STREET MAGIC

THE SUMMARY:
This is a world not unlike our own, except for one thing: magic is real. Magic is dirty, magic is strange. Magic isn't something that those that 'know better' would touch with a ten foot pole. Magic is something that the damned, the outcasts, the poor, the weird, the downtrodden cling to because the world would sooner drown their voices out than lend them an ear. Magic is something that the weak use to give themselves second, third, even fourth chances at making it in a shitty fucking world. The day might belong to the rich and powerful, but the night: the night belongs to those who aren't afraid to embrace The Strange. The night belongs to the shelled-out churches at the edge of town, to the shadows fidgeting around every corner. The night belongs to us.

You guys are members of the 13th Street Lovers, the last coven that remembers when being a witch meant something more than territory or fame. Now that the city is less safe than ever, who better than you to help set it right where it went so wrong?

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CONCEPTS:

Witches
A witch isn't some practitioner of some old, ancient tradition or whatever. It's a lot simpler than that: a witch can tap into The Strange to do magic. Anyone can be a witch- man, woman, straight, queer, young, old, all of the above, some of the above, none- but folks that have been kicked around a few times tend to have an easier time of it than someone who's never had to work a day in their life. It's not biological, but it's not exactly something you have the privilege of getting to choose. Those that can work The Strange around are the ones who need it the most.

"The Strange"
The Strange is... well, strange. It's this sort of air, this sort of feeling you get- it's power. Some folks draw on it when they hear their favorite song resound throughout every cell in their body. Some folks draw on it in the throes of passion, with the feeling of a lover's breath on their skin. Some folks even draw on it when they feel like teaching some punk motherfucker what it means to piss a witch off. The Strange, whatever it is, is what makes a witch a witch: by drawing on it, people can... for lack of a better word, do magic. Things like healing up from nasty grievous injuries over the course of an evening, to slinging bolts of lightning down the interstate. No one knows what The Strange really is, but the brainiacs in the know seem to think it has to do with "the collective unconscious", whatever the fuck THAT means- most folks just care that it gives em the strength to not die for another day.

Magic
It's fucking magic. There's nothing to explain. It works just as well with a cauldron and sulfur and whatnot as it does with a night of hot sex and good music. It plays by nobody's rules. Desire appears to be the only thing that really gets it going, almost like that one shitty self-help book.

Covens
They're part street gangs, part found families, part cults? Only the devil knows where one part ends and the other begins. While these covens are technically criminal organizations, they're also the one place society's unwanted can run to for help, as well as the city's last defense against the things that go bump when the lights go dark. Technically, any group of witches is called a 'coven', but you're not REALLY a coven until you've got a leyline on your turf. Because then that means you can't be fucked with so easily.

Leylines
Not so much "lines" as they are "nodes", but the word "leyline" was already a thing before covens knew what to do with them. These are geographical points where The Strange's influence is strongest, almost like a wellspring of power. Usually, these places correspond to "places of power"- centers of trade, entertainment, and the like tend to give rise to leylines. Or is it the other way around?

Fiends
The Strange tends to reflect the hearts of the people that live in it, whether or not they have any sort of influence or power over it. Fiends tend to form when negative emotions or sentiment takes hold, with the Strange responding to that nasty mindset by crystallizing the badness into these awful creatures. Thankfully, just because they -come- from darkness doesn't mean magic and bullets don't work... The biggest and baddest of these things are called "Archfiends."

The Great Accession
This is when shit went south real quick. Ten years ago, a host of minor fiends, usually no big threat on their own, managed to pull an Archfiend out from The Strange itself. Lots of folks died that day, and a lot of the misery the Archfiend left in its wake, even after it was sealed away, in turn gave rise to even more fiends.

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THE COVENS:
13th Street Lovers
A once-legendary coven that (formerly) controlled all of the leylines moving in and out of St. Innsbruck, led by the equally-legendary
Kate "Hecate" Black. They haven't quite been the same ever since the Great Accession got their leader to up and quit, but who can blame her- she lost both her magic and her girlfriend that day. None of their original territory is theirs anymore, save for The Vicious Circle, a seedy nightclub/dive bar that they call "home". As far as anyone can tell, they're the only coven that still gives a shit about the city anymore.

- this whole concept, and by extension, the name of the coven came to me while i was listening to patti smith's "because the night"? specifically the garbage/screaming females cover. "the night belongs to lovers" etc.
- actually now that i think about it, Kate Black totally looks like marissa paternoster, or kinda rocks that aesthetic
- i'm not sure what they'd wear so that they're ID'd as a member of the Lovers. they're def punk rock as hell. is it too on the nose to have them wear leather jackets with a heart decal on the back, because part of me thinks so. maybe jewelry is their main identifying characteristic?
- the vicious circle is definitely in the red light district. it's almost certainly a strip club. the bar's owner is an ornery old Filipina woman in a wheelchair, and everyone affectionately calls her "Mama." nobody fucks with Mama.

The Richville All-Stars
These punks control the suburbs, and evolved out of the local all-girls private school. Led by the school's head cheerleader Beatrix Zhu, otherwise known as "Queen B", they're easily the largest active coven today, by the numbers. You'd think that them being a pack of spoiled rich kids would mean the other covens don't really take them all that seriously, but they've been expanding their territory at an alarming rate. As you might expect, their headquarters is the John Dee Girls' School Memorial Gym.

- varsity letterman jackets. cheerleader outfits.
- Queen B deffo drives an expensive car and has her inner circle ride around in it. They're the Plastics from Mean Girls, basically.
- Mostly manipulation/enchantment magic? Chants, songs, etc.. Queen B and her inner crew are really the only ones any good at it. The rest are basically thralls or whatever.

The Broadway Black Cats
The Lovers and the Black Cats used to go hand in hand back in the day, but ever since the Great Accession, there's some real bad blood between the two covens. They hold territory that can only be described as "the bad part of town"- nobody fucks with them. They're kind of hardcore, easily among the most violent of covens.

- the current black cats leader is, like. the younger sister of Kate Black's girlfriend, and that's why she fuckin hates the Lovers
- they can do magic hand-to-hand shit, like magic cat claws or whatever

The Fifth Avenue Royals
The heavy-hitters, with a magical legacy dating back to even before the Lovers made it big. These guys control the core of downtown, and extend their territory from the waterfront entertainment district all the way down to the city's financial center. Led by Jackie "Snake Eyes" Evans, a would-be contender for public office... as well as the owner of the Lucky 13, the largest casino in the region. Their headquarters is the elaborate, seven-star hotel built on top of the Lucky 13- specifically, the penthouse.

- they're really flashy. suits, dresses, jewelry... they look like serious mafia types.
- Snake Eyes definitely has a long pipe that she uses as a wand. She looks like a Final Boss type character. Whenever she walks in, smoke pours in from outside or whatever.
- ~FATE AND LUCK MAGIC~

The Malleus Maleficarum
After the Great Accession, the public immediately shifted the blame for the incident on the covens. The city decided to fund a modern-day inquisition to crack down on magic-related crime, and who better to hunt witches than other witches?

- they're like... witch cops? witch detectives? they fight witch crime.
- okay i got nothing else for this, 'they fight witch crime' is a perfect sentence.
- one of the MM is probably a boy scout goofball detective. he is a Good Cop through and through. he totally has a magical girl transformation sequence but fuck, he owns it and looks cool doing it.