“It isn’t the incompetent who destroy an organization. The incompetent never get into a position to destroy it. It is those who have achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up.” – Charles E. Sorensen (1956) My Forty Years with Ford, New York, New York, USA: Norton. p. 51
Now we get to the actual deeper details of the setting, the important organisations and people active in Whistleleaf City. THIS SECTION IS FOR THE GM ONLY. Players, don’t spoil yourselves. I had to split this overall chapter into multiple posts due to how much content it turned out to be. Yay?
Please note; some important NPCs are not supposed to be combatants, so they won’t get a full character sheet to accompany them. Instead, they will have some short and simple notes on relevant Traits for their “role.” If combat actually breaks out with these non-combatant NPCs involved (how unlucky for them), just assume they have average and unremarkable Traits (Attributes 10, defaults in fighting skills, etc.) and they will flee the fight ASAP, leaving the combat to actual worthies (see previous posts on Generic NPCs).
Also note that many important organisations and their locations will not have full stats (the kind given in Boardroom & Curia) and/or detailed maps of the place. (Not in this post, anyway. If push comes to shove and I have free time later, I may put out such things in future posts. Don’t count on it, though.) If you need full maps for a location, I recommend tracking down the Critical Locations supplement for D20 Modern – I have used it extensively in the past for campaigns I’ve run. Alternatively, there is a subreddit that I also recommend for location maps, see https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps.
Whistleleaf City Administration
“There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don’t even have to exaggerate.” – Will Rogers. P.J. O’Brien, Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom, chapter 9, p. 157 (1935)
These NPCs are deeply involved in Whistleleaf City’s legal, judicial and administrative branches of government.
Mayor Kenneth Lowman
Whistleleaf City’s Political Leader, age 57.
The current mayor of Whistleleaf City, Kenneth Lowman, is a successful businessman who made his fortune off wise investments in his 30s and now commands an excellent portfolio of connections, safe nest eggs and institutional respect. He is happily married with two children in their late teens. He’s an aging tall Caucasian man with pearly white teeth, greying but neatly trimmed brown hair and green eyes, usually wearing neutral-colored suits displaying an American flag lapel.
What Lowman can bring to bear is his political network, wealth, favors from out of town (he is in good with the state government and some tech companies), and a certain degree of legal authority. However, he is perceived as “elite” in a town that prides itself on being populist, and he does not prioritise his job as mayor or care for the city over his private interests (this has had negative consequences for both the city and his reputation in the past). His well-honed survival instincts win out over actual civic-mindedness every time.
The mayor presents himself as a moderate and reformer, but a closer inspection reveals he is bankrolled by dark money and has failed to address rising drug problems. He mostly has to deal with the council, half of which promotes the interest of the logging company because it’s the biggest employer in town (and also maybe related to them); the ossified police chief, who has been around *forever* and thinks he really runs this town; the college, which is a crucial source of skilled labor but has some town-and-gown conflict with the blue collar locals; state and federal authorities bickering over highways, environmental issues, and all that jazz; and several wealthy occultists trying to get his backing under the table in case of a covert conflict within The Scene. Kenneth Lowman is not Clued-In to The Scene, but he is aware that some kind of strangeness is at work in Whistleleaf and that it might be a force to reckon with. His first instinct is to ignore it, cover it up and take cover if it looks like trouble is brewing. The mayor could be convinced, however, to take a more heavy-handed reaction, to quietly suppress “rogue elements” interfering with the gravy train.
Relevant Traits: Status 4; Wealth (Filthy Rich); Administrative Rank 6; Politics-15; Administration-15; Public Speaking-15; Savoir-Faire (High Society)-15.
Councilman Robert Carlyle
Fortunate Son Fading Away, age 65.
Robert Carlyle is the mayor’s chief antagonist on the city council. Carlyle is the former mayor, scion of the logging company, enjoys good ol’ boy connections throughout the county, and has not enough experience or savvy to make proper use of these assets. There’s a reason he lost the election. But he’s a useful tool for cannier conspirators. He has an established “friendship” with the police chief that mostly revolves around the councilman’s marriage into the right family and the chief’s vain concern for status. The police chief can’t be fired without a majority vote of city council and literally knows where all the bodies are buried, so the councilman makes sure to keep him close and in the loop no matter what he’s planning. Right now, Carlyle is trying to “keep the plates spinning” as he tries to claw his way back into a higher position while satisfying the demands of his blue blood family, his political allies and the shareholders. Robert Carlyle is a miserable-looking man, sunken brown eyes with bags under them, blonde hair badly balding and bleaching, pale skin wrinkling under stress. He has quietly alienated his wife and adult children over the years, they have either moved out or rarely talk to him in private now. All he’s really got left is his social obligations and the pride he feels when he sees his name honoured on a plaque or billboard.
