Manchester: Part 2

What was I saying about mining one's  hometown for ideas? Oh yeah... I said it was officially a good idea. Or at least it's a good idea when one hails from a place as exciting and vivdly realised as my hometown of Manchester (yes, I mean that).


 In truth, it's not really the city per se and its qualities (or lack thereof), that is serving as inspiration for me here. No, in this case, Manchester is merely a conceptual springboard for creativity (maaan).  It could really have been anything.  A loaf of white bread, say or a broken wheel chair. Perhaps seventeen saxophonist in a van. Whatever...the point, is that I'm familiar with what makes the place tick; it's a great bundle of abstractions, concrete definites, myths, pictures, sounds, people, histories and lurid, speculative psychogeography.

You can't really say the same about a loaf of white Warburton's.

With Manchester, I luck out. We're already half living in a Mythic Otherworld, here upon the edge of the glowering Pennines...a place walked by the ghosts of an almost utopia that never quite was. Tales of heroes and their deeds which, in truth, with the right kind of vision, are as much the stuff of cosmic myth as the Labours of Heracles (for example). It's a different kind of vibe...more Hesse than Tolkien; but it's present and correct.

I'm not going to eat up pages describing stuff you can find out on Wikipedia  or you might already know. The plan is to be game able quick. So let's begin with an example. In this case, music.An exceedingly easy starting point for our adventures. Let's focus on legendary Mancunian band,  Joy Division. Just for starters.

Ian Curtis' tale is well documented. His life, his career, his un-timely death. If you were so inclined (and many have been), you might point at Joy Division and Curtis as the progenitor of the famed Manchester music scene and make a convincing argument regarding their role as an influence upon popular music as we know it. With a bit of research,  one could mine raw history for ideas and derive something pretty punchy. But why make things difficult? Let's focus upon the art, in particular, Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division's debut album.

For a start, the title is my kind of D&D. The front cover depicts  the sound waves emitted by a dying star. This too is my kind of D&D. The lyrics? The music? The same. So let's focus once more,  this time on a song from Unknown Pleasures, namely track 1. Disorder, written out below:
.

Disorder.

I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand,
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?
These sensations barely interest me for another day,
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling, take the shock away.

It's getting faster, moving faster now, it's getting out of hand,
On the tenth floor, down the back stairs, it's a no man's land,
Lights are flashing, cars are crashing, getting frequent now,
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling, let it out somehow.

What means to you, what means to me, and we will meet again,
I'm watching you, I'm watching her, I'll take no pity from your friends,
Who is right, who can tell, and who gives a damn right now,
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know,
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know,
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know,
I've got the spirit, but lose the feeling,
I've got the spirit, but lose the feeling,
Feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling

Ok, this is what my mind made, based purely on the above verse. Are you ready? OK:

The world's reality damage is causing  more problems with each passing year. Since the moon broke apart and the old things, banished beneath the earth began to rise once more (sensing the eldritch magics by which they had been forced from the surface of the planet Idios had faded), chaos (with a small c) has gripped the land.

Strange men tall men in sorrel cloaks have been noted. Men whose faces are never quite glimpsed beneath tbeir shadowed  cowls. They come out of the walls, from a place of tearing metal and screaming sod. They seem to have a plan, but no-one knows what it is. They ask people to do things.

They carry with them the Wyrd Light, which can be passed on. Some say they are emissaries of the new ghost moon. They consider it a sacred duty to task folk with slaying were-creatures, which proliferate in the woods and darkest places of the hedge,

THe Wyrd Light is the gift of creativity. It can be too much for an artist. The sheer volume of ideas can kill them. If it does not, it is the power of magic. But for a normal man, 'a flat man' as the Sorrel Hoods call them, it will be as if the world is glimpsed true for the first time.

It comes at the cost of normal pleasure, normal sensation. The more refined one's tases and senses become, the less they inhabit the perceptions of this world. For a Wizard, this is well known. To see the beyond is to lose interest in the here and now. This is the curse of the magus. This is why they eventually leave for higher realms of existence.

Some say there are no end to these delights. Others say, all things are finite and that in some distant aeon, a magus whose imagination has grown tired of all things, will snuff out the universe.

