Beetle
patreon
Turn 2 Pt 2: The Ghouls, the Sleuths, and the Fortunes
🕑 Added 2024-01-27 19:38:12 +0000 UTC[X][KARMA] Chief Redfeather is missing, and across the city, people have begun reporting being attacked by a man dressed similar wielding a tomahawk.
[X][HOT] The Burglary: Magnifico was skilled at illusion and Johsannah had a contact at the bank: if the two of them aided each other, they should be able to sneak in, rob the place blind, and be on a steamer to europe before the day was out.
[X] [SHOW] Practicing making voices and ventriloquism. Use Singing warm-ups to ready the body.
[X][BAR] Hire New Staff: Sure, you had a bartender, but you need more than just that to run a place. Janitors, delivery people, waiters, additional bartenders who can pick up more shifts. Just keep in mind that the more people work for the Lounge, the higher its costs go.
-[X] Waiter
[X][ROTH] Break into the house Arkham found.
[X][PER] Attend a public Christmas party
[X] [ACT] Get a crystal ball and learn how to mimic different voices, with a focus on what you think demons would sound like, and figure out how psychics give vague but believable fortunes. The new act will be about Professor Arkham communing with others worldly entities to devine the future. Repurpose some of the smoke and mirrors to add to the ambiance
!!!!GOTHAM!!!!
ATTENTION ALL FORTUNE SEEKERS, THOSE SEEKING TO SPEAK TO THE DEAD, AND THOSE LOOKING TO PEER INTO THE FUTURE! The Arkham Lounge is pleased to announce that starting this december, it’s evening matinee will consist of PROFESSOR ARKHAM AND HIS MAGIC CRYSTAL! A devilish sensation, watch in awe as the professor calls upon forces beyond mortal comprehension! Seances! Divinations! Unraveling the mysteries of the wicked! Ticket price two dollars.
!!!GOTHAM!!!
It was an interesting end to the year, to say the least. Not only would Josiah be unveiling a new act, he’d find himself bringing on more help for the bar, finally hiring a waiter for the evening matinee. Sure, it was a little extra out of his books, but as far as money went, the pittance spent having someone fill this position was made up by a marked improvement in service quality, as food came faster and Jacobs was able to focus more on the actual cooking. A small improvement, sure, but a pretty important one: Lounge was still short a few employees to qualify as a professional and proper restaurant, but by the end of the year it was pretty much 70% of the way there.
The guy Josiah hired was named Wallace Abernathy, an immigrant from England, one who had come to Gotham looking to make his fortune as a butler to one of the cities burgeoning capitalist class, thinking the slowly industrializing city and its growing population of uber-rich fertile ground for employment, only to find themselves out of a job after getting caught robbing their former master. Unfortunately for Mr. Abernathy, their master happened to be a Kane, one of the first families of Gotham: a minor scion of the clan.
That had been twenty years ago. Recently released from Blackgate, the elderly gentleman had been unable to afford work in his prior field on account of his past. He had been recommended to Josiah by a friend, a contact from his old criminal youth: Charlie Capers, a rogue whose true identity has been lost to time. Charlie and Wally had been cell-mates for a stint, and apparently according to correspondence became friends during their incarceration: when Wallace had come asking Capers for help, the shadowy rogue arranged for him to serve at the Lounge, serving drinks for guests while returning to his roots and behaving like a proper british manservant for their amusement.
Of course, around that time, Chief Redfeather would go missing. A few days later, Michael Kane Jr would be attacked in Gotham Park by what he described as the ghost of some strange and smokey indian wreathed in smoke, one who had chased him with a tomahawk. A few days later, the same happened to his uncle, Hank Kane Sr, who would be assaulted on his way to the bank. Not long after, Theodora Kane would be menaced in her own home by the chilly and smokey specter of Chief Redfeather.
Not long after, Gotham Bank would find itself robbed, heisted by a pair of mystic tricksters, Magnifico and Johsannah, con-people who used their connections and skills to perform an elaborate deception. See, Johsannah had a friend at the Bank, one who knew the security schedule and would be willing to provide her a few keys, the phony medium plying them with honeyed words and manipulating this person, a teller who had approached her for financial advice. Magnifico then used his skills at illusion and deception to enter through an opened door, accessing the vault while the rest of it’s security was distracted by a fire, stealing as much bullion as he could carry.
Before the sun had even begun to rise he and Josannah were on their way to Paris, several million dollars richer each. What became of them after that is, unfortunately, a different story, but in some ways they too would wind up becoming the basis for a ghost story.
The Lounge was at the heart of two different crimes, two different criminals, two different mysteries. And a good mystery will always draw in people looking to solve, let alone two. Not only did the notoriety bring more customers, thrill seekers, crime enthusiasts, ghost fascinateds looking to bask in the atmosphere, it brought a mystery hunter of some renown, one not native to Gotham.
