Arkham Lounge (DC Historical Bar Simulator)

[The Bird]

Welcome friend, to Arkham Lounge. In this journey through Gothams history, you will guide the lounge through the seasons and use it to influence the city's path, in divergences large and small. But before we begin to weave ourselves a tapestry of conversations and sharing of ideals and thoughts over drinks and deals made in smokey lounges over glasses of scotch, we have to establish some important detail about our eponymous lounge.

First, why exactly is it called the Arkham Lounge?

Pick one.

[ ] It's founder. Josiah Arkham, cousin to the same man who had founded Arkham Asylum. The pair had both been fascinated by the arcane, but while Amadeus focused more on the occult, Josiah was at his heart an entertainer, drawing on the mystic as a source of aesthetic for their shows in order to attract those interested in stage magic peppered with a few scraps of authenticity in the form of showy occult trappings, in suitably themed surroundings located on a rather showy riverboat.

[ ] It's location. Not many knew that prior to the construction of the asylum, Amadeus's ancestors had been forced to sell a small stretch of the island. On this patch, Arkham Manor would be built, a house that would eventually land its way into the hands of the eccentric ex-criminal turned reclusive philanthropist Jack Malone, who would convert it into a secretive bar and hotel whose membership was invite only.

[ ] It's history. Such a terrible event. Amadeus Arkham had once had a son, they said, one that had grown to adulthood, partnering with Jonathan Chill to open an entrepreneurial venture: a coffeehouse of sorts designed to cater to the students of the newly opened Gotham University. where they could congregate and discuss things and collaborate while sipping coffee. And yet, when the young Arkham had killed himself, this hope had been dashed. Renamed in its fallen co-founders honor, the cafe, located in the darkest corner of Gotham U campus, would garner a dark reputation as a place where students and professors with more morbid predilections would congregate.

Second, what makes this place special? What exactly does it have that other places don't?

[ ] Buried Treasure: The founder of the Lounge had discovered a massive cache of wealth supposedly having once belonged to Cyrus Gold himself, using it to help build the establishment, and then utilizing it to finance it. For as long as it exists, the Lounge is unlikely to run out of money even if it operates as a loss, though having enough to exist isn't the same as having enough to thrive. And in Gotham, having a small fortune might have it's benefits, but it also painted a target on the back.

[ ] A Deal with a Devil: The founder supposedly had made a deal with a witch named Abigail Roth, trading her multiple lifespans of service upon their death. In exchange, the Lounge would never be empty. As long as it stands in some shape or form, it would attract congregants, no matter how lowly and meager, though this would not necessarily ensure that it would attract customers capable of sustaining the financial needs of its owners.

[ ] The Lounge of Tomorrow: The founder was apparently a graduate of Gotham University, a talented engineer, though perhaps an unambitious one: instead of using their talents to revolutionize technology, they had instead opted to merely use their abilities to produce a number of inventions intended to benefit the lounge: a walk in freezer, a personal coal fed electrical generator, automated doors, various attempts at music player machines, and even lighting. Of course, while these upgrades brought in interested customers, Gotham was crawling with dozens upon dozens who would gladly love to steal the technology for various nefarious ends.

(((())))

Welcome to Arkham Lounge, a historical bar simulator set generations before canon DC! Starting in the early 1900's, you will not only guide the journey of the lounge, but also be afforded with the ability to influence the very course of history, if indirectly. Please note this is set generations before Batman, so don't expect him to show up. Further, I'm gonna go ahead and disclaim that you will not be able to use the Lounge of Tomorrow to sell technology to the public. Lastly, this is DC and historical accuracy isn't really my goal here, so expect to see a few assorted anachronisms from time to time.

 

[The Bird]

Our tale begins with a stage magician. Josiah Arkham. An entertainer and entrepreneur, his desire for fame and recognition would lead to him selling his soul. The cousin to Amadeus Arkham, growing up the two of them had been thick as thieves, their shared interest in the occult leading to them as boys pooling their resources and expertise to acquire many an arcane and obscure code of knowledge.

As time had gone by, however, and in the face of hardship their paths had begun to diverge. Josiah's aunt, Elizabeth, would come down with a terrible disease of the mind, one that would force her young son to devote more and more time and energy to caring for her: her husband having died some years before. The energy that had once been spent on decrypting grimoires obtained in musty libraries, performing and attending seances performed by all manner of charlatan and parlor psychic alike, and more would give way to hours spent minding his dear mother: making sure she remained fed, making sure she remained bathed, making sure she remained healthy in body even as he desperately tried to soothe the poor womans night terrors.

Unable to pursue his original passion, the troubles endured by his mother would inspire Amadeus to pursue a study of the mind, putting his experience gained from acting as her caregiver to obtain a job at the New Bethlehem Asylum, located deep in slaughter swamp, where he would study both medicine and the diseases of the soul.

But Josiah's life wasn't without hardship. While his cousin and he had once been more akin to brothers, Josiah's side of the family had never been particularly wealthy. As time went on, he had been forced to find more and more creative means to eke out money in order to help his long suffering mother, unfortunately crippled father, and three younger siblings. Proving adept at sleight of hand, the young occultist would initially get his daily bread by thievery, pickpocketing and performing all manner of burglary, driven primarily by desperation, though gaining a reputation of criminality and seeing many a damp night in jail.

It was during the preparation for one of these burglaries, intended to be performed upon Alexander Herrman's Theater of Magic, that he would learn of his propensity for an altogether different form of sleight of hand. While casing the facility, none other than Alexander Herrman himself, one of the most famous entertainers in the young city that was Gotham, would notice the young mans talents, taking him on as an assistant and apprentice: the enormity of this couldn't be understated. Overnight, he had gone from just another ne'erdowell to the right hand student of one of the foremost illusionists of the era. The first bit of luck in his life, it was followed by some of the gravest: less than a month after he had taken his position, his mother took ill. Tuberculosis.

It had not taken her long to pass, and on one sunny june afternoon, Annalise Arkham was dead, having passed on to the great lounge in the sky. Taking a loan from his boss to pay for her burial expenses, Josiah laid her to rest in the Gotham Cemetery, where she rests to this day, having left behind her husband and children.

Such a sad story, but ultimately inevitable: sure, nobody likes the fact, but if it isn't one thing, it's always gonna be another. If she hadn't been gotten by the tuberculosis bacteria, it would have been old age. Still, I gotta admit, if life had been a bit kinder, she probably could have gotten a good another few decades, but so it goes.

Still, life would go on, until eventually Josiah would graduate from an apprentice entertainer to running entire shows by himself. Sure, he was still the B act, the guy they put on stage whenever the boss didn't have the time and any of the other acts weren't looking so hot, but he still found a tasty niche sandwiched between the Invisible Puppeteer and the talking Tiger act, where he drew on his own knowledge of the occult and experience with the shadier side of Gotham to spice up his performance. Recalling the lessons taken from inveterate conmen and skilled blackmailers learned during idle conversation in jail cells, he would perform 'seances' calling upon all manner of obscure devil while using the minute tells of his audience to fool them into believing he could see into their very hearts and souls, or else using the knowledge obtained from serial arsonists and those with knowledge of bomb-making to create distractions and pyrotechnics capable of distracting guests long enough to pilfer some item of theirs for a teleporting bauble trick.

Slowly, he would pick up steam, drawing more of an audience. With increased recognition came better billing. He wasn't gonna upstage the old man, but there wasn't anyone at the theater who could. What he brought to things was a darker, more sinister edge for those looking to be thrilled by a brief (feigned) gaze into the strange twilight abyss that was dark magic.

His journey to founding the lounge wouldn't begin until one sultry june night where, against the advice of his mentor, he would purchase the deed to an old, disrepaired steamboat casino. The St. Majeste. Repairing it, the Magician would open his own drinking lounge: a mobile, riverboat bar where guests could unwind with a nice whisky while serenaded by the handful of acts Arkham had managed to book and, occasionally, themselves. Legend would say that Josiah had made a deal, selling his soul to one of the infamous witches of Gotham folklore, Abigail Roth, the Slaughter Water Witch. In exchange, she would bless the St. Majeste: it would always serve as a nexus, drawing into its orbit some patrons.

It's here that our story begins.

((((()))))

Josiah Arkham leaned against the bar, the lounges resident bartender uncorking a bottle of whiskey, pouring it into a glass for their boss, the crystal, skull shaped mug sitting upon a dark ebony counter, made from the finest imitation of mahogany the boats owner could afford. Beneath their shoes were wooden tiles and woven, black dyed carpets. The light was dark, a mere handful of lamps on the wall providing the dimly lit room illumination, which when combined with the light haze of tobaco smoke gave the place a sinister, shadowy atmosphere, contrasted with the brightness of the stage, upon which was performing a singer, Violet Hall, crooning a mournful dirge. The night was October 29nd. His boat had been open for a few months, drawing a modest crowd. So far, only the main lounge had been restored: the gaming hall was still in disrepair, and they hadn't fully restored the cabins.

"I must admit, I'm surprised. This is remarkably tasteful," Came a voice, and Josiah turned, seeing a familiar face, the stage magicians own splitting into a grin. His cousin, sporting a short, stubbly beard and dark bags under his eyes, his hair scarcely groomed, was dressed in a simple faded suit.

"Ah, Amadeus!" Josiah cried, the slightly younger Arkham happy to see the man. "Finally come to visit, I see! I thought my invitation got lost in the mail."

The shorter man snorted, moving to sit next to Josiah, ordering a small glass of spirits. "If only. No, cousin, the only reason I haven't responded more promptly is because this is the first evening I've been able to spare myself in the past few months. Between work, my studies at Gotham, and caring for mother, I haven't had a day to myself in a dogs age."

Josiah made a tsking sound, tweaking his handlebar mustache, a pang of sympathy going through him. "Why don't you hire a caretaker? You have the money for it and then some," the poorer Arkham queried, causing Amadeus to grunt as he took a swig of alcohol, his body shuddering, not used to the substance or its flavor no doubt.

"Mother would never tolerate a keeper," He said, slamming his glass down, voice tired. "She would find herself insensate with fury when cognizant, and would no doubt be little more pleasant when in her fits. But please, enough of my mother: I came to visit your newest entrepreneurial venture." He wrinkled his nose a bit, giving a wry grin. "And yet, despite the tales of terrible witchcraft and rumors of how you sold your soul to the devil, it appears far less sensational in person."

"Unfortunately, witches demand a far higher price than what I can afford to pay them: I find myself having to resort to hiring less disreputable sorts instead," Josiah joked, grin faltering for a moment, almost imperceptibly, a ghost of a memory passing through his mind, recalling a night shortly after the opening of the Lounge. Recalling a young woman he had met in the darkness of night near the gotham docks. Recalling a contract he had signed. Underneath his leather gloves, the scars marring the back of his hand itched.

"So, how exactly has business been faring?" Amadeus asked, and Josiah's grin faltered entirely for a brief span.

"We're...muddling along," He admitted, finishing off the rest of his crystal skull. "So far, we've received enough clients to keep the lamps lit, at least. It's precarious, though: if we can make it to next summer, we'll likely draw in enough people looking to escape the heat to balance our budget and then some."

"I gather from the tone that that's an uncertain if," Amadeus noted, voice beginning to slur, not used to imbibing intoxicants.

"Unfortunately, the man who sold me this boat embellished it's quality on certain fronts," Josiah growled, grip tightening on his crystal skull. "Namely, the degree to which it's condition was satisfactory. Most of it is in no state in which I can show it to the public. The theater, the cabins, the card halls..."

Amadeus raised an eyebrow, remaining silent, causing Josiah to sigh. "There is, also, the fact that we've only managed to book a handful of entertainers. Mr. Hermann refuses to let me book any of his theaters troupe, and unfortunately everyone after that is of poorer quality."

"In fairness, you are rivals now in both craft and business, it would be rather naive to assume he'd lend you his stable of performers," Amadeus noted, and in response Josiah grunted, holding his crystal skull out to the bartender, who poured him another draught which the magician swigged down. "Though I do have a suggestion..."

Alright, we've came to our first junction. What does the psychiatrist to be suggest Josiah do to boost up patronage?

Every turn, you're gonna be presented with moments like this. Points where you'll be presented with some dilema or thought and tasked with coming up with a response: your choice will alter the fate of Gotham as a city, its inhabitants, or even just change the bars success: we call these Hotspots. Keep in mind, there are no wrong awnsers here. You might get to pick his suggestions, but you aren't playing as Amadeus, and he might be the guy in charge for now, but you aren't playing as Josiah either. No my friend, you're playing as that fickle force known as fate: don't be afraid to lead people down the wrong path, don't be afraid to make bad decisions, and remember that your first and only duty is keeping the bar open. Everything after that is ancillary.

Hotspot Options

[ ] Why not take a loan?: A cash injection might be what the Lounge needs: Josiah would be able to repair enough of the riversteamer to open a second attraction for the Lounge, improve the size of his staff, hire better entertainers. Plus, it would give the Lounge an immediate cash reserve they could use for other improvements.

[ ] Why not put out an ad?: Never underestimate the power of getting your name out there. Josiah was pretty damn popular even if he wasn't pulling the same numbers as his mentor. Spending some of the remaining capital on getting the Gotham Paper to put out an add for the great and mysterious Professor Arkhams new exclusive shows should draw in crowds.

[ ] Why not make a deal with Hermann?: If amends could be made and a deal struck, convincing Alexander Hermann to let his wayward student feature his troupe as entertainers in his bar would help draw people in. Of course, it would require Josiah swallow his pride and admit to his mentor he had made a mistake opening his own venture.

Of course, our friend Josiah isn't gonna remain idle when not following this advice. He's gonna work on his act, he's gonna work on the Lounge, and he's gonna get into trouble. Beyond the hotspot options, you'll also determine how exactly the Arkham Lounge is going to be ran. Remember, profit is a secondary factor: this isn't a game of win or lose, it's a game of affecting the world around you.

First, let's have a list of acts, facilities, and staff the place has:

Josiah Arkham: The owner circa Aug. 1900 - . A stage magician trained in burglary among other arts. Has sold his soul to Abigail Roth, who he encountered in a dingy bar while drunk, in exchange for his Bar having an assured stream of clientele, though not neccesarily enough to make ends meet.

Violet Hall: A singer Josiah had located while looking for entertainers: they had agreed to work using their voice, their pay a few dollars every day they worked.

Stout Beers: Stout Breweries were one of the lesser sources of alcohol in this town in terms of quality, but they were cheap, meaning that they served as the source of much of the alcohol served.

St. Majeste: An old riversteamer where the Arkham Lounge was located, it was a barely floating wreck that required significant repairs. So far, the only functional parts was the engine, the wheel, and the actual lounge itself.

Not a lot. A lot of great ventures start small. The good news is, you're sporting a blessing: you'll always attract at least some clientele. Problem is, this blessing isn't the kind that'll make your job a cakewalk: you still have to make sure you stay financially solvent. It isn't enough to put butts in chairs, you need to make enough revenue from each customer to keep the lights on.

First, let's go over your act. Our friend Josiah over here is a magician, a verifiable illusionist. Currently, that act is the only real draw you have: let's not kid ourselves, the booze isn't all that great. So long as he's the only entertainment, time that would otherwise be spent managing the bar has to be spent working on his own shows. Every turn that Josiah is in charge, you'll be asked two things: first, you'll want an actual act. Now, you don't have to get complex here: I just want a few sentences, something that would be suitably entertaining to write about and is theoretically within your ability to pull off: to be clear, I do not want nor need a wall of text or engineering dissertation and if your write in goes longer than a paragraph I'm probably going to skip it for the next one. The more interesting a trick, the more prestige you'll pull in. For now, try to come up with a few fun magic tricks or performances you'd love to see pulled off in person.

Beyond that, he'll also be tasked with working on improving your act. This one is a little less freeform: basically, since this is the tutorial, he has one AP to be spent working on his material, but as time goes on and you gain more reputation, resources, and prestige, he'll gain more, most likely. He can work on props to let him pull off bigger performances, he can practice his act to help nail it on the first try, he can try to learn a new skill you think would be handy.

Just remember you don't have infinite money: you need to try and keep things under budget. If the act you select for him fails to bring in more money than it costs, you'll find yourself running into the red pretty quickly. Speaking of, the Lounges current financial situation is ORANGE.

[ ] Alright champs, gimme a good write in for an act.

Josiah has one Performance AP!

[ ] Practice an Act: As a wise man will one day say, I don't fear the man who has learned a thousand kicks, but I do fear the man who has mastered one.

-[ ] Normally there'd be a write in here detailing your acts, but since we're on turn one, it'll just be whatever act you pick this turn.

[ ] Design a Prop: The audiences loved novelty, but unfortunately, novelty required a lot of time working with carpentry tools.

-[ ] Insert concept here. Keep in mind that Josiah, while a skilled magician, has no engineering skills.

[ ] Educate Thyself: Sometimes we need more mental tools at our disposal than what our surroundings and current experiences can provide.

-[ ] Insert thing you want to learn here. Note it has to be related to performance in some way, and learning more narrow or simple fields and skills is generally going to be quicker. For instance, instead of studying engineering, if you wanted to start including steam engines in your props, you might choose to study steam engine design.

[ ] Train Violet: Josiah would have to give her a cut of the nights revenue most likely, cutting into how much an act was likely to make, but training Violet in the arts of stage magic and employing her as an assistant would allow the magician to pull off somewhat more impressive illusions.

[ ] Write In.

Of course, he'll also be managing the bar. Hiring and training staff, renovating more of the St. Majeste, booking new talent, scouting out new booze. Turns, for the record, have no set length: they last as long as it would take to accomplish whatever goals you set out to perform would take. Months, weeks, years. Keep that in mind when embarking on particularly ambitious ideas. For the purpose of the tutorial, all the AP remaining AP is going to be allocated to business management actions: as time goes on and the priorities of Josiah changes, so will how his AP is allowed to be used on a turn to turn basis. For instance, next turn one of his 4 AP are going to be allocated to personal actions.

You have three action points.

[ ] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.

-[ ] What kind of entertainment are you looking for? If you can think of a specific place to scout you can use it instead, but considering its turn 1 I don't imagine you'll have many ideas.



[ ] 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.

-[ ] What kind of staff are you looking for?



[ ] Diversify Spirits: Stout produced low quality, but cheap beers. They were in your budget, but unless you diversified, the drinks would likely never be a major draw.

-[ ] What kind of alcohol are you looking for? Just a few words is fine: 'expensive wines', 'inexpensive whiskeys', 'swamp bought moonshine'.



[ ] Renovate the St. Majeste: Only part of the St. Majest was open to the public: the ship was still seaworthy inasmuch as any vessel of its class might be, but the prior owners had apparently been less than gentle with the vessels insides, meaning most of it required repair.

-[ ] Like prior options, what are you repairing? I'm not gonna list every possible space on the ship, especially since they'll probably be used for something different: instead, just specify a potential location that could conceivably exist on the ship and what you want to use it for. A gambling hall, another drink lounge, theaters, cabins people can pay to sleep in, etc.



[ ] Write In.



((((()))))

Alright, turn 1! There are more mechanics that I'll unveil during the tutorial, but overall this quest is going to be, much like FerretQuest, largely narrative. Again, while you control Josiah, remember that your only priority is keeping the lounge open and well running: his well being is an afterthought, and don't be afraid to make bad decisions on his behalf or make his life worse.

Edit: two hour moratorium

 

[The Bird]

[X]Plan: Birds and Bacon
-[X] Why not put out an ad?
-[X] Taming of the Fowl: Training doves and pigeons to act as "assistants" landing on shoulders, picking cards, appearing from a hat, flying in a pattern, etc.
-[X] Practice an Act
--[X] Taming of the Fowl
-[X] Renovate the St. Majesté
--[X] Kitchen
-[X] Diversify Spirits
--[X] Herbal tinctures and a small amount of exotic ones. Maybe a bottle of absinthe to show off.
-[X] Scout New Talent
--[X] A cook capable of doing simple, cheap dishes people will eat alongside their drinks (garlic toast, sausages, scrambled eggs, maybe something fried)

!!GOTHAM!!

Food! Fright! Spirits and Sustenance alike upon the St. Majeste! Current home of the mad, the marvelous, and the mysterious PROFESSOR ARKHAM and his MAGIC BIRDS, in a display that critics have referred to as 'uncanny', 'stupifying', and 'impossible'! Watch the Dissappearing Pidgeon Act! Listen as the caged dove sings the secrets of the audience! Be amazed, be amused, and be surprised, all while enjoying exotic tintures created by expert chemists and meals at affordable price! All while enjoying the scenic Gotham River!

Every evening at Pier 15! Don't miss on visiting one of the finest establishments in Gotham!

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

Our friend Josiah, he decided to start putting his name in the paper, and start incorporating birds into his act. Now, this was the early days of regulation: Theodore Roosevelt had not yet been president, Upton Sinclair had not wrote the Jungle, and people didn't really care about things like truth in advertising and food sanitation, not to the degree that would make the things he had prepared to do against the law.

Now, Josiah wasn't afraid to risk the wellbeing of his customers, dear reader, but he wasn't an amateur or an idiot. Prior to his first Bird Act, he actually spent a good deal of time preparing. He had to find the creatures first: pigeons were easy, doves, especially white doves in the numbers he needed, were harder, crows were out of the question. Once he had them, he began working on training them.

He had a handful of acts. Each of them called for a degree of coordination, timing, obedience, and skill that you wouldn't get from a normal, untrained member of Columba Livia. Here, reader, we must digress to a discussion about said species, known as the rock dove, or, as you or I might call them, the Pigeon. Now, pretty much every city has these birds, and Gotham is no exception even if the carnivorous bat population helps keep them in check, but did you ever wonder where they came from? You see, dear reader, those 'rats with wings' you've learned to hate were once a domestic species: introduced to the Americas by pet owners who found that their fancy birds weren't what they wanted, forced to survive in the harsh and unforgiving urban wasteland that is America, where they would eventually form what today we recognize as the common feral pigeon, an ignoble fate for a bird of its stature. They went from the pampered pet of pigeon fanciers to an invasive species that eats out of your garbage and shits on your car. Back in the day, these birds had all sorts of uses, but the one most salient to this story is the fact that pigeons were smart enough to be used not just as fancy status signifiers, but for practical purposes as well.

You see, the pigeon despite its wall-eyed, slightly concussed look has the ability to find its way home no matter how far away it was taken. This, combined with the ease of breeding and training the bird, made them extremely useful messengers: you'd ship a pigeon to the person you were chatting with, and they'd tie some paper to the birds leg. They'd release the bird, letting it ferry the message back. Sure, it took some logistics to pull off, and would eventually find itself obsoleted with the invention of the telegraph, but I feel this serves as a good example of the intelligence of the animals our manager had decided to work with.

Josiah spent weeks working with the birds, using his own private cabin on the St. Majeste to house them. In the end, he couldn't get everything before it was time to pull off his act, but time he had spent practicing had paid off. Firstly, the birds wouldn't be going around, shitting in the customers food during acts. Sure, feathers would fly and fall, but customers wouldn't be getting any nasty surprises by the standards of the era when they ate.

What was the second thing he managed to master? Keep in mind, these are smarter birds than average, but they're still birds that you've only spent one action training.

[ ] Obedience: Josiah trained them, had em perform all kinds of tricks on command. They didn't exactly have a long memory, so they couldn't do anything complex, but that was okay: getting a dozen birds to do dozens upon dozens of tricks was impressive in its own right.

[ ][BIRDS] Coordination: Josiah trained em, had em perform all kinds of routine. He used birdseed and hypnosis to get them to do all kinds of elaborate displays, the kinds of stuff that would require the sort of coordination you couldn't achieve with an un-trained bird.

