On Angel(s) and Devil(s)

[Jabberwocky]

Hey folks. Some of you might have noticed that I'm GM-ing a DFRPG campaign in Prague, Czechia. In this topic I would like to start some brainstorming. There is a very busy place in Prague which is called Anděl (Angel in English). I feel that it deserves to be an important spot for our campaign and I have some ideas but I would like to ask you for your ideas, as well. How would you handle a place with such a name in your game? The obvious thing is Denarians but it seems too straightforward to me. Some more information on the area: click and click.

This brings another idea to my mind. In a different part of the city there is a neighbourhood called Ďáblice. Ďábel is Devil in Czech so a rough translation could be Devilville (or even She-Devil as a different translation approach) or something similar. More info: click. I feel that there should be maybe some kind of connection or tension between those two areas but they are just half-baked ideas. Please, feel free to post anything that comes to your mind.

As for the general idea of our campaign: a common Czech epithet of Prague is stověžatá (with a hundred towers). I made the towers the central part of the campaign. Some of them work as nodes in a magical pattern (chronomancy and potential lawbreaking ahead) and the major baddies (especially the Summer Court) will try to capture them for their use.

Thank you for your input.

[Jreafman]

Okay, you wanted brain storming, and I have a mindless job that allows me to think about anything other than what I'm doing. My apologies if some of these ideas are a little long.

First, the one that ties in most with what you're already doing with your campaign.

You've got the spires, they're part of a magical pattern. Flavor text here, Flavor text there. You've got Ďáblice, a road that runs from that area towards the center of the city, also what looked like a Ďáblice park (though I might have misread that). Then, on the opposite side of the city you've got Anděl. I couldn't help but think that at some point in the city's past someone had tried to use those spires, the magical pattern, the latent energy of the area, and their own ill-will to make something bad happen. I'm not sure what you've got planned for the spires in your campaign, but when I was looking at what was there I kept thinking this is just the kind of scenario where someone could have, once upon a time, tried to use those spires to work some serious bad ritual. So the White Council stepped in. It was one of those times when the council didn't sit on it's hands, but took action. A dozen or so really strong wizards went forth with their own ritual. The scenario in my head was that Ďáblice was already a place of dark power. Maybe a minor wellspring of magical energy, but with a taint on it. It would give folks working dark magic a slight boost to their power. The Council wizards who set out to counter-ritual what was happening chose a place where their own workings would be unaffected by what was happening at Ďáblice, and where they could still impact the spires. In the end, the wizards had to call up enough power that they burned themselves out completely. They put their entire lifeforce into their ritual, and died there. The magic they called up, and the energy they put forth, and their own sacrifice left an indelible impression on the place. Anděl was born, a mirror image of Ďáblice. A minor wellspring of positive magic.
(Note: For the above scenario, the warlock(s) performing the ritual would have had to have been far enough along that simply stepping in and shutting them down wasn't an option, would have simply made everything go boom, blahblah, too much fall out, which is why the White Council had to send some heavy hitters to counter ritual, instead of sending wardens to just go kill the warlock -- Also... it leaves an open question, what happened to the warlock(s) involved? Did they die? Did they live? Where are they now? Did they have students?)

The next thought was ... a pair of touch stones... places where the walls between the worlds were a bit thin... where it would be easier to make contact/summon/see things from above and below.

I also wondered about the underground in Prague. My understanding is that it is, or was, extensive (though I should point out the little I know is from what I can remember from 20 years ago in school, and the little I found in a few minutes of searching before going to work). Which makes me wonder what's buried down there. What if the city, once in it's long ago history had a guardian... and a conqueror (or at least attempted conqueror). Both magical beings of one type or another, both incredibly powerful. Both now locked away under the underground. Stories have been passed down, local legends, and so the names have stuck. For a twist, they could each be hidden away under where you would expect the other one (the guardian under Ďáblice and vice-versa).

Again with the Prague underground - What if there are things living down there? Not trapped, but making a home for themselves. The good things on one side of the river, the not so good things on the other side of the river.

What if... somewhere around those two areas are things that are supposed to work in conjunction with the spires? Something Dark and something Light, to bring balance to the ritual with the spires?

What if... I go make some dinner.

[Sanctaphrax]

My first thought would be to use the neighbourhoods as gathering places for people with the blood of the relevant creatures. Nephilim and demi-nephilim and semi-demi-nephilim (etc) gather in Anděl, while the demon-blooded gather in Ďáblice.

