Welcome to North Westmore

hydethegreatest · April 15, 2024, 11:54pm

Welcome to North Westmore

Beautiful, isn’t it? You’re currently looking at a view of the South Condordian Ocean from New Dalesburg. But I bet that you can’t see what’s beyond the horizon, can you?

I bet you can’t hear the sounds of warfare in the south.

Or the screams of innocents suffering.

I bet you can’t see the mountains of twisted bodies in burning piles.

I believe that you can’t see the overbearing shadows of lurching wrecks that were once an ornate city.

I don’t even think the smell of death is carrying over to us right now.

No, it’s only the smell of ocean waves and kelp.

Enjoy the view, weary traveller.

But don’t look beyond the horizon.

Maintain perfection.

Libertas

hydethegreatest · April 16, 2024, 2:52pm

A Concrete Nightmare: The Dalesburg Wall

Nestled perfectly on the Aequator rests a derelict and barren city, forever locked in a state of war and forever bearing the scars and echoes of what it once was.

Welcome to Dalesburg City, the broken and beaten former capital of the Democratic Republic of Westmore. What was once a beautiful and culturally diverse city is now a festering pit of illegal deals, one-night stands, supremacists and perverts all across the board. Dalesburg is a a hellscape that would make the Devil cry in fear.

Covered in scars from the Split, its most ugly gash is a 58-kilometre long concrete wall that spans the entire width of the city across the Aequator, which eventually turns into a barbed wire fence that travels for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres across the plains of the island. The concrete portion of this giant wall is known aptly as the Dalesburg Wall.

The Dalesburg Wall stands as a reminder of how brutally racist the Settler government was back in the mid-1960s. After the Split, the wall was erected with the sole purpose of “locking out the blackened trash that had ruined the nation for good.” It was heavily policed, day and night, and many people often lost their lives by even walking too close to the wall. And this was happening in the northern side of the wall. On the southern side, it was even worse. People from the southern side of Dalesburg often piled over one another to get across back into North Westmore in twisted human pyramids, or in a bizarre suicide attempt raised the ire of the National Guard and beckoned for the soldiers to put a silver bullet between their eyes.

The Wall, like many others just like it, reeks of evil. It is an ugly, mangled wound upon the barren landscape it now sits and segregates.

To this day, the border at the Aequator remains patrolled with an iron fist. Many people who have attempted to escape the anarchic state that destroyed the Southern States have died trying to cross the border into better times ahead. Many do not survive and many do not ever get the chance to start anew in North Westmore, even though the government is nowhere near as biased against foreigners and natives as it used to be.

Graffiti Tags
On both sides of the wall are a number of politically-aligned graffiti tags and street art pieces that have now gained infamy in North Westmore in thanks to their anti-governmental messages and strong themes of social justice and equality. While cruder remarks are often removed from the wall, a number of them have remained preserved and can be observed… from a distance, that is.

Red Balloon is a famous and culturally significant street art piece painted by the anonymous artist Griffith that depicts a little girl reaching out for a red heart-shaped balloon. It was painted originally in 1987 in homage to the song “99 Red Balloons.” Like the song, Red Balloon carries an anti-war message. It was briefly removed in 2020 by political activists who chose to spray this image on top of it…

WE WILL MEET AGAIN IN ANOTHER LIFE WHEN WE ARE BOTH CATS is a pro-kemonomimi equality slogan that originally found its roots in the Borean continent in the far north of Urth. In 2020, nekomimi activists spray-painted this slogan and the accompanying cat over Griffith’s Red Balloon to draw attention to kemonomimi injustice all over the world. The move was met with extreme backlash from the people of North Westmore, who saw the slogan’s newfound place over Red Balloon in poor taste. The tag remained for a total of three months over the top of Griffith’s work before it was replaced again with Red Balloon by Griffith himself. At the very least, he had the courtesy to move the slogan to the left of his art piece, where it remains to this day.

