UA-digest Digest V99 #32

[Clint Staples]

I like this. Where would you work in the Rastafarians? They are just to
cool to leave out and Haile Salasi (spelling is wrong, I know, but I
have no idea how his name was spelled) could easily be an ascended
archetype.

Clint Staples
> 
> Subject: A strange idea
> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 02:22:41 -0500 (EST)
> From: Joe Iglesias <jchurch at bu.edu>
> To: Dave McArthur <dmcarthu at gmu.edu>,
>      Unknown Armies ML <UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu>
> 
> I wrote this up about a month ago as a GURPS Voodoo idea; I think it could
> profitably be used in a UA game in some fashion...
> 
> Joe
> ---
> "I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite
> space, were it not that I have bad dreams."
> Howling lunacy here: http://members.xoom.com/McGuffins/
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> 
> I was rereading old Suppressed Transmissions and the most Illuminated
> things popped into my head; one's a big subplot for the PBEM, but this one
> I *can* share. Try this one next time you feel like pulling out the old
> book...
> 
> First, let's ditch the G:V background and just go with the general ideas
> presented-- Voudonistas united against a similarly secret, magic-using
> society.
> 
> Instead of the Hermetic Lodge, let's pit Voodoo against Islam, as both
> religions have a long mystic tradition and are big in black communities.
> This also gives us a Christians-vs-Muslims subtext if we want it, as
> most real-world Voodoos also consider themselves good Catholics (insert
> digression on the loa being worshipped as the saints here).
> 
> Now, to narrow down a setting, let's go the Tim Powers route and occultate
> something commonplace, something you wouldn't think is magically
> significant.  Let's say rap.
> 
> So now we have a setup where the soul of the black community in the US
> (home of the world's most violent rappers; rpgs need fight scenes, of
> course) is being fought over by the mystic Muslim community and the
> less-wealthy Voodoos.  The best way to create pliable citizens is to raise
> them that way, so clearly rappers are molding their fans by rhyme to the
> aims of the Nation of Islam (which is pretty batty to start with, as its
> official theology involves flying saucers and eugenics-- I'm serious), the
> obvious culprit, as many many prominent black celebs are turning to Islam
> in general and Farrakhan's church in particular.
> 
> In this wacky world, the rivalry between East Coast and West Coast MCs was
> instigated by the Voodoos, to create a civil war in the Muslim rappers'
> power structure (attach mythic baggage to Tupac and the Notorious BIG as
> appropriate), creating a power vacuum  which new, loa-backed rappers
> would then fill (as has been borne out by the bankruptcy and dissolution
> of Death Row Records and New Orleans-based No Limit Productions surging
> from obscurity to become the #1 rap label, and even recruiting DRR's top
> act Snoop Doggy Dogg[who used to have NoI bodyguards]).
> 
> An interesting campaign might be to have a PC group of young up-and-coming
> rappers being courted to the Big Leagues by representatives of the two
> factions' record labels, and graducally cluing in to the fact that All Is
> Not As It Seems, as loa sent by Master P (Master Petro?) confront them in
> their dreams and the Wu-Tang Clan (which is interesting semiotically in
> itself-- are they trying to ritually harvest the power of of the huge
> Asian rap fanbase by sympathy in names [even going so far as to rename
> Staten Island "Shaolin"]?) command the fae (who are, judging by the
> similarities in behavior and mythography, closely related to the djinni of
> Islamic lore) to counter his gambit.   And who does the mysterious Dr
> Octagon, who claims to have come from outer space with a message for
> Earth, serve?
> 
> I think I need some sleep.
>