The Shadowlands & The Tempest
The Shadowlands are a dark reflection of the world of the living (the Skinlands). One where things exist not as they currently do, but as they will before their end. Destruction and decay take many forms, and as a result, objects might be: tarnished, rusted, decayed, moldy, broken, burnt, or any other variation of succumbing to entropy.
Proximity to the forces of Oblivion accelerate this decay, and as a result places where death occurs frequently (especially violent deaths) tend to be more affected. Despite this, there is no instance where a location in the Skinlands does not have a corresponding echo in the Shadowlands. In areas where death is especially frequent (war zones, mass graves, genocides, etc.) Nihils will often spring up. These are portals that feed directly into the Tempest, and can be entry points for Spectres to launch attacks on the Shadowlands.
While Wraiths can peer through The Shroud to view the Skinlands and the Quick, mortals and supernatural creatures do not project an echo into the Shadowlands naturally. When a Wraith wants to look at a mortal, they must look through The Shroud to do it.
If one imagines the Skinlands as a jig saw puzzle that has been put together, then the Shadowlands are that same puzzle pulled apart in random ways. Some sections might remain whole, while others might be reduced to individual pieces. The space in between those puzzle pieces is the Tempest.
The Tempest is, at its most basic definition, the transitional space between places in the Underworld. Whenever you need to travel from one distinct location in the Underworld to another, you must pass through The Tempest to do so… even if you could walk in an interrupted line between the one location and the next in the Skinlands.
The Tempest, therefore, is most obvious in areas of wilderness and the open ocean, where the Shadowlands are most broken up and set adrift within it.
As for what the Tempest physically is: It is a violent storm of immense size, constantly churning over a hostile ocean. Magma flows, whirlwinds of broken glass, storms of shrapnel, or clouds of poison gas are all hazards one might face inside the Tempest, right alongside the more traditional whirlpools, tidal waves, and hurricanes.
The LA Underworld
The Necropolis: The stronghold of the Hierarchy and the majority of the Guilds alike. Here the rot and decay of the Shadowlands are drowned out by the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood. Neon signs and brightly lit marquis line the streets, making the Necropolis a beacon to the surrounding Shadowlands. Signs advertise everything from the latest Sandman Dream Theater to the Pardoners Guild Headquarters to wear new Wraiths should register with their appropriate Legions.
LA is home to nearly a half million dead souls, and while not all of them haunt the Necropolis, this is where the majority of them come to conduct their business, barter for goods and services, or seek help with their problems.
The Necropolis, like any city, has sprawled out past its original boundaries of Hollywood, and there are sections of DTLA that are indistinguishable from the main Necropolis, save for a slacking off in the Legion’s presence there.
Nearly any business or institution in either Hollywood or Downtown LA is going to have some kind of tale of a haunting associated with it. Every hotel in the area is haunted. All of the Studio lots are haunted. At night, for a medium, the number of ghosts walking the street can seem to almost be greater than the number of quick.
Up in the Hills, there are haunted mansions and murder houses that sit abandoned even in the fierce LA housing market, evidence of how strongly the dead lay claim to the area.
Types of Haunts:
Haunted houses, mansions, businesses of all stripes. Usually sophisticated and powerful ghosts whose motives may be inscrutable to the mortals they are haunting. A ghost trying to scare mortals out of a mansion in Whitley Heights may actually be a hired gun sourced by a Hierarchy official to protect her haunt. Any ghost that is vanquished in this area will soon return in force, with numbers; or be replaced by the next ghost.
Any spectre in the area will almost assuredly be dealt with by the Legions or the Guilds long before the mortal population becomes aware of their existence.
The Hotel Cecil, The Haunted Castle, the Paramount Lot are examples of businesses that are haunted by a multitude of ghosts.
Boyle Heights, with its proximity to the hustle and bustle of the Necropolis, is only slightly less populated than the Necropolis itself. The vast majority of ghosts in this neighborhood are Hispanic, though older ghosts are equally likely to be Russian or Jewish. Boyle Heights most notable haunt is the Linda Vista Hospital, which is a collective haunt and home to dozens of Wraiths.
The main distinguishing feature between Boyle Heights and the Necropolis is the absence of Hierarchy control, and a much reduced presence of Guild Wraiths. Stepping in to fill that gap is Santa Entropia. Mirroring Santa Muerte in the Skinlands, this Heresy worships a saint which embodies Oblivion itself. The core pillars of this group revolve around the idea that Stygian society is so inherently unjust, that even the impartial malevolence of Oblivion is preferable to it. Members of Santa Entropia come from all walks of life and ethnicities, and there are even pervasive rumors that certain high ranking Hierarchy officials may be secret worshipers of the saint.