[ ][BIRDS] Cleverness: Who said a bird couldn't be smart? Josiah trained em, gave em all sorts of brain teasers and puzzles. He hadn't been an ornithologist, but the man knew that the best way to increase intelligence was by solving problems, and smarter birds meant they were more likely to learn tricks without his input, and better able to absorb basic lessons.

[ ][BIRDS] Write In. If you have a particular trait you wish to train, quality you wish to cultivate, etc, feel free to try it, though note anything advanced is gonna require more ornithology equipment than you got.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

Of course, while Josiah worked with his birds, he also decided to branch out. Next to the lounge, he'd renovate a space to use as a ship kitchen. A wood burning stove, a sink for cleaning dishes, an oven, and a pantry. No fridge yet: unfortunately, at the time electrical refrigeration wasn't commonly available, especially if you were working on a boat. Thankfully, this was the era before the FDA or health inspectors, and though Teddy Roosevelt and the Poison Party were just around the corner, no one really cared if their meat was kept preserved through poison or stored and served improperly, and if his customers didn't care, neither did Josiah, not immediately at least.

The idea behind the kitchen was to provide guests something a little extra to go with their drinks and the show. Sure, the concept of food with your alcohol went back further, and the idea of entertainment while being fed was likewise older than the stage magician, but Josiah's idea, best as I can put together, was that the Lounge was the only place where you could have it all. Sure, the food wasn't as good as some of the places in the Heights, but it was cheaper, and came with booze and a show. And sure, the booze was mostly Stout and some exotic, expensive brews created by the Lounges chemist, but it came with cheap food and a show. And sure, the shows might have just been the Lounges singer and its owner, but…

You gather my point. Now, the thing about having a kitchen is, you need somebody to work it.

Before we continue, dear reader, we need to make another small digression. I can't promise it'll be the last, but we can't continue this story without addressing the proverbial elephant in the room when it comes to tales set before the civil rights movement (or at least shouldn't): dear reader, I'm talking about race.

I know, an ugly subject. Most likely, a few of you are tuning out already, some for valid reasons and others no doubt for less valid reasons. No shame towards either group, we all have our tastes and preferences. But it would be fundamentally dishonest of this story to gloss over the fact that throughout much of American history it has been less than kind to people who aren't white, to put it very mildly. Segregation, jim crow, the Klan: by ignoring these things and leaving them unaddressed, we leave the door open for history to be revised, sanitized, and propagandized, and you don't learn anything worth learning about history when you revise it to be more palatable or sand off the edges. And you know what they say about those who don't learn history, dear reader.

Which brings us to Gotham's history. Gotham, located a bit north of Washington DC, had prior to the civil war been a hotbed of slavery: the city itself founded by slave traders who helped furnish men like Cyrus Gold and Burton Crowne with the labour required to make their fortunes. Sure, when Abe was elected and the nation split, they fell on the side of the Union, but that was mostly simple geography, a quirk of Gotham being more firmly in the territory of the north and the unusual pragmatism of the First Families in deciding to not fight a battle they couldn't win. But just because they banned slavery on paper didn't mean they were willing to let non-whites be treated as equals once the war was over.

Much like much of 20th century america, Gotham was rife with discrimination. Now, Josiah in many ways was better than most of his peers: unlike his father or grandfather, each of them notoriously racist members of the Arkham clan, he had no real prejudice: a side effect of his mentors influence and his mothers upbringing. Black and white were irrelevent to our friend Josiah, what mattered to Professor Arkham was green.

It was why he was willing to hire the Lounges first cook, Mark Jacobs, an impoverished african american gentleman, nineteen years of age. A resident of the east end, not a lot about the man was in the history books. At the time he had been hired, he apparently lived in his uncles attic. His parents were out of the picture: historians quibble over the reason, but the most common theory is that they died in one of Gothams many floods. They didn't have any seawalls back then, no levys or floodbreaks: every few years, several parts of the city would find themselves drowned under several feet of water. Not everybody made it.

Of course, while Josiah was better than his peers of the era when it comes to discrimination, as an employer he was very much a man of the times. He was above racism (for the most part), but he wasn't above exploiting his workers, not when he thought he could get away with it.

I'll leave this question to you, dear reader: how exactly did Josiah exploit Mark Jacobs?

[ ][JERK] Exhaustive Hours: Josiah was willing to pay a living wage, but what qualifies as a living wage is something an an unscrupulous employer can define a number of ways. Mark Jacobs was paid enough to pay his uncle rent and still have a little left over to stockpile and accrue, his own small source of capital: but only by working himself so ragged that some nights, he'd only get six hours of sleep, very rarely less. The cook would likely accrue quite the savings for retirement if he didn't work himself to death before then.

[ ][JERK] Wage Theft: Josiah was willing to pay a living wage, but of course he'd skim a little off the top more than is legally advisable. He didn't take the entirety of the tip jar, but Mark Jacobs would end each night to find it a little lighter than it should be, and on occasion his employer would 'forget' to pay the cook his wage. Still, Mark Jacobs made enough to afford rent and had good enough hours he was able to do various odd jobs whenever he needed more.

[ ][JERK] Write In. Just keep in mind that while he's not a saint, our man Josiah isn't a monster either. Unethical, scuzzy perhaps, but he isn't evil.

He had the act, he had the food, the only thing Josiah had left was the drinks. Now, most of what Josiah had on offer was a brand known as Stout, named for the brewery, Habeus Stout Beers. They were cheap and local: ever bar in Gotham stocked some of the ironically named Stout Beers. Of course, you get what you pay for: stout was drinkable, but it wasn't good. It was the stuff you buy when you wanna get hammered but can't afford it. So obviously Josiah needed something higher quality if he wanted his bar to maintain a classy atmosphere.

Once more, dear reader, I note that we are in an era before such pesky things as regulation. So when our man Josiah went looking for booze, he didn't go looking for anything conventional like whiskey, wine, or beer. No, he went looking for something a little more homemade.

This was the era of snake oil, of amateur chemists and do-it-yourself pharmacists shoving whatever drugs they could into a bottle. A lot of it started with that most grand of edifices, the american railroad network. To help build it, America brought in chinese labourers from overseas. And with chinese immigrants and workers came chinese culture and, most saliently to our story, chinese medicine, which included ingredients such as oil made from water snakes, used for things like arthritis and joint pain: y'know, the sort of aches and pains as one might get from heavy labour.

Now, before I continue this exploration of history, dear reader, allow me to pause and note that despite the historical connotations of snake oil and 'traditional medicine', some of these remedies did in fact work, because while most hadn't been chemists, the chinese weren't idiots. They didn't need to know the oil they were making and prescribing had more omega-3 fatty acids than a whole damn salmon to know that people who consumed it were healthier and had less joint pain. Of course, for the same reason the greedy western medicine-quacks didn't need to know that either to know they had a money maker. Here's an interesting historical tid-bit, dear reader: contrary to what fiction may have told you, the typically decried snake oil con of the era wasn't selling some piece of nonsense as a valid piece of medicine, no, it was selling bottles of stuff that had no actual snake oil.

Of course, this reputation was only one in hindsight, and for every fraudster, you had a much more genuine kind of quack, the kind who really believes their non-sense brews and misunderstood folk-remedies actually worked. Man doesn't like to be a liar: a lot of these people really did think the various bottles they sold contained medical elixirs, they just exaggerated it's effects to help land a sale. Same principle as a lot of nonsense surrounding nutritional supplements, really. And like the nutritional supplements of today, a lot of these brews did have properties that might be in the correct context useful, mixed with a bunch of stuff we'd probably consider poison, illegal narcotics, or, more generously, hokem. Cocaine, alcohol, cough drop formula, cloroform, sedatives and accelerants like you couldn't believe.

See, much like the chinese labourers, these people weren't stupid: they were just reckless and money hungry. Once they had figured out their miracle cure, they'd hock it like it were jesus hands in a bottle, but first they needed to get to the point where they were confident enough it would sell. So the true believers, they studied which drugs would have what effects, what poisons could pass for cures, how much nonsense you could put down someones throats before it had an effect, and once they had their canned miracle, they'd sell it for everything they can convince some desperate schmuck it was worth, pocketing the money while assuaging themselves for the guilt by telling their conscience that they were doing good in the world by providing medicine.

Again, these people weren't stupid: they knew what they were doing when they marketed their cocktails as miracle cures for the desperate, and if they weren't aware of the ethical ramifications for handing off addictive drugs or straight up poison to the desperate sick who thought they might be purchasing the next best thing to jesus in a bottle, they weren't paying enough attention.


Our friend Josiah had been looking for somebody willing to use their talents for chemistry to create fancy elixirs and tinctures his guests could drink, and it was into this community he delved to find a chemist worthy of the job. Thing is, while he had just been looking for someone who could make a drink that wouldn't kill his customers and had a good enough pitch he could sell his customers to convince they were drinking a genuine mystics brew, but Josiah had been born too early to know this wasn't a half bad idea. 7 Up, Dr Pepper, and good old Coca Cola: one mans failed drug, it turned one mans failed medication was another mans beverage.

Who exactly did Josiah find to supply him with alcohol?

[ ][SNAKE OIL] The Zheng Family: He had found them in Gothams Chinatown. Pa Zheng was a pharmacist, one who specialized in traditional medicines. His son, young Liao Zheng, was studying at Gotham University as a pharmacist as well, one more versed in modern chemistry. The young man was willing to use his knowledge of chemical processes and some of the knowledge passed down from his father on various herbs to brew all manner of beverage for the Lounge, such as licorice flavored beer: all he wanted was enough money to continue to afford his studies.

[ ][SNAKE OIL] Barnabus Frinkle: Man down from Metropolis, Frinkle considered himself a genuine chemist, one whose actual speciality lie in adhesives and synthetic tallows for candles. He was also a man smart enough to know that chemistry cost money. His drinks hadn't been particularly interesting on their own: just some absinthe, beer, and moonshine. What Frinkle may have lacked in exiting drinks, he made up for with various syrups: concentrated extracts mixed with sugar and small amounts of water, distilled in his laboratory, as well as various waxy candies made from laboratory byproduct.

[ ][SNAKE OIL] Zelda Crane: A young woman who had successfully obtained a degree at Gotham University, only to find no place in the world of serious pharmacology for a woman of her talents, not in Gotham. What she promised Josiah was a collection of drinks utilizing mild but expertly crafted neurotoxins just as potent as the strongest of absinthes or most gargleblasting of whiskeys, but with mild, pleasing flavors. All she required in turn was that Josiah help fund her research and do her a handful of favors.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

Alright, dear reader, we have begun the first turn. You've sent out the actions, and now you have to either deal with the fallout, make a final decision in regards to those actions, or decide what you're going to focus on. Remember, you don't need to make good decisions: just interesting ones. If you have a write in you feel would be more interesting, feel free to post it: just keep in mind the QM isn't going to entertain every idea, and anything that isn't sufficiently interesting or thought provoking to warrant the effort isn't gonna be considered.

Oh, and two hours moratorium.

 

[The Bird]

[X][BIRDS] Coordination: Josiah trained em, had em perform all kinds of routine. He used birdseed and hypnosis to get them to do all kinds of elaborate displays, the kinds of stuff that would require the sort of coordination you couldn't achieve with an un-trained bird

[X][JERK] Write In: Diva Boss: Joshua was a man of great talent, an artiste whose name would once be heard across the city, and he wanted his orders to be respected now, and to the very letter. Often forgetful and eccentric, he would send Mark Jacobs to pull up herbs from a specific patch of riverbank for the bird feed mixes, and yelled at him in stress whenever anything went slightly wrong whether it was connected to the cook or not. This was undeniably stressful for Mr Jacobs, although at least the pay and work hours were good.

[X][SNAKE OIL] Zelda Crane: A young woman who had successfully obtained a degree at Gotham University, only to find no place in the world of serious pharmacology for a woman of her talents, not in Gotham. What she promised Josiah was a collection of drinks utilizing mild but expertly crafted neurotoxins just as potent as the strongest of absinthes or most gargleblasting of whiskeys, but with mild, pleasing flavors. All she required in turn was that Josiah help fund her research and do her a handful of favors.

The Gotham Tribune, Sept 25, 1900
A Review of the St. Majeste by Benjamin St. Cloud​

