The crew designs and creates the city of Cleveland in the Dresden Files RPG. This episode covers the three main threats / themes of the city, and a few of the players start to form ideas for their characters.
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 62 "Delivery - City Creation"
(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to "Knights of the Night" actual play podcast. This Dresden File Story Delivery was written and run by our GM town. And now, please enjoy episode 62, Cleveland City Belt. (upbeat music) Before we get started with our creation of Cleveland City for our drugs and storylines delivery, we have a little bit of feedback, one from our Facebook page, and an email that was sent in. Facebook page is posted under our episode 10, Dresden Discussion and Feedback, and is from David Wright, who says, "Good stuff, found you guys while looking for resources "on the Dresden File RPG." In preparation for beginning a campaign of it, I'll be GMing. It's rare that I find an actual play that I enjoy. Critical hit and "Knights of Rangeboro" are the only two that I've ever enjoyed until I found you guys. Now, there are three that I like. I'll be going back and listening to the "World of Darkness" stuff soon. But for now, looking forward to the next Dresden File RPG session. - Well, thank you. - Yeah, thank you, David. I'm glad that he enjoys, again, there was a little bit of debate on whether or not we're gonna leave a lot of roles in the Dresden Files, or we're gonna cut back to the story. And I think a lot of people are finding us when looking for Dresden File resources. And so it's been helpful to them, although some of them have corrected how we do things as well, which is good. You know, he's learning. - Morning, it's time for us as well. - And good luck jamming his first story. It's undertaking, so it's nice to see someone fired up about it. - We also got two bits of email. The first of the emails from Theron Marktian, what he's referring to, and the second one as well, is we put out a short little episode in which I interviewed my two youngest children, Mark, age 10, and Megan 16, about role-playing, because that was Teacher Kid 2 Play Week, in which they try to introduce kids to role-playing and gaming in general, which is not really a problem with my family, but I thought I would interview them on what they thought about role-playing. So, go ahead, Scott. - Okay, this is feedback to Game Week from Theron Marktian. Hi guys, you've got me really surprised with your podcast. In other words, you hit me, or I didn't expect it, congratulations. It's cool to know that you teach your kids to play and to role-play. It's very important, especially in these times, when imagination is slowly becoming deficient. Also, it serves as a bit of a reminder for me, 'cause lately, I've been playing mostly conspiracy-oriented RPGs, with people speculating up to three hours on visiting one hotel. As for the situation of kids not knowing about tabletop role-playing, a few months ago, I had a discussion with a few older role-players why younger generations don't RPG so often, and in younger, we met somewhere between 16 and 20 years old. In my country, the RPG fashion caught up in the '90s, so it's relatively young in comparison to the US. From what I've imagined and what I'd gather up, if some knew about role-playing or even wanted to play, they just didn't have the chance because it wasn't well known. We had various ideas about the cause, but we couldn't find a straight conclusion. So in that theme, your podcast was a positive surprise to me. Also, I will throw a regular spam question in, which is, "When will Scott return "to GMing nights tonight?" (laughing) Cheers for all you guys. Tom Scott, Mike Martin, Zach, Megan, and Martin, too. I hope I didn't miss anyone. Sorry, Jim. Hope to hear from you. (laughing) - Here it be though. - All right, two things first of all. - Yeah, I'm working. - I'm sorry, sorry, Theron. And thank you for your email. - I guess you, I miss 'cause I'm hardly ever here. - There are times that you miss the game, and also they called it Martin and Zach. Martin was played by Thomas and Zach was played by John. So that was character's name as opposed to actual player's name. But that's certainly understandable, and it's amazing that he got that many right, because a lot of times, I've been told our voices sound similar, not to mention you've got character names, you've got player's names, you've got all the things being thrown in. - And four of us are related at the table right now, at least, so, I mean, that doesn't help then. - It seems odd to me that people still think our voices all sound the same, but. - I think you have a distinctive voice as well as Jim. I think the problem is with the four of us that are related. - What country is Murkty from? - Wow, I don't believe this, he says. - And hopefully if you mentioned, he may have mentioned in a previous email, because we have gotten emails from him in the past. - I recognize that. - Yeah, he's a very good contributor to our feedback, and we really do appreciate it. - And we sure do. - The podcast itself was about role-playing in general, which ones they liked. Both Meghan and Mark picked Dresden as the one that they enjoyed the most. For different reasons. Mark, I think, just because it's the most current one that he's played, and it lets him do crazy stuff, like eat the heart of a god. And Meghan enjoys it because her specific comments had to do with two things, really. Social combat is one of them that in other game systems, the social combat is the player being social. And if you didn't have that skill, there weren't usually a great system in there to represent that. And the other one was that, no matter what you're doing in Dresden, you can almost always find a way to contribute. - And there's last point, which was directed to me, in the World Darkness. - I don't intend, I didn't take it as a slight, I just, I didn't, I thought it was funny because it almost, it almost could be. - Right. - But what I took it as, oh yeah. - That makes their feel bad. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, I didn't take it as a slight. I think he meant it in the way that he's a world of darkness players. We have people that have come on board to listen because we were doing World of Darkness Hunter, a lot of people, because there wasn't anybody out there doing World of Darkness Hunter. Now we've got the opposite happening, where we've got a lot of people coming on for Dresden that wanna know how to play the game and they've heard of it and they wanna listen to somebody play it. And they're like, okay, that's cool, let's stay with Dresden. So. - Yeah. - Well, to answer this question, what would you say in another four to six episodes of this rest? - I cannot even imagine. - Don't triple that, because it's no way. - Yeah, it counts for probably two episodes minimum. - All right, first of all, we have the city and then we have the places that we can maybe combine with character and I think we might get that. So that's two right there. So four is like an adventure that's two that's less than half a night. So it's gonna be considerably longer than that. I mean, we are talking the new year, probably sometime in February before, if not longer, before we get back to World of Darkness. - Yeah, which is possible too. But I guess what we're saying is we will see. - Well, I think Theron's looking forward to dual releases of Dresden and World of Darkness starting in the new year. - Yeah, it could. - I think so, do you? And you're gonna edit these? - If I can see Theron. - No, I'm gonna edit these? - I don't think our account would handle that volume. - Well, there is that too. On occasion, we have put out two in a week and we quickly begin to come very close to the ceiling of our account. We can't keep up that pace for too long. And yes, we have one last bit of feedback and it was also on the teacher kids to play and if Michael read that for me. - Okay, podcast 61 feedback. Readings from Germany, as both gamers and parents, we found the teacher kids to game podcasts deeply insightful. Having thoughts and opinions from kids definitely fit a lot better than some adult gamers just speculating. Thank you, Mark and Megan for sharing your views on gaming. Sincerely, Logan and