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| Anything can be had under Hell's neon glow... |
In These Strange Streets -
The city is a place where reality has become senile. The
welcome sign at it's limits is blank. The records hall is filled with
so many uncertainties that it's dangerous to go in alone. The city is
an anyplace that could be anywhere. Its citizens care little for
specifics as long as they get what they want by the end of the day.
The nice parts cope with dazzle and chance, the bad parts are just
trying to get by without much thought to the state of the world.
Off, in the distance, is Downtown. The city's towering
skyline is draped in neon and flashbulb signs. Here, the more
respectable crowd roam between their casino themed offices and their
night-lounge homes. The fashionable folk strut about streets bathed
in electric pink and blue light, everyone dressed to the nines in
shark-skin suits and leopard print dresses. Their tailored clothes
all decked out with the latest arcane charms to ensure good luck, and
most of all, a perfect sense of 'cool'. Above Downtown, a metal
serpent the size of a skyscraper slides through the air, its body an
amalgam of neon, chrome, and marquee lights. The chrome god prowls
the skies to keep watch on Downtown, snatching up those who really
don't fit the 'vibe'. If the sky-serpent doesn't get 'them', its
children will. Snake boys and girls done up in silk and polyester,
their headlight eyes capable of freezing a sad-sac in place in order
to get a good shot. The seizing, foaming wrecks thrash in alleyways
and sidewalks until neon jaws swoop down to put an end to their
misery.
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| A place best avoided... |
Darkness at The Edge of Town -
Noir Weights is the quintessential bad part of town. The
streets alternating between cracked asphalt and broken cobbles.
Rarely, a streetlight will flicker on when the world realizes that it
should be night. A neighborhood of derelict structures and broken
downtown signage. All the roads here either lead to the old
distillery or straight out to safer places.
How'd
we get here? - 1D6
Traveling to the city, and Noir Weights, can occur
through a vast number of ways. Here are a few that you can roll
randomly, or just choose. You can also just make something up that
Thompson, Burroughs, or P.K. Dick would approve of.
1) The Devil's Red Convertible/Carriage: Wandering
down a forest track or hitchhiking over a forgotten highway, it found
you and The Man offered you a ride. In the old-fashioned places it's
a shining red carriage pulled by two bright, white horses, their
proportions stretched ever-so-slightly. In places where tech would
allow, it's a shiny monster of a red convertible. A man with a wide
smile, slick clothes, and pupils as big as saucers offers you a ride.
Time went wild, miles morphed into a new measurement beyond distance,
and now you're staring up at a sky moving towards evening. Red
lanterns or tail-lights wink off in the distance, stranding you in
hostile territory.
2) In The Depths of a Binge: Too many
drinks at the tavern. Too many puffs of opium tinged smoke. Too many
huffs off the ether rag. You could have woken up in Narcosa or the
Dreamlands, but the gods and fate really want you to hurt. Now,
you're in Noir Weights, and its getting toward the dark hours. Hours
where things might prowl to kill with a wide grin and a 'helping'
hand.
3) Searching Lost Highways: There are
roads that cross more than just land, back ways where someone can
shave time or just get lost. Maybe you're trying to escape yesterday,
or maybe you're just a wanderer. After taking the right dirt road,
the perfect unmarked highway exit, you ended up here. You've heard
about this place, and it may be a good idea to just keep moving.
Unfortunately, its almost night, and you're smart enough to know its
better to find shelter rather than risk wandering in the dark.
4) Empty Beds and Broken Hearts: Another
night spent with the bottle, trying to scrub out the ache with
fire-water, nicotine, and grumbled music. You stumbled to bed,
secretly hoping you didn't wake up, or maybe wanting to open your
eyes somewhere new. Awake now, you find the ache has become external,
a place of broken streets and dead neon. You feel better somehow, but
you know night always bring out the worst in you, and its coming on
quick. Deepening shadows shift, headlamp eyes stare out from the
dark, best get moving.
5) Dates in Dark Lands: A friend of a
friend introduced you two the night before, and it was incredible.
The booze, music, and company combined to create the best night in
the history of first-dates. Now, you want more. You've been following
the directions your date gave you last night to their place, turning
down strange streets and unfamiliar alleys. Rounding that last
corner, you're in a part of town you've never seen before, and the
ink on your directions is turning into smoke. Rats the size of dogs
shift in the alleyways, and tattered people eye you with hunger
around a trash fire. Night's coming on, and you're a stranger in a
strange land.
6) Feel Good Shopping List: You travel the
ways, moving between whens and wheres as people might ride through
time zones. You're looking for a fix, and having started a collection
of concoctions that bring on altered states of bliss. Problem is,
once you get caught up in a serious drug collection, the tendency is
to push it as far as you can. You were supposed to pop out in the
middle of Downtown, where the most transcendent highs can be had
through the lever pull of a one-armed bandit. That wrong turn is
going to cost you, you're in bad place and the night is coming quick.