The Freedom Wall was a collaborative art piece made by a number of political activists and street artists way back in 1995 as part of a number of protests to tear down the Dalesburg Wall. It lasted for over 20 years, until in mid-2015 it was attacked in a vile graffiti campaign which saw the wall get covered almost entirely in racist and homophobic slogans. The Freedom Wall has not returned in this form since then, though some aspects of it, like the lines “Dancing to Freedom,” can be found elsewhere on the wall.

hydethegreatest · April 18, 2024, 1:22pm

And For What? The Burned Remains of Dalesburg City

Believe it or not, but once upon a time over 458 people lived on this street in those now-destroyed apartments. Where are they now? Why, they’re dead. Every single one of them. All of them died when the National Guard and the Liberation Army tore their way through this street back in 1965, wreaking havoc on everything around them in a violent and bloody dick-measuring contest that ended in tears and twisted bodies on the ground.

These days, those ruined buildings are either illegal brothels, crack dens or are straight-up abandoned. Nobody has ever genuinely lived in these buildings since the Split.

Dalesburg City was once the capital of the Democratic Republic of Westmore. A beautiful city by any standard of the time it existed in, it was well and truly the pride and joy of the nation. It was the beating heart of the government, the effective ambassador to the world that showed how beautiful Westmore was, and acted as a role model to every city and town in the nation that yes, this is the right way to build a city.

Every single district in Dalesburg was ornate. Every single street could be a beautiful photo, full of life. Crime was non-existent, thanks to the city’s capable police force. It was one of the only places where women and children could walk alone at night with the reassurance that even if harm came to them, someone would always be around the corner to help.

Dalesburg was quite literally a vision of perfection for the people of Westmore.

And in the course of half a year, perfection was destroyed. Razed to the ground. Turned into a blackened mess.

During the Split, Dalesburg became a hotbed of conflict and one of the most contested zones of the war. In the eyes of the government, the LAS and the people of Westmore, securing Dalesburg in its entirety could either ensure the continued existence of the state or cause the dissolution of Westmore as they knew it. This prospect alone made the government vehemently defend their capital and the LAS push as hard as they could to claim the city in its full.

Day after day, night after night, the people of Dalesburg lived on edge and in fear of losing their lives. Any moment then a tank shell could have flown through their window and ended their lives. A helicopter could have come barreling out of the sky and into their homes.

The situation was dire.

By the time the civil war had drawn to a close, Dalesburg was no longer the top shit it used to be. Half a year of constant warfare had practically levelled much of the city’s buildings to piles of rubble strewn around intermittent corridors in the waste that were once roads. Bodies poked out of the holes in the rubble and everywhere you went in Dalesburg it smelled of death.

And for what?

All of that conflict had ended in a stalemate. Neither side had fully claimed Dalesburg. The LAS’s influence only spread short of crossing the river that ran through the city, effectively locking them to the southern districts and the government still had control over most of the northern districts of the city. Neither side got what they wanted in the end.

It was not worth the hassle by the time it drew to a close. Anything of worth Dalesburg had was gone. The government had permanently transitioned to its new home in Byron, a medium-sized town east of Northland City. Dalesburg had no more governmental function anymore.

So, they put a wall through the ruins. If neither of them could have the whole city, then neither of them will ever get that opportunity. Both sides did not ever bother trying to rebuild Dalesburg in full, for so much damage had been inflicted on the city that to provide funding for the total restoration of even one district would financially cripple their government.

In the modern day, Dalesburg is more or less like a slum. Many shanty towns have popped up in the ruins of apartments and empty fields, crime is rampant and everywhere you go, it reeks of sadness and agony. It is now a polar opposite of what it used to be.

What was once a beautiful city is now a mere skeleton of what it once was.

And for what?

hydethegreatest · April 18, 2024, 2:59pm

Lawless: The Southern Wastes

Formerly the Native Republic of Sadoriwymmu

Welcome to Hillenburg, a city that for better or worse has been reclaimed by nature. Despite having about 490,000 residents, nobody here really cares enough to clean, and why should they? Joshua Abana will probably just come back, blow up a few more buildings and leave them with yet another destroyed structure to deal with. It’s just not worth the time anymore.

