When the TDM hit, I was still working on my English degree at Western Kentucky University, having cleverly planned to avoid the draft by destroying multiple joints as a high school cross-country runner. I leveraged my minuscule fame as southwest Kentucky's only published RPG author to establish myself as the temporary local warlord of a mixed band of Vampire LARPers and SCAdians, using my parents' collection of Foxfire books and my copy of Nuclear War Survival Skills to rough out a blueprint for post-collapse survival. We successfully maintained order around our hilltop stronghold on WKU's campus for a couple of months before coming to the attention of the 194th Armored Brigade. Fortunately, the MP lieutenant sent to deal with us was a gamer himself, and a fan of my work on early Wraith: The Oblivion supplements, so I managed to negotiate our recognition as a nominally-aligned local militia unit.
Naturally, rural Kentuckians are a superstitious lot, and with so many goths in my employ, it was only to be expected that rumors of a vampire coven would spread across the region. By early 2001, local "knowledge" paints Bowling Green as a hive of Satanic worship, hemophaegic rituals, deviant sexual practices, and prewar remnant liberalism, fit only for a Twilight Nightmares scenario. One shudders to think of the stories they whisper around their cooking fires when describing its dark, unseen ruler...
- C.
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