Supernatural Law: New Orleans

This is a wiki for Supernatural Law, a Wicked Pacts campaign about officers of the law who have the ability to work magic and who investigate crimes related to the supernatural. Welcome to New Orleans Occult Crimes Division.

The New Orleans Campaign is a follow up to the original campaign set in Boston

The Setting

New Orleans

The City has many nicknames. The Big Easy. NOLA. Crescent City. The City that Care Forgot. It is the most populous city in Louisiana, with 384 000 people in the City itself and 1 271 000 people in the Greater Metropolitan Area. New Orleans is world-renowned for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, unique dialects, and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras.

The city has been described as the "most unique" in the United States, owing in large part to its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. This applies to the supernatural residents as well. New Orleans beats even Boston, the Hub of the Universe, in the diversity of supernatural inhabitants. Vampires, werewolves, elementals, fey, and even more unique beings call New Orleans home.

The City that Care Forgot does have its problems. New Orleans has a high rate of violent crime, and this is true for the Occult Crimes Division as well. While not every call ends up in a shootout, the detectives need to be ready for trouble.

New Orleans is also still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina that struck the City nearly two decades ago. New development has led to gentrification, new residents buying property in formerly close-knit communities, and displacing longtime residents. This is an especially big problem when blissfully unaware people move into what used to be a supernatural community.

And in addition to trouble, Katrina also stirred up beings that would have been better left at rest...

One major leftover from the hurricane is the Water Court. Over 80% of New Orleans flooded, water elementals moved in, and now they are here to stay. The elementals were initially unused to dealing with humans on the scale necessary, but things have since settled down. Water Court is fiercely independent though, and every now and then a problem arises that needs to be moderated.

The Universe

The universe works more or less the way the scientists say it does. Everything is governed by natural laws. Magic does not exist. But ours is not the only universe there is.

Our Earthly realm does not exist alone. There are many others. Heavens, Hells, Fey realms, and even stranger ones. They have their own laws. Perfectly natural to them, thoroughly supernatural from our point of view. Some of these other realms are close enough in nature to ours that given the opportunity, it would be possible for us to physically visit them. Others are so alien that death, madness, or both would result should we step into them, assuming such a thing would be even possible. This multitude of different realms is commonly called by a lump term of Other Side.

What we call magic is simply the result of Other Side touching our realm, for even the closest of those realms has natural laws different from ours. And even though the realms are separate, sometimes they are drawn together and touch. If the touch lasts long enough or happens often enough, a permanent path may form, although those are not easily traversed. Throughout human history, interaction has occurred. And a rare few people, particularly sensitive to the Other Side, have over time learned to tap into the other realms. To draw and wield forces from the Other Side. They have been called by many names. One of those is mages.

But magic is not something anyone can do. A mage is drawing upon the powers of an alien realm, momentarily overriding the natural laws of our realm with those of another. Something like that cannot be done without a connection to that other realm.

The original mages discovered weak points between universes. Managed to contact the beings on the other side. Entered into pacts with them. And were changed.

The ability to work magic is genetic. Every mage is an anomaly. Their ancestors were exposed to alien energies, and ever since then, their bloodlines have carried a touch of the Other Side in their genes. In most bloodlines this power has been diluted through intermarriage with normal humans. Other bloodlines have only married other mages in order to keep their power strong, but this has resulted in inbreeding, health issues and mystical ailments.

Obviously, the Other Side is not empty. Some realms may be lifeless wastelands, but others possess their own ecosystems, inhabitants and civilizations. They may not be like ours, but they too have laws. This may surprise a clueless mage who summons an imp or a sprite and binds the creature into service. Not realizing that the creature may have social circles where such an act is seen as abduction and slavery. Furthermore, the creature from the Other Side may be under someone’s protection. And Fey Lords and Archdevils may have issues with their subjects being abducted. They may have laws against that. And laws always have enforces. Whether they are Fey Knights or the Cohorts of the Archdevil of Law. Or Hell Cops, as their colleagues on this side tend to call the latter these days.

The trouble with enforcing law over different realms is that it is not necessarily simpler for the inhabitants of the Other Side to journey here than it is for us to visit their realms. But in our world there were bloodlines of mages, already tapping into and attuned to other realms. So agreements and further pacts were made. In return for various perks, the families and organizations of mages agreed to enforce the will of the authorities of the Other Side. For a very long time, the mage enforcers were little more than bounty hunters and troubleshooters, often coming into conflict with both local authorities and agents of different Other Side authorities with conflicting goals.

All that changed in London, in year 1829. And the man who changed it was Sir Robert Peel. British Isles contain many paths to the Other Side, and London at that time contained numerous secret societies of magic practitioners whose enforcers occasionally clashed on the streets. When Peel started his police reform, rather than cracking down on these groups he saw the need for magic-specific law enforcement and instead called a council. Peel argued that infighting between officers of the law was counterproductive, and they should instead work together. As part of the greater police force. Obeying its rules and principles, but also having the support of the greater organization.

