“They say the yards are dead. Funny thing is, they still stink. Still echo. Still eat.”
Established: 1865 (officially closed 1971, but half-dead in 1953)
Access: Multiple fenced entries, official gates at Exchange Ave. and Racine Ave. Most unmonitored.
Connected Factions: Uncle Carm’s crew (primary control), Fear Crew (initiation rites, site of memory), CPD Arcane Division (Soft Boil Zone surveillance)
Description - Exterior
The Union Stockyards stretch like a scar across the city’s South Side—miles of blackened brick, chain-link fencing, buckled tracks, and towers that lean like tired sentries. The arch still stands over Exchange Avenue, rusted and listing, the letters long faded: “Union Stock Yard Gate.” Most of the structures look abandoned—cracked concrete, blown-out windows, bent doors—but there's movement. There’s always movement. Railyards snake through the complex like veins, some still active, some ghost-used. From above, the layout resembles a butchered carcass: divided, drained, and carved to purpose.Description - Interior
Inside the grounds, buildings rise in clusters: slaughterhouses, rendering plants, smokehouses, killing floors, bathhouses, and barracks. Overhead catwalks creak when no one’s on them. The rail lines split and tangle through open lots and crumbling warehouses, many still tagged with chalk marks and gang signs. The air tastes metallic, and the Veil here is so dense it clings to the lungs. Time shifts in alleys. Some doors don’t lead where they should. And in the northwest yards, the train horns still sound—though no trains ever arrive.Public Face
Technically, the Stockyards are “closed” as of the late ‘40s—but industrial access remains for city contractors, union representatives, and construction companies with the right handshake. Tourists and outsiders are discouraged by rusted signage and patrol rumors. City Hall claims a redevelopment plan is “underway,” but insiders know that means Bagels wants it—while Uncle Carm already owns it in blood.What's Really Going On
The Stockyards are Uncle Carm’s kingdom. His crew uses the deeper buildings for meat laundering, Veil smuggling, and labor leverage—especially with the unions tied to rail, cold storage, and waste processing. Fear Crew still performs rites here under cover of “old tradition,” while the Hooded Lads test themselves in the ash-choked corridors of the barracks and boiler sheds. Veil saturation is extreme in some places: spectral cattle still stampede across open lots; time stutters near the old hoists. Arcane Division has tried mapping breaches. None have returned a full report.Notables
Carmine “Uncle Carm” Lucchesi – Holds dominion over all meat-related operations. Keeps the Exchange building closed.Richie “Mans” Mancuso – Oversees all “deep-use” facilities, from Killing Floor to Grease House.
“Old Kettle” Breen – Former engineer who now tracks rail ghost activity. Lives in a sealed caboose on Yard Track 3.
Agent Talia Orr (CPD Arcane Division) – Filed three breach warnings, now on psychiatric leave.
Rumors & Hooks:
- The rail lines beneath Exchange Avenue run “deeper” than they should—some say they connect to something under the lake.
- A long-shuttered smokehouse door opens once a week—no one ever sees it happen, but it’s always a Tuesday.
- A CPD informant swears a functioning killing line restarted on its own in March—and processed nothing visible.
- Pipes under the old Grease House sing at night in four-note pulses. The pattern matches Morse, but not English.
- A boxcar near Track 12 arrived sealed and frozen—filled with bones no zoologist could identify.
- A butcher’s ledger from 1919 was found perfectly intact under the Killing Floor. Its last page is dated 1954.
- PCs might be sent to retrieve a lost lockbox from the smokehouse archive wing. The lockbox is sealed from the inside.
- The Arch glows faintly red during lunar eclipses. Several crews won’t work the Yards those nights.
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