The Lore of Las Ganas

Kine History

A midway point along the El Camino Real and just south of Monterey, California, Las Ganas was officially claimed by Spanish rule in 1790 with the establishment of Mission Basilica Las Ganas de Alcalá. More so than its sister cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, Las Ganas embodies its Catholic history to this day: cathedrals split the blacktop streets with marble and stone, skyscrapers are snared with spires, and modern black-glass buildings are interspersed with rainbow stained glass. Business districts slope with arches and intersect with cloisters, resembling monasteries rather than industrial complexes. While Las Ganas is a culturally and ethnically diverse city (featuring many ethnic neighborhoods, such as Little Seoul, Ethiopiatown, Little Milan, etc.), its Spanish/Mexican, Roman-Catholic roots are evident on every corner. In addition, Las Ganas is located on the coast. Both sandy and rocky beaches ensnare the coastline, acting as a haven for all sorts of marine life, including sea otters, sea lions & seals, jellyfish, whales, reefs, etc. A beautiful location and a rich history have resulted in Las Ganas being the 10th most populous city in the United States, and the increased number of tech company campuses are encouraging more people than ever to move and begin their life on the seaside.

Despite its location in the traditionally liberal southern-ish California, Las Ganas is a tad more conservative than its neighboring cities due to its large religious population. It is more akin to Salt Lake City than San Diego. Many politicians find petitioning in Las Ganas crucial, as its sheer size can determine if California will swing red or blue for any given election. Yet there is more to Las Ganas than piety, as the holy light of the so-called “City of Saints” casts even deeper shadows. A rollicking nightlife, including clubs, drugs, sex work, gambling, and gang violence seduce sin out of weak-willed men. Las Ganas by day suffocates and subjugates those who reject tradition—those who have been branded as different find themselves with little choice but to turn to the night. After tasting the succulence of night’s sin, it is difficult to resist its temptation. Many are never able to escape their burgeoning addictions and wind up succumbing to the darkness of the shadows and the sea.

Kindred History

Much of Las Ganas’s history is shrouded in Sabbat secrets. It is known that the first Kindred arrived sometime after the Spaniards did, around the cusp of the 1800’s, and took the city under bloody Sabbat dominion. The Sabbat maintained a fierce hold over Las Ganas, hiding their existence by blaming hauntings and gang violence, but come 1961, their location proved to be fatal. The bloodthirsty Anarchs of the Free State of Los Angeles, as well as the ivory warriors from San Francisco’s Camarilla, united in an uneasy truce to drive the Sabbat from Las Ganas. It was seen as the first act of compromise since the free state revolt, and it paved the way for civil discussion between the Camarilla and the Anarchs. Las Ganas acted as a neutral ground—while technically a Camarilla city with a prince (Guadalupe Gaos, a Ventrue), a Caitiff primogen (Memoria Hearth) was elected to speak on behalf of the Anarchs in city affairs. Las Ganas’s truce functioned for thirty years, until 1991. The rising tension ushered forth by Thinbloods and the Damocles of Gehenna caused the alliance to snap. A Gangrel Anarch, Jaime Martillero, grew tired of the Camarilla’s ignorance of the incoming apocalypse, and in a fit of rage, attacked the prince: he transfigured into a brown bear and clawed her face clean off. The resulting week (known historically as the Week of Monsters) was chaos, only quelled by the steady voice and powerful paw of another Gangrel, Rosa Maria Howard-Castillo, who decimated the dissenting voices of her clan and took the throne as prince. Castillo ruled Las Ganas with unwavering strength, banishing or killing those with even the slightest of Anarch sympathies. While her first sheriff was killed during the Week of Nightmares in 1999, the next, known only as Hyong (Brujah), enforced Castillo’s brutal rule with her own biting rage.