Did you really think that the LAS got better off than North Westmore? Bah, please, there’s a reason why it is made doubly clear that of the two of us, only one remains standing.

The Native’s Republic of Sadoriwymmu, known also as the Southern Wastes in the modern day, was the splinter state formed in 1965 after the Split from the Democratic Republic of Westmore. Almost immediately after gaining independence, the country declined into a state of total anarchy over a period of 30 years as the government became more and more unstable and non-functional over petty disputes that tribal thinking was causing left and right. By the mid-1990s, Sadoriwymmu’s government had become so weak that the nation had become a failed state. Organised crime gripped the nation, rebellions sprouted up in the most random of places and the racism that the Djarramha had so desperately tried to escape was seeping back into their society.

Their country was dead. Dead dead.

By 2003, Sadoriwymmu was considered dead in the water. Its government had fully collapsed and its people were now living in an effective anarchy. There were pushes from activists in North Westmore to reclaim the land, but for whatever reason President Henry Bellingham had back then, his administration did not give a green light for the Westmore National Guard to move in and reclaim their former land.

In recent times, a degree of governance has returned to the fallen country, albeit in a less-than-favourable manner. While the old Government of Sadoriwymmu is now long gone, in its place three rival factions now vie for absolute control over the Southern Wastes. They are the Arrowhead Army, a PMC led by a warlord known as Bronson Armani, the Desiree Corporation, a company that is alleged to be backed by the North Westmore government and is led by CEO Helena DeSantos, and the People’s Army of Sadoriwymmu, an illegitimate successor to the Liberation Army of Sadoriwymmu led by former LAS General Joshua Abana. Each faction is equally horrible and equally brutal to the shaken and downtrodden people of Sadoriwymmu, and as such the nation has one of the worst track records of sapient rights violations in the entire world.

Now let’s meet them, shall we?

Evil Personified: Bronson Armani and the Arrowhead Army

“And you kiss your mother with that mouth of yours? Disgusting.”

Bronson Armani is a Westmorian warlord and international criminal who primarily runs the Arrowhead Army, a PMC that has been designated a terrorist group by multiple nations that have had the misfortune of having Arrowheads in their lands, North Westmore included. Armani is your textbook definition of a narcissist and psychopath - I kid you not when I tell you he will not hesitate to literally eat your intestines out through your ass to make you feel pain, but I digress.

Under the Arrowhead Army, which was founded in 1995 at the height of the decline into anarchy, Bronson has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities the people of Sadoriwymmu have ever seen - on more than one occasion, Djarramhan elf slavery operations he has been linked to have been busted by the Westmorian feds, and on top of this countless videos of his Arrowhead Army operatives violently executing innocent civilians circulate around the Internet’s most depraved circles - a particularly infamous and grisly one features Armani himself taking part in the execution as one of the executioners present. He and his army are truly some of the worst people to have ever lived.

It is highly suspected Bronson abuses drugs such as cocaine, and some go as far as to say he uses meth, though this has never been confirmed. He does smoke a fair amount of tobacco though, as shown in his portrait.

The Arrowhead Army controls much of the north of Sadoriwymmu, near the Dalesburg Wall.

The Corporation Sees You: Helena DeSantos and the Desiree Corporation

Desiree: There when you need help the most.

Nobody has ever actually seen Helena DeSantos. All we know is that she exists and is the CEO of the Desiree Corporation, an equally mysterious company with formidable defense resources for one that claims to be an “insurance company.” Maybe the tanks are for people who’ve committed insurance fraud? Anyway.

It is alleged that Helena DeSantos does not exist at all and is a pseudonym for the General of the Army of the Westmore National Guard. It is also alleged that the Desiree Corporation is a paper company set up by North Westmore to have a proxy carry out the work of reclaiming Sadoriwymmu for themselves. Both claims are usually dismissed as nutjob conspiracy theories, but maybe they have a ring of truth to them? After all, Helena and the company is shrouded in mystery, so something has to be up.

