Places

When the Turkish armies invaded Famagusta in 1974, they cordoned off the district of Varosha. The Greek Cypriot armies withdrew to the south, and even after the occupation ended, Turkish forces re­ stricted entry into Varosha to those with adequate military clearance. Overnight, the city was practically abandoned, and it remains both empty and forbidden tonight.

Varosha exists in a moment frozen in time, not un­ like the Kindred themselves. Its department stores still have racks draped with clothes no one has touched in four decades. Its restaurants have tables with place set­ tings where no one has sat in 40 years. The only sign of time’s passage is the slow but inexorable reclama­ tion of Varosha by nature, as flora and fauna encroach upon the abandoned property developed by mankind.

Under cover of night, however, something else moves amid the streets of Varosha. A small pack of Cainites, by turns either affiliated with the Sabbat or zealous Autarkis, skulks out from the derelict pent­ house apartments, seeking blood. These vampires creep southward under cover of night, preying on the still-vital cities of Paralimni and Larnaca before re­ turning to the haunted modern ghost town to sleep off the sunlit hours. None of the sects pays much attention to this rogue pack or its void domain, so the precise size of the enclave remains unknown. It members certainly haven’t come forth to be counted, either by Camarilla interlopers or crusading Sabbat. Whispers have escaped the region, however, that the coterie that dwells there, once supposed to consist of five to seven members, has swollen in size to over 40 Kindred, all of whom have forsworn any authority but their own desires.