Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2E Belfast by Night

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Going to aim to update this as I go. Shamelessly borrowing your format.


TBA



The Troubles
Armed conflict in Northern Ireland dating from the late 1960s until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Troubles were largely about the status of Northern Ireland, with the Protestant majority wishing for it to remain within the United Kingdom, and the Catholic minority wishing for it to belong to a larger United Ireland. In the early days, much of the conflict was ignited by various civil rights abuses conducted by the Northern Irish and British states against the Catholic population. The most prominent example of which was the massacre of unarmed civilians by British troops in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972.

Nominally Northern Ireland has been at peace since the Good Friday Agreement and the disarming of most of the major paramilitary factions. Most people are happy to just get on with their lives, but the divisions that led to the conflict happening in the first place are still in place. Anti-agreement paramilitary groups are still active and have claimed responsibility for various violent crimes while stoking political discontent in the communities from which they draw their support. As part of the peace process, the Northern Irish government is an enforced coalition between parties that can claim to have the most popular support from the communities on either side of the Troubles. The best that can be said is that it mostly works, but the government has still collapsed on multiple occasions when both parts of the coalition can't reach agreement.




Vengeance

Empathy

History

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South Belfast
South Belfast contains some of the city's most expensive residential districts as well as Queen's University Belfast. The overall tenor of the constituency is middle-class – young and cosmopolitan towards the city centre in the north, with Northern Ireland's biggest concentrations of both students and ethnic minorities, and further out from the city centre it is settled and prosperous. Despite this, significant pockets of inner-city working class areas such as the Markets and a number of isolated suburban estates exist in the constituency.
-Malone Road, Ormeau Road, Lisburn Road, Stranmillis

Queen's University: Founded in the 19th century and part of the group of UK universities that is usually perceived as having the most prestige. Aside from the administration building and libraries on the main campus, Queen’s has a number of properties and sub departments throughout south Belfast. Some of these properties include student housing operated by the university but there are numerous clusters of rental properties close to the campus that are typically occupied by current and former students.

The Holylands: Named for its street names (Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street etc), the Holylands are located between the University and the river. Arguably the most dense neighbourhood of cheap student housing in the city. Frequently in the news due to reports of mass drunkenness and low level crime.

The Village: Region of cheap and featureless terraced houseing located between Belfast City Hospital and Windsor Park football stadium. Has a reputation for sectarian and racist violence directed against outsiders.

Ulster Museum: The largest museum in Northern Ireland. Houses numerous local archaeological finds dating back to the neolithic period.

The Giant’s Ring: Neolithic henge monument on the southern edge of the city. Includes the remnants of a tomb and a large earthwork bank. Thought to be a memorial to the dead. The Giant’s Ring was built around 2700 BC which predates the pyramids.

City Hall: Seat of the city council in the middle of the city centre. Large baroque revival building opened in 1906 that was designed to increase the city's prestige during a time where its population had briefly grown larger than Dublin.

Ormeau Park: Oldest municipal park in Belfast on the edge of the Lagan river. Ormeau Park is one of the largest and busiest parks in the city and contains a variety of horticulture, woodland, wildlife and sporting facilities. Scene of a series of murders during the early 1980s.

East Belfast
Solidly unionist area that has been extensively redeveloped in recent years.

Stormont: Site of the Northern Irish Assembly. The Assembly is currently collapsed due to a political disagreement.

George Best Belfast City Airport: The smaller of Belfast's two airports, but the only one located in the city. Named for a prominent Northern Irish football player.

Titanic Quarter: Site of the original construction of the Titanic. The shipyard has been closed and turned into a tourist attraction, film studio and occasional music venue. The two massive yellow cranes that were used in the ship's construction are still there and are visible from much of the city.

West Belfast
Solidly nationlist area aside from an enclave along the long pro-unionist Shankill road.

The Fall's Road: Long road leading from the city centre down towards the hills in the far west. Site of numerous murals commemorating Irish nationalists and international figures who were involved in various liberation struggles. Prominent centre of the Troubles in Belfast. A long wall was errected to seperate the nationalist community from the unionist community in the Shankill to the north.

