WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 3

This post takes a closer look at the setting. I am still struggling with parts of it. It is suppossed to be a rundown part of the city where beings from fairy tales have appeared. As I discovered this is somewhat similar to the Borderland Series (which I haven't read yet) and decided go in the general direction of that.

Fairyland (or whatever you want to call it) is touching our world in that neglected part of town and monsters start crossing over. They take on the guises of the modern world while still retaining their powers and appetites from fairyland. They are disguised by the refusal of people to see the truth of the aggressive biker gang (they are goblins), the creepy janitor (he is an ogre) or the head of the modelling agency (a medusa). But not all monsters are repulsive, some are terribly beautiful and alluring. But all of them are dangerous to the unprepared mortal.

But the people living in this part of the city aren't defenseless. At around the same time the connection to Fairy formed, longtime clubbers at Club Babylon suddenly found that they possessed a special kind of magic that levels the playing field with fairy tale monsters. Some have taken the fight to the street and protect the neighborhood, but others have become enticed by the monsters. Possibly to gain acceptance or lash out at the world around them.

In my mind this part of the city has the following three aspects:

• Abandoned and neglected
• Beauty in the most unlikely of places
• At the border of the Otherworld

The assets are: Great /(+4) Dangerous, Good (+3) Bitchy and Fair (+2) Sensitive.

WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 2

This post is about creating characters for the Club Babylon setting. You are all longtime regulars at the somewhat seedy, yet also strangely magical Club Babylon. Your life might not be the best, but you come to Club Babylon to forget, to meet old friends and to do your own kind of magic.

Your Aspects

Who are you really (Mikky Ekko)? In White Picket Witches this is your canon aspect; in FATE Core it would be your High Concept. Write down in two to three words what your character is about. Are you a "Single Mom", a "Hard-Working Lawyer", a "Overworked & Underpaid Waiter", a "Closeted City Official", or someone else entirely?

Getting nowhere (Magnetic Man feat. John Legend)? Well, this is really your Trouble aspect or rather Tragic Flaw in White Picket Witches lingo. Your life is stuck. Others have moved on. Why do you keep coming back to Club Babylon? What do you hope to find here? Who or what are escaping from? There is a reason why a thirty-something (or older) person goes clubbing, while his friends lead well-adjusted lives with double-income, 2.1 kids, a cat and a dog. What drives you to come to Club Babylon on so many nights?

Who's That Girl (Eurythmics)? This is your Casting aspect. Either pick an actor in a certain role that you'd like to pattern your character on, or give a short type description. Basically, pick the aspect as you would do in White Picket Witches.

Who loves you (Alannah Miles)? There is a person in your life who loves you. Tell us about him or her. This can be any kind of love. Chaste love, love for their child, love for their parent. Carnal lust for you. Romantic love. Unrequited love. Love grown cold. What is your relation to them?

Sex and Violence (Scissor Sisters)? The darkness of fairytale monsters has come to roost in your city. Why do you fight them? Have they taken something from you? Someone? Do you protect your neighborhood? What motivates you in your fight against monsters that no one will believe in anyway. Or is it just the opposite? Are you attracted to them and their dark powers? What do you want from them? Have they lured you with promises of wealth, power or love? Do you lust after them?

Your Assets

For Club Babylon I am using the following seven assets:

• Bitchy (replaces Treacherous)
• Brilliant
• Butch (replaces Powerful)
• Dangerous 
• Fabulous (replaces Classy)
• Sensitive
• Witty (replaces Savvy)

The replacement assets function pretty much as the ones they replace.

In addition, you get an eighth, magic asset. The magic asset describes the kind of magic spending so much time at Club Babylon has infused you with. Currently there are three kinds of magic that'll be described in a later post in some more detail:

• Butch Wizardry: The magic of inner power and outward strength.
• Gay Glamour: The magic of illusion, make-believe and enchantment.
• Transvestite Sorcery: The magic of change and transformation.

Each character receives one asset at Great (+4), one at Good (+3), one at Fair (+2) and one at Average (+1). One of the four assets chosen must be the magic asset. All other assets begin at Mediocre (zero). The magic asset is used to activate your spells.

Antagonists

Antagonists are build like in White Picket Witches. Possible antagonists include the urban developer who is secretly a well-off goblin, the iconic Troll under the Bridge (of course), rivals from the Club, rival lovers, jealous exses, goblin gangs, an ogre groundskeeper, or an urbane and handsome devil who's deals are just too good to refuse. Maybe a sluagh is whispering secrets into the wrong ears or the sidhe turned out to be beautiful and terrible. 

