Canada is a country located in the northern part of North America. It consists of ten provinces and three territories, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Canada's common border with the United States forms the world's longest land border.
Overview[]
Covering nearly four million square miles, Canada has a human population of just 37 million mortals, with most living within 190 miles of the southern border with the United States. Canada is commonly divided into 5 regions: British Columbia stands as the sole province on the Pacific. The Prairie Provinces are comprised of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Ontario and Quebec together form Eastern Canada. The Atlantic Provinces are New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut collectively are referred to as The Territories.
Canada has vast natural resources and a solid high-tech industrial base. In addition to Alberta's oil fields, the Prairie Provinces have extensive agricultural industries. Edmonton houses, among other things, the world's largest shopping mall, home to its own criminal (and perhaps Kindred) subculture. In the east, the depletion of the Grand Banks fishing shoals has severely damaged the economy of the Atlantic Provinces. Ontario and Quebec remain industrially prosperous rivals in the heart of the country even as the latter repeatedly threatens to secede and the former tries diligently to maintain unity. The Quebecois separatist movement, countered internally by the Federalists and externally by the rest of the country, centers around the French-speaking minority's attempts to secede from the rest of Canada to form a Francophone republic. A referendum on secession in late 1995 showed the province's population to be narrowly in favor of remaining part of the Canadian union.
Canada's vampire population is the usual mix of the seven main clans with a smattering of others. While the Camarilla likes to claim that it has strong control over the nation of Canada, the reality is that the Sabbat and Camarilla have partitioned control of Canada's scattered population centers, while the Lupine control the vast wilderness in between. Eastern Canada, dominated by Toronto and Montreal, the nation's first and second largest metropolitan areas, belongs to the Sabbat. The Atlantic Provinces, for the most part, have escaped attention with the Sabbat showing little interest in fishermen and their affairs. West of Lake Huron, however, there is no Sabbat presence, meaning that the Camarilla have uncontested rule the cities of the Prairie Provinces. Insulated from the rest of Canada by the formidable Rocky Mountains, British Columbia (BC) stands outside the wars of the Sabbat and Camarilla. Infiltrated by Japanese vampires and ruled by the independent Prince Sigfried alone, Vancouver, BC's largest city and Canada's third, is effectively free of sect entanglements and is a model of efficiency for other princes. The Territories are too remote and too sparsely populated to support a permanent Kindred presence.
The Canadian capitol, Ottawa, is a special case. It is contested by both the Camarilla and Sabbat, but because of the strong presence of the Second Inquisition there, both sects keep mostly to themselves on either side of the Rideau Canal, preferring to fight in the backrooms of politics and business than outright in the streets. Anarch groups do occasionally pop up in the city during times of political unrest, but never last more than a couple of months.
For Camarilla vampires, the question is whether or not the Masquerade can be maintained in Canada. The nation's violent crime rate is much lower than that of the United States, mandating much more caution on the part of Canada's Kindred. In general, Canadian Kindred are fewer, farther between, and much more reluctant to take a human life unnecessarily than their American counterparts. This is not so much an expression of morality as one of self-preservation; excessive violent crime shocks and mobilizes Canadian society in a way that no longer touches Americans. Fueled by public outrage, the search for a violent criminal will prove relentless until the perpetrator is found.
The miles are too long and too Lupine-infested for ready ground travel between Canadian cities. Blunders can lead to exile, and exile usually means death here. With such intense potential pressure from the kine and lupine alike, Canadian Kindred are usually on their best behavior and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their princes in punishing offenders. After all, there's nowhere for them to run either.
Notable Events[]
The small town of New Dijon was the site of a large confrontation between the U.S. and Canadian governments and wraiths, which they mistook for interdimensional aliens. The city was evacuated and is now fenced off, with the official story being a sudden outbreak of hantavirus.