Dear reader, I find myself nursing the most terrible of hangovers. None the less I find myself having enjoyed myself considerably: the eclectic mixture of drinks possessed by the St. Majeste vary in quality, but one can't deny they pack a punch. Last night, I found myself sipping on a rich, nutty brandy apparently created from exotic mushrooms and shots of a soursweet drink created using south american rainbow dart frog oil. I consider myself an inveterate drinker, but the witches brews on offer are just as strong as the bartender warns. The drinks are paired with food that is affordable, though unexceptional. If one is purchasing a ticket, we advise the evening show: while the singing voice of Miss Violet isn't terrible, the real highlight of the boat and it's Arkham Lounge is its proprietor, Professor Arkham, with his Taming of the Fowl act in which he calls upon sinister forces to conjure flocks of doves and pigeons: a genuinely interesting performance, though one that fails up to the Professors predecessor at gothams resident Theater of Magic. Still, this drinker is nonetheless looking forward to seeing the Professors next act.​

~~~GOTHAM~~~​

"Was it to your satisfaction?" came the voice of the young womans voice, and Josiah put the vial down, recorking it. The stage magician gave a sniff as he appraised the chemist. Zelda Crane.

The pair were currently in the boudoir of the womans manor, a small table between them, the chemist reclining in a lounging chair while Josiah sat in a tall-backed leather guest seat. The dusty lamplit house existed at the very border of Gotham, at the edge of slaughter swamp.

The woman had been one of a handful who had come up in his search for chemists willing to take commissions. Oh, for sure there had been others, but anyone liable to kill his audience was right out: he was willing to gamble with their health a bit to keep himself above water, but he didn't intend to become a cautionary tale.

Zelda Crane was a woman of 27 years of age. Her freckled, dark shadowed face was framed with a pair of thick horn rimmed spectacles hiding a pair of striking green eyes that might have been pretty were it not for the dark circles underneath them. her bright red hair, speaking of irish descent, was tied into a tightly wrapped bun. The pharmacologist was currently garbed in a drab chemists coat, buttoned up the side, dyed grey: Josiah vaguely wondered why, as as far as he was aware she hadn't been in her lab when he had arrived. Her figure was slim, small: a head shorter than Josiah.

"The drinks proved…satisfactory," Josiah noted, watching as Crane's mouth widened into a too white smile. "A few people are reporting having rumbly stomachs, but according to the papers, your blends are a draw enough that we should be able to make it through winter, if barely," He grumbled.

"And in the process financing my own research," Zelda purred. "Assuming that you intend to uphold your end of the bargain?" She asked, a threatening lilt entering the edge of her voice, causing Josiah to scoff.

"You'll get your payment, miss Crane," He said, voice offended, though the magician noted that if he could get away with not paying her, he would: however, he was smart enough to recognize it was probably a terrible idea to put the screws to your business partner if you intended to keep working with them. "When can I expect my next order?"

"A week. Creating these aren't an easy process, not with my current equipment. I can create them fast or I can make them safe, but attempting to do both is liable to end poorly, Mr. Arkham."

Not ideal, then, Arkham mused. The drinks were fantastic: but they were expensive and worse, in short demand. The downside of employing a single woman rather than a brewery, he supposed. He had a product you couldn't get anywhere else, one that Miss Crane had promised wouldn't ever be replicated, and now he couldn't get enough onto the shelves.

Still, he was- mostly- satisfied, though he'd likely need to keep working on the establishments supply of booze. Reaching into his coat pocket, the magician pulled out an envelope, sliding it across. "Your payment," He said, and the pharmacologist would snatch the envelope up, tearing it open to count the bills, muttering.

"Oh ye of little faith," Josiah muttered, regardless waiting for her to count the sum. He had learned in his years of show business that one had to accept various 'eccentricities' (really just rudeness packaged in a nicer box) from other performers. The cost of doing business wasn't just a monetary matter: one also paid in patience.

"Very well, it looks like you're paid in fulL, Mister Arkham," The woman muttered as she filled the envelope back up and set it to the side, before standing up. "Well, I then presume our business is finished: will you be staying the evening or will you be leaving?" She asked, voice taking on an air of blunt satisfaction.

Josiah stood up, "Unfortunately, while your evening has only just begun, my own is yet to begin," He grumbled miserably as thoughts of spending another night alone hunched over his desk perusing financials.

"Ah, retiring to your boat, I presume," Zelda said, raising an eyebrow.

"If only," Josiah retorted morosely. "No, I'm returning to my hov-home in the east end: you may see fancy tricks and money and assume that that is all there is to me, but the unfortunate reality is that for every five minutes you see of me on the stage, I spend five hours working on my act," he said, applying a bit of hyperbole. But only a bit: between planning, practicing, designing props, training extras as might be needed, to say nothing of the accounting and management running any sort of venture required. It had been almost too much time since Josiah had even been afford the time to enjoy the drinks of his own establishment.

"Ah. Well, I can't rightly say I've any familiarity with the life of a stage magician, so I'll not pretend sympathy and merely take your word for it," Miss Crane said with a tut in a tone , before standing. "Well then, shall you require any oil for your boat lantern?" She asked.

"Mmm, I should have enough, though your kindness is appreciated," Professor Arkham responded, the pair of them going through the motions of a polite farewell, concluding their business for the evening as they walked to the manors door, Zelda Crane giving him enough time to light his own hand lantern before opening the door to the swamp, currently entirely dark except for the light of the crescent moon above and the glow of the firebugs, the sounds of crickets a chirping, frogs a croaking, and bobcats a yowling echoing. "Good evening, Miss Crane, and have a safe night," He said, slipping his hat on.

"Good evening, Mister Arkham, and have a safe night," Zelda responded.

(((())))

The journal of Mark Jacobs, September 24th, 1900.

Dear Diary, today I was forced to clean pigeon poop. Some of the birds managed to get inside the kitchen, wherapon they attempted to eat a plate of bacon and proceeded to get sick. Their white, splattery droppings were everywhere, and Josiah informed me that due to his own poor constitution, and the bartenders allergy to birds, I was the only member of staff available to clean it. The only good news is that they avoided the kitchen, which remains pristine.

That was the start of my day. From there, I spent as is custom my first few hours doing a variety of maintenance tasks such as mopping the restrooms and disposing of their contents, helping the bartender clean the lounge floor before opening, helping Josiah move whatever large object he was working with at the time, and cleaning more pigeon poop. In exchange for this assistance he gave me a tip of two dollars.

After that, Miss Hall arrived, and we officially opened the lounge: Josiah put up his birds until the evening, and I fired up the stove. The work was nice until one of the customers got the wrong order of bacon: Mister Arkham yelled at me for, according to the clock he put in the room he's put his office into, seven minutes.

'Our patrons expect PERFECTION, Mr. Jacobs, so that is what I pay you for! I don't pay you so much to give the customer the wrong bacon!'

I apologized to him and told him it wouldn't happen again. I can't afford to lose this job. The thought leaves me with chills: I would have nothing to pay Uncle Absalom rent with beyond my savings, and while auntie would help me as best she could, it would surely cause friction between the two when I ran out. Beyond that, I will admit that while I find my dreams troubled by spectral managers bellowing wrath, I have also become accustomed to having spending money, and though my clothes may not be silk, they are still of a much higher quality than many of my neighbors, to say nothing of my growing collection of books.

Thankfully, this mollified him: unless something changes drastically my employment status will not. Once he was finished, I returned to work, where things remained without issue, though at one point we ran out of eggs. Around five O'clock, we made port again and I closed the kitchen to prepare for evening. Josiah had me buy birdseed from a specific merchant at gotham market, alongside several other items and more eggs: he told me to tell any vendors that wouldn't sell because of my races that the purchases were at the behest of the St. Majeste, allowing me to purchase a few items for myself, such as a nice bottle of wine and a chess-set under the guise of it being for Josiah: they might not be willing to sell to a negro, but that is different from selling to the errand boy of the famous Professor Arkham. The former item I will save for Christmas dinner to surprise my auntie and cousins with, while the latter parcel will make an excellent gift for Uncle Absalom. Further, I was afforded enough time to do this that I was able to sneak myself a meal of my own, a sandwich I bought while passing through the docks.

When I got back and opened the kitchen again, the vessel sat out and began it's evening show. Like most mondays since my employment, it was Professor Arkham instead of Miss Hall performing. Thankfully, I wasn't forced to act as an assistant: the Professor insists that only trained stage-hands are allowed up during show time. Thanks to the window the kitchen has to the lounge, I was able to watch most of the performance, even if the angle is bad. The professor has trained those birds pretty well: they can do loop-de-loops, strange little dances in the air, and the professor even managed to get them to somehow appear BEHIND the audience. The best trick though was when he managed to make it look like they were flying backwards: if I didn't know it was just a bunch of shadows and hidden mirrors I'd probably be half convinced the Professor really had learned to call on devils to ensorcel the birds. Of course, it's harder to believe a bunch of bunk about how the power of Camio, Beelzebub, and Trigon gave him the ability to speak bird when you've helped them practice the trick in the first place.

All that stuff is just nonsense, anyhow: as spooky as the Lounge can be at night once the customers have all disembarked, it's just a normal boat.

…Gotham…​

Josiah Arkham gave a bow, dramatically snapping shut the stage-prop that served as his grimoire, as, in singular synchronization, every single pigeon that was still hidden in the room rose, flying, returning behind the stage once more and flying into the rafters. "And thus, we conclude our presentation, as my wonderful assistant has informed me that we're out of time. And so, my audience, Professor Arkham must place his dark book back on its shelf, and bid you adieu," He said, voice booming throughout the room, hearing a wave of applause as the stages curtains extended, obscuring his view of the audience, and allowing him to relax. Stretching, rotating his neck to get the kinks out of it, the stage magician walked his way to the dressing rooms that stood just off set, entrance obscured by the wall. Grabbing the brass handle, the Magician stepped within, walking down the small flight of steps into the slightly lower room, grabbing the baldcap on his head and ripping it off to reveal his thick black mess of hair, his brow currently lined with sweat. Pulling off his gloves, he tossed them onto the dresser that sat before the large mirror in the room, grabbing a sweat rag off it and using it to dry his face, the stage performer walking to one of the chairs in the room and plopping into it.

He would only have a short time before he would have to go put up his birds for the night. He'd have Jacobs help: the cook could handle cleaning up the, er, effluvia. Still, the Magician mourned, he'd be lucky if he got to finally go to bed near midnight. His hands began moving, shuffling under his shirt as he began loosening the hidden girdle he wore to help appear thin: he was already naturally slim, but his stage persona was even more so, a wirey, rail thin oddity. Plucking the onyx spectacles from his face and setting them down, Josiah was glad to be rid of them: striking as they were, they were also completely useless for seeing, being pitch black.

"Well, I must say, that was QUITE a show," Came a raspy voice, familiar but unplaceable to the stage magician, and they turned, spotting at the doorway a young woman he recognized vaguely, though from where he couldn't place. Her skin was pale: slightly discolored to be an almost corpselike pallid grey, and her garb consisted of a simple black plaid dress, buttoned up the front, that was poorly fitted, a half size too large. Her face was affixed into an uncanny, perplexed smile, the one Josiah might give someone whose offended him moments before he realized he had been insulted, frozen into a perpetual dazed grin. Her flat black hair was combed, stretching down her back, bangs obscuring her face and one of her eyes, leaving Josiah only able to see the other, which was blue and, he noted uncomfortably, very unblinking.

"Ah, miss, you aren't supposed to be here," He said, coughing. "This location is, er, for the staff. Not for customers."

"Ah, but you and I have business Josiah Arkham," The woman replied wryly, and Josiah felt a small chill, noting that he didn't advertise his full name. It wasn't secret, per se: just not part of the personae he adopted on stage. The fact she knew it meant she likely wasn't a customer.

"Ah," He swallowed, dryly, feeling a tingle down the back of his neck. "Y-you have me at a bit of a disadvantage then, Miss…?" He asked, attempting to fish for information, attempting to place the face. On his left hand, his scar throbbed.

"You don't remember me? What a shame. Then no doubt you've forgotten our deal: allow me to remind you, good sir," The woman rasped, raising a hand to the bannister and descending, the stairs beneath creaking, one, two, three. "A few months ago, you and I shared a draught of black lamb under a blood moon near the docks. You made me a promise, Josiah. The soul of a great magician in exchange for blessing the bar that shares your name," She slowly drawled, and a moment later, memories flooded Josiah. Memories of a night spent under the red gotham moon. Memories of a young woman dressed in black. Memories of signing a book.

"You-" He choked, feeling an invisible pressure close on his windpipe, the strange power lifting him into the air. Desperately, the man clawed at his throat, half expecting to encounter some invisible force, only to drive the air from his lungs further when he scraped his bare neck with his fingernails.

A moment later, the force receded, allowing Josiah to fall, the chair he had been sitting in breaking under the weight of impact, sending the gasping man sprawling to the floor with a yelp. "Now, before I had been willing to play fair," Abigail Roth said, voice near monotone. "After all, patience is the best quality for any practitioner to have. But then I saw your show: a soul blessed by trigon? I'm afraid I simply must collect you: even if its an ability as meager as speaking to birds, the sheer value your soul holds…" She licked her lips as she continued to step forward.

Josiah scrambled, attempting to crawl away. "I'm not- That's-" He gasped, heartbeat pounding in his ears as everything went fuzzy from adrenaline. He was lifted once more in the air by that strange phantasmal force before being slammed against the wall, sending the breath from his lungs.

"Shhh," Abigail whispered, before giggling. "It's best if you don't fight this: quicker that way. Less…messy." Josiah moved forward a few feet before slamming back into the wall, the pressure returning to his throat. "It is a shame: I was almost curious to see what you'd make of your little den of iniquity. But I'd be a fool to pass up a soul touched by an elder evil. It's almost a shame you were lax enough to reveal your abilities before you had the ability to properly prepare your demense," The Roth Witch said.

"N-not…real…magic" He wheezed out as he felt the hands on his neck tighten…before it lightened every so slightly.

"What," Abigail Roth said, voice totally flat.

"Stage..magic," He attempted to choke through, one hand clawing at his neck in a vane and futile hope for air, while the other gesticulated wildly.

"Do you think me an idiot?" Abigail hissed. "You invoke the name of trigon and perform magics I don't know how to replicate and think I can be convinced it mere…mere trickery!" She sputtered, incredulous.

"Not…lying," He gasped. "Mirrors…whistles…tricks of the light," He said, feeling his vision go funny…before he was finally able to inhale properly, allowing the magician to desperately suck in greedy lungfulls."

"No, no, no," Abigail muttered, voice growing frustrated as her smile fell. "You were supposed to be- You're supposed to be a genuine sorcerer! You invoke the darkest powers of hell like a seasoned sorcerer, and you're telling me it was fake," She said, eye twitching.

"Th-the audiences like it better when I include that sort of thing in my act," Josiah stammered. "It brings in more r-" Rubes. "People more researched in the arcane," He said, gulping. "I wasn't- I thought you were a con-woman," He cried. "I thought I was a mark and signed with disappearing ink! Oh god, please don't kill me," He said, descending into a series of terrified, inelegant blurbles and pleas.

Abigail was silent for a moment. "You're telling the truth. You bastard," She said, fury rich in her voice. "I wasted the contract on a fake! A nobody who thought I was attempting to swindle him! And I thought you had ensorcelled it somehow to render your name invisible, but no, you apparently just used trick ink."

The magician quickly quashed the feeling of annoyance at being dismissed as a nobody: beg first, ego later. "I..if it makes you feel better, I didn't intend to deceive-" He attempted to cajole, yelping as he felt a light pressure on his throat. "A-any more than I do w-with my audience, I mean," He ground out, breathing shallow and rapid. "I just- I have a persona to maintain."

"You know, that really DOESN'T make me feel better," Abigail Roth drawled. "Do you know how difficult it was to get that contract?" She growled, mouth pulling back into a taught snarl, fists clenching.

"I c-can pay you back," Josiah responded, wracking his brain. "How much did it cost? 30 dollars? 300? …three thousand?" He asked, simultaneously realizing how stupid it was to expect an infernal contract to have a fungible cost as well as how odd it was he was focusing on three. Abigail no doubt thought the same, one of her thin eyebrows rising. "I…free drinks?" He offered.

Finally, the invisible phantom force holding him aloft let him free, the magician stumbling to the ground and scooting back across the floor, heart beating a mile a minute. "You're lucky I'm such an…amenable woman," Abigail said, voice cold as the lights in the room began to flicker. "I'll allow you to live for now, Arkham, but allow me to inform you that invisible ink isn't going to get you out of selling your soul," She sneered, the lights finally going dark, the sound of a crows caw echoing, the fluttering of wings.

When the lamps flickered on, dark feathers drifted the the floor. Josiah sat, heart beating a mile a minute, the relief and elation of his survival countered by the overwhelming dread the supernatural occurrences had instilled in him, and their implications.

And, most of all, the realization that he may have actually sold his soul.

Alright, now we're getting to turn 1, ladies, gents, and otherwise. That was prologue. We established the basic mechanics, near nil, established the rules and how sometimes the question is more about how what kind of guy your manager is or what bad decision he makes. Beyond that we also established the basic tone of this managers story and the quest as a whole, set up a few plot threads, and set you up a few basic enterprises you could embark on if you wish.

This general structure will pervade the structure of the quest. And hey, to be clear: sometimes it's fine to be the bad guy. Heck, sometimes it's okay to be crass, of the era: but paradoxically, with both of those things you must have good taste. You just hired the grandmother of a serial killer, decided Josiah was going to be an absolute(ly well paying) pain in the ass to your employee, and came to the conclusion pigeon poop in the eggs was a fair price to pay for dinner, drinks, and a show. You did not embrace Josiah overworking his african american employee to the bone, or committing wage theft and thus proving him to be the sort of employer who leeches off his employees: you decided to make him a dick, but not an asshole, so to speak.

And hey, in the process you got a little slice of Gotham history going! Gothamologists are going to know if they read newspapers around this era about a little riverboat that served customers booze, brainblaster beverages, bacon, and bevies of birds, and how it was supposedly operated by a magic man, one who supposedly lost his soul.

And now, let us enter narrative kayfabe and the various forms of it I'll be employing in the closes thing this story has to mechanics: we'll call these frames. The mechanics for this quest are simple: whenever the narration is in certain formats, I am talking in certain levels of kayfabe. Taking upon the persona of a narrator, telling a rumor, a tale over drinks whose tenor changes with your decisions, telling you a tale whose genre and tone is told late in the evening, acting as a games master, so forth.

To be clear, conceptually this isn't new: fundamentally that is what a quest or most other forms of role play are. There is nothing new under the sun, as they say, and while some people might think me the pinnacle of creativity, a subject I'm willing to discuss in length and explore in a variety of forms and themes if the topic is right, I will fully admit my unoriginality. Like every other other this story, its themes, its loose kayfabe based mechanics are all taken from the shoulders of giants, things I admire, things I've researched and found interesting like the history of snake oil, and games and stories I thought were fun but honestly never quite scratched the right itch for me. Beyond that, I've absorbed a lot by osmosis in my time on the internet: a lot of books, movies, theory, cartoons, podcasts, articles. Some I can name, some I can't: almost certainly the idea of different levels of kayfabe in questing is a thought someone else has had.

That brings us to our first perspective: first frame. This is generally going to be me writing in bold, like present. This is basically me acting as your gamesmaster, storyteller, and more or less the kayfabe I the author of this story am using on a meta-level, my personae and dramatic style I adopt for this quest as its actual author. This is mostly going to be for things that transcend the narrative as a whole, like quest policy, suggestions, limitations imposed by the narrative and the explanation thereof, OOC philosophy and fun DC lore that I want to Kojima into conversation. The style especially, and to some extent all others, is based on the narration of Sebastien "Frost" Ruis, a content creator I admire, mixed with a little Kojima (Stylistically, in the sense that Kojima generally wears his influences on his sleeve as an infamous cinephile and enjoyer of culture) and my personal flare, in the setting of the lounge itself, over drinks and other amenities: jazzy, intellectual, aware of and immersed in nerd culture and willing to use it to make a fun game about running a bar and controlling its patrons and staff.

With that out of the way, lets get to second frame. This level of kayfabe still borrows the general style and cadence of Frost for narration, but it tells them to you in the style of an in-universe story-teller, generally, modified to suit the current 'genre' so to speak of the stories that occur under your roof or as a consequence of your actions. This is how I'm going to detail how some of your actions will be seen by those in Gotham: like all my stories it will be a blend of genres, styles, concepts and themes depending on your choices, a noir ghost story told in the dark or the well vocabularied musings of how things might have turned out in Gotham and the side effects you probably had. This is much like first frame, but this narrator exists in gotham, typically. He'll generally take a more historical air: note that I aim for versimillitude, not realism, and I do not promise 100% authenticity, just enough honesty to admit I will occasionally embellish facts, inject my own worldbuilding, and generally attempt to create as close as I can as a living breathing story for you.

Note that not all second frame narrators are the same: just as the genre change, so does the storyteller. They are still based on me, on my writing, but they're based on the various moods and atmospheres I'm attempting to emulate with any particular narrative. The parts I type in this format may or may not be interactive: it depends on the circumstance.

It will, generally, be how I narrate most of the story that isn't from any one persons perspective. Now we get to the last frame.

The last frame, dear reader, is in-frame. This level of Kayfabe is when you go a level beyond, and accept that what I type are in-universe documents, first hand experiences, first person perspectives. I will utilize a variety of different formats for this one: please keep in mind that I type this in Google Documents, and these formatting changes don't always carry, but you should be able to figure out what level of kayfabe we're working with at any given time. This whole section is mostly to help set the vibe and communicate a bit more what to expect.

Every turn, I'll generally try to give you a mix of these perspectives, allowing you to adjust the course of both the bar and its patrons and staff. You'll decide both the tone through their characterization, but also their success, failure, and how they'll change gotham and the success of the lounge. Keep in mind that this quest is designed that each manager is meant to be temporary: in some way it's like a rogue-like, one of them dying just means their successor picks up the keys, inheriting whatever was left behind, including the environment and status quo. When Josiah dies- and he will, eventually- or retires, the keys will be taken up by another character to take their place.

Alright, that's enough about kayfabe: we've eaten our appetizer, let's get start preparing for what you came for, the meal, so to speak, the main dish. Now for your choices. First, let's cover the lounge, it's assets, and the current menaces, and the hot spots.

You've put your name in the paper. Reviews are good, not great. Customers like the food, and they like your act, and they like the drinks, but none of these are on their own all that good. It's mostly just the price and how cheap it is.

Of course, you can fix that, thanks to picking the ad. Now, you get to pick a consequence: manipulate the skein of fate. Getting your name out there had some beneficial effects: define them. Just remember to not get greedy.

[ ] The Ad brought attention from a particular demographic, who would begin frequenting his bar for various reasons.
-[ ] Write in. Keep in that a bars patrons are what give it flavor and decide what events that it can influence

[ ] The Ad brought a particular character of interest, who would make the place a haunt of interest.
-[ ] Write in. Stick to a basic archetype, something appropriate for what we have so far.

[ ] Something else.

Now, Mark Jacobs has a steady source of income, and he has good hours. Sure, he's a poor black man in a badly racist city, but the situation could be worse. He's currently living with his aunt and uncle, to whom he currently pays rent. He's your hot spot this turn: you see, Mark Jacobs isn't going to just accrue wealth. He's got goals, dreams. What does he spend the next while doing?

[ ] Pursuing a degree at Gotham U: Education was the great liberator, as they say. Gotham U was relatively progressive as a Gotham institution: it at least did accept black alumni, though only begrudingly, at great expense.
-[ ] Select Degree

[ ] Pursuing Self Education: Alternatively, he could pursue knowledge through other means: he had good enough hours and good pay that buying textbooks from overseas was possible, and it would give him more control over what interest he decided to pursue.
-[ ] Select Topic.

[ ] Activism: He would donate money to various charities, programs, and institutes in Gotham, alongside his time and effort in order to support it. Word of warning dear reader this is not an act without risk, no matter how benign the cause, though some are more deadly than others historically.
-[ ] What cause?

[ ] Write in.


Alright, now we're gonna get to the managers AP. Like before, we're gonna create an act first, but before then let's have a reminder of your assets.

Josiah Arkham: The owner circa Aug. 1900 - . A stage magician trained in burglary among other arts. Has sold his soul to Abigail Roth, who he encountered in a dingy bar while drunk, in exchange for his Bar having an assured stream of clientele, though not neccesarily enough to make ends meet.

Violet Hall: A singer Josiah had located while looking for entertainers: they had agreed to work using their voice, their pay a few dollars every day they worked.

Stout Beers: Stout Breweries were one of the lesser sources of alcohol in this town in terms of quality, but they were cheap, meaning that they served as the source of much of the alcohol served.

Crane Brews: A collection of beverages that incorporated various narcotics and minor neurotoxins to deliver an alternate intoxication to beer, one that bypassed most peoples alcohol tolerance.

The Kitchen: A kitchen ran by Mark Jacobs with cheap foods of various types such as eggs, bacon, toast.

St. Majeste: An old riversteamer where the Arkham Lounge was located, it was a barely floating wreck that required significant repairs. So far, the only functional parts was the engine, the wheel, and the actual lounge itself, as well as a kitchen and small pantry.

And now, a list of acts:

Taming of the Fouls: An act that involves a large number of doves and pigeons. Currently, most were kept in a special coup when not acting. They had been trained to be surprisingly well coordinated, and more important, unlikely to crap in a customers food.

And we're gonna finish off with your current banes and hazards:

Devils Bargain: Josiah had apparently sold his soul to a witch due to a mutual misunderstanding. His soul now hangs in the balance.

[ ] Once again, gimme an act: you can use an old act, but keep in mind using an act too much without mixing it up or improving it in some way is going to make people lose interest.