Rosie, AKA Kell Ordo from Facebook. Well, I'm recognized. - Yeah. - It's funny how we recognize call signs and I have real names. - Kell Ordo, I talk to him all the time on Facebook. He's a really nice guy. - There's some reason that name rings like that. - It might well. - It might mean something. - It might be a magic though. - He is. - And the lorry. - Funny you should say that because one of the things he likes to do is make armor. Or Star Wars in particular. Mandalorian battle armor. I've seen him make both for himself and his wife. That's a pretty, yeah, it does a really good job about armor. Creating the armor. With that, we'll go on to our city creation. This is Dresden Files. This is going to be our second adventure. My name is Tom and I'm going to be the gem for this story. And since we don't have characters yet, we'll just say our names and see what my life is. - John Thomas. - Mike. - Jim. - Scott. - And it has been decided that we're going to do our adventure in the city that we love and live in in the same moment we ran the World of Darkness adventure which is the city of Cleveland. So the first thing we want to do is setting up the city of Cleveland as we want to discuss different aspects of the city of Cleveland. And we want to come up with a total of three either threats or themes. Two threats and one theme or two themes and one threat. And the difference between theme and a threat would be that a theme is something that's ongoing in the city and everybody kind of knows about. A threat is something more immediate and new. Okay. General thoughts on the city of Cleveland. A possible theme might be that the negative power of the emotion of despair, defeatism, defeatism, the, yeah, the depression, all those different factors. - All those things. - All those things come to die, Cleveland. - Well, that's- - All the great people here are dead. - Ironically, we're one of the few cities that actually has- - Three sports. - Three major sports. - Yeah. - Three sports teams. - And it used to have three positive- - The Browns were 1964 champions. - But that's the theme is that we're always- - I think. - We're either bad, we're always close to being a champion, but never a champion. - And there's also- - And there used to be a fae like creature, brownie. - Sure. - Yeah. - The city and its sports teams both have been jokes. - Just devastated with economically, emotionally. - Anyway, where I was gonna go with the theme is that this kind of miasma, the spare, this cloud, the black cloud that hangs over the city, purposefully kept going because it is perhaps an energy source that's being tapped or cultivated. Almost like the city is being, yeah, it's almost magically or mystically being cultivated. - In the past, we had this circle, the- - Emerald necklace was kind of a field that blocked the magical energy from leaving. So any bad spells that were done here just echoed around this echo. - First thing that is- - Right. - Yeah, I mean, bounced around forever. So none of the energy ever dissipated here. - Emerald necklace is a huge system of parts of all around the city of Playland. - Right. - And almost like a protective circle. - None of those, they keepin' stuff up, but it's keepin' stuff in. - Yeah, sure. Why not? - In researching, I found out that black feller lived 'til like, really old age. - Yeah. - I don't remember the specific age, but it was like, I mean- - I thought it was like, late 90s or 102 or something - 105 or like 98 or back in that day. - Yeah. - That was hurt. So- - That's because- - He was wizard. - Exactly. He was absolutely a wizard. - If he wasn't a wizard, he was a Marcon type of guy in the know-head connections. - Power bearing. I mean, in reality. - Yeah. - Yeah, he was no Marcon. I mean, he was ruthless. He was filthy, right? - If he was a wizard, he could use the, like a spell around the metro parks to block out all magic from something. - Well, it's how he rose to power. - Yeah, he was trying to- - He was trying to make himself filthy rich. If British got built because of it, fantastic. Oh, those are on the backs of broken men. I mean, he was an industrialist. - He was like- - He drove people into the ground. - Like Carnegie was. - Yeah. - But Carnegie was a major son of a bitch. And he was so filthy rich, he was the Bill Gates of his era. And then right before, he got to certain- - Yeah. - And he's like, "I'm very grateful to you." - The same. - The same. - Maybe even early, maybe a little bit before he- - Was he both from Cleveland then? - No. - No, but Carnegie. - Carnegie was from Pittsburgh, I think, New York. - Carnegie was, was Pennsylvania, I think originally. - I want to say Facebook, 'cause it's- - Yeah. But the big thing is that he was so wealthy and so rich and so hated that he spent a huge portion of his money and fortune in his end years building libraries, building bridges, doing all these good works. And in a way, you could almost think that if you wanted to put a spin on it, that you are taking your enormous evil and negative spirit and then creating these architectural structures that are the magnets of dispersing this kind of thing. So you're kind of trying to save your soul by taking the evil that's in you and putting them in other things and putting your name on it. - That's kinda cool. That's one of the reasons why our area has its problems. - We've got a residual. - How Carnegie, I'm saying Carnegie, make it like Rockefeller, because we have a Rockefeller. - Well, they're the same era of their battling. If Cleveland's his safe haven, then he wants to be known well here. And I'm talking J.T. - J.D. or J.T. - I thought it was J.D. - John has shown me that it was John D. Rockefeller. - Well, but is it, is the Emerald Circle, is it a protective circle or is it a containment? Because it holding it all in? - I kinda like the idea of it being a protective shield that maybe had unknown consequences. That being that it reflected back things into Cleveland. - Maybe things-- - It was never intended to do. - Maybe it wasn't, maybe it was something that people outside of Cleveland were building up and trying to make, to keep the Cleveland despair there and to keep the burbs nice and happy. - I think he kind of became, his sanctum has become his cell. - That's what I was. - He was just, yeah, that's a good one. - Carnegie wasn't in Cleveland, wasn't. - Carnegie was not in Cleveland. - So this would be to keep his five people in town. - But he came 39 to 1937, so 98 years. And he started Standard Oil. - It was Rockefeller. - The Ecofilleted Oil Carnegie did steal. - You did Standard Oil? - Standard Oil. He became the world's richest man in the first American worth more than a billion dollars. Adjusted for inflation, he is often regarded as the richest person in history. And his fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. He had four daughters and one son. His genealogy goes back to the French Huguenots. In 1853, so he was not quite 20-something, his family moved to Strong'sville. - Strange. - Yeah, strange. - That's what we're playing in Switzerland now. - Yes. - A suburb of Cleveland? - Okay, so we like Rockefeller, we like-- - I just want to see how long he stayed here, but I can't seem to. - We like his wizardly influence on Cleveland. We like the idea of him being, maybe-- - Did he die in his white court vampire who lived off in the spirit of Cleveland? - He was 98. - I think his callers are wizard having a giant duel with-- - Well, does he have to be an actual supernatural mane? Can he be a proxy or a puppet of the supernatural mane? - Sleeve. - You think he's the facade of front? - I would imagine that anything that involves the supernatural is never directly related. Like they are the motivating force behind these things, but they're never the face. - He died of archeo-scholarosis, or dating. Someone shy of his 98th birthday. - Audio-scholarosis inflicted by magic. - You probably don't want him still kicking around. You know, you don't want Darth Vader coming down in your Star Wars game, but you want his influence, his heirs. - Legacy. - His legacy. - And Carnegie was 35, 1835 to 1919. He lived to be relatively old for his time as well. - You look like Santa Claus. - If Santa Claus was evil. - Evil Santa Claus. - So, yeah, I mean-- - They certainly lived in the same industrial