But this light is being granted to normal men. Wizards, once held in check by the three Hermetic Orders, begin to proliferate alarmingly. Magic becomes easier to wield. More are born with the blood magic/sorcery. This is interesting, since the Church of Metronon (a monotheistic Church, worshipping an invisible demiurge, ranging on missions of religious conversion,  hailing from the vaguely Spanish empire of Torquemada) is burning Hedge Wizards and Blood Magicians upon inexhaustable pyres. This is why the Church has decried art as shit. This is why Torquemada is like that planet in 'It's Hard Being a God'.

The Sorrel Hoods might be chaos magi from Incorrect Realities. They do not appear to be human. They can be invisible to most things. They are silent. They can open any door. They can lead you to to other places you didn't think possible, if you take their hands, which are cold and hard and never seen. Serve them well once and you will receive the Wyrd Light which they carry within the folds of their robes (when the Wyrd Light is granted,  you become a level 1 wizard.  They collapse like Obi Wan Kenobi in A New Hope). Fail them and you will never see them again. You will suffer a curse.

d12 Sorrel Hood Commands

1 Slay a certain werebeast
2 Destroy a moonstone mining operation.
2 Posion a town well with ergot.
4 Conceive a child and give it to the Moon Men.
5 Spend a level as a transformed animal.
6 Deliver a cryptic message to a dying noble. A note that says 'yes'.
7 Steal all copies of a certain astrological chart and deliver them to the Sorrel Hood
8 Assassinate a prominent artist.
9 Cause two people to fall in love.
10 Swap your shadow with one of the Sorrel Hood's choice
11 Lead a girl into an area of reality damage.
12 RIng the city bell 13 times when the Ghost Moon is in the sky.

I could keep going.  I really like the Sorrel Hoods. I like them because they're cool.  I like them because they're mysterious.  And I like them because they prove my point. Really,  you don't have much of an excuse to ever be out of ideas.  Just run with a high powered brain fart.

More stuff inspired by Manchester soon.

https://youtu.be/9TtWfTHzI2o

Manchester: The New Fantasy Sensation! (Chapter I)

Conisdering the large number of gameable places in the world, I've noted a distinct lack of representation in RPG writing for the North West of England. Since I'm a Mancunian by birth and remain a resident, my first port of call in rectifying this circumstance has been my own doorstep. (The path of least resistance and all that...)

 It's true that, television's Game of Thrones has made the most recent (vague) stab, at least in the fantasy department. We've been treated to a washed out pseudo North, inhabited largely by British TV regulars with broad Yorkshire accents (which works better than a washed out pseudo North inhabited by Texans, I'll grant you). As is typical of the North's depiction in fiction, a well worn trope is being adhered to; that of the no nonsense meat and potatoes, honest, wet, cold, dour, 'bloody by 'eck' standard, by which it's characters and geography draw inspiration. In truth, I'm rather pleased that the north is enjoying this wee fantasy renaissance. But we need more sides to the die...

 So I began to brainstorm some Mancunian concepts using my own position as a native to get me started. With 'truth tm' as my springboard, I began to pick up a little momentum and it wasn't very long before I started generating ideas based off of these little fact nuggets (not technically facts, but at least primary evidence). I began to see that it was possible to make connections where there were, in truth, none. And that's when I decided that this was officially a 'good idea'. Note that I mix up real and imagined place names with real and imagined history. There's no pattern to inspiration. Well, not one I've been arsed to look for.

 I suppose I should bloody well dive in:

The Northern Quarter: Bohemian, pressed in by rich developers, famous for its twats and its artists, a place to escape the tumult of the city that is now threatened wit gentrification. There are entrances here to another mystic Manchester, back alleys hold apertures the locals call 'Cracks' that lead into the Higher Place. There is a secret path to Salford here.

Blur your eyes and you're in Vornheim.

Madchester: A mythical time when everyone was high and into good music. Many heroes wandered. Some still live but they have been largely corrupted by time and exposure to other dimensions. One of them, Lord Bez  (OK,  ok) has attempted to fight against the rot at the heart of the city. He struggles, since he is both in and outside of our reality. I imagine he's kind of vibrating at super high speeds almost none stop. I think he'd just be one example of his ilk. I think that it'd be interesting if I went through Manchester's musical heritage and tried to glean ideas from that particulalry fertile soil. That's got to be another post. We're near the beginning here. Run with me.

"You wish to see as I have seen? Do you know what it is you ask?"

Redbrick: The principle building matter of the city. Replace red bricks with any favourite colour. Perhaps the city is white, spun silk, mostly built by the region's White Spider Farmers. Of course, the pollution produced by the boiling fat of the area called the Cauldron has stained them a peculiar shade of dirty brown. See Cotton Factories.

