Community Names and Locations

[kalos72]

I am curious what some of us have named and located communities or cantonments in their campaigns.

Where have you put larger populations or organizations and what have you called them?

Perhaps a database of all the locations and such of the player created population centers would be cool...

[sglancy12]

Originally Posted by kalos72

I am curious what some of us have named and located communities or cantonments in their campaigns.

Where have you put larger populations or organizations and what have you called them?

This is sort of an interesting thread that I think should not be allowed to drop dead. The naming of a community is going to go a long way towards sending the message the inhabitants what to project.

On the subject of larger cantonments' locations, I think that it would be a bit hard to justify it not occupying a previously inhabited area, like a town or part of a city. Most communities exist where they do because they have an economic reason for the location combined with sufficient resources (primarily water) to support the population. A lake, a river or access to wells. Otherwise, no community or cantonment.

But back to naming places...

I have a preference for names that aren't too comic bookish... if they are an official name. I don't mind the "Sea Lord of Jacksonville" only insofar as that name feels like something his enemies call him. I got the impression that the military dictatorship in Jacksonville is the result of the Navy base mutinying under the leadership of a senior officer and setting up their own private kingdom. Perhaps they officially call themselves the "North East Florida Martial Law District," but they aren't returning MilGov or CivGov's calls.

A lot of towns and villages are just going to call themselves by the place's original name, unless there is a political reason to change it. I mean, if some new political group like New America takes over, they might change the name of the town to something more in keeping with their political agenda. Like maybe eliminating any native American names or places. At the other end of the North American political scale, if there's a cantonment operating up north of Oakland, I have no doubt that it'll be some variation on "the Berkeley People's Democratic Collective."

Or if a group with a peculiar religious bent takes over the town, they might rename it something out of the Bible (or whatever religious tract takes their fancy). There's going to be a lot of "New Somthings."

New Canaan, New Zion, New Gilead, New Eden, etc...

For a place to be named "General Mayhem's Sodomy Parlor and Funtime Jamboree, it's going to be a sign that neither the leadership, nor anything else around there is going to be anything more than temporary. A joke name for a cantonment is not going to inspire a lot of confidence.

Maybe you can get away with some place calling themselves "The Republic Tanstaafl"... as in "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" (like in Traveller 2300), but such names are going to be few and far between.

Some communities might have a name's for repurposed things in their area. Like if the cantonment is build around an abandoned military facility, maybe they call it "Fort Something." Or if it were built in an old shopping mall they might adopt the name of the mall... I wonder what they'd call the Mall of America? Probably just America.

"Where do you live?"

"America."

". . . Smart ass."

Or if there is a community built around a resource, like a mine, a factory, a power plant, or even a bridge, the new community might adopt a name related to the resource. "Bridgetown" anyone? "Coalville?" "Fordtopia?"

For bigger cantonments away from Milgov or Civgov control (or the remnants of any pre-war government for that matter) you're likely to get a lot of "Free City ofs." Krakaow... Barnaul... Memphis... things like that.

If an area is big enough they are going to start calling themselves "the Free State of BLANK." The isolationist community in Connecticut for instance... although I don't recall that they declared their independence from the USA.... only that they weren't cooperating with either MilGov or CivGov.

Of course over in the old world you have a whole lot of other options for naming your cantonment. For one thing, the whole place is divided up into Duchies and freeholds and Baronies and whatnot from all the way back to the Middle Ages. Is there a spot in Europe that couldn't be rechristened with it's pre-unified nation state name?

Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[sic1701]

"Welcome, freeloaders, to the Welfare State of Loafing...no immigration card required!"

And at night, you find out they're a bunch of cannibals.

[sglancy12]

Somewhere around here I've got a document written by Thom Mulkey (author of Urban Guerilla, Gateway to the Spanish Main and a couple other scenarios published in Challenge Magazine) called "The Nickel Tour of the Sunshine State" or something like that. He names dozens of proposed factions and communities in Florida. I'll post some of it soon, but the document is a big pile of poorly photocopied tractor-feed pages from about twenty years ago, so scanning it into a pdf is a whole nasty problem I am not interested in fighting through at the moment.

Maybe later.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[Marc]

Originally Posted by sglancy12

Is there a spot in Europe that couldn't be rechristened with it's pre-unified nation state name?

Totally true. And in the most cases these names are still used in day to day live. Most of the older nations or kingdoms inside modern states have some kind of political boundaries and attributions as provinces, autonomous regions, etc.

Following with the thread, the name (or the nickname) of the military unit founder of the cantonment could be used. As a classical and ancient example, we have the Spanish city of Leon. The name is the same for its province and for the Middle Age kingdom of Leon and can be translated directly as Lion, in English. Although even its coat of arms represents a lion, its real origin is the evolution of the Latin term legio, as the city of Leon itself was founded around the cantonment established by the Roman legion Legio VII Gemina. Just a curiosity.

[Dogger]

In my game post war America is fractured into 4 or 5 large political/military entities and tons of smaller ones...with vast areas of howling wilderness filling up the rest.

The player group is based out of the South Texas Grange at Victoria TX.

The major political/military containment's are:

"The Federated States of America" (MilGov) Based in Denver CO. Area controlled: Colorado - parts of Wyoming - Nebraska - Kansas - Utah - northern sections of Oklahoma - Texas - New Mexico.

"The Northwest Pacific Combine" (New America Cell) Based in Portland OR. Area controlled: parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho.

"The Reformed United States" (CivGov) Based in Springfield IL. Area Controlled: Parts of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana.

"The Tennessee Valley Union" Based in Jackson TN. Area controlled central/western Tennessee.

"The Central Valley League" (US 6th Army) Based in Modesto CA. Area controlled Sacramento & San Joaquin valleys (Bakersfield CA to Redding CA south to north & from the Coastal Range mountains (west) to the Sierra Nevada Range. (east).

"The Southern Confederation" (New America Cell) Based in Tampa FL. Area controlled Florida, parts of Alabama, Georga, South Carolina. [* Central & Southern Florida was lost to the SC after a combined assault by the FSA, TVU & South Texas Grange on their Tampa headquarters stronghold.]

"The New England Occupation Zone" (France/Quebec Military) Based in Bangor MA. Area controlled Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, sections of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York.

"The South-Western Alliance" (Various Native American Tribes) This is a loose alliance of tribes scattered throughout New Mexico Arizona and southern Utah.

"The Tribal Commonwealth." (Various Native American Tribes) Same as the SWA listed above but located in parts of North & South Dakota & Montana.

[sglancy12]

Originally Posted by Marc

Following with the thread, the name (or the nickname) of the military unit founder of the cantonment could be used. As a classical and ancient example, we have the Spanish city of Leon. The name is the same for its province and for the Middle Age kingdom of Leon and can be translated directly as Lion, in English. Although even its coat of arms represents a lion, its real origin is the evolution of the Latin term legio, as the city of Leon itself was founded around the cantonment established by the Roman legion Legio VII Gemina. Just a curiosity.

In the TW2K cannon we have at least one example of this. Fort Fortson is the name of the cantonment that the 43rd M.P. Brigade forms in New England when they give up trying to police the entire area and just start looking out for themselves. It's named after the commanding officer, Col. Fortson.

I can certainly see a town or cantonment being renamed after the strongman (or strongwoman) who has managed to hold the place together and keep everyone fed. Farnham's Freehold for example? Or maybe something named after the military unit that set up cantonment there? If the 101st Air Assault Division had a cantonment in the US, maybe it would be called Screaming Eagle City? Or maybe the 82nd's cantonment would be called "The Airborne Republic?"

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing