To Frankie that quarter-moon sky looked darker and all the iron apparatus of the El taller than ever.

The artificial
tenement light sweeping across the tracks made even the snow seem artificial, like snow off a dime-store counter.
Only the rails seemed real, and to move a bit with terrible intent.
Nelson Algren, The Man With The Golden Arm

An adventure for the World of Darkness

using the Storytelling Adventure System

Written by: Will Hindmarch

Additional Writing: Ken Hite, Bill Bridges

Layout: matt milberger

Art: sam araya

World of Darkness created by Mark ReinHagen

STORYTELLING ADVENTURE SYSTEM

White Wolf
Publishing, Inc.
1554 Litton Drive
Stone Mountain,
GA 30083

Jordi Torres (order #98907)

OOOOO
SCENES MENTAL
PHYSICAL OOOOO
SOCIAL
OOOOO

XP LEVEL

0-34

To Frankie that quarter-moon sky looked darker and all the iron apparatus of the El taller than ever. The artificial
tenement light sweeping across the tracks made even the snow seem artificial, like snow off a dime-store counter.
Only the rails seemed real, and to move a bit with terrible intent.
Nelson Algren, The Man With The Golden Arm

An adventure for the World of Darkness

using the Storytelling Adventure System

Written by: Will Hindmarch

Additional Writing: Ken Hite, Bill Bridges

Layout: matt milberger

Art: sam araya

World of Darkness created by Mark ReinHagen

STORYTELLING ADVENTURE SYSTEM

OOOOO
SCENES MENTAL
PHYSICAL OOOOO
SOCIAL
OOOOO

White Wolf
Publishing, Inc.
1554 Litton Drive
Stone Mountain,
GA 30083

Jordi Torres (order #98907)

XP LEVEL

0-34

2006 White Wolf, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire and World of Darkness are registered trademarks of White Wolf, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Storytelling System and the Resurrectionists are trademarks of White Wolf, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf, Inc. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a
challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are ction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised. Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com

The Chicago Working

by Kenneth Hite

chicago wo rking s

the chicago wo rking

The rails do move. They rattle and spark at night, when they think no
one is watching; perhaps they echo the long-gone Black Line train, delivering corpses to funeral homes after midnight, widdershins around the
Loop. They speak, these electried steel dragon tracks across the throat
of the city. What do they say? You have to listen, to hear them in the
right frequency.
Some hear other voices in harmony or counterpoint, the angels who
designed the city, owing through the stylus of Daniel Burnham, architect
by day and devout angelic contactee by night. Burnham thought them
angels at any rate, and certainly voices are heard on high in Chicago, howling down out of the sky on the wind, over the lightning and under the
rain. Burnham heard voices, and he drew up the 1909 Plan of Chicago, its
Classical grid shimmering over the prairie and the swamp, straight lines
vanishing into the distance, straight lines that for some reason impressed
a visiting Rudyard Kipling with a great horror.
The angled streets Burnham was stuck with, the old trails of the Potawotami and Wyandot and Miami Indians who for some reason never
stayed here long. He couldnt move or divert the angled roads the 148
specters of the Fort Dearborn Massacre, marched down to the lakeshore
dunes and killed by those same Indians in 1812, wouldnt let him. Where
the bodies fell, 18th and Prairie, the houses of rich men eventually sprouted,
nestled in Burnhams grid.
Burnham straightened the angles the best he could, tying them to cemeteries or forest preserves or canals. The canals were best. Controlled
water is hardly water at all, and Chicagos iron bridges lock it down further.
Those bridges know the real reason that Chicago ran its River backward
in 1900, at the turn of the century. (The River turns green every St.
Patricks Day, a gift from Dionysus on John Wayne Gacys birthday.) Only
seldom does the tamed water, the Gray Lady, claim her own. La Llorona
still snatches children down by the Cal-Sag Canal. And on July 24, 1915,
she pulled the steamer Eastland under the Chicago River. Between two
of Burnhams best cold iron seals, the Clark and LaSalle Street bridges,
the River reached up and drowned 835 people, bodies in sodden stacks for
blocks along West Washington Street. Moans still echo among the poles
and piers on green Rivers edge at night.
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chicago wo rking s

at Haymarket Square. And they drink to absent friends: Hymie Weiss,

bleeding like the bullet holes in the cornerstone of Holy Name Cathedral
where he died. Dion OBanion, shot in the gut, smelling the owers that
would bloom at his funeral. The blood-spattered dog howling over ve
bodies on Valentines Day in a garage on Clark Street. In these last toasts
it seems like murder has the best of it, but re is there.
The re this time was poured over ice, and buried under water. It was
that same rewater that the fur-trapper John Kinzie sold to the Indians just
before Fort Dearborn; Dionysus reborn in the frenzies of the Colosimo Mob
and the Moran Gang and the Capone Outt and all the rest. (Like Capone,
Kinzie knew how to handle competition one hot June night Kinzie buried
an axe a foot deep in his fur-trapping rival Jean LaLime, and he got his
son elected the rst Mayor and Kinzie Street named after him. Thats the
Chicago way.) Over 1,100 gangland killings in Chicago since 1919, and only
14 convictions. A thousand dead bodies dropped in the River for the Gray
Lady or buried in cornelds feeding Ceres, goddess of grain. Some wore concrete into the Underworld, like Holmes and Pullman. Some still walk down
Wabash under the El, screaming or whining like a blood-covered dog.
Chicagos spirit howls: chants of Dionysus and sobs of Ceres and the Gray
Lady, the voices of Burnhams angels and Roots Egyptian harmonies, the
muttering of the steel rails above the streets and in the buildings skins. And
always the roar of re. The Iroquois Theater Fire of 1906 broke out during
a performance of Mr. Bluebeard a lighthearted romp about a murderer
with a castle full of dead women. The blaze chorused on Randolph Street, in
the shadow of John Wellborn Roots last building, the Masonic Temple, the
tallest building in America. Roots Egyptian designs lurked within its steel
frame, glowing as the ames consumed 600 people half a block away.
Since 1906, the buildings have only grown taller the Board of Trade
Building on LaSalle Street, designed by Roots son in 1930 and topped
with a statue of hungry Ceres. (Like Chicago, Ceres watches her daughter
descend into Hell and does nothing.) The Hancock Building, crossed steel
like Pullmans sarcophagus laddering up 100 stories to the very wingtips of
the Watchers in the Skies, standing tall on steel piers driven down through
Kinzies swamps to bedrock, a shining trapezohedron bridging Heaven and
Hell. And at the very center point of Burnhams noble Plan the Sears
Tower scrapes the sky, carrying the words of the El tracks and the hum of
the grid up its steel skeleton to the tip of its radio mast and thence to distant stars. Egyptians and Mayans, Assyrians and Tibetans, dream beneath
its shadow, and in the eldritch purple glow of a Chicago night, the towers
speak to Burnhams angels, and move a bit with terrible intent.

the chicago wo rking

So Burnhams grid doesnt quite hold. Some of the ghosts will still walk
up Stony Island or down Ogden, and Resurrection Mary herself rides the
oldest road of all, Archer Avenue, on foggy nights. By the end Burnham
had to be buried on an island, surrounded by controlled water, pinned in
his grid in Graceland Cemetery. Hes not the worst off. Railroad magnate
George Pullman lies nearby, American pharaoh entombed in a Pullman
sleeper car, cris-crossed with steel rails and encased in a block of concrete.
Perhaps he feared the ghosts of the 13 men gunned down in the Pullman
Strike of 1894 more than he feared the voices in his own rails.
But in Chicago everything intersects, on the El, on the ground, or
somewhere underneath. They say if you stand at State and Madison long
enough, youll see everyone you know in this world or the next. And if
you stand at the right places in Chicago, youll see the same shades come
back. The Pullman Strikers, hearing voices of their own, seeing their death
coming down the broad streets of the South Side, burned down the White
City, the perfect City of Beauty that Daniel Burnham built for the 1893
Worlds Fair. Burnham laced it with tame canals dug through Hyde Park,
the buildings faultless models of Roman rationality. Burnhams partner
John Wellborn Root had a different vision. Root heard untold harmonies
of his own; he wanted to build the White City on authentic Egyptian
designs but he died suddenly, in 1891. Burnhams voices were louder.
The Fair brought a million tourists to the city, strangers on the trains eager
to see the future walking down Burnhams boulevards, to catch its reection in Burnhams canals. And some of the strangers vanished. The dashing
inventor H.H. Holmes murdered 40 or was it 60? of them, all young
women. He boiled them in acid or eviscerated them in Iron Maidens or choked
them in gas chambers beneath his Murder Castle just a streetcar ride away
from the Fair, down the rails on 63rd Street in bucolic Englewood. Today
the site of Holmes Murder Castle is a slouching post ofce, and Englewood
is a blasted heath, and only dogs hear the voice of what still lurks there. He
had a devil in him, Holmes said at his trial. He was hung high from a special
gallows, and they buried him in a block of concrete just like they would George
Pullman, and the Murder Castle burst into spontaneous ames in August of
1894, a month after the White City burned down.
Fire and murder are no strangers in Chicago. They ramble around town
like old friends. They drop by Richard Specks hunting ground on East
100th, remember the reproof LaSalle Hotel and the childish screams
from Our Lady of Angels in 1958. They drink to Mrs. OLearys barn
and to Dillingers alley behind the Biograph, and to Leopold and Loebs
razed Hyde Park mansions, and to the perfect blend of re and murder
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Overview

When a new neighbor moves into the characters' neighborhood, they become
the final hinge in a fifty-year-old secret struggle between the ghosts of two
Chicago geomancers. The fate of their occult conflict is in the characters'
hands.
Simon Ellsworth and John Burgess used to be friends. They met as
apprentices in the halls of a prestigious architectural firm in Chicago
and got to know each other while commiserating over grunt work.
They were seated next to each other, hunched over drafting tables
in a wide office planted with rows of apprentices, each hoping to be
hand-picked by a higher-up in a fine black suit. All the apprentices sat
facing a row of wide windows, looking out on the top floors of Chicago
skyscrapers against the bold blue band of the lake. With that skyline to
inspire them, the apprentices hand-copied the designs of their bosses
during the week, and pitched their own designs on Fridays. Ellsworth
and Burgess were passed over every time.
Ellsworth wanted to follow in the footsteps of the old guard of the
Chicago School, Burgess wanted to be on the cutting edge of modern
design. They never agreed on anything work-related, but they felt
like a good pairing, each strong where the other was weak. Together
they believed they could create a revolutionary new design and pull
themselves out of the apprentice farm. They spent weekends plumbing
through trade magazines and history books at the palatial Chicago Public Library on Washington Street and stayed late in the firms archives,
looking for a hypothetical project to design and pitch.
One night, in the dark stacks of the firms private archives, they
stumbled on a collection of handwritten papers tied shut in a flaking
leather folio and tucked behind accordian folders of old apprentices
sketches. A paper label glued to the front read, Chicago Workings.
The papers were studies of Chicago architecture and, seemingly,
notes taken during some kind of meeting or lecture. They contained
diagrams of townhouses and skyscrapers built before 1900, overlaid
with geometric schematics; maps of the city studded with little sunand moon-shapes, connected in a complex grid of dotted lines; lists
of addresses and quasi-mathematical formulae that took into account
variables like x = purchased under a new moon and n = inhabited
by a man with n children. They were mystified and captivated.
Each of them snuck a half of the folio out of the firm and studied
it in depth for months. Though it contained only fragmentary notes

"Chicago Workings" is a complete supernatural thriller story for your

World of Darkness chronicle. Only you, as the Storyteller, should read
this product initially. What follows is a frank how-to guide to playing
out this story with your troupe, using the game rules in the World of
Darkness Rulebook.
Think of this product as a story kit, as if you'd bought a piece of modern
furniture and brought it home in a big flat box. Inside, you'll find all the parts
you need to build this story at home, through play. The tools you need to put
this story together are in the World of Darkness Rulebook. When you get
your troupe together, you'll use all these parts to build something together.
It might not look quite the picture on the box, but that's fine. Your troupe
doesn't get together to look at a story, it gets together to build them.
So this is a nuts-and-bolts thing. The parts in this kit are designed to
make the actual job of being a Storyteller easier, to make the craft of Storytelling fast and fun for you. The heavy artful majesty you've read about
the transcendent game experiences that shock and satisfy as well as any
novel those come simply from doing a great job. Everything in here is
intended to take up the slack so you can focus on doing that great job.
The basic parts that make up this story are simple: Storyteller characters and scenes. Each of them can be used in different ways to keep
the story building towards its climactic end.