Beyond that, the current financial status of the Lounge is YELLOW and you have four AP. Now, each turn, what you can spend this AP on varies: depending on the situation, there will be various restrictions. For instance, this turn, you're going to get 1 AP that has to be spent on performance. Practicing an act, building a prop, learning a skill, training an assistant to help you with things that require two people.

Next, one AP has to be used managing the St. Majeste: you have to keep working on improving it, bringing it up to snuff if you want it to be real special.

After that, you have one AP that Josiah has to spend investigating in some fashion Abigail Roth. Go into places you've seen referenced looking for rumors, conscripting people to help keep an ear open or help him in other ways, doing research in the library.

Lastly, you have a personal AP that can be spent how you want: be social, do more for the lounge, support a cause you think would make Josiah and Gotham more interesting, begin preparing for a future venture, or hell, just being social or pursuing a romance.

Here are a few suggested actions for Josiah again, with a few ones, though again feel free to go off script and add a few ideas yourself via write in. These are mostly so you aren't floundering and have a few easy examples to help come up with a plan. Please note we'll be using task voting for this one: normally we go by plan but, I figure, there's no harm in giving people a little more to play with. [AD], [HOT], [ACT], [SHOW], [BAR], [ROTH], [PER].

[ ] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.

-[ ] What kind of entertainment are you looking for? If you can think of a specific place to scout you can use it instead, but considering its turn 1 I don't imagine you'll have many ideas.

[ ] 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.

-[ ] What kind of staff are you looking for?



[ ] Diversify Spirits: Stout produced low quality, but cheap beers. They were in your budget, but unless you diversified, the drinks would likely never be a major draw.

-[ ] What kind of alcohol are you looking for? Just a few words is fine: 'expensive wines', 'inexpensive whiskeys', 'swamp bought moonshine'.

[ ] Renovate the St. Majeste: Only part of the St. Majest was open to the public: the ship was still seaworthy inasmuch as any vessel of its class might be, but the prior owners had apparently been less than gentle with the vessels insides, meaning most of it required repair.

-[ ] Like prior options, what are you repairing? I'm not gonna list every possible space on the ship, especially since they'll probably be used for something different: instead, just specify a potential location that could conceivably exist on the ship and what you want to use it for. A gambling hall, another drink lounge, theaters, cabins people can pay to sleep in, etc.

[ ] Call On a Someone: Josiah knew a lot of people. He could lean on them for favors, or else simply visit them to deepen friendship.
-[ ] Select a character and your reason for visiting them.

[ ] Investing: If you have a particular business partner, friend, venture, or industry you want to put some of the Lounges funds into, this is the option you want.
-[ ] Who or what are you investing in, and do you have any stipulations?

[ ] Go on a Date: Ah, Romance. Select this option if you're interested in a character in a less than platonic manner. Note that they need to be someone Josiah would be interested in pursuing and of compatible orientation and gender.
-[ ] Select a character and provide a brief idea for a date.

[ ] Rumor-Hunting: Josiah has a topic he's interested in. He was going to collect rumors in the hopes of finding a lead, whether from the bars of gotham, his various old criminal contacts, calling on his mentor, or other means.
-[ ] Write in topic and means of hunting it

[ ] Gotham University Research: Gotham University was the center of academia in the city. If there was anyone who might know about various subjects such as the history of gotham, various scientific and literary facts, and other useful subjects that Josiah might find useful, it was here.
-[ ] Write in subject you're looking to research.

[ ] Write In.

((((()))))

Alright, since this is the first actual turn, we're gonna institute a 4 hour moratorium. As always, opinions and feedback are appreciated.

 

[The Bird]

[X][AD] The Ad brought attention from a particular demographic, who would begin frequenting his bar for various reasons: Mystics of all kinds have been drawn to the Lodge... "Mystics" the same as Josiah Arkham, who don't actually have a speck of magic.

[X][ACT] Stories of Smoke and Mirrors: Asking Zelda for advice with certain chemicals, Josiah would create ghosts of smoke and puppets of shadow, all for the telling of stories where he would play both the villain and the narrator. Switching them out from night to night, the stories always be slightly mystical and suitably scary.

[X][HOT] Activism: Support the creation of a public library/community center, donating his personal collection on conservationism.

[X][SHOW] Design a Prop: Angled lights, paper ghosts, and a smoke machine.

[X][BAR] Renovate the St. Majeste: Cold Room (for preserving perishables for longer periods in better conditions)

[X][ROTH] Gotham University Research: History of Witches with Gotham and, if possible, Abigail Roth specifically.

[X][PER] Investing: Crane Brews

!!!GOTHAM!!!

ATTENTION TO ALL OCCULTISTS, MYSTICS, AND SEEKERS OF THE STRANGE IN GOTHAM: The Gotham Lounge would like to announce that going forward, all Witches Brew drinks are now half price, thanks to the tireless work of it's suppliers! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! We are also announcing an expansion of the menu, owing to recent renovations and expansions to the Lounges kitchen! Enjoy fresh vegetables, steak, and more, purchased daily for your consumption from Gotham Market!

!!!GOTHAM!!!


So, our pal Josiah had a few new ideas for an act. Specifically, he wanted to try out his acting chops in another role: instead of just doing a trick or performing an illusion, instead he was going to tell stories with himself as the narrator.

Now, I'll note that while he was a performer, he wasn't exactly a storyteller or writer, so most of what he worked with to start were urban legends and various interesting stories he had heard elsewhere, reworked. Keep in mind, copyright in this age wasn't as strict: the House of Mouse had not yet been born, and they hadn't yet wrecked the system to keep their grubby mits on Michael Mouse. Sure, what Josiah did wouldn't have flew under our legal systems, and hell he'd probably get a few social side-eyes for his almost-plagiarism, but it wasn't like that in that era, especially since he went to the work of adding his own touch.​

See, while he wasn't a "proper" engineer and didn't have any cast or crew to work with, Josiah knew enough of the trade that he could design all sorts of props. And he had seen and performed enough puppet-shows for the childrens matinee outside of Hermanns that he knew that one didn't necessarily need such frivolous things as "actors".

Instead, what he did was create a series of mirrors, kerosene angled lamps, and paper ghosts, while commissioning from Zelda Crane some means to create smoke and fog. This was the era before modern fog machines: instead, theaters of the era had to rely on a lot of different tricks like burning wet straw to get stage smoke, or crude chemistry. Josiah though, he wanted something a bit more modern, and something a bit less spicy to use: wise move, considering he lived on a wooden boat and was already messing with kerosene lanterns. He paired the commission with a generous investment in Crane Brews, allowing Zelda to begin upsizing, purchasing equipment and even hiring an assistant, eventually coming up with a solution to his problem at considerable expense to the Magician: dry ice.

This was before people could really make it commercially: it wouldn't be 20 years until a man by the name of Thomas B. Slate would successfully produce a patent and subsequently proceed to start it's history as a successful industry, though as a substance it had been discovered nearly a century earlier by a french chemist called Charles Thilorier, who observed the little crystals left behind when one of his compounds evaporated. Still, just because you know how something works doesn't mean you have the tools to make it a commercially viable product. Just Thomas Edison: for as much as he stole other peoples technology, the man was still a wizard when it came to figuring out how to modify that technology to make it sell: sure, someone else invented the lightbulb, but Edison made it economical. The same goes for Slate and Thilorier. Zelda's method, while still groundbreaking for the time, wasn't nearly as economic: I don't recall the specifics, but it apparently required a lot of fancy equipment, like supposedly a giant distillation vat. Still, while she hadn't perfected the process to industrially produce it, the amount she did manage was more than enough for the Lounges purpose, enough to blanket the floors in a rich white fog, enough for the stage to be obscured by a menacing billowing white clouds.

With all these tools, Josiah performed his next big act: Stories of Smoke and Mirror, where he would play as both the narrator, villain, and use his (admittedly not particularly good) ventriloquism skills to voice the rest of his cast, which consisted of the paper ghosts rigged to wires hooked up to an extremely basic mechanism in the ceiling operated by the untrained Violet Hall, an unfortunate concession owing to the lack of any suitable candidates or assistants, all while their lights and fog helped the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, while the effects were good, the fact of the matter is you need more than that to wow a crowd: Josiah didn't have much story other than what he had heard elsewhere, he was an only passable ventriloquist and actor, and he only had a single untrained assistant: he bit off more than he could chew, and much like anyone who accidentally bit off more than they could chew he found that his reach couldn't yet exceed his grasp, and as a result, visitors would find themselves more taken with the food and drink than the actual entertainment. He had invested a LOT of cold hard cash onto a dud of an act, and all he had to show for it was a few middling reviews, and the scorn of his mentor.

Josiah didn't take it well: didn't take it well at all. The man was a notorious diva, and for as much trouble as he had gone through, he had NEVER, EVER had a dud act before, not as Professor Arkham, and so never developed the callus less successful performers develop against failure. Without that callus, that thing that let's more humble creators accept criticism with acceptance and understanding, or at least shrug off dipshits, he found himself suffering what we today would call a depressive manic phase, becoming moodier, angrier, and all around a generally less pleasant person to work for, and in all honesty he hadn't been a great boss before. And so he began spiraling, his life going out of control.​

Yeah, you may have made a poor decision here: keep in mind that you have access to one guy, no trained assistants or actors, and other than props didn't spend any time working on this act beforehand. Now, it wasn't a bad idea, and you should absolutely revisit it in a turn or so once you get some more prep under your belt, but for now you should stick to less technically demanding acts (or at least ones that are a bit more in your means) for a turn or two while you build your proverbial toolkit for the more impressive stuff. However, going forward, this failure means that Josiah is picking up a menace of some form, selected by you. Action category is [DIVA].

[ ] Alcoholism: The manager of the Lounge took to drink, and then drink took him. He remained (mostly) functional, but there was rarely a time of day where he wasn't at least a little soused, and after every bad act he'd require a great deal of liquid stress relief. Of course, the thing about an addict of any stripe, they could only keep things under a lid so long.

[ ] Assault: The manager of the Lounge grew more and more angry, frustrated. He kept a lid on it as best he could…until Hermann decided to visit the lounge. Maybe it had been an attempt at reconciliation, maybe it had been an attempt to mock his student turned rival, but it had ended with the elder magician with a broken nose, though it would ultimately be Josiah's reputation that would be bloodied.

[ ] Litigation: Frivolous lawsuits and other forms of legal harassment would become the managers weapon to silence his critics: papers that ran bad reviews would find themselves subject to a barrage by Professor Arkham, who would viciously prosecute his naysayers through any legal means he could.

[ ] Write in.

!!!GOTHAM!!!


Of course, not everything went pears up. Even as his act got middling to bad reviews, the menu would get far more positive coverage. See, Josiah decided that serving just eggs and bacon wasn't enough: he wanted the kitchen to be a significant draw, so he would pay to renovate a cold room, one designed to use the frigid chill of Gotham River and the immediate shoreline to help preserve perishables such as fruit and vegetables for Mr. Jacobs to serve to the guests.

Sure, it wasn't proper refrigeration, but with the addition, they were able to branch out to things like steak, oyster, carrots, and other items. With the expansion to the menu, some people would actually seek out the Lounge for it's food. It wasn't a proper restaurant yet, but it was a hell of a lot closer, and even when the show wasn't great, it was still entertainment to accompany your meal. Various sandwiches and sausages would eventually become the standard, as well as oysters from the harbour, breaded and fried, a specialty of the cook, whose access to the markets of Gotham through his job allowed him to expand his palate considerably. This was especially since in those early days the menu wasn't fixed, depending entirely on what was available at the market that week, which combined with both Jacobs inexperience as a cook and Josiah's inexperience as a restraunteur meant that the exact dishes would change week by week as they experimented with the menu. The only rule was that they had to be cheap: Josiah would go out into the city every weak, see what other places were selling, and find the five most inexpensive places in the city he could, deciding that would be the acceptable price range. This lead to some nights being losses, but hey, Josiah was willing to take a small loss now and again so long as the rest of the place was profitable and it kept people coming. ​

"And hey, the booze was cheaper too, so why not?" sayeth the citizens of Gotham. With more facilities available and his own influence as her primary business partner, Josiah was able to renegotiate his deal with Zelda, paying only a modest increase in price for considerably more stock. As a result, more people would begin attending the St. Majeste. It's most interesting clientele: phony mystics, amateur occultists, and countless swindlers who used fake magic to con rubes, who would begin using the bars ambience to attract marks, as well as the many citizens of the city with a hobbiest interest in magic and the strange. You know the type: the kind that these days would be into aliens or ghosts. If they have money or an education, they might become a professional UFOlogist or one of those people who mess around houses with night vision cameras, if they have only one they usually use it to become an "expert" in whichever paranatural field they prefer, and if they're neither they usually become the sort of person to watch History Channel.

Of course, a real mystic would never touch the place, not once they realized who it really catered to: sure, it might have presented itself as being an authentic house of the occult, but it didn't take long to realize it was a facade thanks to the sleeze of countless fake psychics that congregated the place. Of course, that was just to those who knew enough to identify real magic versus deception and illusion designed to manipulate a mark. To most Gothamites, the abundance of 'magic' gave the place a sinister, almost alluring air: to those not in the know, it was a place of strange arcanism, where magicians congregated and the bar sold strange witches brews. To those with a more puritanical bent, it was a hotbed of satanism, drugs, and con-men, a place that acted as a stain on the cities good name, and believe me, they never went away: every year they would get louder and louder, exacerbating Josiah's stress by sending the man just an incredible amount of hatemail, enough to fill and entire room. Legends say the mail room still exists, having never been cleaned out.

Still, the place was definitely growing in stature, especially with one of Zelda's newest creations.


What new product is Zelda now providing? It doesn't need to be a drink: just needs to involve biology, chemistry, or toxins in some shape or form. If you want a new chemical based prop, that's fine, if you want to start offering (presently legal) drugs to your clientel, you can. Action category is [CRANE].​

[ ] Cranes Finest Brews: Cranes assistant would be used as a guinea pig to produce a new batch of Crane Brews. Her 'finest', as it were: more potent, longer lasting, and with added sweetener to make it go down better, though it still tasted absolutely rancid. Too much apparently causes stomach cramps.

[ ] Crane Co. Dry Ice Manufacturing: Zelda would further hone her dry ice manufacturing capabilities, simplifying the process enough she was able to sell the Lounge enough to further cool their cold room and even chill drinks.

[ ] Cranes Rejuvenating Brews: Zelda Crane would work with a few volunteers to create a more rejuvenative drinks, pharmacological mixtures designed to use a mixture of chemicals to create drinks that instead of just intoxicating instead opted to invigorate.

[ ] Write In. Doesn't have to be drink related, just something thats plausibly within Zelda's skillset.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

Of course, while his kitchen got a new addition, the duties of Mark Jacobs did not, and he would continue to both serve as a cook as well as a general laborer by the Lounge, using the time and money his job allowed him to pursue a degree of self-education. Initially, the man used his pay to afford books on various topics: his favorite was animals, books on conservation, wildlife bestiaries, textbooks on zoology. His favourite two, however, consisted of hardbacked copies of On the Origin of Species, written by one Charles Darwin, and The Social Habits and Biology of Desmodus Gotham, a text written by Mathias Langstrom on the cities native vampire bat population, one that came complete with complex anatomical diagrams and extensive note-taking by the Zoologist, who had supposedly perished during the Great Gotham Rabies Epidemic of 1891, when a full thirty percent of the bats in the city were said to carry the disease, resulting in equally massive human outbreaks.

Mathias was ironically spared this sentence through a far more mundane means of death: according to historians, he died from food poisoning after he consumed raw fish.

These weren't the only books he bought, of course: math, science, literature. Eventually, his collection would grow so large it could no longer be stored in the small attic he called a room. Not wanting to destroy them, and also looking for a way to help his community, he began donating excess, along with copies of his favorites and the ones he preferred to keep, to a local library in his neighborhood, alongside both money and, when he could, spare time, working as a volunteer and striking up a friendship with the Librarian.

The place still stands today: Mark Jacobs Memorial Library. While he still wasn't a wealthy man by any means, Mr. Jacobs donations still ensured the library for many years afterwards had a large catalog to offer it's patrons, primarily the many black residents of the East End. Still, a library could only help people if they could read, and many african americans couldn't, denied access to the resources needed to learn. Remember, dear reader, that it hadn't been that many years since Civil War and Reconstruction: while there were many activists trying to fix the problem, fact of the matter was in a lot of places the best african americans could have hoped for was underfunded and segregated public schools, assuming their state had laws mandating public schools yet to begin with.

So he taught the residents of East End, deciding to become a teacher for his neighborhood. Every Monday and Wednesday, his days off, he would hold public literacy classes for the residents of the East End, helping them learn how to read and write, both children just learning the process and adults who had been denied the opportunity to be literate up to this point by material circumstances and opportunities. This wasn't a replacement for public schooling, not nearly, but for many in East End it still proved better than the nothing they would receive.

It would also lead to other knock on effects.

Alrighty my dear reader. You decided to go for activism, and more specifically literacy. As a result, you get to pick another long term effect, one that will alter the general texture of Gotham as a city going forward, if only slightly. Action code is [LIBER]

[ ] Novelists: With many East Enders learning to read, more than a few had taken to writing as well: in the coming years, many of the residents of East End would begin publishing stories in their free time. A few of these would go on to be remembered as classic staples of african american literature such as Night in Gotham, the Cry of the Vampire Bat, and various memoires, though they would only receive mainstream recognition decades after their authors death. Still, these stories would help shape the landscape of American fiction for decades and help bring several black writers to early prominence, as well as influencing later authors and prominent figures.

[ ] Academics: It was still difficult for a black man to get into Gotham University, but with increased literacy came increased admittance, even if they were still stuck in the segregated classes that received half of the funding, if that, of white classes. Still, no matter your skin color or the era, having a degree opened doors, and in the coming decades it wouldn't be unlikely for the neighborhood to enjoy an increase in prosperity, however modest.

[ ] Write In: Has to conceivably be an effect that can be produced by helping fund and establish a library and volunteering at it. Try to keep it confined to the neighborhood of East End as well.

!!!GOTHAM!!!

Meanwhile, his mind fraying from the stress of his show and the mortal terror of having damned his soul, they say that Professor Arkham went to the university, inquiring with it's historians about the history of Witches in Gotham, trying to find information about Abigail Roth in the hopes he might still save his soul.

There, he learned of the various stories and tales of Gotham. Some were just the exact details and chronology about the more common urban legends of the era, many of which still persist to this day, such as how before Gotham existed it had been the home of a group of women who had fled Salem into the dark and noxious waters of Slaughter Swamp, each said to be witches attempting to escape their persecution, and how supposedly one of the earliest settlers to the region, Cyrus Gold, supposedly found themselves cursed.

The story goes that Cyrus Gold was a man who traded in human flesh, selling off his fellow human being in chains for money. He had come to what would eventually become Gotham to build himself a plantation in the heart of Slaughter Swamp. During the course of a year his home was built, countless slaves dying in the process from disease, exhaustion, and construction accidents. And yet Gold didn't rest, merely buying new blood to feed into the gristle of the architecture, simply tossing the bodies into a particular mire that according to legend is haunted, tainted by the hundreds of corpses dumped into the waters.

Personally, I think that detail is a crock of shit: Cyrus Gold was an evil man, but there's evil and then there's a cartoon. But it isn't impossible: the place supposedly IS a mass grave of some kind according to anthropologists in Gotham U, and the man accused was undeniably a piece of work. But I think there are probably more mundane, if likely more horrifying in some ways, reasons for there to be a stretch of swamp with a lot of bodies.

Anyways, according to the myths, Gold and the Coven would eventually come into conflict, his plantation building having intruded onto their spaces. They would cast all sorts of malevolent hexes at Gold, causing his crops to wither, his fortunes to sour as his ships suffered all manner of bad luck, and other catastrophes in the hopes of driving them off. Gold supposedly responded by attempting to massacre them: during the ensuing conflict, one of the coven supposedly stabbed the merchant in the gut, ending the slave trader sliding into the swamp and rotting, never to be recovered. They say his ghost still haunts the swamp, and that one can on some nights still see his ghost roaming about, skin pale, clothes tattered.

Of course, this is only one legend and myth hiding in Gotham's closet. For instance, did you know that prior to the first european settlers arriving, this area was avoided by the local tribes? Not just Gotham, but also Slaughter Swamp to the east, Shadowcrest Forest to the north, and Blackgate Island to the south. Supposedly, the entire region surrounding the city was deemed a dark and evil place, tainted by some unknown evil in the primordial past and made unfit for people, cursed. And certainly, that tracks with some of the other historical details, such as the fact that until a few decades after the revolutionary war one in ten colonists in the region disappeared, never to be seen again. And funniest thing, nobody knows why: it was like they had vanished into thin air, taken by some unknown and invisible force in the dead of the night, especially in the villages that were in or bordered the swamp.

Of course, anything useful was gonna be a hard find: for all his looking, he couldn't find much on Abigail Roth, beyond a few Roths popping up on census forms and passenger manifests here and there, except for an event ten years before, listed as a survivor of a flood in Riverside according to a newspaper in the archives of Gotham University.

His biggest discovery, though…​

Alright boys, girls, and otherwise, you rolled a 93, meaning you can either pick something to help advance the Abigail Roth investigation, OR you can "luck" into finding something of interest related to the topic of witches in the University archives. This can, to be clear, be a lead to getting magic of your own. I'll offer a few suggestions, of course, but in case you want to do a write in, just keep in mind that you get a lead, you don't get access to magic immediately, nor can you just go "magic grimoire!!!!!!!!101!!!". The code for this one is [WITCH]. It can also be other stuff so long as it's on topic enough or relates back to any of the details I mentioned for this section in second frame.

[ ] The Descendent: A great grandchild of one of the Witches who had feuded with Gold, according to genealogical records. He lived in Gotham Village, working as a watchmaker. Maybe he'd have some information about his ancestor…

[ ] A Map: A map to the manor of Cyrus Gold, located in the middle of Gotham Swamp. Supposedly haunted by the ghosts of his victims, it was also said to contain the vast majority of his fortune.

[ ] A Location: Fifteen years ago, Abigail Roth lived at this location. It was the most recent lead on her Josiah had: if he investigated it, he might be able to learn more about the young woman, and thus progress his investigation.

[ ] Write In.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

Alright, four hours moratorium.

 

[The Bird]

[X][DIVA] Write-In: A Tasteless Museum: In the midst of his downward spiral, Professor Arkham arrived at an obsession much like that of other pompous conservators: collecting cultural objects he had no right to. Sourced from a number of disreputable sorts, Josiah began to build an eclectic collection of native peoples' and disadvantaged foreigners' heirlooms; blowing through his earnings in his creation of a tasteless private museum.

[X][CRANE] Crane Co. Dry Ice Manufacturing: Zelda would further hone her dry ice manufacturing capabilities, simplifying the process enough she was able to sell the Lounge enough to further cool their cold room and even chill drinks.

[X][LIBER] Novelists: With many East Enders learning to read, more than a few had taken to writing as well: in the coming years, many of the residents of East End would begin publishing stories in their free time. A few of these would go on to be remembered as classic staples of african american literature such as Night in Gotham, the Cry of the Vampire Bat, and various memoires, though they would only receive mainstream recognition decades after their authors death. Still, these stories would help shape the landscape of American fiction for decades and help bring several black writers to early prominence, as well as influencing later authors and prominent figures.

[X][WITCH] A Location: Fifteen years ago, Abigail Roth lived at this location. It was the most recent lead on her Josiah had: if he investigated it, he might be able to learn more about the young woman, and thus progress his investigation.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

The Gotham Tribune, November 2, 1900
A Review of the St. Majeste by Benjamin St. Cloud

Dear reader, I find myself with recent renovations revisiting my review of the the Lounge: at any time of the day, you can order fresh steaks, fried oysters, and frozen fruit, and the drinks are always chilly. The show may be not be on par with what you can get at Hermann's, the service may be a little slow and you may have to fetch your plate yourself since the kitchen only has a single cook and no wait staff, but rest assured dear reader that the menu and offerings have improved both in price and quality that THIS casual diner will be returning!

!!!GOTHAM!!!


An Academic Analysis of Cry of the Vampire Bat, by Jason Todd, submitted as an assignment for early mid 20th century african american literature studies, 2037, Gotham U, Page 1


The Cry of the Vampire Bat is considered one of the seminal pieces of Gotham Literature and one of the most famous examples of African American horror. Written by Delton Harding during the late 1950s[1], it follows the perspective of Wayne Hanlon, a man returning from the killing fields of the second world war to Gotham to find East End and other poor black neighborhoods being menaced by a mysterious serial killer that has begun targeting the residents of those neighborhoods. Harding, a veteran and East End resident himself, based much of the events on his own experiences, drawing on the alienation he felt as a black world war two veteran returning home, struggles with poverty ad racism, and chiroptophobia to breath life into the novel. Harding, born in East End in 1919, September 9th, grew up with little formal education: like many writers from East End, he was primarily home educated, learning literacy primarily thanks to his mother and the Mark Jacobs Library, then known as the East End library, taught by the founder himself and, when Harding's talent with the word was encouraged, tutored by the Library

