Citybuilding and Character Creation

Coit Tower (Power)
At the summit of historic Telegraph Hill sits the 210-foot Coit Tower, also known as Coit Memorial Tower. This elegant tapering column was built in 1933, the legacy of San Francisco’s colorful Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who left a $125,000 bequest "for the purpose of adding beauty to the city which I have always loved." The ground floor lobby is adorned with a series of fresco murals by some 30 local artists, depicting life in 1930s San Francisco. They were nationally controversial when opened to the public. The artists and murals were funded by President Roosevelt’s New Deal pilot art program, the Public Works of Art Project.

Except, of course, such civic generosity is so rarely what it seems. No records exist of the architect of the tower, and no discernible reason can be found for some structural oddities in its construction. The materials used were fairly standard for the time, but why was so much copper intertwined around the steel beams? Why was such an abundance of quartz used in the upper arches? And finally, what is the function of the hollow area detected in the foundations? So far nobody seems to know.


Hollowell Manor, 917 Fulton Street (Mortality)
Powerful mortal witches live at this address, and are said to have captured a number of magical beings. Their motivations are a mystery, but most of the supernatural community steer well clear of this area.

The Sword and Rose, Cole Valley (Wild)
A shop for mortals who consider themselves spiritual or who dabble in the occult, this beautiful and peaceful premises would normally be of little interest to true supernatural beings, and was totally ignored for most of its thirty year history. But recently the shop has taken on a new cashier, a young lady called Lilly Amber, who happens to be of the Fey. Unknown to the proprietors of the shop, Lilly has started to sell genuine magical supplies and word is starting to get out.

The Holy Virgin Cathedrel (Power)

The Holy Virgin Cathedral, also known as Joy of All Who Sorrow, is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Richmond District of San Francisco. It is the largest of the six cathedrals of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia which has over 400 parishes worldwide. It current under the watch of Archbishop Kyrill, who has recently started shepherding an extra flock in secret.

So this is the final state of my starting debts...

Someobe is helping you keep your demons at bay, you owe them a debt. (Shou)
Someone is your go-to when you get in trouble, you owe them two debts. (Persephone)
You are helping someone keep a dangerous secret, they owe you a debt. (Archbishop Kyrill)

Well, the thread is called Citybuilding and Character Creation. But it's fine, I don't think the locations thing were mandatory... Also, I think those things end up feeling more organic when we do them during gameplay, so I don't think we should create too much of those before we start...

I think I'll take my last debt with Dr. Lui Lim: Someone convinced you to come to the city to help them with an ongoing problem. they owe you 2 debts. (placeholder).

I don't know how she came to learn of my existence, but she felt that haunted objects might have a lot in common with an animated terracotta warrior statue. I come every now and again, to talk to the spirit haunting certain objects. It usually makes things a bit more quiet for a week or two after my visit and the curators don't have to fear for their physical safety as much, but sadly, putting a spirit permanently to rest seems to be outside of my competences...

Edit: updated my character profile with all my up to date debts.

I have been working on a spreadsheet for keeping track of Debts. It's not quite finished yet but I have run out of time for tonight. Feel free to fix any mistakes or add anything which has been missed.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-Ycv8EfHeJcrfI7xr53_gNI5gUqueAs8927pfA8MK84/edit?usp=sharing

Wow, so many people owe me debts, that's like the opposite of last time I play... Yeah, the Wolf mostly owes debts...

Oh yes. Keeping track of debts has been a FUN endeavour so far. There's actually a good mixture between everyone at the moment from what I've been able to ascertain. I'll be doing my best to stay on top of them in the thread, but I appreciate having the spreadsheet available as well.

So. Other things I definitely need to know before we get going (feel free if you want to do even more highlights of the city. We'll keep making things up as we go as well though!)

Persephone; Your patron. How does your Patron get in touch with you? When they appear to you in person, what is their preferred form? What is their hellish portfolio and sphere of influence, and how many of the other legions of the damned have you had the misfortune to meet?

Partition: Are any more of your kind on this plane of existence? With the weakening of the boundaries between this plane and yours, what is the likely result if you don't intervene?

Frank: Which court did you belong to before you left? Given that you've been gone more than a century now, will they even recognise you as one of their own any more? How many people are still sore from the Coalition's reorganisation of the city's hierarchy during the Labyrinth incident?

