OK, we've discussed the Shop and the Neighborhood. The other thing the characters are going to be coming up against on a regular basis are the Opposition. Not the enemies of the campaign, necessarily, though that might be part of the problem. No, the point here is that there are rival groups, enemies, recurring faces which may not be part of the campaign's main problem but which complicate the characters' lives just by being there.
The big difference between antagonists like these and the band of orcs a bunch of murder hobos meet once, stab to death, and never think about again, is that these are recurring threats. Over the course of a campaign the investigators must expect to deal with these threats, but not necessarily defeat them.
It's useful to divide these antagonists into groups, as follows:
Minor Recurring (Normal)
Major Recurring (Normal)
Minor Recurring (Thematic)
Major Recurring (Thematic)
In any game the Minor players are going to outnumber the Major ones by a factor of at least two or three to one.
These are the folks, the things, the events, the rats in the walls which crop up again and again and again. They are as much part of the setting as the furniture and the floor. They are integral to the ongoing plot in that they reinforce the ongoing plot and provide opportunities for the players to gather resources and get support in their ongoing tasks. Or they frustrate the players by taking away those resources and support.
Just as the neighborhood and the shop, they may have their Dark Side.
That doesn't mean every fatberg in the sewage pipes below the shop comes straight from Cthulhu's nethers. Frankly, life would become boring if everything could be blamed on ol'squiddy. However, there always ought to be the possibility that these blocks, these stones, these worse than senseless things (knew they not Pompey?) have sinister ties. The players never ought to think 'this is harmless.' They ought to think 'this is probably harmless, but ...'
The Recurring (Thematic) antagonists, by definition, have a touch of Mythos around them. Thus they have Dark Sides built in.
Thematic ... differs from the Normal in that a Thematic antagonist reflects the Theme of the campaign. In Night's Black Agents the Thematic antagonists are the vampires, ghosts, Renfields and other damnable creatures of the night. In Call of Cthulhu the Thematic antagonists are cults, ghouls, Deep Ones and other elements of the Mythos. It's not simply that in a horror game you have horror things - it's that the antagonist fits the core activity of the setting. The Nodes and Mooks that work so well in Nights Black Agents are completely out of place in Cthulhu, just as Cthulhu is out of place in a slasher flick.
But that's not where I'm going today.
The Minor and Major Recurring (Normal) are, by and large, Normal. That's the point. But this is a horror game. Even the normal things in such a setting have the potential to be sinister.
Let's take a closer look at Normal. Using the examples from last time:
Normal, Minor:
That One Weird Customer. Maybe it's the smell, his lack of respect for personal boundaries, or his obsession with a particular genre or author, but it drives the characters nuts. He just won't go away; perhaps he's protected by Mister Bourg, or perhaps he's rather more familiar with the locks and bolts on the doors than he ought to be.
The Water Pipes. They knock, they leak, they freeze, they burst. Nothing anyone can say to Mister Bourg gets the place re-plumbed; it's a maze of old pipes and patch repairs everywhere you look. Is your section flooded again? Better call the plumber.
The Rival Book Scout. How does he always get to the latest sale or trove of rare books before you do? Is the man psychic? Whether he is or isn't, he's the reason du Bourg's hasn't had a Windfall by now.
Normal, Major:
The Rival Store. It's not quite as old as du Bourg's and hasn't got its storied history. What it does have is staff that know what they're doing, premises that aren't crumbling to bits, and prices that are better than du Bourg's. Some of our oldest customers are being tempted away - and that has got to stop.
These are all antagonists, sure, They don't all have Dark Sides. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. But any one of them might have a Dark Side.
The Hounds ought always be in doubt. 'Is it? Does it? Should I be worried?'
OK, fine. That's the threat. What's the action?
