Tales from Union City - (Dieselpunk Private Detective)

Reader mode
Arianna Sharpe
Private Detective

Attributes
Body Attributes
Brawn - 0
Grace - 1
Fisticuffs - 0
Endurance: 1

Mental Attributes
Smarts - 2
Sharp - 2
Nerve - 1
Fortitude: 5

Social Attributes
Charm - 0
Read - 1
Contacts - 2
Resolve: 3
Weapon: Revolvers
Trade: Thief
Talent: Lockpicking
Talent: Stealth
Talent: Forensics
People: Fences
People: Ex-Cons
Knowledge: Criminal Politics
Knowledge: Law
Mental Tabulator: If there's a piece of trivia about the worldbuilding you want to know, just ask and you'll get an answer. Additionally, up to twice per routine, activate to give yourself any Knowledge skill for the rest of the routine.
Record: You can record and save up to 5 minutes of sensory experience. If you want to save a memory externally, spend $1 to buy a tape.
Shock Generator: In your right hand, you have an electric arc between your thumb and forefinger. This can be used as a melee attack (-1 attack, damage stuns enemies for equal ticks) or like a lighter.
Plasma Torch: You have a small inert gas plasma torch in the palm of your hand. Twice per routine, you can use it to melt locks or handcuffs or as a melee attack (-2 attack, +5 Damage, AP2).
Gas-Sealed Revolver
Small Handgun
Attack Dice: 1/d10 -or- 2/d10-2 (Impact)
Aim Bonus: +1 (1/d10 only)
Damage Bonus: +0
Armour Reduction: 0
Ammo: 2 shots/2 tick reload/individual load
Special
Can be silenced.
Each point of Ammo must be individually loaded.

Knife
Small Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10 (Edged)
Damage Bonus : +1
Armour Penetration : 0
Parry Bonus : -1
Disarm Bonus : +0
Money
Current Cash: $13

Income Streams
Book Royalties: +$2

Routine Expenses
Living Costs: -$5
Bribes to Captain Engels: -$2
Medical Bills: -$2 or -$5

Beliefs
(2) When the moment comes, I have to put others before myself.

(1) Be patient. Better to gather evidence than pick fights.

Penalties​

⛀⛁ ​
Sore​
Strain​
Stress​
⛃⛂​
0/1​
0/5​
0/3​
​
0 XP​
1 XP​
0 XP​
​

This ain't one of your Hays Codes pictures now, alright? Blood and guts, sex, drugs, you name it and you might well see it if you aren't careful.

Consider this your last warning.​
 
Last edited:
[X] Actually, Sleuthing is a second job
-[X] You have a full-time job, sleuthing doesn't pay all the bills. Eats two penalties of the GM's choice per downtime, but each point gets you +$10 per downtime. This can also constrain your time and opportunities. Whats the job? (3 points)
--[X] You're a pipe rat. They told you it was a sweet and simple job, lonely at times, just looking at the pipes and seeing that everything works. It has been anything but, not since the cuts. When it rains, you have to rush to patch over whatever pipes fail. When it's sunny, you have to rush to perform whatever repairs you can. It pays well though, probably because city thinks your coworker's still alive and you've been cashing their checks.
--[X] You've got persistent medical expenses, like you need antibiotics, painkillers, antidepressants, hormones or whatever. You either pay $1 per point per downtime or eat a penalty. What's the meds for? (2 points)
----[X] You don't know what the meds do, but if you stop taking them you start coughing up bits of your lung. You've though about just getting them scooped out, but you don't want to become more reliant on meld than you already are. You're lucky you can afford the meds. Others aren't.
----[X] There's also the usual meds you get for working in the pipes. Stuff that keeps you attentive, is supposed to improve your vision in the dark, deal with the lack of sun. You're pretty sure half of them are fake, but if you don't buy them the doctor will blame any illness on your refusal to follow his prescriptions, and the last time you stopped taking them you had a migraine that lasted a day.
--[X] You've got some debts you're still paying off. Every week, you gotta pay a minimum of $2 per point, with the total to be paid off being $30 (1 point)
-[X] Legal route. ($5)
-[X]You are clinging to a nice apartment in the Bellows, somehow.
-[X] Yeah, you got somebody working for you. ($5 per downtime)
-[X] Pay it off. (-$1)


This one seems fun.
 
[x] Plan Debts, Debts, Debts
-[x] Two points here will make you ambidextrous. Otherwise I'll just flip a coin.
-[x] You wrote a book in prison and still gets royalties. Each point is +$2 per downtime, no strings attached.
-[x] You've got some debts you're still paying off. Every week, you gotta pay a minimum of $2 per point, with the total to be paid off being $30/$50/$100. Who you owe it too?
--[x] x2, Corrupted Policewoman
-[x] You've got persistent medical expenses, like you need antibiotics, painkillers, antidepressants, hormones or whatever. You either pay $1 per point per downtime or eat a penalty. What's the meds for?
--[x] Painkillers for chronic headache
-[x] Legal route. ($5)
-[x] You sleep under your desk in your office. ($0 per downtime.)
-[x] Yeah, you got somebody working for you. ($5 per downtime)
-[x] Pay it off. (-$1)
 
0-7: Shut Up, Beth
  • Threadmarks
    • I went to unlock the door to my apartment and discovered something missing. I pawed at all my pockets, dug through my bloodsoaked coat, but I couldn't find my housekey anywhere. Must have slipped out in the excitement, godsdamnit.

