Context: Work with nuances, do not use overt storytelling (don't explain the cause of the city's madness outright until we reach the conclusion of the storylines). Include the occult within a range of plausible deniability. Can introduce small players willing to fight the darkness, but they must do so without superpowers or any real hope of ultimate success.
//Dark City//
- Sprawling metropolis in decline.
- Located on the water's edge
- People who can't move suffer heavily, no one would choose to live here.
- City still heavily populated (millions)
- Visual signs of decay all around
- Some parts of city extremely shady, sane people avoid those places.
- Nowhere in the city is peaceful
//History//
- Current year is 1977
- Dark City used to be a powerhouse of industry and innovation, now barren - mills and businesses closed
- Unknown force behind decline and current state of city
- Remarkable decline, possibly due to - curses & unholy pacts / corruption & greed / rebuke of an offended god
- Civic services underfunded till the point of collapse, starting a decade ago
- Earthquake in 1963 led to sealing off of subway. Currently the aboveground part is working but in utter disrepair.
- Rich were purged from atleast King's garden in the past (may have been other purges as well)
- Unknown event years ago caused a staggering number of deaths at one go in the suburbs, leading to the setting up of a separate morgue in the suburbs
- (Recently) An Ex-High School student, who had been out gathering radio parts for the recyclable metal was shot and left to die in a ditch, for some reason body was not looted.
- (Recently) 32 people lined up to receive soup for the day were gunned down by a man who had seen too much...
- Had a monarch at one point of time
- The City's theme music (Courtesy of Betaband): http://freemp3host.com/play:28944
//Government and Civic Administration//
- Most neighborhoods belong to a kingpin, an overlord, a feudal government, or even the shroud of darkness itself.
- A corrupt bureaucracy exists amidst it all
- Civic services: In ruins, receiving almost no funding. Most have abandoned except old pensioners and young troubleseekers
- Has port and harbor
- Hospitals collapsing
- Inner city has morgues, and there's one in the suburbs since >10 years
- Person of interest: Transportation Commissioner - Killed before able to lead peaceful protest against bureaucracy
- Person of interest: Saugath, former mayor of what's now Darktown
- Person of interest: Coroner - 'always seemed to know more than he told,' anyone in his employ talking to the press ended up dead. He himself was particularly fond to talk to the press. Notable phrase: "such a tragedy" Disappeared after commandeering a news station's broadcast that drove people mad, and no one can remember what was in it (Read post for nuances and further details). His skin was clammy and oily-looking.
Taxation
Toll and checkpoints on the periphery of the city help regulate the influx and immigration of people, and also provide much needed funds via taxation on goods being traded (though the clever will know how to avoid these). Corrupt tolls manned by a city-owned organization are why foreigners can easily be welcomed into the city and subsequently trapped, and peasants who dream of better lives and have the survival skills to make their way as a free man in the city can't just bolt off and escape.
Police Force
- There is almost no Police presence anywhere in Dark City, outside of Municipal Square (Downtown), and the adjoining Business District on Cypress Hill.
- Municipal Square is where the Police Precinct building (known as the Citadel), the Courthouse, and other Government Offices are located - While Cypress Hill hosts the personal businesses ventures, gated communities, and private properties of the Mayor and other City Elites.
- For more details, see Factions
//Infrastructure//
Subway was sealed off with concrete slabs after earthquake. Aboveground section is functional, but only on prayers (accidents frequent and expected)
Has coal power plant
Has port and harbor
//Factions//
No heroes, no miraculous saviour nor hope (exception: if they're putting up a con)
Thrice Dead Men
Profile: Malice and greed
Highlights: Elaborate induction ritual (read post)
Distinguishing features: Members have scarred faces
Person of interest: 'Man with gunshot wound to the chin' responsible for finding new talent
Leader: 'Ezekiel, Chosen of the Craven Ones - "the picture of a gentleman" Possibly has magical powers. May have survived being shot from close range in the past.
Midtown Mafia
Profile: Goons
The Green Sharks - own half the area from Fourth to Kino
The Reavers - own a chunk from Vinnerva to Ender's Way.
Everything else is for the little guys to squabble over.
Sisters of the Fallen
Profile: Placid, somber clothing. 1000 yard stare eyes. Tattoo emblazoned on forehead of followers
Highlights: Have bases across city, welcome anyone into order, provide first aid for all around city for free. Large number of members, run farms outside city to fund operations. Secretly uses its beggar network for intel, have exclusive access to information from across city. Being funded by an unknown source (business house?)