Hangout

A hangout is the favorite place of your character. Where does he spend his time away from Club Babylon? A hangout is created like a Place of Power with a leitmotif and three assets. Here the Face-Offs happen. These are the places intimately connected with the characters. Some of their magic has become part of the place. Here, the magic of a character is at it's full strength. Here she can face the monsters invading her district. The leitmotif can be invoked once for free in each scene a character spends at "his" hangout. But don't forget: like Places of Power, a hangout should be easily accessible to others. It could be a street corner, a favorite coffee shop, the comic store around the corner, a small city park or something else entirely. One additional hangout is shared by all players: Club Babylon.

Club Babylon

Leitmotif: The Invisible Light (Scissor Sisters)

The players get to choose the three assets and their ratings. I'd recommend the place to be at least Fabulous and Witty. But it's your club now. You tell me where your characters spend their late nights.

Next: A closer look at the city, the darkness and the monsters hiding there.

WPW Hack: Club Babylon Part 1

Painted whores, sexual gladiators, fiercely old party children,

All wake from their slumber to debut the bacchanal.

Come to the light! Into the light! The invisible light.

Scissor Sisters, The Invisible Light

Somewhere in a big city, sometime in 21st century, in a dark and deserted back alley lies the entrance to Club Babylon. Down a short flight of stairs into the basement, a ten dollar bill pressed into the hand of short-statured, aging drag queen Regina and off you go into a seedy establishment that had it's heyday probably in the late 80ies, early 90ies. The regulars surely look like they've been here since then. They've aged with the club and yet, they still come here. 

You are one of the regulars at Club Babylon. Maybe you are not going each and every night, but you come here at least once a week. Here you are among your oldest friends. Aged partygoers, some in jeans and t-shirts, some in leather, others in full drag; gay, lesbians, transgender and their friends. You are here to capture the old magic of your youth again.

After midnight, Regina turns up the music, the strobed lights and the dancefloor becomes a stage for the dancers, each one of them fabulous and unique in their own way. A sense of community pervades Club Babylon and the atmosphere of lost glamor works its own charm on the guests. Regulars like you command a strange and wonderful magic of your own: the sparkling magic of Glamour, Butch wizardry and sweet Transvestite sorcery. That which makes you different, makes you strong.

Club Babylon is a peculiar haven of light in a run-down part of the city. The shadows and darkness of neglect are falling and with them come the creatures of the night, the scavengers of human society, dangerous monsters from myth and legend that remain hidden from the human eye. Only your magic penetrates the guises of the goblins, ogres and trolls that feed (sometimes literally) on the humans in the shabby parts of the city. Despair and lost hope are their meals, and sometimes they add meat and bone to the stew.

But you are fighting back. You protect the part of town that is yours from night's predators!

Next up: Character Creation.

The Invisible Light

Sometimes you realize you are not only late to the party, but that the party is already over. About two weeks ago I discovered the Scissor Sisters. More specifically this:

Yesterday, I finally realized why the voice reading the final lyrics sounded so familiar: Sir Ian McKellan was reading them. Yes, sometimes I am really stupid that way.

I so want to turn this into a FATE hack. It reminds me a bit of the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song "Welcome to the Pleasuredome".

"Babylon,
Where bricks of mortared diamonds tower,
Sailor's lust and swagger blazing in woman's beams,
Whose lazy gaze penetrates this sparkling theater of excess and strobed delights,
Painted whores, sexual gladiators, fiercely old party children,
All wake from their slumber to debut the bacchanal.
Come to the light! Into the light! The invisible light."

Only I don't have any idea how to do this. I don't even know, if I got the lyrics right. And probably no one is going to want to play the resulting game with me.

Somehow, I visualize this as an old, rundown club dating back to 80ies, visited by aging drag queens, younger (but not young) hypersexualized leathermen, older gay men and their friends hanging out and dancing   in the flashing lights. Yet, after midnight, a bacchanal starts. The club works its own magic. The men and women visiting the club each having paid their price to partake of a special kind of magic. Something that recharges at the club and carries them through the day. But each night, they are drawn back to the dingy club, meeting the same old crowd and feeling strangely at home. They are of the night and know about the strange dangers lurking in the backstreets of downtown. Guardians against the darkness.

As the face of this club I visualize:

Reginald "Regina" Frazier
Canon aspect: Aging drag-queen bouncer
Tragic flaw: Sucker for a handsome face
Casting aspect: Peter Dinklage in drag
Further aspect: A Heart of Gold
Further aspect: The Babylon is my life's work

Assets: Great (+4) Classy, Good (+3) Dangerous, Fair (+2) Sensitive
Stunts: "Tell me your story" (+2 on rolls with Sensitive to get people to open up)

Note: I used White Picket Witches to do the aspects and stats, because that's the quickest way to do them at the moment.

Don't ask me all where this is coming from. I should probably watch less "Lost Girl" and try to catch more sleep.