crescent city rpg

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Crescent City: Roleplaying in a Magical-Realistic New Orleans

Employing the Traditional 78-card Tarot

By Jason Mical

2005 Jason Mical

License Information: http://www.jasonmical.com/tarot/license.html

Chapter 1: Introduction

The electric lights blend with old gaslamps in the Southern summer, shimmering across

the languid Mississippi waters. Jazz music pours from barely-concealed speakeasies in

the French Quarter, mixing with the smell of cigarette smoke and the cloudy licorice reekof absinthe. On St. Charles Street, a cablecar clangs past century-old mansions while

beautiful debutantes tighten their corsets before leaving for a ball in their familys Rolls-

Royce. In the back alleys, old men sell roosters to voodoo practitioners, while rumors ofdarker things crawling from the sewers fill herbal shops and less-savory places.

At Tulane University, scholars delve into long-forgotten religious texts while young

gentlemen in fraternity houses squander family fortunes older than the state itself.Telephone lines have connected the city to the world in a way that paddleboats and

barges never have, but old-timers still complain about the limbs they lost in the War and

contemplate simpler times. The hustle of the world threatens to overtake the city, and therecent draining of land for development heralds an era of new growth, but its citizens

seem less concerned than ever with the affairs of the outside world, and are content to

take the changes at their own pace.

Meanwhile, troubling stories abound regarding animated corpses walking the streets.Families living in decaying plantations deep in the swamp have begun practicing rituals

not seen in hundreds of years. Pale people linger too long on Bourbon Street, and drunks

are found dead the next morning with strange bite marks on their necks. Revivalistpreachers claim angels and demons themselves prowl the cities, while the Church keeps a

tight seal on the recent arrival of Jesuit monks that resemble mercenaries more than holy

men.

Welcome to New Orleans, circa 1923. Step aboard the coach; your adventure awaits.

Crescent City is a role-playing game of magical realism set in a New Orleans that hasmore to do with fiction, film, and romantic misconceptions rather than fact. It is a place

where the crush of technological advancement has not yet destroyed the deep connection

to the mystical, and often both coexist in a strange balance. Anne Rices characters mightfeel at home here, as would the protagonists of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis

Borges. It is a place for lovers and fighters, a city where anything can happen from the

wondrous to the horrific often at the same time. Voodoo priestesses walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Antebellum families, and creatures heard about only in whispers stalk the

streets next to the worst examples of humanity.


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Rather than a traditional role-playing system of dice and numbers, Crescent City uses

the traditional 78-card Tarot deck to resolve conflicts and adjudicate the inevitablemystical encounters in the Big Easy.

The Game

So what kind of game is Crescent City? The limits are in the GMs imagination. New

Orleans in the 1920s was a big place, and when you throw mythological creatures and

nameless horrors into the mix, anything is possible. The Volstead Act has led to the riseof organized crime, even in the deep South. Sentiments regarding the War still exist. The

old way of life is alive and well. Tulane and Loyola Universities are centers of great

learning, but massive voodoo rituals revive the Old Ways nightly. Are the dead crawlingout of their stone sepulchers to walk the streets? Are demonic forces battling the armies

of Heaven behind closed doors? And what is that thingcrawling from that sewer grate; it

doesnt look like any rat Ive ever seen. Rats dont have tentacles.

Crescent City takes the best of American folklore and mixes it with the joie de vivre atthe height of the jazz age and places it in the unique Southern gothic setting. Story ideas

abound, and this is the perfect place to try out something new, or that adventure Ivealways wanted to run but couldnt quite find the context in which to do it. Or, make a

campaign of it perhaps the mobsters have come into conflict with the old families, or

the voodoo practitioners are at war with the university scholars. Or theres somethingmore sinister that threatens not only the languid peace of the Big Easy, but the entire

world and the characters are the only ones who can stop it.

What You Need to Play

Each player should have his own Tarot deck. A sheet of paper and a pencil to record

elements of their character is also important. The gamemaster should have his own Tarot

deck, some scratch paper, and a few pencils if necessary. Some basic math skills alsocome in handy; sums in Crescent City can be done on fingers and toes.

Which Tarot deck to bring? That depends on the player. The Rider-Waite Tarot is the

most traditional and most versatile, but many specialized Tarot decks are available on themarket today. It might also depend on the direction the Gamemaster wishes to take the

game; if the game features a mummy terrorizing the city, he might recommend a Tarot

deck with Egyptian imagery. Whatever deck a player is comfortable with is the deck thatplayer should use.

Chapter 2: A Roadmap of the Tarot Deck

Most readers will no doubt be familiar with the Tarot deck as a means of fortune-telling

or mystical symbolism. This is its popular use, especially since the 19th

century, andespecially in North America. In Europe, Tarot is a trick-taking card game similar to

pinochle or bridge that can trace its roots to an even older trick-taking game, tarocchi.


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Both Tarot and tarocchi use a similar 78-card deck, and are still played in France, Italy,

and parts of the Czech Republic and the Balkans.

It is not clear when the Tarot deck became used for divination, but its reputation as such

was firmly established in the 19th

century and bolstered by Alester Crowleys

endorsement of this purpose in the early 20

th

Century. Those practicing the Kaballah (akind of Jewish mysticism based partially on numbers) have been using Tarot and other

similar numerical devices for centuries. It appears that church warnings against the

symbolism of playing cards date back to the 1300s, around the same time that those cardsfirst appeared.

Like a traditional deck of cards, the Tarot deck is divided into four suits. Traditionally,these suits are called Swords, Wands or Staves, Cups, and Pentacles or Coins. The exact

names of the suits may vary from deck to deck. Each suit contains a 1-10 (the Ace

typically being the 1 card), and four face cards: the Page, the Knight, the Queen, andthe King. Taken together, the cards in the four suits are called the minor arcana, where

arcana refers to mysteries or hidden knowledge.