RELATED TITLES

Though you don't need additional books,

this story was built using:
World of
Darkness:
Chicago

World of
Darkness:
Antagonists

overview

chicago wo rking s

Chicago Workings

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chicago wo rking s

Enter the players' characters.

Ellsworth moves back to Chicago, hoping to make a positive contribution to the neighborhoods that were a part of his old mystic grid
before he dies. He wants his legacy to be positive resonance, a sense of
pride in the places he renovated. Upon his return, he and his live-in
nurse, Richard, moves in near one of the players characters. Maybe
he becomes their new landlord or next-door neighbor.
In his nineties now, Ellsworth is something of a talker. He relates
a bit of his belief and what he knows about the citys history to the
characters. These are quiet but somewhat spooky encounters in which
he tells the characters tales bordering on ghost stories the sort of
stuff you read about in the prologue to this story. He confides in them,
desperate for someone who will listen the story of a lonely old man.
He whets their appetites.
But tragedy strikes! The characters are witness to a fire that sweeps
Ellsworths apartment while his nurse, Richard, is out. They catch sight of
figures moving around in the apartment but these figures never emerge. If
the characters go to investigate (or to rescue Ellsworth!) they find no one
in the apartment except for Ellsworth, already dead. The place is thick
with smoke and piles of plaster and splintered wood scattered in the room
all around him though the ceiling hasnt yet started to come down
and there doesnt seem to be enough damage to the walls to account for
all that plaster and wood. The characters may be able to salvage some of
Ellsworths historic materials, but theres no hope for the old man.
Whats happened is this: Burgess, acting through his mystically enslaved Agents, has paid Richard, the nurse, to leave Ellsworths security
system off and his doors unlocked. Richard presumed someone was going to rob the old man, but he wasnt expecting a murder. Burgess sent
a handful of lifeless creatures, born through a mystic rite, to start the
fire in Ellsworths building and make sure the old man didnt escape.
Their work completed, the creatures disintegrated into the plaster,
nails and wood they were made from.
Richard is the weak link in the crime. Hes not sure he can be a party
to murder. If the characters dont find him, he finds them and confesses
what he knows including Ellsworths final wish: to have his ashes
buried in a special stone box in the ground on one of his properties in
Chicago. Richards afraid of the old mans paranormal talk, though,
and doesnt think he can go to the police with what he knows. Not
only is Richard an accomplice in a murder, but hes getting more scared
every night by the person who asked him to help.

overview

and observations, they both managed to understand the general ideas

of the papers: The city could be more than simply inhabited, it could
be tapped into. A citizen resides within a city, but a builder develops
a relationship with it. A city resonates with the power and the pathos
that is put into it, and that resonance can be received by those with
a grip on it. The buildings are transceivers for the wisdom of the city
and those who made it what it is. That wisdom is embodied in angels
in the architecture, the mystic workings of Chicago, the charge that
makes its geomantic machinery run.
The great architects at the turn of the century had rattled Chicagos
steel frame with the hammers of their genius. Ellsworth and Burgess
planned to grab onto that thrumming frame and take in that genius.
But they couldnt agree on how to do it. They couldnt agree who
should maintain control of what portions of the Chicago Working
Folio or just what benefits they would attempt to derive from their
study of sacred geometry and the citys mystical grid. Each withheld
information, a few pages of the Folio, from the other. Their friendship
fell apart, and with it their trust.
Each went his own way with a portion of the Folio and tried to make
his own impact on the city. At first, they werent working against each
other, but that didnt last. As each bought up and renovated properties throughout the city according to the principles hed learned of
sacred geometry, each created his own mystical matrix that acted on,
and reacted to, the resonance of the city. Those matrices interfered
with each other, causing spiritual static and diminishing the power of
both their works.
For decades they competed with each other, buying up and altering
properties throughout Chicago for the purposes of improving their own
personal attunement to the city. It was a complex game of capturing
and controlling territory in the city, with dozens of small victories and
small reversals over the years, which eventually took their toll.
Their ignorant misuse of half-understood mysticism altered their
fortunes and their bodies. Ellsworth got sick with cancer, Burgess
died from pneumonia. Ellsworth, thinking his molestation of Burgesss
mystic grid had killed him, left Chicago ashamed.
But Burgess wasnt truly dead. He had his body planted like a seed in
the ground beneath one of his properties. Installed into his own grid.
He was speaking through the thrum of the city now, resonating in his
own mystic frames. Through his buildings he maintained his will and
continued to expand his influence on the Chicago workings.
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Backstory

