RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to New Orleans: Under the Mask

20:25, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

The city and its supernatural element.

Posted by StorytellerFor group 0
Storyteller
GM, 2 posts
Sat 9 Sep 2017
at 02:09
  • msg #1

The city and its supernatural element

New Orleans.
The setting for this game takes place in the city of New Orleans in southeastern Louisiana. The time is modern, 2017.   It is a large port city and one of the most populous cities in the state. You can find information on the city and its history with a good Google search.  The information presented here will be specific to the campaign outlying some of the occult characteristics of our fictional version of the city.  It is not intended to be historically accurate and places and people will change from the real word version to fit the campaign.
 New Orleans has a long history of occult activity.  It tends to be a hot bed of occult activities and its past is routed in culture and history of the supernatural.  From the strong voodoo practitioner heritage, to the feral inhabitants of the bayous, to the old families who practice witchcraft in their historical mansions, to the burgeoning new vampire scene which constantly competes with the old vampire aristocrats.  New Orleans is a place where the supernatural thrive.

Vampire Culture: Vampire culture is strong in New Orleans these days.  The goth scene is not dead in the city, and you can easily find clubs catering to the kine that want to pretend they are hunters in the night.  Dressing in black, with their punk music playing loud, taking whatever drug they can get their hand on and drinking blood red wine is the rage these days.  Some of these places cater to a more hardcore crowd with implanted fangs, razor rings and parties where drugs, sex and real bloodletting happens.  But beneath this scene is hidden the real kindred of the night, and the secret societies that are in constant battle for control.  As that is the main setting for the game, I will go into more detail in a separate post about the real vampire community and those that rule the darkest parts of the city.

Magic: Like many other cities in America, many early immigrants that settled here did so to escape persecution, or to support a lifestyle that was not respected in their own country.  New Orleans was no different and with some of the early French and Spanish and Irish settlers, came those who practiced magic.  Seeing the new world as a place where they could escape the prejudices of home, several practitioners came bringing their arts with them.  While most have forgotten these teachings over the years, there are still some old families with old money that remember the old ways and are skilled witches and warlocks.  In addition, during the Great Haitian revolution, the town’s population almost doubled with refugees from Saint Dominique who brought with them African slaves, many who practiced voodoo.  That knowledge spread to those slaves that were already here and survived despite the efforts of plantation owners to suppress it.  The result is that today there is a thriving voodoo community in New Orleans especially in some of the poorest and more rural parts.

Shape changers: The Bayous of Louisiana is said to be home to a tribe of werewolves called the rougarou.  This tribe is very secretive and the stories of them are as varied as the people who speak of them.  The native Americans say the rougarou are cannibals like the Wendigo and are as large as bigfoot.  French immigrants say they are more like traditional werewolves who can pass their curse to other by drawing blood.  There are even stories that they are created by witches and can pass the curse by collecting rain water in their palm and forcing another to drink.  Their true nature is a mystery, but 'ware the unsuspecting person who travels out into the bayous alone.

Ghost/Hauntings:  With the water table so high, burying the dead has been a problem a New Orleans since its early days.  Dig too far and the grave fills with water and the coffin literally floats to the top.  Settlers tried to weight them down with stones, which worked until the next strong rainfall when the coffin would literally pop out of the ground.  They then took to building tombs and burying their dead above aground, which made the interred prime targets for grace robbers.  For those with money they would have personal tombs on their own property to protect them from thieves.  All of this created the perfect storms for restless undead spirits.  Couple that with practitioners who specialized in calling these spirits and you have a city teeming with restless dead.  A haunted hotel, or mansion is not an uncommon site in the city, even in modern times.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:26, Wed 02 Nov 2022.
Sign In