Creating Vancouver and other Canadian cities, Dresden style.

[firerez]

Hi all, I've gotten the rulebooks fairly recently and am having a pretty good time learning the FATE system (was pretty much exclusively d20 before). I'm also about 3 books into the DF and really, really liking those. As far as I can tell, Canada is fairly neglected in the series, haha. So I was wondering, how would you guys write up Vancouver and other Canadian cities Dresden-style? We comparatively have a bit less history than the US, and not as many crazy things have happened here as far as I can tell.

Curious to see what you guys come up with.

[Shecky]

Try Montréal and Québec. Those two have quite a bit of history behind them, as much as any U.S. city.

[Saedar]

We're using Vancouver in our home game right now. None of us have been to Vancouver, so my wife (our GM) and I spent a few weeks doing research. We like research, so that's all well and good. Keep in mind, especially if no one in your group has ever actually been to the location, there is no need to make it identical to reality.

That said, a little research can yield some pretty awesome stuff. For example: my character is a werebear based off a particular type of black bear native to British Columbia that is actually born white (1/10 cubs, I think). They call it the spirit bear. Sooo... I gave it the spirit seeing/talking ability (sorry, I'm at work with no pdf's) and some bear-shifting fun powers. The character has been amazing.

[firerez]

We're using Vancouver in our home game right now. None of us have been to Vancouver, so my wife (our GM) and I spent a few weeks doing research. We like research, so that's all well and good. Keep in mind, especially if no one in your group has ever actually been to the location, there is no need to make it identical to reality.

That said, a little research can yield some pretty awesome stuff. For example: my character is a werebear based off a particular type of black bear native to British Columbia that is actually born white (1/10 cubs, I think). They call it the spirit bear. Sooo... I gave it the spirit seeing/talking ability (sorry, I'm at work with no pdf's) and some bear-shifting fun powers. The character has been amazing.

My group, with the exception of me, were all born and raised in Vancouver, so maybe it's part of the living here for so long thing, but we can't really think of much that is interesting about our city. Maybe we're strangers in our hometown, haha. I love the spirit bear thing, I might actually use it in my game. If you don't mind sharing parts of your city with me, I'd love to see it from the perspective of someone who doesn't live here.

[davetheyogi]

http://www.robirda.com/legends/

If you want to get more modern you could build great story ideas from all the shit that goes down in the downtown eastside. There is a huge heroin problem and many people have and continue to go missing. Robert Pickton has been convicted of many of those murders, could there be something else at work?

I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, I worked in the downtown eastside for years (lived in Vancouver for 23) I would never want to trivialize the pain that people have gone through. The best fantasy has a core of harsh reality.

I don't have the game so I don't know what would suit Vancouver in the way of nasties. Most of them are too cool for Canada. Maybe Black Court feeding on junkies?

[TheeGravedigger]

The White Court owns the Downtown Eastside, obviously.
Where will you find more despair and desperation?

Not to mention the Lust at the clubs there.

[Lanodantheon]

Of course, you could always do Vancouver using....the Vancouver Method.... 

Have Vancouver be the city that has the "Tastes like chicken Effect" because it looks like so many cities on TV anyway.

That's my advice anyway.

[davetheyogi]

Vancouver only looks like other cities when you haven't been there.
Did you see "Rumble in the Bronx" 

Had a thought about it and basically I see a DV Vancouver as being a tension between a black court/white court downtown,

 (Black court take the eastside, homeless, drug addict population and white court take the central and west, strip clubs, massage parlors, etc.)

and the Native powers on the north shore. (shape changers, shamans, etc.)

Again I don't have the RPG so there may be cooler options, but that's how I'd play it.

Oh, and if you haven't been there don't let me put you off. It really is a great town.

[Morgan]

Well I'll see if I can't get my Dog River, Saskatchewan notes up soon.

But really there are plenty of cities and locations to be found in Canada. Just pick a city and google or wikisearch that city's name +occult or +ghost stories or even just +history and go wild. Also don't forget to involve your players! City creation is supposed to be a collaborative process and your players can let you know what excites them about the city and game as well as adding a bunch of ideas, locations, and characters to your own.

