PmWiki | DiscsBrethrenPie / CulturalNotes

It is the year 1996. This year is the 60th anniversary of the end of the Depression War, but nobody cares about those old animosities anymore.

Cisalpine Trade Area: Covers Switzerland, Monaco, Lombardy-Venetia, Savoy, Parma, Florin, Emilia, San Marino, and Dalmatia.

Gun control: It's practically impossible to get a SMG or modern pistol, short of raiding an army depot, a police station, or killing a gendarme. Rifles can be obtained in the countryside but carrying one in the city is asking for trouble. Creative solutions such as a mare's leg or a semi-auto rifle with crank fire exist. Crossbows and air rifles are much less regulated.

Transportation: In theory, public transit is excellent. In practice, the further South you go, the less reliable it is (but the easier it is to skip on the fare). Rich people have a car for long journeys and a moped or motorized bike for commuting, most people only have the latter.

Tech: Late 80s, early 90s. Floppy disks, modems, BBSs. Most cars have manual transmission (and, incidentally, run on diesel: gasoline is used for airplanes and mopeds. 60bps radio modems are a thing.

New Intro:

Florin has always been a layered city. No less than three levels of catacombs, dug by Christians, and then pagans in turn, crisscross under the streets - we still don't know who made the third set, but they're a LOT older.

On the surface, what's left of the great Fiat and Olivetti factories and the myriad small business that sprung up around it chugs on, losing some steam each year. The latter marked the city as the Italian Peninsula's first hacker breeding ground.

A year after the much publicized and largely ineffective "hacker crackdown" of 1994, the focus in that community has moved to figuring out what to do with the nascent internet infrastructure, and figuring out who will get to control the pipes, officially or not, as the old BBSs move onto the larger web.

Sometimes you'll order a calzone and get a CD of warez off a courier in a Vespa because your order happened to match that week's code.

The recent Tangentopoli scandal - the scandal being of course that the province's politicians got caught crassly, not that they had a racket going - means that in that arena too the old giants are laying low for a while and new webs of favors are being woven.

Beneath it all lie the ancient conspiracies that the city is famous for. Is Propaganda Due still active? Why has the Vatican cancelled displaying the Shroud? What was really going on behind the false Templar masonic lodge that was exposed to public ridicule by Umberto Eco?

Globalization looms. The chaotic underbrush of what is likely to be yet another aborted startup mini-renaissance won't last long, if bigger regional players won't emerge, the southern mafias will move in.

In the meantime, remember that you can outrun a radio in traffic, the Finance Guard are still reasonably clueless, and that ancient note you found after breaking a brick to signal seriousness last time there was a brawl is MOST LIKELY just a Renaissance grocery note.

In favor of old intro (can be recycled):

My hometown, Turin, in Italy, is MADE of legends.

There is the story of the Royal Alchemist that discovered the Philosopher Stone. The map to the Holy Grail. A portal to Hell. Several ghosts. Illuminati and Stone Masons sign all over the city embedded in the architecture. The shroud of Christ. Nostradamus lived there and wrote about it "Nostradamus stayed here, where there is Paradise, Hell, Purgatory. I call myself Victory. Who honors me will have glory, who disdains me will know complete ruin.".

It is also the point of the black magic AND the white magic triangles of cities. Allegedly, one of the most famous statues of the city is dedicated to Lucifer itself. Regarding the triangles I have little to no info, maybe /r/Occult can help more.

Please let me know if you have preferences on what to get more in details to.

First Edit, The portal to hell and Lucifer statue, as it is the most requested.

The staue is the "Caduti del Frejus" in Piazza Statuto. As a central square in Turin, Piazza Statuto is where they used to execute Prisoners and criminals for a while. The square has several accesses, two of them are a sort of line that cut the square in two. Corso Francia, called this way because it trace an ideal line to the Frejus tunnel, which give access to France, and Via Garibaldi, which is a straight line to the Castle Square, where the Royal Palace is.