What is known of Helena DeSantos is that like Bronson, she is a Westmorian. Despite never actually being seen, she and the Desiree Corporation always seem to be omnipresent in every place they control. And if you do draw the ire of the Desiree Corporation… well, let’s just say you’ll be sleeping in the blue for a very long time.

If Helena ever appears in public, her face is shrouded by a long, darkened hood. If anything, her attire appears to mimic that of a Druid.

The Desiree Corporation has a solid hold on parts of Hillenburg and much of the eastern regions of Sadoriwymmu.

A Painting of Insanity: General Joshua Abana and the People’s Army of Sadoriwymmu

"Oh, but you’re not black or even an elf at all- SHUT THE FUCK UP! I LOOK LIKE THIS BECAUSE MY PARENTS WERE NOT NORMAL AT ALL!"

And finally, we arrive upon the most insane of the three. Meet Joshua Abana, the General of the People’s Army of Sadoriwymmu. If you thought Bronson was bad, then this man is worse. The brutal iron-fisted leader of the PAS is infamous for often killing his own soldiers because he had a bad day, has on more than one occasion held twisted dinners called “The Feast” where a Djarramhan elf is eaten alive by those present at the dinner, and his most infamous act was when he managed to breach the Dalesburg Wall with a tank turret. And these are only the tamest things he has done.

His faction, the People’s Army of Sadoriwymmu, claims to be the official successor to the LAS, which collapsed in 2003. Most people though consider them to be illegitimate.

While he may not appear like an elf or have dark skin, Abana is, or still considers himself to be, a Djarramhan elf. He was born from a mother who in turn had been born from a Settler human father and a Native mother as a result of a government-sponsored attempt to breed the Djarramha out of existence back in the early 1950s. If ever you bring up the fact he does not look like a Djarramhan, 9 out of 10 times you will end up being personally burned alive by him.

If the Arrowheads and the People’s Army were in a race to see who could commit the most atrocities, both of them would effectively be head and head. The People’s Army is infamous for often holding summary executions in Hillenburg and countless gore videos with their origins in the People’s Army circulate the Internet worldwide. As well as this, there are not one, not two, but over 50 different videos of Abana himself carrying out some of the most grisly executions to have ever graced the cyberspace. I put it lightly when I say that he is a nutjob, because not even this word alone can fully capture just how… unhinged he is.

Abana’s army controls most of the western regions of Sadoriwymmu and parts of Hillenburg. Every now and again, the Desiree Corporation and the People’s Army have skirmishes in the city, as both of them aspire to control Hillenburg in full. Sounds familiar now, doesn’t it.

hydethegreatest · April 19, 2024, 2:01am

Map of North Westmore and the Southern Wastes

Notable Locations

Dalesburg City
The former capital of Westmore. It is in an extremely poor state thanks to the Split and low funds to provide adequate repair to the city.

New Dalesburg
After the Split, there was an attempt to rebuild Dalesburg anew somewhat north of the original city. While it is nowhere close to what the former city once was, New Dalesburg is generally more pleasant to live in on the grounds that it is not as dilapidated as its predecessor.

Longbow City
One of the only cities in Westmore to have a nonite-majority population. Longbow is mostly populated by vulpines, cavas, elves and kemonomimi.

Byron
The capital of North Westmore.

Hillenburg
The former capital of Sadoriwymmu and a contested zone between the three factions of the Southern Wastes. Its 490,000 strong population is oppressed systematically by the Desiree Corporation and the People’s Army.

Desiree Island
Formerly named Altruist Island, Desiree Island is the headquarters of the Desiree Corporation.

Mount Westmore
The largest mountain in North Westmore. It was once formerly a national park that allowed visitors to enter and have a look around, but after a spate of violent murders in the park back in 1986 that still hasn’t been solved to this day it remains closed to visitors out of fears that the killer may still be active within the area.

