Monday, June 5, 2017

Secrets of Lerouxville

My players should not read this.  MY PLAYERS SHOULD NOT READ THIS. MY PLAYERS SHOULD NOT READ THIS.  MY. PLAYERS. SHOULD. NOT. READ. THIS.

Ok now that that's out of the way, I'm working on an Uzumaki-type structure for a Call of Cthulhu game set in a fictional parish in 1930s Louisiana.  I used the tag tables from Silent Legions to try to give me some ideas for what was going on.  This is the result.

Note: If there are two paragraphs, the first paragraph is mundane information replicated from here.  The second paragraph is the supernatural thing.



Lerouxville | Inhuman Masters, Secret Nexus, Horrific Wealth
An Arkham-sized town that, while extant as long ago as 1810, grew in prominence due to a mass migration of carpetbaggers after the Civil War.  It was for many decades a combination logging town and rail hub, but as logging has moved to the Pacific Northwest the magnates of the town have come to focus more on other forms of commerce.  The town is surprisingly Klan free, in part due to the Klan's opposition to bootlegging, which has recently lined the pockets of many residents.

The magnates in the town owe their wealth to a pact made with inhuman entities.  The swamps near the town contain a passage to an alternate universe rife with strange plant-life and things inimical to man.  While Natchez Indians in the area fought to keep these entities at bay, a small group of carpetbaggers interested in the occult were able to harness the power to increase tree production for the logging industry.  Unfortunately, this has caused a great deal of abnormal defects in the local population for many miles around.  The magnates will do anything to keep their secret and their wealth.

Pinewood | Bitter Envy, Plutocratic Control, Terrible Pact
A small farming community of old Southerners with only a handful of last names.  Locals are poor, insular, and bitter.  About halfway between Lerouxville and Pinewood is the Pinewood Asylum, which was built with a grant from the Collins family of Lerouxville.

An impoverished local whose land was taken to help build the Asylum has entered into a pact with one of the creatures from the Other World.  His goal is the death of all those who own land here but live in Lerouxville.

Perilloup | Lich Lair, Eldritch Radiation, Impending Doom
This small community is a mix of Cajuns, African Americans, and mixed raced individuals and the subject of many rumors.  It is older than Lerouxville and by historical accident is home to the Skipwith Parish* courthouse.  It is home to an illicit gambling house and brothel, originally intended to service the loggers in Lerouxville.  These establishments have seen better days.  Many of the residents here make alcohol, which is smuggled to other parts of the country via Lerouxville.

It is also the home to the grave of a creole witch whose power was very real.  She was in touch with the Other World and worked in her life to save both indians and slave populations from the depredations of the white man, but the side effects of this salvation was sometimes even worse than the cure.   Her power still radiates out from her hidden grave, which has a number of “hoodoo” cultists that make trips to it during dates considered important in her life.  Few would know that the intensity of birth defects in the region is due to this old magic.

Bayou St Foy | Feuding Elites, Impending Doom, Predatory Entity
About 30 miles south of Lerouxville, many of the Lerouxville magnates have second homes here to enjoy the lush scenery.  Many of these homes include surrounding communities of share croppers.  The town is rounded out with old cajun families who are resentful of the "New People."  The water locally is also rising, something the old locals notice but the “New People” seem blissfully ignorant of.  Money moves in while old families leave.

It’s position on the coast also means that many involved in bootlegging have moved their shipping operations here.  The conflict between bootlegging interests and the Klan has meant that Bayou St Foy has a much higher murder rate than a town of its size would normally warrant.  It is also home to an inhuman creature summoned from the Other World long ago.  Immune to the effects of aging, this creature stalks the bayou and most recently has interrupted the construction of a large casino on a barrier island off the coast.

Okoholo | Depraved Clergy, Massive Ritual, Corrosive Vice
The “town” of Okoholo has aproximately three extended families in it.  All of them are involved in a strange religion.  They worship a bottomless pit (an artifact of the Other World) that their preacher says can raise the dead.  It can, but perhaps not in the same way as the Savior.

Borden College | Horrific Wealth, Breeding Program, Academic Sorcerers
his college was founded about 30 years ago as a teaching college, but in the intervening years it has added a number of eclectic departments.  It is known throughout the region as a haven for radicals and wackos, many of whom were rejected from the more conservative institutions nearby.

The grant it was founded on is based on the same timber-money held by the magnates in Lerouxville.  Many in its departments are actually occultists, and a small clade of three of those occultists are involved in trying to solve some of the local birth defect problems for the magnates using magic from the Other World.


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