Official document on the Thunderbird Province can be found here.
Modern day Thunderbird Province is the most inclusive and accepting among Wizard Cultures in North America, despite being highly racially charged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, much like the Mundane culture that surrounds it. The majority of mages who can trace their lineage to Asian magical cultures in North America reside in this province. Mainstream provincial culture is largely driven by the four main population centers, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, but hidden enclaves abound in the high deserts, mountains and valleys, on the many coastal islands, and in the frozen tundra to the north. Politically, it’s the most liberal of the Provinces, much to the frustration of the Traditionalists of Destiny and Solaris, and provoking a rivalry with Mishipeshu to the east. Thunderbird Province is home to Lewis & Clark Institute of Magic.
Wizards in Thunderbird tend to be judged by what lasting contributions they have made to the Magimundi, and not necessarily by how much Leeuwendaalders they command. Wizards are respected for their frugality rather than their ostentatious display of wealth, and many Magimundi recycle or upcycle castoff Mundane items into new and unique fashion and artificery. Freecycle caches abound and you’re more likely to gain credibility for wearing used and vintage robes and items than to have had to stoop to purchase something new. Wizards here tend to be quirky and connected to nature, seeking to live in harmony with the flora, fauna, and the mundane humans with whom they are inextricably connected. There’s a robust community of philanthropists, and the Magimundi Headquarters of the United Cinnabar Societies is located on Maury Island in the Puget Sound, along with other ecological and social welfare organizations that seek to ensure a level of comfort and compassion for all beings. It is the greatest crime for someone’s cries to go unheard, to turn one’s back on a human magical or mundane a creature, or a crisis. Wizards in Thunderbird will open their doors to strangers and generally are a hospitable, giving, and trusting sort. The detriment of living in fear and despair is far greater than the occasional risk of someone betraying the open kindness and trust.
The Province is quite diverse with large pockets of wizards from many Asian cultures, with Japanese, Chinese and Filipino being the most represented. There is also a substantial number of Magimundi who trace their heritage to British, German, Ukrainian, and old Norse cultures. Some of these communities are quite insular, so some magical traditions from the Old World have survived nearly unadulterated, though others have developed a unique Thunderbird slant based on the exposure to other traditions.
In the 1990s, mysterious incidents began to take place in Thunderbird Province, and an investigation began. Among incidents of violence in popular nightclubs with confused witnesses, property destruction in warehouses or other thought-to-be vacant structures, incidents of arson in business and residential districts, and finally the complete demolition and structural collapse of West Point Sewage Treatment Plant brought the full attention of the Thunderbird Province Marshals. It was discovered that two factions of vampires who resided within the Province had an escalating conflict that was starting to spiral out of control. It appeared to have originally been a coldwar type of conflict, but had now become cases of overt warfare, that was starting to impact bystanders with no small amount of collateral damage. Province officials and Justices assembled, and it was decided that the vampires displays of supernatural powers in their conflict could potentially damage the secrecy of the Magimundi, and action would have to be taken. During this discussion, Marshal investigators Mary and Morris Hayes who were observing several vampires in a keep the peace operation were attacked by one faction, who then rather clumsily tried to fabricate evidence that the rival faction was responsible. Mary died as a result of her injuries, and Morris was disfigured permanently.
Marshals from across the Magimundi, incensed that some of their own had been harmed by the vampires, assembled on the Province, and began preparations for war while The Edict of Extermination was proposed among the Council of Five on January 4, 2004. On January 5th, a single night of intense violence took place, and the vampires engaged in open conflict with each other, almost the entirety of both forces being wiped out in a catastrophic series of defections, double crossed, and betrayals. Before the Marshals could engage, a very desperate overture of peace was delivered to Thunderbird Arch Justice Fidelia Windwalker. Vampires that were not involved in the conflict along with the few straggling survivors had been made aware of the Marshals’ eminent attack, and pleaded for mercy, declaring themselves refugees. After an evening of deliberation on January 6th, Arch Justice Windwalker withdrew the Edict of Extermination from consideration of the Council of Five. The remaining vampires of Thunderbird Province would be considered to be members of the Magimundi, and subject to Marshal authority and province laws, an act of kindness that is quite unappreciated by both the Magimundi and the Vampires. Communities of vampires are integrated into Magimundi society in this province, unlike any other province, where they remain separate and also hidden, with more or less acrimonious relationships. A keen interest in certain of these enclaves of vampires began among the Mundane world in 2005, and members of both the vampire and Magimundi communities have had to redouble efforts at secrecy to avoid Mundane pilgrims. Fortunately, the frenzy seems to have peaked by 2012 and shows signs of waning.
Growing in popularity within Thunderbird Province is the use of the term "Cultus Iktus" (worthless stuff), which most Wizards of the province use to refer to mundane technology. In most provinces, mundane technology is considered to be completely unthinkable for inclusion in the Magimundi at all. Even so, Thunderbird Province does feature the most public interest in technology, though mundane tech is generally considered a trivial interest pursued by youth and a few eccentric wizards, tolerated, though with a measure of condescension. Lately, groups of young mages have set up artificery shops in warehouses and basements, and have embraced the Cultus Iktus epithet as a term of power. Refusing to be derided for their proclivities, the Cultus Iktus counterculture openly flaunts mundane tech such as smartphones and proclaims algorithmic programming languages to be a new form of arithmancy. Magic and technology are an unpredictable combination, and interactions between them can be dangerous and difficult to control. Too eager forays into these untested waters is seen as foolhardy at best and downright dangerous by many.
