The Rough Guide to Occult America
Dec. 12th, 2002 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004All that deceives may be said to enchant. —Plato
I'm hungry. Let's get a taco. —Mr. White
Here's a summary of player knowledge for my Unknown Armies game:
Campaign Level: Nationwide (somewhere between Street and Global)
Campaign Frame: Magickal Cabal / Clued-In Mundanes / Quest
Goals: Travel around, see the country, uncover its secrets. Keep moving, stay ahead of the people that don't like you. Maybe fix a few things, set a few things right. Maybe, just maybe, make a big score.
"Occult underground" isn't a term you use much. First, it's redundant. Second, it makes you sound like a geek. But there is an underground community, of sorts—a very loose network of people who have a clue, at least a shred of one, about the real U.S. of A., the one not shown on TV, not sold in any store. It's a world of crooks and a world of magick, with no clear dividing line between the two. Here's the gist of what you, as a group, have heard about the occult U.S.A...
The common slang in this underworld for lone operators is "duke." Dukes are fervent, fixated, and highly motivated. They look for secrets and they keep the ones they find, for a secret loses its power when too many know it. But even microbes work in teams. Dukes are no different. They hook up with others who have similar goals, beliefs, or perversions. These groups are known as "cabals," and while there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of cabals, there are some that most everyone has heard about.
First, there's the Pinkertons. The rarely-spotted bogeymen, the jackbooted stormtroopers of the status quo. Some say they work for the Feds, or for Bill Gates, or for the goddamn Illuminati. They've been around for as long as anyone can remember, and they've always been the blunt instrument of just whoever it is that is really in charge. If you make too much noise, if you try to go public, if you melt a cop's face in broad daylight, you might get a visit from these guys. They might let you live, they might kill you fast, or they might make such an example of you that your name becomes slang for misery.
Much lower down the food chain, but much more of a presence in your daily lives, is the Dixie Mafia, aka the Corn Bread Cosa Nostra. The name is kind of a joke, but they sure as hell aren't. "Organized" crime is probably too strong a word for this loose association of bad ass good ol' boys, spread out through the entire South. Still, they've got their fingers in a lot of pies—drugs, guns, prostitution, contract murder. And, unlike their northern counterparts, they don't have any hang-ups about messing around with adepts and magick and the occult. Very little happens in the occult underground south of the Mason-Dixon line that these boys don't have or want a slice of. But their influence drops considerably once you go north of that line.
Beyond that, most of the players you've heard of are regional. The Suicide Kings rumble across the South on ritually tricked-out Harleys, looking for asses to kick. The west is known mainly for lone dukes like Coyote Bob and the Blackfoot shaman, Medicine Snake. The Eye-Biting Man murders unchecked throughout the northern U.S. and southern Canada, if he's not just an urban legend.
New York City has a couple adepts worth the name, but has never been where America's real magick is at. (It's an island, for chrissakes!) Chicago, nexus of railroads and ley lines, considered itself the White City, America's ruling occult metropolis, for something like a hundred years, but cynics say the old guard have lost their teeth. L.A. and D.C. and Las Vegas have all risen up as contenders. Hell, even Branson, Missouri might be making a run for the brass ring.
You've met some of the mid-level players in your travels. There's an aging queen in Key West, Florida, who'll pay top dollar for absolutely anything related to the Wizard of Oz. You like him. He owns a bar and drinks for his friends are on the house. You also know a couple of ghouls who collect death cars. One lives on the East Coast, the other near Las Vegas. They hate each other bitterly, and each one thinks he owns the one true death car of Bonnie and Clyde. And there's a smarmy con artist named Felt who has a way of turning up everywhere you don't want to see him.
New Orleans has no-shit Voudoun and a ring of degenerates called the Black Grail. The whole southwest is chewed up in a bloody war between the Nortenos and the Surenos, occult-juiced nations of Latino gangs. California is home to the Process, everybody's least favorite yuppie asshole hot tub Satanists. There's also a lodge of genuine circus freaks in San Francisco, while Los Angeles gave birth to the Fellowship of Bad Traffic, which for some reason hates your guts. And you absolutely don't want to fuck with the Daughters of the Confederacy. Ever.
You hear lots of rumors and crazy stories. Some of them might even be true. The young street kids swap horror stories about Bloody Mary, the child-stealer, while the older ones tell fairy tales about Oz, an elusive circuit party that sounds like the ravers' Brigadoon. A few—very few—old vagrants still mutter about the Big Rock Candy Mountain and the Secret Civil War.
They say cars from odd-numbered years are lucky, even-numbered years unlucky. They say the best and fattest psychic in America lives in Minnesota. They say magick hasn't worked in Kansas since 1938. They say square dancing is an ancient occult ritual. They say ghosts eat knots. They say there's a drug called Blue John that lets you see through Heaven and Hell. They say there are tunnels beneath Disney World where Michael Eisner grovels before Walt's undying brain.
They say that gold and silver are magic, and tobacco and leaded gasoline and Coca-Cola are too. They say a tinfoil hat blocks out mind control rays, but really it just acts as a better antenna. They say there are places you can get to that aren't on any maps. They say the Interstates channel "solar" chi while the back roads channel "lunar"—well, actually it's just Reese Beulay that says that, and he'll say a lot of crap about roads if you let him.
They say you should believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. They say you should watch your back, and if you're lucky enough to have friends you trust, you should watch their backs too. Because its an almighty big country out there, and who knows what kind of hell you're gonna find.
Oh yeah, one more thing, one thing everybody except the rankest newbie, the greenest greenhorn, knows. It is absolutely forbidden, anywhere in the country, to attack anyone, in any way, while they are eating pancakes at a diner. So it is that IHOPs and Waffle Houses and the like have come to serve as neutral meeting grounds for those in the occult underground.
