Locales of Black Mask & Pale Rider: Chicago, Ill.
The main characters are set. Naturally, there will be several secondary characters throughout the story, but we don’t need to go through those at this point in time. But like any story, there are the locales. Places where the characters will go. The first is Chicago, Illinois.
Chicago was founded as a town in 1833 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Watershed. By the 1860s, Chicago had a population of around 125,000, which made it a pioneering city on the edge of the frontier, but also a bustling center for trade and commerce.
It is here where Pania arrives, playing the role of an actress from Europe looking for a theatre company to join. She manages to find one, and manages to find a place to stay at a boarding house (which also happens to house a brothel). Being the adventurous sort, Pania dresses in her finery during the day as she explores the city and takes part in the theatre production that hires her, and during the evening, she wears her more comfortable gear and explores the city from a different view. It is here that she learns of the treatment of Native Americans, the Underground Railroad, and the history of this nation she has come upon.
Pania makes her home in a section of Chicago called Bridgeport. On the edge of this section is a small theatre attempting to make a go of it, but the land it rests on happens to be coveted by an industrialist that wishes to add to his holdings. The boarding house and brothel also resides close by, and is also coveted land by this same industrialist.
As Bridgeport is on the edge of the city, Pania has a chance to not only explore much of Chicago that permits, but she also has the opportunity to explore the surrounding countryside. It is here that she discovers the stage coach routes and the trade routes leading into the city. Small in comparison to the port routes on the edge of the Great Lakes.
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