CoC - Noir - Niteside Dreams.pdf - Misc - Dihercen

A Film Noir Setting For Call Of Cthulhu

It was two thirty in the morning, and

raining. In the City it was always two

thirty in the morning and raining.

Kim Newman, The Night Mayor

Contents

1. Mean Streets - Establishing the Background

2. Hard Boiled - Old and New Carreers for Investigators.

3. Shots in the Night - Notes on Violence

4. More Things That Are Dreamt Of - Mythos and Non-Mythos Magic

5. Headshots - a few NPCs

6. Filing Cabinet - some Adventure Ideas

7. Dealer's Choiche - Optional approaches and miscellaneous notes

8. Slang - a thorough Dictionary of Hard Boiled Slang

9.TheRap-Bibliography,SuggestedReadings,InspirationalMoviesandMusic

A Word of Explanation

This is an unofficial, alternate setting for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG .

It somehow strips off part of Lovecraft's supernatural horror from the proceedings

and replaces it with the style and mood of film noir and hard-boiled stories. A

liberal dash of weird-menace flavour was added to season the whole.

The actual work on niteside dreams (a title inspired by

Frank Bellknap Long's memoir of his friendship with

lovecraft " HPL, A Dreamer on the Nightside ") started after

a highly constructive discussion (as usual) on the Strange

Aeons mailing list, about the possibility of mixing game

systems and setting one-shot games in the universe portrayed in the movie "Cast a

Deadly Spell" : fast, sharp, horrific and yet tongue-in-cheek. One thing led to

another and we started typing. Soon, matters such as the development of a sound

set of alternate rules gave way to extensive discussion on the background setting.

The overall results should not displease estimators of the

Providence Gentleman's opus, as film noir sensibility was

not far from his overall worldview.

But sure, with the addition of a dry, hard-boiled sense of humour and the twists of

a magically changed reality, it makes for a different adventure atmosphere.

For starters, we decided to develop niteside dreams as a

quick-and-dirty plug-in kind of thing, so that anyone owning

a copy of the Call of Cthulhu rulesbook and a few other easy

to get and inexpensive essentials can start and play and have

fun (hopefully). A lenghtier and more detailed version soon

surfaced through discussion, thanks to the many suggestions

that were made about the setting in particular.

For the time being, this pages will feature the complete set of

Call of Cthulhu adaptations and background information on

the game world we developed from the original core of notes.

Time permitting, we plan to add a full lenght, stand-alone version of this game and

setting, using The Window , a high quality, freely distributed, free-form game

system, as our engine of choice.

Most probably, many will find this setting ideal for non-

canonical one-offs (and we strongly recommend it for the

April Fool's Night Game, or for something different on

Halloween's Night), while we hope that a few others might

feel like giving a try to a longer, more articulate campaign play.

Simple things can breed terror. A lonely road, a cloud

masking the moon, the cry of a cat, or the eyes of a bent

old man... meaningless things, but sometimes charged with

weird menace....

Hugh B. Cave, Modern Nero

niteside dreams takes place in a post-war, 1940s/1950s parallel world in which magic is a commonplace

practice, existing side by side with science and technology, and commanding a similar status.

Here we will define the basic traits of this world, that serve as a background for the adventures, where

they deviate more drastically from the '40s-'50s we know; this is followed by a few practical tricks to help

said background come alive.

Magic & Society

Origins

Magic has always been an elemet of human culture, from the most ancient sciamanic rituals performed by

cavemen up to the fringe magic pratictioners surviving the in the superstitious shadows of the Illuminist

revolution.

Magic became better-known in the late 1800's as enlightened students of the occult began to

sistematically study esoteric tomes and form Occult circles and Societies. From dark practice to quaint

entertainment to serious scholarly pursuit, the field evolved through the romanthic nineteenth century, to

emerge as an established set of facts and practices at the dawn of the new century.

By 1920 a populist magic revival was under way, spurred on by organisations such as the Golden Dawn,

the Freemasons, etc.

Reaction to the Great War and the horrendous waste of life probably made humanity less inclined to trust

the orthodox Church, which denounced magic as a tool of the Devil.

Religious schisms, sects, cults and suchlike flourished in the 1920 - 1940 period, whilst the power of the

Church (and other orthodox religions such as Islam, Bhuddism et al) was slowly but greatly eroded.

Things reached a balance when the Catholic Church relented in its attack against magic. Currently there

are still quite a few excomunicated spells (all the necromancy ones, to start with), while the Church

accepts and even tacitally support things like healing spells and the like. A radical Christian sect centered

in the Salem area still opposes any form of magic as the work of the Devil - and a few other groups of this

kind exist in the world. A magic-oriented dissident branch of the Church is also active, commonly known

as "The Church of Our Lord Spellcaster". Finally, magic-based pagan religions are much more

widespread and influential than they used to be - you can't call them "ignorant natives" anymore, after all.

In everyday life a 50-50 mix of old-school Christians (chiefly older people) and new-age believers

(children of the Bright Young Things era) who embraced the new ways had to learn to cohexist and face

the future.

And those surviving 1920's characters can sit around and talk about the good old days when you rarely

saw a spell, nowadays you have to be careful who you shout at in case you get cursed for real, it was

much simpler when an Elder Sign and a .45 was all you needed...