revolution. - It's like a very dark-- - It's like the idea of two powerful creatures fighting against each other. - One guy here and another guy trying to move in. - Right. I mean, whether it's the metro parks is a-- And I liked the thought that it was put up as a shield, but it had detrimental-- - That's a bit of a view. - 'Cause that's all about the industrial revolution. - Well, no, it's just, if a lot of evil was reflected back on Cleveland, it can explain a lot of things like our sports cursor, teams that never win. - Well, sure, we're also taught-- - Even the fact that Cleveland is the breeding ground of serial killers. - Can you put a curved lee line right over the bus? - I don't know if we wanna touch into the serial killer thing, but Cleveland does have a history of more serial killers than, I don't know, in any other place, but it's got a-- - Sir, it's got a spare share. - We've got a lot of 'em. - Could you put a lee line in the curb with the measure parts? - You could. - Is there supposed to be a map? - Do you have way lines in the water? - Water affects magic as it deflects it or dilutes it, so, but the shield could be put up inside the water, around Cleveland, just on the inside border of all the rivers, meaning any attacks on it would be diluted by crossing the water, making it that much stronger. - And now we just passed a bill that lets us build a bunch of casinos, and I'm sure that's gonna add something to the-- - The spare of Cleveland to not try to do a-- - No, I'm sure it's gonna bring lots of money and pay for everything, 'cause it would be great. - It's gonna be wonderful. - That's how it sounds. - It's gonna have to be right folks. - If we want one of the things to be what? - Said you have to spare? - What, yeah, but is there a purpose behind it? Is it something that is being cultivated or harvested? Or is it a reaction to-- It was once a protection and now-- - It could flavor the entire adventure because if the shield was put in place to keep people from looking in, his enemy, Carnegie from looking in, that would make this area a magical unknown, a blind spot as it were. So this is a bat lands where nobody could tell what's going on in here. So the White Council might not have any influence in the city of Cleveland. Our warden might be the only gun in town. - Maybe it's something like the Old West, where what you have is what's an unsettled territory or you have sheriffs and they have broad powers and you hoped that they were supposed to uphold the law, but the law on the fringes of society or magical society in this case is tough where sometimes the sheriffs are just as much of a villain as the people that they were, the outlets that they were gonna protect. - I mean, that's a definite flavor to the city. - To make it interesting though, could you say that with the Rockefeller and the Carnegie's here being White Court that something happened, kicked both of them out. They kicked both of them out and whatever it was that moved in that kicked them out. - It just recently is no longer had the power it has and the White Courts trying to move back in to where they used to be here. - Sure. - That would give you something else. Another bad guy to throw into town is much as a reason why the White Courts not here yet even though they should, you would think they would be but they're something was keeping them out and now they're trying to move back in. - Maybe it was a warden of renowned and he died recently. And now there's a new warden in town and it's unknown whether he sold out to. - I guess in a way that's what I'm looking for. I keep on coming back to the word frontier and that maybe this city is experiencing a power vacuum right now. - That's always fun. - All right, I think there's a direction on here, right? - Well, sure. And so. - Rockefeller died a long time ago. Was there still a power vacuum? - Did he just say, you know, he died and now we're in a situation that was. - Well, he had a son. - A long time. - Well, I think it was White Court. - His descendants would be White Court also. So they would like inherit that responsibility, but I don't like him being White Court. - I think of him as a proxy, not a direct supernatural being. - I don't see a man becoming the richest man in history when adjusted as a proxy. He's either got the power or he doesn't. You don't give all that money to power to someone. - The most powerful man in government isn't the president. He's not the one who has true power and all of that. - That's what he did. - But that's what I'm saying. - Uh-huh. - He wasn't a proxy of any people. - Arguably, the people who are the most-- - I mean, we can make it seem that way, but you're taking this incredible figure in history that is just the richest, when I want to adjust it for inflation over time, the richest man in history, and you're making somebody's patsy or-- - And if that's the case, it's okay, but you better have one damn good, somebody pulling the strings. I mean, you got to come up with something really cool. A really cool idea if that's where you want to go with it. But this kind of ties back into the fact that I feel that the Black Court vampires are just, you know, shit upon basically, upon most of the major storylines, because-- - Well, they've been decimated. - Right, because of a book by Bram Stoker. So maybe Rockefeller descended from the French Huguenots. We've been, you know-- - Well, he's done. - He did. - Yeah, instead of white court, white court, white court, we were, you know, let's discuss Black Court vampires. - Or Jane. - How can we make them strong? How can we make them intimidating? Maybe Rockefeller was a Black Court vampire who didn't necklace in order, 'cause he knew he was weakened in the old country where everyone knew all the tricks, but in the new country-- - He's made a haven for them. - Well, I don't think that-- - Yeah, given the attributes of the Black Court that he couldn't have been one. - What's that? - You look like a hit dab or you react poorly to sunlight, you have to, you know, you couldn't hide your true nature the way the white court could. - Did they pass to the one? - As well, in this-- - As I understand it in this game, some of the Black courts, every court has a distinctive characteristics. - A schtick. - Yeah, and for the Black courts, it's, I look like a living corpse. I stink like a living corpse. - So every single one of them has to be that way? - I guess not. - He funded a lot of medical research. (laughing) - There's that. - Well, university circle. - Bring us around to one of the major-- - Things that we've got. - Things like Cleveland. - That's serious. - Well, let's-- - And then we've got the Cleveland Clinic. - No. - We've got universe. - It's a number one employer right now in Cleveland is the medical industry. - There are vampires that are also pretty damn good magic. - I don't want anything that goes against the medical-- - And the one-- - And the vampires that are really good magic are the most powerful ones 'cause it's a double threat. So let's say he was a double threat. - Black court vampires, obviously, if he set up the shield, he had to have magic. Maybe he was so old and ancient that he had both magic to veil all of these things. Like, his corroded body. I mean, you know, the other option is he's-- - Deodorant. - Deodorant, he's a man. - He's not dumb enough to know that magic is not the only thing, so he's looking into the medical-- - I like the medical aspect myself. I think that's really cool because you could fund a lot of medical research to basically, you know, change the weaknesses of the black court vampires. He could be trying to create a whole new bloodline. - Well, he's dead now, but he tried. - He was. - He's trying to look at this until he died. - Maybe that's still in place. - Yeah, he's looking for a genetic research clinic, a genetic way of changing some of the black genetics so they don't have to-- - So they're not acceptable. - So not acceptable or whatever. - Yeah. - They're trying to make their weaknesses and that even though he's not here, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals are still there in the background trying to fix those things. - Create a new bloodline that's, you know, you were talking about, you know, a new world vampire. There is no new, well, I don't know this world, but I'm assuming there's no new world vampire. - From their perspective, yeah. - From my perspective, yeah, it would be a new world vampire. - So Ryan Fowler brings over all of the West of European, which makes sense in the Cleveland history. - Well, he's, we've got Slavic villains. - Eastern. - We've got Eastern European. - Eastern European, sorry. - They're different. - We've got, you know, Hungarian communities, we've got many communities, we've got-- - Polish. - Polish. - Russian. - German. - We need your school-- - Russian. - We need your Eastern European. - Cleveland's just got every possible, you know, Eastern European community. - All the stashes and the skis in this town. - Yep. - So the new world vampire, I like that. - So you've got a ton of European immigrants coming over and hidden in them are the black court vampires that Rockefeller is bringing over. - I always say, how do black, how was a black court vampire created in this system? Do they bite and they, in fact, do they-- - Is it bloodlines? - They use whatever. - I think they pretty much eat you dead. - They're definitely infected by-- - Okay, so he comes to Cleveland maybe as an industrialist. 