The Occult Underground

[Bordermarcher]

Let Me Put It This Way...

There's a secret world you didn't even know existed.

Yeah, how many times have you heard that before? The same recycled crackpot conspiracy-theory paranoid-schizophrenic bullshit about the invisible monsters living in the shadows of every major metropolitan area. Those card-carrying members of the Tinfoil Hat Society forgetting their antipsychotics and claiming they say ran into Bigfoot or a werewolf or the cross-dressing ghost of J. Edgar Hoover way out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. That worn-out wannabe New Age neopagan spiel saying that magic really does exist and you can unlock your own mystic potential if you buy this book for just three easy payments of 19.99! You'd have to be an idiot or insane to believe any of that garbage.

Well fuck you, because it's true.

Everywhere, in every single city mankind ever built since the day we first ventured out of the cave, things have been lurking in the shadows our lizard brains still tell us to be terrified of. Monsters. Do I need to break this down for you? Do you not watch TV? Because this shit should really be self-explanatory by now. Witches. Vampires. Ghosts. Psychics. Spirits. Faeries. Werewolves. Dragons.

Welcome to the Occult Underground, motherfucker.

Don't you know there's a war on?

The Quick and Dirty Lowdown

The Occult Underground is exactly what it says on the tin. Simple enough. No? See, the word occult used to mean "the knowledge of the hidden" and specifically referred to science back in the days before Aleister Crowley (the limey fuck) went and associated it with Hermeticism and tarot cards and summoning demons and all that fuckery. Get the double meaning? The Underground is both a secret and it's full of the supernatural shit that freaky goth chick in your high school totally got off on.

Now that I've dropped some knowledge on your ass, let's get to the good stuff. There're a few pieces of essential information everyone should get through their heads if they don't want to get fucked in the least pleasant and most federal prison-y sense of the word.

Allow me to break it down like fractions.

There Is Indeed A War On: If you want to know the history of the Occult Underground, here you go. The entire thing, the entire goddamn thing going back to the dawn of fucking civilization, has been one colossal clusterfuck of violence and conflict and man's inhumanity to man. Well, more like inhumanity's inhumanity to inhumanity, but fuck you. And this is not some invisible struggle between Good and Evil over the souls of mankind or for control of the world's governments. It's one part mob war, one part blood feud, one part crusade. Shake well. Serve over ice. You want to know why I think we're doing this? Crabs. We're all just crabs in a bucket that can't stand to see anyone else climb out so we all keep dragging each other back down. We're like a bunch of South American cannibals eating each other's heart for power while the Spanish burn down our village and give us all smallpox. Personally, I don't have a clue how any of this has managed to stay a secret, because it ain't fucking subtle. People get gunned-down in drive-by shootings. Heads get sawed off on video tape. Houses burn down. Cars-bombs go off in the street. Curbs get stomped. And nobody who's not part of it notices a thing.

Occult Underground, Not Occult Mainstream: We are not 500 year-old vampires lounging around in our ivory towers and invisibly manipulating the course of world events like the undead Bilderberg Group. Not that they don't exist, but who the shit really gives a fuck about those Great White Brotherhood motherfuckers when the werewolves next door are trying to muscle in on your turf?

The Government Isn't In On It: What, you really think the government has a secret bureau dedicated to dealing with the occult? Bitch, do you watch the news? At all? It took us ten fucking years to find Osama Fucking bin-Laden and that asshole couldn't even turn invisible! So no, the BPRD is not coming for your ass and the Men in Black are just a criminally-underrated television show and a couple of campy action flicks. Now don't get me wrong, there's people in the 5-0, the FBI, the DA's office who all know what's what. But they have real lives and real jobs and don't get paid nearly enough to deal with this shit so as long as you don't actively step on their toes they'll leave you be and may even be willing to trade a few favors.

Made in America: The war's everywhere there are people and thus the monsters who prey on said people, but the good ol' US of A seems to be a hotbed of violence. Lots of theories as to why exactly that is. A lot of the old countries like the ones over in Europe, they've had a couple hundred years to figure of their shit out and now they have all these accords and pacts and agreements that keep things simmering without boiling over. But America, Land of Opportunity , was like a great big invitation for every Tom, Dick, and Dracula who wanted to get a slice of the apple pie and there's nothing to keep them from ripping the throats out of anyone who gets in their way. It's straight-up Wild West in some places and having the majority of the world's supply of firearms floating around certainly doesn't help keep things gentlemanly.

It's Not Business, It's Personal: The Occult Underground might seem like a great big place where you can just slip under the radar, but believe me when I say it isn't. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows everyone else and you better believe you are on one of those someone's shit-lists because this place is too goddamn crowded to not step on a few toes. So when the gloves come off and the knives come out everyone goes at it with so much relish they wouldn't spread it on a Coney Island hot dog.