The War Years

It was logical to assume that some kind of magic application would be devised during the war years, first

in Britain (to face the onslaught of the Axis forces) and later in the United States.

Detection magic can be used as a quickly deployed and often more precise substitute for radar. Also, you

can equip aircraft with precision targetting systems by simply putting a medium on board.

Similar applications of simpe magical effects were used during the war in place of mine detectors, to

enhance the nightsight ability of snipers, and for many small scale support activities.

For all practical purposes, the mundane/magic alternative currently dominating the '40s society was first

established and became a standard through the wartime.

But it was as the conflict soured that the magical heavyweights entered the field.

Nazis were evil.

So their magic was the worst possible in terms of morals and style, and was finally deployed as on the

Eastern front in the face of relentless Russian opposition: vast undead armies, powered by mass human

sacrifices (a.k.a. Final Solution) that were fully known and comprehended only after the end of the

conflict.

In the last few years mighty strange tales have been told by some veterans, tales that would have the Nazi

party backed by some Great Evil Entity, and the highest ranks of the Regime as sort of priests of some

unnamable cult. No proof has so far emerged to support these stories.

The mass destruction Unique Deadly Spell used to end the war by smithing the Japanese cities of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later became the "Deterrent" instrumental in mantaining the Balance of

Power finally showed that the Allies could play the same game of the Axis, if for higher moral reasons (?)

Moral alibis apart, something is weighting heavily on the conscience of a nation.

The use of magic made by the Nazis and against the Japanese targets left a black stain on the popularity

of spellcasting. Necromancy and Dead magic, already seen by many as against morals, were fully

rejected by all the major western nations. Due to the high strategic importance of some magical practices,

however, the citizens of the two Power Blocks are currently subject to a heavy campaign to rehestablish

magic as a friendly, positive force.

Now

Now, in 1940s, man places his faith in a mix of science and sorcery. Since magic has only become

popular in the last 20 years there are no established magical marketplaces being exploited by big business

(other than those markets such as zombies exploited by organised crime figures who needed a new source

of income). Charlatans are many, miracles are still big news, every businessman wants an edge over his

competitors and the law of supply and demand means that there are plenty of mugs out there to be

fleeced. Real sorcerors are most respected by those in the know, and it still holds true that 'it is not what

you = know it is who you know'.

Industry is getting back to peace-time production after many years of war effort, and a few interesting

solutions are being dreamed up by enterprising tycoons.

Industries mass-producing cheap, short-lived, one shot magical gadgents are a new, fresh field of

employment and money-making. Imagine long benches with people sitting and "imprinting" with a few

magic points an amulet after the other.

The expenditure of magic points leaves the workers exausted but otherwise undamaged. They'll only need

to sleep and recuperate. And is a perfect reason for the deserted city streets at night (a classical noir

cliche'). Cue to huge dormitory districts in the suburbs, and soul-less masses like those seen in

"Metropolis".

The industrial process also has another side: if zombies make great bodyguards, how do they perform

when it comes to line-production? Unless you need a very delicate manipulation (zombies being clumsy),

a factory full of undead is the best you could wish: no vacations, no unions, no problems with overtime...

You can now also imagine a zombie import racket - the advantages over illegal immigrants are obvious.

So: humans working in magical-manifacturing factories, and zombies working on mundane production

lines.

But there are some obstacles in the way of this dream-image.

The Governments of many nations had to face a sudden surge of magical practices, creating new laws and

new Departments deling with the growing field of magical crimes and misdemeanors - even if the field

grew much faster than the legislator's attempts to handle it, and much of what they know about it all was

hype.

First attempts were generally botched and inefective at best: the Magical Restriction Act of '21 simply

meant that a lot of people made a lot of money selling not only bootlegger booze but also and chiefly

lucky charms and love potions during Prohibition. The Act was revoked in the early '30, but by that time

a lot of the original bootleggers had emplyed part of their fat income to become virgins again, starting

respected carreers in politics and in the stock exchage. As a result, a common set of laws for Magic is still

long to come, and the many gray areas are being exploited by the crooked and the mean.

The Zombie Question is a classical exhample.

The reason why zombies are problematic is not that they may have rights -

it's that it's necromantic practice. And a good number of people who might

accept glowing lampposts and anti-aging amulets still object to shambling

hordes of the walking dead. If there was one kind of magic that Congress

would pass laws against, it would be necromancy. (And if there was one

kind of magic that would turn into a thriving underground trade...)

Developed, first world countries have strict laws against zombie creation

(not to mention necromancy in general, & demonology etc.) These laws

are strictly enforced with severe penalties, which drives up the prices for

the illegal trade, which would make it an attractive market for organized

crime. This basically means lots of opportunities for corruption of police

and government officials, too. Meanwhile, things are much more loose in

the underdeveloped third world countries. They may or may not have laws officially on the books to

appease the developed nations, but such laws, if they exist, are much more loosely enforced. (Just bribe

the right official...)

Plans for the creations of a specifically trained Law Enforcement Agency (Dead Enforcement Agency, or

DEA) is underway, but is facing a serious oppositions from the high-ups in the ATF that have so far taken

care of this side of the business.

CoC - Noir - Niteside Dreams.pdf

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