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Mark's a seasoned Sanctum vet. His first tour of duty was the relentlessly
inventive Twilight Apocalypse. Now, he remixes a cult classic from the Golden
Age of Greed.
In the 1980s, it was morning in America again, and Warlocks were waking up
to a whole new way to undermine society. The spread of a gleefully ultra-Calvinist
attitude toward wealth – that poverty was proof of lack of moral fiber
or divine disfavor, and that riches were God’s stamp of approval on whatever
you had done to amass them – helped the Warlocks of Wall Street chart
an economic course that would widen the gap between rich and poor into a yawning
chasm.
Ironically, it was the view from rock bottom that was the clearest. In the
nation’s soup kitchens, homeless shelters and Hoovervilles, people saw
that malevolent forces were moving in penthouse offices and back alleys alike.
Out of sight of the suburbs, hideous crimes were being committed in the crumbling
inner cities, while in the glass fortress-towers of the business districts, Warlock
CEOs and politicians were cutting a swath of depredation and misery at home
and abroad. In an urban mission somewhere in the heartland, a pastor, an optical
engineer and a materials scientist created a special type of lens through which
a Warlock’s demonic essence was plainly visible. The trio began fitting
the lenses into innocuous-looking sunglasses and distributing them to allies
around the country, but their lab was destroyed, and the three killed, in a police
raid before more than a dozen or so cases could be prepared.
The deaths of the founders couldn’t stop the movement they had started.
The time was right, and a grassroots network of demon fighters began to spring
up from coast to coast. The original Clear-Vues (as the magic shades became
known) have been scattered far and wide across the country. Sometimes, a minister
or activist will come into a few pairs and hand them out to trusted friends.
Other times, a pair mysteriously appears in the mailbox or on the doorstep of a
person whose skills or knowledge would help the movement. One
or two lucky, blessed, or cursed fellas will stumble across a pair and
try them on just for the Hell of it. Little do they know.
No one calls the organization Sanctum – nobody calls it anything yet.
It has no leader, no headquarters, and no defined base of support. The group
operating in one city or town may have no idea that they have fellows in most
other states, or even that there are any other groups like them at all. When
two people wearing Clear-Vues meet, however, they are instantly recognizable
to one another, since the lenses of the glasses appear to shine with a soft
white light when seen through another set.
Now that it’s becoming clear that the movement is more widespread than
anyone had first thought, members are starting to leave signs for others who
are new to the area. Somehow, groups across the country have independently settled
on the same cryptic message – “The Demons Live” – to
leave scrawled on dumpsters, spray-painted in alleyways, or traced in freshly
poured concrete.
To set the mood of the period, here’s a brief list of scenery elements
to include in an 80s landscape:
- Pro wrestling, Rambo, The A*Team
- Televangelists (Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, The 700 Club)
- Synth-pop, hair metal, punk, a second British invasion (Duran Duran, Thompson
Twins, etc.)
- Shoulder pads, leg warmers, skinny ties, pork-pie hats, acid-wash jeans, suspenders,
fishnet stockings, enormous hair, baggy sweaters.
Main Street Sanctum
A wide variety of classic 80s heroes can be found in the ranks of the Sanctum
of the era. Because Vice City inspired this article, a suggested game cliché
is provided for each.
Rogue Cop
RC is out to clean up the streets and isn’t about to let the rules stand
in his way. Shouting matches with the lieutenant, cussing out reporters and
roughing up suspects are all in a day’s work for him.
- Streetwise - RC knows every dark corner of every stinking back alley in this
city, plus who’s running what racket where.
- Metagamer - Watching the bad guys play the system for years has taught RC
how to make the rules of law enforcement read exactly how he needs
them to in any situation.
- Compelling - RC can browbeat, harangue and even occasionally sweet talk people
into doing or agreeing to things that they would otherwise never consider
(running down license plates, granting access to warehouses, loaning out ridiculously
expensive or rare equipment, and so on).
- Cliché (investigative): Mendoza!!! – By bellowing your nemesis’
name to the sky, usually over the body of your dead partner, you swear a mighty
oath that nets you a +1 bonus die on tasks relating to tracking down said
nemesis.
- Cliché (combat): Smart bullets – You can open fire into a
crowd of any size without ever hitting an innocent bystander.
