Vancouver Briefing

Tradition

Hasseltine House

Where Tempus Spatium hangs its wands and cosplay outfits.

At the corner of Cordova and Dunlevy, right across from Oppenheimer Park

4 point node

Gate to Arcus Prima

The Protopad

The original quarters of Tempus Spatium.

Condo stack just west of Chinatown, near Andy Livingstone Park

3 point node

The Roach Motel

Newly renovated formerly beat-up apartments owned by Arcus Prima. We're getting into real estate now!

At the corner of Gore and Railway, backing into the railroad tracks themselves.

3 point node

Vancouver Chinese Alliance Church

Believed to be associated with a Chorister mission. Has two locations, one in the East Vancouver suburbs and a new building in South Vancouver near the Fraser River, bordering Burnaby.

Vancouver branch is at 3330 Knight Street

Richmond branch is at 3330 S.E. Marine Drive

Keep to themselves - if there's even mages there.

Marc Emery's Cannabis Culture

HQ for the infamous Ectastic Marc Emery.

307 Hastings St W

Sells lots of books and pot-related paraphernalia. Probably actually a front with the Ecstatics living in DTES (Downtown East Side) and keeping a low profile.

The Ecstatics here would probably also be active in raising awareness and supporting programs to help drug addicts.

Granville Island

A very bohemian and artsy area of the city, set up solely for small businesses of the artistic sort. Also includes the world-famous Emily Carr Art Institute. Proof positive of the political clout that the Ecstatics wielded in Vancouver when they had a Syndicate 'Magic Man' defect to the Cult.

The Iterators have managed to cap the node here though, with a cement plant (I'm not kidding), though the cement plant actually predates the artsy upgrades.

Mundy Park

It's not nicknamed 'Sherweed forest' for nothing. Probably infested with Ecstatics and Verbena trying to corrupt our youth.

It's a park. Plenty of trees and various amateur wicca groups do their thing there.

Musqueam-Tsawwassen Indian Reserves

Being close to the Delta wetlands, there may be Dreamspeakers and/or Verbena in the area, both trying to keep that piece of nature alive and to fight for redress against colonial policy against natives.

South-west Delta, near the ferry terminal.

Maritime Museum of BC

A museum dedicated to the fading glory of the Etherites, back when they were a member of the Order of Reason and Steam was King.

28 Bastion Square, Victoria

They've got cool ship exhibits

Not sure if they've got any fight left though.

Bright Woods Spiritual Centre

A Shinto shrine on Saltspring Island (about an hour's ferry from Vancouver) with a small community. Abandoned by the Traditions since the fall of Hasseltine House in 2004-5.

250 Holmes Road Saltspring Island

Node is almost certainly fallow. Will need a shrine maiden to properly renew it.

There already is a shrine maiden there, surely. Perhaps a bitter christmas cake.

Overall Tradition presence in Vancouver and region is relatively light. Members of the Cult of Ecstacy are the most common and have ride the generally easygoing, progressive politics of the region to shape public opinions. Verbena and Dreamspeakers are also prominent, though the Dreamspeakers have been unable to make substantial headway against the NWO when it comes to repairing the damages of the colonization era. Most other Tradition mages are simply transients.

Technocratic

Ballenas Island

Laser Bear Central. Right next to CFB Nanoose Bay

Void Engineer base.

Solid defenses

DTI Finance

The local Syndicate HQ. Takes up floors 17-29 of Bental tower 2. Probably a lot of mirror shade hanging happens here.

At the corner of Dunsmuir and Burrard. Right down town.

Civilians everywhere.

Right next to the Burrard Skytrain station, which is underground.

TRIUMF

The Tri-University Meson Factory. With a name like that though you know it's something more.

Near the south end of the UBC campus, right next to the woody expanse of Pacific Spirit Park

Probably one srs bsns node, recharging meson powerpacks for plasma rifles, ectoplasma blasters and voidships.

Pinnacle Architecture

A small and long-running NWO-Iterator construct that lays claim to guiding Vancouver's development for the past fourty years, being made up mostly of planners and architects. Whatever they're doing, they're doing it right (or so they'd like you to believe) since they keep winning the Most Livable City awards. Technocrats patting technocrat backs.

5th floot of the Scotiabank building, West Geogia and Seymour

Iterators without guns? What are they supposed to shoot you with? Protractors?

You young'uns weren't around for the architecture wars in the '60s. They didn't call it 'Brutalism' for nothing.

