The Frontline Universe

Welcome to Silver Bend, a roaring 1930s metropolis of towering limestone, neon lights, and deep shadow. To the outside world, it is a shining beacon of rapid industrial progress, elite education, and absolute scientific materialism. The public regime—enforced by the ruthless Aegis of Man—mandates that science is everything and any spiritual belief is a dangerous lie. But beneath this polished veneer lies a horrific reality: a city secretly operating on a system of "Transactional Science," where human souls are traded as collateral under binding cosmic contracts.

THE GHOST OF BLOODBOWL RIDGE (1849–1907)
The city’s hidden history began in 1849. A prospector named Simon Bowles discovered legendary veins of pure silver in the hillside caverns, guided by a mysterious local fisherman. His sudden wealth bred envy, culminating in a corrupt land grab by regional officials that ended in a fatal shootout. For the next fifty years, the land rejected all who tried to claim it. Industrial equipment suffered freak accidents, mudslides buried camps, and the territory was abandoned as a cursed wasteland known as Bloodbowl Ridge.

THE BENDALL TRANSFORMATION & THE SHADOW REGENCY (1908–1938)
In 1908, Manhattan tycoon Joseph Anthony Bendall arrived with an army of private security and endless capital, laying the groundwork for modern corporate infrastructure and establishing the B'nei Ot—the predatory corporate elite who standardized the city's legal soul-trading frameworks. However, human retaliation sparked in 1938 following the tragic breakdown of the Moore family. Seizing control from the institutionalized heirs, a cold corporate regency weaponized the Aegis of Man, shifting it from a "human purity" mission into an aggressive state apparatus dedicated to the absolute sterilization and commodification of spiritual essence.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF CHOICE (THE PRESENT DAY: 1930s)
As the city enters the mid-1930s, it stands as a marvel of modern engineering, defined by the stark split of the Meridian River into a perfect 'Y' shape. The city's layout forces a moral and tactical choice upon its residents, mirrored by the rivers and the grand avenues that shadow them:

The Southwest Flow: The Aube River flows southwest toward Clearwater Bay and the Kikehil Wetlands. Paralleling it is Salvation Way, a grand road that steadily becomes more practical and modest, eventually narrowing into a one-way thoroughfare out of the city.

The Northwest Flow: The Couleuvre River snakes northwest through the foggy Blackfoot Hills toward the industrial town of Ashland. Shadowing this serpentine water is Perdition Avenue, which begins with breathtaking, luxurious prestige before gradually decaying into the dilapidated, nightmare-filled tenement slums of Sunset Blvd.

THE COLD PURGE & THE UNDERGROUND
At the center of Uptown Silver Bend sits Herald University, where the B'nei Ot perfect the legal loopholes of Transactional Science. Enforcing public order are the Aegis of Man's brutal secret police, The Arbiters, who violently raid suspected enclaves, while their bureaucratic censors, The Expurgators, rewrite history to systematically erase all cultural evidence of the supernatural. Forced completely into the shadows, the B’nei Memra operate a desperate underground resistance of defense attorneys and investigators, racing against the clock to find spiritual loopholes before their targets' inheritance clocks strike zero—all while secretly protecting an oblivious public from the horrific spiritual anomalies the Aegis tries to deny.

RECENT EVENTS
The fragile, heavily policed peace in Silver Bend was recently shattered by a high-profile bank robbery targeting a secure vault uptown. While four suspects were accounted for, whispers across the jazz clubs of Downtown speak of a mysterious "Fifth Man" who vanished into thin air with a ledger of binding soul contracts, leaving behind a trail of anomalous, liquefied evidence that both the Arbiters and the B'nei Ot are desperately trying to cover up.