Using Damnation City for a Victorian Game
"Ludgate Hill - A block in the Street" by Gustave Doré used via public domain
Damnation City is a book chock full of concepts that can be used across all World of Darkness supernatural types and time periods. Although it was written with a focus on Vampire: the Requiem and the modern age, much of what it contains is surprisingly malleable and requires minimal tweaking. But it is also such a long and densely packed book that it can be difficult to know where to begin. One of the meatier sections describes evocative sites in just about any city, and it is too useful to ignore for an urban game - but the world has changed in the last century or so, and some of the things we think we know about the Victorian era are wrong. While reviewing the sites, I automatically wrote many of them off as being unreasonable, only to find through my research that they existed for much of Victoria's reign.
Many of the sites are going to be largely the same as they are described in the book. The brothel, for instance, would actually make for a middle to upper-class house of prostitution in Victorian England; many of them were more like the Badlands Motel. Other sites only need a couple of changes. The different kinds of hospitals will quickly dispel the notion of any kind of 'central' and 'general' health care. Some of the sites started springing up after a particular date, like private detective offices, but other places just don't date back that far in history, like the idea of a laundromat. Below are easy reference lists for you to consider. For full statistics, see Damnation City pages 273-330.
Change the Following
Army Surplus Store: This was a subscription service open only to higher-ranked service people and widows of officers. The stores handled a variety of things, from groceries to guns to travel furniture/supplies.
City General Hospital: There were charity-run hospitals run by volunteers and unpaid doctors, and they would turn away those who couldn’t pay or be vouched for, those chronically ill, and the mentally ill. Specialist hospitals sprang up to handle particular and usually very contagious diseases. Workhouse hospitals were the worst in cleanliness and care but were the only hope for many. Asylums for the mentally ill were entirely separate from the aforementioned hospital types. Mid-century, hospitals started to include their own pharmacies, kitchens, laundries, mortuaries, and chapels.
Coal Tunnels: These would have been used and active rather than abandoned.
Crematorium: Though the poor were often burned after a period of internment, cremation was limited and many resisted the practice on religious grounds (namely Christian beliefs). The first crematorium in England was built in 1879 and was only used a handful of times a year from 1885 through the end of the century.
Hidden Temple: Mystical groups seeking esoteric knowledge were accepted as upper-crust affairs, rather like many other "secret" societies, and wouldn't have had to be hidden. Some had libraries of their own, though only inner circle members were likely to know anything of real value.
Hot Dog Cart: Coastal locations and cities like London had fish as their local “fast food,” usually centered in districts nearest the water.
Illegal Sweatshop: While conditions in most Victorian factories would seem bad by modern standards, a truly illegal sweatshop in Victorian England would have been one in which a labor law was being wilfully broken, such as age and hour restrictions. The description of the sweatshop in the book is a good one for the basic Victorian factory floor.
Library: Libraries were mainly by subscription, with rare free lending libraries by mid-century.
Limo Service: See notes on modes of travel (to come).
Penthouse Condo Haven: High society supernaturals would need to maintain at least the illusion of keeping lavish rooms at the top of some building, though it wouldn’t have had nearly as many stories as modern buildings; such accommodations could be rented, especially during The Season when the affluent came to the city from the countryside.
Photo Studio: By mid-century, most metro areas had photo studios.
Private Detective Agency: The first agencies were set up in the mid-1850s.
Shooting Range: While the NRA started in England in 1859 and there were annual meetups mainly for the wealthy, shooting ranges and gun clubs didn’t become popular until c. 1900, when private clubs spread.
Repertoire Cinema: By the mid-1890s cinemas started to pop up and moving pictures were becoming popular; they were usually focused on non-fiction documentaries and news, however.
Tenement Squat: Such a building would have been full of the poorest citizens, with a dozen to a bed, and would have been called a rookery. Some rookeries only took up the topmost or bottommost floors of a building, with passages in between.
Roller Rink: While roller skating rinks existed from around the mid-1870s, skates were expensive until they started to be mass-produced by the end of the century. A few ice skating rinks were also around.
Taxi Dispatch: See notes on modes of travel (to come).
University Hematology Lab: While blood transfusions were being done and experimented with in order to treat blood diseases, the Victorians were not aware of blood typing or how to prevent clotting and had no reliable means of storing blood.
Zoo: The London Zoo wasn’t open to the public until 1847.
Remove the Following
24-Hour Laundromat: Washing was done at home, often on Monday since there were likely to be leftovers from the food on Sunday and fresh cooking wouldn't be needed.
Abandoned Factory: Most factories were being used or were converted for other industries rather than left empty.
All-You-Can-Eat Buffet: There were many mealhouses, often divided up by one’s profession as much as means, but they did not serve endless food.
