Today, I begin with the core of the setting: Vancouver
Properties of Vancouver
- The Law of the Every-City: Provided it is not unique
or iconic to another city, anything that can be found in a modern
city can be found in Vancouver.
- The Law of the Indie City: The more interesting
something in or associated with Vancouver is, the less likely
outsiders know about it.
- The Law of Canada: True denizens of Vancouver are
always polite.
Challenges of Vancouver
Find a nice cup of coffee or tea
- 0 or less: Spill hot coffee all over yourself and cause some burns
- 2: Find a nice cup of coffee
- 3: Impress your friends with your taste in coffee
- 4: Find a cup of coffee that perks you up, or inspires you to solve that problem you had at work, or a cup of tea that soothes your nerves
- 6: Get a cup of coffee from Yukimura Yuji himself, or find a new blend of coffee that a trendsetter
- 8: Find a cup of tea that cures a lingering illness (like cancer)
- Trouble: The Death of
Abigail Ng (3): The
estate of Tea is dying! Finding a good cup of tea is getting
harder, unless it’s a weird, unnatural or alien form of tea, such
as Oolong, Herbal or Bubble Tea, in which case you can ignore the trouble,
as the estate of Tea is shuddering with the aftereffects of
Abigail’s death.
- Tool: World Class
Baristas (+1): Vancouver
has some fantastic baristas, most of whom trained under Yukimura
Yuji. If you can find one of them, they’ll give you +1 on any
quest you undertake to find a good cup of coffee. This does not
apply to tea (Yuji had not yet rediscovered his love for Tea when he
trained the Baristas of Vancouver).
Kafka’s Coffee
Properties of Kafka’s Coffee
- Sacred to Rajani Jones
and Abigail Ng: All
quest to get a good cup of coffee or tea gain +1 here (in addition
to World Class Baristas)
- Nonsensical Prophecy: The
rotating artwork and the foam art of the coffee or tea depict truths
pertinent to the current state of the spirit world, though one will
never make sense of them until after the fact, unless one has some
connection to either the estates of prophecy or nonsense.
- The scowl of
a disapproving barista through her heavy mascara and thick-rimmed
glasses.
- The
percolating bubbling of coffee and sudden hiss of espresso.
- The murmur of
conversation and the scrape of chairs against wooden floors.
- The rich,
deep scent of fresh coffee and the subtle, soothing, grassy scent of
tea.
- Tiger-striped
brown (or green) and white foam art bobbling about in someone’s
cup.
- An odd,
eye-catching painting of clashing colors by some artist you’ve
never heard of.
Find Love
- 0 or less: Meet someone who is all wrong for you, perhaps a stalker, or an alien; whomever it is, it just won't work out
- 1: Have a nice date or a charming moment with someon
- 2: Find someone with whom you could have the beginnings of a real, if humanely troubled and flawed relationship
- 3: Date the really cute girl/boy, even if it won't actually work out
- 5: Connect with a person who makes your life better for having known them, relationship or no
- 6: Land a date with a really hot girl/boy, and actually make it work. Your romance becomes the talk of the town
- 9: Find your soulmate
Bonds, Afflictions, Trouble and Tools:
- Trouble: Finding Love as
a Toy (2): Toys
and video-game characters have an especially difficult time finding
love in Vancouver as their dating market is notoriously full of
players.
- Trouble: Not looking for
something meaningful (2): Few
Vancouverites are looking for something meaningful, especially not
in romance. If a character is just looking for a date or some fun
can avoid this Trouble, but as soon as they want something with a
dharmic quality, Vancouver becomes a terrible place to find it…
but see below!
- Bond: I'm in love with X
(Varies): Characters
who fall in love with one another, if that love is a deep, profound,
meaningful and dharmic,
it might become a soul-defining bond. This can
count as a wound, especially if someone inflicts it upon you
unwillingly. Such love can kill, or utterly transform, mere mortals
who have only one superficial health level (“You don't seem like
the same person since you met her...”). This is especially common
if one finds their soul mate.
Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s Gardens
Properties of Sun Yat Sen’s Gardens
- Bridging Differences:
Characters
in Sun Yat Sen’s Gardens can ignore 2 points of trouble when it
comes to connecting to one another, whether this is cultural or
linguistic differences. This explicitly
solves the “Not Seeking Something Meaningful” trouble.