'Cause he's born in 1835 or 37 where he said, "I'm New York." He's descended from the French chugonettes, which I don't really know where that's going just yet, but there's probably something cool that can be done. - You really know it. - I like saying French chugonettes, that's pretty cool. He comes to Cleveland to Strongville oddly enough and he's infected. He's infected. So that's where he learns about the weaknesses and he, well, now he's changing. - And now I'm a carrier instead of infected. In fact, it means that he implies he's like a victim, whereas a carrier or almost like a typhoid married type that he's maybe willfully trying to create this new strain. - Well, no, I think he's trying to create this new world vampire. But would you say, how did he become one? Because we have to account for his birth in New York and has moved to Strongville. Most people just want to change history, which is okay too. - No, but he's almost establishing his own court that needs to be defined or even given name. - Right now he's trying to basically change the genetics. He wasn't a vampire at first, is that what you're saying? - That's not what I'm saying. - Maybe they were, well, that's a man, I'm sorry, man, but I'm trying to build off is that, you know, we're saying black court, red court, white court, but maybe this is all the plan, the progression is that he's trying to create a new bloodline and a new court that has yet to be, like, whatever you want to call it, the new world or the-- - He starts as a wizard. - How about? - He starts building power, he gets infected, it becomes a vampire. - 'Cause he had, 'cause of the French, he'll be not an assault court. - His father was a magician or wizard. - Well, not an assault court, that's so good. - So he becomes a magician and he's prodigious because he's obviously the world's richest man, so he was good at it. - He starts as a huge, powerful magician and he becomes a black court and then he invests in all the hospitals to get them up and running, to try to find a solution, not to cure a vampireism. He's got no problem with being a vampire 'cause he gives him additional power, but to change some of the weaknesses that black court is known for, to make them-- - It's almost like he's trying to create, like, a gray court or a shadow court. - Ooh, a gray court, I like that. - Yeah, everyone uses gray. - Huh? - I like shadow court. - Oh, no, no, it's gray with an E. - Oh, much better. - Well, I just try to do world court. I mean, that's kind of cool 'cause it's black court of the new world. - I like the new world court, I don't know. - Well, we don't have to give a name to it right this second. - No. - The longest story of it is, he's a wizard. - And then he's a vampire. - And he's a good one. I mean, not a good one. - A vampireist can be challenged. - It's successful. - Yes, okay. So, let's start with things into the concrete area here. - The theme to boil it down would be that-- - Rockerfeller. - Dick. - Rockerfeller, shit. - No, Rockerfeller has molded Cleveland to his own interests or something along that line. - There's a reason why we haven't developed our waterfront unlike any other city that has a waterfront. - There were laws against the-- - Yeah, but who established him and put those laws in place? - What money changed hands? - Well, maybe you didn't wanna break up the lakefront because he had the necklace perfectly. - It's a boundary. - It's a boundary. - It's magic, don't act with it, man. - Rockerfeller has sculpted the city. - A city sculpted by ruthless ambition. - Ah, that's a better way to put it. - That's one of you. - Is that an idea? - That's the idea of the themes. - What is the aspect of that theme? - I would add to that ruthless ambition and dark purpose. - What is the actual aspect that the city has because of this theme? - Aspect is a city-- - First. - A city cursed. - Okay. - Is this an aspect now? - Yeah, this is an aspect, is it the city in decay, that city in the first, the city that's-- - I think I like cursed more than decayed because cursed is more wide-ranging than decayed is. Decay is like a certain-- I mean, decay has a lot of potential 'cause you can be moral decay, social decay. I get it, but I think cursed covers decay where decay doesn't necessarily cover curse. - Right now, everybody says. - Who is the person that represents this? - That's gotta be Rockefeller. - Who's the new Rockefeller? - Who's the new Rockefeller who's in charge? - Who was in charge of the planet? - The plan that Rockefeller put in place. - The Rockefeller Foundation. - We as people might not know. - I think it should be, I understand it's-- - It's so, it's a Rockefeller Foundation. Who's in charge of the Rockefeller Foundation? Who's the CEO? - Let me see if his son-- - Doesn't have to be the real person. - Well, he's a grandson. - In our world, it's his grandson, or granddaughter. - Well, I say it's Abby Rockefeller and it's a daughter of Abigail Rockefeller, but it's really not, it's still her, but she's so much less because she's a wizard. - She doesn't have to have the Rockefeller name. You can marry-- - No, she's Abby Rockefeller, Mousie, Mousie. - You like Rockefeller, you hyphen it. - Babs. - Right. - Hyphen it. - Babs? - Yeah, she went out with her. - Her nickname is Babs. - They always exchange their names. I mean, look how many Herbert Walker's there are. - Herbert Walker? - But Abigail's pretty cool. I mean, it's kinda a little scary. - Cool. - In the face of that particular thing, make it Abigail Rockefeller. - Sure. - So that's the number one. - So Abigail. - True. - Progress. - Rockefeller. - And what's her concept? - What she's a black cord vampire. - It's gotta be the head. - Working towards the new world vampire, or what do we wanna call it? - Establishing a new cord. - Yeah. - New world cord. - Do we have any immediate threats in the city of Cleveland? - She had two daughters, Abby and Marilyn. - Oh, Marilyn. That's it. - Marilyn districting separate. - So what I'm thinking is, okay, you gotta either recruit your members or, you know, - Well, there's plenty of dead people. - You get your thing, right, so. - So the threat is we have a black cord, a new strain of black cord with-- - New world vampire. - Right. - New world, vampires. - New world vampire. - And maybe those are getting out of, you know, out of their observation, out of their control, and they're getting-- - And the face has to be, Marilyn. - Yeah, that one. - Marilyn. - What was the name? - Abigail. - No, Abigail. - The other daughter. - She's running and trying to get control over it, but her daughter has gone rogue with a set of genetically altered weird-- - Some daughters? - Could you say there's more than one breed of new vampires they do? - Oh, maybe there's competition between them-- - Maybe they can pick you up, for sure. - Maybe there's competition between the daughters to get mommy's approval, so they are trying different approaches to the same problem. - Well then, each of them-- - Sorry. - Sorry. - Are they testing the different strains they've created of vampires? - Yeah, I mean, if they're rich kids, they steal the research and go off on their own and