Select a special customer. Action code [MYSTERYINC]
[ ] The Worlds Greatest Detective: The great Sherlock Holmes himself. Now long retired, the elderly wheelchair bound genius spends his days crossing the globe searching out puzzles and curiosities, content to spend his elder years traveling alongside the daughter of his faithful companion, Dr. Watson Jr.
[ ] The Benevolent Lodge of Mystery: A team of national celebrity mystery hunters, unknowing predecessor to a group of fateful teenage sleuths who would assemble in a small town known as Crystal Cove in a centuries later, led by Oswald P. Burlington and Mr. Peaches, an Orangutan who had supposedly learned human speech, they specialized in debunking paranormal hoaxes and consulting as hired detectives.
[ ] Simon Bruttenholm: A member of the British Paranormal Society and Silver Bell Club, and uncle to the founder of the first modern government backed anti-supernatural task force, Simon Bruttenholm was an expert on the occult. He had been brought to Gotham because of its supposed ghost sighting, intent on determining if it was a genuine specter or merely some madman with tricks.
Of course, while the guest was interesting and would bring in more customers and the service was better, what really would bring the crowds was the newest act. See, Josiah figured, with the dry ice to provide atmosphere, the drinks to numb the mind, and some practice, he might be able to bring back the crowds with a simpler routine, updated to suit his new surroundings.
Now, the fake psychic con wasn’t really Josiah’s thing, but the man was nothing but diligent. In the following days after the Great Gotham Magic Bank Heist, he would find himself the target of suspicion from the authorities, owing to his association with the psychic who helped pull it off, his source of training and inside tricks of the trade in exchange for free drinks. While innocent himself, at least for this, this would become another stain on the reputation of Josiah, who was beginning to feel the strain of infamy. Sure, he was guilty for a thousand and one other things, but not for robbing the Gotham Bank.
Still, with diligent training and practicing his ventriloquism and ability to mimic voices, the show was bound to be a hit. Josiah had his groove back: see, what he did was, he’d stuff the walls with dry ice smokers, shove em under the floor, in the base of the stage, underneath his table. Cover the whole floor in a layer of fog that went up to the knees AT LEAST. Then, he’d unveil his crystal ball: a bit of polished glass. As a prop, it was meh, but the audience weren’t going to see it close enough to tell it wasn’t a genuine piece of Atlantean Seaglass.
Then he’d do cold readings, using the training of Johsannah to decipher all the minute signals that were too subtle for 99% of people to pick up, pairing it with calling upon ancient and unnamable devils while making his voice sound exactly as infernally cold or diabolically hot as needed. He’d give people fortunes: ones vague enough to be accurate. You know what I mean: loose enough in details that it could come true in a variety of ways, but specific enough to seem genuine. And here we ran into the genius of the act: you see, every 5:30, the St. Majest undocked. For the next several hours, nobody could leave, not until the evening matinee had ended and the ship made dock at the end of the night. Josiah typically started his show around six to seven thirty: that gave him an hour and a half to dig, to listen, and to unwind information from his guests under the identity of “Josiah”, a regular of the bar and avid enjoyer of gossip, none but his staff and a handful who knew to be confidential recognizing the Professor without his makeup, prosthesis, and dark tweed suit.
Lemme tell you, dear reader, Josiah might have been a diva, but he wasn’t lazy, and he definitely wasn’t uncharismatic. With Johsannah’s advice and his existing canny, he began to run rings around his customers: each evening, he would single out the customers whose future he thought he could most accurately predict based on what he learned of them. The extreme hypochondriac he told would have a spell where the Nosoi, the grecian spirits of disease and pestilence, would attempt to ensorcel them into suffering a phantom sickness. The man with poor hygiene and a penchant for unhealthy vices, he warned that they were going to suffer terrible consequences unless they made sure to ritually purify their body with water and cleansing unguents. The unfrugal man he would suggest investments to, using details gathered via gossip from the wealthy, while the frugal man he would inform of potential hardships gathered from the whispers of those also suffering financial hardship.
Sure, he could have fleeced them, but as garish as he might be, as much as he tended towards the untasteful and unsavory, Josiah was an honest crook: he didn’t want to become rich, not by stealing, he wanted his fortune to be the bars fortune.
Instead, he aimed to keep his fortunes to the generally helpful, or at least benign: sure, if someone was obviously headed off a cliff, he wasn’t gonna stop them, but he at least tried to warn them. Sure, it was still a scam, but there are scams, and there are SCAMS, y’know? Personally, I think the best comparison is wrestling: sure, we all know it’s fake, but there’s nothing wrong with fake so long as it isn’t trying to take advantage of the perviewer and is aimed more at exiting and enthralling: it’s kayfabe. Compared to a lot of other psychics and a lot of other things our manager friend here would do, this was a downright benevolent use of these techniques.