Santa Entropia doesn’t preach giving up to Oblivion, but rather promote Wraiths working in partnership with their darker halves in order to more easily pursue their Passions. When one signs up with Santa Entropia, it is taken as a given that it might ultimately mean losing oneself to Oblivion; but many Wraiths see that as the inevitable outcome of their existence anyways. At least through Santa Entropia, they might achieve their goals before that time comes.
The majority of Wraiths in Boyle Heights are NOT members of Santa Entropia, but the Heresy does provide important services for the entire neighborhood. Their ability to control Spectres, in particular, is an important part of why Boyle Heights continues to flourish even without a stronger Legion presence.
Types of Haunts:
Boyle Heights tends towards communal haunts located in areas where death is prevalent or where the dead might gather. This includes the obvious like hospitals, cemeteries, and morgues. But also schools, playgrounds, parks, senior homes, and orphanages.
The ghosts of Boyle Heights, in contrast to those of the Necropolis, often have died in their Haunts and will defend them both from the Quick and the Dead with fervor. Considering any given haunt might be shared by dozens of Wraiths, paranormal investigators and mediums would be wise to tread carefully.
There will almost never be a Spectre in the area. On the rare occasion one does take root, the local ghost population are likely to assist any PCs looking to deal with it.
There are no true borders in the Underworld. When mass immigration began from Asia to California, many of the Dead of that continent followed their living relatives to the New World. These communities were originally viewed by their Stygian neighbors as outposts of the Dark Kingdom of Jade encroaching on Stygia’s territory. Excluded from the protection of the Legions and the relative safety of the Necropolis, the ghosts of these Asian communities banded together over time, forming a triangular chunk of territory in the Shadowlands that is the closest rival to the Necropolis in terms of sheer size.
In modern nights, a freshly reaped ghost in the Jade Triangle has far more in common with their neighbors in Boyle Heights of DTLA than with the Dead of Beijing or Tokyo. Many are shocked to find out that the ghost stories told to them by their parents or grandparents prove to have been based on nuggets of truth. Similarly, these neighborhoods have also grown more ethnically diverse over time, and this is reflected in the Wraiths that are reaped here. Despite that, the Shadowlands here maintain a much more Asian flare than the neighborhoods do on the other side of the shroud.
Cut off from reliable sources of Jade, many of the Arconai practiced in the Dark Kingdom of Jade have fallen out of favor. While older Wraiths might practice the Way of the Scholar or the Farmer, younger Wraiths simply practice an amalgamation of the most useful arts that has become known as Old Ways, Jade Ways, Grammas Magic, or any other of a dozen names.
Types of Haunts:
Culturally, Jade wraiths and the dead who have inherited their ways are more likely to congregate around their living descendants than their Stygian counter parts, as offerings to shrines and other small tokens to the dead is a reliable source of income for ghosts whose family members still keep these traditions alive. This means apartment buildings, cultural centers, temples, or any place where the living might congregate and take a moment to remember the dead.
These ghosts tend to keep to their side of the shroud, only interfering with the Quick when it comes to protecting their families or communities.
While Spectres are not especially common here, when one pops up it is usually a local wraith whose family no longer gives offerings in their memory. Feeling abandoned by the living, they quickly begin lashing out at the Quick. These hauntings can be particularly ferocious and lethal.
Glendale is home to a small population of solo or small group Haunts. These are almost entirely Stygian wraiths who will commute to the Necropolis for goods or services, before returning to their haunts to go about their business. There is a bit of a homesteader attitude amongst the wraiths here.
Additionally, Glendale is home to the the majority of Los Angeles’ Soulforges, and thus is the where the headquarters for the Artificer’s Guild can be found as well. This means that trains of shackled souls bound for the forges can often be seen in forced march from the Necropolis to Glendale. While the distance is an inconvenience to the Artificers who do the forging, the veneer of glitz and glamour found in the Necropolis would quickly be shattered by the screams of souls being minted into coin.
Paranormal Investigators can expect ghosts that are mostly looking not to be disturbed. The presence of the Quick may be tolerated or even appreciated, up until a point. Past that point, the haunt is more likely to turn violent. Many Mediums find it difficult to stay in the area of Glendale’s soul forges for too long, as the screams of those ghosts being plunged into the flames are often more than they can stand.
Although it sits outside the walls of the Necropolis, Beverly Hills is very much inside Hierarchy controlled territory. A string of haunted mansions, hotels, and businesses make this valuable real estate that the well to do of LA’s underworld aren’t about to let go to waste on Renegades and Heretics. The streets are patrolled with Legion forces almost as much as those inside the Necropolis.
Paranormal investigators and mediums who leave a given Haunt relatively undisturbed can expect cordial, polite, and informative ghosts that are more than willing to talk about their lives (though they are considerably more tight lipped about their afterlives.) Those that disturb the property, people, or possessions that these ghosts consider theirs will quickly realize they are dealing with powerful Wraiths that do not suffer disrespect.
No Spectres live long in Beverly Hills.
