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I have this idea to run a Nightbane game based out of Coal Country USA, which in my case would be somewhere in close to home in Kentucky. There's really nothing here except for drugs, unemployment and high school football, so what would the Nightlords want here? It doesn't even warrant a Night Prince to look over. My idea was to have a Priest of Night looking over the entire county to make sure no Nightbane pop up, but otherwise everything's pretty normal, or as normal as things get after the Dark Day.

The Nightlands here would be part of the Wastes, especially since the Nightlords don't seem to care about heat (and, therefore, coal), so again their presence would be minimal. On the other hand, it might make a good place to hide out for a while, since the resources are there to keep you warm at least. Do animals have analogs in the Nightlands? We have a stray dog problem here, and I'm imagining packs of man-eating wild canines stalking the area eating what they can.

I was originally thinking of starting right after the Dark Day, but if young Nightbane are to survive, things would need to be set in a calmer period, like the not so distant future of 2006. I guess there would be occasional Hound patrols, just to be sure no new Nightbane are born, but without a full spread of Factions to all on, I could see the Underground Railroad passing through, and maybe a stray Warlord to dip his hand into the drug trade, I can't see too much going on.

I was thinking of trying something like a young adult drama dripping with horror, but I'm having a hard time coming up with bigger plots. The smaller things could be just as interesting and devastating, and I'd definitely focus on those, but the occasional visiting dignitary, missing person, or mysterious death would hit harder here than, say, in a big city where there are so many people that no one notices. If anyone has ideas on how to make the mundane horrible, I'd appreciate your input. Thanks.

The largest Nightbane Faction in Coal Town (working name) are the Black Lung clique of the Warlords. There's plenty of misery in this area of Kentucky and a lot of it can be attributed to drugs. The Black Lung capitalize on this and make a killing doing it. They've co-opted many of the independent dealers and so called street chemists, often violently, into their sphere of influence. They operate out of Jefferson Heights, a rent controlled series of apartments and drug houses, treating it as their private kingdom. The Blueboys sect of police officers dedicated to the Nightlords, make periodic raids here, often making arrests (legal and otherwise) and reminding the Black Lung who really runs things. So far it hasn't had the desired effect, and Jefferson Heights remains a hellhole from which there is little hope of escape.

The second most populous Faction is the Underground Railroad. They operate out of a former horse mission located just out of town. It still operates as a horse farm and veterinary hospital, where they accept young Nightbane crossing through the area from neighboring states on to the larger cities of Lexington and Louisville. The property is large and out of the way, so a lot can happen here without a lot of people knowing about it.

Unlike the Black Lung, no one is the wiser about the Underground Railroad's presence in Coal Town. In fact, since the Warlord clique makes such a ruckus from Jefferson Heights the Blueboys and their masters don't even have a clue about the Railroad's existence. Because of this unknown symbiotic relationship, the Railroad pays junkie informants to keep an eye on the Black Lung to keep abreast of the gang's dealings and occasionally alerting the cops of particularly large drug deals from out of town sources, keeping the pressure on and away from the Mission.

The Black Lung, for their part, know about the Mission, but have no idea they're to blame for the Blueboys uncanny luck in targeting their illicit deals. It doesn't happen all of the time, but often enough to make them take notice. It goes without saying that if they were to figure out the Mission's part in the busts, they'd come down hard, probably taking one player out of the game permanently.

The Nightlord's handle on Coal Town is relatively lax; there's hardly anything there that they want. Occasional hound patrols sweep the town at night looking for new Nightbane, but otherwise it runs itself. This is in no small part due to the efforts of Judge Executive Peter Lane, a Priest of Night. His cult includes members of Coal Town's government and pose as the upper echelon of the local Masonic Temple. They are the ones who truly run Coal Town. Lane himself answers directly to the Night Prince Cromlech, who makes it a point to visit every few months to attend various occult services.

Lane is a fairly urbane man, leaving his dirty work to Sargent Abel Black, a Doppelganger and leader of the secret police fraternity known as the Blueboys. These cops are culled from the most brutal and generally crooked members of Coal Town's police force. Currently they're waging a proxy conflict with the Black Lung. The police are afraid of the Warlord clique, but the Black Lung are wary of killing cops, so they work through intermediaries. Well, the Blueboys do at least; the Black Lung isn't opposed to fighting their own fights.

The Blueboys rarely do their own dirty work. For that they lean on Coal Town's prisoners, who are occasionally let out at night under watch to do their bidding. This includes making threats, tampering with witnesses involved in trials important to the Cult of Night, collecting protection money, and making sure the other dupes on the outside are on the up and up. Some enjoy the work, some don't, but no one talks about it for fear of their lives. More than one "suicide" has taken the lives of snitches.

A small town game can be fun. You don't have the same sort of mix as you find in a city, but you have communities that are self sufficient, where everyone knows everyone, and strangeness could be ignored, or accepted. You can have mixed groups working together since they are all that is there. This can be something like the local sheriff or deputy knowing things are weird, crazy even, but trying to keep the peace in their small town, or rural community. Maybe the deputy even knows and trusts a NB, or old style mage of some kind because they are relatives, or known each other all their lives. You can have good old boys with guns, and even training that don't take kindly to outsiders in black suits messing with their neighbors.