Crescent Moon is a monsterheart games set in the world of the Black Door. This doc is a primer about the meta of the world, since it differs greatly from the general Meta of the Black Door. Crescent Moon is an Urban Fantasy centered around supernatural teens and a small town, as opposed to the larger political/action feel of the bigger world.
Setting
Crescent Bay is a town on the Oregon coast, built around what is believed to be a meteor impact long ago. It was settled around 1855, in a region that was notably abscent of a native population (In fact, the indiginous population forbid travelling within sight of the bay, citing is as cursed.) Settlers originally hoped the railroad would travel up to the coast through their town. This was never meant to be, and was the first of many financial disapointments that have come to define the area. It is locally considered to be one of the most unlucky towns in Oregon.
More than two and a half centuries later, any luck that visited the town didn't stay long. The economy is in shambles, with local industries receeding at a historic rate leaving a large swath of the population unemployed and empovershed. Some local business are thriving, but nobody knows where the money is coming from. Crime is flouroushing, with rumors abounding of an organized criminal underworld. People have gone missing, no bodies found. And the high school football team hasn't won a game in more than twenty years.
Crescent Bay is divided into three clear economy castes. There are the blue collars, who have lost the most in the recent recession, pushed out to the lowlands on the other side of the tracks, prone to flooding, known as the Wrongs. There are the white collars, largely employed at the University. And there are those who live up in the Heights, the gated community in the foothills of the mountains.
The Devils Bend River flows into the bay from the east, splitting the town into two halves. A railway runs along the coast and through the town, crossing a the river on the east side of town. A small regional airfield is on the south end of town. To the south is a lake commonly used for recreation. A number of trails are available nearby for hiking.
Crescent Bay is an isolated town, two hundred miles from the nearest international airport. The nearest big box store is in Eugene, an hour and a half drive away. A few smaller towns are along to coast providing competition for local sports teams.
Various facts informing the area:
- The town is isolated, hours away from a major airport. The players are isolated as well, by their oddities, from both their family but also their communities. This place is new and unwelcoming. Help is not available, nor is escape.
- The town is largely white, with maybe a tenth of the town being Latino, and less than five percent combined of others. Outside of the University, it is an intolerant place, one where it doesn't feel safe to be out at night if you're anything but a white cis male.
- People are disappearing around town, and nobody knows why. Rumors are the feds might get called in.
- Something weird is going on here, and nobody can explain it. People who used to know you forget you exist easily. Nobody who leaves Crescent Bay comes back often, and never to stay.
- The town is in dire economic straits. One out of four people are unemployed.
- The game should never leave the town for more than a day trip. Leaving the town on a larger scale means leaving the game.
Tone
Dark, magical. The town is superstitous. Despite the rocky economic conditions people stay, feeling like there is nowhere else to go. The town is shrouded in secrecy, with buried truths waiting to be discovered. Dark things came here long ago to hide, things that wake up now and again to feed. The authorities are oppressive and the alternative only wants the worst for you.
Recurring Themes
You're the new kid, ripe for bullying, an easy target with no friends to shield you. The town has you trapped, with limited opportunities and real consequences, you can see how it's worked out for many of the locals. You're a freak, there is nobody like you and if they found out who knows what would happen. Many people think this place is a beautiful haven from the real world, but you see it for what it is, a prison.
It's a weird and dangerous place, and that's only going to get worse in the days that come.
Story
You and the other players have been 'accepted' into the Saint Cyprian Academy, a special school attached to the local private University. It is rumored to be for special students, most of the townies thing this means weirdos of some sort, maybe even psychiatric patients. By association,
you are already on the outs with everyone in town.
The game will start in the summer prior to the 'first season', where all the characters are introduced to the 'show'. You can either be a local who has always been on the outs, or a new kid. If you're so inhuman you can't fit in, you'll have been captured when the game begins. If you don't have a family, social services will have given you a choice between the academy or a worse outcome. Otherwise your family moved here for some reason and this was your best educational opportunity, whether you like it or not.
Your economic and social status is important, as is race and sexuality. It is only cool to be white and straight (and listed to Country/western or Nickleback) here.
Decide which of the groups your family belongs to. If you're a ghost who died a hundred years ago, decide where you belonged back then. If you're a river spirit, you'll have some weird family that lives in a trailer by the river and doesn't socialize much. If you're from a rich family in the Heights, you're a rich weirdo that keeps you on the fringes of wealthy society and leaves you vulnerable to all the resentment the town has built up. If you're playing 'the queen' something about you really puts people off while simultaneously attracting them to you, perhaps you just scare them.
You're not ancient, even if you're an immortal spirit of some sort. You're a
teenager, with the emotional maturity of one. If you're a vampire, your new. If you're a ghost, you were stuck and recently became unstuck. If you're a djinn, you were in a bottle until now. You get the idea.
While the game is built around exploring sexuality,
don't defuse the power of sexual tension by utilizing it too often. Ratched it up as high as you can before pulling the trigger. Then get weird about it to bring that tension back. Otherwise the game will become unbearably silly.
The world is built around different factions at odds with each other. Just because the world is working against you, don't expect them to be working together.
Feel
There will be dramatic twists and turns, but things will largely reset back to normal between adventures. There will a monster-of-the-week vibe to it, with local mysteries you'll be motivated to solve while simultaenously having to survive your normal life. Your relationships will always be front and center: with each other, your town, your families, and your elders.
Sometimes bands will come play in town. They will conspicuously be signed by the same company who runs the network where this show runs. All the characters will be excited to see them play. It will be awkward.
At the end of each episode there will be a pop song covered by a suitably emo band or classical quartet, it will take you a second to realize what it is. Then it will seem clever. You will think about adding it to your playlists. Then there will be a cut scene and some bland episode scoring. You will forget about it unless someone else brings it up.
Agency
Characters should feel trapped in the town, constantly judged and pushed around by people who don't understand them. They have to hide who they are, with dire consequences if they are found out. They should feel marganilized by the town, not quite fitting in to any popular scene.
Lack of agency is one of the driving forces of the world, with the characters monstrous powers allowing them to lash out in unsafe ways. Forces that be will be keeping an eye on you, though, waiting for any tiny slip that reveals you as unredeemable. Your parents and your friends don't understand what you're going through, they don't know the things you know, and couldn't handle it if they did.
Inspiration
This world is based on my hometown, Arcata California. Arcata was a fascinating place with lots of dark corners. It was filled with weirdos, had large swathes of forest around it that felt unexplored, and was often shrouded in a thick fog. It was a place torn between two worlds, a logging town run by salt of the earth people and a university full of high minded liberal scholors.
In short, a wonderful place to run a game about monstrous sexuality and otherness.
It is also seeded by Twilight and many of the works of Steven King. TV shows and movies like Twin Peaks, Riverdale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Legacies, Veronica Mars, Vampire Diaries, The Craft, Riverdale have also also been mixed in to give it more flavor.
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