Well, in this case, it ought to be something that provides information as well as threat. In all the other instances the Dark Side has been a potential problem of one kind or another. A straightforward threat. But this is something that is, by definition, an antagonist. It already is a threat. Not a life threatening one, perhaps, but the characters already think of it as a kind of enemy. Adding threat on top of threat isn't interesting. It might raise the stakes, but that's it, and raised stakes aren't necessarily interesting. Thrilling, perhaps, but not interesting.
No, what's interesting is Information. Clues that lead to something. Clues that lead to Rome. Something mysterious about this particular Opposition figure gives the Hounds more information about the setting, the real threat, the Mythos hiding behind the curtain. In mechanical terms, uncovering the Dark Side of the Opposition ought to convey the equivalent of a 2-point Pool spend, and possibly other benefits as well, like 1 point of Mythos. Honestly, given the nature of the setting the Keeper probably should push out Mythos often and early. It's always useful, from a Keeper's perspective, to have one or two active characters in the game with points of Mythos to spend.
Should you assign this Dark Side to a particular Opposition figure?
No.
Honestly, this is one thing you should leave up to Fate and the players. If you assign it to a particular Opposition figure, and the players decide they're not interested in that figure and won't engage with it. then it's work wasted. But if it's attached to something the players are interested in, it becomes more interesting, more valuable. It adds extra sparkle to the thing that, in their eyes, was already shiny.
But you should at least know what that Dark Side is, so you can plug it into whichever of the Minor/Major Opposition figures gets it.
Mechanically I've discussed this in relation to Pool Points, which is a Gumshoe mechanic. That doesn't mean other systems can't use the same thing. The key is, they get information. All systems have information of one kind or another. However, if I were using this in Bookhounds and wanted to assign a Dark Side to the Opposition, I'd describe it something like this:
Dark Side (2 point gain Academic or Technical Pool, potential 2-point Stability check, with a clue that leads to 1 point Mythos if the Hound follows it up. That peculiar smell? It just won't go away. There's something causing it. Under the floorboards? Behind the skirting board or the wainscoting? Or, if a person, hiding somewhere in their pockets? It would explain those insects which keep scuttling back and forth, the ones you haven't been able to identify in any entomology text. That said, you're certain you've seen something like it described in one of the esoteric tomes locked away in [INSERT LOCATION HERE]. If you could somehow get access to that text you might be able to figure out the mystery ...
Last time it was the Shop; this time, the Street - or more accurately, the Neighborhood. Why?
Because conflict breeds plot, first and foremost, and the Dark Side is all about plot.
However, this is also about the Building.
The Building, if you've forgotten, is that part of the game world where you, the Keeper/Director/Idiot Who Agreed To Write Something expect action to happen. It is where people meet the players, creating plot. You need to have a firm grasp of the Building's scale and what's in it. You do this because the Building is one of the foundational building blocks of the narrative. You need to know where the campaign is going. You need to know where the action is set. Once you have those two things, you can Keeper with confidence.
The Neighborhood is a fundamental part of the Building. This is a part of the game world which the players are expected to inhabit every single session. It might only be for a scene. It might only provide window dressing. Nevertheless, this is the one thing in the game world, apart from the Shop itself, which is a constant. The players will know their Neighborhood backwards and forwards. This applies to all characters. Even the clueless head-in-the-clouds type of character will know where the coffee shop is. The ones who are paying attention will know a lot more than that.
As with the Shop, the players are expected to pitch in and help construct the Neighborhood, at least in rough outline. Each player at the table should contribute one thing. It might be a laundry, it might be a pub, a corner store, a shortcut, a memorial. Whatever that this is, it's theirs. It should come up in play.
The Dark Side is the Keeper's creation, and it's the one part of the Neighborhood that gets built without the players' input. As before, make sure that the Dark Side you design remains true to Rome and the basic principles of the setting, whatever those may be. That way, you can retro-engineer your Dark Side to fit whatever ideas the players come up with.
