The Stars Are Right: The Irish Rose

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This campaign started as a new group in 2012, although several players had played in other campaigns in the world.

Set in Detroit in 1932 - our oddly matched group of characters continue to balance gangsters, a mysterious medical condition, an odd preacher and his sister and a state hospital scandal - all in an effort to figure out the complicated workings of the under classes.

Detroit in 1932

The unofficial flag of Detroit, representing the three countries that have controlled the city.

Detroit - like all of urban America - reels under the crushing grip of the Great Depression. With the crash of the stock market in February 1930, the economy has been in a progressive tail-spin.

The largest employers in the area - the automobile manufacturers - have been hardest hit. Ford, Cadillac, Fisher, Buick, Packard, and the Detroit Electric Car Company have all curtailed production and let go thousands of workers. Auto factory jobs once thought to be a life-time guarantee of employment, have sadly become run by mere skeleton crews.

Now, two years into the crisis, with production of goods at a stand still, in a city of approximately 1.5 million people, over 225,000 are unemployed. Men who are unmarried have an easier time of it - they have no wives or children to worry about. Those who are married struggle on as best they can - knowing that each day without a job means another day they must find some method to feed the ones they care for.

Downtown Detroit, 1932

There are a few rays of hope. The Mayor's Commission provides boxes of apples for men to sell on the street corners at 5 cents per apple. The Capuchin Monks feed 800 per day through the Catholic churches. The idle Fisher Auto Factory has become the City Municipal Lodging House, with heat, lights, showers, and meals for unmarried men - provided by donations from the Fisher brothers. The White Towers restaurants serve free lunches once a month.

Clark Park has been set up as an emergency camp for evicted families. Private citizens and the National Guard have donated tents. The women have created sewing circles, while the children used the playgrounds and the men looked for work. Thrift Gardens have been planted along the outskirts to help with feeding the poverty-stricken. Physicians donate free medical care under the auspices of the Medical Relief Committee.

For those who have a few coins to rub together, prohibition is playing out its last gasp the best way it knows how - by letting the liquor flow through thousands and thousands of bars and taverns. Most operate openly with little interference from the police, serving up a mixture of poor grade liquor, gambling, worn and desperate women - and if a high class joint - a piano player working for tips.

Cast

Main article: All campaign characters

• Active Characters
• Inactive Characters
• Non-Player Persons of Interest
• Factions

Photo	Name (Player)	Aliases	Occupation	Affiliations
	Candide (Steve Hill)			Seelie Court
	Casey, Jack (Gene L.)		Crime Photographer	Detroit Evening Times
	Clark, Lila (John Kim)	Rosie	Hostess	Irish Rose Gang
	Grayson, Victor (Robby Bullis)	Quiet Vic	Gambler	Irish Rose Gang
	Lovejoy, Frank (Andrew Cole)		Journalist	Detroit Evening Times
	McMann, Michael (Chris Haugen)		Gangster	Purple Gang
	Walters, Obediah (Stephen Cole)	Doc	Alcoholic doctor	Irish Rose Gang Purple Gang Seelie Court
	Williams, JT (Keith Dalzell)	Wheels	Bootlegger	Irish Rose Gang

World History

Flag of the restored Russian Tsar

Russia

Communist revolution overthrew Tsarist regime in 1917 and Russian nobility fled into exile in rest of Europe. Alexis Romanoff came out of hiding in early 1930, and was legitimated by Russian Court in exile and head of Russian Orthodox Church. Married Countess Ineska Rulionoff in February 1932, and headed into Russia in company of someone named Alexi Vishnevesky shortly thereafter. Russia further cut itself off from international community, but rumors of civil war, unrest, etc. trickled out. The new Tsarist regime was proclaimed last month, with Tsar Alexis retaining the reforms of Nicholas II. The communists have fled the country.

Britain and France have recognized the new government, with Hitler's Germany and the USA holding off.

Timeline

Our current timeline is spread out between August 1, 1932 and September 30, 1932. All of the locations in the Lovecraft universe exist in the campaign. Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, Dunwich — all of them. In addition, most of the events in HPL's stories are part of the time line: the meteor strike near Arkham as reported in The Color Out of Space, the U.S. Naval operation off of Dunwich in The Shadow over Innsmouth, the polar expedition out of Miskatonic detailed in The Mountains of Madness, etc.

You can find a fuller chronology here.

Other significant events reported in the media include:

Charles Curtis

• 1928
  • Edward Chandler, head of New World Industries, runs as an independent candidate for president, but loses to Hoover.
  • November: Following his electoral defeat, Chandler is called to Washington, DC for a closed door hearing into possible violations of the Treaty of Versailles. He flees the United States, and is formally charged with treason. New World Industries is taken over by Alexi Vishneveski and closed. All activities and willing personnel are transferred to Switzerland.
  • November 21: First outbreak of the Kansas City Influenza reported in the media. The disease continues to spread from the Kansas City railhead toward the East Coast.
  • December: President-elect Hoover contracts the Kansas City influenza and dies before taking office.

Charles Fort

• 1929
  • January 1: Charles Curtis, Hoover's Vice President, is sworn in as President of the United States. A member of the Kaw tribe, he is the first Native American President.
  • Mid-February: The world experiences global Fortean events. Frogs fall from the skies, mysterious lights shine in the high places, water turns to wine... The occurrences begin to taper off toward the end of the month, and have become backpage filler by the end of March. Many people witnessed something strange, and everyone knows someone who has a cousin of a friend from grade school who had something strange happen to them. This period has become known as the Night of Miracles, or more rarely as the Night the Weather Changed. No one is quite sure where the second name originated.
  • April: Wall Street crashes, ushering in the Great Depression. Banks close and factories begin to cut back on production.
  • April 29: An extraordinary mining disaster during the Pioneer Days celebration in Madisonville, Kentucky results in thousands of deaths by poison gas and the destruction of Eveling Industries. The entire Hibbs Valley area is cordoned off by the government due to continuing health risks and unstable geology.

Adolf Hitler

• 1930
  • Adolf Hitler is declared Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg.

• 1931
  • Dachau Camp opens.

• 1932
  • May 3: Charles Fort, author of The Book of the Damned and other works, dies of leukemia.
  • August 1: DeWitt Ecker, JT Williams and James O'Keefe arrive in Detroit. Danny Macklin, proprietor of the Irish Rose, beats his girlfriend Katie Flynn severely. These four events precipitate a crisis in the Irish Rose Matter.

Documents

Main article: List of all campaign documents

• Newspaper Articles
• Letters, notes and other correspondence
• Contracts, wills and other legal documents
• Diaries, interviews and other personal records

To Do List

• Finish faction list
• Add all documents to Document subcategory
• Create subsection for other major elements: Parkhurst's virus, the Queen's emergence, etc