Community College: These didn’t exist, though universities like the University of London started in the 1830s and eventually admitted women, as London did in 1878.
Dojo: There was an attempt to teach a mixed martial art called Bartitsu at the very end of the century, but it did not catch on and died out within several years, taking the founder’s school with it.
Elephant Graveyard: Decommissioned trains were usually reused or repurposed.
Gray-Market Electronics Shop
Mechanic’s Shop
Neighborhood Gas Station
Tech-Sector Office
Underground Parking Lot: Vehicles were not generally stored underground.
Used Car Dealership: Vehicles were rare and valuable enough that they tended to exchange hands privately.
"Old Kent Road Baths" by Leonard Bentley (resized) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Turkish Bath House
Type
Commercial (though a few were residential; see below)
Description
The basic floor plan consisted of 2 to 3 dry heated rooms through which customers would walk at their own pace, each room hotter than the last and inducing sweat by the end. Then there would be a cold shower or a plunge into a pool of water, followed by a massage and a full body wash (called “shampooing”), and ending with reclining in a cool room. While some of the bathhouses were more practical than pretty, a number of them were set up as lavish palaces of leisure. Before the development of better electric fans in the 1880s, however, the air in the heated areas of most baths was stale and laden with sweat a majority of the time.
The theme of the Turkish bath was relief and release. Time was spent away from the home, outside of the workplace, and clear of church or social obligations. If friends or acquaintances were present, it was an opportunity to catch up or hatch schemes. If alone, a fortuitous stranger might have appeared to pass the hour. The chance for some quiet time could help clear the mind, as well. And while the baths were segregated by sex, that hardly meant that sexual tension was absent, though it was certainly forbidden and dangerous to indulge in too much or too openly. At least, in most public bathhouses. Private baths might have been another thing entirely.
History
Turkish baths reached London in 1860 and spread in popularity throughout the Empire until just after World War I. They became a way to wash the masses and offer indoor access to water and relaxation. Suggested as a treatment for common afflictions like gout, arthritis, and poor temper, the baths were originally meant to let all classes of English society mingle and to help the poor with sanitation. But they were swiftly stratified into First and Second Class accommodations and priced out of range for most of the lower class. Some baths were forbidden from opening on Sunday, which was the one day off most poor people had. The baths were further divided by gender (either in different facilities, different days of the week, or particular service times). When bathhouses were dedicated only to serving women, they tended to be smaller and not as well appointed.
Despite warnings from some doctors, public Turkish baths were plentiful and often positioned near railway stations, but they were also installed in hotels, hospitals, and select private residences. Few were ever built in the worst sections of a city, and generally they were touted as a way for women to beautify themselves for their men. Though they remained a past-time of the middle and upper classes, the baths were places where people intermingled either on a regular basis or at least a few times a year.
Activity
Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., prices were typically higher and the clientele elevated and sparse, mainly older people or visitors to the city. After 4 and until closing at 10 p.m. (or sometimes as late as midnight), prices might be reduced and the patrons might be middle to lower class. The busiest time was between 4 until 8 p.m., when most people got out of work. The baths were open year-round.
Significant Storyteller Character
William/Wilhelmina, favored shampooer (Politics 2, Empathy 3, Subterfuge 3)
Extras
Rough-handed operator of the showers/cold pool, deferential shampooer, gregarious owner/proprietor (sometimes a woman whose husband originally started the business), political aspirants conversing in a corner, best friends sharing gossip, couple eyeing each other across the room, strangers trying to help each other relax.
Hostile Encounters
Garroters look to rob wealthy patrons leaving the establishment. A vampire uses the baths as a feeding ground. A customer accuses a character of stealing their clothes. A gentleman accuses a character of staring too long, offending his honor. In an older model bathhouse, the heat comes from below the floor and burns anyone who falls and can’t get up fast enough.
Locations
The front lobby, the locker and disrobing area, the three heated rooms, the dipping room, the shampooing room (+2 to attempts to harvest Glamour, which is almost invariably desire-based), the reclining area (-1 to detect falsehoods, -1 to Initiative if you've gone through the entire bathing ritual).
Stories
Use the bathhouse as a covert but public meeting place. Pick up a partner for business, pleasure, or a meal. Intimidate a target’s favorite shampooer into revealing secrets they’ve heard. Blackmail the operator of the bath with the threat of spreading rumors of disease.
Traits
Size: 3, Security 1, Location 2, Advantages: +1 Persuasion, +1 Socialize, +1 to meditation rolls, Status 2 - 3 (depending on where it is), Durability 55, Structure 2. (Please see Damnation City for more information. And because it's awesome.)
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