test it, and they end up with-- - I say Abigail, no, head junior, but it's not really junior. The other, the younger Abigail, Abigail the younger, and Marilyn, Abigail the younger, is head of the Cleveland Clinic, and Marilyn is the head of university hospitals, and they are both just power sources just competing against each other in university circles. - They definitely try to outdo each other in-- - Right, so maybe they're both mean at the heads of the respective hospitals, they could be, but they could be ahead of the bio-genetic, they're the chair of the Biomedical Department of either one or the head of the hospital themselves, but they're both trying to fulfill mommy's work. One of them is doing it one way, and one's doing it another way. - And both of them are not vampires. Maybe they're just powerful magic users, they haven't been. - Then how do they keep a rain in all these venues? - Which is what the-- - Because black courts can make-- - I'm not thinking so many minions just yet, I'm thinking that they, again, everything's hidden from the worldview, the courts cannot see down into Cleveland to get a good view. Maybe it's a joke, a dark joke among the white council where the warden for the area has like a life expectancy of like less than two years, because you just, you go in and you just try to, you try to clean up and you get killed, and you grow somebody's sense of what else they can never really pierce the veil that Rockefeller created so long ago that they just-- - They come and blind? - What's that? - They come and blind? - They come and they consistently come and blind. I mean, they got some information 'cause a guy doesn't die like the second or the girl doesn't die the second they come in as a warden, but some are bribed and they last longer. Some try to write the ship and they're killed off. It's not a good post. I mean, you think Cleveland, you know, is a joke of national jokes? It's a joke with the white council. It's like, man, that's like, you know, and it's, it's gallows humor. - Well, I thought it's-- - Where you get sent to an-- - Yeah, if you piss somebody off so you get to Cleveland, you get sent to Cleveland Post. - I'd say, how about it's such a joke that it's an open spot that nobody wants to take and maybe somebody could-- - If they try to say it, I'm gonna try it out. - No warden can stay in Cleveland. - Right, Dead Man's Post. - Or, you know, who's the warden this week? Whatever we want to call it, we ask. - New sheriff in town. - Right. - Hey, it was crazy. - Yeah, New sheriff in town is a good way to describe it. I would say this, your life expectancy is measured in months. - Right. - Yeah. - There's no law in town. - Right. - The frontier, the lawless town, the-- - It ties back into, we've got the shield, nobody can see in, no warden can survive. - And then has to draw a bunch of people in. - If you know a new frontier, and that's the thing that's a new frontier, there's no law. - It's not just a new frontier, it's the badlands. - It's the badlands, it's where people go to hide, nobody can spot it. - They know the warden doesn't last. - The warden doesn't, so tie all that into one theme or threat, we can call it both, it could be a theme and a threat, is that nobody, no law survives in town. - No law survives. - So, well, as Jim said, this is, as we're going along, we're pumping out all these ideas, it should be giving you guys fuel on how your characters can tie into these ideas to create something that could live in this world and tie in, it makes sense. - Okay, so the aspect of no law survives is Cleveland is a den of inequity. It's just everyone that's nasty or evil or serial killers are born or from a supernatural standpoint or from a societal scholar. It's the place to go. - I don't like magical badlands, but den of inequity works. - Well, magical badlands sounds more like an idea as opposed to an aspect to me. - Okay. - Whereas a den of inequity, to me at least, it's, maybe because it just has, I don't know, maybe not maybe it's the same thing. - I think it'll say point out that and change the situation. - That's what an aspect is for. You throw a fake point out of that and you change the situation. - A situation. - A situation. - Right. - Okay. - Okay. - So who are the faces of this warden du jour? - Warden du jour. - Or we can give the guy an actual name. - No, I think warden du jour is fantastic. - Okay. So we've got a theme of a city sculpted by ruthless ambition and dark purpose. We have a theme and threat of no law survives. We need one more to wrap up the top level of city-wide themes. - How do the fairies fit in here? - The fake mirrors reality where it borders with it. - So it's gotta be lawless and chaotic ever for dark. - What kind of fairies would live there? - I would come over occasionally. - Don't know his, they share his mythology all that well. - You use standard European fame anthology usually. - Which is great. - Well, I mean, the mischief, the-- - Leprechauns. - The fuck. - Wait, do you know the brownies? That's just, it's like a-- - Yeah, the brownie. - Yeah. - The chaotic, just the chaotic type of thing. The fay that are not aligned to either any court and they just do their own thing-- - Oh, it has to be not aligned to any court. - Well, also they love tricking humans and here's a place where the normal white council that would normally keep all that stuff in check or follow the accords, do the accords even apply for anymore? - No, 'cause it's a magical bad lens. - No neutral grounds in Cleveland. - Well, there are-- - Sorry, I just want to say that they have an environment to be in our emerald necklace, provides them a natural habitat for the fay folk. - Oh, yeah. - They loved it when Rockefeller and-- - Especially when he built the emerald necklace up with magic. - Maybe. - Twisted. - Everything inside the emerald necklace has become disputed territory. We're actually both humans, the white council, the vampires and the fay, all have in their eyes legitimate claims on the territory. So really, you have a situation that-- - Magic parks are-- - Well, see, that's-- - All the dangers. - That draws too much attention though to the whole, to me at least, it's counterintuitive to the black court trying to secretly have a haven to create a new world vampire. By saying, everyone has competing stakes in Cleveland, everyone's fighting for it. Well then, isn't that-- - There's a real world example of pharmaceutical companies testing out drugs in places that, like Africa and, you know, the lower Africa. - Right. - To, you know, they don't have the watchdogs, they don't have the government infrastructure to monitor it. It's kind of a lawless place. - And we're like, here, try this, try this, try this. Well, look what happens, all right. We're gonna sell this from back to the Western Europe. So here's an example where maybe this is the kind of place that they could do their experimentation without revealing how the other vampires feel about a, the black court trying to research. - They don't know that, that's the whole point. - That's what I'm saying, this place is kind of off the radar, so this is where you can-- - You were describing it as a place that was contested, that everyone was had a piece of pie and wanted a piece of it. - Which is why it's, why it's, no one knows what's going on because there's no authority that is coordinating and keeping everything under control. - I think we're just, I think it's a semantic point, yeah. I like the, I mean, not that that's not a good idea, because it's really gonna be built into no law survives in a den of inequity where everyone's competing for this area and everyone comes here to battle. But maybe the forest is a place for the, you know, like the Faye running rampant in the Emerald Necklace. That could be something. - Maybe he built the Emerald Necklace because it profited him and because it got a huge gain with the fairies. I mean, that would be a huge favor to them, to give them a realm that they could occupy and no one's allowed to interrupt it. - But what, what are humans doing in the middle of all of this? It all seems very obvious, like big giant fiery explosions with the fighting over your streets off this. (mumbles) - Well, how often do you notice banks interacting with your, yeah, banks rule and own virtually everything in our