Fort James
In orbital photographs, the city of Fort James looks like the center of a giant spider web. Dozens of railroads junctions lie just outside the citadel of Fort James. Controlling this web is Western Railways, one of the largest railroad corporations on Terra Nova.
Western offers inexpensive transport for both passengers and goods across the WFP, the western reaches of the Norlight Confederacy and part of the United Mercantile Federation. Fort James is also the main cereal processing site in the Protectorate: grain from all over the Great Western Plain is shipped into Fort James by rail and transformed into flour, ready-to-eat foods and animal feed. A small portion of the best grain is bought by local bakeries. The city’s chefs are famous for blending different types of flour to produce their rich, aromatic breads and pastries. Fort James style baked goods are considered to be a delicacy across the Arctic. Some of these pastries are flavored with liqueurs or “Fort James Special,” a sweet whisky produced by a local distillery. These pastries are in great demand in Valeria.
Because of the gamma maglev and the numerous railways and roads that link Fort James to the outside world, and because of its proximity to the Badlands, the smallest of the three Western forts has the highest proportion of new clans in the league. Several first clans remain important in the city, most notably the James clan that gives the fort its name, but new clans are numerous enough to be essentially equal in standing in the city-state. The most prominent new clan in the fort James is the Peters. This clan arrived in Fort James in TN 1540 has gained a reputation for status-climbing ever since. Peters family members are put under huge pressure to join the military in order to gain more citizens for the clan, and the clan itself always seems to be on the lookout for new acquisitions. This avarice has gotten the clan into more than a little trouble historically.
The most flagrant example of this trouble is the clan’s claim to Karlton Ranch, a small but successful oil producing town in the Badlands, just south of the WFP. The settlement was originally settled by a Peters member who unsuccessfully ran a ranch there until he sold the land to Karl Hadrian, a local. Hadrian’s descendents found oil on the site and have become quite wealthy as a result. The Peters clan claims the land-sale to Hadrian was not legal because the clan elders in Fort James never cleared it, and have been trying to regain Karlton ever since. This has led to assassinations and occupations, with casualties and losses occuring on both sides of the dispute. Currently, clan elder Peters Laurenz claims that Karlton’s mayor Elena Hadrian-Jando is a Southern sympathizer and spy. He wishes to see the town occupied by the WFPA .