Much of the story is told via epistolary, consisting of excerpts from Hanlon's own diary, newspaper clippings detailing the public outcry to the grizzly murders based on similar coverage to the real life Crimson Vampire murderers[2], and letters between the main character and an unknown third party referred to in narration only as Jonathan. A recurring motif of the novel is the bat: juxtaposed with the far more 'human' villain of the novel, he contrasts them. The bat is considered unsanitary, ill-omened, and the bats that show up in the story are all invariably aggressive, with the author devoting an entire chapter to the aftermath of an attack. Yet the narrative emphasizes that they are, ultimately, animals: their aggression ultimately only a result of their habitat being destroyed and intruded on. The human villain of the work, however, Silas Temmander, is shown as outright parasitical, killing black homeowners to commit real estate fraud before contracting Gotham Rabies, only being stopped because his condition (while not being remotely accurate to how rabbies actually works[3] ) drove him more and more mad, with Harding emphasizing how the public only cared once the villain went beyond killing African Americans and how he had only been allowed to operate due to the medias apathy when it comes to the victimization of the African American community.



The novel is notable for it's heavy focus on atmosphere: Harding, having been a fan of noir films and literature, had done his best to emulate the style, attempting to emulate the hard-boiled, dark and moody tones and feelings of movies such as the Maltese Falcon [4] ....

!!!!!GOTHAM!!!!!​

Daniel stared, horrified. In front of him, face pinned into an uncanny, false looking smile, was a corpse, its pallid skin caked with makeup to help it regain its color, eyes cold, unblinkinking, stuck staring in two slightly different direction. The head was covered in a massive headdress assembled from what looked like turkey feathers that had been dipped in paint, and the only clothes on the cadaver was a loincloth. Over its head it held a tomahawk, posed as if it is going to throw it, while in another, stuck straight outward, it held a skull. It stood in what was unmistakably a squat, which combined with the loincloth and the rod going from the base of the display up the spine and the expression on the caricaturish display made it look like the taxidermied corpse of his fellow was engaged in…

"STUFFED CORPSE OF POWHATAN WITCH DOCTOR BROTHER REDFEATHER, 1769-1818," The bronze plaque next to it said. The entire room, the "museum of curiosities", was filled with that sort of tasteless trophy: stolen sunwheels, pillaged shrunken heads and deformed skulls, deer skin decorated with various pictures done upon it, bronze gorget. Each behind glass, provided a helpful plaque to explain what they were and how they had been obtained.

Daniel had been traveling. The powhatan sailor had heard that Arkham Lounge was a good place to eat and had unusual drinks you couldn't find elsewhere. He had heard you usually got a show, and that the show was mostly good. He had not heard about this…museum of fascination operated by it's owner, who he could hear performing in the Lounge, but a room away. Right now, he was doing a rendition of Faust, placing himself in the role of Mephistopheles manipulating the young Doctor Faust into selling his soul: the audience was enjoying their dinner at the same time, meaning no one else was in the room but Daniel, giving him time to study in detail what he was seeing. He had already eaten, and he had tried some of their drinks, and the show had not interested him.

Frowning, the man's mouth tightened in displeasure at the sight of his kins remains being displayed stuffed and mounted alongside various possessions of his people like some sort of vulgar sideshow…which, he supposed morbidly, it was. Eventually, he gave a resigned sigh, turning and returning to the foyer. He might as well enjoy the drinks: it would be another thirty minutes until they docked.

))))GOTHAM((((​

Josiah stood outside the building, the remains of a humble three story building in Cape Carmine, one of the most southern locales in the city, home to most of it's italian population. It was on a slight hill compared to its neighbors, similarly run down by the floods and the storms, and in poor condition, the windows of Roth house having long since been shattered and boarded up, the slightly leaning building sprouting from the ground like a grim specter

The magician made his way up, rain dripping on the path as he ascended it, flowing down into the gutters and street, submerged under several inches of water. It wasn't flood season yet, but it was growing closer and closer, and the closer flood season got the worse the rain would get. As he rose, eventually he would find dryish (as much as the weather would allow) ground, underneath the awning of the porch.

As he rose the wooden steps of the structure, he found himself having to apply the nimbleness he had once applied to burglary and some of his more foot-work intensive acts to avoid stepping through a patch of decaying timber here and there, or have the thing he was stepping on give way. The magician did have to admit, it brought back fond, if slightly illegal, memories: ones of midnight thefts and daring heists. These memories were unfortunately soured by the resulting memories of jail. Reaching the door, he pressed on it, brow furrowing as he realized it wasn't budging, and unfortunately he wasn't sure the porch was strong enough for him to brace for a shove. Stepping away, he pressed on the board covering the windows, noting the same.

Giving a huff, the man stepped away, gingerly making his way off the porch, continuing to avoid the myriad soft spots that his feet would go through if he stepped on them before walking through the soft gotham soil and overgrown grass to go around back, hoping they had a back door or ground-level means of entrance.

The back of the building was as shadowy as the front: it had a single tree, a rope hanging off one of the bare limbs, a board tied to it to make a swing of sorts that drifted listlessly in the air: the kind that children would swing on when lacking anything better to do. By the back, near the broken down fence where the land finally flattened out near the base of the slight hill the house was erected on, there was a location where the grass was ringed by stones, a marker of sorts consisting of a larger stone set at the head of each of the two circles.

As far as alternate exists went, nothing he could find, no back porch or door or convenient window he could crawl through without something to help him rise such as a ladder, though as he walked along the perimeter of the house he did spot a basement window of sorts, though when he had stuck his lamp near to peer through it, it shone on a room that was completely flooded, black water rising to only a foot or so below the window, and he could see no stairs.

Sighing, the man pulled the lantern back, standing up, shoes squishing in the soil as he began to walk away. Well, he had a lead at least: all he had to do was continue investigating this house.

Alright, and with that we are now on turn 2. All in all, not gonna lie, you've taken some hits to finance: you spent a LOT of money, and while revenue is up, its not up enough to fully cover your expenses. As a result, your financial situation is now ORANGE.

Now, once more you get to play on the skeins of fate because of your decisions. Because of your choices, Arkham Lounge has a lot of mystic frauds lying around, drawn by your atmosphere, your drinks being good at loosening marks, and the ad.

Now we're going to pick the Museum of Fascination. Bluntly, it's tacky, offensive, and extremely tasteless. It also fits the oeuvre of the era and the sort of character Josiah is. It's negative, but the crass negative. And we all remember what I said about being crass. As such, something bad is going to result from the Museum. Doesn't need to be to Josiah: just needs to relate to the Museum in some fashion. Maybe a murder happens there, maybe it causes a new racist fad in the bottom dregs of histories magic fraudster. It just needs to be bad, dramatic, obviously a consequence of his actions in some way, and most of all interesting.

Of course, you can absolutely have something bad happen to Josiah: I'll go ahead and spoil that no matter what you do he won't come out looking rosy, but there is something satisfying conceptually about him being cursed as a consequence of his theft from the culture of others.

The action code here is [KARMA].

[ ] Josiah would accidentally purchase an item with a mysterious aura for his museum, swindling it from the owner. Little did he know his actions would bring him a night of absolute terror.

[ ] Josiah would get swindled, losing a great deal of money on what turned out to be garbage, making an already not particularly well financial situation get worse.

[ ] A Murder in the Museum! An argument between two parties or more went out of control, resulting in multiple deaths followed by a suicide!

[ ] Chief Redfeather is missing, and across the city, people have begun reporting being attacked by a man dressed similar wielding a tomahawk.


[ ] Write in.


That's the skein of fate. Now we get the Hotspot. For this one, we'll be exploring your choice with the magicians: in the bar, as we speak, two mystics, neither with real magic are discussing their work, debating cons, workshopping ideas. Magnifico the Sublime and Johsanna the Seer.

Where exactly do their ideas go? Action code [HOT]

[ ] The Mother of All Cons: Johsanna had an in with one of the First Families: one of the Cobblepot Clan had become taken with her fortunes. If she and Magnifico worked together, they could eat well for years off the fat of the family.

[ ] 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.

[ ] A Murder: Each of them had a grudge with another performer, Bartolomeo the Wise, who had stolen one of Magnifico's acts and was in the process of blackmailing Johsanna. They wished to remove him from the board, once and for all.

[ ] Write in.

And now, we get to your ACTs, ASSETS, etc.


Josiah Arkham: The owner circa Aug. 1900 - . A stage magician trained in burglary among other arts. Has sold his soul to Abigail Roth, who he encountered in a dingy bar while drunk, in exchange for his Bar having an assured stream of clientele, though not neccesarily enough to make ends meet. Obsessed to an unhealthy degree with various indigenous artefacts.

Violet Hall: A singer Josiah had located while looking for entertainers: they had agreed to work using their voice, their pay a few dollars every day they worked.

Stout Beers: Stout Breweries were one of the lesser sources of alcohol in this town in terms of quality, but they were cheap, meaning that they served as the source of much of the alcohol served.

Crane Brews: A collection of beverages that incorporated various narcotics and minor neurotoxins to deliver an alternate intoxication to beer, one that bypassed most peoples alcohol tolerance. Thanks to recent investments, cheaper than before.

Dry Ice: Good for special effects, good for keeping things cold.

The Kitchen: A kitchen ran by Mark Jacobs with cheap foods of various types such as eggs, bacon, toast. It sported a cold room that held a variety of other common Gotham foodstuffs, such as oysters.

St. Majeste: An old riversteamer where the Arkham Lounge was located, it was a barely floating wreck that required significant repairs. So far, the only functional parts was the engine, the wheel, and the actual lounge itself, as well as a kitchen and small pantry.

And now, a list of acts:

Taming of the Fouls: An act that involves a large number of doves and pigeons. Currently, most were kept in a special coup when not acting. They had been trained to be surprisingly well coordinated, and more important, unlikely to crap in a customers food.

Stories of Smoke and Mirrors: A sadly slightly undercooked act consisting of tales spun by Professor Arkham in the form of puppetshows with himself as the narrator and villain: the smoke and props gave it an interesting atmosphere, but it was still subpar for various technical reasons.

Gimme an act for this turn. Again, repeating an act is a valid action: sure, it won't be as impressive, but there's nothing wrong with returning to basics while preparing for something more advanced. Action-code [ACT].

After that, you have four AP to spare. Josiah's priorities this turn are as follows: 1 AP must be spend on improving or working on the Lounges entertainment in some manner. 1 must be spent on management as a whole. 1 AP needs to be spent on continuing to investigate Roth, whether breaking into her house, talking to her neighbors, hunting rumors, etc. Lastly, the final AP needs to be spent on something social for Christmas: either calling upon someone, asking a character on a date, doing something recreational for the holidays, etc. The codes for these are the same as last turn, otherwise. [KARMA], [HOT], [ACT], [SHOW], [BAR], [ROTH], [PER].


[ ] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.

-[ ] What kind of entertainment are you looking for? If you can think of a specific place to scout you can use it instead, but considering its turn 1 I don't imagine you'll have many ideas.

[ ] 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.

-[ ] What kind of staff are you looking for?

[ ] Diversify Spirits: Stout produced low quality, but cheap beers. They were in your budget, but unless you diversified, the drinks would likely never be a major draw.

-[ ] What kind of alcohol are you looking for? Just a few words is fine: 'expensive wines', 'inexpensive whiskeys', 'swamp bought moonshine'.

[ ] Renovate the St. Majeste: Only part of the St. Majest was open to the public: the ship was still seaworthy inasmuch as any vessel of its class might be, but the prior owners had apparently been less than gentle with the vessels insides, meaning most of it required repair.

-[ ] Like prior options, what are you repairing? I'm not gonna list every possible space on the ship, especially since they'll probably be used for something different: instead, just specify a potential location that could conceivably exist on the ship and what you want to use it for. A gambling hall, another drink lounge, theaters, cabins people can pay to sleep in, etc.

[ ] Call On a Someone: Josiah knew a lot of people. He could lean on them for favors, or else simply visit them to deepen friendship.
-[ ] Select a character and your reason for visiting them.

[ ] Investing: If you have a particular business partner, friend, venture, or industry you want to put some of the Lounges funds into, this is the option you want.
-[ ] Who or what are you investing in, and do you have any stipulations?

[ ] Go on a Date: Ah, Romance. Select this option if you're interested in a character in a less than platonic manner. Note that they need to be someone Josiah would be interested in pursuing and of compatible orientation and gender.
-[ ] Select a character and provide a brief idea for a date.

[ ] Rumor-Hunting: Josiah has a topic he's interested in. He was going to collect rumors in the hopes of finding a lead, whether from the bars of gotham, his various old criminal contacts, calling on his mentor, or other means.
-[ ] Write in topic and means of hunting it

[ ] Gotham University Research: Gotham University was the center of academia in the city. If there was anyone who might know about various subjects such as the history of gotham, various scientific and literary facts, and other useful subjects that Josiah might find useful, it was here.
-[ ] Write in subject you're looking to research.

[ ] Write In.

Also, six hour moratorium.

 

[The Bird]

[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, and the city would find itself subject to a number of strange events originating on that riverboat. Sure, all of 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 and making sure his meals were of sufficient quality and speed to justify his employment. 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 to at least being a functional kitchen, which lemme tell you, the guests appreciated. The improvement was subtle, but tips would increase, reviews would improve, and more customers made orders.


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, one low enough on the totem pole to look like an easy target, but high enough ensure the family willing to ruin Abernathy's life.

That had been twenty years before, and jail hadn't been kind to the geezer. Recently released from Blackgate, the elderly gentleman had been unable to afford work in his prior field on account of his past. No one who did any background checks was willing a butler who had stolen from his prior employer, especially not one who had earned the wrath of the Kanes. 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 but who had briefly been stuck in Blackgate for pickpocketing. 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. It wasn't good work, it wasn't dignified work, not the way Josiah worked or how his patrons behaved, but it paid at least.

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, hidden in a thick haze of smoke created by the fire and a pilfered lounge smoke machine and unconscionable amounts of dry ice stolen from the bar and stored for this specific task.

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: it's like a lantern held up to attract moths. 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: note all of these are from franchises that have in their publication history crossed over with DC or, in the case of the first, is actually just straight up canon: sherlock holmes actually existed in DC background, usually. And for the record, even if you don't establish contact yet, all of these are still canon to this work, with all that implies. 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, as well of some of his property having been used in it. 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! And yet, the police only relented when it became apparent that the man hadn't remotely benefitted from the theft, in the aftermath continuing to monitor the lounge and its owner.

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, sent to swim up and down the river gotham, occasionally flirting with venturing into the swamp or coast. 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. He was a crass asshole, but he wasn't that particular flavor of dick.

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, including arranging for his cousin and aunt to enjoy a sumptuous turkey dinner.

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.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

Four hour moratorium.

 

[The Bird]

[X][MYSTERYINC] The Benevolent Lodge of Mystery


[X][FATE] HEED MY WARNING
-[X] In the land of old Empires an army of darkness shall rise and plunge the world into madness before the turn of the century. (Aka the third reich)

[X][CAROL] The Lounge
-[X] Abigail Roth

[X][HENCH] Crane

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

From the Mystery Files of Fred Jones, Circa 2024​

Name of Spook: The Ghost of Chief Redfeather
City and Date of Origin: Gotham, December 3rd 1900
Culprit: Wallace Abernathy
Motivation: Revenge
The Mystery:

Okay, so, this isn't one of ours, but I'm still putting it here because it's a major part of global mystery history. Back around the turn of the century, Josiah Arkham established the Lounge. It was a lot different back then: it was still a hot-bed of mystery, but it was a lot more seedy. At the time, the owner operated a museum filled with stolen and fake native artifacts meant to entertain people (It was even worse than it sounds: even back then it was considered tacky by several critics, and having seen pictures, that was severely understating it), including the body of one 'Chief Redfeather' a supposed powhatan shaman (identified by historians later as Mr. John Norton, a leather-worker of mixed ancestry who had donated their body to science) that had been stuffed and taxidermied.

According to the legend, he was an ancient enemy to the Kane family who had risen from the grave to stalk them, with his body disappearing from the Lounges exhibit shortly before his ghost began to stalk and terrorize the Kane clan, attacking them with a tomahawk. Eyewitnesses claim his specter was constantly covered in a strange, otherworldly fog. This eventually brought the Benevolent Lodge of Mystery, one of the first real mystery solvers of America, hired by the bars owner to prove his innocence. They managed to successfully discover not just the identity of the culprit, but why he was attacking and how he pulled off his disguise. Wallace Abernathy had been a former butler of the Kanes who had been arrested twenty years prior for stealing what would be in todays money 400 dollars worth of items from his employer (admittedly, a very not fair jail sentence, especially considering he was sentenced to Blackgate, even if that money was worth more back then). Once he got out, he got a job at the Gotham Lounge, wherapon he would steal the body of Chief Redfeather and some of the Lounges dry ice used for the cold room in order to stalk and harass the Kanes under the guise of the Chief, attempting to pay them back for the misery they had subjected him to. Once caught, he confessed immediately, finding himself sentenced to another five years in prison before returning to work for the Lounge once again until his death in 1921 from old age.

(Apparently Josiah had a soft spot for former criminals.)

It was one of the first major mysteries investigated by the Lodge outside of Crystal Cove, and while they would never forget their home, they thought Gotham and it's mysteries were totally groovy, a sentiment I can get behind, deciding to make it and the Lounge their new headquarters, thus beginning Gotham's tenure as the mystery capital of America.

(((())))

"And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling do-rights and your stupid monkey!" Abernathy yelled in a froth as he was dragged out of the Lounge, foam spilling from his mouth, the mans eyes wild with wrath. "I'll get you for this! Mark my words, Benevolent Lodge of Mystery, you're on my list! Do you hear me? Revenge! I will get my-" The door was slammed shut by Professor Arkham, who daubed a handkerchief on his brow to dry the sweat from it.

"Yes, that's enough of that, I should say," He said, punctuating the end of the Lodges first successful mystery, before clearing his throat. "Well, Benevolent Lodge of Mystery, it appears I am within your debt," The magician said, as humble as they could manage. "With Mr. Abernathy put away, I should be able to salvage at least some of my reputation: at the very least, I should be able to convince the newspapers to print some retractions."

"No trouble my good man! We were all happy to help!" Oswald P Burlington exclaimed, giving a beaming grin, arms bent and hands resting at his side. "And frankly, this was one of the most exciting mysteries we've uncovered yet!"

"Easy fer you t' say, Ozzie," Scotty said, the young irishman letting out a breath of relief now that the maddened former butler was being hauled away. "You weren't th' fellow that had t' be chased by the spook. Frankly, I feel like I've lost ten years off my lifespan." A moment later, his stomach let out a growl. "Plus, all that running brought me a wee bit of appetite."

Josiah clapped his hands. "Ah, we can't be letting our heroes go hungry! Jacobs! Fire up the stoves and take our guests order! And gentlemen- and ladies-" He said, giving a respectful nod to the two women of the group, Miss Marianne Blanchard and Frau Abigail Gluck. "-Don't concern yourself with cost: from now on, the Benevolent Society of Mystery eat and drink at the Lounge totally free!"

"Well, I say," Miss Blanchard purred in a rich southern accent, the belle extremely pleased with the treatment. "You do know how to show gratitude, Professor! I could certainly go for some food right now: I heard just WONDERFUL things about the fruit salad."

"I could go for a drink as well," Frau Gluck said, removing and polishing her glasses, while from the hole that allowed for one in the kitchen to gaze at the lounge a head popped out: Mark Jacobs, the chef.

"On it boss!" Jacobs called from his position at the stove. "A fruit salad for the lady: can I ask what the rest of you would like to order?"

Scotty O'Rourke gave a big grin at the prospect of not just food, but free food. "Well, since it's free, I for one would LOVE a nice, meaty steak! Mmm, perhaps some roast potato to go with it- Ah, and do you have eggs?" He queried, clapping his hands at Jacobs nod, smacking his lips in appreciation. "Ah, I'll take five boiled eggs, then, alongside a nice salad- served dry, preferentially- a head of grilled cabbage, three corns on a cob, and perhaps a few slices of bread, a cheese of the chefs choice, an american style biscuit, a bowl of gravy, perhaps a few drumsticks of chicken, and for dessert a bowl of iced cream. Served with ice water, please: I don't drink spirits."

"Uh, that'll take awhile except for the water sir, but sure," Jacobs said, non-plussed at the size of the order even as Josiah's eyes widened in dread as he realized that he may have just made a very costly mistake agreeing to feed the hungry irish novelist.

"I could go for thom peacheth," Lisped the final member of the lodge, Mr. Peaches, an orange furred orangutan who acted as the teams mascot, who would rub his belly in anticipation even as the cook stared, perplexed and confused.

"Did that Ape just talk?" He said, baffled, causing the team to let out a peel of laughter.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!​

One Day Later

"Well I say, this has been quite the adventure," Marianne giggled, taking a drink of whiskey. The group was currently seated in the very important persons section of the lounge, which consisted of a section of it cordoned off by velvet ropes in its own cozy little corner, consisting of a few leather chairs and soft fabricked chaise lounges surrounding a mahogany table, all atop a thick persian rug, a fire in the corner roaring.

Oswald gave a hum of agreement, lost in thought, even as Abby speared a bite of cabbage on her fork and downed it. "Yes, I must agree: none of our fraudsters have had access to dry ice of all chemicals," The inventor said thoughtfully.

"Personally, I don't see what was so nice about it," Scotty grumbled good naturedly, sipping a glass of iced fruit juice before setting the beverage down. "Now, th' surroundings, those are CERTAINLY a welcome sight,"

"You just like it because Professor Arkham is letting us eat for free," Marianne teased, causing Scotty to chuckle and stroke his prominent, bewiskered chin.

"Not wrong, aye, but can you blame me? I'm but a humble and poor novelist, with nary a penny t' my name," Scotty retorted, placing one hand to his breast while giving a wave of the other. "Why, with such a precarious life, it should be nae wonder I have such an affinity for such a generous place!"

Mr. Peaches meanwhile gave a hoot of agreement, enjoying the peaches and ice cream that had been prepared for him. "The food ith a good reathon to like this plath," The orangutan said happily. "Pluth, I like seeing the trickth."

"Mmm, I admit, the Professors acts so far have been delightful," Marianne agreed. "Just absolutely spine-tingling." She gave a long, breathy sigh. "It's almost a shame we'll have to head back to Crystal Cove so soon."

"...I've been thinking about that, my good fellows," Oswald said from his armchair, finally speaking up. "What if we didn't leave?"

The party gave a collective raise of the eyebrows, except Mr. Peaches, who continued to enjoy his meal. "Clarify," Gluck said flatly, causing Oswald to breath in.

"During the past few weeks, not only have we solved the Redfeather mystery, we've discovered dozens of additional ones," The man explained, craning his fingers together. "Gotham is a HOTBED of the strange and unexplainable: I love Crystal Cove, but I think we can all agree, we've about hit the limits of the place and how much we can grow in it. "

A silence passed through them, a silent acknowledgement of his correct-ness: ever since they had finally located the crystal sarcophagus in the cove caves and discovered it empty, the amount of strange, truly unexplainable occurrences in the town had begun to dry up, one by one, as if whatever mysterious force that had once caused them had suddenly dissipated.

"Aye, well, I could do for a change of pace, I reckon'," Scotty eventually said, picking up his lemonade again. "Well then- To our new base of operations!"

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

BATCOMPUTER IS POWERING UP…

…

…

PLEASE ENTER LOGIN

USERNAME: JAYBIRD
PASSWORD: E-BENNET1813

…

…

WELCOME, JASON. PLEASE ENTER QUERY

SEARCHING FOR "RING OF SOLOMON"

…​

Jason. I know you're reading this: Tim made sure to program the batcomputer to display this message the next time you entered your credentials. We need to talk: you can't keep sneaking into the batcave in the middle of the day while avoiding me. I understand it's not a conversation you want to have, but if we're going to make our current arrangement work, we need to at least be able to pass on information in person like professionals. I have that surveillance data of Black Mask you needed: if you want it, you know where to find me. - Bruce

The Ring of Solomon are a gotham based anti-german society dedicated to ensuring it never becomes a world power, responsible for funding and sponsoring numerous german terror organizations, assassinating german figures and officials, and promoting anti-german propaganda, both in the United States and, with the rise of the internet, globally. Their assistance was one of the key factors leading to the assassination of Kaiser Wilhelm and starting World War 1, an event they took as validation of their organizations beliefs.

Their origin lie in Arkham Lounge: it wasn't long after he had predicted the Great Gotham River Fire. Convinced of his prophetic ability (NOTE: have asked Giovanni Zatara, magic community apparently unsure if Professor Arkham real magician or lucky fraud. Current theory: reincarnation of Nostradamus), when he made a prediction that a great and terrible evil would rise in the land of old empires, Chalmer Chill, a rich coal baron (no relation to anyone in my past. I checked.) possessed of deep anti-germanic prejudices, took it as another prophecy. Assembling a collection of allies from multiple level of society, the Ring dedicated itself to averting what it believed was an apocalyptic threat.

During both World Wars, they funded large spy rings, working closely with contacts in various governments opposed to Imperial and Nazi germany in order to support their military efforts and sabotage the germans. In the leadup and during World War Two, however, they would rapidly increase their operations against the nazi party: while I wouldn't call them anti-fascist in any sense of the word, they would wind up funding numerous anti-fascist and even communist groups during this period (though any progress they might have contributed on that front would be reversed during the Cold War). Beyond this, they collaborated numerous times with the Justice Society of America, aiding them in killing the figure known as Captain Nazi, a "superhero" who had been fielded by the third reich only a year before: already tired and injured from a battle with Hawkman and Jay Garrick, the Captain found themselves captured by Parisian resistance fighters armed with weaponry commissioned from the german expatriat and technological genius Abigail Gluck by the Ring. According to the Rings own mythology, the resistance fighters apparently shot Captain Nazi in the head and dumped his corpse in the sewers.

They are also directly responsible for the assassination of the german leader Adolf Hitler and the ascension of Hermann Goering to the title of Fuhrer during the July 20 plot in the year 1940. Less than a year later, given full command of nazi germany's war machine, the final solution began.