They Write Romance Novels About This Shit: You think we don't know the collective soaked-panties the modern media has when it comes to things like "urban fantasy" and "gothic romance"? We know all about Twilight and Harry Potter and those trashy little vampire novels they sell in grocery stores. It's incredibly fucking convenient too, lets us hide behind the shield of human incredulity. So many motherfuckers walk around trying to look like vampires that nobody would even know a real bloodsucker if it looked them in the eyes and said "Blaaagh!" Plus, I get so much pussy at those book releases...

Real Punks In A –Punk World: All these genres chocking on their own post-modernism and jilling-off to Isambard Kingdom Brunel and William Gibson and you know what crucial element they've forgotten in their obsession with steam and cyber and a million other interchangeable aesthetics? The Punk. The anger and the disdain for any king you didn't vote for and the refusal to obey any laws you didn't write in your own goddamn blood and tears. Not us. The Occult Underground is all about that barely-contained anarchy, DIY attitude, and self-expression so radical Anton LaVey would tell you to back the fuck up and cool it.

The First Rule Is Looking Cool: Call us a shallow bunch of motherfuckers, but we all knows the importance of weaponized fashion sense. Everyone's got their own personal aesthetic and biting someone else's shit is almost as bad as biting someone else's throat. Bodies tattooed with alchemical formula from Paracelsus and Jabir. One-percenter colors with Solomonic pentacle-patches. Ear lobes pierced with coffin-nails. Denim jackets embroidered with grimoire-text. Go crazy.


[ooc]More to come soon, including a list of the major supernatural types and a breakdown of the cosmology, but for right now I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on the general premise so far. [/ooc]

[LD]

>>Occult Underground, Not Occult Mainstream: We are not 500 year-old vampires lounging around in our ivory towers and invisibly manipulating the course of world events like the undead Bilderberg Group. Not that they don't exist, but who the shit really gives a fuck about those Great White Brotherhood motherfuckers when the werewolves next door are trying to muscle in on your turf?

I like the idea of Neo-Nazi Vampires... even though I don't think you were literal about that, but still, It seems like it would have a good place in a Tom Holt novel. :)

I'll admit I find it a little difficult to read with all the f-'s, but I do note cleverness especially with your references and entendres regarding Crowley.

I'd like to know why the Government isn't involved, but I suspect that will be revealed later.

This reads, as someone noted in the other thread, a lot like World of Darkness, but it also reminds me of Shadow Chasers from D20Modern. I am looking forward to reading more and welcome to the site!

[Magnus Pym]

I like this. Daring writing too.
Keep it up!

[Steerpike]

Yeah, brilliantly written, and I for one appreciate the f-bombs, they texture things nicely.  It actually seems more like a subversion of World of Darkness to me.  In WoD the Masquerade is this tentative, fragile thing that has strict penalties for being breached and that takes a lot of effort to maintain, and vampires definitely have their fingers in a lot of pies.  Here, not so much.  Shadow Chasers (as I remember) had more of a Good versus Evil vibe, too (the Shadow vs us), whereas this has more of an "occult relpolitik" thing going on.

[Hibou]

I love it.

[Bordermarcher]

So there's a few more quick little bites about the Occult Underground. Hopefully you're starting to get a better picture of the style and character I'm going for even if the substance is still a little bit murky. Coming up next: a breakdown of the types of monsters pounding the streets of the OU.

[Steerpike]

Bodies tattooed with alchemical formula from Paracelsus and Jabir. One-percenter colors with Solomonic pentacle-patches. Ear lobes pierced with coffin-nails. Denim jackets embroidered with grimoire-text. Go crazy.

Oh FUCK yes.

Wrong "too" in this passage "too goddamn crowded too not step on a few toes."  Tiny nitpick.

[Bordermarcher]

The Unusual Suspects

The Gifted have too many goddamn names to count. Witches, magicians, warlocks, sorcerers, necromancers, spiritualists...every culture has at least one word for the people who can do scary shit that no one else can. They look like humans and act and feel like humans and they sure as fuck die like humans but they're definitely not the same thing as humans. The Gifted, they have The Gift, which is a convenient little catch-all way of saying they can do fucking MAGIC. I know we can all do our own special little magics but not like the Gifted can. Not even close. Not that they can all do everything or even-mostly everything but you can bet your tits they can do a lot and the Gifted are nothing if not a varied bunch. Every one of them does magic a little differently or puts their own unique spin on it.

Vampires are the poster-children for the Occult Underground and have been since the Victorians realized that mysterious foreigners sticking their fangs in the soft virgin flesh of Englishwomen's necks was a great way to express their deeply-repressed masturbatory fantasies. Chances are you already know the basics of them. They're undead. They (usually) feed on the fresh blood of the living. They're (usually) killed by fire or daylight or a stake through the heart and not really a whole lot else. They can reproduce by fangfucking some (un?)lucky human. What you never want to forget about vampires: no matter what they look like on the outside, there's power in those dead veins of theirs and just like a good whiskey it only gets more potent with age. Because wine is for pussies.

