Macchiato Monsters: The Stygian Library

This is the wiki page for a Macchiato Monsters game centered on the module The Stygian Library.

Recruitment

Characters

• Cassy-Dee Minor
• Man
• Kasimir
• Grant Skinner
• Mr. Patch
• Levi

Character Sheet Template

Setting

Kansas Silly

Kansas Silly, Misery had a real shot at being a no-kidding big city, like sprawling Vulture out in the desert or stately Esperanza up in the mountains, or even (in the wildest dreams of the city fathers) coastal Empire itself. They had the rail connections, the stockyards, the avant-garde arts culture and electric-lit amusement park, the first and best trolley network in the country. Legally renaming the city seems like a mistake now, especially with all the curses that have befallen it since, but if they'd won the bidding process, that international university of the circus arts would've put Kansas Silly on the map! (Barnstone Academy ended up in Esperanza instead.)

Kansas Silly as a whole is not strongly aligned with law, chaos, good, or evil. The city culture values personal advancement and a sense of fate: some people and places are meant to prosper and flourish, while others aren't. Three significant districts:

• Heartland Hills, northwest of the city proper, full of mini-manors on quiet, leafy, brick-paved streets. Sucks money from the rest of the city through a web of tax exemptions, developer kickbacks, and annexations. Where the good schools, libraries, and malls are. More and more residents are in thrall to an esoteric multi-level investment scheme-slash-cult known as the Invisible Bridge, which appeals to those who want to change their fate and ultimately, at the innermost levels of initiation, "go Diamond."
• Sanctuary Park, north of the river, best known for Introspection Tower, the city's memorial to the Homeland War. Civic and religious institutions surround it, most of them not well-funded, with a more humble clown community college and regular carnival on the mildly haunted grounds of the old amusement park. The best place to get international groceries. More than one sorcerer has been initiated by the wisdom and bite of the giant bat hanging in the old municipal roost; some are upright, some are wicked.
• Southport, south of the river, where a few commercial trains still come through Union Station and long-haul shipping keeps the warehouses and silos running. Apartment blocks, call centers, fast food, cracked sidewalks, parks with little angular fountains. A good place to get a convenience store hot dog and neon soda and hang out at the skate park until your ride gets off work. Masked professional wrestling is big right now; the hometown favorite is Spectacle Devil, who has a complicated gimmick involving evil twins and a mirror dimension.

Many people are wearing protective masks outside because of the dust storms in Misery this season, often decorated with jaws or smiles or meaningful patterns. Public transit via electric trolley is inexpensive but harder than driving. People who can cast magic, or want to seem like they can, usually adopt a shadow name to avoid contaminating their personal identity with occult fallout. The factory out on the prairie that the dreadful dolls took over is slowly flooding the city with bad toys.