Like this except silkier. And dirtier.

Canals: A network of canals built when the region was at its commerical zenith. Brightly painted boats of many shapes and sizes once crowded the water ways, silk flags billowing in a riot of colour. Most of the boats are gone now or in states of poor repair. However,it has become an artery of menace. For example, they are now home to the serial killer known the 'Shover'; an uncatchable drowner of prostitutes and drunk homosexuals. You can replace the Shover's chosen minorities with your own killer's particular prejudice. Likewise, you can replace the Shover with another urban legend...perhaps an Invisible Stalker that gains power from drowning folk...you know, the fear generated by drowning is super intense and this Stalker feeds on fear so...ahh, you catch my drift.

This is near London. But it's dillapidated so cool.

Cotton Factories: Cotton was the lifeblood of Manchester. Replace cotton with some kind of zarjaz silk that can be spun into pretty much anything, including ultra light, portable fortresses and you've got...something. Of course, when the White Spider Famers began to die, so did the city. Their slow demise is perhaps the result of a Torquemadan espionage plot (Torquemada is an evil empire. Replace with your own dish) that is, the introduction of giant vampiric/plague moths into the eco system. They're still about and flourishing (of course), mainly in canal tunnels. Infected humans are known as 'Moth Eaten' and look awful.

Imagine loads of these in abandoned parts of the city.

Cultural melting pot: Lots of different cultures here. Choose your own mish mash, Of course there is tension at times. But on the whole, they've adapted well and are accepted by people who aren't fascists, forming areas of cultural exclusivity that refuse to become ghettoes.  Which brings me to...

Labour stronghold: Traditionally left wing, its people are poor but rely on an eroding sense of community to get them through hard times. Once dilligently served by the Crimson Council, sadly, that body's leaders have since become corrupt. Now they engage in dark bad sex rituals to unknown gods, their principles thown to the wind. Secretly, they have the only constant supply of Arachnaethol. The entities they have made contact with, are not benign.

Drugs: The people mourn the heady days when they could harvest the by-product of White Spider Farmer silk...the ecstatic, vision producing Arachnaethol.  Arguably responsible for the phase shift of many of the regions great heroes, it vanished quite suddenly when the Torquemadan theocracy cracked down upon mystic states. It was discovered that 90% of the Arachnaethol was being produced by a single Spider Farmer, bloated to unfathomable proportions.

Salford: Within the walls of the city, there is yet another city, somehow finding independence from the greater metropolis that surrounds it. These people emerged from the shadows of Manchester and erected walls within its boundries. Invisible walls which turn men into Salfordites if they remain within the 'inside' city longer than 24 hours. They dance to experimental sorceries in empty Silk Factories and hold certain terrible wisdoms. Every Salfordite is a kind of were creature, only when the ghost moon shines they take on not animal shapes, but the aspects of ancient, anachronistic machines.

Were-Machine. What?

Manchester United/Manchester City: A war between two cults rages between normal, every day people. A two headed god, its worshippers are split between craniums. Nearly the entire city is carried by this madness and its power is greater than anywhere else. People who are normally friends, colleagues, customers or even family will tear each other to pieces should their paths cross on the weekly holy days. Activity is mostly in secret. However, twice a year, the two cults come together in a wild orgy of sexual reconciliation, holding the rites at one of the two major temples. This god could very easily be Demogorgon.

Chorlton: a rich and prosperous area that is almost entirely built by and inhabited by former dungeoneers. Here, wise adventurers spends their fabulous wealth on items that make them feel like they're still adventurers. Everything hearkens to a mythical notion of what it is or was to be wandering the land with one's bosom companions. The taverns are rustic, everyone has a sword...wizard beards are fashionable. Nowhere sells *just* ale. It's Dwarven, or Orcish, or Auld Wyrm Blood...or whatever. Homes are often small strongholds inhabited by entire adventuring parties. Once they come here, they tend to retire, but they cannot admit this to themselves. Thieves prey on the once adventurers of Chorlton mercilessly...it is as if much of the greatest treasure in the city has been concentrated in one place. Chorltonites still remain dangerous  if thoroughly removed from the realities of the city. After all, they were earning XP once.

Ahhh, a succinct picture=more grist for the mill.

I think this has legs.

PS

I'll figure out how to make everything nice eventually. For now, this is like some weird website from the X Files.