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Welcome to Rough Magic

Camaret-sur-Mer

In Bretagne, at the northwest tip of France in the Franco-Prussian Empire, lies the appropriately-named region of Finistère, or "Land's End". On a rocky base of very resistant (quartz) sandstone known as the Peninsula of Crozon rests the city of Camaret-sur-Mer.

Camaret-sur-Mer is the setting of Rough Magic, a film noir role-playing game of magic, mystery, and guns. Fog enshrouded cobblestone streets wind between Camaret-sur-Mer's tall art deco and gothic skyscrapers, and mysterious figures skulk beneath gargoyles, ornate ledges, and other architectural flourishes. Disreputable characters on streetcorners sell cheap amulets and potions to those who want love, protection, or success. In the sky above, grand passenger zeppelins carry the well-to-do to far off ports like St. Petersburg, Istanbul, and New York. In the city below, the monorail zips and winds its way, connecting Camaret-sur-Mer to the rest of the Empire, from Berlin to Rome, from Paris to London.

Districts

Being a very large and very old city, Camaret-sur-Mer is divided unevenly into various districts. While the centers of each are easy to find, the borders between one district and the next are sometimes less than obvious, even for the people who live there. These are social divisions, not geographical divisions.

Garment District

The semi-industrial Garment District is home to few, but provides honest (if grueling) work to most of Camaret-sur-Mer's Chinese immigrants and semi-literate poor. The district is dominated by sweatshops where men, women, and children work long hours for a few marks a week - not much, to be sure, but it's better than living in Shanghai, and much better than starving.

Lucarre

Camaret-sur-Mer is surrounded by docks, marinas, and piers, but the bulk of Camaret-sur-Mer's sea trade passes through the wharfs and warehouses of Lucarre. It is a rough neighborhood full of rough taverns frequented by rough people, and even the residents do not travel the night streets alone if they can help it.

Petit Chin

Wedged between the Garment District and warrens of Lucarre lies Petit Chin, home to the city's many Chinese immigrants. It is a poor but honest neighborhood, for the most part, but anyone of European ancestry is unlikely to feel welcome there.

Roscanvel

Nearly a city in its own right, Roscanvel is home to the countless families whose lives are devoted to fishing the Bay. Although part of Camaret-sur-Mer proper, Roscanvel is an insular working-class community with little interest in the wealthy and powerful of Saint Barbe, and little tolerance for the hoodlums that call the Lucarre district home.

Saint Barbe

The white cliffs of Saint Barbe are home to Camaret-sur-Mer's wealthiest citizens. Not a few Parisians and favorites of the Imperial Court have summer homes here.

Language

French is the official language of the Franco-Prussian Empire, and it is assumed to be the native tongue for people living in Camaret-sur-Mer. German is a second language for most people, and Spanish and English are unusual but not unknown (even in England, most educated people speak French). To the south is the Ottoman Republic, where people speak Turkish: a few people in Camaret-sur-Mer speak Turkish, but it's rare. Far to the east is the Russian Federation, which is host to a wide variety of different languages, few of which are spoken in Camaret-sur-Mer (outside of small reclusive ethnic communities).

For Rough Magic, we will gloss over the language issue unless it makes for an interesting scene.

Magic

The Franco-Prussian Empire was pitted against the Ottoman Republic in a bitter war that ended nearly 20 years ago. Camaret-sur-Mer, being far from the front, was spared most of the ravages of that war. Still, the consequences of the war were felt even here. Magic, which had been largely the domain of reclusive scholars, jazz musicians, and military warmages, played a large part in the defeat of the Ottoman Republic. As a result, after the war ended the Empire wanted to make sure that it maintained a monopoly on magic.

Practicing magic is illegal in Camaret-sur-Mer unless one has a license from the Imperial Magick Association, and even then a Licensed Thaumaturge must be careful and submit reports of what magic she casts upon whom and why. Anyone who does not adhere strictly to the IMA's guidelines risks having their certification revoked, and possibly faces criminal charges. Those who are convicted are sent along with the worst of Camaret-sur-Mer's criminals to The Keep, an ominous granite fortress built on and into an island just off the coast.

Throughout the Empire, about a million people are arrested by the Crown each year on magic-related charges, and about a quarter of those spend time in prison as a result. Mandatory minimum sentences mean that a convicted street mage (or "hex pusher"), or even someone convicted of possessing more than a half-dozen good-fortune amulets, faces more time in prison than a convicted mundane murderer ("Just say no to hex!"). Even so, the services of magicians are available to anyone willing to venture into unsavory neighborhoods, or who have the money required for a high-class "hexmaster" to make a housecall.

Technology

Technology in the world where Camaret-sur-Mer resides is roughly equivalent to that of our world in the 1960s, with minor differences. There is no nuclear power or nuclear weapons, but there is a curse called the Ritual of Devastation that was used by the Empire to destroy two cities in the Ottoman Republic at the end of the Ottoman War. The Ritual of Devastation is an Imperial state secret, but it is common knowledge that spies have smuggled the formula out of the Empire and that now both the Russian Federation and the Ottoman Republic have it.