Leganes Bay
Morstabyshlian sailors used to depart from this bay to head on to New Leganes, hence its name.

Krozzie · April 20, 2024, 2:18pm

Hart 2024.

hydethegreatest · April 22, 2024, 12:25am

punishment20040314.avi: The “Bronson Armani” Execution Tape

Countless videos of Arrowhead Army operatives violently executing innocent civilians circulate around the Internet’s most depraved circles. A particularly infamous and grisly one features Bronson Armani, the head honcho of the PMC, taking part in an execution as one of the executioners present.

This is the story of that “particularly infamous and grisly” video, a video that is popularly known as the Bronson Armani Execution Tape and by its official name, punishment20040314.avi, in Westmorian internet circles.

TW//Descriptions of Violence, Descriptions of Murder, Racism

In 2004, a video was uploaded to a burner account on Pigeon known aptly as punishment20040314.avi. It remained on the site for a whole week before it was flagged by users and promptly taken down by the site’s admins. The video appeared to be a crudely-filmed home video filmed on a camcorder, and had five people present in the recording, one of which was Bronson Armani himself. While his face was blurry thanks to the shitty recording quality of camcorders of the time, many people who watched it were able to tell by his voice alone that this was the big man himself.

On the floor, knelt in front of the three executioners was a native Westmorian who looked nothing short of defeated. After a few seconds of focusing on the knelt man, the cameraman panned up to Armani, who was unmasked compared to his compatriots. He explained that the man who now knelt before him had slighted him and had tried to hand him over to the National Guard through an elaborate set up that ultimately failed to achieve its end goal. As a punishment, for attempting to take his life, Armani would take not only this man’s life, but the life of his family as well.

Almost immediately after finishing his explanation, the man’s wife and child were thrown into view by an out-of-view figure. It is unclear if it was the cameraman who did this or an unknown sixth man who had them beforehand. Bronson allowed the man to comfort his family for a few seconds, before he pulled out a pistol and started to load it.

At this point in the video, the audio was now perfectly clear.

Bronson finished loading his pistol and then turned towards the grovelling family on the floor. Above their cries, he could audibly be heard saying “This is the last time you ever slight me again, Mr. Henson.”

He first shot the child, once in the head. He then moved onto the mother, and put two bullets through her chest. Finally, he put the man out of his misery and shot him three times in the groin. Throughout the whole ordeal, his facial expression never seemed to change, and maintained a look of a mix of contempt and disappointment.

It is believed that the way Armani fired the pistol was supposed to be some form of symbology, be it as a representation of how Armani’s trust faltered in stages or something far, far more esoteric than a viewer can immediately pick up. The man in the video remained alive for fifteen more minutes before succumbing to his injuries.

From here on out, the details become muddy. It is believed that the bodies may have been burned or may have been deposited somewhere in North Westmore-controlled Longbow City. In any way, the unfortunate souls in the tape were no longer alive.

Far later on, almost four years after the tape had been first uploaded to Pigeon, the father in the video was identified to be an elf named Frederick Henson by private citizens. Details were also uncovered about the set up Armani had mentioned, although to this day what exactly happened remains unclear - what is known is that Frederick had tried to trick Armani into picking up a bait set by the National Guard disguised as an arms shipment at a shipyard somewhere close to the Dalesburg Wall. What happened from there on out is mostly hearsay.

To this day, the video remains as one of the most potent displays of insanity from Armani, and in recent times has gained a second life as a symbol of racism in Westmore, even though the video was never racially motivated to begin with. Many neo-fascist and Settler-supremacist groups in the country have adopted the tape as a call to action to exterminate all non-Settlers in North Westmore.

hydethegreatest · April 22, 2024, 5:01am

OOC: First post on Urth and moved because I want to do something else with the OP.

Divided We Stand: “The Split,” aka The Westmorian Civil War of 1965

Once upon a time, in a land far away, once existed a country called the Democratic Republic of Westmore. A perfect nation by any standard of the time it once existed in, its people lived in harmony and all equally strived to create a better tomorrow for its people…

Or that’s what they’d like you to think.

