Summary

A land with more innocence and less blood on her hands than many, Cascadia bought her independence from Jacksonia while King Andrew II was busy fighting a civil war with the future Dixie Alliance. It deals in gadgetry—in the major cities, throw a rock and you will hit an IT specialist. Cascadia’s other main source of wealth is water, which they use for power and smugly sell to California.

Borders: The Frazier River in the north, against the Dominion of Canada; the Siskiyou Mountains to the south, against California; the Bitterroot Mountains to the east, against Intermountain; the Snake River in the southeast, against Deseret.

Capital: Portland, though the royal family also have substantial holdings and spends a great deal of time in Seattle.

Language: English, plus regional native languages.

History

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Jimmy’s Notes

Cascadia’s roots go back to the pioneers who migrated from the eastern kingdoms in the mid 19th century. Because there was no great push westward from a strong eastern power, there was no idea of manifest destiny. Thus, settlers had to be more inclusive with the native peoples. Today, the native tribes wield a great deal of political power.

As the East became more crowded, folks moved west in search of land they could call their own. Some of those who went furthest ended up in Cascadia. They came in small groups with no particular military might or ambition, and so have lived peacefully with many tribes of native people, semi-nomadic some. The Indians mainly live out on the islands and Olympic Peninsula today, but can still be a political force to be reckoned with.

Rulers

The House of Astor. In 1846, the wealthiest man in North America, John Jacob Astor, used his unmatched economic might to found his “kingdom of the Pacific.” He became the first King of Cascadia, John Jacob I. He was succeeded by King William Backhouse Astor (King William I), who was the younger son of John Jacob I; he inherited the throne over his older brother, John Jacob II, whose sanity was questionable.

Relations

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Jimmy’s Notes
Cascadia is generally friendly with Intermountain, and cool with the rest of its neighbors. The Dominion is still smarting from the land Cascadia annexed after the Great War. Deseret and Cascadia are indifferent to one another—Deseret isn’t interested in dealing with the “gentiles” of Cascadia, and Cascadian intellectuals and atheists—who make up most of the population—think the country is dangerously naive. California and Cascadia clash constantly on water issues; Cascadia has it, and California doesn’t, and Cascadia’s made quite the fortune gouging their neighbor to the south.

East of the Cascades, people aren’t all that keen to be Cascadian. Farmers mostly, isolated and hardworking people who rarely see eye to eye with the city dwellers to the west. There are movements afoot there either to join Intermountain or form a nation that would include most of Cascadia’s holdings east of the Cascades.