Divis and the Black Mountain: Two hills on the western edge of Belfast that are large enough to be seen from most of the city.

Crumlin Road Goal: Former Victorian prison and current tourist extraction. The prison has a history of housing various prominent political figures and conducted executions on its grounds until 1961.

North Belfast
Predominantly working class area that suffered the highest levels of violence during the Troubles.




TBA

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NPCs


Lisa Geddes
Poet. Waitress working in the city centre. Originally from a town called Newtonards to the east of Belfast. Met Michael while she was studying English at Queens. Currently living near Drumglass Park at the nicer end of the Lisburn Road. The house is small but technically owned outright by Lisa's housemate Caroline who inherited it. As a result Lisa doesn't have to pay rent.

Sean McGuinness
Lives out in West Belfast somewhere but Michael has never had reason to visit. No apparent job. Originally met Michael through visiting the same pubs and clubs and likely sharing some mutual friends. Has alluded to family connections to the IRA during the Troubles and evidently has some connection to still active Republican paramilitary groups. Michael may or may not have asked him about this. Sean is the source of the gun that Michael used to kill himself.

Douglas Green
Michael's former boss

Simon Smith
From a wealthy local family but studied in England. Oxbridge educated. Nepotism hire who gained the promotion that Michael believed should have been his. Simon's father invested heavily in Fox and Gieves.






TBA



The Burned Man
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uSOAAgPLkHruNuqxfchIIvVgpORFrgw7S4_w4NbLPSw/edit?usp=sharing
Michael's Geist, which he met somewhere in the upper levels of the Underworld. The Burned Man looks like the charred and still smoking corpse of a tall man who underwent death by fire. A beard and the ragged and melted remnants of clothing and a leather coat can be made out on the Geist's body.

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Character Box


Health
Wp 2/4
Synergy: 1
Plasm:
Beats/Xp: 1 for failing to persuade Patrick
Spent Xp
Tilts and Conditions

Aspirations

[Bennosuke]

Michael Kavanagh (http://sheetgen.dalines.net/sheet/57514)

Background: Michael Kavanagh grew up in Boston MA, and like many of his ilk was very proud of his Irish heritage. Unlike many of the kids Mike grew up with, he had an academic aptitude, and was a good talker to boot. Doing well enough in school, Mike seized on the scholarship offered him to attend University in Belfast, imagining romantic ideas of reconnecting with his Irish roots and glamorous European girlfriends. School was of course not everything it was made out to be, but during his studies in business, he created connections with the Fox and Gieves fabric company; a London based fabric merchant that purchased Irish Linen produced in and around Belfast to be sold to tailors on Saville Row and the like. Drawn to the air of elegance and wealth, after finishing school, Michael took on an apprenticeship with the company, working for next to nothing as a go-between between the London based company and many of the local weavers. His boss, Douglas Green, took a liking to Michael and seemed to promise him the world if he worked hard and stayed loyal. Michael worked very hard and accepted minimal pay under the promise that he would eventually be promoted to a high paying position after a few years. He took out loans, borrowed from less than savory locals, and stayed in some of the worst parts of the city, enduring everything that came along with it. During this time, Michael made friends with many of the local mills and weaving houses, his natural charm cottoning him to the locals.

But after a few years, Michael is let go, Fox and Gieves instead giving the promised job to a proper British kid whose father had invested heavily in the company, Simon Smith. Left with no money and way too much debt, Michael spirals. He blames his boss Mr. Green, and the new hire, refusing to hear anything about some of the poorer aspects of his performance; the late deliveries, the poor accounting, the complaints about his communication skills with the linen factories. Too stubborn to ask for help from his parents AGAIN, and feeling so despondently like a failure, Michael does the most desperate thing possible. He’d purchased an old Smith and Weston revolver off of a local thug named Sean. Sean was a low life, but after a hard to remember night of drinking, the two had somehow become friends. He was reliable for favors every once and awhile, and Sean got to claim he was friends with one of the only Americans in their part of Hell. With this weapon, Michael blows his skull open Then on the banks of the underworld, Michael is met a Geist who tells him that part of their pain has been related to the Necromancer, stating that the Geist had been killed by the Necromancer, and promises Michael the chance to right all their wrongs, get revenge on the boss and "the other guy", and finally live the life they were always promised they would have.