But with those caveats aside, you already know a ton about the setting that you can factor in. You know what Rome is. You know the basic principles of the setting. You know what the East End is like. You have a pretty good idea of what Cartwright Street is like, and you also know that this is your version of Cartwright Street so it doesn't have to be a carbon copy of the real-world version. It can be anything.
Anything at all.
It may happen that, thanks to decisions made about the Dark Side of the Shop, you already have an idea of what the Dark Side of the Neighborhood looks like. Or at least, an idea of what part of it looks like. Fine. You can expand on that.
For instance, there's the Dark Side Gang Activity (Cartridge Street).and The Gun public house on the corner. It stands to reason that The Gun is a part of the Dark Side of the Neighborhood. It makes sense to expand on that.
There's also those quarry pits next door. A few children drown in the pools there in the 1920s. It must have been a desolate, forbidding place. Those pools of water, deceptively deep, freezing cold. Nobody around to hear anything, see anything. If I were the Rough Lads operating out of the Gun and wanted somewhere to hide, say, a body, this would be the place I'd come.
Added to all that are the Rumors. These are mentioned in the main book; they're clues which may lead to a resource, an item, or something else that the Hounds are interested in. One of these ought to be on the list. After all, the East End is bigger than Cartwright Street. The Hounds ought to have a reason to leave the shop and explore the world around them.
All that said:
The Neighborhood (Bare Bones)
Immediate area: Residential, with Industrial nearby (disused gravel pits).
Wider Area: Mix of industrial and commercial with some residential, mostly low-end. Dock work is one of the main economic drivers. Industries tend to be noxious, poisonous, and not conducive to healthy living. This is reflected in the general health of the people who live and work here. Slum clearance is a government priority, resisted by those who want to keep their homes.
Local Landmarks (Cartwright Street): The Gun public house. The Gravel Pits opposite the shop. The Majestic Music Hall, at the far end of the street. Bomb Damage caused by zeppelin raids, Great War, various buildings up and down the street.
Local Landmarks (East End/Whitechapel): The Crown and Dolphin, where the skull of Ratcliffe Murderer John Williams is kept; Bow Cemetery aka The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery; Execution Dock in Wapping, last used a century ago; Whitechapel Gallery, a public art gallery opened 1901; St George in the East Church; Traitor's Gate, a water gate in the Tower.
In-game, as Keeper, you'd have more information on all of these. However, this is all the information the players get - for now.
As with any part of the Building, the players decide which parts they want to interact with. If they show no interest in the Gun, say, then the Four Things you have on file will never see use at the table. That's why you don't put a ton of work into any aspect of the Building; it may never pay off. But you need to know enough so that, if the players show interest, you can come back to it later and build on that foundation.
Some of this may see use in a background moment but never be developed. That public art gallery in Whitechapel, for example, might get used in a scene where the players meet an important NPC for the first time. The Gun is bound to be used in a couple throwaway moments involving Rough Lads. So you, as Keeper, need to know that these things exist and can be used for moments like this.
Sometimes things exist just for style points. Traitor's Gate is the obvious standout. There's little chance the Hounds will spend a lot of time hanging around Traitor's Gate. There's even a novel by Edgar Wallace with that title which might see more use, in a game about books and book-buying, than the actual Gate itself. It's unlikely to ever become an important part of the campaign and probably isn't even a big tourist attraction, in the 1930s. But it's undeniably British, undeniably London, If ever you were to put together a montage of London Stuff as some kind of video introduction to the setting, it would be part of that montage. Along with some grimy back alley, a Tube Station, the Shop, and probably an auction in some otherwise unremarkable back room, with peculiar looking bidders all in a sweat over some grimoire or other.
Besides, you never know; the Hounds might fall in love with the Gate as a location, perhaps for Magickal reasons. It's always handy to have a kind of Portentous Location in your pocket. Execution Dock down in Wapping has a similar function. There isn't even anything there to look at, not in the 1930s, but the aura, the vibe, the Magickal potential is crucial in a supernatural/horror game.
