What strange phenomena we find in a great city. All we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.
Charles Baudelaire
ADAM SCHERMER
Charles Baudelaire
ADAM SCHERMER
Ours was a world of science. A world of reason, of logic, where every 'supernatural' story, every ghost, every monster, every thing that went bump in the night could be explained away by the cold, safe blanket of science and mathematics - a bad camera, a trick of the light, auditory hallucinations and sleep deprivation.
"Was" being the operative word here. Some time in the late 80s, Gorbachev decided that "glasnost" applied to documents the Soviet Union had on the supernatural. He didn't release all of them, of course, and the ones he did release he didn't release all at once, but even the single starter paper that announced and proved that magic was very much A Real Thing caused one hell of a shock to the world. That first shock was only eclipsed when the British, Chinese, Japanese, and American governments - in that order - released evidence to the same, all on the same day. Then the Vatican, and the Orthodox Church in Istanbul - as well as the Turks. Israel followed a few weeks later, which made merry hell out of Middle Eastern relations for a while, even when Saudi Arabia pulled some documents confirming it out of Mecca and what I can only assume was a damn fine hat. Other papers came out - stuff like elves, vampires, fairies, orcs, you know the usual basic-level fantasy fare, came out over the course of the 90s before tapering off by the turn of the millennium, but they just didn't have the same impact.
Of course, that's all ancient history now in the year of Our Lord 2 thousand and twenty. Wars were fought, the Soviet Union narrowly dodged imploding in a fiery civil war, as did Yugoslavia. China did not, and most of the Warsaw Pact followed Poland into deciding that communism wasn't all it had cracked up to be. The Middle East rose up in war, cooled off, rose up again as external forces tried to democratize or communize it, and eventually people started to lose interest in it like a pizza reheated a few too many times. Africa and Latin America, thanks to their lively magic scenes and lack of big powers, are the new playgrounds to test out shiny new guns.
And even that's just side story to us here, in Portocielo. God's own country, claimed Hunter S. Thompson, which should give you an idea of what kind of place this is. God dropped a chunk of Hell while making the three realms of the universe and it landed sixty miles off the coast of Cuba. Has been since the Spaniards managed to pry it out of Carib hands back in 1551. The lifting of the Masquerade only changed the lyrics, not the tune. Only big thing of note is that the only people using magic, the real shit, are mostly good guys. Mostly. The White Council, the group that "leads" mages, tends to frown on shit like killing, necromancy, time fuckery, ripping info out of people's heads, brainwashing, that sort of thing. Much in the same way Pol Pot frowned on being a capitalist. You can kill in "self-defense", though, or just kill them with something besides magic. Like dropping a piano on their head. I've seen it happen.
Anything can happen on this island, especially in New Leiden, the one city that at least pretends to be ruled by law and order. You wake up to the sound of gunshots, maybe the occasional blast of magic, step out your front door, fall flat on your ass because someone stole your porch. Go out, buy some dope - perfectly legal here, because of course it is - find the dealer is pissed because some crackhead werewolf ate his horse. Go to work, do whatever the fuck normal people do on this island, if there are any, get jumped on your lunch break by an orc with a sawn-off, or some strung-out elf. He takes your wallet, maybe roughs you up a bit, you go home and listen to some conspiracy theorist rant about how aliens control the government.
Meanwhile, Governor Cuypers (it's always a Cuypers) gets blitzed on wine with the Lanzas and some vampire from one of the Courts, usually the Red Court since we're closest to their base of ops out in Mexico, while taking in blood and crack from the more mundane cartels, both of whom also slum up with the Fronte Nacional out in the mountains from time to time. What few dwarves can stand the heat hang out making anything from guns to swords to the old reliable hammer to beat someone's face in, the gremlins and goblins and what-ever give everyone but the FN the finger when the FN doesn't feel like using humans, the state politicians and businessmen from more important parts of the US talk with things you're not supposed to know about, and the people who really keep the world turning talk with things I'm not supposed to know about.
But maybe, one day, you get into a situation. Or a problem. Possibly even a crime, or something bad that happened to you that genuinely isn't your fault. Now in most parts of the US, you go over to Special or Paranormal Investigations, or whatever they call it, because they have the money or patience to have one. Maybe the state police or FBI if you're desperate or it's messy enough, or something you've never seen before except on the crazier parts of the internet. But, well, Portocielo TP doesn't have one. Or if they do, all it does is suck up money and sit on its ass, because I've never seen anything but SO or CI working anything like that.
That's where we come in. Black Dog Investigations, we're out in the Eindhoven neighborhood within walking distance of the Blue Moon if you're armed and brave, or unarmed and stupid. Private wizard, et cetera investigators of the sort you gonna call when you have issues of a supernatural sort. We're right there in the yellow pages, because New Leiden still uses them, under "Wizards" between wizards and more wizards. Now I don't actually do the cases - I'm just the desk guy - but I like to think the big thing that separates us from the rest of them is that, well, we've got principles. The boss does, at least - Claire Woolf, that's her name - 'course, she's got blood on her hands, possibly innocent blood. Everyone does on this island. She's fine with framing scumbags, but not some random guy. She's fine with letting loose with magic, but avoids innocent bystanders whenever possible. She takes protection money, from time to time, but only when we really need it, and usually it means she's already got a reason to have you whacked. And she prefers to run an operation with people who think at least somewhat likewise, or are willing to play along. In her own words, "Black Dog... is a loose collection of delusional idiots who have lived on this island for years and still think on some level Rosseau was right."