There are no jets, but there are large passenger zeppelins in the skies above Camaret-sur-Mer, docking at skyports at the top of artistically-sculptured skyscrapers. High-speed trains span the continent, even passing over the Alps to the Russian Federation and the Ottoman Republic. There are rockets, but these are used for entertainment rather than in warfare (in fireworks, and to power rocket-boats in races). Automobiles are expensive but fairly common, and may run on either petrol or electricity. Public transportation is provided by plentiful buses, which are owned by private individuals or companies that are licensed to operate by the municipality (much like taxis are in large cities in the USA). Buses come in all sizes, from station wagons to huge double-decker monstrosities.

Cameras, radios, and tape recorders are bulky devices, rarely smaller than a breadbox -- a large breadbox. Semiconductor technology has not been invented, meaning that what few electronic devices have been invented use vacuum tubes rather than transistors or integrated circuits. Computers exist, but they are huge, fragile, and horribly expensive machines. It is said that the Czarina of Russia is given an ornately jeweled computer each year on her birthday by the Faberge family, and that each of these computers is an expert on a single subject.

Religion

The state religion of the Franco-Prussian Empire is the Gallican Catholic Church, which places ultimate earthly authority in the person of the Emperor (whose authority is, by Divine will, inviolate), and reserves to the Pope in Avignon authority only over spiritual matters. Further, papal authority is limited by the authority of the general council and that of the bishops, who alone can give to his decrees that infallible authority which, of themselves, they lack.

In practice, the Gallican Catholic Church has been a tool and servant of the Empire, promoting policies the Emperor wants promoted and denouncing those the Emperor wants denounced. The submission of the Church to the Empire has caused some to question the validity of the Church. This is at the heart of the persistent unrest in Ireland, and is one of the many obstacles to friendly Imperial relations with the Russian Federation.

Unsanctioned religions are practiced in the Empire, of course. These include Russian Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, a variety of Protestant Christian sects, and a larger number of small and secretive non-Christian sects and cults. These religions have no formal standing in the Empire, and as such they do not have the political and financial support that the Gallican Catholic Church has, but they are not illegal and are not subject to official censure or persecution as long as they refrain from criticizing the Empire and the Gallican Church.

Magic and the Church

The official stand of the Gallican Church is that hex use is a sin unless it is done by the will of the Emperor (who rules with the sanction of God), or it is the result of an answered prayer (in which case it is not "hex", but a "miracle"). It goes without saying that the prayers of priests, who are closer to God and better trained in what He wants to hear, are more likely to be heard and answered than the prayers of the laity. In the eyes of the Church use of magic without the sanction of the Church or the Emperor is an abomination, because it seeks to overrule the will of God with the will of Man. Such attempts are doomed to fail, even though they may appear to be successful in the short run.

War and the Church

Religious militant orders exist at the sufferance of the Empire. The Imperial Army supplies their weapons and ostensibly supervises their training, and officially it can assume control of the militant orders any time it sees fit. In reality, some militant orders are little more than fraternal organizations within the military proper, while others segregate themselves and have their own fortresses and bases. These segregated types usually have an explicit mission delineated in the charter granted them by the Crown.

There is a strong sense of unit loyalty among the militant orders, and there is a long history of them defying orders to perform great deeds against overwhelming odds. Perhaps this is why the Empire allows their continued existence.

Entertainment

There is television (even wide-screen television, if you have the marks to pay for it), but it is in black and white. There is no rock and roll: jazz and big band rule the airwaves (other than the official Imperial radio stations, which broadcast Bach, Mozart, Liszt, etc.). Most of the new music and nearly all of the commercially successful films (which do come in "living color") come from overseas, from the Confederation of American States. The Empire has placed limits on what percentage of popular entertainment created outside of the Empire may be sold or broadcast (generally 60% for broadcast media, and 40% for bookstores and magazine stands). There are heavy tariffs on foreign-made films and recordings, and thus a thriving black market for them. The largest portion of the black market, of course, consists of talismans and potions smuggled in from Africa and the Americas, which are totally banned and demand an absurdly high price.

Weapons

Civilian arms are generally revolvers or small swords, but these are worn more for ornament than for defense. Many younger gentlemen don't even load their pistols (to the disgust of old-timers who remember the "invasion drills" of years gone by), and some carry pistols so elaborately engraved and decorated that using them to fire bullets would reduce their value or even damage them. (Visitors from the Confederation of American States can usually be discerned by the ludicrously large pistols they carry.) The police carry submachine guns, most typically the Heckler & Koch MP5, along with a few talismans to protect them against ever-increasing hex-related violence. They are polite, but they do not tolerate interference in police business, and they will not hesitate to aim their weapons at anyone who refuses to do as they are told.