There are going to be some things you prep about the Neighborhood that will not be given to the players in advance. Example: the area is a mix of residential and industrial. It stands to reason that, at some point, the Hounds will visit someone's house, someone's business. You may not even have a scene prepped for that moment, but the players decided, and you had to Yes, And. You need to have at least a sketch idea of what someone's house looks like, someone's business. Equally, the police are bound to be involved in your game at some point. Criminals too. You need a rough idea what the inside of a police station looks like, what the criminals' hideout looks like. You may never need to know this in play. But, if you don't sketch something in, it's dollars to doughnuts it will come up at the worst possible time and you won't know what to do. Better to have at least a sketch outline handy.
All that said, let's add the Dark Side.
The Neighborhood (Dark Side)
The Gun (Public House, Cartwright Street) Local Rough Lads use this as an unofficial base of operations but anyone with a sense of History or The Knowledge knows that this pub has had a bad reputation for over a century. The landlord, Henry Crowther, is a fence of stolen goods and was, in his day, a backer of prizefighters. One of the prizefighters he backed, Dan 'Lightning' Jones, is the pub's security and doorman. In any scene involving The Gun, at least 1D6 Rough Lads are on hand. Some of the area's best Forgers pay Crowther tribute and can be found at the Gun by those who need Forgers. If anyone needs a body hidden Crowther can take care of it - for a price. Dark Side Pool: 2
[What is that pool, I hear you ask? Simple. It's a Pool from which I can draw Stability Affects. Stabiliy can be affected by, say, witnessing violence or being attacked by someone intending to do serious harm. This Pool means that, in any interaction involving the Gun, I have the option of drawing on that Pool to create affects which might cause a Stability check. Not a large one; after all, at the Gun, human opponents are the most likely.]
Gravel Pits (Industrial Waste Site, Cartwright Street) Back when this was still a working site piles of spoil and rubble ended up here, and huge holes were dug. Nobody's used this in a long time but nobody's paid it any attention either. There are rats as big as cats out here; in fact, cats stay far away. On a lonely moonlit night the moonbeams playing on the still waters of the pools in the pits is almost beautiful. On any other night it is a forbidding spot. Rough Lads sometimes come here on their own business, and children make it their playground during the day. Who knows what's hidden out here? Dark Side Pool: 3. Potential Magick: 1
[See Supernatural Creature at a distance is a potential 3 point check and it makes sense that something like that might happen here. Ghosts of dead children, rat things, possibly ghouls ... Also, Magick is a resource in the game that sorcerers can draw on. Usually it's part of a magician's personal pool but, this being Bookhounds, one of the central conceits of the premise is that Megapolisomancy, the magic of the city, is a thing. It makes sense that parts of the city can be drawn on to create magical levers, or magical affects. Thus in any scene involving this location there's 1 pool of Magick which can be drawn on, by those who know how.]
Bomb Damage (Zeppelin Raids, various locations) This reminder of past sufferings marks several buildings in the area. Some wear the marks as a badge of honor but there's something not quite right about the places where the bombs landed. Something hideous, like a wound which never heals and oozes blood. You've seen some very peculiar people fetishize these marks, some of whom you know to be magical practitioners. It's not clear what it all means, but it can't be anything good. Dark Side Pool: 4. Potential Magick: 1
[This is something which can be tied directly to Rome, if the characters taken an interest. Even if they ignore this potential plot point, since the Damage is on several buildings in the East End you can have them pop up in different scenes at different times. It's not like, say, The Gun, which can only be found at a particular point on Cartwright Street. The Damage can be anywhere. There were raids up to 1917 and it's quite likely that witnesses to those raids are still alive and living nearby, so if the Hounds want to start using those social skills now's the time to do it. As Keeper, you can invent a raid rather than use a historic one, but it's your shout.]
