Vaguely poking at an alternate history type project where the USA fractured into multiple warring states in a multisided modern civil war.
Since I can’t help but inject some kind of weird horror elements I added “The Ohio Exclusion Zone”, an area roughly bordering Ohio that has been completely walled off. The wall is patrolled and watched. Whatever is beyond it is so serious that the warring states all agree the wall is off limits of the war.
I don’t know what is beyond it though. My first thought was skinwalkers. Shapeshifting weird spirits seems pretty ominous. Maybe instead f them, just a giant black orb hovering in Ohio and doing, something…
I don’t know. What weird paranormal thing would make the military patrol a border and is such a threat that enemies of that military agree the border is off limits in war.
(Yes I’m asking people to be creative for me…)
How “settled” are you to it being based in Ohio? Sorry, but all the memes a few months ago just ruined my ability to take “The Ohio Exclusion Zone” seriously. Maybe consider basing it near Lower Appalachia? Like West Virginia through western North Carolina? There are plenty of Appalachian folklore monsters you could use for the area. Wendigos are one.
Hell, you could even have some kind of nuclear leak from Oak Ridge, TN, be the cause.
There can be other weirdness elsewhere, but Ohio is kind of set. The memes of Ohio being awful and everyone wanting to escape from it were the inspiration.
A few months ago? Ohio has been a joke for decades!