Since their arrival in the New World, Kindred have fought Kindred for influence and resources. Nowhere do rival sects wage the battles of the Jyhad so strongly as the Americas -- a claim that European and Middle Eastern vampires hotly contest. Miami sits on the front-line of a vicious shadow-war between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, a city rightly considered an invaluable holding worth the blood shed and lives lost to claim it.
Vampires are territorial by nature, and they will exert themselves to gain control over cities and towns. The three primary sects in modern nights strive to advance their grip at the expense of their adversaries, and jealously protect the areas they believe to be theirs.
Note: The map supercedes details found in previous editions of Vampire.
Sabbat Strongholds[]
- South: Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Miami, Phoenix; Mexico
- Once viewed as a wholly Camarilla region, the Sabbat gained control over territory along the Gulf of Mexico in a series of shocking reversals after the 1950s. They followed Hispanic gangs and immigrants into key areas, scattering Kindred or destroying one haven after another. Their strongest position remains in ethnically Latino areas, a band stretching from Arizona to Louisiana, where supply routes remain almost untouchable. Atlanta fell to Cardinal Polonia's politicking and war packs in 2000. Miami is an essential gateway to oppose Camarilla forces on the seaboard and to secure the significant Sabbat holdings in the Caribbean. All these areas benefit tremendously from an ample supply of manpower and illicit vices, usually interconnected with gangs.
- West: Bakersfield, Las Vegas, Tijuana
- No sect contests control of outlying California so much as the Sabbat. Their steady march north and west from strongholds along the Mexican border surrounded Los Angeles and, with it, the Camarilla and Anarchs. Shovelheads rise by the dozens to attack key holdings, while war packs orchestrate coordinated attacks to undermine the Movement. Any attempt to sow chaos for the benefit of the Sword is a valued asset. More genteel Cainites peddle Noddist theory and damnation alike in the City of Sin. Despite their social orientation, the Las Vegas packs traffic drugs, weapons, and money to Californian counterparts.
- Midwest: Columbus, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis
- Detroit turned completely to the Sabbat after the 1960s, and the Sword extended its reach across the Great Lake states on a tide of defections and violence. Several important mid-size cities fell to charismatic priests and unconventional (read: horribly bloody) guerrilla tactics that also captured New York City for a time. Progressive packs and ducti swept through Ohio and Missouri, cutting off Camarilla-held Chicago from its traditional allies. Now they hope to besiege the Windy City in hopes of gaining a prize plum indeed.
- Northeast: Montreal, New York City (disputed), Ottawa, Toronto, Washington, D.C.
- The Sword dominates Central Canada and the upper Northeast, and acts as its spiritual heart. With economic decline and growing despair in the Rust Belt, ambitious packs carved out and defended huge chunks of territory from the Montreal stronghold. With Detroit, the two cities act as the hammer and anvil for the sect's adversaries. The Inquisition operates in the Americas directly out of Montreal. The greatest wound to Sabbat pride is New York City. Once a bastion of the Sword, its loss after harsh fighting and struggle at the end of the 1990s remains a source of bitter discontent and outrage. Washington, D.C., was captured and thoroughly converted by 2002.
Camarilla Strongholds[]
- South: Dallas-Fort Worth, New Orleans, Oklahoma City
- The Ivory Tower is strongly entrenched in the south, its foothold the greatest in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is deemed a bastion against Sabbat encroachment. Its strong financial focus has gradually been subsumed into a war of influence and attrition as resurgent packs out of Mexico made steady gains across Texas in the past twenty years. As their adversaries grow stronger in the south, the Camarilla has adopted a more openly defensive and hostile strategy.
- West: Seattle, Portland
- Camarilla-held cities in the Pacific Northwest include the tech hubs and primary ports. Pacific Rim commerce forms an important backbone for many clans' activities. Efforts to convert Anarchs or push them back into Californian fiefdoms have been stymied in the area.
- Midwest: Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Omaha
- The Midwest provides a solid base of operations and loyalty. Conservative factions rule over the Elysia of Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa. Cities in the Upper Midwest have long remained under the Camarilla's thumb, and supply needed personnel and information to disputed territory around the Great Lakes and the Rust Belt. Chicago is the largest Camarilla holding in the United States, its Elders holding disproportionate influence over areas west of the Mississippi. Their presence alone is said to hold back the Sabbat tide pouring from Detroit, and every year, the battles increase in ferocity.
- Northeast: Boston, Charlotte, New York (disputed), Norfolk
- Most vampires believe the Atlantic Seaboard is a continuous Camarilla fief, and they would be largely correct. Princes rule over venerable Elysia stretching from the Canadian border to northern Florida, and the traditional powerbrokers -- Ventrue, Nosferatu, Toreador -- maintain their largest power bases here. The Sabbat launched a major crusade under Cardinal Polonia and Priscus Vykos to claim the East Coast in the early 2000s, and Washington, D.C., fell into their hands. The Camarilla wrested New York City from the Sabbat in the 1980s and 1990s, and while the city is nominally under the Ivory Tower's thumb today, skirmishes and assassinations continue unabated.
Anarch Strongholds[]
- South: Amarillo
- Alone in Texas, Amarillo remains a beacon to the Anarchs and their rallying cry for equality and freedom pulls many veterans of the Jyhad. Mexican Kindred escaping the Sabbat's long arm or refugees from coastal areas have a place in the relative political freedom promised in the north. With the Sabbat tide on the horizon and an entrenched Camarilla in other major Texan cities, it remains to be seen whether Amarillo will hold out with a fiercely independent banner or capitulate to changing political fortunes.
- West: Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco
- All sects squabble over the plump corpse of California, and to the victor the spoils in a bloody, long war. The Jyhad rages through streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco's shining towers, spilling out into the coastal manors and dusty backstreets. West Coast Anarchs are a breed apart from their cousins in other parts of North America, far more activist, youthful, and violent. They wield their ideology as every bit the potent weapon that the Sword's faith or the Ivory Tower's influence can be. The Movement is rooted in the battlegrounds of Los Angeles, where nightly packs and coteries attempt to cow Anarchs or bring them to their knees. The organization is tightest among elder members, with important firebrands helping keep the currents running in their favour... for now.
- Midwest: Madison, Milwaukee
- Anarch activity in the Midwest is crushed between Chicagoan Camarilla and the Sabbat anvil across the Great Lakes and Rust Belt. They concentrate their energies in the aging, working-class neighbourhoods of Milwaukee and the politically volatile capital, Madison, struggling to turn back the stifling social movements of the other sects.
- Northeast: Appalachia
- Small Anarch baronies operate somewhat unopposed in Appalachia and the urban centers scattered through West Virginia and Kentucky. Anarchs in this area tend to be older vampires with fewer political ambitions than their hothead western cousins. Their territories are loose and small, well-guarded against nomadic packs and the rare Camarilla party attempting to gobble up land.