The councilman has a weakness that not even he is aware of; he’s dying. The cause of death will be a curse laid upon his family many decades ago. When the time comes, he will simply “switch off” and leave behind only an inert mass of flesh. The few occultists who have allied with him are the only ones aware of this death curse, and they have chosen to keep it quiet for now. They figure this juicy little tidbit will make for a good bargaining chip down the road but it’s useless to them now.
Relevant Traits: Divine Curse (Terminally Ill, magical); Selfish (15); Status 5; Administrative Rank 5; Wealth (Multimillionaire 1); Ally Group (many); Contact Group (business).
Judge Peter Otis
On the Trail of Something Rotten, age 60.
The Honorable Peter Otis is a seasoned judge and legal professional in Whistleleaf’s criminal-justice system. The judge worked his way up to his position thanks to a well-performed 3-decades-long career as a criminal courtroom lawyer. He is a stern-looking, always neat and tidy, stoic Caucasian man entering old age. His wife died just 3 years prior, and Otis sometimes wonders if he’s really handling well enough to keep doing his job. His health has remained steady, despite fears of taking a turn for the worse.
The judge is a good man dedicated to doing his job right. Politically, however, he finds himself backed into a corner – not enough of the administration cares to hear him out. He is not aware of The Scene yet, but he is slowly putting the pieces together, working out that something funny is going on just from his caseload. When he does manage to figure out the general truth, he’ll try to secretly right the ship with indirect means like covertly funding and putting in anonymous tips to those who can act against the hidden evils at play. Righteous PCs operating in secret may find themselves a mysterious backer with an oddly in-depth backdoor access to legal cases and government databases. He won’t like breaking the law for the greater good, but he’ll also know that openly crusading against supernatural corruption is a non-starter.
Relevant Traits: Law (Police)-16; Detect Lies-14; Criminology-14; Administrative Rank 5; Status 4.
District Attorney Paul Loomis
Wanna-Be Psychic Dictator, age 42.
The DA of Whistleleaf City is a ticking time bomb. On the surface, Paul Loomis is a perfectly respectable pillar of the community from a good family, who loves his wife and does a good job as a prosecutor of the state. Loomis is an outwardly friendly and cool-headed tall Caucasian man with rich black hair styled back and welcoming blue eyes. Behind closed doors, he is a shark in human skin, eager to dominate. His wife and occupation are nothing but tools and possessions to him, useful but nothing sacred. His good track record and happy marriage is owned more to his secret knowledge of magic than his mastery of law and social skills.
Born into a wealthy family that had secretly cultivated a library of genuine occult lore for 3 generations, Paul Loomis spent a good portion of his youth learning the ropes of ritual magic. He arrogantly believes he is a master of magic in the region, and dismisses any other magician he encounters as an unworthy dabbler. His biggest obsession by far is mind control magic. The DA is always on the lookout for any Rituals or alchemy that can suborn a person’s mind to his will, and daydreams endlessly about making everyone around him dance like puppets on strings to his tune. So far, his search for this power has been slow-going but he refuses to give up.
Relevant Traits: Secret (malevolent magician, imprisonment); Megalomania (12); Single-Minded; Law (Police)-15; Research-15; Psychology-13; Police Rank 4; Status 4; Wealth (Wealthy); Occultism-14; Current Affairs (Supernatural)-12; Ritual Magic (Books)-16; Book (Howe’s Primer)-15; Ritual Technique (Suggestion)-15; Ritual Technique (Cloud Memory)-13.
Criminals
“Any time you think of a decent crime, there are fifty ways to fuck it up. If you can think of twenty-five, you’re a genius.” – Teddy Lewis, Body Heat.
The wrong side of the law in Whistleleaf City is not necessarily related to The Scene, but there’s not denying that the occult underground has no problem inter-mingling with “black collar” scum, even if the criminal element at large has no real idea of the truth about the unnatural.
Common criminal activity in Whistleleaf revolves around the illicit drug trade (the regional favorites right now are opioids and marijuana), theft or robbery (a pacific northwest spin on it is timber theft, wherein a “wildcat operation” illegally clear-cuts a few acres of forest under the nose of the proper authorities), illegal gambling (from bookies to underground casinos), loansharking (often done by local gangs rather than any regional mafia), bribery (local cops take payoffs from street criminals and higher ups get wined and dined by big business lobbyists), and minor gang wars (conflicts between occultists often get mislabeled as this by the unaware public).