[Arcteryx]

You might want to see if you can pick up Vancouver: Secrets of the City (by Shawn Blore, I see its on Amazon) - it has some interesting factoids & weird bits about Vancouver like the large water caverns that serve as a reservoir under Queen Elizabeth Park, the real spiritual starting point of Vancouver, and the tunnel mazes that run under the city in and around the Pender area. There's some unexpectedly cool stuff about this city that you'd never imagine

In the version of Vancouver our group is drawing up for our Dresdenverse (with obvious inspiration from Big Trouble In Little China, hehe)

A key feature that spun out of the enormous Chinese population here is Chinatown, and its shadow, Chinatown Below, which connects to all the other Chinatowns and their Chinatowns Below in the world. It even connects to the Richmond Night Market on the nights it is on during the summer, and it has ever-changing gates to important Chinese subcommunities in and around the Lower Mainland (the gate-keepers are grumpy too, and some of the gates are rivers and you need ferryboats to cross them. But it's a fast way to travel and it beats BC Transit!)

It has drawn in ghosts, spirits and minor godlings from the Celestial Bureaucracy, and they have been bumping shoulders with the totems and spirits of the Coast Salish who were the First. Amongst those are they who think that they should be the Only, but the lines to the Jewel of the Northwest are many, and the Celestial Bureaucracy are only a few of the many Immigrant Gods who have come ashore (one key theme in our City is that it is a melting pot of many peoples, and its not just the people who have come...the recent influx of Japanese and Korean, for example, have added new complications to the mythic status quo)

Within that are the politics and machinations of the many wheels and wheels-within-wheels in the Bureaucracy; Vancouver is a prized outpost and there are many jockeying to exert their own control.

The Jade Court is also here, and although you have to look hard for them, their control and power is subtle and deep. Anyone of any power though, will have to deal with them at some point...

There's also something really cool about the insular nature of Chinatown and its shadow Below - its literally another world, with smoky interiors, exotic smells, strange glass jars of mysterious creatures in apocatheries and the storefronts Above whose doorways lead to temples and shrines instead of other rooms. Narrow stairways that fall backward in time and space. Lanterns that never stop burning because they anchor a reference point for those who live there. Marketplaces with wicker cages of chicken and pigs, blind beggars who earn their coin with sword demonstrations, monkeys that chatter from the rafters above teahouses. There are bamboo forests in courtyards and lotus-covered pools and fountains where snake goddesses live. They would tell your fortune if you wish... for a small favour of course.

So if you go into Chinatown... beware. And watch which alleys you are stepping into...

And that's all before we take into account the wealth and complex tapestry of the Coast Salish mythology, which makes up the fundamental fabric of the Nevernever in that part of the World. Many of them want to flex their muscle, and awaken the sleeping giant who would shake the world and remake it (this is tied to the Big Earthquake that's yet to come, which all of us who live here are kind of waiting to happen)

Also our game is set about 5 or 6 years before the 2010 Winter Olympics get here; there are some yet to be determined ties to that upcoming event as well. The game actually starts against the backdrop of Vancouver celebrating the awarding of the Games to the city.

Some great maps of Vancouver and the region can be found here:
http://johomaps.com/na/canada/bc/maps.html
http://johomaps.com/na/canada/bc/vancouver/maps.htm

[beachhead1973]

I;m going to be doing up London, Ontario and surrounding area, but I am having a heck of a time finding any wierd stuff, making much of it up.

so far just the ghost at the old court house and the Haunted (just like every other theatre in existence) Grand.

but we have tunnels. of do we ever! and a big old semi-abandoned asylum complex, which just got all-new roofs for some reason!

[firerez]

Damn Arcteryx, that sounds hardcore. I never considered Chinatown as some sort of mystical gateway to another world. Some Chinese guy I am, eh?

But now you've given me a lot of inspiration for mystical beings that I can introduce. I may introduce the Buddhist deities in addition to the Taoist ones (Celestial bureaucracy etc.)

Right now I'm playing with the idea of introducing an emissary or reincarnation of the monkey king. Journey to the West was one of favorite books as a kid. This ought to be good.

[Arcteryx]

Well, not to anther world entirely - more like a subset of the Nevernever that connects all the Chinatowns of the world - San Francisco, Toronto, New York, London, even Edmonton (Yeah, all three streets of it...!)

They're all outposts of the Forbidden City That Should Have Been. I figured that the Kingdom of the Jade Emperor is old and mighty enough that it would have a corner of the Nevernever all to itself. The fabric here is faded and sometimes weak, so sometimes during the holidays, unsuspecting mortals can sometimes wander right into the city Below and come out somewhere in another Chinatown on the other side of the planet.