Where Tarot decks differ most from regular decks is the other twenty-two cards included,or the major arcana. In the Tarot game, these cards are used as trump; they are also the

cards most important to divination, and the ones often seen in pop culture representations

of the Tarot. They include cards like Death, The Devil, The Magician, and The Emperor.They are numbered 0-21, with the 0 card being The Fool and 21 being The World. In the

Tarot game, The World is the most powerful (and most valuable, in terms of points) card.

But the major arcana also represent something else, something more important to the

purposes of storytelling and role-playing. Taken as a series of panels, they tell the storyof the Fools journey to adulthood (or, if you prefer something more esoteric,

Enlightenment or Inspiration). The other twenty-one cards are things the Fool encounters

on his trip, or lessons the fool learns along his journey.

Tarot Symbolism In Crescent CityCrescent City follows much of the traditional Tarot symbolism in terms of both the

major and minor arcana. An outline of the four minor arcana suits and theircorresponding symbols is below. You might want to consider copying this chart onto the

sheet of paper containing your character information, as you will likely refer to it often in

the course of play.

Suit Sex Element AttributeSwords Male Air PhysicalWands Male Fire Mental

Cups Female Water Emotional/Creative

Pentacles Female Earth Social

Swords


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Swords represent all things physical, from running a race to fighting a barroom brawl.

The sword itself is a weapon, intended to draw blood and cause physical harm. In and ofitself, though, a sword is merely a tool, and can be used in self-defense or to protect the

weak and innocent as easily as it can be used to oppress and control others. A sword is

born of a combination of earth (the elements used to create it) and fire (the force

necessary to fashion it), and is itself the very air it slices.

Wands

Wands represent the mental aspects of life: a dedication to philosophical and scientific

study that brings great knowledge. The wand is a symbol of the means by which magical

energies are concentrated, representing the passage of knowledge and study into thephysical world and the power of that concentrated knowledge. A wand is a fiery thing,

because while knowledge can create comfort and warmth, risking too much can offend

the gods and result in catastrophic and unforeseen consequences for the overzealous.

Wands are one of the two suits used in the exploration and control of magical energies.

Cups

Perhaps the most female of the four suits, cups are tools designed to capture and hold

liquids often water or a beverage, but sometimes not. Liquid itself is ever-changing, andthe capturing and holding of this chaotic force is the key to the mastery of emotion. Cups

are the suit of creativity, the ability to craft a story and captivate an audience or the power

to pen a song that pierces the soul.

Cups are one of the two suits used in the exploration and control of magical energies.

Pentacles

Also called coins, pentacles are physical symbols of abstract concepts, a way to reduce

something into an easily-recognizable form so that someone can instantly recognize it.

The social suit, pentacles represent a mastery over language and discourse that allows

people to chose the correct things to say in any social situation, a way to pass informationsecretly, or even the skill to read unfamiliar symbols and generalize their meaning.

Chapter 3: Creating A Character

Before play begins, each player will have to create a character. Gamemasters will also

want to be familiar with this process, because major non-player-run characters (NPCs)will also need to go through this process, and minor NPCs may need the bare-bones

treatment as well.

The character creation process is designed not only to guide you though the nuts and

bolts of creating your character, but to offer a means by which you can get to know your


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character in a relatively short amount of time. Realize though that were painting in

broad strokes: the details will be yours to fill in later.

Step One: Select a Strength

Each character will have one particular area of strength, represented by the Attributecorresponding to a suit. For example, an athletic character would choose Swords (the

Physical) as her area of strength. A scholar, doctor, or voodoo priestess would choose

Wands (Mental); a diplomat or trader would choose Pentacles (Social), while a poet or afemme fatale would select Cups (Emotional/Creative).

Step Two: Select a Weakness

In addition to a strength, each character will have a weakness: an Attribute sacrificed to

build their strength. A scholar might not have many social graces, while an empatheticcon artist could very well lack physical strength. A characters strength and weakness

must be drawn from two different suits.

Note that characters who wish to manipulate magical energies cannot select Wands orCups as their Weakness.

[Examples]

Chad is playing in a Crescent City game where the party is a group of Secret Service

agents sent to investigate a counterfeiting ring in New Orleans. He decides that hischaracters strengths ability with a gun, physical fitness and prowess, and skill at

brawling are best represented by Swords. Conversely, because of the rigorous trainingat the FBI academy and the military-like discipline that the agency fosters in its members,

he decides that his characters weakness is Cups.

Lizs Gamemaster tells her that her character will be recruited by the Secret Service to

help infiltrate the counterfeiting ring. Lizs character is a young debutante, somewhat

nave in the ways of the world but well-versed in society and comfortable in a variety of

social situations. Her characters strength is Pentacles. Liz decides that her character hashad very little time to develop her education beyond the basics taught in school; although

she can navigate the stormy seas of a New Orleans ball, it is unlikely that she will ever be

comfortable reading a science book. Therefore, Lizs characters weakness is Wands.

Step Three: Assign Experience

The Major Arcana of the Tarot deck represent a metaphorical journey, and the experience

structure in Cresent City reflects this. In Crescent City, characters mark the extent of

their knowledge (their level, if you will) by using the symbolism of the Major Arcana,from 0 (The Fool) to 21 (The World). The average person, a person without any

exceptional talents or abilities (or a person who simply decides to ignore some of the

more mysterious or scientific forces in the world), has an experience of 0, representing


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that they have not yet begun the journey along the path. The highest experience a

character can achieve, 21, represents the limits of human knowledge and development. Itwould be safe to say that few human beings throughout history have reached the point

where they are familiar with The World; perhaps only a handful of people each

generation accomplish this, although in the mysterious world of New Orleans, anything is

possible.