Shapeshifters shift their shapes. Go fucking figure. But no for real, they've got animal-spirits or something inside them because one moment they look like an average Jane on the street and the next moment they're eight feet of fanged, slobbering atavism. People like to focus on werewolves because they're a nice balance of our primal fears and our primal lusts, but there are a whole fuck of a lot more were-beasts than just that. Were-cats. Were-deer. Were-spiders. Were-hyenas stalking the Sudanese ghettos of Seattle. Albino were-crocodiles living in the New York City sewer system. Whatever it is that lets them turn from man to beast or something in between is some sort of hereditary trait, so most of those stories about the bite of a werewolf turning you into a monster are bullshit. Most.

Faeries are very strange and special little fuckers. Whether or not they intentionally ape human folktales or those human folktales were inspired by them is pretty much a chicken-egg debate. What we can all agree upon is that most look like they stepped out of the pages of Grimm's Fairy Tales as directed by Takashi Miike. They seem to have great difficulty acting contrary to their own "character" so that ogres will almost always be physically powerful but have massive impulse-control issues and lantern-eyed drow will never be as comfortable in the light as they are in the dark. It's all very, very...meta, in an absolutely terrifying way since you don't know if you figure into their story.

[ooc]Coming soon: The Possessed, Psychics, Spirits, Ghosts, and Demons. Is there anything anyone thinks I should toss in there while I'm at it? I wouldn't be putting this up here if I didn't want to hear your creative input as well!

Fuck it! I'm doing breakdowns of American cities next and I'll come back to this shit when I feel inspired.[/ooc]

[Ghostman]

I'm liking this very much, so far. Are all shapeshifters of the animalistic were-being type, or are there others that don't conform to that?

[Bordermarcher]

[ooc]Okay, so, I'm stuck. My original plan was to take the following list of cities and write up a blurb about each before I flesh them out one-by-one, but then I realized that wasn't nearly as simple as it sounded and I hit a wall. I'm awful at blurb-writing. So what I'm asking is if anyone has a suggestion for which city I should start with. I mean, I have ideas for all of them, but nothing helps me make a decision like someone else pointing and saying "Try that one."

Boston, MA.
Chicago, IL.
Dallas, TX.
Detroit, MI.
Las Vegas, NV.
Los Angeles, CA.
Miami, FL.
New Orleans, LA.
New York City, NY.
Nashville, TN.
Philadelphia, PA.
Seattle, WA.
[/ooc]

[Humabout]

I live in Miami, so I suppose I'm curious what you'd have to say about it.  I'll gladly tell you what it's like from a resident's point of view, too, if it'd help.

Personally, I'm far more interested in places like New Orleans, Detroit, and Seattle, though.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I think New York and especially New Orleans are a bit over-done when it comes to things like this. Anything in the South makes me automatically think of True Blood.

I think Seattle, with all the rain would work good, as would Detroit, with it's plethora of problems and urban wasteland (while not a Detroiter, I am a Michigander, so I can help there.)

[Xathan]

One thing I'd like to offer to that list is Saint Louis, MO. Partially because I'm a native here, but also because there's a pretty big history of ghost stories that take place here - the movie The Exorcist was based on something that happened in Saint Louis, and part of it took place on Saint Louis University's campus (I managed to "sneak" into the room where it happened on the closed off 4th floor, and I have some stories to tell.) There's a pretty active occult community here, and a ton of big catholic churches for set pieces - not to mention it has the crime rates like Detroit a big urban wasteland across the river from the main town.

EDIT: But that wasn't the question - and I'm with Leetz and would go with Detroit or Seattle for your first one. :P

[LD]

Nashville- I'd like to see you take on the most challenging one first. I'm assuming moonshine will play a part. And music?

Then Vegas for the faeries.

[Ninja D!]

I love it. I enjoy the subject matter and especially the voice. It's a style that so few have the desire (or the balls) to shoot for, and many that try fail, but you pull off nicely. It actually makes me want to go back to the Key City Punk Rock Horror Show idea I had for a game. Don't let anyone get to you about the language, either. I don't think anyone here is ignorant enough to disregard something that is obviously quite good just because they don't like a couple of words (for no good reason).

Are you familiar with the Top Cow comic books? They're published by Image and include Wicthblade, The Darkness, Artifacts, and the Magdalena, among others. Sort of occult super heroes. Some of those might interest you. Above all others, I would suggest checking out the collected edition of Tom Judge The Rapture. You could practically be writing this as Tilly from that.

As for cities, if you just want someone to point at one I would say Detroit. Because I love Robocop.