Halimar Heights is a small city — more of a town, really — named after the explorer who founded it in the late nineteenth century, James Halimar.
Overview[]
A rustic mountain town overlooking a Rocky Mountain valley, Halimar makes for a scenic vacation destination. In fact, tourism is one of the town’s biggest sources of income. People come for the idyllic charm, stunning vistas, and fresh air. Many never leave, moving their families or businesses to Halimar, a place where they can see themselves growing old and prosperous amid good people, good food, and good values. Halimar’s good image is thanks to the deliberate and careful cultivation of the city council, established early in Halimar’s history. On the face of it, they seem like honest, hard-working council members, doing their best to make Halimar Heights better every day.
They pass laws and regulations that prove welcoming to incoming businesses, keep a well-funded police force and education system, and the city is probably the cleanest in all of America. Summers are warm and verdant, winters short and mild. With a low crime rate, Halimar Heights is nearly the perfect place to raise a family.
The city council comprises five councilmembers and the mayor. Currently, they are Jayne Hardy, Thomas Bower, Bill Jenkins, Martine Matts, Frank Wilson, and Mayor Dina Strong. All are Halimar natives and all are descendants of the original families who founded the council. The ascension to their ancestors’ same lofty positions is no coincidence. Long ago, the ruling families of Halimar Heights made a Faustian bargain to procure their own success and that of their city. The area was always one steeped in spiritualism, although the natives of the valley considered the mountain upon which Halimar sits to be the abode of malicious spirits, and dared not settle there. It turned out they were right.
The original council happened to believe the stories, and they actively sought out some of these spirits in order to make some kind of bargain. Ultimately, they found what they were looking for, the “pagan gods” of the mountain. The “gods” were Banes, caretakers of an ancient Wyrm-beast slumbering within the mountain.
The council had a proposition: help make the town prosperous and the council will pay proper respect, even help pacify the beast of the mountain. The Banes accepted, with an additional condition: the council must help keep away the ancient enemies of their new “gods,” savage shapeshifters who would tear down every last brick of the city and bring about a return to the way of the savages. If not, then the Banes would awaken the beast to do so, at the cost of the lives of everyone in Halimar.
The agreement was thus set, and the Banes gave several gifts to the council: knowledge of certain spirit rites to allow them to recognize and help drive away the enemy, an ability to see through the Delirium, and long, healthy lives. With this help and militias formed of townsfolk, many of whom were hunters and former soldiers, the city council hunted the local wolf population to extinction, quietly murdered the few people truly opposed to the slaughter, and buried them on the mountain.
Wary of the area, perhaps, from stories by their kin or by spirits, few Garou packs tried to move into Halimar over the years, and invariably the council destroyed those that did. With their knowledge and ability to locate werewolves, the council set up traps that even the superior power of the Garou could not overcome, overwhelming them with numbers, silver bullets, and blood-fueled rites.
For several decades in the late 1800s and early twentieth century, they actually used the superstitions of settlers to strike out against any “monsters” that tried to inhabit the area. With occasional aid from packs of Black Spiral Dancers, who themselves usually don’t stay in the area too long, the vigil proved surprisingly effective.
In the modern day, the town council does its best to keep Halimar Heights free of Gaian spirits and shapeshifters. Members of the city council cult endure induction into their ancient shamanistic tradition, and each council member has a number of spirits (lesser Banes) that report to them.
Several other prominent city officials also take part in the cult. That is why they are so obsessed with keeping the town free of crime and violence. If their pact is broken and the Wyrm-beast unleashed, it would destroy Halimar Heights, utterly and completely. In order to avoid this, the council is very firm in its rule, despite the outward appearance of benevolence. Since the original pact, the town grows very much with the spirits and Wyrm-beast in mind. Zoning in particular has special attention paid to it, which is one area in which the council is very strict. Roads designed and buildings placed in such a manner that if one were to look from above and know what one was looking for, one would see a Wyrmish rune ever growing, channeling taint, and keeping it trapped in Halimar but focused into the proper uses. The cult does not want the town to devolve into chaos, so they channel the taint into keeping people complacent, unwilling to accept that Halimar Heights is too good to be true. Agents of the council quickly silence those who cause trouble, one way or another. The inordinately large Halimar Police Department cracks down heavily on crime and the criminal laws are much stricter than they are in most towns across the country.
References[]
- WTA W20 Book of the Wyrm, p. 80-81.