Of course, maybe you're not that kind of person. Maybe you're in it for the money. Maybe you just like the puzzles that come with private detective work. Maybe the TPs ditched or refused to hire you because you don't like to crack skulls enough - or a little too much. Either way, you're working here, or planning on it. Let me just give you some advice - walk. The. Line. Listen, like I said, maybe not everybody here's clean as some PIs in the mainland, hell, there are some who probably aren't as clean as the ones in the really dark noir stories. And we're not necessarily here to make Portocielo a nice place to live, or even better, really - it'd take the Air Force and a gratuitous application of firebombs to do that.
We're just here to make it suck less.
"Was" being the operative word here. Some time in the late 80s, Gorbachev decided that "glasnost" applied to documents the Soviet Union had on the supernatural. He didn't release all of them, of course, and the ones he did release he didn't release all at once, but even the single starter paper that announced and proved that magic was very much A Real Thing caused one hell of a shock to the world. That first shock was only eclipsed when the British, Chinese, Japanese, and American governments - in that order - released evidence to the same, all on the same day. Then the Vatican, and the Orthodox Church in Istanbul - as well as the Turks. Israel followed a few weeks later, which made merry hell out of Middle Eastern relations for a while, even when Saudi Arabia pulled some documents confirming it out of Mecca and what I can only assume was a damn fine hat. Other papers came out - stuff like elves, vampires, fairies, orcs, you know the usual basic-level fantasy fare, came out over the course of the 90s before tapering off by the turn of the millennium, but they just didn't have the same impact.
Of course, that's all ancient history now in the year of Our Lord 2 thousand and twenty. Wars were fought, the Soviet Union narrowly dodged imploding in a fiery civil war, as did Yugoslavia. China did not, and most of the Warsaw Pact followed Poland into deciding that communism wasn't all it had cracked up to be. The Middle East rose up in war, cooled off, rose up again as external forces tried to democratize or communize it, and eventually people started to lose interest in it like a pizza reheated a few too many times. Africa and Latin America, thanks to their lively magic scenes and lack of big powers, are the new playgrounds to test out shiny new guns.
And even that's just side story to us here, in Portocielo. God's own country, claimed Hunter S. Thompson, which should give you an idea of what kind of place this is. God dropped a chunk of Hell while making the three realms of the universe and it landed sixty miles off the coast of Cuba. Has been since the Spaniards managed to pry it out of Carib hands back in 1551. The lifting of the Masquerade only changed the lyrics, not the tune. Only big thing of note is that the only people using magic, the real shit, are mostly good guys. Mostly. The White Council, the group that "leads" mages, tends to frown on shit like killing, necromancy, time fuckery, ripping info out of people's heads, brainwashing, that sort of thing. Much in the same way Pol Pot frowned on being a capitalist. You can kill in "self-defense", though, or just kill them with something besides magic. Like dropping a piano on their head. I've seen it happen.
Meanwhile, Governor Cuypers (it's always a Cuypers) gets blitzed on wine with the Lanzas and some vampire from one of the Courts, usually the Red Court since we're closest to their base of ops out in Mexico, while taking in blood and crack from the more mundane cartels, both of whom also slum up with the Fronte Nacional out in the mountains from time to time. What few dwarves can stand the heat hang out making anything from guns to swords to the old reliable hammer to beat someone's face in, the gremlins and goblins and what-ever give everyone but the FN the finger when the FN doesn't feel like using humans, the state politicians and businessmen from more important parts of the US talk with things you're not supposed to know about, and the people who really keep the world turning talk with things I'm not supposed to know about.
But maybe, one day, you get into a situation. Or a problem. Possibly even a crime, or something bad that happened to you that genuinely isn't your fault. Now in most parts of the US, you go over to Special or Paranormal Investigations, or whatever they call it, because they have the money or patience to have one. Maybe the state police or FBI if you're desperate or it's messy enough, or something you've never seen before except on the crazier parts of the internet. But, well, Portocielo TP doesn't have one. Or if they do, all it does is suck up money and sit on its ass, because I've never seen anything but SO or CI working anything like that.
That's where we come in. Black Dog Investigations, we're out in the Eindhoven neighborhood within walking distance of the Blue Moon if you're armed and brave, or unarmed and stupid. Private wizard, et cetera investigators of the sort you gonna call when you have issues of a supernatural sort. We're right there in the yellow pages, because New Leiden still uses them, under "Wizards" between wizards and more wizards. Now I don't actually do the cases - I'm just the desk guy - but I like to think the big thing that separates us from the rest of them is that, well, we've got principles. The boss does, at least - Claire Woolf, that's her name - 'course, she's got blood on her hands, possibly innocent blood. Everyone does on this island. She's fine with framing scumbags, but not some random guy. She's fine with letting loose with magic, but avoids innocent bystanders whenever possible. She takes protection money, from time to time, but only when we really need it, and usually it means she's already got a reason to have you whacked. And she prefers to run an operation with people who think at least somewhat likewise, or are willing to play along. In her own words, "Black Dog... is a loose collection of delusional idiots who have lived on this island for years and still think on some level Rosseau was right."
Of course, maybe you're not that kind of person. Maybe you're in it for the money. Maybe you just like the puzzles that come with private detective work. Maybe the TPs ditched or refused to hire you because you don't like to crack skulls enough - or a little too much. Either way, you're working here, or planning on it. Let me just give you some advice - walk. The. Line. Listen, like I said, maybe not everybody here's clean as some PIs in the mainland, hell, there are some who probably aren't as clean as the ones in the really dark noir stories. And we're not necessarily here to make Portocielo a nice place to live, or even better, really - it'd take the Air Force and a gratuitous application of firebombs to do that.
We're just here to make it suck less.
5'4, 115 pounds.