After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
I'm hungry. Let's get a taco. —Mr. White
Here's a summary of player knowledge for my Unknown Armies game:
Campaign Level: Nationwide (somewhere between Street and Global)
Campaign Frame: Magickal Cabal / Clued-In Mundanes / Quest
Goals: Travel around, see the country, uncover its secrets. Keep moving, stay ahead of the people that don't like you. Maybe fix a few things, set a few things right. Maybe, just maybe, make a big score.
"Occult underground" isn't a term you use much. First, it's redundant. Second, it makes you sound like a geek. But there is an underground community, of sorts—a very loose network of people who have a clue, at least a shred of one, about the real U.S. of A., the one not shown on TV, not sold in any store. It's a world of crooks and a world of magick, with no clear dividing line between the two. Here's the gist of what you, as a group, have heard about the occult U.S.A...
The common slang in this underworld for lone operators is "duke." Dukes are fervent, fixated, and highly motivated. They look for secrets and they keep the ones they find, for a secret loses its power when too many know it. But even microbes work in teams. Dukes are no different. They hook up with others who have similar goals, beliefs, or perversions. These groups are known as "cabals," and while there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of cabals, there are some that most everyone has heard about.
First, there's the Pinkertons. The rarely-spotted bogeymen, the jackbooted stormtroopers of the status quo. Some say they work for the Feds, or for Bill Gates, or for the goddamn Illuminati. They've been around for as long as anyone can remember, and they've always been the blunt instrument of just whoever it is that is really in charge. If you make too much noise, if you try to go public, if you melt a cop's face in broad daylight, you might get a visit from these guys. They might let you live, they might kill you fast, or they might make such an example of you that your name becomes slang for misery.
Much lower down the food chain, but much more of a presence in your daily lives, is the Dixie Mafia, aka the Corn Bread Cosa Nostra. The name is kind of a joke, but they sure as hell aren't. "Organized" crime is probably too strong a word for this loose association of bad ass good ol' boys, spread out through the entire South. Still, they've got their fingers in a lot of pies—drugs, guns, prostitution, contract murder. And, unlike their northern counterparts, they don't have any hang-ups about messing around with adepts and magick and the occult. Very little happens in the occult underground south of the Mason-Dixon line that these boys don't have or want a slice of. But their influence drops considerably once you go north of that line.
Beyond that, most of the players you've heard of are regional. The Suicide Kings rumble across the South on ritually tricked-out Harleys, looking for asses to kick. The west is known mainly for lone dukes like Coyote Bob and the Blackfoot shaman, Medicine Snake. The Eye-Biting Man murders unchecked throughout the northern U.S. and southern Canada, if he's not just an urban legend.
New York City has a couple adepts worth the name, but has never been where America's real magick is at. (It's an island, for chrissakes!) Chicago, nexus of railroads and ley lines, considered itself the White City, America's ruling occult metropolis, for something like a hundred years, but cynics say the old guard have lost their teeth. L.A. and D.C. and Las Vegas have all risen up as contenders. Hell, even Branson, Missouri might be making a run for the brass ring.
You've met some of the mid-level players in your travels. There's an aging queen in Key West, Florida, who'll pay top dollar for absolutely anything related to the Wizard of Oz. You like him. He owns a bar and drinks for his friends are on the house. You also know a couple of ghouls who collect death cars. One lives on the East Coast, the other near Las Vegas. They hate each other bitterly, and each one thinks he owns the one true death car of Bonnie and Clyde. And there's a smarmy con artist named Felt who has a way of turning up everywhere you don't want to see him.
New Orleans has no-shit Voudoun and a ring of degenerates called the Black Grail. The whole southwest is chewed up in a bloody war between the Nortenos and the Surenos, occult-juiced nations of Latino gangs. California is home to the Process, everybody's least favorite yuppie asshole hot tub Satanists. There's also a lodge of genuine circus freaks in San Francisco, while Los Angeles gave birth to the Fellowship of Bad Traffic, which for some reason hates your guts. And you absolutely don't want to fuck with the Daughters of the Confederacy. Ever.
You hear lots of rumors and crazy stories. Some of them might even be true. The young street kids swap horror stories about Bloody Mary, the child-stealer, while the older ones tell fairy tales about Oz, an elusive circuit party that sounds like the ravers' Brigadoon. A few—very few—old vagrants still mutter about the Big Rock Candy Mountain and the Secret Civil War.
They say cars from odd-numbered years are lucky, even-numbered years unlucky. They say the best and fattest psychic in America lives in Minnesota. They say magick hasn't worked in Kansas since 1938. They say square dancing is an ancient occult ritual. They say ghosts eat knots. They say there's a drug called Blue John that lets you see through Heaven and Hell. They say there are tunnels beneath Disney World where Michael Eisner grovels before Walt's undying brain.
They say that gold and silver are magic, and tobacco and leaded gasoline and Coca-Cola are too. They say a tinfoil hat blocks out mind control rays, but really it just acts as a better antenna. They say there are places you can get to that aren't on any maps. They say the Interstates channel "solar" chi while the back roads channel "lunar"—well, actually it's just Reese Beulay that says that, and he'll say a lot of crap about roads if you let him.
They say you should believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. They say you should watch your back, and if you're lucky enough to have friends you trust, you should watch their backs too. Because its an almighty big country out there, and who knows what kind of hell you're gonna find.
Oh yeah, one more thing, one thing everybody except the rankest newbie, the greenest greenhorn, knows. It is absolutely forbidden, anywhere in the country, to attack anyone, in any way, while they are eating pancakes at a diner. So it is that IHOPs and Waffle Houses and the like have come to serve as neutral meeting grounds for those in the occult underground.
After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