The Majestic Music Hall (East End) This home to variety acts of all kinds has been here since forever ago, in one form or another. Those with the Knowledge say they used to bait bears and host plays at the tavern that was here, back when Elizabeth was on the throne. The theatre that stands here now was built in 1859 and has hosted pretty much every famous name you can think of. There was a nasty fire back in the 1880s and several deaths, but the place recovered - some would say, thrived - and even the advent of cinema hasn't quite killed it off. It looks a little moth-eaten these days and there are all sorts of unsavory rumors, but you could say that about so many places ... Dark Side Pool: 6, Potential Mythos Encounter (Yellow King related), Potential Grimoire (Yellow King); Potential Magick 2
[It's always handy to have at least one location in your pocket which can turn into a mini scenario at the drop of a hat. You never know when you may need to drop that hat. Sometimes the campaign doesn't go according to plan and you need a distraction for the players while you reorient yourself. Or sometimes you haven't prepped anything and need an emergency backup. That's what locations like the Majestic are for. I see it as a kind of puppeteer location where you can introduce a potential adversary, or as a kind of abandoned tomb (ish) which can be looted by the greedy.
I had something else planned but, given events, I thought it would be useful to bring Henry Virkula to your attention.
LIQUOR GUARDS KILL A MINNESOTA MAN; Merchant Was Driving Home With Family in Automobile Near the International Border. [NYT June 1929]
INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn., June 2.—Henry Virkula, a 41- year-old merchant of Big Falls, Minn., was shot and killed by border patrolmen near here last night while riding home in an automobile with his wife and two children.
The merchant failed to stop, at the command of the patrolmen, who were assigned to liquor smuggling duty.
Virkula, a family man and well-known community leader, had taken his wife Selma and children, Bernice Elaine (8) and Marice Alice (10) on a jaunt. They were to spend a week on holiday in a cottage at Lake Kabetocama in Canada. The Virkulas headed up in their Packard tourer to see the place and make final arrangements. This was an age before phone lines, never mind the internet; arrangements of this kind had to be done face to face, and the Virkulas decided to make a virtue of a necessity. They returned home because Selma had a ton of laundry to do before they started their vacation.
They were on their way home when the Customs agents, E. J. White and E. V. Servine, intercepted Virkula's vehicle. It was a lonely road; a nearby farm was the closest habitation, and the farmer became witness to the shooting.
The agents challenged Virkula shortly before midnight, while his daughters were asleep in the back of the car. The stop took place close to the Canadian border, at Little Fork, near a spot where liquor smugglers were known to cross into the United States. It was about 15 miles south of the border.
When Virkula failed to stop immediately on being challenged, the agents opened fire. They used shotguns. Servine shot to incapacitate the car, while White aimed higher. Virkula's car was peppered with shot, and one of White's rounds took the back of Virkula's head off.
According to Virkula's wife, the car travelled less than a car length between the time of the challenge and the first shot being fired.
Emmet J. White was a little over a month on the job at the time of the shooting, having joined the service on 1 May. He went to trial for the killing a year later, in February 1930.
THERE was nothing in the least facetious or insincere in the prophecies that have appeared in these pages [the Houston Gargoyle] more than once to the effect that the attempt to impose upon a free people such an unpopular and unwise law as Prohibition, especially in its Volsteadian form, might eventually result in armed rebellion, and it would not require many more "incidents" of the kind we are talking about to prove us correct. Let a few more Virkulas be slain in such cowardly and unjust fashion, particularly if on the next occasions a miracle does not save the wives and children, and consider the possible consequences. Angry reprisals by the citizens of the affected community are countered by the government with an attempt to seize and punish those who had taken vengeance on its officers, and that in turn results in an even greater flare-up of popular indignation against "oppression" It might be necessary to send troops to quell the disturbance, when the disturbance might spread, bringing neighboring communities to the aid of the original one, until the startling picture might confront us of an entire state up in arms against the federal government.