Experience Card Example Character

0 The Fool An average person1 The Magician A character fresh out of college, or

new to his line of work.

2 The High Priestess A wolf or less-common horror from the swamp.4 The Emperor A mid-ranking Voodoo priestess.

6 The Lovers A newly-wakened vampire.

8 Strength A Loup-Garou (Louisiana Ghost-Dog or Werewolf)10 Wheel of Fortune A high-ranking mobster; an old college professor.

12 The Hanged Man The vengeful ghost of a lynched slave.14 Temperance A powerful voodoo practitioner.

16 The Tower A weak demonic force; the dean of the college.18 The Moon A famous author or athlete at the top of his game.

20 Judgement A powerful wizard; a strong demonic force.

21 The World The limits of human achievement; the strongestsupernatural forces; the most powerful kinds of

magic.

Typically, new characters start out at 1: The Magician. It is highly recommended that

characters all start at the same number and that they grow in experience at roughly thesame time. It is also far more rewarding to work up to the higher arcana rather than

starting there immediately, as challenges will scale according to the characters

experience.

Step Four: Fill In the Blanks

If youve been writing this down, youve probably got just a few words on a blank sheetof paper. Now its time to take out a pencil and get to work on the details. Whats your

characters name? Gender? Height and hair color? Hopes and dreams? Fears and

phobias? Family members? Old friends? Occupation? Odd habits? Nervous ticks?Overall worldview? Strange birthmarks or tattoos? Be creative, but dont feel you have to

create all of these things right now often, they come out in the course of role-playing,

where you really get to know your character.

Items

In Crescent City, as with other role-playing games, characters will acquire useful items

as they travel. Sometimes, characters will start with these items. While there is no defined

limit to the number of items a character can carry or use, it is up to the gamemaster to


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keep this reasonable. For example, a character might try to wield an axe, a sword, and an

Uzi all at once but it will be exceptionally difficult.

Chapter 4: Playing the Game

Although the crux of a role-playing game is the back-and-forth between the gamemasterand the players, the underlying system exists to provide a basic framework for how

certain things should work. Remember when you were a kid and played cowboys and

Indians, or Buck Rogers, or something similar. Bang bang, youre dead! Are not!Are to! No way, I had shields! Did not! Did so!

Without the underlying game structure, thats how a role-playing session would be. Thegames structure offers a means of conflict resolution that allow characters to overcome

obstacles and opponents, and accomplish certain tasks without degenerating into petty

arguments.

Challenges

Challenges are the primary means of conflict, and conflict resolution, in Crescent City.A challenge can include a physical battle, attempting to negotiate past a guard, coming up

with a creative response to a question, or translating an ancient text. When it is time for

the players to face a challenge, the gamemaster selects cards from his deck appropriate tothe situation and the difficulty of the challenge. The players will then select cards from

their deck to overcome the challenge, often playing to their strengths when possible.

Step One: Decide Who Participates

The gamemaster will first indicate which character or characters can participate in a

challenge. If the entire group is trying to break down a door, then all characters can help.

If one character is walking down a hallway looking for tripwires, only that character canparticipate.

[Example: Examining a Phone]

GM: Theres that strange noise again. Every time you hang up the phone, you hear this

odd clicking sound.

Chad: Ill bet someones bugged our phone. Im going to look at the receiver and see if I

can find anything.

GM: OK. Your character is now participating in a challenge.

Liz: My character isnt so good with the technical stuff. Im going to sit this one out.

GM: Sounds good. Get ready, Chad.


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Step Two: Choose Suits Appropriate To the Type of Challenge

Once indicated, the gamemaster chooses a suit or suits based on Attributes challenged (a

situation can challenge more than one or even all four of the Attributes), and chose

numbers from the suit or suits based on the difficulty (one for the most basic of

challenges, up to thirty or more for an especially taxing or overwhelming task).

Use Chart [XXX] as a rough guide for different kinds of basic challenges and their

corresponding difficulties, in terms of numbers.

[Note]

Remember that the Aces value is 1, the Pages value is 11, the Knights value is 12, the

Queens value is 13, and the Kings value is 14.

Physical Challenge (Swords) Difficulty

Opening a window 2Climbing two flights of stairs 4

Treading water 6A three-mile hike 8

A steady swim 10

Climbing a large hill 12Arm-wrestling a drunk 14

Swimming in the swamp 16

Holding a dogs jaws open 18A round of boxing 20

Swimming upstream 22Wrestling an alligator 24

Walking a tightrope 26

Pulling a car out of the mud 28Running a Marathon; swimming 30+

during a hurricane; fighting a

vampire one-on-one.

Mental Challenge (Wands) Difficulty

Read calligraphy 2

Change a cars oil 4Identify a simple magical ritual 6

Read a French menu 8

Safely clean a gun 10Translate a familiar language 12

Replace a part in an engine 14

Predict weather with 40% accuracy 16Create strategy in unfamiliar game 18

Translate an unfamiliar language 20

Identify a complex magic ritual 22


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Predict weather with 80% accuracy 24

Build a simple steam engine 26Rewire a telephone 28

Translate a forgotten language; 30+

fix a complex mechanical device;

identify an ancient, complexmagical ritual.

Emotional/Creative Challenge (Cups) Difficulty

Finger-paint 2

Write a limerick 4

Seduce a willing target 6Gain the confidence of a cat 8

Convince a friend to tell a secret 10

Write a new jazz tune 12Seduce a neutral target 14

Paint a picture to sell on the street 16Innovate a new mousetrap 18

Write a sonnet 20Gain the confidence of a neutral person 22

Calm an angry dog 24

Seduce an unwilling target 26Paint a picture to sell in an art gallery 28

Create a song of everlasting beauty; 30+

gain the confidence of a sworn enemy.