As much as mass media might portray otherwise, the final solution, while the brain-child of Goering and his personal project as Fuhrer, cannot be blamed solely on the man, and by extension unlike how many view them I don't blame the perpetrators (or the Ring which backed them) for accidentally helping Goering achieve power. The Nazi Party was, even under Hitler, a supremely hateful organization, and like all fascist projects at the time, already some degree of innately genocidal. It is highly unlikely it would have ended any differently had Hitler lived, as much as bad alternate history likes to postulate otherwise.

If the first world war was validation, the holocaust was the ultimate confirmation of the Rings views, calcifying them and ensuring the organization would persist even after the passing of their prophecy. Their activities have risen and fallen over the decades since, though they've never fully ceased operations, though their assassination of all members of Operation Paperclip and thus helping the Soviets win the space race ensured that for several decades they were forced to go underground by the US Government. Currently, there exist two different branches of the Ring: the more 'moderate' Gotham branch, which is content to utilize soft-power to undermine both east and west germany economically, and the Metropolis Branch, which nearly started World War 3 when they detonated a low-yield nuclear device under the Berlin Wall during 1981 in a (unfortunately) successful bid to prevent re-unification, as well as in more recent years attempting to manipulate NATO into invading East Germany and attempting to assassinate politicians in the EU amenable to West Germany joining.

I do not envy Clark for having to deal with these people. They're annoying enough when they're just corrupt and racist millionaires, let alone murderous terrorists.

Regardless, the largest threat possessed by either branch is their near unlimited amount of funding and connection to other organizations (SEE: COURT OF OWLS, LEGION OF DOOM, SERPENT SOCIETY, ROYAL FLUSH GANG, FALCONE CRIME FAMILY). They lack any major metahumans of note, largely utilizing mercenaries, hired henchmen, and paid assassins and soldiers of fortune to do their dirty work, as well as backing other organizations when it suits their interest. Note that while circumstances can lead to situations where co-operating with them is warranted (namely, when dealing with German or Neonazi supercriminals), they are still to be considered generally antagonistic and exceptionally dangerous, especially towards german metahumans and heroes.

On a more personal note, I find the Ring one of my more generally distasteful enemies. While they aren't as openly murderous as some, they have spent decades helping to forment the current situation in the Germanies: the starvation, the economic collapse, the radiation crisis, the gang wars. Worse, they act like this makes them heroes: self-righteousness is an ugly trait, especially when the only basis is that they were enemies with the right people once. Ras, for all his hypocrisy and attempts to justify his actions as being for the greater good, at least recognizes the monstrosity and cruelty of what he does.

!!!!!GOTHAM!!!!!​

With a crashing sound, the window shattered as a brick went through it. "Are you insane?!" Josiah yell-whispered at Crane. "We're trying to avoid getting caught here!" He growled. "Do you want to bring the pigs down on us?"

It was ten minutes until midnight, and the sky was black. The pair were standing in the yard of the Roth house, Josiah holding a ladder, Zelda carrying a kerosene lantern, each dressed in clothes they had selected both for ease of movement and going unseen. "We would have had to break it anyways, wouldn't we?" Crane said sweetly, causing Josiah to give a frustrated growl.

"No, we wouldn't have: I have a pry bar in my pack," Josiah said through gritted teeth, taking some small satisfaction in the widening of the womans eyes as she realized she had made a mistake.

"Well, it's not like anyone is likely to care," Crane said haughtily, a note of uncertainty hidden in her tone. "After all, this…." She looked at the run down building, mouth curling in distaste. "-house, doesn't look like anyone has lived in it for awhile."

"Be that as it may, the police arriving and throwing us in jail for even a night will be both enough of a smear on my reputation and a complication to my current venture that it would void the utility of this action. If you want that favor, be quiet and don't get caught!" Josiah lectured, walking to the side of the house, while Crane narrowed her eyes. After a moment, apparently deciding to not contest Josiah, she followed, the pair of them trudging up to just under the window.

"Alright, Miss C," Josiah said, making sure to not use any real names, something he had extensively discussed with the woman beforehand. "You'll climb first, and I'll hold the ladder steady for you. Since you decided to enlargen our means of ingress, you shouldn't have to use the pry-bar to open the window. Once you reach the top, you'll hold it steady for me long enough for me to follow."

"Mmm, very well, Professor," Zelda said, giving a small and tiny grin. "I've never been party to a burglary, I must admit: this is a very new experience for me. The ladder, if you will."

Giving a grunt, Josiah set the wooden frame up, placing it against the wall and holding it steady, gesturing. Stepping up to it, Zelda began to ascend the side of the building, rung by rung. Eventually reaching the window, she reached past the shattered glass with her gloved hands, fiddling with some mechanism, presumably the lock, before retracting her arm. Grasping the window, she shoved it to the side, opening it, allowing her to crawl inside.

"Alright, I have the ladder," Crane called, and Josiah began to crawl up it, slowly and steadily, praying the ground stayed stable beneath him, which wasn't a given considering the unique topographical geology of the location.

Eventually, he reached the halfway point: only a little more and he'd be there. It was at that moment the ladder began to shake. Giving a yelp, Josiah grabbed the ladder close. "Oh, Professor!" Zelda tittered from above, the womans mouth slow growing intoa wide, unsettling grin. "So JUMPY! A fear of falling, perhaps?"

"Damn you woman, stop that!" Josiah grunted, beginning his ascent, only for a few rungs later to let out a another yelp as the ladder shook. "Stop!" Josiah cried as he began to speed his ascent.

"Stop what, Professor?" Zelda said innocently. "I'm just holding the ladder."

"You keep shaking it!" He cried, growing more annoyed at the womans childish- and TERRIFYING- prank, ascending quicker and quicker, the ladder intermittently shaking and being jostled.

"Why, my good sir, I don't know what you're talking about," Crane teased. "I think the height has you jittery- a subconscious fear? I never would have figured the great Professor Arkham as an acrophobe."

"DAMNIT CRANE, YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME F-" Josiah yelled, only to be interrupted by something below him giving way causing the ladder to begin sliding through the soft soil. Simultaneously both of their eyes widened as Crane quickly attempted to brace herself and grip onto the ladder.

"Nonononononono-" She cried as it slipped from her hands, slick from the rain. Realizing he was too high up to land safely, Josiah reacted instinctively, falling back on his training as a burglar, the work he had briefly done as an acrobat for Hermanns, and sheer blind feral panic to rapidly scramble up the remaining rungs quicker than he would have thought possible, launching off the last rung in order to jump the widening gap between it and the window, his body crashing through, his fall caught by Zelda, who would go sprawling to the ground alongside the magician.

The pair of them both sat in their position, Josiah with his face in the surprisingly dry, if oddly pungent, carpet, while Zelda looked to the ceiling. Giving a groan, the pair of them began to stand up, picking their busted up and battered bodies from the floor. "PLEASE, Miss C, never. Do that. Again." Josiah said, massaging a part of his shoulder that felt particularly dented up, frankly too happy he was alive to be as angry as he should. Which still meant he was furious, mind, but just furious enough to bottle it up and eventually barf it out later onto his employees or into his museum.

"...Duly noted," Zelda said, picking up the fallen lantern and putting out the small ember that had spread from it. "I'm not going to apologize," She said flatly, voice almost defiant, as if daring Josiah to argue.

"You nearly killed me," Josiah said flatly, causing her to look away.

"A…regrettable accident. Regardless, I am at least willing to concede that it is in the best interest of our continued partnership to behave," She conceded, and Josiah gave a sigh of annoyance, realizing that was probably the best he was going to get. Fine. He could live with that: Zelda was too valuable to alienate for (accidentally) nearly killing him once.

"Now, what exactly are we looking for, here?" Zelda asked, and Josiah took a breath, before pulling out his pack on the floor and unrolling, retrieving a box of matches and a small hand-lantern, lighting it before starting to put everything back.

"About fifteen years ago, someone lived here: a girl. Abigail Roth," He explained, standing up. "I need to know who she is, where she is now, and what happened here. Now, your little stunt most likely was heard by SOMEONE, so we don't have much time. Perhaps less than twenty minutes. You can take the ground floor. I'll take this one and the attic. Anything you find, Miss C, you report to me: otherwise, you're the look-out."

Zelda raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'd make a joke about you sending a poor defenseless woman on her own, but I've given you enough stress this evening, I think. Fine. How are we going to make our exit?"

"In fifteen minutes, I'll come down and help pry off a few of the boards on the lower windows," Josiah explained. "It will still be a bit of drop, but it will likely be a less injurious than falling from a second story window on top of a hill."

"Mmm, fine then." She gave a nod to Josiah before turning, walking along the corridor until she found stairs, carefully descending down each one, the wood creaking beneath her feet. Staring after her for a moment, Josiah turned, walking in the darkened hall. On the second story, he found three rooms: each of them he opened. The first appeared to be the master bedroom: a few shelves here and there. In the center, a tick mattress stood. The next room was windowless: possessing a small child sized cot, shelf, and mirror, its surface black, a yawning void that gave Josiah the chills: on the shelf was a copy of Don Quixote, written in the original spanish according to a cursory look, well worn and well loved. The last room had another few cots and, in the ceiling, a drawstring. Approaching it, Josiah pulled the cord, causing a panel to slide down, allowing a set of rungs to descend: an attic entrance then. Climbing them one by one, he soon reached the zenith, entering the shadowy chamber at the top of the Roth house.

What he saw left him with chills. In front of him, sitting in a gently rocking chair, was the cold, blackened corpse of a human being, their desiccated mummy staring right at Josiah with hollow eye-sockets, mouth stuck half open. Clothed in a jacket, trousers, and boots, the corpse had probably belonged to a man once: the sailors cap on their head at least indicated such.

His heart thudding a mile a minute, Josiah gave a dry swallow as he approached the corpse, the musty scent of death filling his nose as he reached into their pockets, looking for anything, eventually locating a small pocket book and pulling it out, dismayed to find it…waterlogged?

Furrowing his eyebrows, Josiah wondered how the book was so soggy when the corpse was dry, before deciding that he'd rather not think about that. Opening it, he was upset to find that almost each and every entry had seen its writing run to the point of illegibility, except for one…

Dear ____, I think I might d__ here. The water below has not receded: I am still trapped in this hall, waiting for ____. Ironically, despite being above so much water, I am growing thirsty. The ____ is not drin__, it is ____ and brackish, and contains ____ which I suspect are ____: the cat drank some, and soon began to act strange, before leaping into the ___. I now see fish in the water, occasionally: they occasionally try to snap at me with their stingers.

I don't _____ to do. I have prayed to _____, and yet they are not answered. I fear they may have abandoned me: all I hear now is my wife, calling from beneath the water. I fear I only have a few days before I die of thirst: I can only pray my spirit doesn't join her.

May god have mercy on my soul. Abby, forgive me.

!!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

Christmas Day, 1900​

Well. He had been forced to get a new waiter, but so far the Christmas Party seemed like a smashing hit, Josiah thought, surveying the lounge, noting the pleased throngs stretching across the breadth of the Lounge, the many folk of Gotham unable to afford a more private ceremony: the poverty stricken, the indigents, those lacking family or warm loving hearths to return to. Another way to help buy good-will: he had bought off a few papers to mention a public party, where he would wine and dine the poor of Gotham in order to earn their love, and thus bolster his status and reputation.

And from what he could tell? It was working. The party was packed: in order to allow his employees to enjoy themselves, he had rented a phonograph for music, had Jacobs cook the meal aforetime and place it out on special tables, and currently, Mr. Peaches was on bartending duty, the ape having been bribed with a bottle of peach brandy and assorted other treats to pour and mix drinks. In the center of the lounge, some of the patrons were dancing, taking advantage of the phonograph and the spirit-bolstered courage to perform simple waltzes. In the corner, Gluck and Crane were both talking animatedly, sharing notes, while Scotty and Mark were both wrapped arm in arm singing carols to the delight of the latters aunt.

Even Amadeus had shown up, the man animatedly conversing with Burlington, the latter looking a little sleepy as he relaxed in his arm-chair, cheeks ruddy from drink. All while Josiah watched from his place above, a small alcove on the second floor of the Lounge overlooking the rest of the bar he reserved for his personal use.

Next to him, he heard a flutter of what sounded like feathers, and Josiah did his best to not react, taking a sip of beer. "Miss Roth," He said, non-chalantly, noting from the corner of his eye the suspicious look the witch was giving him.

"Arkham. How did you find out where I lived?" She asked, sharply, causing Josiah to give a slow chuckle, the man doing his best to come across as totally relaxed. The trick to selling a good con was, as the name implied, confidence.

"You'd be surprised at the amount of resources I have available, Miss Roth," He drawled out in a non-answer, giving a nod, before ringing a bell. "I must admit, I'm surprised you accepted my invitation," He noted. In truth, he didn't actually know where she lived, though at this point it would be trivial to check. However, he didn't need to: he had merely made a few discrete payments to the Lodge to investigate where one might mail one Abigail Roth, then hired a courier. But she didn't need to know that: better for her to think him more devious than he was. .

Abigail narrowed her eyes, seated across from Josiah, both of their chairs positioned to see most of the lounge and each other, but not at the same time, not directly: unless you were good at looking from the corner of ones eyes, the pair had to pick between watching one or the other. "What do you want, Arkham?" She said, voice full of suspicion.

"Why, to extend my gratitude, of course!" Josiah claimed, carefully monitoring both the party and his new guest, satisfiedly noting that she was currently focused entirely on him. "After all, without your magic, none of this…" He said, giving a wave, gesturing to the lounge below. "Would be possible."

This successfully put Roth off-guard, the woman blinking in surprise, mouth and eyes curling into an expression of confusion. "You're…extending your gratitude?" She said, off-kilter, before her face set back into a hardened expression. "You're trying to manipulate me," She hissed. "It won't work."

"Of course I'm trying to manipulate you," Josiah dismissed, crossing his legs and setting his drink down even as his waiter appeared, carrying a plate holding a glass, a bottle of wine, and holding a box. "Please, try not to state the obvious my dear, else this conversation will never get anywhere." He gave a clap, and the new waiter sat the platter down before picking the bottle up, uncorking it, and pouring the amber liquid into the elegant, tall necked looking drink glass. A moment later, the waiter handed it to Roth, the witch taking it and staring at the item with naked suspicion.

"That will be all Kelvin."

"Kevin,"

"Whatever," Josiah dismissed. "You're dismissed. Miss Roth and I have much to discuss," He said, giving a wave, causing the new waiter to quickly make an exit. Unperching his arms, he picked up his drink and took a swig, before setting the cup down, raising an eyebrow at Roth glaring at her cup. As if he would lower himself to poison the alcohol he served like some sort of hack poissoinneur. "At any rate, just because this is an attempt to manipulate you doesn't mean the sentiment isn't real: I am, from the bottom of my heart, VERY grateful for the blessing you've provided my establishment." He gave a lazy shrug, watching with satisfaction as Roth finally took a sip of the drink.

"Hmm," Roth said, face still puzzled and suspicious as she tried to figure out what Josiah's angle was. "What are you playing at, Fraud?" She interrogated, causing Josiah to give a mock gasp of hurt and clutch at his heart in shock.

"Fraud? You wound me Miss Roth, to cast such vicious aspersions," He cried, before giving a chuckle and reclining in his seat. "Humor aside, since my soul is indentured, I thought it perhaps prudent to attempt to build a rapport with my future employer in order to ensure my afterlife…reasonably pleasant."

"And so you invite me to your party to wine, dine and woo me me with gifts," Roth said, realization kicking in. "I must admit, you are a BRAZEN one, Josiah," She said, voice taking on a dangerous note. "But very well, I'll humor you then, though I highly doubt you'll be able to make up for deceiving me into wasting a contract meant to secure the services of a master sorcerer on a two bit carny."

Josiah was silent for a moment, narrowing his eyes, smile not dropping, noting she was only half right. Oh, he did intend to wine and dine her, as she said, but the gift was an entirely different sort of leverage. "Oh my dear, you have woefully underestimated me if you think I'm 'just' a carny. I assure you, I am so very much more." He said darkly. "You may not consider me as valuable as some eldritch wizard, but I can provide you things they would be unable to."

"Paper, metal, and baubles," Roth snidely responded.

"Wealth, prestige, luxury," Josiah countered. "Legitimacy you won't be able to get squatting in a damp, dingy swamp or trawling the docks for people to make deals with. Connections to a higher statused clientel and personages." He gave a hum, noting the hint of intrigue he saw, mirrored by the greed. Right, time to establish his leverage: the risky part of this con. "Ah, but first, before we talk business, perhaps you should open your gift. I did go to considerable expense to locate it." He lied.

Roth stared at him, before picking up the box that sat on the table. "Fine," She said, rolling her eyes. "Let's take a look at whatever shiny bauble or overpriced, tacky artefact you think sufficient to impress m-"

She went silent. The lid of the box dropped from her hand, clattering to the ground as it slid from her slackening grip, jaw falling in response to what she saw. With a shaky hand, she grasped the contents and lifted them out.

It was a book. A copy of Don Quixote, once well worn and well loved, cover carefully restored and contents rebound. "Where…where did you…" Roth whispered, for the first time genuinely shocked, sending a thrill of satisfaction up Josiah's spine.

"You're welcome, of course: I gather from its condition and the notes you doodled in the margins that you were rather fond of this book," The Professor said conversationally. "I must say, you were quite the advanced reader as a child," He said, taking a stab in the dark, noting with pleasure that his guess hit home judging by the widening of the witches eyes.

"Do you think you're funny?" Roth growled, snapping out of her stupor, eyes flickering a brief red. "How did you find this? How did you learn that?" She bit out, voice filled with barely concealed alarm and wrath.

"I have my ways," Josiah said calmly. "As I said, I am much more than a 'two bit carny'," Josiah continued, a note of contempt dripping from his voice as he finished the rest of his drink, before setting the glass down for the final time. "As for the how, unfortunately, a magician never reveals his secrets."

"You will tell me or so help me I will rip you limb from limb," The witch snarled, dropping any pretence of civility, and Josiah felt the phantom specter memory of his near strangulation tingle across his neck briefly, his heart going a mile a minute even as he did his level best to maintain composure.

"Mmm, no, I think not. That wouldn't end very well for you at all," Josiah clicked, staring her down, hoping his read of her was correct: she was angry, but she didn't strike him as impulsive: he just had to convince her that killing him was a losing proposition. "Of course, I wouldn't be able to stop you," He admitted, preparing to come up with a ten carat load of golden bullshit. "You'd kill me quite quickly, no doubt. But, well, let's just say you wouldn't be in a position to enjoy my labour very long, for reasons I'm more than happy to explain if you give me…five minutes, perhaps?" He asked, and now Abigail looked uncertain, his capabilities and actions having already set her off guard and making her unsure of his capacity. She was wary: that was good.

"And how do you intend to punish me?" She drawled interrogatively. "Some sort of curse? Do you intend to haunt me from beyond the grave? Perhaps you've bound some daemon to bedevil your killer, or-"

"If I die in the next ten years, a hundred thousand dollar hit will be put out on you, your home will be leaked to every criminal gang in gotham, and your photo, name, and history will be published in one of Gotham's top papers," Josiah informed her, cutting the witch off, taking satisfaction at the widening of her eyes. "If you survive- which even with your powers isn't a given, since even with the power of hell itself you don't have eyes in the back of your head and still need to sleep eventually- it won't be in Gotham, not if you ever want a peaceful nights rest."

The witch looked at him, stunned, and he knew he had succeeded. "You- INSOLENT-" She seethed, furious, causing Josiah to smirk even as he noted the brief hints of fear. He had successfully bluffed her. Good, that meant, whether it was true or not, she thought they at least had SOMEWHAT more equitable leverage over each other. Beyond, it meant that he now knew that as terrifying as she was, SHE at least believed that getting shot in the back by a surprise assailant was a plausible threat to her life.

"Yes, very," Josiah agreed, and on the back of his left hand, he could feel the scar tissue throb a bit in stress. "But again, stating the obvious. You see, while I'm VERY grateful, I must admit, the idea of being someones slave for much of my afterlife is…" He trailed off. "Less than appealing. But you see, your little contract has a loophole, one predicated on you being alive in some capacity to serve."

Roth finally grew silent. "Threats, I see: you seek to escape your contract then," She growled, setting the glass down before gripping the rests of her chair tightly. A cord of anger still in her voice, but tempered by uncertainty and the mistaken belief she was gazing at someone dangerous enough for consideration.

"Oh no," Josiah said, grin returning, once more returning to the other aspect of the con, planting the idea that there existed a less risky compromise. "This is just the stick: on the whole, I'm not opposed to our deal standing. After all, you did do me QUITE the service, Miss Roth. Should our relationship be amicable and one of respect, then neither of us have nothing to fear: all you have to do is sit back and reap the fat of a good investment, and when my time comes I'll willingly accept my place as your employee. But should our relationship be acrimonious, or you decide to collect on your price before I'm ready to pay and…" He leaned forward, looking the witch right in the eye. "It behooves a man to have insurance. So, which do you want? The carrot of wealth and luxury, or the stick of paranoia and a price on your head?"

She narrowed her eyes, expression slipping into a veil of what would be inscrutability to others, but Josiah was able to recognize it as a combination of anger, fear, acceptance, and, buried underneath it all, a small piece of her was impressed. "You play a VERY dangerous game, Professor. It seems I underestimated you considerably. Very well: I'll play along. You have a year to convince me the contract was worth my time."

Josiah grinned, before standing up. "Excellent. Now that our business has sufficiently concluded, would you care to join me below? I do believe we're about to start the final dance of the evening and I don't appear to have a partner," He said, voice low as his eyebrow rose stretching his hand out, causing Roth to once more give a blink of surprise before her cheeks colored as she stared at the offered appendage.

"Well, it does seem that tonight is going to be FULL of new experiences: not only was I invited to a christmas party and threatened, now I'm being invited to waltz with the man who did so," Abigail tittered amusedly, before grasping Josiah's hand and accepting his help up, deciding to take him up on his offer.

And like that, despite staring down an opponent who held all the cards, Josiah had successfully convinced them to fold, using just a book, an invitation, cold reading, and consecutive bluffs.

Good job, you successfully led Josiah into tricking Abigail, and in the process secured the Witches respect and patronage. Combined with the rest of your choices, and it's a good turn other than accidentally butterflying German re-unification away and irradiating Europe: prestige is up from a good act, people are a little less suspicious of Josiah thanks to his generosity, and now he has the Lodge taking residence and treating the place as their headquarters, bringing in money and respect. As a result, the Lounges current financial score is BLACK. Josiah isn't quite rolling in it, but he's got some serious dough now.

First, let's deal with the Skein of Fate. As alluded to, our friends the Ring of Solomon are going to get up to some stuff using the Lounge as a base. Now you get to pick what they do first, what path they wind up taking. Keep in mind none of these are gonna be wholly bad, but by the nature of the organization you created being a nutty anti-german cult founded by crazy industrialists, they aren't gonna be very nice either. Action code is [RING].

[ ] The Gotham Arsenal: War with Germany was inevitable, and when it happened, America would be prepared! The Ring of Solomon had many captains of industry would pool their wealth to sponsor the creation of great and terrible arms factories and weapons workshops in Gotham.
-[ ] Give me a broad category of item the Arsenal specializes in. It has to be useful for war and combat, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a weapon. Vehicles are valid as well, as are things like Ammunition. You are allowed to get a little speculative with it, but keep it to something that would be somewhat plausible for a cabal of rich industrialists to cook up given some years.

[ ] Sponsored Propaganda: Germany couldn't be trusted. The Ring would attempt to help drive anti-german sentiment in one of the myriad regions of the world by bribing the various publishers to print slander and propaganda demonizing the German Empire, creating more enemies for the nation, making it harder for the great darkness to stick its claws into the region.
-[ ] Give me a region. It can be as broad as a continent or as specific as a city: the more targeted, the more effective the Rings efforts will be at driving anti-german sentiments.

[ ] Economic Warfare: Germany needed to be bled, and the Ring would provide the knife required to do so. They would hire a fleet of renegades, pirates, thieves, and rogues, outfitting them with weapons, boats, and money in order to plague german shipping across the sea, raid their colonies, harass their military, and set fire to their economy whenever the opportunity presented itself.
-[ ] Give me a brief strategy to accompany this: the idea is that you're basically creating Privately Funded Privateering, but that can take a number of forms. Are you focusing more on the ocean, or are you focusing more on land-bound attacks and groups? Do you want to take aim at their colonial ambitions or do you want to start eating at their core territories?

And now we arrive to the Hotspot. With new arrivals comes new opportunities: the Benevolent Lodge of Mystery weren't just veteran mystery solvers. Oswald P. Burlington is a wealthy heir to a vast rail empire, while Abigail Gluck is a skilled engineer. With the Lodge and Gotham acting as their new place of residence, eventually they would bring a bit of fortune to the bar. Action code is [HOT].

[ ] Oswald would make a generous contribution to the Lounge, allowing Josiah to afford a considerably more expensive addition or improvement than he could normally afford.
-[ ] What exactly do you spend his contribution on, and through what gestures do you repay his donation?

[ ] Gluck would agree to do some work as an engineer, helping to create some piece of technology to help benefit the lounge in some way, one that wouldn't otherwise be widely available for decades, if not longer.
-[ ] What item do you commission from Gluck? Remember she's a brilliant engineer and inventor, but keep in mind that if your commission is large enough or complex enough, it will likely require additional investment.

[ ] Scotty and Mark would collaborate, writing a book together that would help draw in another demographic to the Bar, one that might not have otherwise been interested in the place.
-[ ] What genre of book are they writing, and what's the subject matter? Different choices will yield different results: for instance, a horror novel about some strange, gothic terror will draw in a different group than xenofiction in the style of white fang or watership down, while a mystery travelog for black tourists wanting to visit the haunts of Gotham is its own kettle of fish, etc etc.

And once more, before we get into your act and AP, lets see your acts, assets, and employees.

ASSETS:


Josiah Arkham: The owner circa Aug. 1900 - . A stage magician trained in burglary among other arts. Has sold his soul to Abigail Roth, who he encountered in a dingy bar while drunk, in exchange for his Bar having an assured stream of clientele, though not neccesarily enough to make ends meet. Obsessed to an unhealthy degree with various indigenous artefacts.