Accounts vary as to what White said in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. At trial, it was alleged that he said to Virkula's wife, 'Don't cry, lady; I didn't mean to do that.' Other versions include 'I have a wife and children and it makes me feel bad' and 'I done my duty.'
Virkula's wife Selma testified that Virkula was hard of hearing and didn't have his glasses on when the agents challenged him.
White was acquitted of the killing.
The Atlanta Constitution has a portion of the testimony given by White's partner Servine, as follows:
The officers had received orders to shoot at cars that failed to stop at their command.
Q. Are these orders printed?
A. I don't know.
Q. Where did you get your orders?
A. I never received them. Other Patrolmen Got Verbal Orders.
Q. The firing of a gun at an automobile is a matter assumed by the patrolmen themselves?
A. The other patrolmen have received these verbal orders.
Q. Would you give an instance?
A. Both the new men, White and Ammerman, have received them,
Q. From whom?
A. Deputy Collector of Customs N. A. Linderberg.
Q. Have you ever carried a gun in connection with your patrol work?
A. Yes.
Q. Would it be your opinion that in cases similar to this you would be justified in shooting at the car?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you trained in the use of firearms in connection with your work?
A. One of the regulations of the service is that men shall have six months' experience in a combat unit of the army or experience in police work, or as a sheriff, Texas Rangers, or State Constabulary of Pennsylvania.
Q. Are the officers of your department instructed relative to methods of shooting. at a car?
A. Yes.
Q. What are the general instructions given you?
A. A car refusing to stop when the signal is given, we are to shoot with an effort to dismantle the car, the tires, gas tank, or radiator, We are authorized to shoot to injure a person in case he is attempting to injure us, if we assume he is trying to injure us.
Q. Was any injury attempted by Virkkula?
A. Well, he attempted to run over us, at least I interpret it that way.
I did a quick Google for Emmet White, Minnesota and found this photograph. I do not know if it is the same Emmet White. Judging by the photo White was working for Ewart's Golden Guernsey, a popular Minnesota dairy. Judging by the comments he did so for most of his adult life.
The Prohibition Bureau received little, if any, firearms training. It was assumed that those brought on board already had sufficient knowledge of firearms to be issued armament.
It was the first Federal agency to ever carry guns and have arrest powers, as well as the power to search and seize. The FBI - then known as the Bureau of Investigation, and the senior service by twelve years - did not initially have arrest powers. Their role was to Investigate, not police. Nor was there a standard armament policy. BOI agents appear to have been allowed to use their own judgement when it came to weapons. Until 1934, when the BOI adopted its official policy. It's been said that this was a deliberate strategy by J. Edgar Hoover, to avoid any public comparison between his BOI and the Prohibition Bureau.
The Prohibition Bureau's weakness for gunplay became its besetting sin. It was known as a shoot first and ask questions later agency. According to historian John Kobler the Bureau admitted to killing 137 persons but were probably responsible for well over a thousand deaths, and the total does not include those wounded or otherwise injured as nobody at the time bothered to keep count.
After Prohibition's end the Bureau became the genesis for what is now the ATF. It's my understanding that no official record of the Bureau's activity exists, and that the Bureau's records were ordered destroyed a little over a decade after the end of Prohibition.
Speaking as someone with an interest in history, I've often wondered why nobody's ever tried to write a history of the Bureau. The closest we have is a book published in 1929, which I've read, but nothing subsequent to that. Nor, to my knowledge, has any historian explored the career of Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League, which is remarkable given the influence it had over the government and presidency of the United States. It literally drove the United States government to adopt and keep a policy which was incredibly unpopular and, despite all evidence of its failure, kept the experiment going for over a decade.
I'm going to start the year off by noodling with some campaign design notions and I thought I'd start with the Shop.
