Wednesday, February 22, 2017

[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Ed] LA: Hollywood Extended

Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum



Los Angeles:
The Lay of the Land (Part 2)
Hollywood Extended

“Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” – Marilyn Monroe


Adapted from source material from the fan-made Los Angeles: City of the Damned and the video game - Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

Los Angeles City Building Posts:

Hollywood and Outward:

Greater Hollywood and Los Angeles includes Hollywood, Universal City, West Hollywood, Westwood, South Beach, Santa Monica, Long Beach and the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
  
((In Hollywood and the surrounded area (covered here), grant both the Begotten (Beasts) and Heroes special bonuses because of the area's Astral bleed-over.  As a result, Nightmare powers gain +2 to their activation rolls and Heros usually get +2 static bonuses to certain aspects of their Gifts.  Mages may notice that their Mind magic becomes more effective near Astral Verges and Irises (Enviromental Yantras for Mind magic)))

City: Universal City
Universal City is an unincorporated area within the San Fernando Valley region. Approximately 415 acres within and around the surrounding area is the property of Universal Studios, one of the six major film studios in the United States: about 70 percent of the studio's property is inside this unincorporated area, while the remaining 30 percent is within the Los Angeles city limits.



Site: Universal City Walk
Universal CityWalk are the entertainment and retail districts located adjacent to the theme parks of Universal Parks & Resorts. CityWalk began as an expansion of Universal's first park, Universal Studios Hollywood, and serves as an entrance plaza from the parking lots to the theme parks. CityWalk can also be found at the Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, Japan.

The Universal City Walk is the second major hunting zone for vampires associated with Hollywood and a place where the vampire court pays less attention. While certainly not as famous, or as raucous, as Sunset, it is nevertheless safer one by most standards. Younger, brasher vampires are known to hunt here and that presents its own challenges.

City: Hollywood
Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated, relatively low-income neighborhood in the central region of L.A.. It is the home of the U.S. film industry, including several of its historic studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry and the people in it.  Hollywood was a small community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, and soon thereafter a prominent film industry emerged, eventually becoming the most recognizable film industry in the world.

Hollywood itself is more compounded by occult intervention as perhaps anywhere else in Los Angeles. The local Seer Pylons mostly been interested in the financial power downtown, there is the presence (or virtual presence) of the Panopticon in Hollywood. Where else can you influence such a great number of what people think and believe about something?

Update: But they are almost completely overshadowed by the competition between the Free Council (much diminished after the Northridge Earthquake) and the Carthian Movement. There are strong hallows here, as well as Astral Verges and no small amount of demonic influence, especially from the local Agency of Tempter movie producers known as the Moguls. 

During the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, the movie Wes Craven's New Nightmare was disrupted.  It is well known in the occult community today that this movie was being filmed in an attempt to alter mankind's perceptions of Beasts and they lessons they teach through the Primordial Dreams. It met with mixed results as a result of the Hollywood Nightmare Brood laying low for about a year, waiting for the Heroes to leave.

Another exploit of the Hollywood Nightmare Brood was the start of a Mystery Cult known only as "Fight Club."  Urban legends maintain that this cult was the inspiration for the book and movie that came in the next few years.  

The "Demon Wars" of the 90s, a struggle between the influences of the Unchained and the Infernal ended around the same time.  Both sides lost influence in Hollywood for the attempt.  

In fact, one of Hollywood's nicknames is "City of Demons."  In addition to the Unchained and the Akothertoi, Hollywood is the nexus of the strange Astral disturbances and as a result, has the highest incidence of Geotic Demons than anywhere else in North America.

Site: Adele's of Hollywood 
Previously known as Hollywood Masquerade, this place used to owned by the local Beast and Apex before she mysteriously died right before the 1994 earthquake.  It's a place for rare and exotics masks and props.