Social Challenge (Pentalcles) Difficulty

Use basic manners (please and thank-you) 2

Identify a white lie 4

Tell a white lie 6Get reservations at a nice restaurant 8

Mingle with a crowd one social station 10

higher / lower than you.

Remember a dignitary 12Get reservations at a full restaurant 14

Identify a standard lie 16

Tell a standard lie 18Talk your way into a ball for which you 20

have no reservations.

Mingle with a crowd two or three social 22stations higher / lower than you.

Remember the names of a dignitarys 24

childrenIdentify a convincing whopper 26

Tell a convincing whopper 28

Talk your way into a death row prison; 30+


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mingle with a crowd several social stations

higher / lower than you.

[Example]

In the previous example, the players decided which of them would examine the phone fora bug. The Gamemaster knows that the phone is, in fact, bugged, and that it was bugged

by experts in covert operations. Therefore, it will be especially difficult for the characters

to locate the bug. The Gamemaster selects the Nine of Wands and the Eight of Wands torepresent the challenge of locating the bug.

Step Three: Attempt to Overcome the Challenge

In order to overcome the challenge, the characters need to select and play cards ofgreater

value than those the gamemaster has revealed, within the same suit(s). If they can (orchoose to do so), they have overcome the challenge. If they cannot (or choose not to do

so), they have failed the challenge. The players can play as many cards as necessary toovercome the challenge; often, this will mean using cards of high and low value together.

Once the players have selected the cards they will use to attempt to overcome the

challenge, those cards are discarded and the players cannot use them again until the deck

cycles. For more information on when the deck cycles, see Cycling the Deckon page[XXX]

[Example]

The Gamemaster reveals the Nine and Eight of Wands.

Liz: Wed better figure out if theyve been eavesdropping on us. We should find if theres

a bug.

Chad: Weve got our work cut out for us. Ive got a Nine of Wands. And, a Page of

Wands. That makes twenty.

GM: Twenty will overcome my seventeen. As youre examining the phone, you see a

wire that shouldnt be there. You would never have seen it if you werent specifically

looking for it.

Liz: Damn them! Lets try to get this thing off of here.

Chad: Wait a second. We might be able to use this to our advantage. If we know they are

listening, then we can feed them some false leads and throw them off our tails for a night

or two.

Liz: Great idea!


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Chads characters efforts represented by the Nine of Wands and the Page of Wands

were enough to locate the bug on the phone. Now, they want to try to feed the people onthe other end of the tap a little false information. Time for another challenge. But first,

lets finish resolving the initial challenge.

Step Four: Overcoming a Challenge

When the players have overcome a challenge, the cards they used are put into a discard

pile. They no longer have access to those cards for the duration of the cycle, and cannotuse them again to overcome future challenges. The gamemaster places his cards back in a

discard pile as well, but when the gamemaster runs out of cards in his deck, his discard

pile becomes a new deck. The gamemaster effectively never runs out of cards.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Remember too that characters chose attributes in which they are particularly strong, and

attributes in which they are particularly weak. When a challenge involves the charactersstrong Attribute, that character can use cards ofany suitto overcome that part of the

challenge.

Conversely, when a challenge involves the characters Weak attribute, the character treats

the cards in that suit as if their value were halftheir face value (round down) forovercoming that part of the challenge. For example, if a characters weakness is the

Physical attribute, and the challenge required overcoming a six of Swords, the character

would need to play Swords worth thirteen or more (to make up for the lessened value ofthe cards) to overcome that part of the challenge.

[Example]

GM: OK, how do you want to approach this?

Liz : Im going to try to mislead whoever might be listening into thinking that were

going to attend the Rue du Morgue Krewes Mardi Gras party tomorrow night.

GM (considers this challenge): Very well.

The Gamemaster knows that the G-men on the other end of the bug are trained to knowwhen theyve been discovered. Its going to take a lot of poise to pull this off. He selects

the Queen of Pentacles and the Ten of Pentacles, for a total of twenty-three.

Liz: Twenty-three, yikes! Im nearly out of Pentacles. Good thing I can use other suits.

Ive got an Eight of Pentacles left, and Ill go ahead and play this King of Cups and a

Two of Cups. Thats twenty-four total.

GM: Excellent. As far as you know, the people on the other end of the bug are fully

convinced that youre going to attend the Rue du Morgues party tomorrow night.


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Liz: That gives us an afternoon and an evening without being tailed. Lets head over tothe cemetery and follow that lead.

Complications

Often things are not as easy as they first seem. In Crescent City, the gamemaster can add

more cards to the challenge from her deck (perhaps the characters were surprised by an

attack from the rear while they attempted to pick the locked door). The players will thenneed to decide whether to commit more cards to the challenge, to fail the challenge, or to

withdraw from the challenge.

[Example]

Having thrown the G-men off the scent, Liz and Chads character are exploring the St.Louis #1 cemetery for clues. Chads character thinks hes found something in one of the

tombs, but its written in a strange language.

GM: The letters look familiar, but the language does not (Lays out a King of Wands). Itwont be too hard to translate, but youll have to work at it.

Chad: Fair enough. We need this information. Heres my own King of Wands, and anAce of Wands.

GM: Right about this time, you see another light in the cemetery and a gravelly old voicestarts yelling at you. If you kids are markin up another grave, Im gonna tan your

hides!

Liz: Oops, sounds like we woke up the caretaker. Wed better hurry up and get out of

here.

Chad: Ive almost got it, right?

GM: You dont have much time, so translating this will be a little harder. (Lays out aFive of Wands).