I'm using Bookhounds as the primary example, but this concept can be used in any RPG setting where the characters have a home base of some description. It might be a clubhouse. It might be the police precinct they all work at. It might be a railway carriage on the Orient Express, speeding through the night, but whatever it is, it's home to the characters. It's the place they retreat to, the place they store stuff, the place they go to when they want to make plans or brainstorm their way to success.
Let's say you intend to start with a small shop at the edge of the City, in the East End but trying to pretend it isn't East End, not really. Nobody drops their haitches in this establishment. You'd want to leave a fair amount of shop design up to the players but that doesn't mean you leave everything else alone. What's on the same street? Who's the main rival? What's the trade like? Is there a secret hidden under the floorboards or up in the attic? Do the drains work and, if not, what makes up the fatberg that's blocking them?
I'm going to use this East End shop as an example, and this is where we start talking about secrets hidden under floorboards and blocked drains.
The home base is something I expect the players to help design. Each person at the table should contribute at least one thing. Think of it like an ideas potluck. That means, among other things, that you can never be sure what will be in the home base. Which suggests that the dark side, whatever it ends up being, will start life disconnected from the home base's main concepts. After all, you can't establish links to something that just doesn't exist yet.
No, But what you can do is make sure that the dark side you design remains true to Rome and the basic principles of the setting, whatever those may be. That way, you can retro-engineer your Dark Side to fit whatever ideas the players come up with.
I mention the basic principles of the setting because it's important to remember that all settings have their quirks. We're using Bookhounds as an example. That means we're talking about shops, trade, auctions, customers, London. It's a completely different vibe to, say, Night's Black Agents, or Cyberpunk. Even if your NBA game is still set in London - at the Bull, for instance - it's a very different vibe from a Bookhounds London. A Cyberpunk campaign can still begin in London - it can even begin at the Bull - and yet be totally different from both Bookhounds and Night's Black Agents. This will determine the basic principles of the setting, which you need to establish in the opening arc of the campaign.
OK. In this example it's Bookhounds, which means basic principles are shops, trade, auctions, customers, London. We're using the East End as a location, which in the main book is the Abyss:
Since mediaeval times, the East End has been where London put its blood, its stenches, and its death: tanneries, slaughterhouses, and fulling-yards. The docks and canals brought steady work, along with injury and ague; the ships brought crowds of foreign sailors and workmen, and crowds of British whores and thieves. Gin-houses and music-halls sprang up, as did radical politics and dissenting cults. Homes were small and streets were narrow even in Elizabethan times; with factories, gasworks, and workhouses rising in the Victorian era, things got even worse. The East End became “the Abyss.”
Further, we already know that this shop is near the divide between the East End and the City, and that it's trying to pretend to greater status than it deserves. All these things feed into basic principles, which will help you design the dark side.
A quick look at the vicinity and at St Katherine's tells me it was ridden with plague back in the day, that thanks to its connection with the wharves and trade there's all kinds of overseas influences, immigration, new ideas, and that the construction of the Docks back in the early 19th century destroyed a historic part of London and forced a lot of people to move on.
Sometimes the plot fairy just hits you over the head with a great big stick.
OK, pick a street. Any street, really. Somewhere in Stepney not far from the Docks. Roundabout the border of Whitechapel South and St George in the East South. That's where the shop is. As Keeper you could invent a street and that would be fine. God knows London has created and lost many little alleys, avenues, Mews and Courts over the years. However, it can also be handy to use a pre-existing location since that location will have a history and sometimes that can be useful for plot purposes.
Cartwright Street is right opposite Swan Lane Open Space, which in the 1920s was a disused gravel pit. Formerly Churchyard Alley, apparently. Or Cartridge Street in Rosemary Lane, presumably depending on which end of Cartwright you were standing in. The whole shebang gets reorganized in the later 1800s when London rebuilds to benefit industry and put up housing for workers. Cartwright sounds much nicer than Churchyard or Cartridge, which presumably is why someone picked it. But with all this stewing it sounds like the perfect place for the shop. Cartwright, aka Cartridge, with the gravel pits just opposite. Disused, of course. Filled with water, in some places.
