Rosebriar: Old Town

Finally we reach the core of Rosebriar, my setting for You Can't Go Home Again. Old Town like Rosebriar as a whole is in decline. Here dead things lurk in the shadows in the twilight years of the neighborhood. The bounty of an earlier era becomes overripe and rots. Wealth and power turn poisonous.

Rosebriar: Old Town

This place is dying.

Description

While Bishopsgate may be the oldest part of Rosebriar, Old Town trails close behind. Many of the buildings date back to the mid 1800s and Rosebriar's first round of expansion. Those structures show their age. Peeling paint and rotting wood mar the elegant Italianate homes and Federal-style administrative buildings that characterize the area. Rough winters slowly pockmark the grid of streets at the heart of Rosebriar, while snow and rain gnaw at the eroding roofs.

It wasn't always like this. A few decades ago, people poured into the area, sending house prices rocketing up. They made repairs and additions. Some raised families. Many homes owe their last coat of paint to that period. Now people leave out more than move in. More often still they simple die, aged and neglected.

Elderly hands struggle to tend the large yards. Brambles grow where flowers and grass once lay. Inside chocolate and candy scents cover the smell of decaying wallpaper. In the walls insects munch on centuries old wood. In other homes the vermin rule, their old owners having slipped from this world. Dust and grime pile up in corners, turning to dirt and fertilizing the vines that bring brick and mortar down.

Down by the new town hall, a last gasp of civic renewal can be found. The Newman Town Center's modernist style might clash with the rest of the area but unlike the nearby post office and fire station, it remains clear of graffiti and trash. During the day geriatric politicians try to chart a course back to prosperity. As night falls, the darkness hides the decline even as it allows other horrors to wander freely.

Local Hedge

Greenery rules supreme here. The brambles snake branches across paths while thick foliage obscures dangerously sharp thorns. Goblin Fruit can be found in abundance. Much of it hangs too long on the vine however, turning overripe or even poisonous. Hobs are thick here, though what they subsist on is a mystery.

Rolls to find Goblin Fruit gain a +2 bonus. A failure still discovers some spoiled (and potentially useless) fruit. A critical failure uncovers fruit that looks good but is actually poisonous. Athletics rolls to move quickly in the region suffer a -2 penalty due to the thick undergrowth.

Damnation City Stats:

Physical: Access 0, Safety -1
Mental: Information 1, Awareness 0
Social: Prestige 0, Stability -1

Old Town is no longer as central as it once was but travelers don't find it particularly hard to reach either. As the neighborhood ages, new elements have drifted in, tagging old structures with graffiti, leaving trash, and causing vandalism. A few gangs from Heywood compete with other less identifiable dangers to make travel at night hazardous.

Vice: Neglect. It's not that people don't care about Old Town's decline. They just don't see it. Each year the paint gets thinner, the lawn a bit thicker, the neighbors more fragile.
Virtue: Beauty. Old Town still holds many stately homes, architecture that draws artists and a few souls interested in restoration or the past. The beauty can inspire even as its decay tinges the watcher with sadness.

Site: Newman Town Center

Type: Government
History: This modernist structure rises another story above the aged post office and the antiquated fire house abutting it. Built in the late 90s, it commemorates a brighter age, Rosebriar's golden years under Maxwell Newman. Mayor Newman presided over the growth of Rosbriar from a small town in 1955 until America's industrial decline caught up to it in 1987. The war hero saw the community grow to incorporate Appleton and Bishopsgate, the building of Thornton Industries and the establishment of Persimmon Hill. Many look back on those years fondly.

Blocky and gray, this steel and glass structure stands quite out of place in the neighborhood. Its cold exterior turns some away while others seem to find a strange respite within its walls. Those with supernatural abilities or Merits find it difficult to enter the building and must spend a Willpower to pass through its doors. A single Willpower is needed for the duration of a stay or day (whichever is longer).

