Turn 6 Part 2 (Patreon)

[X][HOT] Diet Carnegie

-[X] Amadeus thought he could do better? Fine then. If nothing else it would ease Josiah's worries about his aunt, and maybe Amadeus would stop gripping about the asylum if he had his own to run. (Give Amadeus the money to build and run his own asylum.)

[X][Power of the Lounge] Propaganda, Accidentally

-[X] While only intended as a test of the equipment, Mr. Bart's recorded interviews of the Lodge's staff invariably discussed Violet and her wrongful imprisonment, gaining her plight and political views greater attention.

[X][REEL] The Magic of Editing: Film Arkham performing one of his basic acts while wearing a cloak, and during the performance he twirls and a different reel runs of him doing a different act and costume.

[X][VENTURE] Invest into the farms the Lodge buys from. Clan Bowman could refine their moonshine production, and the other farms could expand into new goods (like fishing) for Jacobs to work with.

[X][WAR] Offer Harold Harris free eating on the Lodge in exchange for investing Garret's police station with his vermin.

[X][FAVOR] Arrange a visit to Violet in prison.

[X][EMPLOYEE] Renovate several cabins in the Lodge; employees can stay for free if they'd like (temporarily or as a rent-free alternative), and remaining rooms can be rented by guests that don't want to walk home in the dark.

[X] [REGRET] Foolishly, Arkham decided to venture out into the swamp on his own to find Artifacts for his museum.

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

Fall of 1901 would be an interesting season for the residents of the Lounge. Our dear manager would embark on a number of endeavors, you see. First, he held a major film exhibition, one that took place in the main lounge: Josiah was confident the technology had came far enough to make it a centerpiece show. 

The Illusion of Cinema, he called the film. The contents were fairly simple: the first nine and a half minutes, he did a simple bird act, making one of his doves appear and disappear while dressed in his normal suit. 

During the middle part, though, around 10:21, he stops, gives a twirl, and suddenly he’s wearing a completely different ensemble, one that appears all-white: our manager had taken cues from the Opaque Shadow it seems. 

A few people theorized that the man WAS the Opaque Shadow, and that wearing the outfit was his way of taunting Garret, who was still struggling to investigate both parties. Personally, I think the idea is nonsense: it’d take a special kind of arrogant to pull a stunt like that: more likely Josiah was just mocking the man for his general failure. 

Anyways, after the switch, Josiah performs a different trick, a levitation trick where he made a glass ball hold in the air and then cutting Mark Jacobs in half. While by todays standards, that kind of editing trick wouldn’t be all that impressive, back then this sort of thing was at the forefront of movie magic. According to rumors, it was inspired by George Méliès, who Josiah kept in touch with via letters, the pair becoming something like penpals: all the reels have been lost, but supposedly Josiah made sure to credit him at the end, along with everyone else involved in the production.

As might be expected, famous historical bastard Edison was right on his heels, making a deal with the aging Alexander Hermann, Josiah’s estranged mentor, to make a similar movie…only for the magician to perish right at the end of shooting. Now, Edison was, by any reasonable standard, a bad person, but he possessed at least enough tact to not release the film, as well as giving Herman’s widow a small donation.

It was dwarfed by a massive anonymous donation given to the Theater by an unknown patron, its only stipulation being that Hermann’s Theater continue to operate and serve as a place where up and coming performers can learn the ropes. 

When Hermann’s funeral was held, Josiah made sure to attend in person: despite how difficult as their relationship had been in the past few years, our dear manager still had enough respect for the man who had taught him everything he had learned about illusion that he was obligated to pay his respect, even if according to legend he didn’t say a word during the funeral or the next week. 

Of course, after that week was over he was immediately back on his bullshit, as people these days say, planning out another series of renovations, investments, and an expedition into Gotham Swamp. He had been looking to expand his Museum, and decided the best way to do this would be to trawl the swamp for possible remains of the Gotham Coven that Cyrus Gold had slaughtered over two hundred years ago. 

It took a few weeks to plan: while he did so, Mr. Bart had been hard at work making films of his own, interviewing much of the Lounges staff and guests of importance. We only have a small surviving collection, namely that of Mark Jacobs, the Bartender (whose face is covered during the reel, for reasons historians still debate over), and Miss Blanchard of the Lodge of Mystery. 