Still, it brought people in: people loved the act. Josiah had the right collection of props, assets, and routines to make it memorable. Sure, it was something half of the patrons there were more than familiar with. Heck, for some of them it was a routine they had done themselves a thousand times before. But the atmosphere, the presentation, the drinks, all of it combined to help even them forget it was all fake. Sure, in the back of their head they knew it was just a show, but Josiah managed to bypass that awareness, helping them immerse themselves in the thrill of a performance well done.
And the thing is, when you predict the future, sometimes you can influence the future, even unwittingly the path of history can be changed by someone tipping the scales. And as he made predictions, Josiah would indeed make a change, a big one.
How do you wind up influencing the course of history? Action-code [FATE]
[ ] HEED MY WARNING: It wouldn’t happen immediately, but because of a prediction made to a more superstitious customer with sufficient resources, an organization would be founded dedicated to stopping what they believed was a prophecy of supernatural origin.
-[ ] Pick one occult or magic aligned character or cosmic event from any major DC canon, positive or negative. An organization headquartered will be founded to deal with it.
[ ] Boom or Bubble: Josiah would convince several of his customers to invest in something: a company, an industry, a field of technology, a service, a region or city. This would ripple outwards, causing a brief but very notable increase in the value of the investment, altering the course of history, if only a little.
-[ ] Pick something to cause a run on. Doesn’t have to be financially viable: bad investments are good too, and who knows, maybe they’ll be able to get a government buy-out!
[ ] Cassandra Wept: Well. It wasn’t how Josiah would have liked his warnings to have been validated. He would wind up predicting a disaster in Gotham, unwittingly making a prediction so uncannily accurate many would think he was a genuine seer. It would also help lend fire to the outcry, with Josiah and his prophecy, delivered in a crazed froth that had been intended to come across as maddened and had apparently been registered by the angry as fury at the culprits of the disaster, unwillingly becoming a symbol of the outrage surrounding the incident.
-[ ] Give me a brief, and I mean brief, summary of the catastrophe: it can be industrial, social, economic, etc. As a result of it and Josiah’s prediction, the outrage caused by it will cause more public unrest and pressure to bring about legal and regulatory consequences.
With his finances improving, Josiah found himself able to properly enjoy the holidays, expanding his museum with additional items bought from overseas and from visiting merchants, many of them swindlers looking to take advantage of the man and his predilection for artefacts he could hock off in his trashy museum by selling him fake crap they had assembled to look like genuine cultural relics. Josiah didn’t much care, of course: he wasn’t looking for authenticity. He was a showman, one looking for a replacement for his chief exhibit, which he would sadly never get back.
He was also able to afford each of his employees a small bonus of five dollars, as well as a bottle of Crane’s Finest: he might have been a titanic ass as a person, but Josiah Arkham was not a cheapskate or miser. The man was if anything typically too free with his money, but thanks to his investments finally paying off, he had more than enough to enjoy his Christmas and help others enjoy theirs.
And as the holidays came to their crescendo, he would find himself using his newfound wealth for the sake of having a christmas party.
Okay, there are a couple of places that are liable to host parties. Each place is likely to have different people, events, and vibe. Please note you can also invite along another character to serve as your plus one: this can be a character you’re interested in wooing (man or woman), or just one you’re interested in building a friendship with (man or woman). Action code [CAROL] for location, append invitee as sub-vote.
[ ] Gotham Park: An artificial bit of greenery that would eventually become known as Robinson Park, located in the generally impoverished neighborhood of East End. It was going to be filled with carolers, food stalls, performers, and was to end with the traditional Gotham Cannon Firing.
[ ] Slaughter Swamp: The people who lived in Gotham Swamp were perfectly friendly if you behaved yourself, and Josiah knew from the times he had worked for the seedier parts of Gotham that their little villages gathered each christmas to hold a small celebration of their own.
[ ] The Lounge: Hey, why not? Be a good way to buy good publicity. Hold a public christmas dinner: pay his employees overtime to work Christmas, but allow them to bring their families and let them eat for free along with the teaming masses of Gotham who wouldn’t normally be able to visit the bar.
And before I let you loose, the burglarizing of the Roth House is to be continued, bundled as prose at the start of turn 3. Now, that isn’t to say you don’t have any decisions: you do. See, Josiah can’t do this alone. He’s allowed to invite one person along: employee, family member, contact. He’s not gonna tell them what happened or why he’s investigating, but they might figure out anyways. The action code for this one is [HENCH]
[ ] His Cousin: Amadeus wouldn’t be happy, but he would help so long as it wasn’t for the purposes of theft.
[ ] His Cook: Jacobs wouldn’t be happy, but he would help and keep his mouth shut so long as he wasn’t implicated and Josiah paid him.
[ ] Crane: Crane would be very happy at the opportunity to buy a favor from Josiah, to be repaid in means other than cash.
[ ] Write-In: Has to be someone who would conceivably have a motive to help Josiah. Note that some options are still risky.
