Horror in the Windy City RPG Setting for Whispers in the Dark
Created by Matt Corley
Horror in the Windy City brings the excitement, intrigue, and beautiful chaos of the time period to your table using the 5e rules you already know as adapted by the acclaimed Whispers in the Dark RPG.
The beautifully illustrated 180+ page book is a fully realized campaign sourcebook covering Chicago in the latter half of the 19th century. There are new rules, backgrounds, a new alignment system, NPCs, scenarios, and more. In short, it’s everything you’ll need to take your party of investigators to Chicago. It will be up to them to find their way out.
Extensive Worldbuilding. Horror in the Windy City is written to provide the GM with everything needed to play multiple campaigns in its borders.
The major events, and the forces behind them, are explored with scenario hooks and evocative details for the GM present to their players.
Chicago’s historic neighborhoods and locations: Englewood, Lake Forest, St Charles, The Cabbage Path, the Stockyards, Wrigley Field, Lake Michigan, and others are presented with scenario hooks, and NPCs of note.
The Dreamlands' incursion into Chicago has had profound effects on the city. Particularly in areas of heightened emotions, tension, and violence. Find out what’s happened, and continues to happen, behind the veil of sleep.
No story of Chicago is complete without an in-depth look at the public clubs, secret cabals, gangs, and gangsters running the city. From the public faces, to the puppeteers pulling the strings, dozens of new NPCs and organizations are detailed.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Back Up Plans
about 4 years ago
– Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 11:39:20 AM
The other creators and I have been talking a lot about a backup plan if the project doesn't fund, and I want to make it crystal clear that the books will be published one way or another.
To keep up with those updates please follow me on Twitter @matthewdcorley
And/or sign-up at my mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/77505afc6e01/whisper5e
In the meantime. IF we don't fund please let me know in the comments if any of these options are appealing.
Publish piecemeal via DriveThru RPG
Repeat this KS in June 1st for a limited time (about 14 days) with a lower funding goal (~$4k), simpler tiers, & with ala cart add-ons after funding.
Repeat the KS (as above) but in late Summer.
Please let me know in the comments what your thoughts are. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to reply in the comments.
Thank you!!
Matt
The World's Columbian Exposition 1893
about 4 years ago
– Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 09:54:50 AM
I'll just say it. Fairs are, by nature, both awesome and super creepy. Everything is heightened and exaggerated. The sights are dazzling, the sounds are dynamic, the smells are... a lot. From the giddy laughter and shrieks of terror to the vibrant blur of constant motion, the place is designed to pull visitors into a dream-state, to thrill you, to fill you with wonder, to make you question your senses. In other words – it's the perfect setting for a horror game.
With that in mind, I couldn't have been more excited when I was asked to work on the World's Fair section of this book. It was a joy to dig into the research on the Exposition, and I was continually fascinated by scope and scale of that massive undertaking. The amount of logistical planning and labor that went into bringing that unique experience to the people absolutely blows me away. So many of the records of the time give us insights into the mindsets of the key players, humanizing and personalizing the events. As genre storytellers, this is a great opportunity for us. Where there is humanity and personal stake, there is plenty of room for horror and mystery.
Ch 1. Paul - Part II
about 4 years ago
– Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 08:36:30 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
The Devil's City - Ch 1
about 4 years ago
– Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 11:09:49 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Adventure in the 'Real World'
about 4 years ago
– Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 06:04:46 PM
This update comes to you from Chris Tallman, and is an excerpt on the clubs, coteries, cults, and cabals in Chicago.
The Whitechapel Club (est. 1889)
Like other successful businessmen of the day, newspaper reporters and editors were members of a social club, the Chicago Press Club. It provided lunch as well as a lovely gathering hall when the members elected to meet up after work and unwind. The tone was formal, dry, and drinking to excess was frowned upon. Unfortunately, such an organization was necessary so that higher ups at the papers could bring in outside guests to rub elbows and show off. Some industry folk hated the façade of the Chicago Press Club and chose to drink elsewhere.
One such place was Henry Koster’s downtown saloon that featured two key attractions: It had a back room where the reporters could gather and blow off steam in private, and it was conveniently located on “Newsboy Alley”, a backstreet with access to the rear entrances of several of the city’s newspapers. This allowed both reporters as well as their editors to discreetly step out of the office and swing by Koster’s back room saloon for a quick nip during office hours without being noticed.
The biggest story of the day was the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper terrorizing the streets of the Whitechapel district in London. This caught the pickled imagination of the reporters in that small room off of Newsboy Alley and they christened themselves “The Whitechapel Club”. It wasn’t unusual for a reporter to encounter death as part of their job; in fact, it was fairly routine at that time in Chicago. Starvation, illness, and brutality all made regular appearances in their lives with gallows humor the only coping mechanism – besides booze. The Whitechapel Club became a secret society that laughed in the face of death by electing Jack the Ripper their president, despite the fact that, of course, he never appeared at any of their midnight meetings.
The Whitechapel Club took over the back room and announced their presence to the neighborhood with a new entrance off the alley: A large oak door bound with wrought iron decoration. The transom above featured skull and crossbones done in stained glass with the motto, “I, too, have lived in Arcadia.” This is a supposed quote from Death that means even in the nirvana-like paradise of Arcadia, death still roams free. Members decorated the Whitechapel Club with morbid memorabilia from their adventures. Chicago Herald reporter Charlie Seymour brought blood-soaked blankets from out West. A coffin sat in the middle of the room as a bar with the name of each member etched into brass nails set into the wood. A noose hung in the center of the room as a makeshift chandelier while the walls were covered with guns, arrows, spears, and any other weapon a member could find.
The club was almost exclusively journalists but a few others were allowed in, such as the asylum superintendent who studied skulls to determine the differences between a healthy patient and one afflicted with mental illness. The doctor was invited to join the Whitechapel Club – provided he brought along his skull collection.
The skulls were turned into sconces for hidden gas lamps with jewels set into the eye sockets that cast an eerie glow when lit. Two skulls, reserved for special guests of the club, became drinking vessels by sawing off their lids and lining the interior with silver. A mysterious red punch was served, a ghastly combination of juice and alcohol, in addition to a tapped keg that kept the membership “socially lubricated”.
The Whitechapel Club reveled in death but their cynical nature prevented them from believing in the supernatural. They believed life was a series of random, painful encounters and our only choice in the matter was how we respond; they chose to laugh. While they sported the trappings of a cult of devil worshippers, they behaved like deranged pranksters who manipulated anyone foolish enough to listen to them. To the members of the Whitechapel Club, believing in “magic and monsters” was admitting your own gullibility – which was poison to any journalist. In one of their most famous stunts they built an eighteen-by-twenty-foot pyre and cremated the body of a man who allegedly donated it to them upon his suicide. The members wore black robes and circled the pyre, chanting.
As always thank you for your support and please share this update and the campaign as you're able. We're 10 days out and ~75% funded. We're on pace to make it, but I'd sure low to get there sooner than later. :)