PS: I vaguely recall Prague having a notable golem, are you doing anything with that?

[PirateJack]

The centre point between the two seems like a really appropriate place for the White Court to set up shop, possibly as a newcomer to the city.

[Jabberwocky]

Gentlemen, those are some very fine ideas. Thanks a lot for them!

PirateJack: Hm, that sounds interesting. The WC are no newcomers in Prague but they can still benefit from the tension between those two places. In my plans, the WC is a major wild player, influencing the history of Bohemia heavily, but on a subconscious level. They feed on conflict and discord => catholics vs. hussites and protestants, Czechs vs. Germans, Nazis vs. democrats, Communists vs. democrats, etc. All nourishing food for the WCVs. Btw., there is a brothel one tram stop away from Anděl and its name is Lilith. I have discovered that yesterday when I was walking through the area. And ... there is an old disused cemetery just next to the brothel and on the opposite side of the cemetery there is a small baroque church. (click - the brothel is Erbenova Nr. 3 and on the south side of the cemetery in Duškova street there is a ventilation shaft pryed open) Ideas are flowing to my head :-)

Sanctaphrax: Yes, you are right, there is a major golem legend in Prague: click However, I haven´t decided on how to use it, yet. In one of Vampire: The Masquerade games I was a player in Rabbi Loew was the head of the Tremere and the Golem was his Gargoyle so I don´t want to push this stuff too much. But it certainly has a lot of potential.

Jreafman: I like your ideas. As for the towers - my basic idea is that they are creating a powerful pattern with Prague's Orloj as a centre point. This pattern, when complete and active, allows time manipulation. Click and click. And you are giving me more ideas. In Ďáblice there is an astronomical observatory (a tower!). Just next to Ďáblice is Kobylisy with a target range where the Nazis executed their prisoners. North of Ďáblice is Panenské Břežany, the seat of Reinhard Heydrich (click) during WWII and just south of Ďáblice Heydrich was mortally wounded and died in a nearby hospital (click). Both Anděl and Ďáblice have metro stations. I'm thinking about such a situation: there is a fallen angel in Prague. Not a Denarian, more like some of the characters from the film Wings of Desire (click). And there is a she-devil, his counterpart, too. Both beings are fallen, crippled, not able to return back from where they had once come. Maybe they crippled each other during a fight a long time ago. They still have some power but can't use it on their own. Only mortals can tap into that for a brief time. Maybe both are just semi-conscious, lying underground, mentally aware of each other. Maybe they have come to terms with each other somehow, because of their state and unability to change that. Maybe they are playing some mental game of wits, using the city as their chessboard, manipulating both mortals and supernaturals into being their pawns...

[Haru]

A club called Angel could just as well be a place for demons to meet, and they named the place to spit in the eyes of everything good. I am imagining a sort of dungeon s&m themed club, with dancers in cages hanging from the ceiling and such things. Only maybe one of them might be an actual angel, captured and tortured for the demons amusement.
Any mortal who visits only sees a beautiful man or woman up there, of course.

Similarly, I could see a part of the city that's called deviltown be inhabited by people who fight against this. Especially if the part is named that way for a very long time, it might have attracted fighters for the greater good of all varieties, who decided to settle down and stand guard. Over time, it became the most secure place in the city, but the name stuck, of course.

Or you could go with a Nephilim-Romeo-and-Juliet sort of theme. Two families of Nephilim, one tends to embrace their demonic side, the other tends to embrace their angelic side. Two lovers from opposite families *poof* instant drama.

[Melendwyr]

If I might switch continuities for a moment:  in Doctor Who, there is a villainous military space station that is named Demons Run - which, when it's pronounced, would likely be interpreted as Demons' Run - the place where demons have free reign.

In actuality, it's a shortening of an old saying:  "Demons run when a good man goes to war."  The meaning of the name is in reality entirely different from what we would first assume.

No supernatural entities are going to name urban regions after themselves.  It's far too obvious.  The names are clearly worn-down remnants of mostly-forgotten meanings.  Find what those original ideas were and you'll know what's there now.

