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Jan. 6th, 2004 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bryant“My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.”
“Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed!”
“Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?”
Whitey and Billy Bulger were, during the 70s and 80s, the flip side of the Massachusetts Kennedy mystique. The world knew the Kennedies; Boston knew the Bulgers, and recognized them — one politician, one gangster — as two of the most powerful men in the city.
In the early 1970s, Whitey Bulger suborned an FBI agent, John Connolly, and for the next twenty years he used the FBI to pressure his enemies and protect his friends. He was the most powerful organized crime figure in the city. During the same period, Billy Bulger was the most powerful man in the Massachusetts Senate. Governors came and went, but Bulger ran a political machine as tight as anything from Chicago.
“If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.”
If I was gonna run an Angel game, which I’m not, it would be set in Boston, in 1976. The Tall Ships would be passing through town. Boston’s inner-city neighborhoods would be literally up in arms over Judge W. Arthur Garrity’s busing decision. Aerosmith would be singing "Back In The Saddle Again".
And Whitey Bulger would just have discovered that there are demons walking the earth.
“I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.”
Whitey, in our world, was a criminal and by all accounts not a very nice man. I wouldn’t change that, but even a hardened killer like Whitey might well object to demons infesting his city: infesting his treasured Boston. So I wouldn’t make him anything that he wasn’t. He’d still be a criminal, he’d still be a killer, and he’d still have John Connolly under his thumb.
But he would also have a hand-picked team of South Boston hard boys, specially tasked with hunting and killing demons and vampires and anything else that doesn’t belong in a good Catholic town like Boston. They’d have all the money he could funnel them; they’d have the FBI winking at them; they’d have the tools you only have when you’re working outside the law with impunity. They don’t get to call on extra gunmen, because they’re supposed to be the best of the best, and the kinds of people they need to be don’t ask for help just because a few demons punked them out. They’d be bad men, just like Whitey, and just like Whitey they’d be bad men fighting for a good cause. They, of course, are the PCs.
“I want someone good, I mean very good, to plant that gun. I don’t want my brother coming out of the bathroom with just his dick in his hands.”
Meanwhile, Billy’s covering for the PCs and their boss on the other side. He’s not running things quite yet, and his political strength only goes so far, but he’s got his uses. If an ancient Indian graveyard really needs to be redeveloped to deprive some demons of a breeding ground, he can make that happen. Billy thinks his brother is nuts but he’s not going to turn his back on family. The quid pro quo? Sometimes they have to do some political jobs, leaning on a Congressman, that sort of thing. Sometimes a job serves both masters.
It’s a hard life and a dangerous one, but you know — when you get right down to it, you’re killing Satan’s creatures. You can’t fight the government and nobody’s figured out how to shoot inflation in the nuts. There’re lines at the gas station a mile long, and you can’t do much about that either. Demons, though, can be killed.
Welcome to Boston. It’s a messed up shithole, but at least someone’s keeping it safe.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 12:11 pm (UTC)You can always count me in.
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Date: 2004-01-06 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 12:23 pm (UTC)Character concepts:
I like the idea of a Mob nephew who's heavily into the burgeoning science fiction convention scene. An Investigator with 2 or 3 in Occultism and a lot of humorous ideas about demons.
A half-demon PC would be great; remember, Henry Hill couldn't get "made" because he was half-Irish. How about the day your about-to-be-made guy sneezes and he breaks out in spikes?
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Date: 2004-01-06 12:33 pm (UTC)It never hurts to have an ADA in your pocket. From what I've read in Black Mass, the Bulger gang's circle within law enforcement slowly oozed out to the federal, state's, and district attorneys' offices.
The various businesses Whitey used for covers could provide some good PCs too. Maybe they bet with their heart instead of their head and got their liquor store/restaurant/convenience store/auto body shop taken over. Maybe they have to help the PCs once the demons invade the PCs' headquarters.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 12:40 pm (UTC)Huh,
Neat concept. It slides right over into Unknown Armies without a hitch too.