The negotiations were not swift or easy, but eventually resulted in Metropolitan Police Force gaining its first mage detectives. This proved to be a massive success. Within the next few years, London experienced a drastic decrease in arcane crime. By 1857 ‘peeler mages’ were being incorporated into the police forces of every city in the UK. In the coming years, other nations would come to adopt the strategy. At the same time, high level talks started to take place between our governments and the various rulers of the Other Side.

It is now the modern day. Officially, magic does not exist. The governments are suppressing the knowledge, because that was what was agreed with the powers of the Other Side, from whose perspective our magic tends to involve stealing their resources and abducting their citizens. They do not want to see it become commonly used even if they have uses for agents on our side and therefore do not want to outright ban magic either. And since many powers of the Other Side are effectively highly powerful and dangerous alien civilizations, our governments listen what they have to say. It is not terribly well kept secret though. There are just too many people involved. “Magic is real and the government is using it” is about as common a conspiracy theory as “UFOs are real and the government has a deal with aliens.” Actually, very often this turns out to be the same thing. Still, the official truth holds sway, even though there is secretive scientific research into other realms, most militaries have a cadre of battle mages at disposal, and just about every large city has a magic crimes department. Oh, and don’t go trying to win any of those “show real magic and win a million” offers. They are all traps for the fools who might try to out the secret.

Welcome to New Orleans. Welcome to Occult Crimes Division. Officially, the division handles cult-related crimes. As far as the other cops know, if a case looks like it is from the X-Files, it is probably cult stuff and OCD should be called. However, you can see only so many weird things and not suspect that something is going on, especially if the weird thing is coming at you claws and tentacles flailing, so particularly for more senior officers it is an open secret that what OCD handles really is more occult than cult. And sometimes the division gets involved in more ordinary cases due to that. It is not supposed to happen, but if the case is going nowhere it is not that uncommon for a detective to approach the OCD and say: “I have a hunch that this might be cult-related, would you take a look” in the hope that the unique talents of the Occult Crime Detectives will provide new clues.

And what about mages brought in for crimes? Some of them may have ways to escape from cells and confound court proceedings. Well, good luck with that when the mortar used to build your cell came from Hell VI and the cuffs on your wrists were forged by an Angel. And rest assured that when you go to court, the judge, jury, prosecutor, and even the bailiff are all mages. You are supposed to be judged by a jury of your peers, after all.

So what do Occult Crime Detectives do? Arrest renegade mages and hunt down the monsters that slither through from the Other Side? Escort around Dukes of Hell and other dignitaries visiting from the Other Side? That, yes, but those cases are exceptional. The routine is far less action packed and glamorous.

Maybe they do a sting on licensed alchemists to make sure that no one is illegally selling controlled substances from under the counter. (Love potions, for example, are highly illegal. They are considered to be a particularly insidious date rape drug. The victim usually does not even realize that a crime has occurred.)

Or they might have to deal with a public or domestic disturbance. Magic and intoxication is a bad combination, and when a mage couple starts arguing violently, the situation may get too heated for the regular cops to handle.

But in the game, the (relatively) dull routine will mostly be glossed over. The cases featured will revolve around crimes and serious incidents that involve magic in some fashion. But something less serious may come around occasionally as change of pace, although these cases are very likely to be swiftly resolved.

Mages

Since the ability to perform magic is genetic in nature, mages tend to come from families of mages. In case of full blooded mages, nearly all of their family members tend to be mages. Half blooded have more variance. The majority of the family could still be mages. Or the gene could be so weak that it hasn’t surfaced in generations, coming as a complete surprise. Or anything in between.

The powers of the Heavenly and Hellish Hosts are not terribly compatible with beings of our world and the gene giving access to them tends to disappear rapidly. Therefore, for Angel- or Devil-blooded, the most common situation is to have a single parent or grandparent as the source of the gene. Sometimes that person is, in truth, not human at all. The bodies the Hosts use in our world are perfectly capable of breeding with humans, in order to maintain their proxy bloodlines.

A small number of private schools specifically teach the offspring of magical bloodlines. Mainly the children of full blood mages, but also a small number of various kinds of half blooded, and even an occasional werewolf. Whatever schools of magic a mage is versed in, she has been taught either in such a school or in private tuition. Private tutelage is in most cases done by a family member.

There is one anomalous type of mage. In fact, they may not be mages at all. The Templars. Their powers are highly different and cannot necessarily be even reproduced by regular magic. It may be an entirely different power. The Templar organization indeed does not call it magic, but miracles of faith. The organization, although not a public one, is commonly known to magical society. They trace their roots back to the medieval knightly order by that name, consider themselves as a force of defenders against the otherworldly forces, and seek to recruit and train people capable of miracles. But even their power appears to be genetic in nature. Everyone who can manifest them can be tracked back to the original knighthood genealogically. And while in common parlance everyone capable of miracles, or Templar powers, is called a Templar, not all of them agree to join the actual organization or agree with its interpretations about the nature of their powers.