society and it's their flow of money that allows things and commerce to even happen. And tomorrow, if somebody, easily decided to foreclose on your home, - Why the river a lot of fire? - You know, very little you could do about, but you don't, you know, otherwise, they just like to sit behind their little buildings and, you know, keep it on the down low. They'll really interfere or interact with their communities. Cold war? I don't know. - Yeah, more of a cold war than, maybe two of the sisters anyways, between the hospitals. That's more of a cold war, it's not. They're not throwing zombies at, you know, vampires to each other. - There's a lot of manipulation, occasionally they'll be just parked, but it's-- - Cold war. - Off there. - Well, then there's enough missing people. - How long does the city has a balance between all of the forces of? Because nobody controls it. It's passive long balance. - Right, winners are bad. - But that's no longer lives. That could be still incorporated in that, couldn't it? - But maybe deals get done on the down low here. When you want to talk to somebody and you don't want to go to the neutral grounds where it's more. - Do we have neutral grounds? - No, I don't think we do. - Okay. - Doesn't sound like it anyways. - No, it's not. It's described. - I kind of like the, you know, the accords have either, don't hold sway here or don't. - How about we don't-- - There's no accorded ground, but there is kind of a neutral ground where people can come and meet. - But it's not a neutral ground. It's a bring your knives ground. It's, you know, bring a weapon. - There's no one-- - You know, it usually goes well. It usually goes well. But fights are known to break out. It's not, it's not, it's not. The accords don't, don't stand here. - Could there be a pay that feeds on the spirit? - Sure. - They all are all about militias and tricks. There was a story about in the side jobs about some leeches on one of the wolves. That was something of the faith. That was sucking on their energy. - So we've either got Faye in the Emerald Neck List or we've got like the people of Cleveland turning to darker things to try to alleviate their suffering. - It's two viable options. - Seems like we need more than three themes. - Well, we can't because it can be built off of anything. - I mean, some of these themes are threats can be solved. - The middle one or character. - Two, the middle one. No law survives. Identity of inequity. Chaotic Faye. Or gods of dark, you know, outsider myths. We can build them in anywhere. When we go to, like you said, to the second part, which is putting names to the faces of, you know, this evil. - Well, maybe does the White Council wanna figure this thing out once and for all they'd send in a, their action team to evaluate the situation? - Why now? I don't want to swap wizards. Well, if I'm back East and I hear my Western town keeps on losing the sheriffs, then I have to go out and force. What happens when the-- - It's been happening for decades. - But in the context of the game, I mean, resources are extremely thin. - Maybe there was a war never so corrupted that he-- - I'd say he was here for a while. - Yeah, he was here for a while. - Oh yeah. - But they didn't know he was corrupted. - Like, he's doing a great job. - Yeah, he should. - This guy's low. - That's, that's where these murderers come from. - That's the senior warden that I think my character was working under and has since been disillusioned by. - That works fine, that's right. - I think we're back to either Faye and Emerald necklace or an outsider. I mean, outsider worship because the people have no one else to turn. - Can we make it more-- - What all else down in fundamental age? What do you guys want to play around with? What do you think would be cool? So far, you've told me Black Court vampires have a new breed, a new American vampire. - You also like the idea of a bad lands in which there's nobody in control of it. - And lots of bad things to come our way. - Lots of free reign of bad magic, bad, you know. - To me, that means we got a lot of different monsters of the week if we continue playing in this campaign. We got a lot of different things to hit through that one. - Is there anything else you want to play around? - Thomas, what did you want to see that was more broad? I'd like your idea. Let's hold it just for a second 'cause Thomas said something and then he got cut off. - When you mentioned the people of Cleveland are angry at what's happening right now and then I have it. - Desperate, desperate. - Desperate. And you said they should turn towards the outsiders. There's more options than just the outsiders. I like the idea, but there are multiple faces for each aspect so you can make it more broad. They can turn to the old god. They could worship hermines on the bridge. They could worship. - Right, I'm all for that. I just like the idea. I enjoy a little Cthulhu when it comes my way. So I just wanted to see him get his little plug in here. We might be able to face a mindless tear somewhere along the way, but I'm okay if not. - I said we break the shackles of oppression and the curse and redeem the city and make everyone look halfway and re-after. - That's the idea. - That's fantastic. - That's the idea. - That's the adventure. - So, what the third theme of threat could be desperate. - Town calls for desperate values. - That's what we're gonna aspect. - Okay. - Desperate aspect, then give it a name and go with some faces. - Oh. - Maybe a Hulk leader. - No. - It could be multiple faces. - It's Nietzsche's quote. - Got his dead. - He's turning into the abyss. - Oh, he just stares back at you. So it's like to defeat the monster. You have to become the monster. - Send a thief to catch a thief. - So those are our main three. You like those things? - We're still right now at the aspect. Desperate times require desperate measures. - The ends justify the means. - Yeah, we can go into like different types of, - That's three years of people. - We got the faces. - Yeah. - And the idea is the abyss stares back. - That's like totally right out of the book. Got to avoid something better. - Really? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It was in Baltimore. - I'm sure I read it. - Oh, you're so good at it. (laughing) - At least I originally quoted Nietzsche in the book. - Yes, you did, and they stole it. - How about God is dead? They're looking for new gods. They're worshiping old gods on... - Actually, why does that have to be outside? Why can't they... - This is just create their own new... - They got a turdling? - God is dead. That's what we're gonna call it. - But if they... - If they get results on this... - God is dead. - Let's find something new. - God is ambivalent. - No, no, not to Cleveland. God is dead. He's given up on us. This is not the present day, Cleveland. It's a dark Cleveland. It's a darker version. - God is beyond him, but... - I don't care. - Of course he's like... - For Satan. That's a great thing. - Yeah, that is great, but I wrote that. This is what says, if you want to write for Satan, that's fine. God is dead, and who's the name of this? - This is one of the veils you don't want to cross, but it's a bother you that we say that God is dead. - Mmm. - You're cringing over there. - Mmm. - God has this... - It's a dream. - It's a dream. - Yeah. - But we should not. - Yes. - I mean, if someone has problems with... - God is forsaken. - You can't have problems with an adventure that has children being massacred. - Yeah. - And we don't go there. - Right. - If this bothers you to... - Well, like for Satan. - It's a good shot. - It's a good shot. - It's a massive hurt. - I can go for forsaken. - I like forsaken. - Right. - And you bother him, so go for forsaken. - God, that's forsaken us. - You have to actually undo it. - Yes, I can do something. - If you go to something... - I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have done it. - Or Satan. - I just... - I would have, we don't wanna make anyone call. - The first one is Rockefeller. He sculpted this city with ruthless ambition and a dark purpose, which cursed the city and started the idea of the New World Vampire and the Emerald necklace and a bunch of things are tied into Rockefeller's influence in the city. - But I think with the J.D. Rockefeller... - Mm-hmm. - That