The Stars Are Right: The Irish Rose

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

Detroit in 1932

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.

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.

Characters

• Robbie playing Victor - a bald, scarred gambler running games at the Rose
• Keith playing J.T. Williams - a rum-runner ("Wheels")
• Andrew playing Frank Lovejoy - an enterprising newspaper journalist
• John (me) playing Lila Clark - a 30-or-so woman moved to Detroit working as hostess as the Rose ("Rosie")
• Steven playing Obediah Walters - a doctor who lost his license working for the mobs ("Doc")
• Andrew playing Joe - a huge drifter, former WWI vet working as a bouncer for room and board at the Rose (nickname "The Wall")
• Scott playing DeWitt Ecker - an unlicensed doctor in his 60s
• Eric playing Jim O'Keefe - an overweight ex-cop in his 40s