Occult Crimes Division

Not every officer in OCD is a mage. That will mainly be the player characters. But the division has a number of other officers, along with crime scene investigators, crime lab technicians, and other personnel, and even though they cannot perform magic they are aware of it. The people in the department are either ungifted relatives of mages, witnesses to a supernatural event, or just plain too curious for their own good. Either way, the department prefers to recruit from people already aware of magic. The people in the division are capable of handling supernaturally hazardous materials or evidence, detaining supernatural suspects, recognizing the signs of the supernatural at crime scenes, and supporting the mage detectives in their investigations.

The division has a fully stocked alchemy lab and a number of artifacts at its disposal, such as handcuffs that hinder the ability to perform magic. What they do not have is stockpiles of wands, amulets, magic potions, and other items of magic. The division has a budget and is subject to oversight, and magical gear tends to be costly and may look strange in bookkeeping. So the division prefers to keep such acquisitions to a minimum. In return, the division allows its mages to bring in just about any personal gear they wish, and cookings in the alchemy lab raise no questions unless they result in a huge mess.

OCD is part of The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and their relationship with the rest of the NOPD is frosty. The NOPD has a long history of civil rights violations, corruption and poor oversight. Meanwhile, OCD personnel are trained to first and foremost follow the traditional Peelian Principles. OCD officers and detectives tend to be high ranking, which allows them to take command before the regular officers clash with the supernatural. And most of them do not hesitate to school a bigoted or thuggish NOPD officer. The arrival of OCD to the scene is normally met with exasperated groans.

OCD has its headquarters in Hale Boggs Federal Complex, second to topmost floor, right under Arclight offices.

The head of the division is Detective Captain Jean Lafitte. Descendant and namesake of The Jean Lafitte, the famous pirate mage who led a fleet of privateers to help General Andrew Jackson defeat the British in the Battle of New Orleans. Lafittes are the most powerful and influential mage family in New Orleans, and Captain Lafitte is surprisingly young for his position, at only 27 years of age. He got the rank of Detective Lieutenant straight from the academy and only served on the streets for a couple of years before being promoted to Captain at the retirement of the previous one – Captain Harry Coulson, a grizzled Grunt and a street veteran. Lafitte got promoted over several much more experienced people, and the general assumption is that his family got him the position that he might not be really qualified for.

Captain Lafitte is well dressed, well groomed, well mannered and soft spoken. Unlike his predecessor, he never raises his voice. The clean shaven, dark haired man is known as a skilled Warlock.

Dispatch

Dispatch has a pleasant voice of a young woman. It is always the same voice, no matter the time of day. And no one has ever seen Dispatch enter or leave the building.

And at the very back of OCD offices is a door with a sign "Dispatch. Do not enter." It is a sturdy iron door engraved with warding sigils and bolted shut from the outside with seven different, old looking padlocks that no one seems to have the keys for.

Player characters

Fantasma Oblivado, Angel Blooded Necromancer played by Seandemonium

James "Jimmy" William Bonom Half Blood Grunt played by shadowsaint007

Henry Dorgan Pure Blood Seer played by Talisman

Sorne Jasso Pure Blood Warlock Played by Daxian

Seraphine Delacroix Ungifted Angel Blooded played by NightGoblyn

Arclight

Arclight, the occult task force of the FBI was founded during the Hoover era. Hoover wanted FBI to have its own occult division, and to found and lead that he called Sir William Christie – a centuries old liche Necromancer from Britain. Ritual of Lichdom is highly illegal in the modern day, but Christie turned himself before there were laws against it. He did not go the easy route of ritual murder though, Sir Christie is an alchemical liche. He transmuted his mortal flesh. In fact, Sir Christie hates the route of murder. He is famous for being the man who caught Jack The Ripper, who was a mage trying to turn himself into a liche by ritual murder. Christie went on his trail and confronted him, and the would-be liche had no chance against the real thing.

That makes Director Christie the only person (sort of) alive who knows the identity of Jack the Ripper. But when asked about it, he only answers that he does not want to ruin a perfectly good mystery.

Director Christie might be the most powerful mage in US, and a phenomenal alchemist to boot. He never takes the field personally though, preferring to remain as an administrator. One and perhaps the only thing that might bring him out of his office is someone trying the Ritual of Lichdom.

Arclight agents are well funded and provisioned, with their own separate budget and facilities. They deal with federal investigations, and on the occasions when there is overlap with local investigations, they have a reputation for being a bit pushy. On the other hand, sometimes there is a reason to call on them for assistance, for they have superior resources, including specialized laboratories and their own tactical team specialized in supernatural threats. MEAT – Magical Energies And Tactics. And on the occasions when their help is asked, they tend to be quite professional.