we could go with he was a wizard, tell his death. His wife was killed and turned into a Blackboard Vampire. His children, who are also wizards, are trying to find a cure or to change the Blackboard vampires. Because him being a wizard and changing into a Blackboard vampire is a little weird. And I don't know, it's up to you guys, what the majority thinks would be a good way to go. - His children are what? - Wizards, as well as this, so that they could still be... - Blackboard or...? - No, they would just be practitioners. That would explain why they're still alive to this day. - If they were Blackboard, they would explain it too. - Well, the problem I have with that is Blackboard vampires is not hereditary. - No. - My character is gonna make it hereditary. - Okay. - Kinda. - How do we wanna deal with that? Leave it the way it is? That he was a wizard that then got changed to a Blackboard vampire? - I thought that is like a little much. I might as well say he's Blackcork that was changed into a fairy, that was changed into an entire that. - Your idea works for me? - Fine. - So we'll see that. - Well, are we losing the whole new Blackboard vampire idea then? - No. His daughters could still be working on that. Perhaps their mother is not been destroyed, but in Tophor. - Maybe they are... - We don't have an explanation of that on you, do we? - No, I don't think it's in the books for sure. - Maybe they got mama and ice. - No, I'm got beaten or whatever, or in a stasis thing on ice. - Yeah, Tophor is basically that vampire goes into a deep, deep sleep where they no longer need blood, but they're not operational in any sense, they're in stasis. - Or they found her in Tophor and found a way to keep her that way while they're working on it. - They put her away overnight. - Yeah. - I like the idea that they're trying to reinvent the... - All right, but I see two sisters. One in charge of the Cleveland Clinic, one in charge of University Hospital system. - Rainbow Babies and Vampires. - Going in two totally different directions, one of them is trying to cure or fix or modify. - Mm-hmm. - I mean, they could have two separate approaches entirely. - I guess what I'm saying, I think that just regionalizes it a little bit. See, I thought it was like the black court found Cleveland as a haven and decided to try to reinvent themselves under the protection of this emerald necklace that doesn't allow for any kind of scrying or magic to be seen into the area, and it's this law was badlands. And it gives them a chance with Cleveland's medical knowledge and Cleveland's medical expertise to reinvent their race for a new world vampire. - And the idea of just trying to save mom, it regionalizes it, just makes it about Cleveland as opposed to being a greater issue with much more plot, you know, that you can spin off than it may be. - Maybe there's two. Maybe there's, you know, there's two daughters, but one daughter is looking for an actual cure. - The wizard daughter, if we're going with Jim's idea. - And the other daughter's the regional one? - Yeah, the other daughter is trying to modify the vampires. Black vampires hearing about this have started to flock to Cleveland. - When you say start, you can fly to Cleveland in 1932. - Right. - Right. - So we have the badlands idea, which is to me the second one, which is the no warden survives, if they do, they're on the payroll of the people that are not so nice, and people come here as a badlands or as a sanctuary to get away from scrying eyes because of the emerald necklace thing. And the third one is up for grabs. I think at the end of the last session, I was talking about the gods of transportation, possibly, you know, Cleveland being a desperate city, looking for desperate things, so they were kind of reaching to outside forces and unknown forces to worship. Well, that's one option. - I know you had a problem with us saying that God was dead. - I remember that. - Yeah. - And it's just going for like the cult thing, you know, like there's a dark undertone at Cleveland where they're reaching to outside forces to try to solve this curse they're under, but I don't think you really were digging the outsiders. - Well, mostly because they don't see Cleveland that way. - Right. - As a cultist type city. - And that's okay. - The rest of it I can see. I can see Cleveland as a cursed city. - Yes. - I mean, there are people that say that, you know, with their support team and everything else. - Damn Rockefeller. - Yeah. And we've kind of fabricated a reason for that. - Right. - Do we have any more churches or cults or actually lots of churches, but is it really that many more than any other city? - Don't know. - Yeah. There's somewhat immigrants from all over the world. - Yeah. - East coast immigrants. - Yeah. - I just find the whole concrete field world values that aren't in the vampires wouldn't we have a lot of religious values brought in the vampire? - Yeah. - And this was the Eastern Europe. I think if you go to outsiders, all of a sudden your kind of HP Lovecraft and yeah, I wanted to see a little Cthulhu and obviously long story short, maybe I'm only one who likes the dark outsiders and thinks it would be an interesting topic. So if that's not something we want to do, let's drop the third theme and go for something else. - I think everyone has read the book, so some of it, you know, the majority of us have this mindset. - Come to, right. Which I don't think is necessarily... - No, no, no. It doesn't have to stay that way. - Right. - We can go in the way we want. - But the majority have read the books and inexplicably enjoyed them. And I... - Well, dude, you're representing it for this one, by the way. - I've never been voting favorite play out forever. People who flock to Dresden, you're not making fans. - Right. But, so, you know, if you have to, then let's pick something that you guys read in the stories and thought was a really cool idea because... - That's more important. - That's networking. - Well, no, it's just because, like I said, I don't think it fits the city of Cleveland all that well. - That's good. I mean, I agree that that doesn't have to fit the city of Cleveland or doesn't for some people. I don't know, I can see, I guess I can just see desperate iron workers, you know, huddling over a fire, you know, worship, I could just see that as a symbol of the city's struggle and just turning to desperate times. But not everyone's going to see that, which you just said you didn't. So... - But I only won. - No, I think... - So... - I don't think I got a lot of excitement around the table at all. I don't think I got any. - We've got two opposing sides here. Where do you... - I'm not really opposing. I'm ready to try something different. - I know that. I know that. But it was your idea. - Yes. - Everybody else fall and I don't want to just shoot down his idea because I say so. I'm just saying, you know, we got bully. - I am a bully. I'm GM. - GM, bully. - Well, maybe... Maybe the reason why I don't have excitement to play an outsider type of villain or oppose your forces. - Well, here's the thing. You keep saying outsiders. - Well, they're called... - Well, that's fine. - Well, that's fine, but it still doesn't have to be that. - They are outside. - You're right. - And he's saying it's just cultists who are looking for any other way to get power. - I could say... - Demons. - Demons. - Yeah. - That's... You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be outside. - Even wizards. - If these people are so downtrodden, what are they doing? Are they just wallowing in their misery? I guess it's my point. You know. Go ahead. - And if they are, is there something behind it and are we back to maybe white court vampires and sucking out of the spare of Cleveland? - Or... - I want to get away from vampires. - Well, we have the black hole thing, you know. Let's do Fay or let's do demons or something. - I was thinking about doing something totally different and not a character idea that I'm not gonna follow, but we could throw in here just something I've never even seen in Dresden. Which is aliens. - Okay. - Some sort of an alien ship and some alien beings that are stranded here and taking up residents in the Cleveland area. - Fanboy's not gonna like it. - Yeah. (Laughing) - Strike it down, like, go ahead. - I