Michael awakens in the arms of a girl named Lisa. Now Michael had been head over heels for Lisa for the better part of two years, and had tried to pick her up the first night they met. Then asked her out many nights after that; every time she said no. Despite the rejection, the two had become close friends. In fact, Lisa was probably Michael’s best friend… and he still somehow thought he had a shot with her. Lisa was holding MIchael’s dead body in her arms, when he came back to life… one moment his brains were all over the floor, the next his skull had knitted itself together and was screaming. The whole event freaked Lisa out, and Michael hasn’t been able to get a hold of her yet to talk the whole thing through.

Appearance and Personality: Michael is just a little over six foot, with sandy blonde hair that’s straight and just a little unkempt. His face is freckled and ruddy, and his eyes are the saddest blue. He’s a talker, a salesman, and a charmer. He’s gained a little more weight than he would have liked, but is a little heavy, not fat. Michael can make a friend with a smile, but would be described as intelligent but not knowledgeable. He dresses a little formally compared to many of the locals, button down shirts and work trousers… maybe in an attempt to mimic the Londoners he wanted to impress, but not nearly as well.

Touchstone (Lisa): For every ounce Michael is a charmer, Lisa is an intellect. Beautiful, well read, cultured; she’s completely out of place in Michael’s little corner of Belfast. She’s every female fantasy he’d dreamed of before moving to Europe. And the harder Michael tried to woo her, the harder she rejected him. However, due to his persistence, and enough time spent together, the two became fast friends. Fine, maybe Michael never got the kiss he’d been hoping for, but no one knew Michael as deeply as she did. But… after Michael’s return, the two haven’t spoken. Who knows if she’ll ever speak to him again. Lisa’s got long dark brown hair, pale and a waif’s figure. She dresses better than anyone Michael’s ever met, despite her empty purse.

Contact (Sean): Sean’s probably the most dangerous person Michael is friends with… but somehow Michael’s not scared of him. Sean’s a survivor, with connection to almost every gang in Belfast, and the ability to get “the goods” whatever they might be. Sean’s dark hair is cut short but messy, and his fashion is a mix of 2000’s hip-hop, and 80s punk rock. It’s anyone’s guess whether or not he’s gonna wear knock-off designer sneakers or combat boots on any given day. Somehow, he’s taken a real liking to Michael, and might be willing to get him things from time to time… of course, there’s always a price, a man’s gotta eat.

Memento (The Witch’s Pistol): Something about Michael’s attempted suicide changed the old Smith and Weston revolver he got from Sean. Its gunmetal exterior now scorched with streaks of brittle black. It’s almost hot to the touch now too, and if Michael touches it to any combustible material, it sets fire after a few moments.

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Wits + Composure roll
[roll0]

[Bennosuke]

WP roll for failed 6d10 [roll0].

If this fails... why don't we turn it into a dramatic failure.

EDIT: Wasted WP! Let's make it a dramatic failure, if that's alright with you :smalltongue:

[Bennosuke]

So, it's a terrible idea, but hear me out....

Would you say that something in Patrick's house within "throwing distance" is flammable. I went scouring through Michael's character sheet to see if there was anything I could use to keep investigation of the house going, and I only have this one idea. Michael has The Witch's Finger Memento (pg 135), which among other things sets flammable things on fire if it touches them.


... So, what if Michael throws it into the house at something flammable, and before Patrick can close the door warns him that something has caught fire. Michael helps put it out, and hopefully gains the man's trust? Not terribly ethical, but it's the only thing I can think of :smalltongue:

[Haval]

You're welcome to try. On the other hand this might escalate things further after the dramatic failure.

Let's say there's a table with a stack of newspapers on it just inside the door.

Roll something appropriate to get it in before he closes it.