The Union Stockyards

The Stockyards have always been a tangible symbol of old Chicago. To mortals, they represent Chicago's bloody roots in the meat-packing industry, when the city was "hog-butcher to the world." To Chicago's Kindred, however, all of that blood symbolized, oddly enough, an enduring hope. From the first nights after the Great Fire, when the city opened its gates to Kindred of all kinds, the Stockyards served as a kind of safety net for the down-and-out. Any Kindred, provided they were young enough to draw sustenance from animal blood and determined enough to hold it down, night after night, could be guaranteed a drink at the plentiful fountains provided by the cattle industry. Younger Kindred came to Chicago from all around; some fleeing religious persecution, some from overbearing sires, some even escaping the law of other cities that should rightfully have destroyed them. The Stockayards also provided safe (if not pleasant) haven from the Sun; drainage tunnels designed to sluice slaughterhouse byproducts into the canals were completely lightproof during the day. The community that formed inside the Yards was tight-knit; everyone there knew that no one else had anything really worth taking, thus everyone looked out for one another. These kindred became known as Yardies

The only Kindred who were looked upon with severe suspicion were newcomers (though they would quickly be welcomed in) and former "Yardies" who had gone native and returned, for God-knows-what reason. And no small number of Yardies did manage to get things together and establish themselves in Chicago; the Carthian Movement, in its early nights, made strong efforts to recruit out of these castoff Kindred, and it payed off. Some mystically-minded Yardies went on to join the Circle of the Crone, the Ordo Dracul, even the Lancaea Sanctum. Some stayed independent of covenants altogether, yet still managed to make a place for themselves, contributing to Chicago's growing population of influential Unaligned.

Unlife in the Yards was by no means pleasant; it was much like the Hoovervilles or hobo communities that spread across American cities during the Depression. Many Kindred respected the general feeling that they had to watch one anothers' backs, but one can guess that not everyone agreed. Fights occurred that often left all participants savaged, strongarm Kindred forcibly subjected their lessers to the Vinculum...even the foul crime of diablerie was rumored to happen quite often there. But as an absolute last resort, few cities had anything like the Yards to offer.

This community persisted unabated on the south side of Chicago until 1971, a century after the fire that created the great migration to Chicago. Though the Yards had been foundering as a business for decades, local Kindred, mainly Carthians, invested heavily into them in order to maintain the community. Although the Movement had long since outgrown the need to bolster recruitment by plumbing the dregs of Kindred society, many prominent Carthians had come out of the Yardie community themselves and couldn't bear to let it go. In the end, the one most responsible for propping up the ailing Yards, Diggs Foulworth, pulled his support. The Yards faltered and were closed. Perhaps it was because the Carthians were threatened by such a heavy presence of unprincipled Kindred just as they had once threatened the powers-that-be, or perhaps the Yards became too much of a financial burden on Foulworth and his confederates. The Yardies who still remained in Chicago, however, believed that Foulworth, who had risen from their ranks himself, simply betrayed his own roots. The land the Yards were built on was worth more as homes, warehouses, businesses, even as trash dumps than as stockyards.

In retailation for the loss of their (un)lifestyle, a cadre of Yardies attacked Foulworth and his aides near the very same neighborhood. Foulworth escaped the ambush and brought his own counterattack, enlisting the aid of his covenant in evicting not only the offenders, but all the Yardies from Chicago. The displaced Kindred scattered, but most found their way to Joliet, where, ironically enough, many joined the Carthian Movement there, having had their first taste of rebellious fervor and seeking more. Among Chicagoan Kindred, the term "Yardie" soon came to apply to any of the rabble-rousing Kindred of Joliet, who carry a grudge over the incident to this very night.