In addition, there is at least one serial killer operating in Whistleleaf (this can be William Hernandez as detailed in the blog post https://tabletoprpg333.home.blog/2022/04/10/the-kings-head-tavern-pt-3/ or it can be Adam Rhodes detailed below) and, thanks to The Scene, kidnapping even without ransom demands is on the rise (occultists want human sacrifices and monsters want fresh meat, so they hire criminals to grab people off the street). People in The Scene often go to the black market for unlicensed weapons and other deeply illegal goods and services like ordering assassinations or buying restricted chemicals.
Biker Gang: The Deathless Knives
This “1%-er” outlaw motorcycle club operates out of a fortified private compound located at the outer limits of the city, near the highway. Their internal organization consists of a president, a vice-president, a treasurer, a secretary, a road captain, a sergeant-at-arms and 30 full-patch members. Their full-patch members can be statted as Crooks (previous post on Generic NPCs) with a subtype of thug, smuggler or street thief (only certain members are dealers/bootleggers assigned to handle the drug business), taking the non-Secret Disadvantages package, changing Driving skill specialty to Motorcycle and their gear now includes a TL 7 Heavy Bike (B464). They mostly involve themselves in the illegal drug trade but have no problems with branching out to any other kind of criminal enterprise. Members have been involved with prostitution, moon-shining, contract killing, grand theft auto, extortion, armed robbery, arson, bombings, assault, counterfeiting and money laundering. Their MC logo is a stylized hunting knife dripping with blood and their gang colors are red and white. None of them are involved in The Scene so far, but conflict with this or that occultist is certainly possible.
Molly Tillman
Hired Killer, age 26.
Molly Tillman is an anti-social and unremarkable-looking woman living a superficially quiet life by herself in the city’s upscale neighborhood. Nobody suspects her of being a murderer for hire. She has a decent poker face. She had a terrible childhood in a rough neighbourhood, and learned all the wrong lessons from it. Inspired by the lucrative violence all around her, she has spent her entire life sharpening her skills at covert murders in the hope of turning it into a good source of income. She has done so. Most of her Whistleleaf contracts come from local drug dealers, taking out competition and inconvenient obstacles to profit. She’s horribly proud of her “solid” track record for both results and keeping her mouth shut. (What she and her clients do not know, is that she has actually eliminated people involved in The Scene, who got in the way of mundane criminals.) Her usual method is to sneak into her target’s home or workplace and then either sabotaging something dangerous with her technical knowledge, planting a bomb or poisoning their food. She may resort to simply shooting them in the back with a suppressed pistol, stabbing them or garroting them is she thinks she can get a good opening when they’re alone and exposed. She is quite good at cleaning up the crime scene after herself. She demands a hefty payment delivered right on time – failure to follow through on the buyer’s side of the contract will be punished in a predictable manner…
Adam Rhodes
Serial Killer Puppet, age 31.
Once upon a time, Adam Rhodes was a perfectly decent fellow. He is a sturdy, tanned, good-looking man with soft brown hair and eyes, working a day job as a mailman. He grew up in Whistleleaf City and has lived here all his life, established as a pillar of the community. He currently has no girlfriend or family, he has never married.
But then one fateful night, he found himself walking around an old abandoned house looking for his missing dog when a malign supernatural entity jumped out at him from the shadows. Something went wrong that night, leaving Adam twisted and broken inside. Something dark has invaded his mind and occasionally manages to puppet his body. Now, Adam stalks the city’s less reputable districts at night under the control of a demon, looking for the next victim. He never remembers much from these nights, his memory blurred and his lightly scarred body only giving vague hints of the horrible deeds. So far, the police have not identified him as the perp, nor have the people in The Scene caught onto the demon’s plans to use Adam’s body as a murder weapon. What the murder victims all have in common is that they were all working on a certain alchemical elixir recipe (a powerful and rare one) at the time of their death – the demon wants to suppress the knowledge of the potion at all costs. The demon is a canny hunter but technologically naive. It is mostly luck that the demon has avoided leaving behind actionable forensic evidence or a giveaway clue. Adam has not yet noticed the demon’s strength, hunting instincts and martial skill flowing through him.
NOTE: the character sheet for Adam Rhodes does not detail the demon possessing him. Assume it still lurks within the abandoned house and controls Adam from afar, partly imbuing him with unnatural boosts to his skills and attributes while also fogging his mind. When it assumes direct control of Adam, it does not need to roll anything to do so (it already got its hooks into his metaphysical being back when it first encountered him) and it has the relevant Disadvantages of Sadism (12), Callous and Obsession (long term, destroy all knowledge of a specific elixir).
TO BE CONTINUED
Three Hundred and Thirty-Three 