The plot fairy's stick, again.
OK, that's more than enough to be getting on with. Let's Dark Side this.
The Shop (Bare Bones)
Location: Cartwright Street, aka Cartridge Street, Stepney, East End, near Whitechapel.
Immediate area: Residential, with Industrial nearby (disused gravel pits).
Age of Building: Georgian (George III) built c 1800 as the town house of a well-to-do merchant. Somehow avoided being knocked down in the 1880s. Used as a boarding house from c. 1870 until 1908, when it fell derelict. The Hounds bought it cheap.
Style of Building: 3 storey residential, with cellars and attic.
This is all information the players should be given immediately. They will be expected to add to the bare bones. Name the shop. All that sort of thing. But they need something to build their hopes and dreams on.
If you really wanted to add to the bare bones, you could include a sketch plan of the town house. I'm bad at drawing, so I shan't be doing that. At best, I'd steal something from the internet. As far as internal walls and rearrangements go, I'd keep them where they are and let the players decide which room gets used for what.
The next bit is something the Hounds don't know about their new home. It's the Dark Side of the building.
Now, there's a temptation to make the Dark Side all Mythos and supernatural. This is a horror game, after all. I'd resist that temptation. The supernatural ought to be rare, unusual, out of the ordinary. That's what makes it interesting. If it becomes ordinary or, worse yet, mundane, that's a problem for the game as a whole.
The Shop (Dark Side)
Bad Reputation (Murder). In the early 1900s the boarding house which is now the shop was the site of a grisly murder, which gave the place a bad reputation. This is why the boarding house eventually shut its doors in 1908. Some of the older residents in the area still remember the killing, and the story has only grown in the telling. Details of the killing can be left up to the players. Treat this as a 2-point pool Bad Reputation, which can be invoked by the Keeper at any time to create an effect that impacts Credit Rating or similar spends.
Gang Activity (Cartridge Street). Originally called Cartridge Street because of the gun manufacturing industries in the area, it's now called that because of the Rough Lads that hang around causing trouble. They mostly gather at The Gun public house on the corner, but at any time their actions can impact the shop. Treat as a 3-point pool Rough Lads, which can be invoked by the Keeper at any time to create an effect that impacts the shop or its customers as they come and go.
Unpleasant Smells (cellars). There's something down there that stinks to high heaven. It isn't always evident. You can go for days, weeks, and not notice a thing. Then it creeps into your nose and will not go away. It's especially strong in the summer months, when sometimes the smell hangs round for days, even weeks. Treat as a 1-point pool Stink, which can be invoked by the Keeper at any time to create an effect that causes a Financial Reverse or prevents a Windfall.
Plague Pits (cellars, Mythos). Before the town house was built this was, during the time of the Great Plague, a spot where many of the dead were quickly buried. In the early 1700s it became notorious as a 'damned spot inhabited by the lost and Satan's servants' and in 1752 there was an exorcism that supposedly put an end to whatever it was that was troubling the place. When the town house was built, steps were taken to ensure that 'the holy place' was kept intact, marked with a magical symbol that Mythos experts know to be an Elder Sign. All this can be found with the appropriate Investigative spends, looking at old records or documents associated with the house. However, at some point since then the Sign was damaged, which is why, among other things, there is the Unpleasant Smell. There's just enough juice left in the damaged Sign to prevent the worst from happening, but if something should make the damage worse, well ...
Now, of those four things, three can be dealt with. The Hounds can come up with clever ways to reduce the 2-point Bad Reputation pool, or the 3-point Rough Lads pool. That provides conflict and conflict breeds plot.
The Unpleasant Smell is more difficult and the Hounds will probably try various means to get past it. However, the effect can be nullified by point spends, if the Hounds prefer to ignore the problem.
That last one, though? That's a scenario's worth of adventure, right there. Waiting to be discovered.