Failing a Challenge

If the players fail a challenge, any cards they used to attempt to overcome the challenge

are placed into the discard pile. They no longer have access to those cards for theduration of the cycle, and cannot use them again to overcome future challenges. In

addition, the character or characters who failed the challenge must select and discard one

Major Arcana card for failing the challenge. And, of course, if the players wereattempting to overcome some obstacle, discover an important piece of information, or try

to heal a fallen comrade, they will have failed in this task and the gamemaster must

decide its effects on the story.


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[Example]

From our previous example, the gamemaster has just complicated Chads characters

attempt to translate the strange language by adding an extra Five of Wands to it due to the

time constraints. Chad must now decide how important translating the text really is.

Chad: Forget it, Im halfway through my deck and almost out of Wands. Lets get out of

here.

GM: OK, you can flee no problem but the text will remain untranslated for now.

Withdrawing From A Challenge

In the Tarot game, the Fool represents an unwanted trump, as it has no numerical value.In Crescent City, the Fool works as an ace in the hole, a card players can use to

withdraw from a challenge when they didnt realize a situation might be beyond theirabilities. Playing the Fool means the character or characters have accepted a neutral

outcome to the challenge; they will not have to discard another Major Arcana for failure,and they may attempt to overcome their obstacle by another method, but they did not

succeed at the challenge. Typically, playing the Fool is used to back down from an

obviously slanted fight or to duck out of a social situation where the characters arehopelessly outclassed. After playing the Fool, the card is placed in the discard pile and

cannot be used until the next cycle, as are any other cards the character may have used.

[Example]

As they are fleeing the cemetery, things start to get worse.

GM: Somewhere, you hear the sound of barking dogs. Then, in the blink of an eye, amassive guard dog leaps on Lizs character and begins barking loudly!

Liz: Escape how?

GM: This is a Doberman, and this will not be easy. (Lays out a Queen of Swords, a

Knight of Swords, and a Ten of Cups).

Liz: Im not fighting this beast. (Plays the Fool).

GM: OK, you manage to roll out from underneath it and back away slowly but if youstart running, itll be after you again. And, its still barking!

Extraordinary Character Feats

When a child is trapped under a burning car, a mother may tap into a superhuman

strength to lift the vehicle and free her daughter. If youre the only one around and


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someone is about to jum p off a skyscraper, somehow you know just the right things to

say and do to convince the person not to leap. These are examples of extraordinarycharacter feats.

In Crescent City, if things are looking grim, characters can use their Major Arcana cards

to help them overcome a particularly difficult challenge. The value of the major arcanacan be applied to any aspect of the challenge in any way the character chooses; for

example, if the character plays The Lovers (with a value of six), she can divide that value

as needed among the various parts of the challenge.

Characters can use any major arcana less than or equal to their Experience in this manner

without penalty. Therefore, a character whose Experience is Five (The Hierophant) canuse cards one through five as normal. When using major arcana valued above a

characters Experience, those cards instead have a value of one. This penalty represents

that a character may not necessarily possess the skills, training, or experience necessaryto tap into his potential.

Once the major arcana have been used to help a character overcome a challenge, they are

placed in the discard pile and cannot be used again.

[Example]

GM: The dog doesnt seem to be following you, but you hear the caretaker again and he

sounds angry. He cant be more than thirty yards away.

Liz: Can we make a break for it?

GM: Sure, you can try.

Chad: Yeah, were going to try to run to the gates as fast as we can.

GM: Side by side?

Chad: No, Ill go second to make sure she doesnt trip.

GM: Sure. As youre running, Chads character feels the dogs jaws close on his ankle.

Its got you in its grip.

Chad: Ive got to get free, or things could get a lot worse.

GM: Indeed. It shouldnt be too hard. (Lays out the Ten of Swords).

Chad: Oh, its hard Im almost out of Swords! Still, its going to be worse if I stayaround. OK, Ive got a Six of Swords left, and my characters Experience is five, so Im

going to play The Hierophant (Major Arcana 5) as well.


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GM: Youre not sure if it was sheer terror, adrenaline, or divine intervention, but you just

manage to wrestle your ankle out of the dogs jaws and kick its muzzle enough todiscourage it from taking another bite. Luckily, youre only scratched and you can keep

running.

Extraordinary Challenges

Sometimes, a challenge will be so overwhelming that it will require extraordinary

reserves of personal skill to overcome it. William Tell shooting the apple off of his sonshead, an athlete swimming for an Olympic gold despite a broken rib, or a pauper trying to

convince a prince he should not be executed are all examples of extraordinary challenges.

For these challenges, the gamemaster selects one (or more) of the major arcana, inaddition to whatever minor arcana are appropriate. In order to overcome an extraordinary

challenge, the players must play cards from their strong Attribute or from their Major

Arcana greater than the value on the GMs Major Arcana in addition to overcoming theother parts of the challenge. Remember that Major Arcana greater than the characters

Experience still only count as one during these challenges.

[Example]

GM: Youre nearing the cemetery gates, but it looks like the caretaker has closed and

locked them! What do you do?

Liz: How high is the fence?

GM: Looks like eight feet or so, and its topped with iron points.

Liz: Im going to try to scramble over it.

GM: OK, thats going to be a very difficult task. (Lays out the Knight of Swords and TheChariot, card seven of the Major Arcana.)

Liz: Well, my characters Experience is only Five, so this will be interesting. Ive got my

own Knight of Swords, so Ill lay that out first. Then, Ill lay out the Empress and theEmperor. Here I go!

GM: Outstanding, you cleared the fence! Well done!

Non-Player Characters

NPCs the characters face can participate in challenges as well, either to help the party or

hinder them. NPCs do this in exactly the same manner as player-controlled characters,

using cards from the gamemasters deck, except that the gamemaster does not discard thecards NPCs use when the challenge concludes. NPCs have strengths and weaknesses just

like characters, and this affects their ability to overcome certain kinds of challenges.

