MERCY TOWN HISTORY .

[JEANNA'S SPELLBOUND]

The lust for wider places (and less law) drew the first vampires and lycans to the wild west. However there was a flaw to their grand scheme. Where the east had been crowded and filled with prey their westward journey made them realize that their source of food would be scarce and hard to come by. This made the coven system twice as important to them than their eastern counterparts. It also meant that they would need to live closer to those they hunted, adding to the danger of being discovered by the mortals.

The Goldfinch Mine was discovered in 1848 by William Towney but tragically he died in a mining accident just as the first prospectors and gold seekers were arriving. The town of Mercy was founded in 1851 by Elemental and dry goods merchant Sebastian Mercy who saw the inhabitants and the landscape as a good place to put down his roots. Soon after the lycans settled the mountains and the vampires? Well they came forward and made a deal with Mercy and his brood.

We're here, deal with it.

Following that, it became a sanctuary through the ages. The gold dried up (or so the humans thought) and the town, no longer with a purpose, almost stopped. But even as the mortals came and went on whims that bore them back and forth across the country, the Lycans, Elementals and Vampires remained. The town had become their haven in the untamed, uncertain west and the certainly weren't going to leave anytime soon.

About fifty years ago Mercy earned notoriety when a famous musician was "murdered" in town. No one outside the city lines knew the real details, that he'd actually been turned into a vampire and was still very much....well, alive. But the tourists and ghost hunters came in droves nevertheless, to see if they could catch a glimpse of the specter of Ricky Boone, since it's been said that his ghost still haunts the streets at night.

As it is wont to do time moved on and people began to forget, ghosts and ghouls and the walking dead, what hogwash really, after all, Mercy was just an abandoned mining town who's only economic foothold was in the tourism industry, but even that was failing fast and again the mortals began to move away. That is, until a novelist got it in her head to write a book about Mercy. About the vampires and the lycans and the war that raged there.

Yes, the war. It started in 1960 over territory, the ever important commodity. Out west the land was larger, the people farther apart. Vampire and Lycan's alike were able to claim vast swaths of land for their own private hunting grounds, much to the envy of their eastern counterparts. The Mercy Coven had grown too large to sustain themselves on the dwindling human populace and the Lycans took notice, especially when the vampires started attacking them to fill the gap. The Lycans, not to go down quietly began to slaughter those they caught attacking their own kind and eventually any they began to find. The violence stopped abruptly when the actual war was declared, it began coldly at first with "negotiations" that were never honored by either side. But a thirty-two year war never stays quiet for long and towards the end there was great violence from both sides.

The Elementals, finally tired of the violence and beginning to notice some suspicious eyes thrown their way put their foot down on the matter in 1992. They drew the treaty all parties were to abide by and forced both sides to sign it and swear to honor it. The conditions were simple and non-negotiable. All parties would peacefully reside within town limits, it was neutral territory, a haven. Outside, the woods belonged to the Lycans, the Mines running under the ground to the Vampires and the lake was divided between them both. The Mercy Coven was also forced to split ranks, and required to send away twenty-five of their members in order to alleviate the strain on the "prey". The elementals part of the deal was that they were allowed safe passage in either part of the Lycans or Vampire's territory. Their reasoning was sound, they had called an end to the fighting, this was their reward.

The book hit the best seller list and again-- Mercy was a tourist town. People flocked to its streets, seeking whatever it is they seek. They thought the book fiction, a desperate ploy to revive it's economy, why else would there be shops that opened "after sundown" and others with witchy devices to help with "spells"? Why would some of the towns people dress in odd clothing with glue in fangs? It was all about money and they were just playing a part. As if they cared, tourism was an adventure and coming here meant that you expected a certain amount of showmanship, so while tourists secretly giggled to themselves at the props and actors they came and spent their money just the same and provided a nightly meal for what was left of the Mercy Coven.

So be it spiritual guidance, to see Ricky Boone or maybe even to hunt themselves a "vampire", mortals that come here still only believe what they want to believe. Mercy is just a little old mining town with a long, violent, mostly fictional history. Oh, but what's really up with that Midnight Curfew?

Welcome to Mercy.