Site: Grauman’s Chinese Theater

Known as TCL Chinese Theatre, it is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.  Probably one of the most famous tourist attractions in the entire city, or at least in Hollywood, 
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre has been a vampire meeting place almost as long as it has existed. Control of the theatres was vital for control of the film industry, and the Carthian Movement was sure to get their fangs in early. For reasons unknown or forgotten, this theatre was chosen as focal point of Carthian power in their Hollywood domain. In reality, of course, the Theatre is too public and too popular to see constant use, especially after it became a landmark. But, on occasion the Carthians have secretly rented it out for late-night “private screenings,” and it remains an important symbol for the Movement. Over its history many important decisions and debates have been hatched here. 

This place also has deeper secrets. Reports from the destroyed Concilium reported that Changelings also frequented the place and there was most likely at least one entrance into the Hedge. The theater remains a place of power and at one point had an Iris into the Tenemos.

Update: The door into the Hedge is actually an entrance into a Trod.  There is also a pathway to the Goblin Market deep in the Undercity.

Site: The Dream Factory

The Dream Factory Los Angeles Studio is a fully professional photography and video studio located in downtown Los Angeles offering studio and equipment rental services. 

While the Dream Factory LA Studio (DFLA) is a photography and art studio, underneath it lies strange Infrastructure which seems to interact with Astral Space in some elusive and enigmatic way… it is also guarded by clockwork Angels. Not knowing what else to call it, the local Demon rings simply refer to it as the Dream Factory. The running theory is that this Hidden Infrastructure may be synthesizing Astral Archtypes into servitors and cryptids for an unknown purpose, or maybe the other way around. Few know how to access this Infrastructure and the persistent rumors have been relegated to urban legend.


Site: Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is a historic hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It opened its doors on May 15, 1927, and is the oldest continually operating hotel in Los Angeles.

The historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, built in 1927, has been the scene of many ghostly experiences, especially around the time the hotel was refurbished and reopened in 1985 (some suggest the spirits were disturbed). Among the haunted locations in the hotel is room 928 where Montgomery Clift lived for three months while filming From Here to Eternity. There is also a mirror located in the lower level elevator landing where Marilyn Monroe’s sad-faced reflection has allegedly been seen. Others have reported a cold spot in the Blossom Room that could not be traced to a draft or air conditioner. The reports of unusual events became so numerous in 1985 (such as phone calls from an unfinished room that had not yet had a phone installed) that the Security Manager began to keep a log. It is also rumored that a certain elevator can take you directly to Hell. The Tower of Terror was birthed from such fancies.
  
Update: The basement of the hotel is a desecration site (Malus Loci) to the Infernal.  It is still frequently visited by the cultists of Agile (the rumored Count of St. Germane).  It is one of the only footholds of Abaddon in Hollywood.

Site: The Sunset Strip

The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Havenhurst Drive, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive. The Strip is probably the best-known portion of Sunset, embracing boutiques, restaurants, rock clubs, and nightclubs that are on the cutting edge of the entertainment industry. It is also known for its trademark array of huge, colorful billboards.

Probably the most infamous rack (vampire feeding ground) in the entire city, and definitely where most people would think of when they ponder the nightlife of L.A. It’s the hangout of the rich and famous, a Mecca for reporters, photographers, actors, writers, directors, and wannabes of all stripes. But for such an incredibly rich rack, it is equally dangerous to hunt in. The Court and the Carthian regent of the domain both keep a close eye on everyone and everything that happens here, and come down hard on even minor breaches. While this rack may have a reputation for the strange, far too many of these vessels are too important, or too well known, to be safely fed from.
On the other hand, for every star there are a hundred nobodies who will probably never be noticed; people who will almost certainly never be missed. Stigmatics and vampires victimize this group. Just a few more stones on the path, a little more blood to grease the wheels of the Dream Factory close by.


