Armageddon Highway
Armageddon Highway
Important Information: Armageddon Highway exists in the real world, but it's a little different in the World of Darknesss. The information below should not be assumed to be something your character would be aware about. The purpose is mostly as a teaser and a small info-dump for a developing plot line. It has been developed over the course of two months by Jinny and Luu with ST permission and supervision. The plot line is just beginning to open to others, and IC information will follow.
Just North of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains is what some might call The Road to Nowhere or The Convict Road, but to most it’s simply Armageddon Highway. During the height of the Cold War the Federal Government was developing a plan to evacuate Los Angeles should a nuclear exchange begin to take place.
They began to cut into the mountain using labor from a nearby prison, but the project was never finished. It went over budget, likely with no small amount of corruption, but that’s not what really did it in. It took them a few years, but eventually someone must have pointed out that traffic in Los Angeles is pretty bad to begin with, and would likely be catastrophic during an impending nuclear holocaust.
The plans for the road, and with it any potential evacuation of Los Angeles, were scrapped and forgotten about by most. What remains are a few tunnels that are almost pitch black during the day, connected by a shadeless road subject to extreme weather. The whole thing isn’t even accessible by cars. Hiking or maybe taking a dirt bike up a series of switch-backs are the main options, should you get past the fence.
One might think that such an area would have a number of urban legends associated with it. A crew of ghost hunters hypothesized the area might be haunted, due in part to the number of prisoners that died building this folly. They set off for Armageddon Highway, but they were never seen again.
That is to say the crew was never seen alive again. Their severely brutalized decomposing bodies were found in the mountains several months after they had set out. The San Gabriel Mountains, you see, are often used by the Drug Cartels. They might have their own urban legends about this place, they are after all very superstitious, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s bothered to ask them about it. They can be a bit suspicious of outsiders as well. Not to mention territorial.
For the longest time, the Cartels used the mountains, but they didn’t venture anywhere near Armageddon Highway. Up until recently, the area had been protected and nurtured by a reclusive Shaman. Recently, though, this Shaman finally succumbed to the frailties of the flesh and returned to the mysteries of the spirit. Without a Shaman watching over, this area has begun to slowly change. It’s hard to say exactly how, but the Cartels are definitely no longer afraid to make use of this space. Perhaps they should be, because they aren’t the ones that were being kept away.
Some of the stories we've told ...