Now, the statue was placed here because it should be celebrating the fallen in the creation of the tunnel to France, but the odd thing is that the angel on top of the statue is looking away from France. Per se not a big thing, however the angel is the only black figure on the statue, all the humans are white marble. Also, the humans look like they are trying to climb the mountain, and the hand of the angel is in a posture of repression. Little fun fact, on the top of the head the angel has a pentagram, and it's staring straight into the eyes of another statue, at the end of Via Garibaldi. The portal to hell is supposed to be in Piazza Statuto and it is supposed to be the point of the black magic triangle.

Second Edit: La Gran Madre di Dio

One of the biggest churches in the city, it face one of the largest street and squares in Europe. The peculiarities of this place are that it is a completely round church and that on the summer solstice, at 12.00, the sun is exactly perpendicular to the point of the dome. Rumors have it that black masses are celebrated in the basements of the church.

Third Edit: The Holy Grail

In front of the above-mentioned church, there are two statues, Faith and Religion. Faith is a woman with a chalice, and the legend say that wherever her gaze end, there is buried the Holy Grail.

Fourth Edit: Famous ghost

Palazzo Trucchi di Levaldigi is a wonderful palace in the city center, also known as Palazzo del Diavolo, the devil's palace. Legend says that an apprentice wizard dared in trying to summon Satan itself, which offended by this arrogance turned him into the ornate door of the building. Another legend of the same palace regard the time of the French occupation. A french nobleman was tasked with moving some important documents and stepped into the building, at the time a French Garrison, to eat; just to disappear without a trace. A skeleton was found in the walls of the building years later, during renovation works.

Another fact related to the palace. During a masquerade ball in the 1700 a ballerina was stabbed to death. Neither the culprit or the weapon were ever found. Since then people report noises and item moving around the building. The building is now a bank, and it has the highest turnover of night guards in the city.

Interesting bits from TPB:

The universe at least tries to enforce promises, bringing foul luck to oathbreakers. This has been diminishing.

Australia is already colonized with criminals, so it's after 1775. No sign of firearms.

The life-sucking machine works, eats 1 year of life from target to give 2 months to recipient. Was 2.4 months (20% -> 16% efficiency).

People born in Greenland are bigger than usual.

Shrieking eels are scarier than sharks.

Magic was already waning in 1775 (Miracle Max was retired).

Add this:

Ladyhawke Based on geographical, historical and astronomical facts, the film's action takes place in 1386, in Northern Italy, 36 years after the Black Death.

SPOILERS BELOW, DO NOT READ

Count Aglie' is this rich elderly dood who basically owns the split-up-italian-peninsula version of the playboy mansion, and publishes the split-up-italian-peninsula version of playboy. this in public. in private he either thinks he's the count of cagliostro, or is trying really hard to make people believe he is. in even more private, the mansion is built on a ley line. he wants to both use sympathetic magic to encourage people to be pervier, because he wants the church to lose influence around his lands, and to lay claim on that particualar leyline to use as a bargaining chip. Also life extension.

The Two Conspiracies: Tron and Bring Back Magic. The Counter Conspiracy: Age of Surveillance.

Quantum thingie: http://thebigbelltest.org/#/contribute?l=EN

BBM: Connect all the various crazy Templar Knight conspiracy theorists either by being a nexus or by making them talk rather than fight. Get them to build power lines on ley lines, cause an Europe-wide blackout on all conduits other than those, journey to CERN, and start the Pendulum of Foucualt there. This will bring magic back to the world. Confront the MCP, who will make an attempt to take over business networks.

TRON: Get all the various crazy conspiracy theorists to work towards universal connectivity (simple goal: free local calls, and enough net-connected BBSs that most everyone can call locally), find out about ENCOM's proprietary MCP mediated network stack plan, journey to San Fransokyo, infiltrate ENCOM, get the source released either officially or non, reactivate The Laser Scanner, use it to copy itself, get the copies back to Europe.

AoS: Same as TRON, but cooperate with ENCOM. Squash the conspiracy theorists, who will have gained some magic by an incomplete ritual, and rival hackers. Prevent this universe's version of 9/11 from happening, at the cost of pervasive surveillance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(short_story) waldo, other world power, magic is loose, 1942, heinlein