    "Beth, Beth you tramp, open up!" I called, rapping heavily on the door. After about a minute, the door clicked open a crack and I could see a bespectacled eye glancing out.

    "Anny, where've you- is that blood?" she said, looking over me before scrabbling for the chain and pulling the door open. "My Gods, girl, are you okay? Anny?"

    "I'm fine, stop fussing." I insisted, brushing past her.

    "Seriously, are you hurt? My cousin's a doctor, I can have him here in an hour, hour fifteen at-" she continued, in that high-pitch scratching she called a voice.

    "It ain't my blood, calm down." I snapped, making my way to the washroom and starting to scrub at it in the sink.

    "Anny, did you kill somebody?" she asked, and I groaned.

    "No, but that can change." I said darkly.

    "Then what in the hell happened?"

    "Nothing." I insisted, and she barged in, staring at the dark red caking the sink. "Hey, ever heard of privacy?"

    "That's a lot of nothing on your hands, Anny! Come on, I just want to make sure you're okay..."

    "I saw some mug get shot, okay?" I said, "Right in front of me at a phone booth, close range. A hit, probably mob work."

    "Oh my Gods! Are you alright?"

    "I'm fine. What'd you care?" I snapped, the smell of blood was still clinging to me. "Urgh..."

    "You want to talk about it?" she asked, and I scowled and pushed past her. Absolutely not. "Well, fine. I'm just worried!"

    "We're roommates, not wives, why do you give a shit?" I retorted, collapsing onto the ratty couch we had stuffed in the corner of the room and pawing about for the newspaper.

    "Well, I know you don't understand the idea of friendship, so hows about the fact its your name on the deed and I don't want to be homeless?" she said, hands on her hips, glaring at me. "Have you eaten?"

    "... no." I admitted, and she shook her head in disappointment and stalked toward the kitchen. She always did this shit, when I came home stressed, like she ain't got enough to worry about. I'm not her friend, I'm her fucking landlord, but she always acts all gracious for some reason.

    "Oh, your royalty check came in, it's here on the counter." she called, as I heard her light a match for the oven. "And, uh, I'm gonna be another week on the rent, they cut all our hours..."

    "Just get it to me when you can." I said. Another week, right, she was... two or three months behind at this point? I wasn't keeping track. Wasn't her fault, she had medical bills. Her mother had been a pipe rat and presumably got poisoned by some of the runoff from one of the plants, because Beth'd been in and out of the hospital every year since she was born. She had a bunch of pills she had to take every morning and evening, plus antireject for the filter pump they had to jam in her liver and the other in her neck that kept her from having seizures. Worst part was, the only job she could get, with all the school she missed? Working on the damn pipes.

    She'd been my first client, clearing the name of her boyfriend, a train engineer who was accused of smuggling. Unsurprisingly, the relationship hadn't last long after the case because the guy'd taken heavily to drink while he was in and out of court, and when they'd broken things off I'd offered her the spare room in the condo my uncle had left me. That was three years ago.

    "So, uh, seriously, how'd you get all the blood on you?" she asked again, over water running, and I decided that giving up and telling her would probably take less time then stonewalling.

    "I stopped him from bleeding out, got him to the hospital." I said. "Ruined my best coat."

    "That's amazing!"

    "Look, I just didn't want to end up on some gang's shitlist for standing by and watching one of their guys die." I deflected.

    "Did you get a, you know, recording of it? Go to the police?" she asked, and I scoffed.

    "Sure did, got the shooters face and all, for all the good it'll do. It was a mob hit. Police don't care about gangsters shooting one another." I said bitterly. Not only that, I didn't want to get too involved if I could avoid it. Not only was meddling in bootlegger business a good way to end up dead, but I was still a wanted woman. I'd done my time, most of it, but the DA had never been able to make everything stick they wanted to, and the statute of limitations wasn't up on some of my best work. Last thing I needed was to give anyone an excuse.

    The only reason I wasn't in more trouble was because I was paying somebody off on the force, Captain Engels, whose name means 'angel' and who's anything but. Not three weeks out of the joint, she'd sat me down with all my files, said they had a mean DA and a hanging judge lined up, and held out a greedy hand. Ever since, every time I ran into her, I walked away with a lighter wallet.

    All I had to do was keep paying for another six months, then the statute of limitations was up. I knew she wouldn't burn me on this, because now things were mutual, I had tapes of her taking bribes, but we both knew that might at worst get her yelled at by her boss, while what she had on me would put me away for another three to five. I'd had my fill of looking at the inside of cells. Just a few months longer.

    Beth swung back into the room, delicately a bowl of soup on the table as well as an envelope before collapsing back against the couch herself. She had one of her projects out, the weird jewelry she made out of odds and ends, and started humming to herself as she twisted wire up with pliers. With the headache I had, I could've strangled her, but I had enough blood on my hands for one night.

