[UA] My UA scenario for Conjuration

[thanatos at interaccess.com]

> So I'm planning on trying to run a UA scenario at Conjuration in 
> Cambridge this August. I'm going to set it in 1930s Chicago and 
> it's going to start with a gunfight and a car chase (you can't waste 
> time with these con scenarios). I call it "Chicago Rules."
> 
> Basically, the idea is that the PCs will begin tracking down a 
> psychotic gangster. They kill him, and time passes. Eventually, people start 
> being killed with his unusual MO. It turns out that the nutter has 
> returned as a demon, and the PCs will hopefully be motivated by the threat of 
> this razor-swinging lunatic to track down and stomp the person/persons 
> who brought him back.
> 
> I have the personality of the villain well in mind, and the first 
> quarter or third of the scenario (in which the PCs confront the 
> baddies over a bank robbery gone awry) is clear in my mind. What I'm 
> looking for the rest of the game is cool stuff to have happen in the rest 
> of the scenario. What would be cool, UA-ish things to do in Depression-
> era Chicago?

Well, if you set it in 1933 or 1934, you can use the World's Fair as a backdrop (A Century of Progress, not the Columbian Exposition) _BUT_ you can have your cake and eat it, too.  Seems the Fair promoters are worried that it's going to tank, with the great depression and all, and they looked back at what made the 1892 one such a winner.  They went through all the usual stuff, and someone jokes about the 'unpleasantness' that was going on mere feet from where the fair gates were.  They all chuckle--that was 40 years ago, after all--and move along.  But someone remembers.  Someone looks into it, and discovers that Herman Mudgett, aka Dr. H. Henry Holmes had used a spell / artifact to draw victims to him, and somehow the spell was greatly amplified, making the Columbian Exposition a huge success.  This certain someone realizes how much is at stake, and convinces one of the 'authentic' voodoo women to raise his spirit from beyond.  Of course, Mudgett's still around, but, being 
trapped where he was killed, in PA, he can't get home.  So the Someone sends one of his boys to retrieve something personal from his remains to amplify the spell.  When the gangster gets there, it's all Mudgett needs to leapfrog and take control.  He gladly returns to Chicago, and, in the guise of the gangster, tells his boss that it was all a bunch of hooey.  He then goes out and starts his work all over again, muder for profit.

Of course, the powers that be in Chicago figure it out, but they can't fault the upswing in attendance that occurs once the murders begin again.  SO they're hesitant to stop it.  And after all, it can't REALLY be Mudgett, can it?

Most interesting of all, setting it in the context of the fair allows for a grand climax on October 31, 1933.  A pity the fair opened for a second year on May 26, 1933-- what might happen at 3:33 am on March 03, 1933?

Sources on A Century of Progress:

http://www.chicagohs.org/history/century.html


 "Just as believers in a beneficent deity should be haunted by the problem of natural evil, so agnostics, atheists, pessimists and nihilists should be haunted by the problem of friendship, love, beauty, truth, humor, compassion, fun. Never forget the problem of fun." - John Horgan

----- Original Message -----
From: j e holloway <j.e.holloway at durham.ac.uk>
Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 1:52 pm
Subject: [UA] My UA scenario for Conjuration

> 

> 
> -- 
> James Holloway (j.e.holloway at durham.ac.uk)
> 
> 
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