One thing that is within Arclight’s jurisdiction is suppressing the knowledge about magic. If an ordinary cop gets too curious or an OCD detective uses magic too blatantly, Arclight may step in. Likewise, cases where civilians stumble onto the truth and attempt to go public with it are Arclight's problem and not something OCD detectives need to concern themselves with. On occasion, OCD has nevertheless decided to get involved in such a case before Arclight does. Because Arclight can be very ruthless about it. While they do not go as far as to kill witnesses, they can quite effectively destroy a person's credibility, reputation, career, and life. And will not hesitate to do so.

Criminal mages

Mages commit crimes just like the ungifted do. They just have a larger variety of potential crimes to commit. Very often, the motivation for crimes committed by mages are the same as for everyone else. Crimes of passion, underhanded ways to make some money, and so on. They just might use their magical powers to commit the crimes. But the mages also have temptations that the ungifted do not. Their motivation can also be to increase their magic powers.

Most mages covet artifacts and grimoires. Items like these are either resource-intensive to create or originate from the Other Side, which makes them difficult to replace, and therefore valuable. Even the more commonplace tools of magic created by Enchanters can be expensive, and where a mundane might steal a smartphone, a mage might try to steal an amulet.

Trespassing is annoyingly common. Some places have high ambient energy or auspicious flows of power that can be useful for certain kinds of magic, especially rituals. Many of these places are within private property, or within an area where performing rituals is not permitted, such as public buildings and graveyards. Younger mages are especially prone to sneaking in to perform secret rituals.

Various materials can be used to boost magic, enchant items or brew potions. Some are relatively commonplace. Others are rare, expensive, highly taxed, heavily regulated, or all of that. Yet others are downright illegal, and so are items and potions made from them. Crimes involving these materials include smuggling, unlawful alchemy and peddling of fake materials.

Proscribed Contact with Other Side is a classic crime where mages summon something dangerous or open a portal to a realm of terror. Other side abounds with powerful and dangerous beings such as Demons, and realms filled with malevolent energies. These crimes are in truth rather uncommon, because most mages are sensible enough to understand that the risks always outweigh the gains. But when these crimes do happen they tend to be bad ones. Bad enough that even planning such is a crime.

Ritual torture and murder are amongst the worst kind of magic-related crimes that the police may have to deal with. Blood and death are powerful ingredients in some kinds of magic. Especially if the blood is mystical in nature, such as the blood of a mage, especially a full blooded mage. Thankfully, this is rare, for most mages are not depraved enough to perform human sacrifice. But the sacrifice of animals used to be legal in the past, and some mages feel that it still should be.

When mages commit crimes, usually only one mage is involved, or a handful of partners in crime. There are no organized crime families of mages in New Orleans. Mages may be in the employ of organized crime, or a mage may work his way to the leadership of a criminal organization, but an entire extended family or fraternity of mages dedicated to criminal pursuits is something New Orleans does not have.

This is not to say that crime families of mages do not exist. Across the Gulf, in Mexico, the Salamanca family runs an entire cartel, and there is a constant worry that they might try to expand beyond the border.

Cults

The official story is that OCD and Arclight focus on cult-related crimes, and it is not just a cover story. They often do. And actual cult cases tend to be amongst the worst.

Cult situations tend to turn ugly even when the cult is entirely mundane. Brainwashing, physical and mental abuse, and in the worst cases violent crimes performed by crazed zealots. And things often get even worse when mages and supernatural beings get involved. That is when ritual murders, human sacrifice, and the summoning of monstrosities from distant realms enter the picture.

Gathering cults around them is a time-honored method for villainous mages and supernatural entities. If even a moderately charismatic mundane person can convince other people that he is some sort of messiah, someone who can demonstrate actual supernatural powers has it even easier. Cults centered on vampires tend to be the most decent ones. Nearly always, the vampire’s motivation for gathering a cult is to use cult members as a larder. These cults normally just follow some mystical mumbo jumbo that involves ritual bloodletting. But blood rites can easily get out of hand, especially if some unhinged members start trying to figure out how they could become like the master.

Conversely, demonic cults are among the worst ones. Demons steal souls and subsist on suffering. Ritual torture and mutilation is nearly always involved. Cult members are desperate, duped, or both, and work to obtain new souls and playthings for their master. These cults tend to be short lived, for their activities not only draw attention, demons have little interest in maintaining them for long. Sooner or later the demon gets tired of playing and liquidates its gains, moving on to start again somewhere else. But if demonic cults are not stopped before that, the end tends to come in a blaze of violence and death.

Angels and Devils love cults and put them to various uses to further their agendas. Propaganda outlets, political pressure groups, spy rings or terrorist cells. They like to have a degree of deniability in their involvement and usually prefer to manipulate the cult leadership rather than having direct control.