Motto: 'Do not think, only help'
Leader: Charismatic lady 'Head Sister' information broker, works through loyal members and cutouts. Kills defectors
Person of Interest: Unknown benefactor, many impostors would claim to be the benefactor/related to the benefactor/supported by the benefactor. Knows of truth of Head Sister's activities
Relation with other factions: Permitted by all but most powerful warlords, acknowledge existence of Vulture men but not much interaction due to differnce in objectives
Goal: Help city, Head Sister - find out identity of benefactor
Vulture Men
Base of operations: North Darktown Morgue
Leader: A very dangerous blind man in a morgue uniform, with a very dangerous following, does things in the underground levels that nightmares dare not express. Clearheaded out of all of the Vulture men, but he generally doesn't get out much unless something's very, very wrong
Profile: Heavily armed and poorly washed individuals, nearly as cold and skeletal as the corpses they stalk, babbling on about “Sensuous Oils” and a “Throttled Goddess”. Always quietly mumbling. Unnerving and grim. Given their protective, but not really territorial behavior and their poor conversational skills, they're probably regarded in much the same way a local pack of animals would be, and generally aren't sought out or spoken to unless someone gets curious
Highlights: Ubiquitous wherever death is present, always haunting the alleyways and corners, always perched in safe places overlooking the battlefields and street fights. Always scornfully violent to anything they perceive as being in their way.
Goal: Collecting eyes from the dead (or nearly dead)
The Freaks/Nausies
Profile: A faction of heavily disfigured individuals, with deformities ranging from burns to skin diseases. The ones who were mutilated are much worse to behold, some even having their bodies rearranged to resemble animals.
Location: Scattered throughout the vast sewer system of Dark City
Highlights: Kidnapping people off the streets, using the manholes and sewer grates as entrances and exits. Disfigure and indoctrinate their victims to assimilate them into their "family".
Person of interest: Dr Mosef - Skilled surgeon who willfully hurts others
Leader: A heavily bandaged man with grey facial hair poking out here and there, has a mouthful of rotting yellow teeth.
Goal: To eventually "beautify" every person in the city.
Dark City Police Force (DCPD)
- Over the years, the Dark City Police Force has become something akin a heavily armed (and officially sanctioned) Gang - brutally protective of its own turf and turning a blind eye to anything outside its immediate interests.
- It has become a corrupt institution, selling/extorting "protection" to the highest bidder, and acting as the Mayor's personal guard and all-to-eager squad of storm-troopers. Everyone in Dark City, except the new or naïve, know not to go looking to them for any help and to stay out of their way and off their radar.
- The "Brothers In Blue" (or other name?) are an even more corrupt and sinister offshoot of the Dark City Police Force, who wear the uniform, but act independently of apparently everyone (including the Mayor) and taking orders from an unknown source. Like the SS of the Nazi party, even members of the Police Force itself, know better than to question or look to closely at what the Brothers in Blue are doing at any given time.
Warrenites
Those who live (or more accurately, end up) in The Warrens are called Warrenites, and seem to take on more and more animalistic qualities over time spent there.
Profile: The majority of Warrenites are unusually large and hairy people - unkempt and feral in both appearance and manner, earning them a few colorful nicknames, such as feral hoboes, cavemen, and junkyard thugs.
Highlights: Warrenites almost never venture outside The Warrens and do not appear to have an established leader among them.
Leader or not, the Warrenites are fiercely protective of each other and their trade - human sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the Warrenites have no shortage of depraved clientele to keep them in business for a very long time.
Media
Organ harvesters
Unorganized groups:
People driven mad after Coroner's TV presentation
Local scavengers
James Tovar's friends - killers who kept souvenirs of their prey, and flaunted their ill gotten gains amongst each other.
Bounty Hunters
//Businesses//
Toxicorp
Runs a private section of the otherwise collapsed subway to haul their chemicals into the city. There's a steady demand for their chemicals to use to increase yields from rooftop gardens. For reasons mentioned below, the chemicals are also a good the government wants to clamp down on, hence the smuggling.
Currently unnamed company running coal plant (and obtaining coal for it somehow)
//Places of Interest//
Midtown
Borough. Factions within are at war
Municipal Square (in Midtown) - where the Police Precinct building (known as the Citadel), the Courthouse, and other Government Offices are located
Business District on Cypress Hill (Midtown)
Hosts the personal businesses ventures, gated communities, and private properties of the Mayor and other City Elites.
