.k.a. Ghostwalker’s army) keeping tabs and ignoring borders while GW made Denver a haven for free spirits, in the literal and figurative sense. Spirits have far more rights in Denver than any- where else, and GW has very little problem with shadow- runners keeping the sector’s squabbles lively. Sure, he ate a bunch of runners, but that was to make a point not to direct your efforts his way. Since its creation, the FRFZ has been a hub for glob- al espionage. Six, and then five, and finally four nations all within a few kilometers of one another made ducking in and out of sight a breeze for a skilled operative. This was fine with GW. He simply inserted his pawns into the game and kept everyone else under his wary gaze. The corps fared well, but not too well, with abundant opportunities to play the market and work against one another and the nations of the world all in one place. But a dragon always hovered about in the back of their minds, ready to eat an exec or two to prove a point, keeping things muted. And now Denver is different. The FRFZ is Ghostwalker’s personal fiefdom after he declared it so and put the nations on notice. It was a tense month after he told the sector governments to scram, and Denver went absolutely bonkers with strange rifts popping up all over the city. The rifts discharged all sorts of chaos, from cute to crazy to killer, and seemed to embody the madness in the city. The sector governments couldn’t manage a coordinated refusal, and after a short but tense stand-off, everyone pulled out government assets, including their militaries, and left the remaining citizens and property to the dragon.