(UA) This Is The City (take 2)

[John Tynes]

>Was there a reason for it besides the diversity and example?  I've
>already cited Mak Attax as a group that glommed onto the notion of
>"ley lines", and the Sect of the Naked Goddess would most likely be in
>Chicago because someone got a tip (true or not) that the NG grew up
>there.

Besides diversity and example, there's the simple issue of suitability. 
Chicago is where the NG ascended in front of Daphnee Lee, so they're 
still there. Looking at the rulebook, that's sort of implied but not 
stated clearly. But a lot of it really was that we didn't want to 
christen some place as the Big Cool City; god knows it's easy to get sick 
of hearing about how great New York is, or how happening L.A. is, or what 
a swell music scene there is in Chapel Hill, or what have you. So we 
thought we'd spread the wealth a bit.

>Not necessarily; a smart cabal cleans up its corpses.  Hell, the
>smarter ones clean up *any* messes that might lead back to them!

Yeah, but there aren't a lot of smart cabals. How many people do you know 
that can securely dispose of a corpse on demand, repeatedly? When it's 
time for dirty work like that, it's real easy to go blood simple. And 
modern forensics isn't very forgiving. You can blank a memory here and 
there, but keep it up and someone will notice how the coroner keeps 
having nervous breakdowns.

>If there isn't a daily dose, how often is it?  If it's more than, say,
>two weeks, do you still have a sub-culture-buzz happening?  Or after a
>month?

Typically speaking, these people still have jobs and social circles of 
some sort that occupy their time; even scary loners watch TV (if only to 
shoot it) or catch flies with their toes. How many sub-cultures out there 
are moving & shaking on a daily basis? Drug dealers are that busy, but 
that's because they're dealing with a very popular consumer product that 
their customers need every single day, and since it's hard to move in 
large quantity, they have to keep arranging for purchases and shipments. 
There's no such supply/demand incentive in the occult underground to keep 
things jumping. It's just not that every-day-exciting of a world; it's 
more freakish and sad and conspiratorial, with occasional bursts of 
awfulness. IMHO, that is.

>Can you still call yourself an "underground", or are you just
>an isolated bunch of obsessed wankers...?

That's pretty close, actually. Keep in mind B.D. Dover's comment on how 
the "occult underground" is mostly an excuse to speak portentously and 
wear black. These are melodramatic people, with slightly more 
justification for their melodrama than usual. They're generally not cool 
or slick or smooth; they're obsessed weirdos.

>Is this all of such little consequence?

So far, yes. Although the rulebook doesn't explicitly state this ('cuz 
we're cagey bastards, and 'cuz no one in the occult underground really 
knows anyway), it's safe to say that all this cabal business and the 
funky schools of magick aren't any older than Dirk Allen. More to the 
point, Allen said he used to mess with old-school magick until things 
changed, which means he must have at least been an adult when the new 
wave started. Assuming he's in his sixties, that suggests the new wave 
started maybe 30 years ago--no earlier than 1969. But we also have his 
assertion that the new wave really kicked off with the Naked Goddess 
ascension, and that means the video porn era--so now we're up to 1980 or 
so as an absolute minimum, and the rulebook suggests it was a lot more 
recent than that--maybe the last five or six years, even.

This stuff is very, very new and different. Certainly there are older 
traditions (such as mechanomancy and cliomancy, and probably dipsomancy). 
But the majority of the funky magick and weird cabals presented in the 
rulebook may be no more than twenty years old, and quite possibly no more 
than ten. This is a world on the cusp, still very much in the beginning 
stages of a whole new phenomenon. Word has spread slowly, but a critical 
mass is approaching.

The trick is, no one seems to know for sure. There's little or no 
documentation, no real scrutiny or accepted history. It's just a big 
floating bed of rumor and allegations. Who made the first inflatable sex 
doll? Good luck finding out.

So no, all this stuff really is of little or no consequence so far. (I'm 
excluding avatars & archetypes, which are ancient but also fairly 
subtle.) You're in on the ground floor, relatively speaking, and that's 
why there's this power-grab mentality.

>I'm not sure about that, because the press wouldn't be covering it;
>again, this is where "underground" differs from "sub-culture".  In all
>likelihood, if the TNI came to town, you wouldn't know it.  At least
>not immediately; word would get around soon enough.