Ballard Power Systems, Inc

They were gonna be the next big thing in fuel cell technologies. Except they weren't. Maybe they've been cut off or maybe their work was deemed too 'sensitive' (or simply too advanced) to be introduced yet.

Their site is in south Burnaby, on the Fraser River.

Technocratic presence in Vancouver and region has been relatively light and has been dominated for some decades by the Syndicate who find Vancouver's status as a gateway port city excellent to build economic bridges across the Pacific. Iterators and Progenitors are mostly only in town on business - Vancouver is not known as a research hub, and those sites with connections are generally satellites - and the NWO seems content to limit itself to (or incapable of managing more than) keeping the Dreamspeakers out of any meaningful political influence. The construction of a Void Engineer base on Ballenas Island several years ago is unexplained and with the fall of Hasseltine House, has left the Council intelligence-gatherers at a loss.

Vampires/Kuei-Jin

Yong Xian Benevolent Association

Ozu-sama's primary front organization, where the local Camarila pays its respects. Recently renovated after some gang warfare got exceptionally violent in the summer of 2009 and the building was mistakenly attacked by thugs. Yessss, 'mistakenly'.

On Main Street, between Keefer and Pender

Means Forever Immortal. Hubris much?

Has several state of the art meeting rooms and a very Japanese martial arts dojo on the top (5th) floor.

Hotel Vancouver

Kang's underground palace/lair/labyrinth was under the Hotel Vancouver. It's now used as a meeting room when Ozu entertains important guests from out of the city.

Barely a block from the Syndicate HQ. Coincidence? FOX news says no!

Republic Nightclub and Boss Nightclub

Two trendy, popular clubs owned by Ozu. Full of 20somethings and vampires that like to feed on them. Several others are common vampire hangouts, but these two are the most favored.

Both are downtown.

The Edgewater

Unluckiest. Casino. Ever.

On the north side of False Creek, just south of BC Place.

Times powned by deviants: 3

Werewolves

Lumberman's Arch

A powerful cairn maintained in the heart of the city, where the wuffs go when they're not busily tearing humans limb from limb. The technos probably haven't busted it yet because they couldn't take the public outcry it'd cause.

One of the more famous monuments in Stanley Park.

Also full of LARPers playing Lycanthrope: The Rapture

Misc Supernatural

China Gate

The gate is a supernatural link between Vancouver and Guangzhou, China.

On Pender, between Taylor and Carrall

It'd be weird if there was no Dragon Wizard stuff in Vancouver or Victoria Chinatown. This could be one of their things.

Riverview Hospital

The Vancouver area mental health facility. At one point it had over 4000 patients.

Probably has some pretty twisted resonance. Not a good place to visit in the umbra.

Probably also home to some changelings. Not that we really know changelings exist.

Plans

Future Planning

These are all general issues and plans that affect all of Arcus Prima.

Near-term

The Olympics are coming

• The Olympics are essentially our coming-out party, to show that we've succeeded in shaping the realm and are ready to begin to work for the good of the Traditions.
• We should decide and coordinate with IX we're going to have a proper Festival with various luminaries or just a casual meet-and-greet. The working hypothesis is the former, new chantryrealms don't get founded every year after all.
• As this is Mari's debutante party, we can probably lean on Caldwell to supply us with consors, maids, butlers, etc for the duration.
  • Caldwell can also provide political cover in case of greedy Masters moving in.
• We can expect all Mentors to be present, as well as either members of the Council of Nine or representatives from said. Plus various others, many of which we probably won't know.
• Best behavior! This would be a good time to showcase the Arts and Crafts Division, but on the flipside a lot of more 'traditional' mages might find the entire thing rather ridiculous verging on insulting. The more serious business the guest list the less emphasis we should put on our orphans in specific as opposed to 'we are forward-looking and diverse.' Besides, the party is mostly for our Trad types anyhow. Let's support them.
  • You're mean!! We'll be good.
• Can/should we open a standing gate to the Palace to provide Amusements?
• Discuss the Olympics with IX and officially state our request for it.
• The whole War against the Syndicate puts a wrinkle on this. We need to either deal with it hard and fast or let it lapse until after the Olympics. That period would probably be an extremely bad time to be feuding with the syndics either way, due to the immense coverage and police presence.
• Project Coil: Augmented Reality for the masses. Proteus will have to get some plans for Eli to make along with formatting a proper Sector to house the routing and serving processes (plus delicious quint trap).