Castillo’s reign lasted many years, up until the Convention of Prague in 2012. The secession of the Brujah and the Gangrel from the Camarilla left every city reeling, but Las Ganas, with its unique positioning of power, was plunged into even deeper disarray. Castillo and Hyong both maintained loyalty to the Camarilla, but many Kindred in the city—including primogens—began murmuring about where their true allegiances really lied. In February of 2015, the then-Ventrue primogen and manager, Susanna Troi, launched a powerplay for princedom with the backing of Clan Ventrue and Clan Toreador. However, before the shift in power could occur, a terrible earthquake and week-long blackout rocked Las Ganas. During the blackout, Troi was found as ashes in her haven: most assumed that she had been killed by the Prince herself. Hyong put out a bloodhunt on Castillo, with the caveat that whoever found and killed her would be instated as Prince. The bloodhunt on top of the blackout and earthquake damage sent the entire Kindred population of Las Ganas into a rat-race for power (an event that is now known as the Second Week of Monsters). After a week, Castillo was found and killed by Micah Shepherd of Clan Lasombra, and Las Ganas begrudgingly accepted their new Prince.

Shepherd is new to Las Ganas, only having arrived around 2013, though he carries exceptional status in San Diego, as he assisted in claiming it from the Sabbat in the name of the Camarilla. He is a remarkably pious, gentle soul, and he chooses to preach forgiveness and understanding rather than power and subjugation. He does not believe in harming other Kindred, as he considers the Sixth Tradition to be the most important. He even claims that he did not kill Castillo—simply that he had her recognize the error of her ways, and she ended her own life out of repentance. To others, Shepherd appears to be blessed or cursed: his enemies fall without him lifting a finger, and his desires are gifted to him upon a silver platter. His alibis have been proven time and time again, yet his will seems to be acted upon by God Himself. The strange phenomenon has been dubbed the “Shadow of the Shepherd” by some, or the “Invisible Lamb” by others. Despite his outwardly kindness, everyone in Las Ganas knows that he is to be respected and feared—for even if the Shepherd forgives you, his Lamb might not. Many Kindred do not trust Shepherd and resent his princedom (especially the Ventrue, who were so close to regaining power).

The Lasombra are new to the Camarilla, and past resentment still curdles. Many Kindred trust Hyong, still acting as sheriff, more than the Prince himself, and choose to go through her in an active rejection of his authority. In addition, with Las Ganas’s new status as a tech paradise, many kine are flocking to the city—some of them likely Second Inquisition, decked out with the technology to pose a serious threat. Las Ganas teeters on the edge of an uncertain future, as do all cities in these darkening modern nights.

Points of Interest

• 10th most populous city in the US
• Located in Las Ganas County, urban sprawl touches Monterey
• Las Ganas University, Home of the Manta Rays. Well-regarded, large university. One of the best in California. Has a good liberal arts school.
• University of Las Ganas, Home of The Matadors. Extraordinarily conservative and religious (Roman Catholic), to the point of wearing uniforms. Two separate campuses, one for women and one for men. The one for women is located on St. August’s Island, a 15-minute ferry ride from Gilded Bay, while the men’s campus is located inland.
• Ragged Point Aquarium, home to the only platypuses outside of Australia

