GameKansasCity.com

TredHed and I thought this would be a good place to do some brainstorming for the Kansas City Metro as it might appear in the Dresdenverse, in anticipation of the Dresden Files RPG.

Feel free to blue-sky here, and pick and choose any aspects you like or want to expand upon. I know we've got tons of ideas, and this should be as good a place as any to air them.

It was something about the rivers.

The random, twisting, meandering shape of the meeting of the two waterways, sculpted by chance--or by some ancient geomantic influence--had two results:

It was like a lens, gathering dormant arcane energies from the untouched nature flanking the banks, focusing it onto the surrounding hills and valleys into a clean, pure, gregarious magical flow;

It was like a filter, straining primal vehemence and negative, unformed mystic slag from stagnant spiritual eddies and flushing it downstream, where the grounding effect of the fast-moving water washed it into nothingness.

Thus the two rivers, one patient, forceful, and impossibly wide (over a mile at its widest); the other untamed, unpredictable and mysterious, at their joining, formed the head of a gigantic ley line, a thaumaturgic relay halfway between coasts of the expansive green and brown continent.

And the people who settled upon those hills and banks felt the effects of the benevolent confluence, whether they knew of its existence or not.

(Some did…)

Those early settlements--Shawnee, Parkville, Independence, and the bustling Town of Kansas--enjoyed unparalleled growth and affluence as frontier communities, the last havens of civilization before crossing over into wild and often dangerous territory.

The settlements grew, and the Town of Kansas became Kansas City, quickly recognized by citizens of the fledgling country as a gateway to the West, a city where luck abounded, hard work was rewarded tenfold, and fortunes could be made.

Thus, the primal geography affected the land, and the people of Kansas City prospered in its presence.

Until the Corps came.

Their pretense was understandable: the unpredictable nature of the wide, shallow, slow-moving rivers made them difficult and hazardous to navigate. The addition of dikes, weirs, and levees narrowed the waterways and sped up their flow, allowing boat traffic to travel safer and faster. Permanent banks were established and the bottoms were dredged.

Unknowingly, the Army Corps of Engineers, in forcing this infrastructure on the rivers, blighted the confluence, and the arcane tap ran dry.

Kansas City immediately felt the consequences. Crime skyrocketed. Floods destroyed entire neighborhoods. Corruption reigned. The rich and influential made violent grabs for power, and the city became dangerous.

The magical community, at a loss, abandoned the city in droves.

The few that were left eked out a living as best as they could, among the dark and empty voids that the missing ley trunk left behind. Some were tarnished by the gloom, others helplessly fell through the cracks and were consumed. Dark shambling things, hungry and angry, emerged from the empty space and stalked the streets and alleyways.

With hope for the city seemingly lost, a serendipitous discovery was made.

A fountain was built, a simple gesture, made by mortals, possibly as an attempt to bring some beauty to the now graying city. Though small, unassuming, and unenchanted, the fountain had an unexpected effect that could be felt by all that were near it: a field of strong magical energy began to radiate from the pool, and the darkness in the neighborhood surrounding the fountain began to recede.

Those of the magical community that remained (and cared) saw to the creation of more fountains, and the result was similar: the basins acted as arcane reservoirs.

Though merely a fraction of the potency the surge from the confluence that had once provided, magic began to flow through Kansas City again, and the darkness began to abate.

Through political maneuvering, a handful of magic-using Kansas Citians took positions of power: city councilmen, police officers, teachers, activists, community planners. An underground effort to build fountains was undertaken, and fountains were placed in strategic locations, maximizing the draw of power and forging the flow to keep the darkness at bay.

Quietly, slowly, with the help of the magical denizens, light began to retake the city. Culture reemerged. Happiness blossomed. The well-meaning overtook the power-hungry. From the shattered remnants of the destroyed ley line, a niche was constructed; a thriving, sprawling, industrious and individual metro.

Today, Kansas City is known as “The City of Fountains.” No one is certain how many there are--certainly hundreds, most visible and magnificent, but many obscured by peculiarities of architecture or straight-up illusion magic. And no practitioner, from the most venerable wizard to the neophyte dabbler, can deny their power.

No one is certain why it happens. The effect is counter-intuitive--moving water normally dampens and eradicates magical energy. But there is something about the land, an unseen aspect carved into the very fabric of the world as a result of the once-existing ley source, that wherever water issues forth from the ground, the dormant potential is tapped and freed, and flows willingly into the material world.