Site: Chupacabra

A trendy nightclub with a seedy atmosphere — the spiritual heir to the Viper Room and can also be found on the Sunset Strip. Recording artists and movie stars mix with L.A.’s underground, as well as with the demons who call this place their home away from home. It’s a good place to hear rumors from across the class spectrum and from all over the map; parties begun here might adjourn to a star’s mansion in the Hills, where the night can get really wild. 

Update: Since the year 1994, a brood of Beasts has come and gone for periods of time, staking it as their hang-out.  Thus far, the demons have made themselves scarce when they appear.

Site: Mt. Wilson Observatory
The observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains and the nearby antenna farm are both active

-although aging — Infrastructure. The antenna farm beams

Mt. Wilson Antenna Farm
much of the city’s radio and television entertainment out into SoCal and beyond. Either the broadcasts or the antennae array itself are important to the Machine, and an angel called Gnomon is on constant guard to ensure no malefactor tries to interfere with the flow of communications. There are conflicting demonic urban legends about the antennae farm. Some say that the farm is somehow tied into a global communications Infrastructure and that a successful hack here could affect worldwide operations. Others say that, with the rise of the Internet and satellite communications, these old broadcast arrays are nearly irrelevant. And yet, the angel remains. Is he just biding time, waiting for a new mission elsewhere, or is there still a purpose at play amidst the antennae and microwave transmitters?



Site: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The LACMA is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).  LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States. It attracts nearly a million visitors annually and holds more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present. In addition to art exhibits, the museum features film and concert series.
Once the site of the vampires, Alexander Hunt’s Court, the Museum of Art is now silent
supernaturally but is still the repository of one of the finest collections of international art on the West Coast. Pieces both modern and prehistoric from the Far East to American, Europe, and Africa line the halls. Paintings, sculpture, and even furniture as well as decorative art, metal, and glass from Egypt, Greece, Rome and Assyria can all be found here. The museum also hosts a fine collection of pre-Colombian art, the Gilbert silver collection, the famous Shin’enkan paintings, and a massive collection of netsuke in the Japanese Pavilion. One warehouse is rumored to possess a place of power, possibly generated by a small collection of occult items.

Lesser Hollywood Hotspots
  • The Warrens – underground passages with an entrance through the cemetery and it’s prowled by sewer predators. This is part of a Nosferatu warren.
  • Luckee Star Motel
  • Metalhead Industries - chopshop
  • Hollywood Forever Cemetery – rumors of zombies and the walking dead
  • Vesuvius – strip club owned by a Daeva vampire
  • Sin Bin - Porn shop
  • Abrams Golden Age Jewelry
  • The Asp Hole - bar
  • Ground 0 - Internet Café & gaming center, connections to the dark web
  • Cavoletti Café
  • Red Spot Gas Station & Convenience Store
City: Westwood

Westwood is a commercial and residential neighborhood in the northern central portion of the Westside region of L.A. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  The neighborhood was developed after 1919, with a new campus of the University of California opened in 1926. Other attractions besides the UCLA campus include Westwood Village, with its historic motion picture theaters, restaurants and shopping, Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery and the Hammer Museum. Holmby Hills is considered one of the wealthiest residential areas in Los Angeles, and the Geffen Playhouse attracts theater-goers.


Site: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

UCLA is a public research university in the Westwood district. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest undergraduate campus of the ten-campus system after the original University of California campus in Berkeley (1873). It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students, and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016.
Some would probably be shocked to know that UCLA was built over the most powerful mystical site on the West Coast. Others, knowing the true and darker history of strange events on campus, might well think it explains things nicely. And dark and mysterious things do happen here, as they happen anywhere where intelligence flows deep and wisdom runs shallow. Overly curious and incautious students have been known to study all manner of things that are best left alone. Things that, in some cases, even the vampires fear to contemplate. It also explains why the college is under the control of the vampire covenant known as the Ordo Dracul (Order of the Dragon), even though it’s primary strongholds are further south.
The Order enforces this control, though it allows outsiders to visit. However, it does enforce a sort of pseudo-neutral zone here, specifically banning feeding except under specific circumstances. The Ordo Dracul lay claim to the area as a mystical experimentation zone to which they want little interference. Trespassers outside the Order caught at night have been warned or attacked for intruding. Of course, the surrounding bars and nightclubs that cater to the student population are not under such protection. Questions remain, though, of how much of the campus the Dragons actually control. It seems likely that campus security is heavily infiltrated with ghouls and the blood bound, but as to the faculty, staff, or student body; none can say for certain. Except for the Order, of course, and the Dragons ignore such questions.
City: South Bay