GG: Do you have any family remaining? Siblings? Cousins? Any of them in the States? Do you keep in touch with any of your workmates from before you took the florist job? How much of a reputation do you have for your prophetic visions amongst the supernatural community?

Shaow: What is your next line of inquiry for pursuing the lost treasure you seek? Is there anything of a mortal life you like to keep, or do you feel it distracts you from your quest? What kind of mortal life do you lead in the meantime?

Not ant close family. No siblings. If he has cousins the might be back in Nigeria, if they are stateside it's new to him. Openly or in public it's probably not apart anyone would try and keep any contact a quick message asking about work might come up about how something was done but GG expects that to go away after time unless they don't write it down. Since he's kind of young and probably nothing major has happen from his visions some may have heard or worked with him but nothing major most likely.

I guess I'll have to ask the right questions to the right people. OF course, unless this requires intimidation, I might not have what it takes for that, so I'll probably required help... this is where the other players come in.

I'm not living much of a mortal life. As a construct, I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't sleep, I don't require companionship, I don't get lonely or depressed... I try to pretend as much as possible when I'm among mortal, I've had a few milleniums to observe people so I can pretend relatively well, even if I do not quite understand the reasons people do those things. It's more like I'm aping or parroting what I see, and people interacting with me for some amount of time might simply be led to believe that I have I have some disorder which makes me socially awkward.

Right now my cover is that of being a potter and a sculptor. This allows me to have quantities of clay at the ready to heal myself with. I work from my shitty apartment and deal with various art collectors, buyers, and pottery shops. I don't know why I like creating so much. Perhaps the fact that I was created myself has something to do with it.

Frank was from the Spring Court, and therefore is fascinated by new life and the ideas of rebirth and redemption. He always had a slightly darker bent than most of his companions in the court, which is probably one of the reasons he didn’t feel such a strong urge to return. His time on Earth has fostered his more extreme personality traits and he would probably struggle to fit back in to any of the fae courts. Despite this, whenever a new fae comes to visit San Fransisco they tend to come to Frank first as a guide. He is happy to show them around and ply them with drink and anecdotes about the city, but of course he always tries to get a favour in return.

The coalition has mostly become the new elite in the city, Frank being one of only two who didn’t take advantage of the opportunity for more personal power. There are still some of the trapped demon’s minions who would like to put things back the way they were, and the group stepped on plenty of toes in tearing down the previous power structure, specifically in the mid-levels of the civil service and the police department. Frank has found that the previous coalition members have been distancing themselves from him, possibly seeing him as something of a loose cannon.

Trapped Demon: Balberith - Secretary of the archives of hell. Demon of blasphemy and murder.

Coalition members:

Jerome Braithwaite: a human who has been aware of the supernatural since the demon Balberith took him into his service in the late ‘90s. Since the demon was trapped and Jerome became free of his debt, the human has become a major player in the human political landscape, currently serving as head of the San Fransisco Ethics Commission, in which role he is able to help shape the political landscape of the city.

Sheila Hansen: a vampire who moved to the city in the ‘50s but never achieved any prominence until her actions in the coalition helped to weaken Balberith enough for the group to prevail. She fed on the demon before he was trapped and since then she has been different; more focussed and ambitious for example. She is now CEO of Blue Speckle, an online platform that combines nowcasting with instant networking and likebait marketing. Blue Speckle has become something of a rising star, affording Sheila significant clout in the city and nationally.

Trish Taylor: a student of the arcane for many years, Trish combined her passion with a day job as professor in pagan history at San Fransisco State University. She took a sabbatical several years ago to study some sites in eastern Europe with her husband and three year old daughter and hasn’t been heard from for several months. Some of her colleagues are starting to become worried. Trish was the person who managed to construct the Labyrinth which trapped Balberith.

Carmen Alonso: a wolf who added some much needed muscle to the coalition in their attempts to drive out the demon. After 9/11 Carmen joined a security company called StandFast, which provides technical, logistical and human resources in more than twenty unstable regions around the globe. StandFast has grown as a private security contractor and Carmen served with them in many trouble-spots. She has shown an aptitude for command and risen to be the main company presence in California.