However, as a balancing factor, NPCs should not be given free reign to do as they please


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(otherwise, an NPC could simply cut through an army of enemies or the other

characters!) Gamemasters should temper an NPCs responses with common sense; mostNPCs have an Experience value of 0, so their ability to perform Extraordinary Character

Feats will be extremely limited. Otherwise, to keep things fair (especially in a combat

situation) it might be a good idea to resolve an entire combat with one large challenge so

the players and the NPCs are on relatively equal footing.

Choice and Sacrifice

Because players discard their cards after use, each action in the Crescent City system is

one of choice and sacrifice. Once a character has used all of his or her minor arcana, the

character can only perform Extraordinary Character Feats until the next cycle. Therefore,it is a good idea to weigh which challenges a character should face, when, and how many

resources a character should devote to overcoming certain challenges.

Life and Death

There is no hit point system in Crescent City. Rather, discarding cards to overcome

challenges represents a character tiring out and tapping further and further into personalreserves of skill and prowess. When a character has discarded or used all of his major

arcana cards, this represents that his character is becoming exhausted. When a character

has used or discarded the last card from his deck, the character dies (or at the very least isimmobilized, brain-dead, comatose, or mentally unfit to continue).

Cycling the Deck

The term cycle refers to two related things: the return of discarded cards back intocharacters decks, and the end of a certain part of the story. As a rule of thumb, at the end

of a story cycle, the deck cycles. A story cycle can best be described as a chapter, an

episode, or a natural stopping point. Often, this will coincide with the end of anafternoon, evening, or day of gaming, but not always. The GM should announce the end

of a cycle when the characters take a large amount of rest. This includes getting some

sleep, eating some food, performing basic hygienic tasks (if able), and taking time to

reflect on what has occurred. When the deck cycles, it represents a character fresheningup and rejuvenating himself for another day of adventuring.

Cycles can end at the end of a day, at a resting point in a long journey (a nap under a tree,for example), or in extreme circumstances when the characters are holed up in a

relatively safe place for a few hours.

As an option, the gamemaster can instruct characters to select either randomly or by

choice a certain number or type of cards to add back into their decks. Gamemasters

should use this option when characters get a few moments to rest, but not enough to end acycle perhaps the character slips into a speakeasy to knock back a drink and listen to

some music for a half-hour, or takes a catnap in the back of a swampboat on the way to

the old plantation.


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Experience

As characters progress, they learn to hone their areas of strength, practice their skills, and

train themselves to excel. When they do this, their Experience increases. Note that

twenty-one is the maximum Experience value, corresponding to the final card in themajor arcana. There are two schools of thought on Experience: it might be a flash of

insight or a result of training in a characters area of strength, or it might be the sum total

of all the various challenges a character has overcome (or failed, and learned from) in astory. Regardless, the gamemaster should make the decision on how Experience will be

awarded before the campaign, and inform the players in advance.

When a characters Experience value increases is up to the gamemaster. It is highly

recommended that a group of characters be within one or two Experience values of each

other, otherwise what is easy for some characters will be beyond the reach of others.

Chapter 5: Magic and Conflict

There are two specialized kinds of challenges in Crescent City: the use of magic, andcombat.

Magic

As Arthur C. Clarke noted, a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from

magic, and many of the discoveries made during the ongoing scientific revolution arechanging lives in ways no one ever imagined.

Vaccines and antibiotics prevent and treat diseases previously thought incurable. The

railroad cut the time required to travel from coast to coast from months to weeks, and the

automobile cut it from weeks to days. Now, airlines have reduced a cross-country trip toa matter of hours. Telephones allow people to converse in real-time across enormous

distances, while radios bring entertainment and news into peoples living rooms every

night. In a few years, humans will do the unimaginable: split the atom and develop a

technology that could eliminate the entire species. Following on the heels of thatdiscovery is the recognition of DNA, the very building blocks of life that could someday

offer a means for people to live forever.

But there are some who merely smile and nod when confronted with the trappings of

progress. They may marvel at the speed of an airplane, or tune in to the sounds of Jazz

and vaudeville on the radio, but when the hour grows late and the electric lights turn off,they turn to older knowledge that is all but lost in the sterile halls of scientific

achievement.

Magic in Crescent City is treated in a very different manner than in many role-playing

games. Rather than casting a spell instantaneously that creates a certain effect, such as a

ball of fire of a means to heal a wounded companion, the use of magic is nothing more


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than the focusing of magical energies. Perhaps the energy is some kind of life-force that

flows through living material, or perhaps it is the key to understanding the very root ofmatter and the structure of the universe. Either way, science has no easy explanation for

magic, and often the empirical effects of magical manipulation are fleeting, if noticeable

at all.

Spells are not simply cast; instead, ancient rituals must be performed to begin

concentrating magical energies. There are many different ways in which that

concentration manifests in the real world: a voodoo doll, from which the practitionerreleases stored magical energy with pins, is but one method. Gris-gris bags are another.

These are only two of the most common methods of magical manipulation found in

Crescent City; ancient texts written in long-dead tongues detail other methods. Magicmay be stored in a piece of jewelry such as a ring or an amulet, or could even be

concentrated in the user himself. This energy can be stored for hours, days, or even years,

or activated immediately after the ritual has concluded.

Even so, magic will never have a whiz-bang direct effect on the world. A ritual to controlthe weather will not produce an instant thunderstorm, but it may bring more rain that

usual during an entire season. A foul spell designed to give life to dead flesh will notcause corpses to start lumbering out of the cemetery immediately, but as the energy

realigns around a dead body, it will slowly begin to reanimate.

Not everyone can manipulate magical energies. Those who have shunned the world of

learning and the development of their own creativity and connection to their surroundings

are simply unable to tap into this energy. Characters whose weak suits are Wands or Cupscan never successfully complete a magical ritual.

