I've (finally) gotten around to actually running an Eclipse Phase game - a one on one game with a BFF of mine. The character we've settled on is an old washed out Barsoomian who is in a crappy, lemon-riddled synth in a shitty apartment in the worst part of Little Shanghai. They'll do a job, any job, for credits, in the hope of eventually earning a new body. But that requires me to have a really entrenched, well sketched environment for them to slum around in. And I figured why not crowd source it? Why not give what I make to other people, so you can enjoy the filth as well! And so, I present...Immortality Blues, a bar/apartment combo and the surrounding areas. Feel free to scribble in any ideas. We can't start talking about the Blues without a little bit on her owner, one Anastasia Frinovskii. Mesh Identity of Anastasia Frinovskii ANNAGIRL: Age 32, Gender Ident: Female, Current Morph, Ruster (GSP Compliant). Likes: Homebrew alcohol, hypercapitalism, sculpture, urban exploration Dislikes: Anarchists, Extopians, Vesuvians, Barsoomians, Lunars, clankers, AGIs, Jovians and Ultimates History: Anastasia is not a nice or happy person. She lost most of her money during the Fall, lost her original morph when they evacuated her hometown, lost her wife and her son when the TITANs attacked Olympus Mons. After spending five years in crippling bondage, you'd expect her opinions on hypercapitalism to have changed somewhat. You would be wrong. To her, the time she spent as an infodenture was just how the system worked. You paid your dues, you took your chances, and you tried to win big. And Anastasia was just the kind of person who could actually scheme her way out of infodenture to getting a morph. She had the contacts, the personality and the sheer bloody minded determination to get what she wanted...a new body, and a new chance. Personality Notes: Anastasia is a bigot. If you don't buy her meme, she will cordially despise you and probably spit on you as you lay bleeding out. BUT within the context of her personal worldview, she is as consistent as Newtonian physics. And that meme is simple: Profit, contracts and deals. A deal is a deal and she will defend it to the death and beyond. But what is her 'contract'? Simple. If you pay your rent on time, you will have a room and she will never tell anyone where you are. That combination of stubbornness and confidentiality is what makes the Blues such an...eclectic place to visit. Now, what about the Blues proper? Well, the Immortality Blues began as an office building for Com-Ex. The shipping corporation moved their scant physical locations to more secure facilities at the first chance they got. For almost a decade and a half, the complex wasn't used. Parts of it were bought and turned into low-rent housing, while another quarter was demolished to make way for an overhanging tram-line. Then the remainder was "bought" by newly reinstated Anastasia. She was in a case at the time, and one day, she simply showed up and managed to talk some locals into pitching in, with a promise they'd get a cut in the profit. Their names were STANLEY XAO, LISA CHU, FONG DI, and FEDORA. Mesh Identity of Stanley Xao XAO-DOG: Age 18, Gender Ident: Bigendered, Current Morph, Case (CX-32 Walker). Likes: Poker, DDR, romance XP Dislikes: When people have to get each-other down to feel good. Why can't we all just love and be in peace? History: Stanley was born in Little Shanghai. He was eight years old when the Fall hit. Raised by a collective family, he had only one person directly related to him actually die a permanent death, everyone else was resleeved in a short order. To him, Mom Zu was a distant, perfect figure that he misses every day. But the rest of his collective spun apart in the aftermath of the Fall, and Stanley was abandoned with his sister, Fedora. They formed a nimble pick-pocketing duo, until Stanley got a wasp-knife in the heart from a seriously tee-d off mark. Fedora managed to get him a CX-32 Walker before they were approached by Anastasia. Personal Notes: Stanley likes three things. Credits (though he does not have the cognative depth to really conceptualize the metasocial construction around money), gambling (though more for the money that he can win with it) and the best and most recent romance XPs, which he carefully hides from everyone, lest they see through his tough guy/girl swagger and realize that he's actually a big softie. SECRET: Stanley may have a strain of the Watts-MacLeod wrapped up in his ego, which could be indirectly responsible for his parents all leaving him. This version of Stanley is less simple, more...eerie, unnerving and just a bit wrong. He never quite speaks properly, or with the right cadence. The only person whose ever at ease with him is his sister Fedora. But his single slight - his single very very VERY powerful slight - is his ability to slightly manipulate probability, giving him a nigh constant string of good luck. Or he could just be an odd duck with a lucky streak...END SECRET. Mesh Identity of Lisa Chu ANGEL: Age 20, Gender Ident: Female, Current Morph, Pleasure-Pod. Likes: N/A Dislikes: N/A History: Lisa Chu (if that's her real name) is paranoid. Not just slightly paranoid. No, she's REALLY paranoid. She was scared of being tracked and followed before the Fall, and then the Fall just reinforced her opinions. She does not go out without a privacy shroud, and her mesh fingerprint is as non-existent as possible. Really, she prefers to simply have come into existance three months ago as Lisa Chu, the maid for the Blues. She helped build the place when she was in her case, and once she was done putting up drywall and studiously applying privacy features, she started cleaning and tending to the rooms and the guests within them. She used Augmented Reality and creative illusion programs to handle her amorous duties until she had earned enough tips and side money to purchase a Pleasure Pod. Personal Notes: Lisa is a quite girl outside. But inside, when she's not being recorded or followed, she's actually quite gregarious and approachable. She cleans rooms and will do almost any sex act that you can imagine, so long as it's within her physical