- Centered: The
garden works as a tool for gaining serenity and internal
introspection. Add +1 to any passion/skill attempt to understand
one’s own dharma or purpose.
- Gateway: You
can reach Kirin's chancel from the undisturbed reflections in Sun
Yat Sen's koi ponds.
- The babble of
fountains or streams running into pools. The occasional pop of a
koi fish surfacing.
- The scent of
flowers, earth, moss and algae, plus the unmistakable scent of
koi-fish food, on the gently wafting wind.
- Lawns of
green, outlined in winding spirals of red-brown pathways or
blue-silver streams, and speckled with the violet, pink, white of
flowers and butterflies.
- A weighty
sense of ominous belonging and connection with whomever you have
come with.
- A sense of
serenity as one stands in the shelter of a pagoda or the branches of
a weeping willow.
Chill Out
- 0: Get in trouble for having shirked more important responsibilities, resulting in more stress than you had before
- 1: Have fun hanging with your friends, or playing video games, or hanging out at a concert
- 3: Get a high score, or an autograph, or otherwise make others jealous of your slacker feats
- 5: Achieve a sense of peace, relaxation and well-being that restores some stress-related damage that you've taken
- 6: Achieve a pointless world-record and gain widespread recognition for your slacker feat:
- 9: Doing nothing turns out to be exactly the right thing to do, and your off-hand approach, you master of Wu Wei you, solves the problem at hand
- Trouble: Slacking Never
Solved Anything (1): Chilling
out helps one to escape, which never solves anything. If you're
trying to do something other than have a good time, or relax, you
must overcome this Trouble somehow.
- Stressed out! (Bond 1):
If
you're really
stressed,
it counts as a superficial wound. Your character is really freaking
out and is driven to try to accomplish the task that stressed them
out in the first place, or to seek a way to relax. This level of
stress is sufficient to kill mere mortals who have only one
superficial wound! This could be a consequence of disastrously
failing to chill out, while successfully chilling out might cure
this particular wound, or at least begin its process towards
healing.
Playland
Properties of Playland
- Distractions: Playland
applies a 1 point trouble to any actions that aren't
chilling out as it lulls those within. Their actions become less
meaningful, less likely to improve their lives.
- Curse of Playland: You
can get into Toyland via Playland. Sometimes unintentionally.
- The rattle of
a roller-coaster as it winds itself up, followed by the scream of
its victims.
- Insipid
pop-music with a toe-tapping beat, sung by the electronically
enhanced voice of teenager, the nuance of which is lost under the
complaining of nearby tween girls.
- The crush of
the (overweight) crowd bumping and jostling, like a herd of cattle,
as they move like a molasses wave to get in line for the gaping maw
of an industrial entertainment machine.
- The cloying
taste of chemically-colored cotton candy.
- Garish,
circus colors slapped over slowly rusting steel.
Find Something Authentic and Original
- 0 or less: You think you find something authentic or original, but you've been duped by the corporate-industrial complex into “buying in and selling out”
- 1: Find something that's you enjoy, if not genuinely original or authentic
- 3: Find something cool, even if it's not genuinely original or authentic
- 4: Find something original and authentic. Now what?
- 5: Find something genuinely authentic and original that actually helps you understand better who you are as a person
- 6: Find something other people think is authentic and original. You were into it before it was cool!
- 7: Find something authentically and originally magical. This isn't necessarily safe.
Trouble and Tools:
- Trouble: Corporate
Clutter (1): The
world is filled with things that look
original, but actually aren't. This counts as opposition,
so characters with a Cool of 1 or higher can ignore it (Cool people
have little trouble finding something authentic and original)
- Trouble: Nothing New
Under the Sun (3): If
you're looking for something original that
is from this world,
you face this trouble. Authenticity is no problem.
- Affliction: I've become a
hipster! (Varies):
Too much time searching for the authentic and original can turn you
into a hipster or, perhaps, those who become hipsters are driven to
seek the authentic and original. Affliction levels vary: At level
1, hipsterish accountrements (like sleeve tattoos, thick-rimmed
glasses, ironic beards, etc) begin to manifest. A key feature of
higher levels is that nobody
understands hipsters,
so at level 2 and above, your true nature becomes masked by the
ineffability of your hipsterness.