The South Bay is a region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in the southwest corner of L.A. The name stems from its geographic location stretching along the southern shore of Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay contains fifteen cities plus portions of the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated portions of the County of Los Angeles. The area is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and generally by the City of Los Angeles on the north and east.
South Bay sports a considerable amount of bars and nightlife but it is not the usual place people go to party compared to the Sunset Strip. Supernaturally, it is a large open territory with no one entity or person claiming it. It has been a power base for both the Carthian Movement and the Lancea et Sanctum in the past but has no regent at this time. As such, it tends to be an area for supernatural nomads and fugitives.

City: Santa Monica
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western L.A. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is bordered on three sides by L.A.– Pacific Palisades to the north, Brentwood on the northeast, Sawtelle on the east, Mar Vista on the southeast, and Venice on the south. The Census Bureau population for Santa Monica in 2010 was 89,736.  Due in part to an agreeable climate, Santa Monica became a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core, significant job growth and increased tourism. The Santa Monica Pier remained a popular and iconic destination until the 2000s.

What can be said about Santa Monica? It is city in decline as businesses move elsewhere, leaving decrepit and seeding buildings left behind like husks. Crime is up and so is the homeless population, no one notices when these criminals or derelicts go missing.
Site: Santa Monica Pier

The Santa Monica Pier is a large double-jointed pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica. With an iconic entrance, the pier is popular with residents and visitors as a landmark that is over 100 years old. The pier contains Pacific Park, a family amusement park with its one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art, solar paneled Ferris wheel. (This should not be confused with Pacific Ocean Park, a former amusement park a few miles south of Santa Monica Pier, which operated from 1958 to 1967 and is now demolished. It also has an original carousel hippodrome from the 1920s, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium operated by Heal the Bay, shops, entertainers, a video arcade, a trapeze school, pubs, and restaurants. The pier's west end is a popular location for anglers. The pier is also very popular for Pokémon Go. During the summer months the pier is venue to weekly outdoor concerts, movies, many that are free to the public.
Once the major port of Los Angeles until the docks were moved south to San Pedro, the Santa Monica Pier, much like Santa Monica itself, sits like a forgotten child on L.A.’s west coast, silently slipping into decay beneath the restless eyes of the Damned. And yet the Pier has reinvented itself to a degree as a tourist attraction, and while it is more of a daytime attraction, vessels are nevertheless drawn. Those who come to see the Pier usually stay long enough to experience what nightlife Santa Monica has to offer. And though quiet in comparison to other districts, the nights can become wild indeed. The feeding here is not particularly good, but enough to sustain a surprisingly large population of vampires.
An entity used to prowl the sewers on Santa Monica that hunted the supernaturally gifted. Some were returned with their memories gone, horrible scars and fried brains. This problem seems to have gone away now. Just afterwards a hallow popped up under the Pier that few dare to visit.
Lesser Santa Monica Hotspots
  • Pawnshop Lodgings
  • Club Asylum – owned by two Ventrue Malkovian vampires
  • Kilpatrick’s Bail Bonds – known for employing bounty hunters
  • Brothers Salvage - junkyard
  • C. Moorse’s Coffee
  • Gallery Noir
  • Megahurtz Computing - computer/phone repair
  • Ocean House Hotel
  • Red Devil Tattoo Shop
  • SunCo Gasoline
  • The Surfside Diner
  
Site: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

LAX is the largest and busiest airport in the state of California, as well as one of the largest international airports in the United States. LAX is in the southwestern L.A. area along the Pacific Ocean between the neighborhood of Westchester to its immediate north and the city of El Segundo to its immediate south.