Mages have a huge variety of motivations for forming cults, including perfectly mundane ones. Maybe they just like the power and adoration. Maybe they have a philosophy they wish to spread. But even in those cases the mages tend to stage elaborate and very real rituals to maintain the awe of their minions. And these tend to count as unlawful demonstrations of magic in violation of the Edinburgh Treaties that call for the suppression of knowledge about magic.

Then there are the various magic-related motivations. Mages could use their cults as a resource pool, ranging from conning money out of rich dupes to having a cadre of willing sacrifices for proscriped rituals. Or the mage could be fulfilling his pact with some Other Side entity, or trying to contact one. And that can be more or less dangerous depending on the entity. Demonic cults tend to be especially bad when there are actual mages involved in the cult. Cults in contact with Fey tend towards strange and sensual, in fashions ranging from relatively benign to anything but. And then there are always the bogeyman stories about mages trying to contact cosmic horrors long since sealed away, who cause even Angels and Devils to suffer fright and for whom humanity is just a tasty buffet.

Cosmology, Politics and Supernatural Beings

So the governments have treaties with the powers of alien realms. What are those powers like? Well, the answer is "numerous". For example, Fey Realms is a blanket term that covers countless Courts, as the Fey call their realms. Simply due to their number, it is not uncommon to find gateways to Fey realms, but they are strange places where time flows at a vastly accelerated rate but nothing really ages. Visiting is not recommended.

More specific and unique realms exist, but they tend to be harder to reach. Somewhere out there are Asgard and Avalon, although the only known gateways to those realms exist in Northern Europe and British Isles, respectively.

Generally, human nations tend to have treaties with any Other Side realms that see at least semi-regular traffic through known gateways from within their national borders. However, there are two powers that everyone has to treat with. The Hosts. Hosts of Heavens and Hells. Angels and Devils.

Angels and Devils

Heavens and Hells are the most powerful realms, and the oldest. It is possible that they have always existed. Among the multitude of Other Side realms, they are the nuclear armed superpowers that no one wants to provoke.

The hosts are competing powers, hostile to each other. But they do not fight wars. Not anymore. Legends tell that they once did and universes fell, but they are evenly matched. The conflict always ended in peace talks and treaties. And now their relations and behavior towards each other is bound to countless treaties and agreements, and they are bound to them in a way humans would have difficulty understanding. Literally unable to break them. So they maintain civil relations. Exchange envoys. Maintain embassies.

The hosts still compete though. They are embroiled in an eternal cold war. Diplomacy. Espionage. Sabotage. When human nations started negotiating with the Other Side, it was the Hosts that laid out the rules. And they maintain an active interest. Even New Orleans has Consulates for the Consuls of Heaven and Hell. (There are actually multiple Heavens and Hells, but in common parlance they get lumped together.)

There are two main reasons for the Hosts to have an interest. First, human souls. The Hosts collect souls. For what purpose, no one knows. They neither explain nor allow visitors to the parts of their realms where the souls are taken. But there are no pacts written in blood involved in the process of soul collecting. The hosts have treaties for the division of souls. There is a realm, dubbed Purgatory by humans, where the souls claimed by the Hosts go for eventual processing, division and transportation to their final destinations. The Hosts do not claim all the souls, and their rules are as mysterious as their reasons.

The second reason for the Hosts to have an interest is proxies. The Hosts are kept from conflict by their treaties, but humans are not bound by them. Both of the Hosts have created and maintain distinct bloodlines of Hell- or Heaven-empowered humans. Devil Blooded and Angel Blooded. Despite their empowerment, they remain human enough not to be bound by the treaties, and the Hosts engage in limited conflict through them. Raids, commando strikes, assassinations. However, sometimes the Host-Blooded balk at following the orders of their patrons and strike out after their own destinies. They are not bound, after all.

A research published in the 1950s claims that in their natural state, both Angels and Devils are immaterial beings that resemble geometric shapes. But the research was based on confiscated Nazi research papers and is considered of questionable reliability. It has never been confirmed and the Hosts are not very forthcoming with information. What makes it hard to say anything reliable about the natural forms of Angels and Devils is that they are expert shapeshifters, capable of assuming numerous shapes both material and immaterial.

The Hosts also have ranks. While they are in common parlance all dubbed Angels and Devils, it is actually rare for Hosts of that rank to visit. In New Orleans, the only known ones are the two Consuls. Above them are Archangels and Archdevils, but little is known of these beings, or whether there are more ranks above them. The activities of the Hosts on Earth are most commonly performed by their human and half-human agents, and on the occasion that Hosts take direct action, the beings sent are their foot soldiers. Devas and Asuras, a step below actual Angels and Devils.

Devas and Asuras lack the shapeshifting abilities of their superiors. They have only been observed in human forms, and even that is a single form they cannot change. It is possible that they cannot create physical forms themselves and are provided with ones when sent to our world on a mission.

