Madagascar (unofficial name) | |
---|---|
None |
Capital | Unknown |
Government | Contested |
Leaders | |
Population | Unknown |
Land area | |
GDP (total) | Unknown |
(per capita) | |
Major Ethnic Groups | Malagasy |
Major Languages Spoken | Malagasy |
Major Religions | |
Currency | Barter |
Madagascar is an island off the southeastern coast of Africa and a stateless territory.
History[]
Madagascar faired badly in the 2000s. VITAS I hit the island hard, killing 10.5 million of the island's 29 million inhabitants - the survivors fled either off-island or to the interior of the island.
Since then, the island has gone unclaimed by any country, making it a focal point for pirate gatherings.
The jungle occupying the interior of the island regrew at an incredibly accelerated rate just after VITAS. A Shadowland conference chat brought up many possible theories for this - Great Form jungle spirits, a magical virus, a secret cabal of magicians using forest-growth magic on the scale of Tir Tairngire, Tir na Nog or the Native American Nations - but none of these theories have been proven.
Politics[]
As noted above, no government claims Madagascar - the only people living on the island are pirates or those who have nowhere else to go.
The barter system is far preferred over nuyen, probably because of the lack of any official government.
Even though no one officially owns the island, one gang was once recognized as supreme among the others - the Manajaray, based in the city of the same name, located between Tamatave and Fort Dauphin. They extorted money (euphamistically called "taxing") from other gangs before another gang - a Zulu pirate group called the Isangoma - killed many Manajaray, including their leader. The Isangoma called themselves Madagascar's "rulers" as of 2058.
Geography[]
Many of the pirates congregate on the east side of the island, in various settlements:
Fort Dauphin is located on the southeast side of the island, and is one of the largest gathering places for pirates on the whole island. Many of the buildings that stood before VITAS hit are still standing, but the city is anything but civilized. Just about anything or anyone can be bought here for the right price. The pirates there have constructed their own language, constructed from a hodgepodge of other languages including English, Hindi, and French (along with many others too numerous to list), along with a form of body language, making communications somewhat easier between people who don't speak the same language.
Tamatave is about 800 kilometers north of Fort Dauphin, but in far worse shape. Some wars between pirates in the 2020s left very few buildings standing, making it look like something out of an apocalypse movie. The city received another blow from an outbreak of delta-anthrax in the late 2040s, caused when a stray frag grenade blast breached a canister of the stuff, killing the city's inhabitants. Many pirates living here are the worst sort - bio-weapons traffickers, terrorists and the like. Robbery is so common that visitors are advised to bring along some extra goods to throw to the wolves (figuratively speaking) that prowl the area.
The interior jungle takes up the "core" of the island, and the jungle canopy is so thick that the sky is blocked out. It's been theorized on Shadowland that any number of things or beings could be hiding under there - a top-secret megacorporate facility, dinosaurs, even the dragons' hatching grounds. A report from a Shadowland poster seemed to indicate that the immortal elf Harlequin was on the island at one point.
Economy[]
Corporate Presence
Unknown
References[]
This page forked from Wordman's The Sixth World: A geographical index to the world of Shadowrun.
Index[]
- Cyberpirates!, pp.124-135