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| On these streets, anything can be stolen and sold... |
Shelter in the Slums -
Among the rows of decaying houses, broken neon statues,
and dead marquee signs is a place that has seen a modicum of repair
and habitation. By the standards of Noir Weights its a mansion,
anywhere else it'd be condemned. A three-story affair the no-color
of sun bleached wood, its lawn overgrown and mostly dead. People come
calling in a steady drip at all hours, street-folk mostly with the
occasional uptown slummer. The noise of construction blares all day
and night, some room in the place is always having work done to it.
Salvaged junk and building materials are frequently brought in,
carried by the nervous and twitching folk of the street.
The owner is a tall, skeletal man who needs to stoop
when entering and exiting the house. His hair is iron gray and always
slicked back. His face, drawn tight against the skull with a
permanent 5 o'clock shadow. The man's eyes are sunken and the same
no-color as the house. He's always dressed in a tailored black suit
that's been made threadbare with age.
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| Ready and waiting. |
What's
he building in there?
Waylon, the owner, is constantly working on a mad
construction he calls 'The Alter'. It takes up the entire first
floor, the walls having been removed to make way for his ever
expanding vision. The scuffed floorboards buckle under the weight of
the thing, making the house groan as people pass through it. The
Alter is a conglomeration of television tubes, ancient radios, engine
blocks, and so many other junk-artifacts.
What's
new? - 1D6
The Alter is in a near constant flux from Waylon's
'improvements'. What's been added since the characters' last visit?
1) Tesla Coil: A Tesla Coil juts out at a
precarious angle from a stack of old radios. The entire construction
hums a bass so low it vibrates the body rather than the eardrum. Arcs
of electricity lick out of the coil, touching the dials of the
various radios its attached to. Rather than a loud snap, the arcs
sound like music and talk-show banter.
2) Mannequins: Amid tumbledown mounds of
wires and television sets are a trio mannequins attached to a complex
set of motors and pulleys. A podium is set before the group, its
surface covered in vacuum tubes and wires, its top is one large
selector switch. The switch is marked with four settings: sex, drugs,
music, and off. One each setting the mannequins will come to life and
each one in turn will cry-out the worst, best, and last of whatever
the switch is set to as well as the time and location it was
experienced in. (ex: Sex: Tammy Fulton,
Senior Prom, School Parking Lot. 'Crystal', Yesterday, 5th
Avenue Gentleman's Club Parking Lot. Mable Werner, Forty-Seven Years
From Tomorrow,Shady Palms Rest Home.). There is a 1 in 6 chance
that when the switch is set to off the mannequins will sing in
harmonized falsetto, the relative date and method of the user's
death. No one has tested to see if their predictions are true yet.
3) Television Wall: Set in a relatively
clear area of the house is a wall of televisions from various eras,
five-hundred pound console sets to three pound flat screens. Before
the wall is a ripped, brown recliner, its seat half sinking into
itself. From outside the chair, the sets cycle through channels and
snow, never holding a particular picture for more than a few moments.
From the recliner, the pictures focus to perfect clarity on a number
of scenes. Each set focuses on a pivotal moments in the viewer's
life, and then plays out what could have happened if the situation
ended in the best or worst possible outcome (1D2: 1 – Worst
Possible Outcome 2 – Best Possible Outcome). These sessions usually
leave the viewer either sullen from seeing how much better their life
could have been, or a nervous wreck over how close they have come to
death or worse.
4) Stationary Bike: An age worn and rusted
stationary bike set among, and connected to, a near endless tangle of
wires and cables. Attached to the handlebar is a small white basket,
a bright silver bell, and pink streamers affixed to titanium-white
handle-grips. Before the bike, and attached to with with thick
cables, is a wide metal door frame. Placed upon the seat is a helmet
made of a stainless steel cullender, it's surface covered with wires
and nine-volt batteries. If the bike is pedaled, and the cullender
worn, the door frame first fills with a swirling purple static
then... (1D8: 1 - The rider's parents dancing for the first
time. 2 - The rider's most longed for companion, usually 'the one who
got away', walking arm in arm with the rider is some idyllic park. 3
- The rider's childhood home, morphed into an idealized version fit
for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. 4 - The rider's parents
fighting, one drunk and violent, the other bleeding and crying. 5 -
The bitterly regretted fight between the rider and their most longed
for companion, the one that got them to leave forever. 6 - The
rider's childhood home, burning, caretaker screaming, the rider a
child hiding in the closet. 7 - The rider pedaling the bike watching
the rider pedaling the bike watching the rider pedaling the bike
watching... 8 - The rider resting on the bike, blood soaked knife
clutched in one hand, companions' faces clutched in the other.)
