Joliet, Illinois
The most famous thing about the city of Joliet is its prison, which was its second-largest source of jobs until it was shut down due to a mixture of scandal and dilapidation. With the waves of the interdiction racing their way through the Collar at the end of the last century, any prosperity Joliet had in its future was quickly crushed. Transitioning from a bustling ironworks city to a city of squalor, Joliet is set in wrought-steel bridges over the Des Plaines River. A distinct rust belt town, Joliet stands as a testament to the brutality financial might can deploy on a city. A large portion of the city is dilapidated lower-income housing. Sweeping neighborhoods already weakened by the loss of working-class jobs took the brunt of the gangland rout, playing host to the influx of refugees from the Chicago ghettos’ dissolution at the turn of the century. The other portions of the city hold slowly rotting mansions. Skeletons of the economic security of the past, these parishes contain the academic strongholds and remaining old money. The city center boasts only two buildings of import: the county courthouse and Union Station at the end of the Southwest Service Metra Line, which begins in the heart of the Hive.
The Will County Courthouse is the county’s seat of justice and was an area Clan Tzimisce controlled before Tarnopolski drove them out on behalf of the Anarch Movement. A temple of grief, the court preyed on the sorrow of the weak and less fortunate. Extravagant court fees were levied upon all who were forced to enter, and rulings tended to be less than fair. Kine of note was taken by the Fiends’ blood slaves to be “lost in the system.” While the Sabbat may have left their holdings, these ravenous slaves were abandoned and now look to acquire vitae in any possible way. Set firmly within the squalor of the ruins of Joliet, the Church of Caine would routinely use the Southwest Service Line or backroads to get into Chicago proper from Joliet, mostly via Archer Avenue. There were stories of the huge bonfires they would set up in the middle of streets for their grotesque revelries marketed as “parish festivals.” Rumors exist of some Heretics remaining in the town on Clan Brujah’s sufferance. Joshua Tarnopolski and Anita Wainwright have agreed a small Church of Caine presence may be useful, to provide insight into that fringe religion’s future aims. Then there are rumors all the Heretics left not because of Tarnopolski’s purge, but because they could no longer control what they locked away within the walls of Statesville prison.
Joliet, Illinois