And yet, despite being intended as educational, each of these interviews would go back to one miss Violet Hall, at this time wrongly imprisoned. The lost reels were apparently more of the same: in trying to inform people of the inner workings of the Lounge and St. Majeste, Mr. Bart had accidentally created a documentary about a woman wrongfully imprisoned, something that would be picked up by the papers in Gotham as more and more of the city found out who Miss Hall was and wondered why she had been arrested with such flimsy evidence. 

It wasn’t enough to free her, unfortunately, but by bringing it to the patrons attention, Mr. Bart had given the papers yet more ammo to use against Garret, warning that no one was safe so long as the Mad Bowery Chief had the power to arrest anyone at a whim. 

This wasn’t the last of the mans woes, however: mysteriously after, his station would become infested by vermin, courtesy of a man by the Rat Piper, who would take credit by mail, informing the people of Gotham that he had been hired by the Opaque Shadow to deliver a message to Chief Garret. That message was rats. 

And not just any rats, either: apparently, the rats had been specially bred as attack rats by the Piper, being a little bigger, a little meaner, and a little smarter than the average Rattus Norvegicus, and if you know anything about rats, you know that’s scarier than it sounds. The things would chew up and destroy paperwork and evidence, devour any food left unattended longer than five minutes, would rip out wires to cause electrical failure, and in some cases would even attack officers, spreading all sorts of diseases and causing various injuries to the cops at the precinct. 

And due to his history, Garret found himself unable to find a single sympathetic ear, with the papers simply accusing him of not being able to handle even a simple rat problem even as the cops who worked for him found their lives being made a living hell

Alright, the Rat Piper has been hired to rat up Garret. Free food is free food, and more food means that he can spend more on booze and rats. Your choice here is to determine what the new resources go to. Action code [RAT].

[ ] Lair of the Ratman: With more money came more rats that he could afford to keep for his breeding program. With more rats came more difficulty hiding above ground. The Rat Piper would instead go beneath Gotham, using a secret passage in the sewers to reach the caves, where he would carve out a headquarters to conduct his rat husbandry project. Harold gains a Lair they will use for both secrecy and to accelerate their rodent breeding project.

[ ] Classes at Gotham U: The Rat Piper would continue to hone their scientific acumen, using the money that would have been spent on food to instead pursue an education in one field or another, such as chemistry, biology, or some such.

-[ ] Pick a field: Harold begins educating themselves in that field passively over the course of their career. Note that this is extremely gradual compared to using the Hand of Madness, and is thus best spent on supplementary talents. 

[ ] Lab Rat: Inspired by Josiah’s own focus on the future, the Rat Piper would spend his money investing in one of the handful of innovators at the Lounge to commission some piece of technology he could use for the sake of his rodent ambitions.

-[ ] Pick what exactly the Rat Piper is commissioning and from who: to be clear, while Gluck and Crane are the obvious choices here, you could also attempt to have him commission Mr. Bart instead.

[ ] Write In: Subject to Veto. 

!!!!GOTHAM!!!!

While the Rat Piper piped, Josiah also did spend some time improving the Lounge. Davis Jacobs worked on renovating the cabins, each of which Josiah made sure had their own bed, shelf, and reading lamp. A few, like his own personal cabin or the one set aside for the mysterious Abigail Roth, however, he made sure were extra luxurious, having their own personal bathroom, kitchenette, book-shelf, and even desk. 

These cabins had a handful of purposes: the first was to act as a way to help get on the good side of his employees by giving them a place they could stay, rent free (or, if they wished, merely overnight). 

Only one of his employees would take him up on the offer, his bartender who apparently found it more convenient than paying for a place of their own. In the years after, the others would occasionally take advantage as a place to sober up or get away from home, but no one was eager to live in the same facility as our Dear Manager. 

Otherwise, most of the cabins would be rented out: the Lodge of Mystery were frequent takers when they visited Gotham, especially Miss Blanchard who would frequently stay overnight at the Lounge.

It was around that point the first confirmed case of Arkham Madness kicked in with one Elmyra Barrows, a frequent attendee of the Lounge who would don the guise of the Witch of Slaughter Swamp, a ‘descendant’ of the original coven of witches that lived in the Swamp. Her costume consisted of a blend of green colored ink, a fake waxen nose, and specially crafted dentures, alongside wooden clogs and a sootstained black dress, hair disguised by a wig. Her goal? To terrorize her family, blaming her husband, siblings, parents, and children out of what could only be described as a deep seated hatred for all of them: some unknown influence had turned the seething resentment that had been bubbling in her heart into a cauldron of mad anger and desire to punish them for some unknown slight. 