Edit: Forgot to mention too, of course, that where there is a Chinatown, there are Tongs and Triads - stat up a few of these and you've got plenty of mortal opposition and trouble right there.

Check this out as well:
http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/story.html

There are some great bits that you can leverage for colour and background - for example, the Great Fire in 1886. Was it really a freak fire?

Neutral Ground:
There's a couple. There is an unofficial one in the center courtyard of Aberdeen Centre (in Richmond), whose elevator is sometimes a portal Below. Many exchanges and meetings happen here, and persistent rumours that Lau Hua Lung (an ancient river dragon) enforces the peace here does much to keep things on the up and up.

The one with official status is the coffee shop inside the Law Court building off Robson. Its called Grounds For Appeal (there is one actually named that although its not at the Law building), and is surrounded on all sides by fountains, deep pools and streams of water. Beyond the convenience of being in the heart of downtown, and that its a gorgeous and peaceful location, the building houses many meeting facilities and a very large library that has more than just legal texts and archives...

There is a Lynn Canyon suspension bridge - which unlike the Capilano suspension bridge, is free and nobody knows about it - which is also a cool meeting location. Bonus marks for being 160 feet above Lynn Creek and surrounded by pristine forest and green belt.

New Westminster too has an amazingly rich history; its Spirit of the City wanders about the lower docks, utterly drunk and in despair, as it has never recovered from losing its status as capital to Victoria. Instead it wallows in bitter self-pity and drags the city down along with it. Its Emisaries are similarily in disarray, echoing the state of the spirit who fathered them. Despair and squalor thrives there, and it is a breeding ground for crime and ill-gain. Our Face for this part of the city is a minister with the United Gospel Mission, who tries really, really, really hard... but it has been a losing battle, and victories are few and far in between.

UBC is another great location. Anyone who's spent any time there realizes how it is its own city, with its own RCMP detachment even! You could run a whole stack of stories just there alone. The fact that there are several religious colleges on the same campus and that the world renowned Museum of Anthropology is there gives you a wealth of possibilities. Expand outward a bit and you run into the bohemian suburbs that surround the campus. Bagel shops and numerous coffee shops draw and attract artists and fae alike, and many things can wash up - and walk away from - the many beaches nearby.

Think about the cool vibe too that's on Commercial, between First Ave and Hastings - there can be a lot of weirdness some nights near the Brittania area and that's in the real world, never mind one that's in the Dresdenverse.

If you really want to lean towards the far east... how about Little India around Main & the 40's? With large communities in Surrey and that part of downtown, there's plenty that you can mine there as well. I'm not as familiar with the myths and stories of that part of the world so its largely unexplored for now, but it would be a gold mine of ideas and plot possibilities.

So yeah... just scratching the tip of the iceberg there. I think Vancouver's such an amazing setting to play in! I mean, its such a unique fusion of green space + metropolitan + access to wilderness, plus it is a true melting pot of cultures and identities from all over the world.

Hope our version helps you with yours

[infusco]

I live in Montreal. This city has a rich history, culturally and politically, and creating a game here would be fun.

I'll be GMing shortly and my players will have enormous say in how the city is built, but here is how I would build it up:

- Very heavy on the White Court presence. Montreal is known for it's low violent crime rate, but it's also known for it's joie-de-vivre and the tendency of it's population to indulge heavily in booze, sex, and general all night partying. Add in the french/english political divide and you're basically dealing with a city that's an emotional powder-keg, and hence, a gourmet meal for the Whites.

- Quite a large presence of Catholic Church associated True Believers and Champion(s) of God. Probably a few religious-centric sorcerors and wizards. While the city has become very liberal in recent times, the whole province was, up until the 50s, in a stranglehold of church dogma. The Church is still very established here, with many old old churches and institutions, so True Believers will have access to enormous support and Lore.

- There are two large Native reservations north and south of the city. So you can mix in some Native-oriented practitioners and were-creatures.

Aside from that, the cultural flavor of the city and it's history could allow you to create all kinds of troubled Pure Mortals. For example, Son of a Mafia Don,  College Student Stripper, Racist Cop, Single-Minded Separatist Politician, etc ...