Our story takes place in what is called the Tri Cities, which includes Kitchener, Cambridge, and Waterloo (KCW), along with the separate city of Guelph, and Brant County along with city of Brantford. At its heart lies the Tri Cities, whose boarders expanded with to push against the limits of Guelph, and come to be separated by only a 10 minute drive to Brantford and Paris, two smaller cities in Brant County.

Chronicles of Darkness: The Tri Cities, and Guelph are larger than their real world counter parts, with the Tri Cities more than doubling the population of its real world counterpart. Forces and events have pushed growth in the Tri Cities to expand to its limits, and while Guelph hasn't grown as much, where it has grown has been in the direction of the Tri Cities. Brant County and Brantford aren't much larger than their real world counterparts, having resisted change. If anything at all Brant County has seen more residential areas around the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation Reserve, on the other end of its limits from the Tri Cities. Population of the Tri Cities is 1,400,000, Gulph 300,000, Brant County & Brantford 200,000.


The Tri-Cities

The Tri-Cities are an odd mix of high tech, and anachronism and religion. Both Waterloo and Berlin, who in the early 1900s would change its name to Kitchener, were founded by Mennonites. Many of their old buildings can still be found wedged in between modern buildings, labeled as heritage sites, and it is not uncommon to see horses pulling black buggies in traffic along side electric and fast cars. Home to two Universities, a handful of colleges, every year sees and influx of young people from throughout Canada and parts of the world. Known as the silicon valley of Canada, due to the Canadian headquarters of many of the world's tech companies being situated there to grab the best students coming of the University of Waterloo, which has made a reputation for itself in the field. Google, Blackberry, SAP, NetSuite, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, all have their Canadian headquarters in the Tri Cities, and specifically in Waterloo.  While in Cambridge, the top Seminary College in Ontario, Heritage Seminary College, operates, attracting many would be priests.  From theology, to quantum computing, discussions can be found taking place throughout the many cafes, bars, and nightclubs of the Tri Cities. Old and modern come together in an interesting blend, with old churches wedged between sky scrapers, trendy basement bars under short, older tightly packed apartment building rented out to students, and wood working warehouses next to office with employees jetting around on electric unicycles. The clash however seems to make sense when witnessed.

Reality: While horse and buggy Mennonites can be seen on the outskirts of town they aren't seen inside. And while the clash of new and old is certainly there, it is not as extreme as presented in our setting.


Guelph

Where the Tri Cities are a clash of new and old, vibrant, and energetic on both accounts, Guelph is just old. The University of Guelph is the life blood of the city, known for being the best Agricultural, Forestry and Veterinarian school in Ontario, if not Canada. And where the life blood of Guelph is the University, the heart is the Basilica of Our Lady which sits on the hill top, it's glory unobstructed due to building ordinances that never were removed, forcing most buildings to remain short. Laws permitting sword carrying still exist on the books, though strange to see. Parks, green spaces, and farms (run by the University) can be found across the city. Parts of the county on the outskirts or Guelph have been purposefully left to serve as green spaces, and while animals roam there. While an urban sprawl has march out towards the Tri Cities in the South Western part of the city, much of the remainder of the city remains old buildings, as conservation has remained important to the city.



Brantford and Brant County

Per capita, Brantford ranks highest in murders in all of Canada. Substance abuse is common among the run down areas. Biker gangs still exist here, stubbornly clinging on to the outskirts of civilization. Brantford never moved on to the 21st century, and what has been built as been cheap housing to accommodate a working class that has to travel outside the city to make a living. Known as the telephone city, due to Alexander Graham Bell having grown up in Brantford and made the first phone call ever from the city, Brantford seems to have been forgotten. Even Canada's favored son, Wayne Gretzky, seems to have moved on to somewhere better. Without much industry, and only farming in the county, the only thing attracting people here is cheap housing, and a rural life style. The Waterloo based university Wilfred Laurie has a small campus in down town Brantford, but not much has changed there for the past 60 years. While the same Grand River that cuts through the Tri Cities cuts through Brant County and Brantford, much of the county is swampy, with too many creeks and small rivers to properly cultivate much of the land, leaving large areas of wilderness to make up the county, with pockets of farms here and there.  Paris, the only other small town of note in the county, is a cheap tourist destination, for those wishing to enjoy some rapid rafting, and buy native Canadian art, wood carvings, and other art pieces, but come winter, much of that tourism disappears.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:45, Fri 19 Jan.