Help! Need someone who knows more about North American geography than I do!

[sparkindarkness]

As mentioned here: http://sparkindarkness.livejournal.com/204537.html I am running a werewolf game. Because I prefer to stick mostly to game canon and because the game requires the interaction of many many tribes it is to be set in the Americas (European werewolf tribes tend to have their own established territory and multi-tribal septs are rare or limited to maybe 3 tribes. It‘s also easier to shoot them there).

The things is I don't know exactly where to situate it. I want to keep it as close to the real world as possible (makes for less invention and more interesting research - in my last campaign they went Yuma, Arizona to Miami to Townsville, Queensland and I had lots of fun researching them all) but I am willing to tweak things (turn a moderate city into a NYC sized metropolis, for example). But I need somewhere to start.

So, what do I need?

A city moderately close to forested wilderness “close” can be “within 2-3 days solid travel” but more than a week would be pushing it. The wilderness has to be predominantly woodland.

Temperate/cold climate Snows in winter. Has pine trees. That kind of thing. No deserts, palm trees, calypso dancers.

Not somewhere already heavily established in White Wolf’s canon I like the canon, I use it a lot and don’t want to clash with it too badly since I may want to use it. So NOT: NYC, New York State, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago

A Camarilla City So nowhere that is established as Sabbat - so NOT Toronto (rest of Canada’s fine, I never bought the idea of all of Canada being a Sabbat holding - it made NO sense) Detroit, Miami, Mexico

Bonus points
Not essentials but they’d be nice bonuses if possible:

Native wolf population
Wilderness is actually a National Park or similarly legally protected
The city has a history (not necessarily current presence) of organised crime ties


All suggestions gratefully appreciated!


(ETA: I'm going to do brief research on each suggestion and probably post another post on detailed pros and cons of each :))

Comments

[thisdaydreamer.livejournal.com]

Washington DC is a few hours away from Shenandoah National Park, and much of central Virginia is rural. Not much snow, but there's generally some every year. Charlottesville and Richmond in Virginia might also work, although the former doesn't have much in the way of organized crime.

Much of the southwest corner of Virginia is very rural, and all wilderness in this part of the country is woodland.

I can tell you pretty much anything you need to know about Charlottesville, especially. *grin*

Note - my icon is a picture taken near Washington DC.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I never pictured there being any wilderness near DC... It would have made a nice options - but I think i want to avoid the actual capital. I want the local vampires to be powerful - but the Glass Walkers would have a hard job having any influence at all in DC

Charlotte and Richmond were what I considered, but they were badly involved in the canon white wolf war up and down the east coast

[thisdaydreamer.livejournal.com]

Actually, The Wilderness is less than half an hour's drive from DC, but I can understand not wanting to use the capital.

There are some major cities in the DC area as well - Fairfax, Alexandria, Baltimore.

One thing about this country is that it is mostly rural. There are a lot of major population centers, but the areas in between have sparse populations other than small towns. I can't think of a single city in the US that isn't an easy daytrip away from the middle of nowhere, and a lot of that nowhere, especially by the coasts and along the northern border, is full of trees.