capacity. Oddly, she seems to be the only person that Anastasia treats with any measure of kindness, and there's no indication that Lisa actually believes in the tenets of hypercapitalism. The only thing she really does get passionate on is observation and transparency. This has kept her rep low and her future bleak...afterall, Little Shanghai is the least observed and recorded place in Valles-Shanghai, and it still has more cameras per square feet than 2030's London. Mesh Identity of Fong Di CHESSMASTER: Age 66, Gender Ident: Male, Current Morph, Synth (T-101 Juggernaught). Likes: Classical Itallian Opera, Old Earth History, Blackpowder Weapons. Dislikes: Rednecks History; Fong Di was an old Chinese national, back in the day. He moved onto the Red Planet due to a long forgotten political issue that he refuses to speak of, and worked as a Ranger for almost two decades. In that time, he ran into lots and lots of Rednecks and he found himself despising them...and they despised him RIGHT back. Fong Di saw them as terrorists, they saw him as a jackbooted thug, and things got tense, then things got bloody, and he had to get blackballed to save the League PR flack. But the day of his Tribunal was the day the Fall came...he slipped away rather than face charges and had settled into Little Shanghai by the time the Blues started. Personal Notes: Fong Di isn't a statist, fascist, autoarch, or any of the other things that his detractors have thrown his way. What he IS though, is serious, law abiding and dedicated to getting his job done. He has no truck for people who take what he sees as the "Fast and easy" way to change, even if it's change he might agree on. This plus his position of power got him to bump right up against the more extreme and terrorist-ish parts of the Movement. Oh, and did I mention he does not forget a grudge? Either way, he takes his job as the bar's bouncer seriously. Mesh Identity of Fedora (aka, Drusilla Xao) DRUOFNIGHT: Age 19, Gender Ident: Female, Current Morph, Ruster (GSP compliant) Likes: Drugs, Stealing, Gangster films, and freerunning Dislikes: Bad style, asceticism and bummer vibes History: Fedora - like Stanley Xao - was born and raised by a collective. Like Stanley she vaguely remembered Mom Zu as a dim and distant light. Unlike Stanley, she managed to avoid getting stabbed during their pickpocket days. And unlike Stanley, she takes to talking like a fish takes to water, and her distinctive dress and style of talking has made her one of the more popular lifebloggers and freerunners in Little Shanghai. She regularly comes in at fourth, except for The Totally Bad Race of AF8 (her name), where the two people ahead of her rammed into eachother and she managed to scrag second place. Personal Notes: Fedora. Loves. Gangsters. Not the Triad goons or Yakuza thugs or Nine-Lives assweeds or the Uplift gang down the street. Actual Gangsters. 1920s Gangsters from Chicago and the old American hayday of organized crime. She talks like them and she keeps a faithfully recreated Thompson submachine gun for recreating her favorite scenes from her favorite films for the various customers of the Immortality Blues. Course, her Tommy Gun isn't totally faithful...for one thing, it's capable of punching through even modern armor if she lays out enough firepower. That, plus her eye for trouble, cements her spot as bouncer number two. So, we have the people. Anastasia owns the place - collects rent from the customers and serves drinks during the afternoon to midnight crowd. Stanley is the backup bartender, who works for the midday shift to the afternoon shift. He also handles the game table during nights. Fong and Fedora are the bouncers. Fong tends to be the quite one who does not do much unless they really need the muscle, while Fedora is the one who chats up the customers. She also serves as entertainment and the "clincher" in the Immortality Blue's specific design ethos. And last, but far from least, Lisa provides cleaning service (very necessary, specially considering the amount of crud in Little Shanghai's atmosphere) and any sexual needs of the people visiting. But what about the bar itself? Well, the upper two stories are flats. They're tiny pod-rooms, barely five paces by five paces square, with beds that slide into the wall, grungy windows, and shower cubes that also fold into the wall. The place fits about 20 people in total, and has two fire escapes, an elevator and a stairwell inside. Downstairs is one big bar, with a small dance floor, stools at the bar proper, and tables that can seat four each. But here's the catch: The whole place is gussied up to look like a fancy dining joint from the 1920s. It was Fedora's idea, when Anastasia recruited her. Anastasia was just going to make a drinking hole and charge people to live in the cubicals upstairs. But with some extra capitol investment (that's why both Stanley, Lisa and Fong have less than high quality morphs), they managed to turn it from just any old hole into something with a measure of class. Sure, it's class that's almost two centuries old by this point, but better that than nothing. There are major cracks in the illusion, though. Once you head upstairs, the carpeting vanishes, the walls became hard metal, and the air filtration system wheezes and groans. The beds are hard and the shower water is slightly off color. The only fabber is hidden under the countertop and is permanently near the end of it's rope. But despite that, Immortality Blues has it's charms, and it's advantages. And more than that...it's the epicenter of one of the most interesting neighborhoods in one of the biggest slums in the solar system. So, if you want to use the Blues, feel free. Stay tuned for more updates, including... Ezra's Eight, the deadly gang of uplifts genehackers - lead by the mysterious Swims-Through-Darkness. Technical Knock, a pawn shop with a deadly history. The overhanging tramway, and the most Dangerous Game. And last but not least, the adventure I'm designing around this setting...The Case of the Borrowed Ruster. Stolen body, dangerous secret weapons, Barsoomian terrorist cells, and invisible assassins, all in the dangerous streets of Little Shanghai!