As a rule, all the Hosts prefer to be flight capable, and even Devas and Asuras can manifest a pair of glowing wings with a carrying capacity far exceeding their size.

All Hosts are exceptionally dangerous beings. The only thing in our world that can harm their otherworldly physical forms is fire, and even that does not have full effect. Magic works just fine, and hosts have even trained their human proxies in the distinct disciplines of Devil Slayers and Angel Killers, and this training has since spread to other people. It is debatable whether destroying their physical bodies truly kills the Hosts, however.

Hosts are expected to obey our laws while in our world and are subject to arrest if they break them. The Consuls have diplomatic immunity, but even that has limits. By the Edinburgh Treaties, Hosts are forbidden from influencing secular authorities. (Religious authorities are fair game.) They tend to circumvent this by influencing a person before he becomes a secular authority and then just let him run. But manipulating such a person into a position of authority is a treaty violation, and blatant tampering like that has been known to happen.

OCD Detectives rarely have need to interact with the Consuls, that kind of thing is handled at diplomatic levels. The one member of the Hosts they on occasion do have to interact with is an Asura. Azharbel the Hell Cop. He got assigned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina stirred up all kinds of trouble, and has since been looking around for anything that might upset the Archdevil of Law, or Azharbel's direct boss, the Consul.

Being a Devil thoroughly lacking in compassion and empathy, Azharbel does not make arrests. And when he does, it is even worse, for that means that someone is going to get dragged to Hell. So when OCD Detectives and the Hell Cop end up on the same case, it is always a race to beat the Asura to the target.

Demons

Some beings you should never enter into pacts with. Demons being the most well-known example. They are notorious soul poachers who subsist on suffering.

Devils do not do deals written in blood, Demons do. They appear to have no realm of their own, but flit through other realms, looking for gullible or desperate people to trick into bargains. Demonic bargains are always heavily lopsided in the demon's favor, but this is not always immediately apparent.

Demons are highly individualistic and difficult to categorize. Some appear harmless, others terrifying. Some are brutish and violent, others cunning and subtle. Some are immaterial beings who possess people, others can manifest physical bodies. Some focus on collecting souls, others go around causing misery and suffering that they take nourishment and pleasure from. But there are similarities between them too. Such as the fact that any pact with a demon always ends in suffering. And when demons are concerned, not even death is an escape.

Even worse, some demons are capable of just plain stealing a person’s soul, no pacts or agreements needed. Most often this is done through an elaborate ritual murder. And in such a case, freeing the stolen souls is possible as long as the demon does not manage to smuggle them out of our realm.

Everyone takes a dim view of the soul stealing the Demons do, both human authorities and the Hosts. And one time when OCD Detectives might find themselves working with Hell Cops or Agents of Heaven - or even both - is when a powerful demon slips through.

Elementals

Volatile and dangerous beings. Except for earth elementals, who are deeply philosophical and devout pacifists. For a long time, mages used to summon them to do their bidding. Even after the treaties, for the elementals have little society, no government, and no force to represent them. They are, however, self-aware and intelligent. And summoning them away from their native environment causes them physical and mental anguish and robs them of their freedom of action. So it did not take long for the Elemental Rights Movement to form. The summoning of elementals was banned in most parts of Europe after World War II, and in Canada not long after that, but in US an influential lobby group funded by wealthy mages and corporations specializing in arcane or alchemical products has resisted such legislation, citing the damage it would do to US business interests.

The elemental workforce has been largely invisible to the common mage community, and the lobby group managed to have its way for decades. It took social media to undo their efforts. After an image of earth elementals passively resisting in a sitting strike even in the face of physical abuse went viral in the younger mage community, the law against elemental summoning was finally passed late last year. But many people represented by the failed lobby group were utterly incensed. It is highly likely that in the near future the law will get broken often. Perhaps even publicly, in an attempt to force a supreme court case.

In New Orleans, that might result in a huge problem, though. For two decades, Water Court of water elementals has had a strong foothold in the City, having their base of operations on the bottom of Mississippi River, inside a sunken steamboat. They have slowly been taking other elementals under their umbrella, and they follow their own laws over human ones, only grudgingly trying to avoid confrontations with OCD. Any elemental slavery, and Water Court would take the law into their own hands and use it as a club.

Liches

There is a millennia-old ritual, reputedly dating from ancient Egypt. The ritual of Lichdom. It allows a mage to cheat death by anchoring her soul into a special object called a phylactery. While cadaverous in appearance, a liche does not fully die as long as the phylactery remains intact. But there is a cost. Every time the liche would die, by accident or violence, someone else dies in her stead. And the liche has no control over who dies. It could be anyone within several miles of the phylactery.