American Ninja
A scrappy street kid, always in trouble, who would have ended up in prison
or an early grave if not for the ancient ninja master who saw the kid’s
essential goodness and began training AN as his successor.
- Ninja - Master of the traditional 13 disciplines of ninjutsu.
- Universal Driver - When swimming or horsemanship won’t cut it, a ninja
has to be ready to pilot everything from an ultralight to a supercharged motorcycle.
- Gadgeteer - Today’s ninja has to know what to do when confronted with
villainous cyborgs or genetically enhanced supermen, so AN has a working knowledge
of various branches of weird science.
- Cliché (combat): He’s mine! – No matter how many foes
you encounter at once, they feel compelled to engage you one at a time.
The Drifter
The Drifter’s origins are obscure. Some say he’s an economic refugee
from the Rustbowl, or a farmer driven off his land by massive debt, or a hard-luck
inner-city laborer. In any case, he now wanders the highways of America, working
odd jobs when he can and fighting for the little guy in towns across the land.
- Handy - The Drifter can do journeyman work as anything from a short-order
cook to a landscaper to an auto body mechanic.
- Wayfarer - Years of traveling on foot have honed the Drifter’s natural
sense of direction to the point that he could navigate the back woods blindfolded.
- Knows People - He’s been everywhere and met all kinds of folks, so
he can usually get a feel for a person’s character and intentions after
a couple minutes of conversation.
- Cliché (contacts): You seem like a good guy. – Despite having
no references, identification or visible means of support, you automatically
come across as trustworthy and hardworking.
Vietnam Vet
Alienated from authority by his terrible experiences in the war, the Vet trusts
no one but proven comrades. His combat skills are fearsome, but his B.S. detector
is even keener.
- Tough - The Vet can soak up punishment that would kill lesser men
and keep on fighting.
- Warrior - A one-man army, master of hand-to-hand combat and any firearm a
man can carry and fire (and a couple one man shouldn’t be able to).
- Cynical - The Vet is so doggedly distrustful that it’s nearly impossible
to bluff or fast-talk him.
- Cliché (combat): I ain’t got time to bleed! – Once per
combat, you can shrug off any penalties imposed by your wound state for one
turn.
Punk Girl
PG’s driving goal is rebellion against the established order and its
replacement with – nothing at all. Born and raised in a city that was
literally crumbling around her, she’s hell bent on laying low a power
elite that bleeds the masses for their own benefit or amusement. Her devotion
to anarchism is a little unsettling for her teammates, who don’t
really appreciate the difference between anarchy and bedlam, but there’s
no denying she’s singularly tough and determined.
- Nimble - PG has both incredible manual dexterity (witness her superhumanly fast bass guitar technique!) and tremendous agility.
- Épater les Bourgeois - Something about her Doc Martens, Cherenkov-blue
hair and the safety-pins through her ears makes PG intimidating out of all
proportion to her size and strength (she’s not what you would call
strapping, thanks to her atrocious diet and a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit).
- Jerryrigger - PG epitomizes the punk DIY ethos. She’s a master scrounger
and can build almost anything out of just about anything else.
- Cliché (contacts): Friends in low places. – PG knows at least
one activist of every stripe who can provide all kinds of useful information.
Warlocks of Wall Street
Okay, they're not all from Wall Street, but they're all connected enough to party there!
Business Tycoon
The Tycoon is a dean of Wall Street who brings in money for shareholders hand
over fist by alternately shafting the workers and fiddling the books. He works
subtly, in large part through a circle of coked-up acolyte Masters of the Universe
to whom he’s teaching the fine arts of bleeding corporations white and
selling junk bonds by the caseload.
The Tycoon is also the major facilitator of the activities of other Warlocks
around the world. His money funds diabolical operations big and small, and
he serves as an informal coordinator. What he hasn’t yet
realized is that, to a person wearing Clear-Vues, his cash is visibly different.
On the face of each bill, rather than a president, is the sanity-blasting
portrait of a Demon Prince; on the back, animated vistas of Hell squirm and
writhe. Coins that he or his minions have handled become jagged disks of bleached
bone, and always feel slightly warm to the touch.
- Stinking Rich - The Tycoon has more money than one person could spend in ten lifetimes, which means there’s always plenty
on hand for bribing officials, hiring thugs, or trying to buy off Sanctum
busybodies.