Caught and unmasked by the Lodge after two grueling months during an attempt to chase and terrorize her sixteen year old son and fifteen year old daughter, Elmyra found herself the first patient of Arkham Asylum, an institution whose creation had been financed by Josiah, partly as a challenge to his cousin to prove his theories, partly as a way to buy himself a reputation, and, according to some who believe that he was aware of the curse on his Lounge, a way to hide the madmen and women it produced and obscure his culpability in their creation.

Located on the grounds of Arkham Island, it would serve, for over a century, as a place of horror and tragedy.

So, dear reader, before I offer you your choices, I’m going to reveal a little fact to you: this would have been the turn that Amadeus would have killed his mother, driven to the brink by her deteriorating condition to the point he would have euthanized her. 

You have, unwittingly, delayed that scenario. It hasn’t been halted, however,  nor has the death of his family or his becoming a patient at his own asylum. Unfortunately, you cannot change those details: there are forces beyond the power of the Lounge at work: Amadeus’s fate is set in stone. Tragedy will consume him.

However, even if a destination remains unchanged, that doesn’t mean that the journey can’t be altered, and what can be altered can be exploited. 

As such, you get to select one innovation…which will be paired with its own curse. Action code [CURSE]. 

[ ] The Curse of Crane: Crane was a firm believer in the power of mind-altering chemicals to treat mental illness. She would, in the next few months, collaborate with Amadeus to perform pharmacological experiments, creating a blend that could be used to treat anxieties and night terrors which would be mass-manufactured at her chemistry workshop in the Arsenal as well as in the Asylums own house pharmacy. Unfortunately, it would be over a century before one of her descendants would realize the run-off, which would seep into the soil of Arkham Island and into the waters of Slaughter Swamp, would produce deleterious fumes that caused the opposite effect. Chemical dumping taints Arkham Asylum and part of Slaughter Swamp with Proto-Fear Toxin. Crane and Amadeus discover and begin using Anti-Fear Toxin formula to treat patients. 

[ ] The Curse of Jacobs: Jacobs would collaborate with Amadeus to try and get treatment for Harold Harris’s rampant alcoholism as well as treating the other people destroyed by the Lounge. This would be partly successful, and in the future Arkham Asylum would become one of the better options for black people either wanting to get into mental health services or get treatment. However, this would draw the attention of the Klan, who would begin attempting to demonize the Asylum, causing it and its owner problems for decades to come. Arkham Asylum gains attention and wrath of the Klan of the Fiery Cross. Amadeus and Mark Jacobs begin the Asylums first anti-addiction program. Note that even if you don’t pick this your prior choices mean it will be integrated regardless, this just helps reduce the social harm the Asylum has caused and gets a jump on understanding addiction and how to treat it successfully.

[ ] The Curse of Blanchard: Amadeus would collaborate with Miss Marianne Blanchard, opening up a small clinic and hiring on a few women doctors to help attend to the medical needs of his patients as well as provide better care to members of the fairer sex. This was, by the standards of the era, incredibly feminist: the pair even managed to convince Gotham University to begin admitting its first batch of women medical students. Unfortunately, this collaboration would cause Amadeus to gain the ire of one of Blanchards would-be-suitors who, despite the doctors relationship with Blanchard being entire platonic and Blanchard having no interest in the man who was pursuing her, would begin harassing and stalking Amadeus. Amadeus becomes targeted by a creepy nutjob who blames him for getting rejected. However, Arkham Asylum starts out with better medical and psychological care, especially for women. 

!!!GOTHAM!!!

The food? Well my friend that is a good question! You’ve come to the right gourmand: I have studied the culinary history of Gotham extensively. The real question is where to begin: you see, around this time, a certain boat was making investments all over Goth County and beyond, spreading wealth around to the various black owned farms.

His goal? To improve the culinary experience at his boat by improving the ingredients, both quality and price. Dairies would expand their operations, being given more cows and even cool-houses to keep butter and milk fresh. Farms would expand, purchasing or clearing new land to grow more crops: due to the season, largely pumpkins, squash, and gourds. A few would branch out even further, creating bunny hutches to help supply the lounge with offerings such as rabbit stew.