The progressive vampires of the Carthian Movment got their hooks into LAX and the surrounding restaurants, hotels, and tourists traps early. Partly because they were looking to the future and partly because, at the time, the existing power cliques had little interest in such a “passing fad” as airplanes. Nevertheless, LAX is one of the busiest airports in the country, bringing thousands into the city every day.

Thousands of faceless, largely unknown and exhausted travelers, who are, perhaps, not as on guard as they should be. Of course, the Carthians have worked hard to maintain this control and keep the Masquerade, as well as deal with more mundane aspects of security and keeping the scrutiny of law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration away.

Then, of course, there are the more... unusual events that, at times, seem to occur on a nightly basis. Just those little oddities that make the night shift such a joy to work. A gutsy nomad on a red eye, a wandering pack of werewolves or cabal of mages, ghostly spirits clinging to passengers, unusual luggage, and mysterious disappearances are just the most common oddities that the Kindred of LAX have to deal with. They never know quite what to expect; they just know it when they see it.

LAX is more hotly contested than the vampires would admit. Mages, Changelings, Demons, Angels, Spirits and the whole gambit of supernatural entities fight over access and benefits of having the airport under their sway.


City: Long Beach

Long Beach is the 36th most populous city in the US and the 6th most populous in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257. The Port of Long Beach is the second busiest container port in the US and is among the world's largest shipping ports. The city also maintains a progressively declining oil industry with minor wells located both directly beneath the city as well as offshore. Manufacturing sectors include those in aircraft, automotive parts, electronic equipment, audiovisual equipment, petrochemicals, precision metals and home furnishings.  It is also the original location of the motion picture industry.

Site: Pine Street

This red light district runs between Pine Street, the Pike, and Blueline all the way from Long Beach into Los Angeles proper. It’s a wall to wall ribbon of bars, clubs and every conceivable form of entertainment. Revelers are common, overindulgence a fact of life. For the socially inclined, it is a paradise, and it also means more brutal vampires can find more than enough seedy bars and dark alleys to suit their purposes.


Site: The Queen Mary

RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (known as Cunard-White Star Line when the vessel entered service). Built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, Queen Mary along with her sister ship, RMS Queen Elizabeth, were built as part of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg, and New York City. The two ships were a British response to the superliners built by German and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  It has a long history of service during World War II.

The ship is a hot bed of ghostly activity. Lights flicker and doors slam on “G” deck, thought to be the location of the ship’s morgue. A ghost of a middle-aged woman in an old-style swimsuit dives into the empty ship’s swimming pool. A young woman in a mini-skirt paces around the pool area and disappears behind a pillar. Unknown sounds of shouting and splashing can been heard from the deserted poolside deck. A mysterious, elegantly dressed woman in white can be seen around the salon’s piano. A ghostly ship’s officer can be seen walking near the ship’s bridge. Lights
mysteriously turn on and off, dishes move and utensils vanish from a ship’s gallery where a cook was killed in a brawl when the ship ferried troops during World War II. Cries for help and banging at the water line of the ship can be heard from the time the troop transport in front of her was sunk my a U-Boat. A mysterious black-bearded man in coveralls can been seen riding the engine room escalator. The engine room seems to be the most haunted location on the ship. Ship’s staff and tour guides report strange sounds, chains dangling in mid-air and balls of light moving slowly across the walls. No “ghost” on the Queen Mary has yet been identified. Tom Hennessy, a Long Beach Press-Telegram writer and ghost story skeptic, spent a night near the Queen Mary’s engine room to see for himself. He reported strange movements of objects, some sort of presence, noises and voices.

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