Violet Hall: A singer Josiah had located while looking for entertainers: they had agreed to work using their voice, their pay a few dollars every day they worked.

Stout Beers: Stout Breweries were one of the lesser sources of alcohol in this town in terms of quality, but they were cheap, meaning that they served as the source of much of the alcohol served.

Crane Brews: A collection of beverages that incorporated various narcotics and minor neurotoxins to deliver an alternate intoxication to beer, one that bypassed most peoples alcohol tolerance. Thanks to recent investments, cheaper than before.

Dry Ice: Good for special effects, good for keeping things cold.

The Kitchen: A kitchen ran by Mark Jacobs with cheap foods of various types such as eggs, bacon, toast. It sported a cold room that held a variety of other common Gotham foodstuffs, such as oysters. You also had a waiter now to help bring people their food.

St. Majeste: An old riversteamer where the Arkham Lounge was located, it was a barely floating wreck that required significant repairs. So far, the only functional parts was the engine, the wheel, and the actual lounge itself, as well as a kitchen and small pantry.

And now, your list of Acts.

Taming of the Fouls: An act that involves a large number of doves and pigeons. Currently, most were kept in a special coup when not acting. They had been trained to be surprisingly well coordinated, and more important, unlikely to crap in a customers food.

Stories of Smoke and Mirrors: A sadly slightly undercooked act consisting of tales spun by Professor Arkham in the form of puppetshows with himself as the narrator and villain: the smoke and props gave it an interesting atmosphere, but it was still subpar for various technical reasons.

Crystal Ball Act: It didn't have an official name, but it was an act where Josiah would use a crystal ball, ventriloquism, and cold reading as well as a healthy dose of spying to create "predictions" for his audience.

And now, we have the ACT vote: I'm not gonna repeat the spiel, you remember how it works and hopefully the advice I've given you. I'll probably repeat it eventually, but for now, you're on your own. [ACT].

[ ] Insert Act Here.

Alright, and now we reach the AP. Josiah's priorities largely haven't changed except for his debt to Zelda, but now his options have. The Performance and Management AP are still required, and so is the Roth action, but now for the latter instead of investigating, you can instead focus on actions to help cultivate the Lounge and yourself as potential assets, focus on schmoozing her if you think the solution to a deal with the devil is to wine and dine Satan, or you can keep investigating Roth if you want a better stick to go with your carrot. Further, you also need to pay Zelda back somehow for her favor, and unfortunately a money bribe isn't gonna cut it: you gotta get creative and figure out something more valuable to her than just investing in her research. Note that you CAN spend your Hotspot on this if you can think of something that would sufficiently please Miss Crane, and that you don't need to repay the favor right away. Just keep in mind that the longer you wait, and the poorer your attempt at repaying her is, the more likely she is to call on that favor herself.

Codes are [SHOW], [BAR], [WITCH], and [PERSONAL].

[ ] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.

-[ ] What kind of entertainment are you looking for? If you can think of a specific place to scout you can use it instead, but considering its turn 1 I don't imagine you'll have many ideas.

[ ] 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.

-[ ] What kind of staff are you looking for?

[ ] Diversify Spirits: Stout produced low quality, but cheap beers. They were in your budget, but unless you diversified, the drinks would likely never be a major draw.

-[ ] What kind of alcohol are you looking for? Just a few words is fine: 'expensive wines', 'inexpensive whiskeys', 'swamp bought moonshine'.

[ ] Renovate the St. Majeste: Only part of the St. Majest was open to the public: the ship was still seaworthy inasmuch as any vessel of its class might be, but the prior owners had apparently been less than gentle with the vessels insides, meaning most of it required repair.

-[ ] Like prior options, what are you repairing? I'm not gonna list every possible space on the ship, especially since they'll probably be used for something different: instead, just specify a potential location that could conceivably exist on the ship and what you want to use it for. A gambling hall, another drink lounge, theaters, cabins people can pay to sleep in, etc.

[ ] Call On a Someone: Josiah knew a lot of people. He could lean on them for favors, or else simply visit them to deepen friendship.
-[ ] Select a character and your reason for visiting them.

[ ] Investing: If you have a particular business partner, friend, venture, or industry you want to put some of the Lounges funds into, this is the option you want.
-[ ] Who or what are you investing in, and do you have any stipulations?

[ ] Go on a Date: Ah, Romance. Select this option if you're interested in a character in a less than platonic manner. Note that they need to be someone Josiah would be interested in pursuing and of compatible orientation and gender.
-[ ] Select a character and provide a brief idea for a date.

[ ] Rumor-Hunting: Josiah has a topic he's interested in. He was going to collect rumors in the hopes of finding a lead, whether from the bars of gotham, his various old criminal contacts, calling on his mentor, or other means.
-[ ] Write in topic and means of hunting it

[ ] Gotham University Research: Gotham University was the center of academia in the city. If there was anyone who might know about various subjects such as the history of gotham, various scientific and literary facts, and other useful subjects that Josiah might find useful, it was here.
-[ ] Write in subject you're looking to research.

[ ] Write In.

Six hour moratorium.

 

[The Bird]

[X][RING] The Gotham Arsenal: War with Germany was inevitable, and when it happened, America would be prepared! The Ring of Solomon had many captains of industry would pool their wealth to sponsor the creation of great and terrible arms factories and weapons workshops in Gotham.
-[X] American multi tools

[X][HOT] Gluck would agree to do some work as an engineer, helping to create some piece of technology to help benefit the lounge in some way, one that wouldn't otherwise be widely available for decades, if not longer.
-[X] Gluck would electrify the Lodge, allowing it to install lightbulbs and phase out lanterns.

[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] Handyman: Someone who can fix things and occasional move props for the Act.

[X][WITCH] Renovate the St. Majeste
-[X] A private library

[X][PERSONAL] Write-in: Go hunting for antique books; classic novels can be put aside for Abigail, while the others go into our private collection

[X][ACT] Taming of the Fouls: An act that involves a large number of doves and pigeons. Currently, most were kept in a special coup when not acting. They had been trained to be surprisingly well coordinated, and more important, unlikely to crap in a customers food.

[X][SHOW] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.
-[X] Comedian

!!!GOTHAM!!!

Content Warning: This one contains a fairly frank discussion about segregation in the US.

The Gotham Tribune, Jan 9, 1901
A Review of the St. Majeste by Benjamin St. Cloud

Dear reader, I find myself appreciating the Lounge more the longer its open. Their recent addition of a "House Comedy Duo" to their roster helps differentiate them from their competitor in entertainment, Hermann, and the owner clearly sees the value in steady investment into quality with their recent addition of an electrical lighting system. The selection of drinks is, admittedly, somewhat lacking, but what you get is rare enough for that to be a forgivable sin: Witches Brew is something that I genuinely have not been able to locate at any other bar in Gotham, and once you've become accustomed to it it is inarguably highly quality.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!


It was a good start to the New Year. Profits were high, prestige was rising, and our dear friend Josiah had a lead in on some way to handle the soul problem to his satisfaction. Now, our guy, he might have had a talent for the stick, but when it came to solving his problems, he preferred to make friends, not enemies. Abigail Roth might have owned his soul, but all that meant is that he had a way to keep working on his bar even after he shuffled off the mortal coil if he played his cards right. He just had to get her invested in the Lounges success.

Now, he didn't know much about Roth. What he did know was that as a child, she had liked Don Quijote, so that was what he capitalized on. Using the new handyman, he repaired more of the St. Majeste, turning what had been a deck for hauling cargo into a private library equipped with electric lighting, scouting out as far as Metropolis for antique books to fill it with, setting aside any classic literature as a gift to his newest patron of sorts. Soon, the shelves were piled high with anatomical texts, rare tomes and occult grimoires, novels and memoires of famous personages, and more besides. A modest beginning, but one that left Josiah with a choice.

Alright, not a whole lot to figure out here, just who you want in your library. Keep in mind, if it's for your personal use, you can use it to store way more sensitive material: less chance of someone stealing that rare copy if the place is off-limits to people other than the owner. Plus, Abigail might be more invested in a Library she doesn't have to share. However, you could go other routes: if you want, you could use it to help cultivate a higher class of clientele by making it invitation only: a perk of being a VIP or in the good books of a VIP. Now, later on you can expand either of these with a more public facing option as a way to appeal to more intellectual drinkers looking to enjoy a nice glass of wine with a novel, but for now, those first two are your options. Also, keep in mind that Josiah doesn't currently live on the St. Majeste. Code is [BOOKS]​

[ ] Private Means Private: Josiah would allow Abigail, Amadeus, and no one else. His library would be his alone, with permission granted only to the most select few he had deemed acceptable to intrude on his space. It would be his sanctum, his place of power, the beating brains of his operations.

[ ] Lounge VIP Library: The library would be open by invitation only: those whom Josiah deemed worthy, whether by notability, familiarity, appreciation, or largesse. It would be a place where those he considered allies or potential peers could study, relax in peace, or congregate in private.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

While Josiah worked on the Library, he also worked on the rest of the lounge. First, he hired a handy-man, a cousin of Jacobs suggested by the cook to fix up the Lounge, help renovate it, and, when need be, help Josiah with minor props. This man, Davis Jacobs, found himself withering under the treatment of his eccentric, occasionally abusive boss, trading the money to afford nice things and the time to spend on them for a persistent eye-twitch and being unable to smell anything but burning toast. Much like Mark, he endured it however, if worse: the money only barely made up for being subject to the many shocks and zaps that came from working for Abigail Gluck, the other Abby in Josiah's life.

In the years after he eventually quit, Davis would loudly proclaim how much he had come to hate working for Josiah as a result: it wasn't the worst job he had ever had, sure, but it was the only job he had done where he had gotten zapped more than once, providing him a mild electrophobia that would follow him until death.

In the decades after his employment at the Lounge, the man actually went on to become a successful carpenter, believe it or not. Much like his cousin, the money he made would get invested, though in Davis' case it went to purchasing tools and assets for his business rather than philanthropy. Less altruistic, but I can't blame the guy, really: we all gotta eat, and you gotta make sure you have your head above water before you try to start helping other people. Still, with both Jacobs rolling in the dough, especially since they lived under the same roof, the family started to become one of the more well-to-do of East End. Nicer food, nicer clothes, some well needed renovations and improvements to the home. Real nice, but unfortunately they didn't live in a neighborhood where they could afford to live real nice.

Living real nice, you see, eventually resulted in them getting robbed one evening in late January. The only time Mark missed work: a burglar had broken in looking to steal what money they could, causing the young man to fall down a flight of stairs in an altercation with the thief, breaking several bones and earning him three days off (unpaid). The show, Josiah told him, must go on.

Davises first real job was helping Frau Gluck. You see, our old friend Josiah wasn't just about fancy special effects and witches brew: he wanted the Lounge to not just be the best, he wanted it to be on the cutting edge. That meant modernization: electrical lighting, new stove, hot water, among other things. To accomplish this, the manager commissioned Abigail Gluck for the process, paying the brilliant inventor out of pocket to help power his boat. For weeks she worked, clearing out an empty cabin and using it as her workshop. Whenever she wasn't solving mysteries with the rest of the Lodge or enjoying her free time, the german woman would spend days at a time testing technology, eventually producing something worth Josiah's investment.

Alright, now we're gonna determine how exactly you intend to power the place. There are a couple options here: you could go for a series of smaller generators, a larger singular generator, or an upgrade to the ships engine. Each one has its own pros and cons and takes its own type of fuel: choose wisely. Note that while Gluck built these, since they were commissioned by Josiah, he owns the [PATENT], which coincidentally is the action code.

[ ] Arkham Boxes: Abigail Gluck would produce a series of portable generators, 21 in total, as well as the schematics to make more. They ran off an ethanol engine: clean burning enough to not produce much smell. The power generated wasn't high and they were unfortunately expensive to create, but they were far more discrete than other options, and, obviously, more portable.

[ ] The Beast: A singular structure hidden away in the guts of the boat, the electrogenerator burned coal and a lot of it to provide the boat with power. Large, bulky, noisy, its greatest sin was the smoke it produced: even with the exhaust pipe leading outside, the room still stank of burning coal, and occasionally the smell would drift upward. Of course, even with these issues, the generator was an absolute powerhouse: it would be multiple decades before a comparable commercial version would be built.

[ ] Der Gluckenmotor: In the end, Frau Gluck had run out of budget, but she had successfully produced schematics for a replacement engine for the ship, one that would run off kerosene and distilled oil. In theory, it should allow not only for the Lounge to be electrified, but it would also be a significant improvement to the ships engine in general, though it would be pulling double duty between moving the boat and powering lights.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

And, to go along with his attempts at modernization, Josiah would branch out a bit in entertainment. He didn't really play any new acts this time: just more of the birds, this time with a few more props here and there and with better lighting. Instead, he focused more on improving the day ticket entertainment.

Scouting all the small time venues he could, he looked for a new act he could use as an alternative to Violet, give the people who were just there for lunch and a show a little variety. Violet wasn't a bad singer, of course, but no matter how good someones mashed potatoes might be, if thats your only option for a meal you're gonna get real sick of potatoes real quick. You need variety to stimulate the mental palette, and the Lounge needed more than just a magician and a singer. Instead, our friend Josiah looked to the world of comedy, eventually hiring a duo of black vaudeville actors from Metropolis who had gotten work at Hermann's. Irwin Vogel and Adam Brown, whose comedy routines at the Lounge in the days following their recruitment by Josiah would include piano playing humorous duets, small funny skits, and fast and comedic dialogues between themselves.

Now, for a bit of context, vaudeville back then was in general less than tasteful: you know the stories, minstrel shows and black face and all sorts of tasteless stereotypes perpetuated by racist white entertainers. Unless they were part of a primarily african american troupes, black vaudeville actors would frequently be forced to participate in these shows, denigrating themselves racially in front of hundreds of white americans by being forced to wear all sorts of silly outfits on stage and made to play various now-offensive racial archetypes like…Well, I'm not gonna list em here, but you can look em up, they're on Lexpedia, there's also a PBS documentary you can watch, suffice to say these shows weren't remotely tasteful.

Now, a lot of black vaudevillians would go on to form their own troupes over the course of the entertainment genres tenure, frequently to great acclaim when allowed the dignity that came from not having to pander to racist pricks. After all, talent is talent, no matter what color your skin was.

Now, Josiah was a bad boss, but he was a particular brand of bad boss. Racially tasteless, prone to unreasonable expectations and demands, and frankly annoying, but he wasn't an out an out bigot, and he valued performance. And, most of all, he was very, very spiteful: when he heard there was a pair of highly talented black performers working as minstrel shows at Hermanns looking for more dignified, higher paying work, he was on them like a cat on a mouse. In secret he auditioned them, asking for them to come up with their best possible act a month in advance. Nobody knows what went down when they finally auditioned, but they say our friend Josiah hired them the moment it ended, informing them they'd have complete control over their own material and a larger cut of the ticket revenue compared to the money Hermann's paid them.

They were a pretty solid hit: like I said, talent is talent, and while they were still getting ripped off, Josiah letting them write their own acts paid off: Vogel would frequently play the straight man, while Brown played a role that today we'd recognize as the wise-guy, and unlike Hermann's, they didn't have to lower themselves as much. A nice bit of humor to go with lunch, Vogel and Brown were in many ways a breath of fresh air for the Lounge, making it more popular as a day date location.

Of course, just because a black could perform at a place didn't necessarily mean they could drink at a place themselves.

And now we've got to switch frames for a moment. Yeah, this part has a lot of commentary on racism. You pretty much can't avoid it when it comes to discussing things like historical entertainment and even business. This next part deals with another ugly facet of historical oppression, segregation.

Now, Josiah isn't himself particularly prejudiced, as we've established: racially tasteless and insensitive, but he himself isn't hateful, just one of the many tools of history. But just because he's not a prejudiced asshole doesn't mean he isn't a crass, greedy dick, and when it comes to segregation, being a crass, greedy dick led many business owners to uphold the institution, setting aside worse parts of their facility and providing worse service to patrons of color or just banning them outright. Of course, there were those who didn't participate in the institution, but many of these didn't do so without consequence due to the harassment (if not worse) of a certain organization: you know the one, burning crosses, white hoods, those nasty bastards. It wasn't just physical threats of course, but also economic ones: when rich racists are the ones at societies helm, there becomes a number of financial disincentives to be progressive. For an example of that particular phenomenon, in Las Vegas, sometime in the 50's, there was an integrated casino by the name of the Moulin Rouge, one that served blacks and whites alike. It had a great reputation, brought in both black and white celebrities: good booze, good entertainment, good crowd. Real jewel of the city, so I hear, until a bunch of other segregated casinos conspired to boycott any producer that supplied them, making the club lose easy access to not only food, but also booze and other goods needed to keep itself running. Heck, these segregated casinos even got the Rouges liquor license yanked: without it, the place would up shutting down, going out of business.

That's the median level of resistance you're gonna get from trying to desegregate: not the absolute floor for how bad it can turn out, because history has told us how much worse it can get. Expect a sharp price hike, expect a lot of controversy and bad press, and expect to lose a lot of customers, at a minimum, to say nothing of the potential for physical violence. Alternatively, you can opt for the easier path, and just go with the flow until the civil rights struggle provides a safer stage to change your policy: the consequence free option, you'd have to spend time developing additional amenities for african-american patrons if you wanted to serve them, but that's about it: historically a lot of businesses that participated didn't really face a whole lot of consequences other than a little bad press after the fact. Personally, I hope you go for the former and opt for egalitarianism, but the reason I'm leaving this decision open to you is because it is not a consequence free choice. It would be deeply dishonest for me to ignore the many, many barriers that society placed in front of businesses trying to integrate and the dangers that accompanied it: it's the more moral option, certainly, but neither we nor Josiah live in a system designed to promote morality.

So, pick your poison: you can make a stand now and deal with the fallout, or you can wait until the water is less choppy. Code is [CHOICE].

[ ] Integrity: Josiah had never really adhered to a formal segregation policy, but it wasn't until his new employees wanted to spend their hard earned simoleons at the bar they worked that the man decided to officially desegregate, realizing the african american population of the city a ripe audience to exploit and, somewhat more admirably, believing that any who judged a man for something other than the color of their money was a fool. Immediate difficulty increase until desegregation. History will remember Josiah somewhat better.

[ ] Safety: …Well, he still thought it was better to gauge a mans value by the value of his dollar, but unfortunately there were external factors at play, like a bunch of inbred white hooded psychotic nut-jobs with torches and pitchforks and institutional backing. Better to adhere to the standards of the time and make most of the bar whites only: black patrons would have their own section, away from the stage and bar. No difficulty increase. History will remember Josiah slightly worse.

Meanwhile, while that's going on, you decided to go with multitools for what the Arsenal would be producing. Now, let me expand on what exactly the Arsenal is. On it's surface, it's a tract of land created going into the swamp, an industrial district created by our good friends in the Ring for the purposes of advancing the cause of anti-germanism in the form of equipping our (and I say this voice dripping with sarcasm, dear reader) good friends, the US Military. Not just factories either: engineering workshops, laboratories, office firms, warehouses, chemical plants. All financed by the Ring pouring millions if not billions of dollars into its construction, which will likely only take a half a decade to complete enough to come online and start production of gear. Meanwhile, the Rings hired inventors are gonna be hard at work developing the technology that'll be produced ahead of time. It's probably not gonna be profitable, not for a while if ever, but it's not meant to be: it's meant to help arm the military.

By selecting multitools for the Arsenal, you've caused Chalmer Chill to decide that what America REALLY needs to help beat those dirty krauts when war inevitably occurs is for its soldiers to always have tools on hand for any emergency, ones that can be used in a pinch to defend themselves. During the voting period, I said picking the arsenal would result in Gotham becoming the melee weapon capital of the world: this is why. You, my friends, have an open-ended assignment: I want you to come up with three different multitool concepts that can double as instruments of combat. The only stipulation is that they have to have at LEAST two non-combat applications, and cannot be ranged: beyond that, try to aim for more creative (or at least fun) ideas than just shoving a bunch of random crap together, and the melee weapon functionality of whatever you propose should be an incidental or an emergent property if possible. Action code is [WEAPONS]. Remember, this being DC and the pet project of a group of very, very rich weirdos, you ARE allowed to get somewhat speculative about it.

[ ] [WEAPONS] Insert idea here.
[ ] [WEAPONS] Insert idea here.
[ ] [WEAPONS] Insert idea here.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

Right, four hours moratorium. As always, commentary and criticism is appreciated, especially since this one deals with some sensitive subject matter.

 

[The Bird]

[X] [BOOKS] Private Means Private: Josiah would allow Abigail, Amadeus, and no one else. His library would be his alone, with permission granted only to the most select few he had deemed acceptable to intrude on his space. It would be his sanctum, his place of power, the beating brains of his operations.

[X] [PATENT] Der Gluckenmotor: In the end, Frau Gluck had run out of budget, but she had successfully produced schematics for a replacement engine for the ship, one that would run off kerosene and distilled oil. In theory, it should allow not only for the Lounge to be electrified, but it would also be a significant improvement to the ships engine in general, though it would be pulling double duty between moving the boat and powering lights.

[X] [CHOICE] Integrity: Josiah had never really adhered to a formal segregation policy, but it wasn't until his new employees wanted to spend their hard earned simoleons at the bar they worked that the man decided to officially desegregate, realizing the african american population of the city a ripe audience to exploit and, somewhat more admirably, believing that any who judged a man for something other than the color of their money was a fool. Immediate difficulty increase until desegregation. History will remember Josiah somewhat better.

[X] [WEAPONS] "Safety" Gloves: good for protecting the hands from cuts, burns, electric discharge, chemical spills while being able to stench the bleeding if someone decides to stab you in the hand. it inner groves on the fingers and palm help maintain a grip onto objects and help with vertical climbing; it also makes for surprisingly good knuckle dusters by being durable to increase the damage of hitting others while softening the force applied to the wearer.

[X] [WEAPONS] A hand-held version of a signal lamp that emits light because of chemicals inside it reacting with each other. It is sturdy enough to be used as a mace, has a spike to plant it into the ground, to use it as a crowbar, or to pierce an enemy's skull, and if the situation is desperate, one can pull a special trigger on this lamp and release a spray of glowing chemicals that cause severe burns.

[X] [WEAPONS] A large metal frame attached to the forearm contains a power tool driven by explosive charges that when used forces the piston down the guide rails. Exchangeable heads allow the pistons to break rocks, or with the help of clamps rivet bolts into solid surfaces.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!​

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Wonderful! Loading Gotham Arsenal and the Rise of Gotham Mechanized Martial Arts by M. Jerhoven, PhD

Gotham's relationship with violence has a long and storied history, from the very first day two prussian colonists set foot on its soil in 1692 only to wind up shooting each other to death in a duel that very evening[1]. However, it wasn't until the creation of the Gotham Arsenal that the seeds would be planted for what would later be called Gotham Mechanized Martial Arts, or Gomma, for short.

Gomma is characterized by its usage of three different tools: the first are safety gloves, specialized products produced by the arsenal to protect their hands and fingers, being highly durable, flame resistant, heat retardant, water-proof, and reinforced to reduce crush damage, as well as having special grooved gripped for keeping hold of items[2]. The second is the Gotham Lantern, a hammer shaped implement created using extremely luminescent, if highly caustic, chemicals. It's purpose being to both provide light in areas where conventional lanterns are likely to be hazardous, such as mines, tunnels and buildings filled with explosive light, and buildings containing highly flammable materials. It features a trigger designed to help dispose of the chemicals within easy once they've lost their brightness in order to replace them[3]. The third tool used as an essential part of Gomma is Pistons Fist, named for it's inventor, Piston Hitchcock, invented in 1911. Consisting of an arm-mounted frame designed to use a special gunpowder mechanism to allow workers to fire pistons down a rail, it is traditionally used in mining, demolition, and by law enforcement such as SWAT[4].

These items, as well as several of the other inventions produced by the Arsenal, would help to contribute to a small industrial renaissance, one felt most keenly by the businesses that had invested in the creation of the region, with several such as Chalmer Chill using these technologies to expand their own mining operations [5]. However, on October 24, 1923, the events that would see these tools turned to weapons would begin when the Pinkertons would attempt to stop an illegal strike by the Chill Automotive Factory by the Davy's Boys, a union attempting to secure higher privileges for its members at the cost of the Factories profitability. Davy's Boys would respond with violence, killing seven innocent Pinkerton Agents and injuring twenty more. In response, Chill would successfully persuade the state governor to respond with the state guard, resulting in the Chill Factory Incident (referred to inaccurately as the Chill Massacre, as a massacre by definition involves the killing of defenseless civilians: while there were women and children killed, they were both a small minority compared to the heavily armed and violent union members), ending with Davy Wright, the leader of the organization, being convicted and executed for insurrection[6]