This would also, I should note, result in the quality of his moonshine performing: our dear manager paid for both the still to be improved, as well as the members of the Bowman Clan, his supplier that ran said still, with the money to afford an education in both agronomy, engineering, and chemistry. 

The booze would, I hear, improve dramatically: people stopped having bouts of blindness or ethanol poisoning, at least, and it went down smoother. Now, the actual interesting effect on all of this was what this did to Goth County as a whole: with the influx of wealth, the black farmers in the region would come into conflict with their white counterparts, jealous at their improving fortune and offended at the ‘impudence’ of the…eh hem, ‘colored population’ for the crime of trying to improve their lot in life. This would lead to a swell of support for the Klan, who would, obviously, ‘retaliate’ against the black community, burning crops, stealing livestock, and even lynching and seizing the land of certain farmers…

…Yeah. Unfortunately, unless you decide to get extremely proactive about busting up the Klan (which yes, to be clear, is possible if you’re willing to play aggressive and risky), expect that to be a recurring thing with them.

So, bad news, your action isn’t quite as effective as it could be: our ‘friends’ in the Klan are making sure of that. Good news, overall you’re still injecting a pretty chunk of cash into the farming industry that this is still a net positive, especially since Bowmans now has better alcohol.

(Though it’s still mildly toxic. Sorry, you aren’t getting out of the Cauldron that easily.)

So, you have two votes to end on. The first, since Bowmans is improving its still they’re going to be producing a new product for your bars.

[ ] Bowmans Finest: Actual whiskey flavored with honey instead of glorified moonshine, while the Lounge would be its first customer, it wouldn’t be the last. Despite the name, it was only an okay drink: better than Bowmans, but not as good as Witches Brew. Still, it had a good flavor thanks to the honey.

[ ] Bowmans Strongest: The fumes of this drink were strong enough to make a man light-headed: it was high enough proof that Josiah had to institute a policy, two shots maximum. The flavor was awful, but after the first shot no one was likely to care.

[ ] Bowmans Strangest: The Bowmans apparently made their own wine, and it was, somehow, remarkably high quality. They apparently had bred their own variety of elderberry to make it, giving it a unique flavor profile. The only flaws with Bowmans Strangest was that it was only produced in small batches, it was somewhat weak, and when imbibed enough it occasionally caused mild hallucinations. 

Next, you get to pick a more general positive effect from investing in Farming in the form of a named character of your design. 

[ ] Renowned Local Scientist: The money that went to farming would be used by several black families to send their children to Gotham U to study Agronomy, with several of them going on to not be farmers, but instead scientists specializing in the field. One in particular would show a great deal of talent and insight, and would quickly establish themselves in their chosen specialization.

-[ ] Alright, so you basically get to make a Scientist character here, in the same vein as George Washington Carver, that will be loosely associated with the Lounge. Thing is, there is a LOT of variation one can get in the archetype of “Black Agri-scientist”: are they an engineer nonpareil who’ll help invent new machines to make farming easier? Are they a botanist focusing on a particular plant? A meteorologist of some stripe? A veterinarian with revolutionary ideas? I want a loose concept here: a brief paragraph should do it. 

[ ] I am Vengeance: The Klan would make a mistake. Target the wrong person. And in the process, they would plant the seeds of wrath in the heart of a man or woman who, driven by loss and inspired by the actions of the Opaque Shadow in defying the Klan openly, would also don a mask to fight the organization and protect the black community. 

-[ ] The “Fukc the Klan” option: you get to build a non-powered black street level hero who will be dedicated to fighting the Klan of the Fiery Cross in rural Goth County. Again, all I need here is a basic concept: name, outfit theme, and one or two backstory details enough to build a character around. Note that they obey the same general rules as the Rat Piper in that they start with a minimal amount of experience and resources. 

[ ] It Ain’t Much: While the Bowmans were still Josiah’s chief supplier, another farm would rise to prominence, the proprietor becoming a figure of importance in Goth County’s black farming community both due to his relative wealth, his inestmable generosity, his undeniable charisma, and his drive.

-[ ] Basically, you get to create a named character who serves as an influential member of Goth County’s agricultural community. Note that despite that, you still have a fair amount of possibility here: a civil war veteran whose been organizing defensive militias is viable, for instance, as is aiming for a secret socialist whose read marx extensively and has been trying to spread socialist propaganda, etc. Again, brief: name, kind of farm, a few background details, what makes them important. 

To be continued in Ghosts of Slaughter Swamp...