Tombstone (MPD Northern HQ)
The Tombstone is the northen headquarters of the MPD and also serves as their penitentiary and also the staging point for many special operations.
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The Tombstone is located in the central portion of Rivertown North equidistant from the river to the west and the shores of Lake Lawrence to the east, roughly each three-quarters of a mile away. It is 3.5 miles north of Ol' Federal and 4.5 miles north of Summerland.
The Tombstone has taken the place of what was once a large public university. The university's central courtyard hosted many of Rivertown's largest demonstrations, led by students and faculty. The Rivertown police dispersed large crowds of protestors with tear gas and truncheons in this location not once but twice, and the widespread media attention sparked public outrage and rioting both in parts of Rivertown as well as across the nation. Several of the buildings sustained significant damage during the height of the riots but others, which were originally designed as bomb shelters, weathered the attacks.
The MPD claimed the campus in the latest stages of Project Reclamation; some historians contend that the lateness of the founding of the Tombstone and Mansion Inn constitutes a distinct phase separate from Project Reclamation. Whether the Tombstone was originally envisaged as a penitentiary is debatable, but the construction of basement cell blocks in the former student union began quickly and within week detainees from various locations around Rivertown were relocated here.
The buildings on the Tombstone campus fall into three categories: condemned, reserved, or active. Condemned buildings have blocked entrances owing to their dangerous condition; reserved buildings are in usable shape but are not actively being used by the MPD; active buildings tend to be in the best shape and are clustered in the southeast corner of the campus, though even much of these buildings stand empty.
Next to the Rock, the Tombstone houses the most MPD guards at any given time. In addition to the permanent garrison of 25 guards, when the MPD conducts additional training for officers and special operations this number can almost double. The buildings have been heavily fortified and the rooftop guards are armed with mounted artillery and flamethrowers to repel any attacks.
The most striking feature of the Tombstone is undoubtedly the basement prison and interrogation area. With 50 cells at their disposal, the warden prefers to reduce cleaning overhead by crowding three and four prisoners into a single cell. Prisoners are chronically malnourished and given no mattress or cot to sleep upon. More than half the cells do not have working plumbing and thus prisoners must share a single bedpan that is emptied only every few days. Prisoners are left unattended for days on end and are never granted exercise time. They frequently kill one another, from rage or in pity. The stench from the prison unit is the stuff of nightmares. Every few weeks, the warden releases a prison at random back into Rivertown to spread the horror of the experience.
Tombstone also has a sizable arsenal of weaponry and ammunition. While the inventory pales compared to that of the Rock, it is the second-most heavily armed location in Rivertown. The arsenal is located across campus from the prison cells, making it virtually impossible for prisoners to revolt and arm themselves without being cut down in the time in between.
The Rivertown Compendium draws from the much larger Rivertown Chronicles, a wide assortment of personal narratives and catalog entries of people, places, and things. Special thanks to Joe Schmaling for the original entry on the Tombstone.