Liches are extremely few in number. The ritual is difficult, even for a powerful and experienced mage. And the costs of failure may be worse than death. Few people try it, even at advanced age or while facing a terminal illness. Even fewer succeed. And liches are not immortal. They need copious amounts of alchemical substances to maintain their bodies. And should their phylactery be destroyed, they die instantly. Ritual of lichdom is a felony these days, and in New Orleans, no permit of residency for a lich has been granted, and even getting a visitor visa is a hurdle. Not that liches generally travel, most are paranoid about the security of their phylacteries.

Spirits and Homunculi

Many beings of the other side are immaterial. Some can manifest physical forms but most can not, and when visiting our realm the latter are either severely diminished or even completely incapable of entering unless they can obtain a physical body. For much of history, this was done through two different methods. The first method being possession, an involuntary takeover of someone’s body. Often highly harmful to the host person. The second is channeling, where a person forms a link with a spirit and voluntarily cedes partial control of his body to the channeled spirit. The latter method usually involves a pact of some kind.

Modern era has brought the third alternative. The Homunculi.

There have always been people who have mixed magic and science. Alchemy, the mixing of magic with chemistry, is the most widespread and well known. But magic has also been combined with other fields of science. Many names have been suggested for different combinations and some, such as technomancy, have caught on. But in common parlance, and somewhat misleadingly, people tend to just add “alchemy” to the name of the field. Mixing biology and magic would be called Bio-Alchemy, and so on.

Homunculi are created by Gene-Alchemy. They are half way between Flesh Golems and clones. In effect, a homunculus is a lab-grown human body with just the most basic autonomous functions and no consciousness of its own. Ripe for possession.

Some magi create homunculi in order to summon and bind spirits to them, creating supernatural servants and minions. Others offer them for sale to the beings from the Other Side willing to visit our world. Every homunculus is an expensive creation, but powerful beings from the other side have ways of paying the price.

By Law, homunculi are required to be tattooed with serial numbers and registered, so in case of trouble the police will know where to go asking questions. But there is a thriving black market trade for unmarked homunculi, to be used for purposes the police would object to.

Vampires and Werewolves

Though these beings are powerful, they are also cited as examples of what happens when one wants too much out of a pact. For while mages are still mostly human despite their otherworldly powers, and most definitely inhabitants of our world, vampires and werewolves are no longer quite human although they can pass as them. They also have difficulties surviving in our world, needing special diets to keep their otherworldly part of falling ill, and possessing strange vulnerabilities.

No one knows for sure what people entered into pacts that turned them into vampires and werewolves or when exactly this happened, but most theories suspect primitive tribes living in what is today Eastern Europe. Nor is it known what being or beings they made pacts with, although the answer is unlikely to be anything good. It stands to reason that the timeless Hosts would know, but both Angels and Devils steadfastly refuse to answer questions about the subject. It is possible that vampires and werewolves were created as proxies in some otherworldly conflict, for they seem to have an instinctive loathing of each other. While this does not make them automatically fight each other upon meeting, it does make coexistence strained and violence more likely to happen.

Vampires

Physically powerful and capable of enduring damage that would kill a human twice over, vampires can still die of injuries other than decapitation and a stake through the heart, although anyone who has faced one can understand where the rumors about their unkillability come from. Vampires also eat food just like anyone else, but they also need a daily diet of fresh blood to keep from wasting away. The blood needs to be from a human and freshly drawn from the veins. Animal blood is useless to a vampire and stored human blood rapidly loses the mystical qualities a vampire needs.

Vampires are also vulnerable to sunlight and certain symbols. Particularly holy symbols. And this does not in any fashion depend on the religious views of a vampire or the person brandishing the symbol. An atheist vampire would be repelled by a Buddhist waving a crucifix. In fact, the symbol does not need to be brandished by anyone. Stepping into a house of worship or a cemetery would be impossible for a vampire. At least a young one, for they build up resistance as they age. A young vampire would suffer burns at sunlight and recoil hissing from the sight of a cross, but an old vampire would merely suffer extreme discomfort at sunlight or within a church.

Vampires do not breed in normal fashion but they can create new vampires by draining a human of blood and then infusing the victim with some of the vampire's own blood - and a hefty amount of the mystical power that courses within a vampire's veins. The process is taxing, but even a single vampire can eventually repopulate their numbers. Despite this, they are rare creatures. Largely because their vulnerabilities make it difficult for vampires to hide if people become aware of them. Yet they cannot live far away from humans either because of their daily need for human blood. A single vampire needs a herd of several hundred humans to feed from without adversely affecting their health. For a long period of history this made vampires solitary creatures, because another vampire in the area meant competition for the blood source. So they lived far apart, either as warlords ruling over a territory and exerting a tribute in blood, or as champions of primitive tribes, protecting their people and being supported by them. The spread of civilization largely brought such arrangements to end. Either vampiric lords and protectors were no longer needed or wanted and they perished in uprisings, or they died defending their territories against more numerous and better armed opponents.