[Jreafman]

Jreafman: I like your ideas. As for the towers - my basic idea is that they are creating a powerful pattern with Prague's Orloj as a centre point. This pattern, when complete and active, allows time manipulation. Click and click. And you are giving me more ideas. In Ďáblice there is an astronomical observatory (a tower!). Just next to Ďáblice is Kobylisy with a target range where the Nazis executed their prisoners. North of Ďáblice is Panenské Břežany, the seat of Reinhard Heydrich (click) during WWII and just south of Ďáblice Heydrich was mortally wounded and died in a nearby hospital (click). Both Anděl and Ďáblice have metro stations. I'm thinking about such a situation: there is a fallen angel in Prague. Not a Denarian, more like some of the characters from the film Wings of Desire (click). And there is a she-devil, his counterpart, too. Both beings are fallen, crippled, not able to return back from where they had once come. Maybe they crippled each other during a fight a long time ago. They still have some power but can't use it on their own. Only mortals can tap into that for a brief time. Maybe both are just semi-conscious, lying underground, mentally aware of each other. Maybe they have come to terms with each other somehow, because of their state and unability to change that. Maybe they are playing some mental game of wits, using the city as their chessboard, manipulating both mortals and supernaturals into being their pawns...

I like what you've got going there. The timepiece tower, using actual architectural stuff from the area, I like your idea of the two immortals, and I really love that idea with Wings of Desire. I could see them being trapped beneath the surface... touching the thoughts of people.. like you said... turning the city into one big chessboard. Darkness feeding darkness, light feeding light... Oh yeah.

Also, you mentioned the execution grounds. A lot of ghosts, a lot of spirits, a lot of angry restless spirits. A trapped devil longing for escape. Angry spirits and a trapped devil, these things go together in ways that make Harry weep.

[Jabberwocky]

Melendwyr: Well, you are right, of course. Ďáblice is actually a corrupted form of Davlici, meaning Davel's people, with Davel being a mediaeval Czech name. So the village got its name after its founder or proprietor - a long forgotten petty mediaeval noble. Just as approximately half of the other villages in this country. With Anděl it's similar. The place was a crossroads with a pub. In front of the pub, there was a statue of an angel (almost every major crossroads had such statues - crosses, saints, angels). So they named the pub after the statue. This is the true etymology but i find it kinda boring for an urban fantasy game...

Jreafman: We have similar thoughts :-) And someone trying to tap the power of the execution grounds and the devil trapped nearby would be a very good antagonist for the PCs. By the way I really like wordplay and hints for the players in the names. Recently I started making a Black Court noble modelled after a folk tale of a noble family of Gryspek. The Gryspeks were a real gentry, with the founder of the family, Florian Gryspek of Gryspach having been very close to the Emperor Ferdinand I. During the 16th century, however, they converted to Protestantism and just at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War their castle Kaceřov and all other property were confiscated by the Emperor Ferdinand II who was Catholic. And there is a folk tale about a mass suicide of the whole Gryspek family in 1620 (it's been already refuted by the archaeologists but I don't care) after they got the news about the confiscation. Their family tomb is in the church in Kralovice and the bodies are very well preserved (it's in Czech but check the photos and the video). So I made them to BCVs because it all makes sense with my previous thoughts. And now the wordplay - their castle in West Bohemia is called Kaceřov. In Prague we have a metro station called Kačerov. The pronounciation is very close to each other. So? An open gate for angry blackvamps who just got disturbed and awoken from a 400 years long slumber and who, when pursued, can vanish in the metro station without a trace. Some thinking stuff for the players :-)

[Melendwyr]

Melendwyr: Well, you are right, of course. Ďáblice is actually a corrupted form of Davlici, meaning Davel's people, with Davel being a mediaeval Czech name. So the village got its name after its founder or proprietor - a long forgotten petty mediaeval noble. Just as approximately half of the other villages in this country. With Anděl it's similar. The place was a crossroads with a pub. In front of the pub, there was a statue of an angel (almost every major crossroads had such statues - crosses, saints, angels). So they named the pub after the statue. This is the true etymology but i find it kinda boring for an urban fantasy game...

Not at all!  Just come up with secret occult significance of those original meanings!  Seriously, lots of occult dabblers get all excited about obvious relationships.  That could even come up in-game, with uninformed cultists trying to perform magical rituals to tap into the power of the Angel-Devil proximity... and possibly disturbing the rest of something powerful that's actually there.

What was buried under that angel statue?

[Jabberwocky]

Melendwyr: Ok, I start seeing your point. That's clever, I must say. I'm not sure whether I'll use your approach in this particular case but I'm certainly going to look at things from such a perspective in our campaign. Thanks for your input!