The old country was a festering pit of racism and divide. The idea of perfection for its people? Oh, it only referred to the Settler population of the nation. The whitefella. The blackfella, the Djarramha, or natives of the country, did not exist in the eyes of the Settlers on the grounds that the dominant Settlers believed these natives were inferior to them in just about every standard applicable.

Imagine that. Being told by a man paler than the sand we walk on that you look weird. That you are a savage.

This racism permeated classical Westmorian society. Settler children were taught that Djarramhans were savages, that they were sub-human at best and not a human at worst. Public facilities and spaces were segregated between Settlers and Natives. Businesses refused to provide adequate service to Djarramhans. Natives weren’t given education at all, and as a result many were illiterate and had a very shrewd level of intelligence that would make a simple farmer swoon.

Westmorian society was a mess.

At one point, in the early 1960s, the civil rights movement reached Westmore and in turn gave a newfound sense of hope to the beaten and downtrodden Djarramhan. For the first time, the blackfella could speak back and tell the whitefella their two cents, whether they wanted to hear it or not. With the rise of public figures speaking out against the oppression for those who couldn’t speak, racial tension continued to build and build as the Settlers began to panic with the newfound belligerence of the Natives. Despite the Native push for equality, the government and many Settlers in power refused to budge, and even when Settlers began to push for equality as well they still refused to give way.

One can only imagine how close the nation was to shattering into a million splinters at this point.

By 1965, the situation had degraded into borderline anarchy-cum-civil war. Djarramhans were lynched in the streets along with Settlers who had bonded with them in solidarity. Schools that gave Natives an education were burned down by racist mobs. Segregationist rallies and anti-segrationist protests bumped heads in ugly brawls that often left hundreds laying dead or injured in the streets.

Eventually… The blackfella had enough.

In mid-1965, a militant faction made up of Djarramhans was formed in the southern territories of the island nation. Named the Liberation Army of Sadoriwymmu, with Sadoriwymmu referring to the native name of the island Westmore once stood upon, the faction promoted a sovereign Djarramhan state in Westmore’s land. If the Settlers wouldn’t give them the equality they demanded, then simply put… they would build their ideal state for themselves.

The LAS was truly a force to be reckoned with. Almost immediately after making their presence known to the Settler government, they set to work reclaiming the island they believed they had a rightful claim to. It worked quick and fast, and by September 1965 had claimed upwards of half of the island as their own. For an army made up of shrewdly-educated Djarramhans, the LAS was surprisingly standing up strong to the National Guard, and with fervor too.

No matter how hard the Settlers pushed and pushed, the LAS would not budge. The blackfella stood tall and proud against the whitefella. They stood at the Aequator in solidarity with their fallen warriors and families, and with those who hadn’t a voice of their own to cry out with.

By New Year’s 1966, the state of affairs was painfully clear to the weakened Settlers in the north. Their nation had officially been split by the Liberation Army. No matter how hard they pushed and no matter how many bombs they dropped, the LAS would not fall.

The Democratic Republic of Westmore officially ceased to exist in New Year’s 1966. In its place now stood North Westmore and the Southern States.

100 years of torment and suffering, all cumulating into the largest dose of karma ever known to the people of Westmore. What a world. What a world…

hydethegreatest · April 22, 2024, 2:10pm

The Big Four Most-Hated Companies of North Westmore

Ever stared at a company logo and thought to yourself, “gee, those motherfuckers at [company] are real assholes?” Well, i’s not a new thing, and everyone probably has their own opinions on that company, but you shouldn’t be ashamed to think that lowly of a company. Anyway, I digress.

Within North Westmore exist four companies that despite being some of the most profitable, are also some of the most hated by the people, be it for complacency leading to the deaths of multiple children or being implicated in some of the worst peacetime atrocities the nation has ever seen. Their names are some of the most despised, yet for the stigma that surrounds their brands they still pull through thick and thin and rake in millions of dollars each year. How? I don’t know.