In the aftermath, most of the surviving members of Davy's Boys would wind up joining various criminal gangs, trading their experience with using the tools they had used to fight the Pinkertons for protection against justice. Over time and numerous gang wars, this style of fighting would eventually form early Gomma, though its status as a valid martial art wouldn't be achieved until World War Two, where its practitioners would find themselves drafted to the trenches, resulting in them being forced to hone it in conditions far more hazardous than those of Gotham. Not only would they begin adopting combat armor as standard in order to survive arms-fire long enough to get close enough to use their other weapons, Gomma practitioners versed in engineering, chemistry, or other fields would begin experimenting with modifications to their gear to improve efficiency, improving the range of the Signal Lanterns ability to shoot caustic compounds, creating a short to medium range chemical shotgun, as well as the ability to create extremely harsh strobe effects to blind and disorient enemies, among other modifications such as improved causticity or the production of toxic fumes to make it double as a gas weapon, while the Piston Fist would find itself modified with improved hydraulics, lighter alloys to reduce carry weight, and heavy armoring to allow the tool to be used as a makeshift shield, providing another layer of protection against small arms fire[7]. NOTE: The Safety Gloves were not especially modified in this time, as their primary purpose was to help their user maintain their grip on weapons, protect their hands from damage from various sources, and climb and mount surfaces. While themselves useful for pugilism, as actual weapons they were largely used only in reserve or when the practitioner was ambushed without one of their primary weapons.

In the tight, enclosed spaces of the trenches, these modifications would make Gomma fighters extremely terrifying, if not for their individual prowess, then for their ability to demolish with ease german fortifications such as bunkers if they were allowed to close the distance. As the war progressed, these soldiers would begin teaching more of their trenchmates the art, causing its spread and adoption outside it's city and nation of origin, especially in France, whose army still offers free Gomma courses to members…

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!​

From the Journal of Frau Gluck, February 22nd

Dear Journal, it has been some time since we talked.

That man, Josiah, he has commissioned me to design him a new engine and help re-wire the boat to run off it, and now I have, after around two months of work. It took much of my time and energy, but I have successfully created the schematics for a machine I have named the Gluckenmotor.

It is a petroleum fueled machine, or at least will be: it can essentially run off any sort of oil based product, such as kerosene and even crude oil. In theory, one could even run it off of whale blubber oil, though the power it would generate would only be somewhat more than what the current engine puts out. Assuming the prototype functions as intended then it will also double as one of the best engines on the market, heads above most others such as those dumkopfts at Anchor Line.

It's also designed to function best with paddle-wheels instead of propellers, by the request of Josiah. I'm still not sure why he made such a choice, but the man is undeniably eccentric for aesthetics. This will lower its overall efficiency once made, but hopefully only a little.

These modifications mean the current engine is also working as a power source, but the machine is both meager and obsolete by twenty years. It can barely power the lights in the lounge, and even then the lounge still uses the old kerosene lamps to keep the stage lit and the lights never stay on while the wheels are being powered. Some utility, yes, but not as much as the Gluckenmotor. Hopefully the Lounge stays open long enough for it to be completed: it would be a shame if such a wonderful creation of mine was slain before it could make its way from blueprint to reality. Unfortunately, that might not occur.

One of Josiah's eccentricities, I have come to learn, is a strange sort of obstinance mixed with a peculiar code of honor. When two of his newest employees attempted to spend their off hours at the bar, he permitted this, despite the complaints that came from Josiah serving Herr Jacobs people.

(The word I had been using for them is, apparently, horrifically offensive. I shall endeavor to do better out of respect for Herr Jacobs, as his work ethic, intellect, and technical skill have both proven nothing short of impressive.)

At any rate, while Josiah claims that his policy is based entirely on raw, blind greed ("the color of a mans dollar is infinitely more a measure of his worth and character than the color of his skin", he says), I suspect that as a performer, the idea of a notional peer of his being excluded from enjoying the amenities of the place whose existence relies on him is…What is the word…worse than distaste, but not quite on the level of a moral evil.

(ANTITHETICAL)

This has brought him trouble. The first such incident was when his act would be boo'd: a small but loud part of the Lounge attempting to protest the fact that blacks were seated with them: they were only silenced when that man Chill sent one of his bodyguards to talk to those making a fuss. He apparently didn't enjoy having his entertainment disrupted for such petty reasons. For once, I don't disagree with the arschloch.

This caused Josiah to respond that he welcomes any and all customers in his papers: I don't know what blackmail he keeps with them that most still publish his ads, but this has caused him to lose many of his suppliers. Much of the food vendors, which is a shame: the eggs and bacon Herr Jacobs cousin makes are the closest thing to the food of the gods I've had in this country. The drinks have also been reduced in number, though the Crane woman is apparently going to continue supplying her chemishbrauen. One of his suppliers, the Stout man, came to threaten Josiah during the day, while he was enjoying his lounge, warning him that no credible brewery would be willing to sell their stock to an integrated bar: he was at first polite, but when Josiah did not capitulate Stout began to threaten him subtly: I am not sure if Josiah didn't notice it, didn't care, or was merely being obtuse out of spite, but he invited Stout to enjoy a free Witches Brew, telling the man that his "mediocre if passable" brewery was an incredibly negligible part of what brought customers to the Lounge and that the collective boycott by the brewers of Gotham would be "regrettable, but irrelevant".

I have never seen a mans face grow that red as Stouts. It was at that point he openly threatened Josiah, informing the fellow that there would be consequences for Josiah's insolence and that there were certain social groups who would likely see to it the man got what was coming to him.

(His wording was much more crude: I have omitted it for taste.)

Josiah responded by quietly informing him that he was no longer welcome at his bar, and that he would not be changing policy. He then said something about a grave and a body that I don't understand, but I think may have been a veiled warning: whatever it was, it caused Herr Stouts eyes to widen. With fear, I think: I suspect that Josiah used whatever uncanny means of social deduction he uses in his acts to make some sort of tailored threat. The man Stout gave a lot of bluster about consequences, but he quickly left, in a hurry.

The third such incident was the other day, when Josiah appeared in the Lounge sporting many bruises and injuries. He claimed he had merely taken an unfortunate tumble down the stairs, but it is clear that he was attacked and beaten viciously: I can only hope the man gave as good as he received.

These incidents the others are not aware of, I believe: Oswald is a kind man, but he is also a naive dumkopft, Scotty has been more pre-occupied with mourning the end of free food, and Marianne has scarcely noticed anythings wrong to begin with with how much she's been enjoying the mysteries we've been investigating, such as the reports of a strange man-bat creature that turned out to be some sort of masked lunatic or the stories of a murderous clown armed with poisonous laughing gas that turned out to be a hoax to help steal east-end real estate. Frankly, were I not working so closely with Josiah and upon his boat, I would likely not know either: likely there have been things I haven't seen, judging by how tight the mans smile has been as of late. Hopefully he weathers this: as distasteful and crass and outright strange as he may be, he is possessed of a certain crude (if greed and ego marred) nobility.

!!!GOTHAM!!!​

Josiah slumped his way across the boat, walking to the door of his study, opening and entering within, shutting and locking the door behind him as he turned. The room was modest, by Josiah's standards: no bigger than the small library that Jacobs liked to spend his free time at, illuminated by the soft glow of electric hanging lamps hung up in the corner, between the wall shelves which themselves were preceded each by one standing shelf a piece.

Continuing his tired trudge forward, the man came to his desk, situated with its back facing the far wall and its surface covered in various books. Pulling his chair out, the man gave an unelegant plop into his seat, letting out a breath.

"Hello, Mr. Arkham. Pleasant evening?"

"JUMPING JEHOSHAPHAT!" Josiah yelped, starting as he turned to spot in one of the ill lit corners of his room a familiar shape. Scowling, he opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a box of matches to help light the kerosene lamp he kept for reading, allowing him to more clearly view the other figure. "Miss Roth," He sighed, relaxing a bit. "Yes, the evening has been going swimmingly." He lied. "The house is packed."

That statement was a lie. It was a complete disaster: drink and meal sales were down by nearly 70%, and while Josiah had faintly hoped his display of public virtue would be rewarded with a flush of black customers, in truth it had only resulted in a trickle compared to the deluge of those who had once eagerly feasted at his tables.

It wasn't just the loss of most of the menu: the lack of any cheap options on the drink list meant that the number of people who could even afford to drink had shrunken. Cranes Brews were still bringing people in, as was the entertainment, but it was barely enough to sustain the Lounges operations. God, he might need to let one of the Jacobs go-

No, no, he could sell off portions of his collection if it came to that. It would be unpleasant, but he would probably be able to survive until the spring that way, and try to find new suppliers and rebuild his customers.

"So, how's the novel?" Josiah inquired, giving an easy grin that was only skin deep. Time to act the good host to the woman who his soul was owed to.

Without even looking up at him, Abigail raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. I must confess, before this, I haven't had that many opportunities to read. The style is certainly dryer than what I'm accustomed to," She noted.

Josiah had never read any Jane Austen, but he had Cervantes, and he distinctly recalled the latter saticists several centuries old verbiage equally obtuse and dry when compared to more modern texts like Twain. "Ah, well, that's Austen," He said conversationally. "You should try a nice Bram Stoker or Doyle."

Roth snapped Austen shut, placing the novel down on the small table next to her, and Josiah noted her boredness was feigned: she was enjoying it a fair amount. The room might have been a private library, but he still had a few tables set up here and there on the off chance he entertained guests…or Abigail visited. "Hmm. Perhaps. I did enjoy that one story, Frankenstein," She said, hiding the satisfaction in her voice.

"Mmm," Josiah said, reaching into his desk, pulling out one of his drink glasses shaped like crystal skull and a bottle of Witches Brew he had been saving for an opportunity to wine and dine his guest. "Drink?"

Now, Roth's eyes flicked upward, and for once he saw in them…intrigue. "You know, why not? I'd love to see what all the fuss is about." Nodding, Josiah uncorked the bottle, pouring the glowing, translucent green chemical into the glasses, a noxious, acrid scent rising into the air.

Like a good host, he then brought the lady her glass, before returning to his seat and raising his glass in a small toast. "Cheers, to good fortune!" Josiah said, raising his glass, Roth amusedly returning the gesture lazily from her army chair before the pair of them each took a sip…

Causing Roth to begin coughing, throat going raspy. "God, that burns going down," She said, cheeks flushing, while Josiah stifled a chuckle. Lightweight. "And the flavor is…" The witch grimaced, before blinking in confusion: ah, that'd be the intoxication kicking in.

"An acquired taste," Josiah admitted. "I find it a bit like coffee, if you'll mind the comparison. Much like coffee, however…" He took a sip, savoring the acidic tasting drink, noting it almost reminded him of a citrus fruit in flavor. "You eventually acquire a taste for it. Plus, the burning eventually gives way to a sort of numbing sensation," He noted: made it handy when he had a sore throat from performances.

"Mmm. I must admit, the effect isn't unpleasant. You continue to charm, Professor," The woman said, giving a small, pleased laugh.

"Please, call me Josiah, Miss Roth: if we're sharing a drink in my private study, I think it only appropriate I drop the titles," Josiah requested, causing Abigail to raise an eyebrow.

"Very well, Josiah," Abigail murmured, acceding to his demands on account of the pleasant atmosphere and powerful drink. "I'll humor you as repayment for the very thoughtful gifts you've been giving me." She hummed thoughtfully, taking another sip. "I must admit, the atmosphere is far nicer than most bars I spend my evenings at."

Part of the ongoing electrification had involved a renovation of facilities: Josiah had focused mostly on restoring the corridors and thoroughfares of the boat, in order to improve it's appearance for guests traversing it's facilities: Davis had been a god-send when it came to maintenance. "I must admit, I am a bit curious about that: what was a powerful wielder of arcane forces doing prowling dingy bars in the underbelly of Gotham?" Josiah inquired, causing Roth to give a snort.

"You genuinely have no idea who I am, do you? She asked, curiously. "You've learned more about me than any other, my weaknesses and history, and yet for all of that you haven't heard the reputation I've spent years building."

Josiah frowned. She wasn't…displeased. If anything, going by the quirk of her eyebrow, the notion might have been...either confusing or intriguing, he couldn't tell. Hopefully the latter. "I must confess, no," He admitted. "The name Abigail Roth has never once been one that has come up in my career."

"...Hmm. Well, if you must know, the bars, taverns, and alcohol spigots of Gotham are places where one's most likely to find the desperate," Roth noted. "The sort to be desperate enough to make deals: curses to cast. Fortunes to read. Potions."

…And demonic contracts. So, she was some sort of…infernal con-woman, preying on those either desperate or inhibited enough to make a deal. "And what, you trick people into selling their souls?" Josiah asked, curiously, causing Roth to shrug.

"No: contrary to what you think, trafficking in souls is not a particularly easy art," The witch stated with a note of frustration in her voice, causing Josiah to wince, realizing he had stepped onto the minefield that was the loss of resources her deal with him represented. "I had to use a great many resources to secure that contract. No, most of what I take from those who seek me out are more petty things: money. Their names. Their shadows. Occasionally favors, such as requiring they take other debts I've incurred," She finished, taking a small sip of drink again, more eagerly this time.

"Ah, I understand: you're a purveyor of services: no doubt one that's well respected in the circles you travel in," Josiah noted, taking a drink of his own, his statement causing Roth to purse her lips, eyes settling into a thoughtful expression, not wholly unpleased by the comparison and compliment.

"Perhaps. You were only offered the contract because you seemed to be, from the names you used and words you said, a masterful magician," she admitted, causing Josiah to raise an eyebrow: she wasn't..as upset as she had been, at least. "Having the services of another skilled sorcerer at my beck and call would have been oh so useful, and would make a very valuable asset should I decide to trade it away," She said, wistfully, likely imagining how things would have turned out had Josiah turned out to be genuine.

…Ah, so his contract was transferable. That was good to know: Josiah took another drink, this time downing the entire contents of his cup for a brief shot of liquid courage. Time to see if he could make amends properly. "Well, I must apologize once more, Miss Roth," He said, setting his glass down, voice deadly sincere as he stared into the womans blue eyes. "I understand how frustrating having the wool pulled from under you: I just want you to know it wasn't intentional. I would never attempt to deceive a lady," He continued, before deciding to take a gamble. "Especially such an intelligent and lovely one as yourself," He added, causing Roth's eyes to widen a bit. "I do hope you'll accept this humble entertainers contrition."

For a moment, Roth was silent, before her mouth curled into a small, satisfied smile. "Well, I suppose I can move past it," She purred, charmed by his compliment. "I am not an unreasonable woman, especially in the face of a man making so much of an effort to make amends: your apology is accepted, Josiah," She said, graciously, before her eyes narrowed. "Though don't assume you don't still owe me: forgiveness of sin is not forgiveness of debt, and you cost me quite a bit," She warned.

"My dear Miss Roth, as a fellow person of business I would never presume to assume so: Obviously I haven't entirely earned your favor," Josiah professed, allowing himself a small smirk, raising his eyebrows. "Not yet, at least: Rome was not built in a day. But you'll find I'm very good at…getting what I want," He said in a low, flirtatious tone of voice, taking another gamble, causing Roth to flush once more, this time just because of the brew, the witch giving a laugh.

"My, you are an AUDACIOUS one, aren't you, Mr. Josiah?" She asked playfully, finishing her own glass.

"Would you like another drink, Miss Roth?" Josiah asked, smirk increasing. Well, that was a good sign: Josiah's skill at charming the fairer sex was paying dividends.

"Why not?" The witch asked herself, before giving a nod, raising the skull shaped cup into the air, Josiah walking around and pouring additional brew, before he returned to his own seat and repeated the process himself. "And please, call me Abigail."

And that was a VERY good sign. "Very well, Abigail," Josiah said. "How about another toast then: to my continued contrition and our future as partners." Abigail's eyebrow raised thoughtfully.

"Very well, Josiah," She purred. "A toast to your continued contrition and future as partners."

And now we arrive on turn four. So, good news is, you've continued the charm offensive enough that Roth is no longer pissed at you: the gifts and the library were good investments in that regard. The bad news is, electrification is only part way done and now you're dealing with that funnest of fun things, discrimination. Everythings getting yanked and you're going into mid-february hemorrhaging customers.

Worse, you're getting some bad press. A LOT of bad press, and it's only going to get worse going forward. Sure, it's not gonna make the Ring or the Lodge go away, but they aren't enough to sustain your boat.

And with bad press comes a new antagonist: pick your poison here, going forward this character is going to make a lot of problems for you. Each have their modus operandi, and various narrative strengths and weaknesses. Note that there isn't a diplomatic solution to this: you cannot friend these characters, negotiate with them, or sway them into neutrality. Code is [BADGUY].

[ ] Alexander Zeus: A rival bar owner, and one of the men orchestrating the boycott, one with a personal axe to grind against Josiah due to a shared and very unpleasant history between the two. Rich, powerful, and connected, he had decided that the Lounge needed to be ran out of business, and was working with most other bars, lounges, and places of entertainment in Gotham to see that done.
MODUS OPERANDI: Economic warfare, both above and underground. Zeus will use his money and connection to screw with you, rarely directly and rarely alone: expect a lot of doors closing, a lot of options to skyrocket in price, and for people and things affiliated with your business to start getting harassed.

[ ] Father Hughes: A staunch teetotaler and christian, this lawyer turned priest considered the Lounge a hotbed of vice, sin, and crime, which wasn't entirely wrong. He wanted to run the place out of Gotham in order to help protect the city from the depredations of spirits, both metaphorical and literal.
MODUS OPERANDI: Legal and social attacks. Expect frivolous lawsuits, getting reported to regulatory bodies, lobbying designed to target you, protests and for the Lounge to start getting hounded by churches and religious wonks.

[ ] Chief Garret: The Kanes still hadn't forgiven the Lounge for the Redfeather incident, and the latest news had given the affluent family to earn Josiah a permanent place on their enemy list. Garret was their pet dog: chief of the Bowery precinct in their pocket, one who was willing to bend the law when it suited their employer and convinced that making life harder for Josiah would make his bosses happy.
MODUS OPERANDI: Expect violence and the fist of the state such as inspections, raids, and harassment by the cops, as well as the occasional bit of extortion as this guy attempts to earn brownie points with the rich and shitty by making your life hell. They aren't aiming to put you out of business, but if it happens, it happens.

And of course, we have our Hot Spot. As a reward for picking integrity, your bar is, for good or worse, considered a place that is at least inclusive, and the presence of figures such as Chalmer Chill and Burlington means that it is at least home to a few wealthy patrons of note.

These two factors will lead to the more progressive members of the Lounges upper crust deciding to contribute to a bit of charity: a brief moment of conscious. Not equivalent to systemic reform, mind you, or even what could be accomplished if they paid their fair share, but it would still be more than they might have given otherwise, and it would still help improve someone or others lives, whether yours by helping mitigate a bit of the financial hit you just took, or someone elses. So, whose day are you improving?

Action code is [HOT]

[ ] The Lounge itself: It was a shame that such a choice to support it's performers was being met so harshly. Chill wasn't a de-segregationist, but he could respect the spine it took to stand against the mob, and Burlington just didn't want his favorite club to go broke. Both them and others would contribute a small portion of their fortune to create a fund to help keep the Lounge afloat in times of crisis.

[ ] The East End: The Jacobs had struck up a friendship with the Lodge, and in the process caught Burlington's ear: the wealthy magnate would eventually collaborate with the cousins, bankrolling a project they would lead to help improve life in the neighborhood for it's residents.
-[ ] Give me a brief idea for something designed to help the East End: it can be social institutions, it can be grants, it can be physical infrastructure, etc.

[ ] All Mankind: Chalmer Chill had had a heart of stone they said. This might have been true, but like many wealthy individuals back then, he had had a sharp interest in philanthropy and supporting various charitable endeavors with his wallet. It might have been motivated by a need to launder his reputation, but the man would donate millions to champion a cause.
-[ ] Pick a cause: it gains a massive financial shot in the arm as well as the backing of the Ring.

And now we get to the Bar stuff once more. First, let's get this out of the way: your current financial rating is CRIMSON. You have customers, but not enough: you need to start unfucking your supply situation, quick.

First, here are your assets:

Josiah Arkham: The owner circa Aug. 1900 - . A stage magician trained in burglary among other arts. Has sold his soul to Abigail Roth, who he encountered in a dingy bar while drunk, in exchange for his Bar having an assured stream of clientele, though not neccesarily enough to make ends meet. Obsessed to an unhealthy degree with various indigenous artefacts.

Violet Hall: A singer Josiah had located while looking for entertainers: they had agreed to work using their voice, their pay a few dollars every day they worked.

Davis Jacobs: Cousin to the cook, and the house Handiman. A skilled carpenter and laborer who allowed for more ambitious projects and kept the Lounge maintained.

Crane Brews: A collection of beverages that incorporated various narcotics and minor neurotoxins to deliver an alternate intoxication to beer, one that bypassed most peoples alcohol tolerance. Thanks to recent investments, cheaper than before.

Dry Ice: Good for special effects, good for keeping things cold.

Vogel and Brown: The house comedians. Former performers at Hermanns, they typically worked the day matinee with Violet or did evening show when Josiah was busy.

The Kitchen: A kitchen ran by Mark Jacobs with cheap foods of various types such as eggs, bacon, toast that the waiter brought to customers. It sported a cold room that was mostly empty these days.

St. Majeste: An old riversteamer where the Arkham Lounge was located, it was a barely floating wreck that required significant repairs. Mostly functional, it had the Lounge, a kitchen and pantry kept cold by dry ice, and a library for its owner to use, and had been given a modern electrical system that it couldn't yet fully power.

And now, your list of acts:

Taming of the Fouls: An act that involves a large number of doves and pigeons. Currently, most were kept in a special coup when not acting. They had been trained to be surprisingly well coordinated, and more important, unlikely to crap in a customers food.

Stories of Smoke and Mirrors: A sadly slightly undercooked act consisting of tales spun by Professor Arkham in the form of puppetshows with himself as the narrator and villain: the smoke and props gave it an interesting atmosphere, but it was still subpar for various technical reasons.

Crystal Ball Act: It didn't have an official name, but it was an act where Josiah would use a crystal ball, ventriloquism, and cold reading as well as a healthy dose of spying to create "predictions" for his audience.

Right, first, let's get the act out of the way. This time, small requirement: you have new performers, so the act needs to use someone other than Josiah. Either Violet or your new Comedians, you need to come up with material for someone other than our dear management, who is going to be very, very busy.

[ ] Insert Act Here

And now we get to priorities. First, at this point you have all the tools necessary that Josiah no longer needs to spend every turn improving his act and Roth is no longer an immediate concern. Second, you still owe Zelda: don't forget.

Instead, Josiah is going to focus on attempting to restore his supply. Renovating part of the Lounge to serve as an indoor garden, paddling up to Metropolis to set up a supply chain, scouring Gotham Markets, you need to secure food, fuel, drinks. Action code [SUPPLY].

Next, you have your standard management AP for improving the Lounge in some way: you might invest in Crane Brews again to help lower costs (though if you do that please make sure to distinguish it from investing to start paying Zelda back), you might take out ads to bring in more customers, you might renovate some cabins. Action code [BAR].

After that, you have a social action. Catch up with Amadeus, continue to ply Abigail with gifts, socialize with Crane, or even just go out to do something fun: Josiah's been a good boy and is solving his problems, so he gets to have some fun, even if things are gonna start getting rough. [FUN].

And as far as Josiah's AP goes, you get one last [PERSONAL] one to use advancing whatever cause or ambition you care to.

But wait, there's more! Because you've hired another employee, you get to start delegating projects a bit more: Davis has an AP of his own that can be spent on bar improvement. New furniture, additional renovation jobs, helping build the Gluckenmotor. [HANDY] is his action-code, and take this as a lesson.

Codes are [SUPPLY], [BAR], [FUN], [PERSONAL], and [HANDY]

[ ] Scout New Talent: Josiah probably wasn't going to find any good magic acts since Hermanns Theater existed, but Gotham had plenty of other forms of entertainment if you knew where to look. For instance, traveling carnivals, other lounges, etc.

-[ ] What kind of entertainment are you looking for? If you can think of a specific place to scout you can use it instead, but considering its turn 1 I don't imagine you'll have many ideas.

[ ] 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.

-[ ] What kind of staff are you looking for?

[ ] Diversify Spirits: Stout produced low quality, but cheap beers. They were in your budget, but unless you diversified, the drinks would likely never be a major draw.

-[ ] What kind of alcohol are you looking for? Just a few words is fine: 'expensive wines', 'inexpensive whiskeys', 'swamp bought moonshine'.

[ ] Renovate the St. Majeste: Only part of the St. Majest was open to the public: the ship was still seaworthy inasmuch as any vessel of its class might be, but the prior owners had apparently been less than gentle with the vessels insides, meaning most of it required repair.

-[ ] Like prior options, what are you repairing? I'm not gonna list every possible space on the ship, especially since they'll probably be used for something different: instead, just specify a potential location that could conceivably exist on the ship and what you want to use it for. A gambling hall, another drink lounge, theaters, cabins people can pay to sleep in, etc.

[ ] Call On a Someone: Josiah knew a lot of people. He could lean on them for favors, or else simply visit them to deepen friendship.
-[ ] Select a character and your reason for visiting them.

[ ] Investing: If you have a particular business partner, friend, venture, or industry you want to put some of the Lounges funds into, this is the option you want.
-[ ] Who or what are you investing in, and do you have any stipulations?

[ ] Go on a Date: Ah, Romance. Select this option if you're interested in a character in a less than platonic manner. Note that they need to be someone Josiah would be interested in pursuing and of compatible orientation and gender.
-[ ] Select a character and provide a brief idea for a date.

[ ] Rumor-Hunting: Josiah has a topic he's interested in. He was going to collect rumors in the hopes of finding a lead, whether from the bars of gotham, his various old criminal contacts, calling on his mentor, or other means.
-[ ] Write in topic and means of hunting it

[ ] Gotham University Research: Gotham University was the center of academia in the city. If there was anyone who might know about various subjects such as the history of gotham, various scientific and literary facts, and other useful subjects that Josiah might find useful, it was here.
-[ ] Write in subject you're looking to research.

[ ] Write In.

Six hour moratorium, as well.