Probably too obvious but it'd be kinda neat if Billy was in league with demons for that yin-yang of good-bad flava.
Tom
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Date: 2004-01-06 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 01:34 pm (UTC)I have posted over 20 campaign ideas over the course of the last few months. None of them have even hinted at being gender specific, although I admit to having used "he" as a generic pronoun from time to time.
This particular campaign idea has plenty of room for minority or female characters. I think it'd be fascinating to have a black gangster whose kids are having trouble because of the busing riots. I think it'd be interesting to have a Vietnamese refugee who knows a lot about demons and fell in with the Bulgers as an alliance of convenience. I think it'd be great to have a woman whose kid was killed by demons and vowed revenge.
But you know, if I wanted to run a campaign that had all white, all male PCs because I wanted to capture a particular ambiance and a particular time and place? I think I have the right to do that. If I ran all my games as white male phallofests, someone would have reason to question my dedication to diversity. However, I don't.
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Date: 2004-01-06 01:45 pm (UTC)My day is, as they say, now complete.
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Date: 2004-01-06 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 03:00 pm (UTC)Now that I've put it together, though, it does kind of stand on its own.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 05:07 pm (UTC)And not, may I add, in a good way. :P
WHITE MALE PHALLOFESTS -- UNITE!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 07:40 pm (UTC)It ought to have... there's a great photo here. Something like that. This one isn't bad either.
Of course, those would be illegal to use.
DISCLAIMER: the word "phallofest" is my fault, not tayefeth's, who deserves better than to be at the wrong end of my temper.
T-shirt
Date: 2004-01-06 08:23 pm (UTC)Is it just me that wants to find some way to use "phallofest" in the same sentence as "mallomar"?
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Date: 2004-01-06 01:49 pm (UTC)If I thought you were the type to exclude (even non-player) character ideas solely on race and/or gender, I wouldn't check your LJ daily.
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Date: 2004-01-06 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 01:53 pm (UTC)I really want to play in this. I think I may badger my GM.
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Date: 2004-01-06 01:41 pm (UTC)They're the demons!
No, really!
People are all up in arms about the bussing right? This whole bussing issue isn't a blow for racial equality, it's a cunning scheme by the forces of evil to start riots in the streets. It's been mentioned that James Bulger is in charge of Juvenile Courts. Maybe inner city kids come through the system and get a heapin' helpin' of evil injected into them and that's why he wants them bussed all over the city -- to spread the hate. So you've got demons agitating the populace.
Now. You discover that the head of a pro-bussing group is, in fact, a demon. Whitey won't care, he'll send his goons after them, but the PCs might realize that murdering someone recognized as a major minority leader in this struggle...well...there's gonna be some blowback.
As far as minority/female PCs go. We're talkin' demons here. If Whitey hears about this Mexican girl who uses knives better than Jack the Ripper -- he's gonna swallow some of his prejudice and get her on the team ASAP. They need to be good and they're all expendable anyways.
later
Tom
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Date: 2004-01-06 02:16 pm (UTC)No, I don't think so. Gangs are all about trust, and Whitey doesn't trust her. All those Haitians (and in Boston it'd be a Haitian, not a Mexican) brought this trouble with them anyway, as far as he's concerned.
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Date: 2004-01-06 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-06 02:25 pm (UTC)For foreigners, there are always IRA "guests" who are avoiding the pleasures of Dartmoor, Italians from the North End (everything from stregas to relatives visiting from the Home Country, where they know a little about dealing with demons), Russian Jews from A-B or Brookline, Portuguese or Brazilians or Jamaican posse members up from Fall River...Whitey could have called on any of them.
Sigh. So many ideas, and no one to roleplay them with.
Still--very well done. This is a -great- idea.
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Date: 2004-01-06 02:33 pm (UTC)This is brilliant, Bryant.
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Date: 2004-01-07 06:38 am (UTC)