So why don’t we find out? What is it that’s keeping their rotten, corpulent hearts ticking?

A Sick Fuck with a (Pizza) Dream: Faz Incorporated (nee’ Fazbear Entertainment)

Now this business has existed for quite a long, long time. Starting trade back in 1983 as Fazbear Entertainment under the chain of novelty animatronic diners known then as Fredbear’s Family Diner, it was originally founded and headed by a pair of men known as William Afton and Henry Goulding. All was going well, up until only months after opening its doors a child suddenly died when his head was cruelly shoved into the mouth of one of the animatronic performers as a sick and cruel prank by other guests.

From there on out, everything just seemed to go downhill, more and more. Every time a new venue opened up, someone always seemed to die or get severely injured, and each and every time it happened Afton and Goulding would just… ignore it. Pretend it didn’t happen. Maybe shed a few tears, send some money to the victims and then after the investigation close shop and set up elsewhere like nothing ever happened.

Part of this is the reason why Westmorians hate Faz Inc. They don’t give two shits about the people who die in their venues, and don’t even bother to ask why this is even happening in the first place.

All of a sudden, the company took an extreme turn for the worse when in 1987, four children went missing in another venue operated by Faz Inc - this time, it was a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Only a few months later, after the children went missing, William Afton suddenly disappeared and Henry vanished from the public eye after his own child went missing in the pizzeria as well. All of this happened around the time that police identified Afton as a potential suspect for the tragedy that had occurred in the pizzeria.

So if both the CEOs went up and out, if one of them was a suspected child murderer, and if the company has a reputation for being insensitive to the deaths of literal children, how does Faz Inc even exist today?

In recent times, Faz Inc has regained popularity as a provider of horror attractions and experiences. But why the sudden shift? Ever since 1987, rumours and legends of the animatronics coming to life to stalk, harass and kill innocent bystanders have been spread around like wildfire in Westmore’s pop culture scene, and Faz Inc, being the capitalist shits they are, obviously decided to cash in on these rumours. Many of the rumours were backed up by testimonies of hired night guards getting attacked by the performers for seemingly no reason at all. Few have lived to tell their tale.

As of 2024, they now exclusively provide an experience known as Fazbear’s Fright, a number of horror attractions that put a spin on the countless deaths of children within their venues and push an esoteric story that the vengeful spirits of the children now possess the animatronics, hence why they are coming to life in the first place anyway. The attraction has been criticized for being insensitive and short-sighted, presenting these tragedies as just another funny horror story for people to shriek and giggle at. But such is the way of the world.

The company is now currently run by a man known as Verdon Shire. He is cousins separated thrice to one of the victims of the 1987 Missing Children Incident; a boy known as Fritz Calhoun.

Slaves and Sweatshops: Richards

This company actually got recently shut down by the government after a number of damning exposes about the company’s practices were released by the press. Richards, stylised as R I C H A R D S, was an influential Westmorian fashion company that produced some of the nation’s most famous designs, such as the many ornate 1960s fashion designs that can commonly be seen in old postcards of Dalesburg and the like.

Ever since 1990, as revealed by the exposes, Richards had been engaging in borderline immoral and illegal practices to produce clothing faster, such as sweatshops and in some extreme cases, slavery. This may come as a surprise to some, but in Westmore both these practices are outlawed. Especially slavery.

There had been whispers of the company’s shady dealings since around 2015, but nobody had thought much of it then. All of a sudden, in 2020, a report of an illegal sweatshop operating in Dalesburg that was traced back to the company went live and suddenly put a spotlight on what Richards had been doing behind closed doors. After a gruelling four years of intermittent court battles, protests, crashing stocks and many more factors, Richards was finally shut down by the government after being found guilty of violating the nation’s labour laws at the highest degree they could charge the company’s executives for.

The former CEO, Harold Budd, is currently serving 40 years behind bars for using slaves and for violating labour laws.

