IC SETTING: THE UNCANNY METROPOLIS, CHICAGO

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Carl Sandburg - Chicago

Our version of Chicago is the Second City (yes, it's still the Second City, even if it's now the third-most populous city in the United States) viewed through a mirror, darkly.

And that mirror, darkly?

It is cracking.

Slowly, steadily, inexorably cracking.

Chicago's earliest nickname - Mud City - harkens back to its days as a city established in the middle of a mud flat. That fundamental earthiness - that innate GRIT - is what grounds the city's vampires and fortifies them against the seismic changes roiling through Kindred society.

The Camarilla is diminished.

The Anarchs are ascending.

And the Sabbat? Well, the Sabbat are scarier moreso now, perhaps, than they've ever been.

As if that wasn't enough? There comes a new threat from the Kine - a threat waiting in shadowed corners and behind opaque doors. The Second Inquisition is ready, vigilant, and relentless in their defense of humankind, bumping back hard against the things that go bump in the night.

Chicago wasn't the first city to be known as the Second City, however. Long ago, the Second City was the place where the Antediluvians first gathered after the Biblical Deluge, trying to recreate the glory of the First City. The Second City was never granted a name and eventually collapsed under civil war. Although this city was as great as Caine's Enoch, it eventually grew old. As do all living things, it slowly began to die. The "gods" at first did not see the truth, and when they last looked about them it was too late. The Second City was destroyed and their power extinguished, and they were forced to flee, their progeny along with them. But many were killed in the flight, for they had grown weak. With their authority gone, all were free to create their own broods.

Are the Kindred of the modern Second City destined to repeat the original Second City's mistakes?

The city of skyscrapers has infinite possibilities for the Damned.

While the so-called “pillar clans” of the Camarilla — Ventrue, Toreador, and Tremere — tend to stay close to the city center (often referred to as the Loop, or in Kindred parlance, “The Hive”), the other clans act as satellites around the neighborhoods and sides. Each section of the city has a specific feel to it, almost a little city of its own.

Then there are the Lasombra. Their attempt to join the Camarilla has caused a brand-new set of problems within Kindred society. With the exodus of Brujah and Gangrel from the Camarilla, and the new influx of Cainite power, old, well-known territory lines have fallen into disarray.

Feeding grounds are now subject to the disputes of the Jyhad. Possession, after all, is nine-tenths of the law, and clans across the city are committing to open or subtle actions to claim positions and areas of influence.

Welcome to the Second City, Chicago by Night.