The colleges of Los Angeles are crawling with the ghosts of former students and faculty. There is a high instance of ‘repeater’ drones that will reenact the events leading up to their deaths over and over again. On occasion, older and more powerful repeaters might draw the living into their cycles of self-loathing… either their emotions or visions of their deaths bleeding over into the Skinlands. This tends to create a cyclical effect where ghosts inadvertently create copycat deaths, the ghosts of their victims going on to repeat the cycle, mistakenly acting out the deaths of the mindless ghost that inadvertently killed them.
It’s for this reason that many self-aware Wraiths will eventually leave these campuses. Being surrounded by eternally repeating tableaus of death (usually similar to their own) is not a great space for a Wraith to be in. Usually if an intelligent ghost sticks around on campus, it’s because they are uncommonly dedicated to learning.
The Alchemists Guild maintains secret offices in most of the major colleges in LA, finding it helpful to be near a source of scientific equipment. They use the repeater drones as camouflage for their comings and goings.
The LA River has its own tragic history of death and hauntings. Drownings, gangland murders, and things far worse have happened in the river. The Ferrymen row its lengths, transporting wraiths who can pay them on to strange shores. La Llorna’s weep on its banks, or sometimes while standing on the surface of the river itself.
The river sits very close to the Tempest itself and may weave through it on its way between the districts of LA’s Shadowlands. As a result, Spectres are a common occurrence along the river at night.
With it’s close proximity to the Tempest, the Shadowlands of Santa Monica is a prime hunting ground for Spectres, making the streets unsafe for all but the hardiest of ghosts.
A handful of Wraiths hole up in the Georgian Hotel, while the Harbingers Guild supported by a small contingent of Legion soldiers keeps an outpost on the Santa Monica peer.
Aside from these locations, any Haunting in Santa Monica can safely be assumed to be a spectre.
Inglewood and South Central are home to numerous, small, poorly organized, and violent Renegade gangs that use the distance from the Necropolis to set up shop. They are known to feud over territory constantly, and it is not unheard of for a whole circle of Renegades to all be lost to Oblivion at the same time. Thus, the Wraiths of these districts are slowly being squeezed out by an organized, coordinated push from the forces of Oblivion. The only reason that they have not fallen en masse is that occasionally the Necropolis will send out a force of Legionnaires to aid the Renegades in pushing back the Spectral hordes. The irony of these gangs being repeatedly saved by the very same Hierarchy that they are so set on rebelling against is not lost on either side.
Abandoned and boarded up houses and warehouses, dark alleyways, basically anywhere that crimes might occur or criminals might go to conceal their illicit activity… these are the places that end up haunted in Inglewood and South Central.
These Hauntings tend to be extremely violent, with Outrage being the preferred Arcanoi in these areas.
The Harbor District and its surrounding territories are completely surrounded by the Tempest on four sides in the Shadowlands. This makes it home to constant spectral incursions. Hauntings here are extremely violent, fucked up, and nasty. The dead here are more likely to be reaped by the forces of Oblivion than those of Stygia, and as a result almost always will become Spectres themselves.
One exception exists: The Stormriders (a renegade gang of bikers that ride relic motorcycles through the Tempest) maintain a chapter house in Palos Verdes. They will assist anyone they see under attack from Spectres, but do not actively go out of their way to draw attention to themselves.
Assume the haunts and ghosts of any other district than those mentioned above will mirror the most similar district listed, aside from the Necropolis. The factions listed for the districts above may be present in similar areas, just in lesser force. Lower population areas will have fewer haunts and fewer ghosts, with the likelihood of both diminishing the further you move away from the Necropolis in DTLA.
Areas that lay well outside the city such as smaller towns, rural areas, or the wilderness still have reflections in the Shadowlands, but each street, neighborhood, or sometimes even single house is like an island onto itself, adrift in the Tempest.
Such haunts, when they exist, are often very lonely and isolated places for a Wraith… and few but the most skilled practitioners of Argos will risk returning to such a haunt once they find a way off of it.
Those hauntings that do exist on such islands are frequently either especially violent or especially depressing. Spectres love making hives out of such patches of Shadowlands, especially in places where frequent murders or traumatic deaths have occurred.
Train tracks, crossroads, and highways are all likely places to find a stray haunt in the middle of nowhere. Hitchhiker ghosts or crossroad ghosts are their own unique breed of dead, seemingly playing by their own set of rules. Their ability to haunt the living is far greater than that of most Wraiths, but they are bound to their particular stretch of highway, railway, or intersection. Usually these ghosts will either re-enact the moments of the death similar to a repeater drone, or they will play twisted games with the living, with rules known only to them. One hitchhiking highway ghost may fish for compliments, then cause the car to crash when she receives them. The next might only get angry when he is not so flattered. This unpredictability makes them dangerous ghosts to deal with.