The Steam Clock and Gastown
Gas Town, itself, stands at a bit of a nexus between worlds, and when it becomes misty, one can lose themselves and end up in other places, which likely explains the slowly creeping steampunk infection that's slowly taking over the buildings of Gastown. As a result, one can easily find truly original things, but the corporate world, which funded the renovation of Gas Town explicitly to get at this originality, has cluttered the streets with their own merchandizing, making it hard to make out the truly original.
Properties of Gastown
- Interworldly Crossroads:
One
can try to make his way to multiple chancels, or even off Earth, via
Gastown. As a result, one can ignore the Nothing New Under the Sun
trouble here, but Corporate Clutter becomes a level 2 trouble here.
- The
billowing, silvery steam of the steam clock mixing with the grey
mists of Vancouver-by-night.
- The hiss of
steam and the rattle of nearby trucks, followed by the whistling of
the clock.
- The faded
yellow glow of the street lights on the historic facade of the
storefronts
- The scent of
copper, beer and and moldering, old buildings, and a whiff of
something else intriguing that you can't put your finger on.
- The
body-temperature warmth of the steam vents beneath the side-walks,
occasionally letting loose a few escaped tendrils of steam. The
sidewalks and steam vents feel alive to the touch, and might even
exhibit a subtle pulsing thump, like the slow-heartbeat of some giant,
subterranean beast.
Get a Job
- 0 or less: You humiliate yourself in a job interview, or irritate someone of great power, or get a job, but it turns out that “Ferdinand” doesn't actually run a modeling agency or a get-rich-quick IT business, and now you need to escape his van before it's too late!
- 2: Get a job
- 3: Have a sufficiently impressive resume that you're not only hired, but your future boss offers you a compliment
- 5: You don't just get a job, but a career, something that you'll find fulfilling for years to come
- 7: Land a dream job, the sort of job that will make all of your friends jealous, like movie star, game tester, or coffee taster
Trouble and Tools:
- Trouble: A job in this
economy? (1): This
trouble only applies if you seek something personally fulfilling.
You may avoid this trouble if you explicitly seek out some
soul-draining work (the sort that will eventually turn you into an
Empty Suit).
- Bond: I have a job
(Varies): You're
required
to work your job. This is generally an optional bond, but
characters who have been trapped unwittingly into a contract might
take it as a wound.
- Affliction: I've become an
Empty Suit (Varies): Working
for a corporation can hollow you out and leave you as a sort of
shadow person, a false being that looks alive, but isn't. You've
been consumed by the legal entity of the Corporation. This is
always a Severe wound, and is certainly
enough to kill/transform/make into an NPC all but the very toughest
of mortals.
Living Shangri-La
The Shangri-La contains several pathways to chancels of Vancouver, including a path to Belphegor's Chancel on floor 13, a path to Azrael's Chancel on floor 4, and mysterious paths beyond the watery curtain of an artificial waterfall in the sculpture garden.
Properties of the Living Shangri-La
- Place of Power: Anyone
can travel to any chancel of any Imperator via the Shangri-La, if
they know how.
- Manmade Paradise: Gain
+2 to any efforts to find a job, or otherwise improve your life via
economic or corporate means in the Shangri-La.
- Lofty Peak of Power:
Attempts
to enter Shangri-La automatically have a 2 point trouble “You do
not belong here” unless you are angelic, or one of the elite of
Earth, or you are an Empty Suit.
- The
eye-blinding sheen of its pristine walls in the sunlight.
- The reverent
silence with which the staff move, interrupted only by the hushed
utterances of the residents.
- The rushing
white-noise of the artificial waterfall and the meditative stillness
of the sculpted garden.
- The incense-like scent of
perfume and potpourri just barely unable to disguise the scent of
antiseptic wash and the floor wax used by the staff to keep
everything pristine.
- A sense of
peace and satisfaction, paired with a nagging sense of dislocation,
the keen awareness that you do not belong here.
- Staff will
often say things to the players like “Can I help you?” and “You're not supposed to be here!” or “Are you looking for something?”
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