5) Typing Machine: A huge machine that
looks like someone welded a typewriter, printing press, and a
locomotive engine together. Before the keyboard is an old bar-stool,
its padding leaking out from the cushion in several places. The brass
plaque above the keyboard reads 'PLEASE TYPE YOUR FULL NAME'. When
the typists name is typed, it won't work if a fake one is given, the
machine shudders into frantic life. It rapidly spits out typed pages
into an orderly pile on an end-table next to the machine. Once the
pile is three-hundred or so pages high, the machine shuts off and
refuses to function for any previous user; a typist must be a
completely new person, otherwise it ignores all input. The pages are
a novel, and if read by the typist that spawned the novel's creation,
a life is changed. Others will consider the novel to be good, but
nothing to get excited about. To the typist, its the greatest work of
fiction every written, the problem is there will never again be
another like it. The typist will either be dragged into a deep
depression over the singular nature of the writing, or internalize
the novel's message and be changed forever.
6) Telephone: An old-fashioned crank
telephone is attached to a post in the middle of a cable and book
filled room. The cables run into the walls, or stacks of holy books
that give off a distinct scent of ozone and heated rubber. When
approached for the first time, the phone will ring out a strange
pattern that is unique to each person who approaches it. Those that
answer the phone are spoken to by whatever deity they worship, the
compelling voice giving an explanation as to why it is calling at
such a late hour, no matter if the hour is late or not. The voice
whispers a secret to the answerer, a Marcelian mystery that carries
meaning only for them. After the whisper, the line goes dead, never
to ring again for the same person twice. For those listening in to
the conversation, it just sounds like static and the breaking of
light bulbs, sometimes it sounds like a little girl counting til the
line goes dead.
 |
| Are you receiving our signal? |
At
the Alter...
Despite the chaotic mess of its construction, the Alter
has a purpose that has called so many street-folk to come at worship
before it. Waylon is an inventor. Waylon is a visionary. Waylon is a
prophet. Waylon is THE priest. The Alter is the culmination of mad
obsession and magic, a calling place for Other Folk to step
through and visit. Each night the homeless and mad gather before it,
each one hoping and dreading for Waylon to choose them to be that
night's vessel. Waylon has always remained elusive as to what the
Other Folk are, but it is clear that they are only able to
interact with the world through the possession of a host. During
their possession, bodies go through a number of changes, and their
behavior drastically changes to fit that of the summoned Other
Folk. Those that live through the experience are changed, granted
boons and knowledge by the being that possessed them. Each of the
Other Folk have a unique form and personality separate from
the possessed. Through the flipping of switches, turning of cranks,
and the buzzing of transformers, a vague form will flow out of a
static filled television screen and into that night's vessel.
 |
| Our Lady of Neon, another as yet to be listed Other Folk |
Tonight's
Guest
(Sample,
more to come)
1) The Grins: Appearance
– The vessel's expression slowly changes to a wide smile,
usually from one of terrified awe. Soon, however, the smile spread
beyond what should be physically possible. Stretching out to wrap
around the jaw and cheeks to touch each ear. The grin becomes taller
as well, growing up to swallow nose and eyes until there is nothing
but hair, forehead, and grin. The teeth remain the same size, but
they grow in number until teeth are layered over one another and roll
back in rows down the vessel's throat. Behavior –
Condescension and false joviality drip from every utterance in a
voice that fluctuates between the deepest basso profundo to the
highest falsetto. He offers desires of hunger and lust, and asks for
very little. A favor, not now, but later. Later, when the buyer is
comfortable and secure. Later, when the buyer has ever-so-much more
to lose.
2) The Brick Wall Boy: Appearance
– The vessel's physical proportions slowly take on those of a
child, rounding what once was sharp and firming what once was flab.
Their hair grows, or shortens, into a blonde mop and their eyes turn
a piercing blue. Soon the skin takes on a ocher color and then a
rough, brick-like texture. Lines of mortar appear in regular
intervals along the body, while the floors creak under the new sac of
bricks weight. Behavior – Playful, innocent,
flighty, inattentive, and cruel. The Brick Wall Boy embodies every
stereotype of children, both the positive and the monstrous. He
offers protection and separation, building hidden barriers between
the seeker and the things they wish to avoid. The payment is usually
some bauble or trinket, or even a piece of candy. Whatever he wants,
the vessel never has it, and the journey to find the item quickly
becomes a complicated mess. Stores that used to sell the item no
longer carry it, an item the character had seen around frequently is
now no where to be found. The journey usually ends after a long
fruitless search, and the item's price is now far more than it
usually is.
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