War for Chicago
The War for Chicago is a supernatural conflict whose echoes are still felt today among the Vampires. Many of the Survivors of that war are scarred and battered, barely able to put the old fight aside. It shows itself in the "friendly" rivalries and competitions that abound in the Princedom. Grouping together in tactically sound coteries is still an idea that resonates with the older Founding and Immigrant Vampires.
It all began in 1920, when the first ship of Vampires arrived. The Get of Imogen came with a group of mortal Irish immigrants in caskets bound and sealed. Torpid, their ghouls among the Irish set them up in a shipping warehouse on the water near Navy Pier. The Methuselah Imogen was more than a bit taken aback when Hiram met her demand to be named Prince with a shotgun blast to the chest. While in the old world she might have had a claim to a throne given her age, this was Chicago, and that stuff won't fly here.
The Get of Imogen fought a bloody battle of attrition with the supernaturals of Chicago, embracing rampantly from among the black community to "raise them out of poverty" became a rash of Embraces to overwhelm the Uratha and Mages. The Lines of the Founders swelled at this point, Embracing individuals for their skills and combat ability more than anything. Both sides fostered gangster families to act as proxies in the daylight hours of the War, and committed themselves wholly to the task of taking Chicago.
At first the fight was contained, the Get controlled everything south of the Belt Railway. They had a mob of black men who had been oppressed too long by white folks, and were finally given power. Imogen used them to stir up fear and she didn't care about the Masquerade, because she knew she wouldn't be targeted. Race riots and mobs and terrible terrible things started happening. So Hiram played his hand the way he knew how. He called in the Werewolves. Iron Masters hunted constantly, circling multiple packs through the southside every day, hunting the Vampires that were faced the night before. When the Vampires had been thinned, he called on the Mages, to bring the hammer down. It would have worked, had it not been for the arrival of another Get.
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