Chicago has long been a city of famous architecture and historically

significant architects. Burgess and Ellsworth each had different visions
for the city, based on different philosophies of life and art. A basic
understanding of their field can give you a valuable handle on these
characters and an ability to invent dialogue for them that sounds more
informed about architecture than the average person probably is.
John Michael Burgess was an inconsistent modernist. Every few
months he became distracted by some new approach or style, often
depending on the attention it was getting in the trade publications.
Burgess loved architecture for the attention it drew from ordinary
people and for the good fortune it could draw to an architect. He
admired the work and philosophies of Philip Johnson, an American
architect and fascist. Johnson attempted to found an American fascist
party in the 1930s, attended a Hitler rally in Nuremberg in 1938 and
visited Poland just after the invasion. Back in America, the pressure
of the US involvement in WWII (and an FBI investigation) prompted
Johnson to renounce fascism in 1940, the same year the Burgess met
Ellsworth while apprenticing at Holabird & Root.
That same year, Burgess lost interest in Johnson's work (as a result of
Johnson's surrender to social pressure) and became enamored with the
Beverly Hills-style modernism (and money) of Paul Lszl, who Time
magazine would call "the Millionaire's Architect" in 1952. Burgess
was attracted to Lszl's fame and celebrity client list as much as his
designs. When Burgess eventually, inevitably lost interest in Lszl,
he took to developing a personal style based on Frank Lloyd Wright's
increasingly stark modernism and the most severely industrial elements
of art deco. When he opened his private design firm in 1953, Burgess
had a reputation among Chicago architects for cold, dead designs and
no reputation among non-architects at all.
That reputation persisted until the 1970s, when Burgess's affordability trumped all other concerns for many clients. Throughout the

backsto ry

chicago wo rking s

him through human interaction. But ultimately Burgess and Ellsworth

want the same things: to maintain his own geomantic grid in the city
and to be free of the other.
The characters must choose: They can take justice into their own
hands and risk their lives to stop the ghost of John Michael Burgess,
or they can refuse to tamper with mystic powers they dont understand
and let a greedy ghost get away with the murder of their friend.

When Richard left, he took the key to Ellsworths safe-deposit box,

containing his will and other precious papers. Richard turns that over
to the characters to ease his conscience. Then he tries to skip town.
But first, Richard can also show them what its like inside an
apartment building owned by John Burgess. The characters find that
everyone in the building is virtually identical, like Stepford Tenants.
If they probe further, they even find Burgesss zombie-like minions
being born in the buildings basement. It should be clear to them now:
Theyve become involved in something more grotesque than simple
murder and arson.
Ellsworths documents explain his desire to be buried at one of his
Chicago properties. They also lead the characters to the hiding place of
Ellsworths half of the Chicago Working Folio the notes Ellsworth
used to teach himself about sacred geometry and the mystic grid. With
this information, the characters understand the basics of Burgesss war
with Ellsworth: each was striving to control the spiritual resonance of
his part of the city, and each was getting in the other ones way.
The papers show the characters how to bury Ellsworth such that his
spirit will be infused in the sacred architecture of the mystic grid created by the properties he owns. To do this, theyll have to convince
residents in one of Ellsworths old buildings willing to let someone be
buried on the lot. This unusual Social challenge is a chance for macabre humor or suspense, depending on how honest the characters are
when they ask permission. This assumes the characters choose to give
Ellsworth the power theyre likely to take from Burgess. That choice is
ultimately up to them: will they help the ghost of Ellsworth influence
the spiritual resonance of his properties or will they choose to prevent
his hauntings, beneficial or not.
The papers also reveal how to hear the voices of Chicagos angels,
how to tune temporarily into the workings of Chicago, and thereby
communicate with Ellsworth again and find out what can be done
about Burgess. If theyre willing, Ellsworth tells them how to find
Burgess and break his mystic control over his territory. To do it, they
must destroy Burgesss mystic connection to his properties. Locate
the keystone property in Burgesss mystic grid and separate Burgesss
corpse from it.
There's symmetry here. Ellsworth and Burgess are the two circles,
and the characters are the vesica piscis, caught in the middle. Ellsworth
and Burgess are different, but the same. Congruent. Burgess enslaves
his agents with mystic rites, Ellsworth persuades the characters to help
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chicago wo rking s