just... (Laughing) - No. - I just have a problem fitting that into what exists already. - Yeah. - I guess I... - That's what... I'm looking for something. - Well, it's totally not related to what can exist already. - That feels like an conspiracy. Just a x-file. - Everybody wants to go on a different tangent in another way or some different storyline. You don't have to just stick with this whole vampire. - And I understand that. And I'm just saying, this is a rich universe. I don't want to see us trying to play a different game. - I mean, there is a game. - Okay. - Well, I get it. It takes back to the Fae. They're huge in those books, aren't they? Why don't we... Why don't we have no Fae here at all? Why can't we have a Fae theme or a Fae problem? - Because you can't say never-never. - I'm not gonna say it. - What? - Never? - Never. - Never. - Yeah. - I'm going to say it. - But... - They were not hilarious. - The land where the... (Laughing) - Please. - Oh, drag me in the room. - Please, Michael. - The land where the fairies live isn't even called never-never. It's just called the fairie. He wouldn't have to if he didn't want it to. - Okay. Just making a joke. - I know. - I want to tell you that. - I'm trying to be hilarious. - I'm gonna get him to go. - If this... - All this. - All this is fair. - You're the villain. - And all this bad mojo, right, is generating to fuel something. Why can't it be like a giant negative battery that's feeling some dark purpose or dark, you know, thing? - There was a... - Can I just... - Well, well, but... - It doesn't have to be right. - Well, it could be... - Well, he's the one that spoke to the city by the ruthless ambition. - He's got a shield. It's lacking in all magic and emotion. Cleven's getting more and more cursed, more and more despaired, more and more darkness. How do demons not come here to feed you? - Sure. - And that's where I'm going. I mean, I read a short story that had this concept that, you know, it was every dark, but no. In World War II, NASA, Germany, the concentration camps were actually designed to create all this horrible death and misery, so they just do necromancy to fuel that their, you know, because Hillary was the occultist, and he was going to fuel their next thing. This... There's a thing in Dresden, which is briefly mentioned about how the Celia Chores were first signed. And that was when the Faye pulled one of the cities, one of our cities, into the ferret for like a half an hour before it's mentioned early on in one of the books as like one of these, the first time the Celia Chores were signed, and the reason why is because the Faye had stolen, I think, not Chicago, it's a Philadelphia experiment. Something like that. But the idea is that maybe this is a prelude to something of that order, so that way you're involved... - Breaking of the Accords? - Or the Accords 2.0. - So like a... - A disparate dragon. - Or yeah, maybe, maybe that's the thing where somebody, hey, breaking the Accords would mean that, you know, that's a prelude to, you know, a lot of wars. There was a lot of packs, and before Germany, it started attacking the rest of Europe that, you know, they're like, yeah, we're going to break these Accords and have the fight that we want. And some other people were the ones that were phoning that type of rebellion. Which would give a good reason why you would have somebody who wants to maintain and protect and keep the Accords functioning, and there's those elements who are like, no, I'd rather benefit from the chaos. - So maybe someone's taken what Rockefeller tried to do when he accidentally cursed the city, and they're seeing the result of that. And they're... - I'm going to drive down as long as I can, since Mike has his hand raised for the audience. - And they're taking that energy and doing something different with it. So it involves, you know, Rockefeller's, you know, original... - It's decided. - It's not a genesis of his idea, but it's a side effect that someone is now leeching that to spare off for some darker purpose, like you said, Michael would be... - Mark Roach enough. - Yeah. Like, maybe trying to steal the city away to another plane for reasons of, you know, again, the ACCords 2.0. - Something from another movie that would fit into the Dresden world view as the premise behind like the Hellboy 2, which was, you know, the elves or the Fae people made the deal that, look, we're not going to bother humans anymore. And, you know, so all the years go by and humans who have short lives and short memories forget that, you know, to ever be afraid of the darker, the forest or everything that's going on there. And the person comes back to say, "We're going to break this accord." - A few humans, you know, back, you know, for the nightmares to come back and roost. So that same kind of, you know, you have that fairy prince who does want the chaos, who does, you know, the Raven King who does want to... - Do you want to leave it as an unknown? It's a threat that something is... - I don't want to define it since I'm not sure where you want to take it. - Something is cultivating the darkness. - That could be the first clue to, you know, like what... The fact that there's an enormous scale involved here, you just don't have a whole bunch of solar collectors and, you know, they're collecting light and their energy's going somewhere, but why do you need so many solar collectors or the spare collectors in this case? - Cultivating the despair is the idea. - Yeah, that's a kind of an idea. I like that cultivating that implies like you're a farmer and then the reaper, oh, reapers. Look at the... - The reapers. - Oh, absolutely. - All the grain reapers, plastic, the symbology people, dark, the sides. - So what's the aspect, gentlemen? - A city drowning in despair. - What do you want? - I'm controlling stuff about that. - We got a city cursed already, though, but how about, almost like I want to say, like, I used to see tendrils gripping the despair. - Ah, and that doesn't really go anywhere. - What does the one we already have on the city? - We have a city sculpted by ruthless ambition and dark purpose, a city cursed. No wall survives, a den of inequity. Cultivating the despair, something's building, something's building. - Something's coming. - All the precipitates. - Something wicked this way comes. - Yeah. - The man behind the curtain? - Well, we'll spoke. Something wicked this way comes with a man behind the curtain. Let's go. - I gotta go with Ray Bradbury. Or actually, that's, like, Beth. Something wicked this way comes. By the prickling of my thumb, something wicked this way comes. - It was from a blind. - It was from Macbeth, just by Ray Bradbury wrote a neat twist right about it. - Macbeth said it. - No, it was the-- - Carnival's are creepy. - Was it Macbeth, or when he encounters the three witches outside of-- - That sounds like Macbeth. - Or were they-- - Wait, do you think that will be teeny? - It's a bitch. - Oh, I don't remember. - So, yes, I think it was. So, something wicked this way comes. - Sure. - I like that. - The aspects of the city, I don't think we've ever really used them. They're, like, themes to go by rather than ask for a vote. - As it's a man, I'm gonna use them for you. - The name is Unknown. - It's he who stands behind. - The face is Unknown. The name of the face is Unknown. - Right. - And the concept is leaching the life force on the city. - On the city, oops. - On the nipple of a spare-- - Not seeing machines feeding. - I'm gonna say-- - What did you say? - Absorbing the room. - Yeah. - What did you say? - I said Unknown Lips on the nipple of despair. - Okay. - Feeding her. - I'm sorry. - I thought that up, like, 10 minutes ago. - Origin. - Yeah, should I use it? - Origin. - I'm gonna say that out loud sometimes. - I mean, it was a fan of-- - Suckling at the teeth of the spare. - Sleeping the despair for unknown reasons. - Yeah. - Sorry. - Unknown person. - Unknown purpose. - Unknown purpose. - With unknown purpose. It's taken out of spare. - Okay. - Who am I? - So now we're gonna go to the faces or something. - So now we're gonna go to the faces or something. - Thanks for listening to the Knights of the Night at Actual Play podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures. 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