One might perhaps think that the era of large cities would have led to a population boom of vampires, but that was not the case. The large number of human residents can in theory support a large vampire population but it also brings a threat of discovery. A single vampire needs a herd of several hundred, and the members of their herd come in contact with countless people. The more vampires, the greater the risk. Younger vampires, with their more blatant weaknesses, are especially prone to attract notice, so in the era of cities, few were created. To add to the problems, the authorities are perfectly aware that vampires exist, even if they contribute to keeping it secret. So assuming that vampires are even allowed residency, in the cities they usually have to live under highly restrictive laws.

So it is actually rare to find vampires living in cities. Mostly they live as they always have, in small communities. Either they find a remote small town or village where they can build a personal relationship and deal with the human authorities, or they form their own communities, such as by setting up a cult compound.

In New Orleans, there are two registered vampire inhabitants.

James Alexander, a former Confederate soldier, went to Civil War as a living man. And returned to his family as a vampire. Initially shocked, his family then came to hide and aid him. And as he aged and his tolerance to vampiric weaknesses grew, James came to aid his family in turn. Today the Alexanders are a very well off family, and the true nature of Uncle James is a family secret. James feeds by prowling the nightclubs. Tall, dark and handsome, with the manners of a gentleman and vampiric charisma, James can show a man or woman a good time. And being exhausted the next morning is just a sign of a night well spent, right?

During the day, he tends to wear fully covering clothes with a cowboy hat and sunclasses, but can otherwise move about. At night he dresses in a more leisurely and revealing fashion.

The vampire known only as The Count came to New Orleans during the era of Spanish rule, but he may be even older than that, and is definitely the eldest vampire in the region. On the surface he seems to be the archetypal brooding vampire, residing in a historical plantation house outside the City and receiving few visitors besides the ever changing number of call girls he feeds from.

The Count is less anachronistic than the appearance tells though. He has known to have remarked that he got into computers back in 1945 when ENIAC was still hot. The Count owns a number of businesses that he runs from his home, he has quite a patent portfolio in electronics and computing, and he haunts several local online forums under a variety of pseudonyms. And the user KikUr4ss99 who just pwned you in a FPS match, that you are sure is using cheats, may just have vampiric reflexes.

Werewolves

Werewolves have an easier time passing off as human because although they are capable of turning into fearsome monsters, they look outwardly human. And their vulnerability to silver is not as blatant as the vampiric vulnerabilities. But they have their own dietary needs. Every week, a werewolf must eat copious amounts of raw, freshly killed meat. It does not have to be human flesh, animals work just fine as a food source, but the meat must be unprepared and from a fresh kill. Stored or cooked meat loses its usefulness.

Another problem for werewolves is that their change is in part instinctive. Although they can fight the instinct, they feel an urge to turn at stressful situations and when they are physically injured.

A third problem is that werewolves can only have children with other werewolves. They can actually turn a human into a werewolf by biting and then infusing the bitten victim with a large amount of their mystical energy reserve, but that does not result in a true werewolf, but instead a terror weapon or a disposable shock trooper. Infected werewolves, called Ferals, have no conscious control over their transformation or what they do when transformed. They are driven only by rage and instinct. Only natural born werewolves have control over their change and actions. Since werewolves do not need humans as a food source, can only breed among their own people, and usually face restrictive legislation at best when living among humans, they are an even rarer sight than vampires in human cities. Usually they live in remote rural areas, in their own insular communities. Werewolves are highly clannish, but different clans and families strive to maintain good relations and intermarry regularly. They have to, for werewolves face a constant threat of inbreeding. And inbred werewolves turn increasingly less human and more monstrous.

There are no werewolves in New Orleans proper, but in the countryside out of town, Clan Sauvage own a tract of land. The werewolf clan keep to themselves and do not encourage visitors.

The Fey

The Fey are fickle creatures and generally do not concentrate in a certain area but move as the mood takes them. The exception is the Goodnight Street in French Quarter. Officially it is known as a bit of a tourist trap. Hole in the wall food stands, souvenir and craft shops, street peddlers selling trinkets, and such. Everything is open day and night.

The entrepreneurs are all glamoured Goblins, and a mage who knows what to ask can find all kinds of things here, from ingredients, potions and talismans to imported (read smuggled) Fey goods.

Goblins play fast and loose with the laws, and Goodnight Street is a notorious source of illegal goods. Raiding the street would be futile, for the Goblins have lookouts, and the illegal goods would vanish faster than you can say Rumplestiltskin. Besides, the Goblins also deal in information which OCD occasionally has use for.

Other kinds of Fey are only an occasional hassle, and then it is rarely anything serious. Except for the Dryads. For some reason they have taken the local sex workers under their wing, and if a John gets nasty, so will the Dryads. A Dryad can drain a man into a husk, and although they rarely go that far, hospitals on occasion get some really weird cases in ER.