Astoria City Center Shadow

Gauntlet Rating: 4 (–2 to interacting) in older downtown areas • 3 (-1 to interacting) in southern suburban and park areas

Area Features

• Busy Streets: The streets of the City Center teem with all manner of civilization's spirits, most of them of the Artificial and Conceptual nature. Because City Center is also home to most of Astoria's indigent population, its streets are often haunted by particularly pernicious Conceptuals.
• Mix of Old & New: The city center of Astoria remembers its history: pioneer buildings mingle with WWII era construction, and the smell of the fish canneries assails the senses everywhere here. Conspicuously absent, however, are the footprints of the native peoples of the land, wiped away as they were by colonists.
• Floodwaters: The influence of the mighty Columbia can always be felt here, reflected in the occasional flooding of the streets of City Center's Shadow from anywhere from three inches to three feet of water. During these times, many of the typical spirits disappear, and City Center's elementals and nature spirits become abundant.
• Clouded Skies: It is rare to see the sun here, as the elementals of the skies constantly gather broodingly over the city.

Landmarks

• Fishhawk Fisheries: One of the few remaining cannery and seafood wholesalers in Astoria, the Fisheries building is a hungry, clanking thing, with a thousand-thousand nets and chains it continually casts out into the ocean, to pull awaiting fish and crab spirits into its hungry, hungry maw.
• Fort Astoria Park: A site that seems to be a recast of Astoria's old pioneer days, it is dominated by a great spirit that appears to be two figures - a man and a woman - of native heritage, back to back, unified as a single figure. Zie is a spirit of prophecy called only Two-Spirit. Zie is said to have influenced many lesbians and female-to-male transgender folk over the years, possessing them in order to speak portents of the future through them. Zie was thought to have come from another spirit court inland in the early 1800s, riding the flesh of a berdach named Kaúxuma Núpika.
• Coast Guard Cutter Steadfast: An old Coast Guard cutter, the Steadfast's spirit is enchained, and lies groaning and feedbly fighting against its bonds, which tie it to the land. Spirits of tourism and nostalgia swarm over its corpse like carrion beetles and scavenger birds, eating of its flesh.
• Grace Episcopal Church: The oldest church in Astoria leaves a distinctive footprint in Shadow. It is a site bathed in light from above - a shaft of white, holy light that pierces the cloudcover above - and bathes the locale in a deeply felt Resonance of Faith. Angelic Conceptual spirits of piety and serenity congregate here, and when the bells toll on Sunday morning, a palpable sense of peaceful reflection settles over the area for many blocks in radius.
• Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare: One of the rare few decent mental healthcare facilities, CBH's touch on Shadow is largely one of calming, serene influence. It has a strange, decidedly neutral Resonance, and as such it tends to attract spirits whose own Resonance are at odds with those of the surrounding Shadow.

City Center Spirits

• Typical Spirits: Astoria's long history of being settled and its proximity to both woods and rivers inform the kinds of spirits to be found here.
  • Nature: Seagulls, fish (river), cats, dogs, raccoons (particularly near the University), rats (near docks), pigeons, blackberry brambles, sycamores, douglas fir, oak, elm
  • Artificial: Car, street, building, ship (on river), data
  • Elementals: Water (near river), rain, cloud, aluminum and tin (near canneries)
  • Conceptuals: Despair, apathy, drug abuse, alcoholism
  • Celestials: Lunar (esp tidal, reflection of moon in water), mercurial (shipping industry), saturnine (misery)

Unique Spirits

• The Columbia Maiden (Rank 4 Water Elemental): Though only seen rarely, the Columbia Maiden can occasionally be seen moving up and down the length of the Columbia in Shadow. She has the beautiful bronze skin of a Native American woman, and her barge is crafted of cedar planks, with old, nearly-banished iconography of the tribes. She is wrapped in chains, however, the links of which are emblazoned with symbols for money from the world over, and her body is wrapped in packing tape, save for her sorrowful brown eyes. She is chained to the barge, and various packing crates are piled around her.
• Cedar Promenade (Rank 3 Artificial Spirit): The spirit of Astoria's boardwalk appears as a child balanced atop a sea lion, its fist full of saltwater taffy, and wearing a necklace of shells. It is a very cheerful spirit, but constantly demands money (Essence) for its attention and aid.