backsto ry

In 1995, two days after a West Side school he'd designed burned in
the night, Ellsworth was diagnosed with leukemia. The next week he
bought a historic mixed-use building in Lincoln Park which had
been Burgess's territory for years and returned to his oncologist.
The prognosis was good: Ellsworth's cancer was asymptomatic and
not currently life-threatening. But Ellsworth knew Burgess had dealt
him a blow he could never truly recover from, even if Ellsworth wasn't
sure how he'd done it.
In the winter of 1996, Ellsworth got his revenge, but it was more than
he'd planned for. Ellsworth quietly arranged for the heat to go out in
several of Burgess's North Side townhouses and apartment buildings.
Radiant water-heaters rattled and went cold, pilot lights were packed
shut with spackle or cement. Snow fell. Ellsworth had intended a
night-long nuisance, a frigid warning, but four snowy days later, Burgess
died of complications from pneumonia (just as John Wellborn Root
had died in 1891).
Ellsworth never forgave himself. He stopped renovating properties to
maintain his matrix. The points on his geometric grid fell into disrepair.
His mystic influence faded. He spent long nights sitting on fire escapes
and stoops listening to the city's angels, but he no longer rattled the
rails. When his cancer tried to kill him in 1999, he didn't consider that
it might have been Burgess spurring it on. He had been at Burgess's
funeral, after all, seen him buried like a man, not a foundation stone.
He mistook the sound of Burgess in the rails for guilty echoes.
Ellsworth moved to Rochester, Minnesota, to work on charity
projects through Holabird & Root's regional office and to undergo
treatment for his leukemia. He tried to forget about Chicago's angels.
Tried to get over his guilt.
But he never stopped watching. What he saw in the papers was developer after developer gentrifying block after block of historic buildings,
not out of local pride or a love for the neighborhood character, but out
of greed. Neighborhoods that should have been renewed and revitalized
were instead undergoing a complete change of blood, forcing out longtime residents in favor of newer, wealthier ones. It broke his heart.
Then it revealed itself to him. Burgess was not dead. He had planned
well beyond Ellsworth's expectations and had his corpse laid into the
city somewhere as the Chicago Workings Folio described. Burgess's greed was spreading through the city like asbestos on the wind.
In 2006, Ellsworth returned to do what he could: die in Chicago and
hope to shape the city from within the remains of his old mystic grid.

city's urban renewal phase of the era, Burgess snatched up sub-contracts for work on municipally funded housing projects and bloodless
commercial properties. Through these contacts he eventually entered
the real-estate market on his own and took up a new full-time job:
renovation. From the mid-1970s until his death in 1996, Burgess made
his fortune buying derelict properties and renovating them in shiny,
bland modern styles.
Each renovation was a small point in a complex mystical matrix
across the city. Each property was another dot to connect on his mystic
geometric graph, another etch in the stone of the city, another piece
on the game board against Ellsworth. When he died, he had resonant
properties all over the city.
Simon Ellsworth, by comparison, was hung up on the architects of
Chicago's past, from John Wellborn Root and Daniel Burnham to Louis
Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Ellsworth's style, from his first days at
Holabird & Root to his last days as a working designer in Chicago,
was eclecticism. He wanted to revive the ornate art nouveau styles of
Sullivan and return to the soaring verticality of the first turn-of-thecentury skyscrapers. Unfortunately, Ellsworth became a professional
architect in the 1950s, when glass and steel were in vogue in Chicago,
and his work was never singled out by the powers that were at the city's
great firms. His career at Holabird & Root wasn't going anywhere.
Ellsworth left Holabird & Root the same year as Burgess and opened
his own design firm on the South Side. For many years, Ellsworth
handled low-budget, low-profile projects almost exclusively. He used to
joke that he'd built additions and designed parking lots for every grade
school on the South Side. He gave every project its own ornamental
details, from Oriental arches and art nouveau fixtures to Gothic windows and decorative gargoyles. Just as his flourishes were beginning
to get special attention in the local scene, Ellsworth was struck by a
drunk driver just outside a property that happened to have been
renovated by Burgess. Ellsworth's legs were shattered and he spent a
year learning to walk again.
Unwilling to accept the "accident" as anything other than a mystic
attack by Burgess, Ellsworth set out to create his own mystical matrix of
properties to counteract Burgess's. Now there were two sets of pieces in
play on the arcane grid of the city. As they renovated and razed buildings throughout the city, bought and sold properties from the North
Side to the South, they were altering the spiritual resonance of the
neighborhoods they inhabited and changing each other's fortunes.
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TIMELINE