• Catholic missions of historical importance (the oldest of which being Mission Basilica Las Ganas de Alcalá)
• Blackriver District, a fake historic district with historical and cowboy reenactments every other week
• The McHarristel House in the Blackriver district, owned by an enigmatic heiress to a now-defunct automobile company who lured young girls inside to bathe in their blood in the 1950s. Is now a tourist destination.
• Glashand District, the shady, crime-ridden redlight district (or at least more redlight than anything else). Currently home to Elysium, located in an underground dance club/fightclub called Altar Ego.
• Oceanland, a marine-animal theme park. Have a popular cartoon called “Olga's Oceanworld Adventures Beyond the Spectral Rift” about an octopus named Olga who encounters increasingly more surreal and Lovecraftian-esque monstrosities as she travels through the friendless abyss. Olga the Octopus merch sells like hot cakes.
• Ah-Men, a historic gay bar in a retrofitted Catholic church. There’s many clubs in refitted churches, but Ah-Man is significant in the LGBT+ community for being the first of its kind in the city.
• Saint Ferdenando’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the second largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States (second to D.C.)
• Gilded Bay, a port. Home to a U.S. military base. Just south of this bay is Gilded Pier, which is more commercial and has a variety of carnival games and ill-maintained roller coasters. Gilded Pier is home to the largest mirror maze in the country.
• Las Ganas Botanical Gardens, known for housing the Sayota blossom—an extremely endangered species of hallucinogenic cactus that is only known to grow in the Las Ganas Bay
• Carea Cove, home to many different kinds of marine life, including sea lions/seals, turtles, etc. Beautiful and calm (except for when there’s a bunch of children on field trips). Various beaches surround Carea Cove of varying names and varying qualities.
• Bareback Beach, largest nudist beach in the United States
• Las Ganas Natural History Museum, home to the third largest collection of indoor dinosaur animations in the United States
• Las Ganas Museum of Art, the previous home of the original painting of The Last Supper. Yes, that one. No longer in Milan. This used to function as a Toreador-run Elysium before it was the target of a Kindred/Anarch-orchestrated “terrorist attack”, in which the Last Supper was destroyed.
• Las Ganas Museum of Human Expression, an interactive art exhibit featuring actual humans doing Weird Things, such as body art/interpretative dance/etc. A large Malkavian haunt.
• VRADE, a huge VR lounge pioneering new leaps on VR technology, such as treadmill-connected headsets, reactive controllers, etc.

• Hallowed Hills, an insanely rich neighborhood where celebrities live. Features its own private beach. Tourist destination.
• Pina Park, a gigantic park where many festivals occur on the weekends
• St. August’s Chantry, the Tremere chantry, located on St. August’s Island
• Lingering Saint’s Cemetery and Funeral Home, the Hecata Commune
• Heaven’s Gate Port, a seaside industrial shipping/cargo complex where many Banu Haqim haunt
• Montague LLC Building, tallest skyscraper in the city. Home to Montague, a giant pharmaceutical company based in Las Ganas. Also acts as the head of Ventrue dealings.
• The Dumps, the colloquial name for the underground labyrinth of ancient sewer systems, home of many Nosferatu
• Ethnic neighborhoods, including Little Seoul, Ethiopiatown, Littlest Tokyo, etc.
• Technology company strongholds, including Google, Amazon, etc.
• ...and other stuff.

Welcome to the World of Darkness...

It is November 11th, 2017. The chill rolling off Pacific waves frosts the fine-sand shores and mint-sage succulents, yet despite the chill, an electricity hums in the air. Adrenaline drips down in clinging dewdrops of Kine sweat and faux-Kindred vitae. The Kine know not what brings this strange static, yet when night falls, they feel it as deeply as any Kindred—for the hunger and the lust poisons the smog, the sea breeze, and every citizen in it. Las Ganas, for the first time since 2015, is in the middle of a Bloodhunt. The tourists and travelers that crowd the city during the warm summer months have all returned home, leaving only the residents of the coastal metropolis behind—those people whose fates have flushed them here, to this city of saints and sin.

AXEL DEX is the name, already infamous as it is spoken in tandem with thick throats and red drool: an Anarch from the Los Angeles free state, so the Sheriff claims, come to spy on Camarilla dealings. Anyone who comes in contact with Axel Dex is to dispose of him immediately, on-sight, by any means necessary. A lust for forbidden blood looms heavy on the air, and each Kindred feels the Beast knocking at the back of their gut in terrible hunger.

But tonight is not the night for hunger—it is a night of peace. Each of you makes your individual ways to Elysium.

Neon blinks awake as churches lock their doors for the evening. Blinking yellow icicle lights wrap around the necks of choking gargoyles. “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS”, reads a sign posted across the street from a glitzy strip club. Las Ganas is a city at war with itself: modernity versus tradition, tradition versus truth. Countless souls have lost themselves to the sea and the shadows, praying for and preyed upon by hungry love in a desperate attempt to discover that sordid truth: about the city, about the darkness that haunts it, and most disgustingly, the truth about yourself—and why it is you pray.

DARE YOU ENTER THE NIGHT?
THEN REMEMBER THE RIDDLE WELL:
A BEAST I AM, LEST A BEAST I BECOME.