Other Business

• The Sabbat appear to be poised to move into Vancouver. We probably want to back Ozu in some fashion (probably from the sidelines), but this also gives us a golden opportunity to turn vampires into tass.
• Get more gear! We're woefully ill-equipped so let's look to getting more loot and gear.
  • Quint batteries are cheap; everyone with prime 2 should have (at least) one. Let's stop bumbling around like newbies.
• We need another node to help fuel Arcus Prima, the Japan shrine is going to be jettisoned as soon as possible. Project Coil may supply this, but more tass is good. We should see if can find out what kind of tass Lake Taihu makes!

Mid-term

• We should consider setting up a proper Chantry government/organization if/when we start to populate our realm and get apprentices etc.
• Cara x Mari x Westin x Eli to Paris
• Kana x Liz x Cathy x Yu Lan x Shu to Shanghai
• Terrified serf population for the Dark Island
• More loot

Long-term

• Russia?
• Soulsteel heart for Cara

Arcus Prima vs The Syndicate

The Situation

• The Syndicate in Vancouver has Crossed The Line through screwing with Liz's family and other related innocents (like Mari). They must be destroyed.
• The Camarilla of Vancouver have responded well to overtures for cooperation. While they will have to be kept at arms length to avoid alienating certain mages, they can attack the Syndicate in ways we cannot.
  • They also have some rather divergent interests, including but not limited to the fact that a cosmic horror just woke up in Paris and no one was on hand to provide his fucking morning baguette. So maybe just a bit of preoccupation there. Unreliable.
• The Olympics will hit in two months time. Better be fast and not wreck the city too much.
  • We need to make it clear that we don't have any interest in ruining the Olympics.
• Chicago is tying up Technocracy (and Syndicate particularly) resources. Now is the time to strike.
• Kana will need to head to Japan relatively soon, though hopefully she'd be back eventually.

Target/Threat List

Add techno bases and potential nodes here

• Are there techno (Progenitors or ItX) bases in UBC or Simon Fraser U. that may become involved?
• The Void Engineers have a base on Laser Bear Island (Ballenas Island). If this gets involved, we have a problem. Low priority target. Right next to CFB Nanoose Bay
• The Syndicate occupies the DTI building, but construct attacks on the Syndicate are questionably useful.

The Plans

Gathering Intel/Allies

• Mari seduces Ozu and gets the Camarilla on board [status: successful]
• Liz goes to the Moon to recruit etherites and party members.
• We should locate all of the major technocracy centers of power in the Vancouver area.
• We hit up Eggscuttle's friends to see if they can help us find Technos.
  • And make sure we know at all times to what extent the Syndic's own intel network is onto us.
  • There's a tass and quint crunch. Other things we can offer include: A new apartment building soon to be full of messy, wasteful humans. Prized info from Syndicate databases?
  • Eli can probably manufacture blood or a blood substitute. Actual vitae would cost tass.
• Cathy invokes Bes for aid?
• We should hunt down and secure untapped or weakly defended nodes in the area. Look off the shore and in the suburbs as well. This not only improves our resources, but we deny these resources to the technocracy as well.

Striking

• Direct attacks on physical assets could easily be irrelevant. Hit bank balances and metaphysical assets directly.
• Use Proteus' wifi to attack Syndicate virtual assets.
  • Summer Wars!
• Hit the correct place and we can relieve some of the pressure on our tass/quint supplies.
• The Syndicate is as good at indirect warfare as the NWO, if not better. All chantry assets should be isolated from direct action against the Syndicate. Hasseltine House should come out of this obscure.
  • Matter magi can generate enough currency to cover suspicious purchases.
  • Use cheap apartments and lock-ups for stuff that can't be done in the chantry.
  • Use vampire or sleeper proxies.
• Be prepared for prisoners. Syndicate personnel are less likely to die for the cause, as making money while dead is quite difficult. Prisoners can be a valuable source of intel, be they will be difficult to secure.
  • Taking to the realm risks compromising Hasseltine House.
  • They could be stored in Liz's brain, at the risk of endangering her mind. But soon she will have Mind 1.

Ethics

• This is officially designated White Hat Protocol. Try not to kill innocent people.
• Allying with vampires is okay because fuckit.
• No families, however it may be permissible for a technocrat to believe his family is at risk, due to poetry.
• Policy on (oblivious) sleeper servants under review.
  • Kana will kill so that Liz won't have to!
• Under what circumstances will we kill prisoners/surrendered/incapacitated technocrats?

Current Score

• United Occult Front: 1 mage
• Technocracy: 0