This attitude was bolstered after the experiments of Pileus Tenembrae in the SoMa District of San Francisco in the early 1980s. Tenembrae was an accomplished golemmaker, who had worked mostly in clay, stone, and other natural materials. He began working with metal and then with circuitry and wires and switches in attempts to store magical energies and increase the degree and longevity of his control over what he referred to as Silicon Golems, but were the Magimundi’s first known creation of Homunculi Constructs. The confluence of the magical energies and the electrical surges made them unpredictable, and some believe they developed a kind of parasapience. Two escaped his warehouse and boarded a ship from Pier 39, where mundane passersby assumed they were street performers. Tenembrae attempted to intercept them and was injured when he attempted to deactivate them by removing the runic incantation from their throats. Artificiers suspect that the Constructs forced Tenembrae’s own magical energy backward through his brain, causing him to revert to a preverbal, simianlike state. Tenembrae is currently living in Swindlehurst Institute for Magical Ailments and Afflictions, and his presence in a room frequently causes any object containing a circuit to malfunction. Tenembrae’s Silicon Golems were never recovered and some believe these Constructs continue to roam the Redwood Forests along the coast, having divined a way to maintain their connection to sustain their magical energies.
The northernmost reaches of Thunderbird Province are occasionally visited by the exceptionally rare and reclusive snow dragon. Based on limited sightings and drawings, Cryptozoologists speculate that the Dragon is native to Siberia, but has a migratory range reaching over the polar region into North America. It’s speculated that global warming and climate change has negatively affected the Snow Dragon’s prosperity, which has contributed to the protectiveness of the reclusive cryptid as well as the emphasis on environmentally safe practices in Thunderbird Province. Every few years, ambitious Cryptozoologist Wizards will mount an expedition to “recover” the snow dragon, but as they head north and leave behind the Provincial Authority of the Provinces, they find the independent communities of Wizards of the northern part of the continent will not offer aid or assistance to anyone who has “taken an interest” in the snow dragon. As can be expected, snow dragon expeditions are frequently catastrophically disastrous, and many have no survivors. Among the reported information from the failed missions: snow dragons can and will trigger strategic collapsing of the elaborate cave systems that they dig into ice and the frozen ground on trespassers; snow dragons will feint attacks on camps, draw out the Wizards, flee, then circle around to steal supplies so that their hunters die of exposure rather than in conflict; snow dragons will trigger avalanches; snow dragons can alter the lustrousness of their white scales, making themselves virtually undetectable in snow, or blindingly brilliant by reflecting sunlight; and finally that Wizards who make their homes in the extreme northern regions collaborate with the snow dragons to thwart the expeditions. Very rarely, artifacts made from snow dragon scales, bones, or teeth, do emerge on the market, though these are believed to come from aging snow dragon leavings, and not from any systematic hunting of the creatures. The true properties of snow dragon parts as magical ingredients are unknown or speculative, which rather counterintuitively increases their market value as potential solutions to problems with existing potion recipes or artifact design, leading to a market saturation of counterfeit snow dragon components.
In the northern reaches of the province is Diamantstøv, magical city made of ice and quartz, a mythical place that cannot always be found. It seems that it appears only at certain times, though a pattern has never been discovered. It is a pilgrimage place for Magimundi members, and seeking it is a legendary quest undertaken by the most erudite or desperate wizards. Renowned Magimundi scholars and healers live in Diamantstøv and seekers of secrets of the esoteric and arcane undertake the goal to find it and be accepted by the city. It is conjectured that Diamantstøv travels between the planes of existence and thus is only in this world occasionally. Other than Thurstan Warwick, whose claims were widely discredited, no one has ever returned from Diamantstøv so it is believed that finding it means one never leaves either by choice or by force. Many claim to glimpse Diamonstøv from the distance, and some associate it with the magic of the Snow Dragon. Wizards who die a noble death are believed to reappear in Diamantstøv, prompting legends that Parthena Cloudborne and Janice Maeda are now citizens of this city. Their spirits are believed to ride along the Northern Lights until they enter the city.
Thunderbird is the seat of crystallography and metallurgy, stemming from the rich deposits in the area and under the tundra to the north. The Province is home to the magical mining industries, and stores of ore for smelting and crafting. This includes precious gems, ores, crystals, stones, and fossils. Since the end of the Magma Wars, generations of legendary crafters and smelters reside in a reclusive community near the summit of Mount Tahoma where they craft the most exclusive metallurgic magical artifacts. In the early days of the Province, several illegal mining practices were commonly used by less scrupulous wizards, from simply charming an existing group of miners and stealing their ore, to the catastrophic technique of “seismic mining”, deliberately causing an earthquake to reveal ore veins (and often drive off mundane miners.) In 1853 the Edict of Terrestrial Accountability firmly regulated mining in the Magimundi, though pockets of illegal practices continue to do this day. Thunderbird Province has a persistent poaching problem of the magical creatures native to the province that Marshals have struggled to entirely eliminate in spite of frequent arrests. Unkind speculation alleges that the poaches are organized in Mishipeshu province, and that its officials offer tacit permission to conduct these poaching raids. No admissible evidence has emerged to support this allegation.
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