The cause of this protection is unknown. Some whisper that the architect, Edward Teesdale designed it resist unnatural influences. Others claim that Newman was a sorcerer who placed a protective ward upon the building that bore his name. If so it outlasted its creator, Maxwell Newman passed away peacefully in his sleep in 2007 at the ripe age of 82. Rumors also say that the Newman Center boasts a large number of Hedge gateways. If true they also suffer the same difficulty.

Story Seeds:

The Vampire: A Darkling saw it drifting through downtown a week ago. The bag woman on the corner claims an ancient man haunts her dreams. Something feeds the vines human blood on moonless nights. Your friend in Edgewood says a monster drains patients of blood at night. But vampires are not real right?

Perhaps, but legends among the fae tell of a creature that made and broke a pact with a Keeper. The monster was blessed with immortality and power over dreams and cursed to fear sunlight and the cross. They say it still hungers for revenge on the one that cursed it. Could the enemy of the enemy be an ally?

Some possibilities for this vampire include being a member of the Children of the Thorns (Danse Macabre), creating hedge Mandragora (Ghouls), or belonging to the Alucinor bloodline (Bloodlines: the Hidden). Of course with fae magic involved, whose to say if it doesn't possess some other unusual abilities.

Gentry-fication: Homes along Green Street are getting new coats of paint and much needed repairs. Elderly residents find their relatives more willing to help out as their fortunes improve. Money pours in but in a dozen different unlikely ways. Someone is twisting Fate. The residents make pledges with this individual and find themselves richer, healthier, and even younger. What price does their benefactor demand? Who or what is behind this? And to what end?

Unnaturally Fertile: A part of the Hedge has colonized the untended gardens of Old Town. The simple Goblin Fruit, lavender notes, resembles a rolled up piece of monopoly money from a distance. Chewed or smoked, it grants the user the ability to pick the more fortunate of two outcomes. It is also highly addictive, inflicting the Addiction condition if the user fails a Resolve + Composure roll (-1 per previous use). Now people are trying to grow it through the neighborhood. As it spreads events become increasingly unlikely. Worse other foliage from the Hedge begin to intrude on this world. Is it an invasive species or the precursor to an invasion?

NPCs:

Annie Isom isn't a politician or woman of influence yet her power is undeniable. She works as the mayor's secretary, controlling access to the most powerful mortal in town. And unlike him, she knows about Changelings, their little needs and their greatest power: pledges. Through her contacts and influence over the mayor's schedule, she trades housing and business permits, false identities, and other tools of officialdom for skills, beauty, and other unattainable advantages. And unlike mundane corruption, magic leaves no traces for auditors. If the players want to influence town hall, they need to make a deal with Annie.

David Tucker may be only twenty but he knows more about Rosebriar's history than many twice his age. The brooding young man studies art at Appleton Community College but spends more time learning about local history and architecture. Fascinated by relics of a grander age, he's explored dozens of structures throughout Old Town, not all with the owners' permission. While he hasn't run into any physical supernatural trouble yet, he's had many brushes with things he can't explain. It has only driven him to investigate further. David, or his artwork, could pop up in the player characters' own explorations and provide clues to other places to investigate.

The Cancerling doesn't have a name like normal people. It calls itself Sam after a character it saw in a movie but attaches no importance to it. Slightly misshapen with skin like porridge, the cancerling can pass for human in dim light. It haunts the local hospitals and the occasional veterinary clinic, sniffing for its favored food: cancerous cells. The cancerling eats and incorporates them, slowly growing stronger. It knows there are other inhuman things in Rosebriar and even chased one down, a woman with skin that shimmered like an oil slick. Her cancer tasted so sweet, a siren call to its fine tuned senses.

The cancerling recalls little of its past. Something about the chemical plant to the east. Storm drains. Screaming.

It thinks a little about the future. The bulge on its side seems to be budding off. Maybe it will have a friend soon.

For now it hunts and thinks of that tasty meal. Maybe there are more where that woman came from.