User:SavageBob/Sandbox

Details

Kickstarter edition cover

Pages:

• (Kickstarter exclusive ed.) 35
• (2nd ed.) 31

Author: Chris Spivey

Artists: Alex Mayo, Brennen Reece, Jabari Weathers

Editor(s):

• (1st ed.) Dixie Cochran, Adam Alexander, Jill Spivey
• (2nd ed.) Dixie Cochran, Jill Spivey, Adam Alexander, Mike Mason

Setting: Harlem, New York, November 1928

Appears in:

• (1st ed.) Whispers of Harlem
• (2nd ed.) Harlem Unbound, 2nd ed.

Summary

Hollywood screenwriter Charles "Flip" Wilmore has organized a stellar lineup at the Dark Tower, with some of Harlem's finest artistic, literary, and musical talent on the playbill. However, Wilmore's also made enemies among Harlem's underworld, and tensions are high when a police detective crashes the evening to investigate a murder of a Harlem-based gangster. Then things start to get weird as Wilmore's place on the playbill grows closer…

Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only

Players should not read any further.

Synopsis

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
TBD.

References

Player Handouts:

• Recruitment Call
• Walker’s Brunch Invitation
• Working Request Letter
• St. Clair’s Calling Card
• Dark Tower Flyer
• Zora's Letter
• Evening Edition (newspaper)
• Playbill

Locations:

• Abyssinian Baptist Church
• The Dark Tower
• Displaced Tower of the Doomed
• Hobby Horse
• Mount Morris Park
• Police Station
• Queenie’s Lair
• Reece’s Rowhouse

Creatures:

• Baron in Blues (avatar of Azathoth)
• Hound of Tindalos

Organizations

• TBD

Spells

• Call Baron in Blues (Summon Azathoth variant)

Tomes

• Book of Azathoth

Keeper Comments

The scenario offers several paths in to permit different types of investigators to participate. For instance, blue-collar workers may be hired as staff at the Dark Tower; literary, artistic, and musical types can be part of the performer lineup; and criminals can be sent by the crime lord Queenie St. Claire to find out who killed her man, James Reece. The introduction suggests that once the Keeper settles on a single path in, they can streamline the investigation by trimming extraneous NPCs from the scenario. In a similar vein, the scenario can more easily fit into a single session if the Keeper starts the events at the Dark Tower rather than roleplaying how the investigators got there.

As written, Wilmore's time-altering spell doesn't start taking effect until late in the evening. However, the Keeper can easily move the weirdness earlier in the scenario, perhaps by having performers, guests, or staff of the Dark Tower disappear mysteriously. In searching for these lost people, the investigators may find themselves traveling through time to various points in Harlem's past, where they have to rescue the people who have gone missing. (The scenario has one such encounter, but it assumes the investigators rescue a woman from her own time and potentially pull her forward into the future.) Then, when Wilmore casts his spell more fully, the scenario can be run as written, with the Dark Tower shifted into a warped spacetime.

Another possibility to add tension to the scenario is to have Wilmore's nemesis, Gault, be present at the Dark Tower. As written, Gault is in Hollywood and doesn't play much role in the events except to stoke Wilmore's desire for revenge. Bringing him to Harlem (and perhaps turning Wilmore and Gault into playwrights rather than filmmakers) might open the door for more open conflict between Wilmore and his one-time partner.