You're taking the analogy more literally than I intended. I just mean to 
say that in a lot of mid-size locations, big events in the local 
underground with outside players getting involved might not happen more 
than a couple-few times a year. Small towns may not see jack.

>Well, it doesn't have to be "big and freaky", but I would still
>require that *something* happened in the area on a regular basis.
>Otherwise, why the hell are you there in the first place?

Because a few years ago you got a job there, or you grew up there, or 
you've got family there, or you went to school there--the usual reasons 
why people live anywhere. Life brings you to a place, and then you make 
the most of where you are. If you're so committed to becoming a player in 
the underground, you might move to someplace more exciting; but that 
means you have the means (or the lack of ties) to do so.

>If there is no reason for your being there, then you're *not*
>participating in the underground.  Plain and simple; you are an
>observer and not a participant.  If you're not where the action is,
>you're not in the game.

That's true if you're talking about big players, but as you pointed out, 
any navel-gazing adept in Bumwater, USA, can be powerful of his own 
accord. Being magickally powerful doesn't make you a player; being a 
player doesn't make you magickally powerful. Player = Politics. Who 
you've got in your rolodex, whose ear you can whisper in, and who 
whispers in yours.

Besides which, there are any number of people who consider themselves big 
fish in small ponds. Bumwater, USA, may be a small town, but the guy who 
runs the local Star Trek club feels like he's in a position of prominence 
within his circle. That politico-cultist in "Pinfeathers" sure feels like 
he's Doc Jesus, but he's way beneath the radar of the rest of the 
underground.

>I can respect that, but it somewhat cheapens the efforts of
>local/street-level people.

You could be street-level all your life, with your own triumphs and 
tragedies, and Alex Abel might still never hear of you. The clergy might 
never notice what you're doing unless you cross a godwalker. That's why 
people in the underground want power--so they can rise in the world. The 
street life *is* cheap.

>You could be generating charges like a bandit because of some local
>property, or it just suits your avatar, but whatever the case you can
>still amass enough personal power to wax Abel's butt.

Sure, you could kill Abel. But you'll never meet him or get past his 
wards from a distance. If he has an interest in your small pond, a hit 
squad comes and does their business. If you wax them, a bigger and badder 
hit squad comes and does you. If you wax *them*, Abel either pulls out 
all the stops and smears you across three counties...*or* he negotiates 
with you, because eventually you'll realize that he has the resources to 
achieve that three-county spread but that it'll cost him something, so 
maybe you two are better off making a deal--and then you've taken a big 
step off the street.

And keep in mind that Abel doesn't have to have a squad smear you in 
direct combat. He can murder your family, kidnap your children, get the 
bank to evict you, steal your car, get you fired, frame you for a 
kiddy-raper, and hit you sixteen ways from Sunday without you ever 
meeting any of his agents face to face and without using the slighest bit 
of magick. A mafia sniper could blow your head off from six blocks away 
as you step out the door to pick up the morning paper. Even psycho loners 
need food and shelter, and a player like Abel can take that away from 
you. That's a form of power that's difficult to face if you're a lone 
duke. Not impossible, but difficult.

>I don't know if you designed him to be such a tragic character (and an
>obvious target for a big fall), but that's how I'm playing him.

You're on the money.

>But hey, 24/7 is what an "underground" is all about.  Just like your
>French Resistance, Underground Railroad, organized crime, and Detroit
>acid-raves, it never stops.

These are good examples in some ways, but they're also ones that rely 
either on resisting organized, everyday oppression (resistance, 
railroad), or filling voracious consumer needs (crime), or they're 
comprised of an activity that takes hours to fully enjoy (raves). The 
occult underground doesn't hit any of those three marks. It's probably 
closer to something like swingers' sex clubs or large S&M scenes, where 
the action is somewhat sporadic and very closeted, without an immediate 
profit incentive or oppression to fight. And even ravers have to sleep. :)

>Honestly, despite my bitching, I really like the game and am currently
>making my own "remix" of it.

Which is excellent, 'cuz that's what you oughta be doing. The story isn't 
in the tale, but in the telling.


<- John Tynes - rev at tccorp.com - http://www.John.Tynes.com/ ->
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