Manipulating Magic in Crescent City

In game terms, characters who cast spells are creating a battery of cards from whichthey can draw to help themselves overcome challenges. Once a character completes a

ritual, he will set aside a certain amount of cards for use when he sees fit during a cycle.

Once used, those cards are not discarded they instead go back in the players deck,

effectively allowing that character to live longer and overcome more difficult challengesthan someone not inclined towards magical manipulation.

These cards can be used to overcome any challenge the character faces, or challengesother characters face. The character who has cast the ritual may chose to focus the

energies on a friend or foe, to aid a companion or group in overcoming a challenge.

However, this ability comes at a price: time spent researching, and the possibility of

failure when dealing with powers beyond a characters control. Failure can be a very bad

thing.

The cards provided by a ritual need not be used all at once.


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If a cycle ends before the cards are used, those cards may still be stored and used during

the next cycle without having to perform the ritual again.

Step One: Identify the Type of Ritual

Its always important to know what kind of ritual youre about to perform. For example,if you want to encourage two people to fall in love, it wont do to cast a ritual that will

instead cause both of them to become deathly ill.

Identifying a ritual in an book or written on an ancient tablet may require completing a

challenge. Learning rituals from other practitioners is easier, but characters should only

learn magic from those they trust, as there are plenty of unscrupulous practitioners whowould think nothing of using a novice as a pawn in part of a larger ritual.

As a general rule, the cards a ritual provides will correspond with the effects of the ritual.For example, a spell to aid in the curing of disease will provide a character with Swords.

When the ritual is identified, the player will know which cards the ritual will provide for

use later in the game. Sometimes, rituals can be made weaker or more powerfuldepending on how many cards a character wants for example, a spell to enhance a

persons strength could utilize as few as two or three Swords, or as many as twenty or

thirty.

Additionally, rituals may provide Major Arcana cards with the usual experience

restrictions, but doing so requires the character to overcome a Cups challenge equal to theface value of the cards, even if that face value is greater than the characters experience.

For example, if a character with an Experience of Two wanted to perform a ritual thatprovided Major Arcana cards with a total value of Six, the character would still have to

overcome a Cups challenge equal to Six, even though any Major Arcana provided with a

face value greater than Two would only provide a value of One for that character, due tohis Experience.

Examples of Types of Spells and Cards Provided

Strength, healing, harming, speed, physical manipulation: Swords

Intelligence, learning, reading of unknown languages, understanding scientific devices:

Wands.Emotional connections, any method of dealing with supernatural forces or entities, love,

hate: Cups

Social skills, effectiveness of a speaker at convincing a crowd, money and wealth,reactions of others to a character: Pentacles

Step Two: Learn the Ritual

First, before starting a ritual, the character must first understand how to perform it. Often

this means studying an ancient text or learning from a current practitioner. The actual


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time spent learning the ritual is four times the time it takes to complete a ritual; therefore,

if a ritual takes eight hour to complete, it will take a character thirty-two hours to learn.That time need not be all at once; a character can learn a ritual over a period of days or

weeks, if necessary.

Once a character has learned a ritual, the character can perform it again without having torelearn it.

Step Three: Performing the Ritual

Performing magical rituals is a time-consuming task. Therefore, its typically better for a

character to perform rituals between cycles, although the Gamemaster can integrate themseamlessly into gameplay if he wishes.

The value of cards a ritual provides is the amount of time it takes, in hours, to perform theritual. Therefore, if a ritual provides cards with a total value of thirty, it will take thirty

hours for the character to perform the ritual.

If the ritual involves Major Arcana, the character will have to overcome a Cups challengeto complete the ritual. Failure to do so indicates that the character has allowed the ritual

to grow beyond his control. The results of this failure are unpredictable, but will almost

always have some negative and undesired effect relating to the desired result of the ritual.In the case of a love or a healing spell, typically the results will not be earth-shattering. If

the ritual was intended to summon a long-dead horror from the bayou, the results could

threaten all of human civilization.

A Word About Magic

When all is said and done, magic should be treated as a MacGuffin. It is a device to help

make the plot go, to affect the game itself, and can even be the centerpiece of a story, butin the end it is merely a means to an end in that it makes the story more interesting. If you

find that youre spending more time obsessing about the particulars of magic in CrescentCity, then youre missing the point entirely.

For more information on suggested uses of magic in a Crescent City game, see What IsMagical Realism? in Chapter Six.

Combat

In Crescent City, fighting is a dangerous even deadly business. Unlike other role-playing games where characters will often seek out vicious opponents to kill, a single

battle in Crescent City results in severely weakening a character in the best of

circumstances, and a multiple body count in the worst.

Most conflicts are solved with simple challenges. This includes non-deadly combat, like a

boxing match or a barroom brawl. When knives are pulled, guns are drawn, or hands start


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wrapping around throats in other words, when combat is a life-or-death situation a

character will need every ounce of strength to survive.

A combat challenge works just like a regular challenge, except that both sides continue to

complicate the challenge by adding more cards until one side or the other: runs out of

cards resulting in the death or incapacitation of that character; withdraws; or chooses toend the challenge. Both characters and the NPCs they are fighting can only complicate

the challenge a number of times equal to their Experience. Therefore, a character or an

NPC with an Experience of Five can complicate the challenge up to five times. After that,the challenge must resolve.

Running out of cards is as bad as it sounds; the character has been stabbed, shot,strangled, or otherwise hurt to the point of incapacitation and will die without immediate

medical attention.

Withdrawing from a combat challenge still results in the character losing the cards he

used when participating, but the character escaped without further harm.

Choosing to end the challenge while losing is an option only when facing an intelligentopponent who might accept a characters surrender. If a character does so, it will have a

negative impact on the story, but it will save the character from immediate death. Still,

some intelligent opponents will not accept surrender.