Lucky Lanes - bowling alley down on Ender's Way (Midtown)
Roscoe's Food, Drink and Gas - Gas station in Midtown
Location: On Western and Seventh
Hugo's Tavern (in Midtown)
Location: At the corner of 4th and Vinnerva in Midtown
As close to a neutral territory as can exist in the borough of Midtown.
Person of Interest: The Bogeyman - Bounty hunter
Known and feared. The only two reasons anyone ever talks to him is if they need someone dead, or they don't know who he is. Righteous, violent, manic, enjoys kills (Read post for nuances). Preferred weapon - baton. Between Lawful and Chaotic Neutral
Darktown
Saugath was mayor here
Park Square - Marketplace for contraband
Location: Darktown, next to Saugath's Way
Person of interest: Blind Old Beggar "wrapped up in so many rags and bandages only the briefest hint of flesh can ever be seen. He's there every day, seemingly just as silent and barely more aware than the statues themselves." Informant for drug traders
Was once a world famous destination for tourists to come and spend their money
Massive square is a strategic place to move drugs and other contraband.
Has many avenues for escape, should a rival try to take your product by force
North Darktown
Location of morgue
King's Garden - District
Not much is left of the grand old district, its townhouses and palatial towers are in advanced decay. Avenues and plazas that once housed the rich and powerful are now filled with rats. Few human inhabitants. Former residents had a lack of ethics and decency,
Prince's Folly - Bakery in King's Garden
Location: Right off the main road, in the half-toppled shell of a former palace
Person of Interest: Reginald Harper.
No one really knows at what point Reginald Harper opened up shop, nor where he came from, or how he manages to maintain his business. Some rumours say that he is the only royal to have survived the purges, others say that he is an outside opportunist. If you are desperate for food, and have money to spare, his shop always has freshly baked goods for sale.
There is a noticeable absence of rodents in the vicinity of the Folly.
(Defunct) Manufacturing District
Old Warehouse: Venue for Thrice Dead Men inductions (atleast once)
Sundial- One of few remaining towers in city.
Considered the downtown area of the City in its early days.
Surface streets remain as the only ways to get near it, no subways nor highways were built within five city blocks. Within this radius, no buildings exceed two stories in height. All similar in design; white walls with dusty white floors. All entirely empty for some unknown reason. (Read post for nuances)
The Warrens
A vast shantytown on the southern slopes of the city dump, inhabited by feral hoboes known as the Warrenites.
A unique magnetic interference in the locale hampers the use and longevity of electronic devices.
Harbors an extensive human trafficking ring.
The Waterfront
The Sealed-off sections of the underground subway
The Coal Power Plant
City Dump (Warrens are adjacent to this)
Sewers below City
Home of the Nausies, Lurkers (mutilated, mind broken humans at this point) run free in the more isolated sections
Noteworthy: Agriculture
Rooftop Gardens spread across the roofs of the city, giving residents an extra source of income and a defense against starving. Toxicorp's chemicals are used on the plant life like a fertilizer. The mutated food that grows on those plants increases cancer risks, and kills slowly over time but keeps the hungry masses alive today. The chemicals boost rooftop farm yields (by 90% but that benefit will dwindle to around 40% after a few years as plants get used to it). Mutated crops can be distinguished by their pale yellow and white colors, instead of normal green.
Noteworthy: Medical
Chronic Fatigue has been a problem in the past
Noteworthy: Toxicorp's Chemicals
The same chemicals from Toxicorp that mutate food can be converted to be used as as weapons (poisons or explosives). A faction going all out will convert its potential food income from the chemicals into weapons for the fight. So it's a warning sign to other gangs if one gang ISN'T using chemicals on its rooftop farms. Really ruthless gangs eagerly raid civilian communes and take their chemical supplies when they need more food or are expecting a large battle.
Mishandling the chemicals has caused disfigurement, one of the many ways in which people end up as one with the sewer folk.
Noteworthy: Medical
Chronic Fatigue has been a problem in the past
Noteworth: Technology
Television exists (News employs anchormen and support staff)
Cars exist
Wired payphones exist
Noteworthy: Weapons
Atleast Flintlocks
Noteworthy: Fashion
Peacoat (Gents)