- Invisible Hand - By moving money from one holding company to another, or
one state to another, the Tycoon can cause businesses, sectors, even entire
regional economies to flourish or wither.
- Filthy Lucre - Money paid by the Tycoon, in whatever form, carries a trace
of his corruption to the payee. Do a couple of jobs, get a few hundred, and
you may feel a strange urge to splurge on a few lines of blow or some specialty
services. When he’s paid you a few thousand, you’re budgeting for
some very dark habits indeed; and by the time you’ve taken salary from
him for a year and a day, you’re so far down a rabbit hole of debauchery
that you’re starting to spread the taint yourself.
El Narcotraficante
El Narco is a Central American strongman whose small nation is hosting one
of the U.S.-Russia proxy wars in the region. No one is sure what his political
philosophy is, or whether he even has one beyond lining his pockets with drug
money.
- President for Life - El Narco has the resources of a whole country at his
disposal (Lord knows none of them are being used to the benefit of its people),
including an incongruously large and well-armed military, secret police, and
a cadre of foreign “advisors.”
- Guerilla - Before seizing the reins of power, El Narco was commandante of
a brutal, paramilitary force almost indistinguishable from the ones he’s
getting foreign aid to fight now. He hasn’t forgotten any of the dirty
tricks he learned during those years.
- Pander - Whatever it is you really, really want but are too ashamed to admit,
even to yourself – El Narco knows. He can see it in your eyes. And he’s
ready and able to give it to you in exchange for your aid, complicity, or
plain inaction.
The Alarmist
Poverty, homelessness, and support for dictators abroad might cause a fuss
if people thought too hard about them. The Alarmist ensures that doesn’t
happen by stirring up mindless panics. Child-abuse cults, secret messages in
heavy-metal lyrics, Dungeons & Dragons – anything can be fodder for
a nice, long, distracting bout of public hysteria.
- Influence - The Alarmist has powerful contacts in government, business and
the media.
- Silver-Tongued - Even before he acquired his demonic abilities, the Alarmist
had enormous powers of persuasion. Given enough time, he can convince almost
anyone of almost anything, no matter how feeble his argument may be.
- Rabble Rouser - With a few, well-chosen, panicky words, the Alarmist can whip
a crowd into a frenzy that makes the Bacchae look like Code Pink.
Commie Menace
CM does double duty for the warlocks, sometimes acting as a genuine agent of
repression in brutal states like Romania and Bulgaria, sometimes spreading fear
of a global Red Menace in the West. He’s a huge, brush-cut, virtually
expressionless block of muscle, a visual embodiment of monolithic undifferentiation.
- Iron Man - CM has strength and stamina befitting a man who looks like he
was carven out of marble.
- Brawler - A master of Russian wrestling and Spetznaz unarmed combat, CM knows
a dozen ways to break each bone in the human body.
- Aura of Despair - CM radiates a field of futility, grey uniformity and helplessness
that slowly crushes the hope in all around him. (It also literally sucks the
color out of his surroundings.) Spend too long in his presence and any thought
of resistance will be obliterated.
Splicer
Knowledge of the human genome had advanced just
far enough in the 80s for gene-tampering mad scientists to become a real concern
for heroes of the day. The rogue geneticist known as Splicer is on the cutting
edge of this new science. Crime bosses and despots around the globe pay top
dollar for his services in creating squads of juiced-up goons. What none of
his employers realize is that Splicer isn’t just enhancing strength and
endurance, numbing pain, and chiseling away at any inconvenient vestiges of
conscience. He’s also recoding his subjects' spirits, snipping out
chunks of humanity and replacing them with sequences of demonic essence. With
each series of treatments, the “beneficiary” becomes less human and
more an earthly vessel for infernal spirits.
- Mad Scientist - Although he’s a specialist in genetic manipulation,
Splicer is a dab hand at every branch of weird science, from death rays to
temporal dislocation.
- Personalized Weapons - With a tiny sample of a person’s hair, blood
or other tissue, Splicer can construct drugs, poisons, or even diseases that
are tailored to that particular person. Because he’s a warlock, the
effects of said concoctions aren’t necessarily physical – they
may instead cause compassion to atrophy, increase covetousness, or open the
mind to diabolic suggestion.
- Platoon of übermensch - Splicer’s personal bodyguard consists
of a dozen gene-boosted kneecappers.
Next Stop: The sweetest damn frat house on Greek Row!
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