Because of the deadly nature of these kinds of challenges, and the structure ofCrescentCity, a character with a full deck at the beginning of the cycle will be able to defeat asingle opponent but will run out of cards in the process. Therefore, a group of four

characters at the beginning of the cycle will generally be able to overcome fouropponents.

The vast majority of the time, it is wiser to avoid direct combat situations.

The Gamemaster should not cycle his deck in the middle of a combat challenge.

Chapter 6: More About The Setting and System

Crescent City is based on two literary traditions: magical realism and the Southern

gothic. Any American city in the 1920s would provide a myriad of options for stories: theGreat War was over, the economy was booming for the time being, Prohibition gave rise

to organized crime, and government police forces were on the move. New Orleans adds

the mystery of the Old South, the freewheeling spirit of the Jazz age, and an admittedlyromanticized version of Voodoo and other, more sinister elements.

A Note About Voodoo and Magic In Crescent City

Voodoo in Crescent City, as with representations of the Vodun tradition in many role-

playing games, has very little to do with the actual practice of those traditions and more


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to do with the popular conception of them. Thats fine. Real Voodoo practitioners dont

carry around Voodoo dolls to attack their enemies. The vast majority of the time, it iswiser to avoid direct combat situations. Were not striving for historical and technical

accuracy as far as magic goes; rather, its another tool in a storytellers toolbox for making

a fun and compelling Crescent City adventure.

So too are there folks who make magical (or magickal) manipulation part of their

religious traditions. While Crescent City borrows slightly from the theory behind those

traditions, magic in this game is presented as a storytelling device rather than a faithfuladherence to those beliefs.

What is Magical Realism?

Art critic Franz Roh coined the term magical realism to describe art in the 1920s, but

the term is most often applied to a literary movement that began, more or less, with thepublication of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967.

Magical realism is a broad term that encompasses stories, novels, and films that usemagical elements in an otherwise realistic setting. The term is applied most often to

novelists like Marquez from Latin and South America, but in recent years has beenexpanded to a great many other authors and artists.

Rather than fantasy stories, where magic often plays a central role, in magical realistictales the fantastic elements are a small fraction of the overall story and often still obey

many of the rules of the real world. For example, in the film Field of Dreams, the main

character hears a strange voice telling him to build a baseball field. Although the voicecould be in his head, and the events that follow could be strange coincidence, there is

always enough doubt that they couldbe real the audience it never sure (until the end ofthe film).

Crescent City employs a similar system and setting of magic. In the days before sciencewould truly hold the world in its grip, after releasing the enormous amount of energy

contained in an atom at White Sands in the 1940s, there is still enough wonder and

mystery in the world that at least the suggestion of voodoo, magic, and supernatural

forces dont seem so unusual.

What is Southern Gothic?

Southern Gothic is a literary and film tradition where the social structures of the

American South, typically after the American Civil War, are used to frame social

commentaries about the whole of American society. William Faulkners stories andnovels are typically set in a Southern Gothic landscape.

More recently, the term has expanded to include the wealth of literary possibilitiescontained in the secretive Southern culture. Typically it includes sinister and supernatural

elements, and a sense of dread and decay. Traditionally, gothic stories - and their best-

known child, gothic horror - use many of these elements.


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While traditional stories, and traditional horror tales, use obvious character actions, plots,devices, or symbolism to communicate their points, gothic tales take a slower and more

subtle approach. An appropriate example is the two very different kinds of horror films.

Some of them rely on either "jumps" or massive amount of gore to create a feeling of

horror. The other kind, the gothic kind, rely on carefully constructed moods and a feelingof overwhelming dread - the despair that there is no survival, and that a character has

doomed himself - is the kind with which Crescent City concerns itself.

The particulars of such kinds of horror are detailed in many other places; if the

Gamemaster needs any suggestions on creating the appropriate atmosphere or writing the

appropriate plotlines, some excellent films, books, and video games are listed below.

Recommended Films

American Beauty (1999)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)Below (2002)

Big Fish (2003)Blue Velvet (1986)

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Carnival of Souls (1962)The Changeling (1980)

Chocolat (2000)

The Crow (1994)Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Fargo (1995)Field of Dreams (1989)

Frailty (2001)

Freaks (1932)The Haunting (1963)

The Hole (2001)

Interview With The Vampire (1995)

Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971)Lost Highway (1997)

Memento (2000)

Mulholland Dr. (2001)O! Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)

Nosferatu (1922)

The People Under The Stairs (1991)Pi (1997)

Rope (1948)

Session 9 (2001)The Stepford Wives (1975)

Twin Peaks (1990-1991)

Vertigo (1958)


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The Wicker Man (1973)

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Recommended Books

The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. LovecraftDanse Macabre by Stephen King

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The House Next Door by Anne SiddonsHouse of Leaves by Mark Z. Daneilewski

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Sanctuary by William FaulknerSupernatural Horror in Literature by H.P. Lovecraft

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Recommended Video Games

Eternal Darkness (2002)

Gabriel Knight (1994)Silent Hill (1999)

Silent Hill 2 (2001)

Voodoo Vince (2003)

Using the Crescent City System in Other Settings

While the Crescent City system works well in the magical-realist, gothic setting of the

1920s American South, the possibilities in the underlying mechanics are virtuallylimitless. It was designed to be as adaptable as possible, and need not be constrained by a

setting where magic exists. The use of the tarot deck lends itself well to a setting that

involves some mystical elements, but Gamemasters and players should be able to adaptthe system to any kind of game with minimal effort.

After Playing Crescent City

I want to hear what you think of the system and the setting! Email feedback, reports,

suggestions, comments, criticisms, rants, raves, hate mail and love letters to

[email protected].

crescent city rpg

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