New Haven

In 1897, the west-northernmost region of America, Alaska - the Last Frontier -, has become the epicentre of geopolitical shifts in the north of the continent. After the Russian Empire uncovered large deposits of ores, it accelerated its colonisation efforts, pushing eastward and attracting the wanting attention and interest of the British and French crowns, the former through their Dominion of Canada, the latter with their French Protectorate of Quebec. With their territories threatened East and West, the native Inuit tribes were forced to unite so they could stand a chance against this new enemy. The Inuit tribes founded the temple city of Ataqatigiinneq in the North, which became both the political and spiritual heart of the united Inuit nations. Meanwhile, in the South, the American Union is still recovering from the Tri-Partite War that saw the Union, the Confederation and the Spanish-led nation of Mexico fight a bitter, decades-long war that left the Confederate territories barren and unfit for human settlement, having become the lands of many undead hordes and other dark entities. Wishing to replenish its resources, the American Union’s Congress approved an attempt at claiming Alaska for themselves too, becoming the fifth major power in the region. With so many belligerents fighting a underhanded cold war for supremacy came weariness and a longing for peace: Russian colonisers weary of the wars against the local tribes, British and French settlers who question the legitimacy of monarchs far across the ocean, American Unionist veterans who tire from the unending battles and blood-shed. All converged towards the South-West of Alaska, and over a decade a fragile truce was established, leading to the founding of New Haven, a large settlement claiming independence from all foreign powers and wishing to carve their own destiny in this vast and mostly uncharted land. Perched on the edge of glacial fjords and black-sand plains, New Haven rises from salvaged iron frames and riveted copper domes, its streets humming with steam trams and clockwork laborers that tick steadily through twelve-hour shifts. Fog curls around pressure valves and alchemical vents that vent green-tinged vapors into the cold air. The town pulses with refugees: Union vets with brass-nailed prosthetics, Russian engineers who defied conscription, French medics smuggling forbidden texts, and Inuit hunters trading seal oil for zinc-core batteries. At night, whispers pass through alleyways of a spectral network—spirit-marked messengers who carry thoughts between the living and the dead. Though no army claims it, every power watches it. A ceasefire holds here, not from trust, but because the ground beneath feeds them all.