"And if in the end, there is only darkness? If the world is meant to end in darkness?"
Jilly shook her head. She refused to believe it.
"How can you deny it?" he asked.
"It's just . . . if there's only supposed to be darkness, then why were we given light?"
For a long moment, he sat there, shoulders drooped, staring down at her hands. When he finally looked up, there was something in his eyes that Jilly couldn't read.
"Why indeed?" he said softly.
- Charles de Lint, "The Buffalo Man"
The following is a summary of the initial chats on the city, as I recalled them, and some additional bits and ideas. Nothing of it is set in stone.
Detroit is, in practise, a hell on earth. Half of its population has vanished in 50 years, entire subdivisons are deserted (over 30K empty buildings) and the employment figure is between 25-34% depending upon the source. Half the schools have closed, it's 'ground zero' for education and jobs and essentially an American Mexico City -- this is how bad things can get when they simply keep getting worse.
THEMES
Urban Decay
This is the biggy. The city is falling into the abyss and no one seems able to stop it. Weirdly, the people who seem most willing to stop it are the Canadian government, via Windor .. a city that thrives while its sister city fails. Bail-out money and the like has been offered but to what extent the tide can be held back is an open question.
Things to explore:
* Why has Windor succeeded? Magically, it could somehow he considered to be 'stealing' Detroit's potential. A coven of magicians? I imagine there would be some interesting conspiracy theories about this. Perhaps the area they link to in the Nevernever influences things?
* Twin it with Mordor? :)
* The places it leads to in the Nevernever would be BAD places. And a lot of things can leak through: you have a city with shit police protection, urban jungles gone wild and areas more fitting for the third world than first -- a perfect feeding ground for nasty things, and for finding people desperate enough to make any kind of Pact.
* Some of this can be linked to the demise of the auto industry, leading to a competing theory to the above: magicians hate Industrialization, so they broke Detroit as a warning/lessson to the world. Things have fallen apart, the centre hasn't holded, people in the city are probably more aware of magic ... and scared people make leaps of logic others wouldn't.
Racism
This isn't a theme we've much explored in Game1, but Detroit is almost a poster child for it. The population is 80% black, 20% white (for all intents; other minorities are seriously minor). The average income is ~28K for a family. The math isn't pretty.There's a lot of anger and resentment boiling away that's one wrong word from exploding.
Things to explore:
* The music scene. Seriously, this is Motown and yet most of the famous rappers are white. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?
* White Court vampires are into Sex and Porn. Black Court vampires have been destroyed by a Book/White Man's Education. The White Court is huge (in most cities), The Black Court is nothing. The parallels would be interesting for people to draw even if they have no real basis in reality.
* The sane folk. The city hasn't fallen apart, and some of that is because people don't blame it on race and so forth and actually talk to each other. While this theme is dark, there's some counterpoints to the urban decay in that the shit has not hit the proverbial fan.
THREATS
Save With Magic
Basically, at least one clued in Wizard willing to break the laws of magic to alter minds and enthrall people to create a better world. It's blatantly ignoring the fact that magic doesn't solve anything as miuch as make things more complicated but a desperate activist watching their hopes for the future crash and burn again is liable to ignore than and try and fix things in any way possible.
Things to explore:
* The domino effect. Lies beget other lies: You make one person Change, and others wonder why, begin to question, and you have to control more minds to stop those questions until it spirals out of control.
* To what extent does/can this work, short term? If it has actual tangible benefit -- short or long term -- then it could be worth it. If one has made the world a better place, then what purpose are the laws of magic actually serving, and whose ends?
GM Thoughts
I don't want this to be Harry Dresden in another city. As such, both the police and the mob are kept in the dark about Weird Shit as much as possible. (An ex-police officer investigating things they shouldn't is fine, ditto with minor criminals trying to make use of magic and such to have it backfire.)
I want the general populace more clued in, at a basic 'weird shit happens' level. Dresdenverse has no Illuminati, no Sleepers or WOD Veil -- and yet magic has, despite being real and powerful, somehow been forgot. Who benefited from this and/or arranged it? Such questions, of course, assume anyone deliberately did. (For my money, the first theory is closer to an in-game truth.)
The Eugenics Theory: The White Council dooms magic. Magic is inherited, and every warlock who dies reduces the amount of potential magicians: the rise of the internet (and people realizing their potential/heritage) has slowed what was becoming an obvious trend, but has not eradicated it: magic became rare because magicians did, and the extermination of warlocks does more than the Inquisition ever did.
The Conspiracy Theory: The Council encouraged science etc. because their magic is better than it (e.x.: electronics -- some 'coincidence') and if kept in a few hands, magic is safer and less dangerous. Letting people become convinced magic wasn't real prevented great harm via magic.
Differences from Dresden Files: The red court have NOT been wiped out; the vampire war ended as a cold war stalemate a while ago.
Also, I'll probably make use of/throw in things from the Nevernever a LOT. It's s fascinating aspect of the setting that is seldom touched on and there's a lot of interesting places to go with it regarding Faerie, Hell, Heaven, God(s) and so forth.
CAMPAIGN
Power level: Starting as Chest-Deep seems viable (8 refresh, 30 skill points, cap at Suberb) seems viable.
Players: Ideally, 3. More or less are possible.
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