    Besides, soup was good. Not that I'd ever tell her.

    ---

    The next morning, the paper had all the answers I'd needed. The big name in this part of the Bellows was Monaghan: Jimmy and Austin Monaghan were two brothers who ruled the mend trade here. Or had been: they'd fished the younger Monaghan out of the river this morning, and found three bodies of gang lieutenants or underlings. Looked like Jimmy got tired of splitting the proceeds, and it probably explained the half-assed hit: they were eliminating anyone loyal to Austin, and probably didn't have the muscle to go around.

    It was still raining when I went out, huddled under Beth's umbrella, bought a new coat off the rack at the tailor up the street, and started for my office. Not that I exactly kept perfect hours, but I was still late by any standards, slept awful after my exciting night, unable to get the smell of blood out of my hands. It was already halfway to noon and I still had calls to make. That girl's sister still needed to be found.

    Between the rain and the new moon, it was one of those mornings so dark that it seemed to swallow up the light, like a physical thing. The city needs that darkness, somewhere to hide.

    ---

    You have a call to make to somebody still in the criminal underworld who can tell you more about the Helix, the club which was the last known location of June Prescott. Who are you calling?​
    [ ] Write in​

    For your first call, you'll want to roll a normal (6+) Contacts, with +3 from Skills. Remember: you need two successes to avoid complications. How important is this roll to you? ​
    [ ] Roll flat.​
    [ ] Buy one dice.​
    [ ] Buy two dice.​
    [ ] Write In​
    ​
    Do you take the tape to the police?​
    [ ] Anonymously, sure. Maybe it'll help.​
    [ ] In person, yeah. It'll suck, but its the right thing to do.​
    [ ] Fuck no. You'll tape over it first chance you get.​
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Wait, who are we calling? If that dude worked for Austin, well, we did save him and get a recording. We could try to cut a deal with him to get revenge on Jimmy. He might know something about the organization, get us an in.
     
    [x] Write in: Guy who worked for Austin.
    [x] Buy one dice.
    [x] Fuck no. You'll tape over it first chance you get.
     
    Last edited:
    [x] Write in: Guy who worked for Austin.
    [x] Roll flat.
    [x] Fuck no. You'll tape over it first chance you get.
     
    [x] Write in: Guy who worked for Austin.
    [x] Roll flat.

    Can I do another write in?

    [] Tell the guy you saved about the recording if he agrees to work with you, ask him how he wants to handle it.

    [X] Anonymously, sure. Maybe it'll help.
     
    Last edited:
    So, let me check if I understand rolling checks in this correctly.

    We're rolling 1d10 as a base, with a +3 because we have 3 relevant Skills of different types (Knowledge: Criminal Politics, People: Ex-Cons, and Trade: Thief?), and +2 because of our 2 Contacts attribute. We're rolling a normal difficulty roll, so we need to get 6 or more to get a "hit". To get extra "hits" we either need to roll more dice (each individual die rolls against the difficulty threshold separately; they're not added together) or score a multiple of the target difficulty number (e.g. in this case scoring a 12 will get us 2 hits, 18 will get us 3 hits, etc.). Rolls equal to or under the number of dice rolled are automatic misses. 2 hits are needed to succeed without issue. 1 hit is a success with a complication.

    So currently we're rolling 1d10+5 against a difficulty of 6. We have a 10% chance of rolling a nat 1 and getting an automatic miss, but all other rolls get us at least 1 hit, and 2 hits if we roll a natural 7 or more. We could roll extra die for 1 Stress each, but that increases the chance of failing to 20% (nat 1 and nat 2) on both dice.

    ...Is that all correct?
     
    I'm sorry but I can't sympathise with this protagonist any more due to her being a landlord.
     
    I think that was supposed to be sarcasm? And if not, she's just being grumpy about letting her friend stay when she can't pay rent. Not like she's gonna kick her out on the street.
     
    It was sarcasm, or at least a political joke not reflecting my actual feelings on the character.
     
    [X] Anonymously, sure. Maybe it'll help.

    [x] Write in: Guy who worked for Austin.
    [x] Buy one dice.
     
    Clearly, this is a villain quest.

    After all, what is a PI but a cop, an enforcer of the Man (it's dieselpunk, so there's always a Man) who explicitedly works only for the rich?
     
    Krall said:
    We're rolling 1d10 as a base, with a +3 because we have 3 relevant Skills of different types (Knowledge: Criminal Politics, People: Ex-Cons, and Trade: Thief?), and +2 because of our 2 Contacts attribute. We're rolling a normal difficulty roll, so we need to get 6 or more to get a "hit". To get extra "hits" we either need to roll more dice (each individual die rolls against the difficulty threshold separately; they're not added together) or score a multiple of the target difficulty number (e.g. in this case scoring a 12 will get us 2 hits, 18 will get us 3 hits, etc.). Rolls equal to or under the number of dice rolled are automatic misses. 2 hits are needed to succeed without issue. 1 hit is a success with a complication.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Nailed it exactly!
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top