Shrouded in Mystery: the Desiree Corporation

The Desiree Corporation is well and truly strange. On the surface, it appears to be an insurance company. But what’s this? It also produces televisions, books, art pieces, money, tanks, AA guns and more?! What kind of operation is this?!

Not weird enough yet? While it can be found on the internet with a few searches, it does not exist on Westmore’s business registry at all, and no government records of it even exist elsewhere. No tax returns, no purchases, no notices from the government. Nothing at all.

What is the deal with the Desiree Corporation? And who even is their CEO? The mystery of the company has made people scrutiny it with interest, and in others has invoked feelings of hate - if they are being this secretive, what are they hiding… are they engaging in war crimes?!

Maybe we have to start thinking with a new point of view to understand what is really going on here. So don your tin hats and board up your windows, because this is going to get real weird, real fast.

OOC: This is to be treated as OOC info unless specified.

Tin Hat Drivel

The Desiree Corporation does not actually exist at all. It is a front, a “paper company” set up by the government of North Westmore for one purpose only: to reunite North Westmore and Sadoriwymmu. Well, maybe two, if you count the capture of Bronson Armani as another goal, since it seems to be mostly attacking the Arrowheads for most of its active life. Now, President Holt can’t just send the army to move into the wastes, because the PR would be terrible, absolutely terrible for him given people really don’t like the idea of reunifying through force. No, he has to play this smart, so he can maintain a positive image internally and internationally and have an ability to profess plausible deniability if something goes wrong and the jig somehow gets blown.

This is where the Desiree Corporation comes in.

Secretly, it is a proxy of the Westmore National Guard. That’s why it is shrouded in mystery. That’s why for an insurance company, it has tanks and guns and flying machines. Nobody, lest the enemies of the state and those opposed to Westmore, can know that this mystery company has roots in the enemy like this. Not convinced yet? The WNG has a unit called the 542 Desiree Special Forces Squad, that was formerly stationed on the Morst Islands, and get this: Altruist Island, now known as Desiree Island. As well as that, a lot of 542’s equipment went into the forces that now make up the Desiree Corporation’s brunt. AND AS WELL AS THAT, their headquarters, much like the 542 squad of old, are on Desiree Island!

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

The government is sponsoring this operation. It is in their interests that nobody finds out the true nature of the Desiree Corporation or that they don’t achieve what they set out to do. There is no other way to explain it, because if it wasn’t the government why would there be basically no info on these guys the same way they have info on say, a legit PMC like the Arrowheads or even the Hedland Rangers?

What little is known of the company is that it started trading somewhere in 2010, under its only known CEO Helena DeSantos. Who Helena really is remains a mystery as well, somehow.

Inhumane Experiments: Desmond Laboratories

Imagine waking up in a sterile room one fine morning. It is devoid of colour, and the only things in the room with you are a box, a button and a strange device that promises you the ability to jump as high as you want. Pretty strange and cool, right? Now factor in this: you are here without prior consent.

This was the story of Marco Gellibrand, a man who was abducted one night by Desmond Labs to test out a device known only to the public as Desmond Boots on him. While he died in the facility to one of the tests the scientists put him through, we know of him because he was reported missing by his family mere days after he died.

Unfortunately, Marco’s story is not all uncommon. Desmond Labs are infamous for kidnapping random civilians to conduct human testing on for any matter of a revolutionary device the scientists have made to turn people into meat pretzels with. Yet for their flagrant disregard of the law, they still power on. How? Because of government funding.

The stuff developed at Desmond could change the face of the nation’s military forever. Under the nation’s own DARPA program, Desmond Labs is given free reign to conduct any testing on any kind of animal, including sapients, should it produce a tangible result that the army can weaponise later. It’s horrible, and twisted, but as the age-old motto says, “You can’t stop progress.”

For as long as Desmond has been implicated in abductions, there have been calls from upset activists to dock the company for human rights violations.Abducting people and subjecting them to man-made horrors is not fucking cool at all.