1940: Burgess and Ellsworth meet as apprentice draftsmen at

Holabird & Root. Burgess imitates the styles of Philip Johnson
and Paul Lszl. Ellsworth hopes to resurrect the Chicago
School style.
1949: Burgess and Ellsworth discover the so-called Chicago
Workings Folio, a notebook containing hand-written notes
about mystic architecture and sacred geometry in Chicago.
1951:A dispute over ownership of the Chicago Workings Folio
puts an end to the friendship between Burgess and Ellsworth.
Each hides his parts of the Folio from the other.
1953: Burgess and Ellsworth go to work for different
architectural rms in the city. Their old dispute develops into
an intense personal and professional rivalry.
1953 on: Burgess and Ellsworth wage a secret, occult war
against each other, both attempting to inuence the growth and
development of the city to suit their own tastes. For 46 years
both designers attempt to alter the architectural resonance of
the city through small, calculated constructions, renovations,
expansions and tear-downs throughout the city.
1995: Ellsworth is diagnosed with leukemia.
1996: Burgess dies of complications from pneumonia.
Ellsworth knows this won't put an end to their conict. The
designs Burgess has put into motion continue to subtly stymie
and oppose Ellsworth's success.
1999: Ellsworth's leukemia becomes life threatening. He moves
temporarily to Rochester to undergo treatment.
2006: Ellsworth moves back to Chicago, hoping to make a few
more small contributions to the city's architecture and people
before he succumbs to his cancer, but Burgess turns out to
be much more powerful after all these years than Ellsworth
anticipated.

The Vesica Piscis

This information can be shared with the player of any character with at
least one dot in the Occult Skill, as described in the scenes "Tales of Angels"
and "Inside A Burgess Property."
The vesica piscis ("bladder of the fish") is a geometric curiosity regarded
by Pythagoreans and others as geometrically sacred. It represents the
formation of the universe and the development of life. Some claim that
its symbolism links early Christians to ancient Pythagoreans as well.
First, begin with a point (1), the smallest and simplest concept in
geometry. Then step outward to a second point (2), the smallest conceptual leap from a single point, and reveal the truth of the second
dimension. If there are two points, there must be space between them,
and that space is expressed as a span (a). That span, however, could
stretch out from either point in any direction it's a radius. A radius
reveals a circle. Two points reveals two circles. The center of each
circle, our two points, is also a point on the other circle. This union
creates an almond-shaped space a new appreciable space that
exists within both circles.
That new space is the vesica piscis. Its shape defines two new points,
the pointed "tips" where its parent circles intersect. Drawing lines
from those points to the original center-points of the circles reveals

Sacred Geometry and the Mystic Matrix

You don't need to know exactly how the mystical power struggle of
Ellsworth and Burgess worked. They didn't. All you need to know is
enough for the players to understand the goal of the story and to
provide the sense of a complex mystical scheme in the background. To
that end, here's a little bit of information about sacred geometry and
the Chicago Working Folio, so you can feel ready to run this story.
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Sacred geometry is a belief system (actually any of a variety of belief

systems) that regards mathematics, especially geometry, as the true
workings of the cosmos on a spiritual or religious level. It is, in a way,
a geometric counterpart to numerology. Pythagoras, probably the most
famous name in sacred geometry, is one of the earliest solidifiers of the
belief. He and his followers were philosopher mathematicians who
believed that a spiritual appreciation for mathematical understanding
offered insight into the architecture of the cosmos. For the Pythagoreans, geometry was the study not only of terrestrial architecture but
the architecture of the universe.
Pythagorean philosophy finds symbolism in geometric truths. The
unfolding revelations of geometric forms can be seen to represent an
unfolding understanding of the universe. Likewise, as geometry reveals
patterns and occult relationships in mathematics, so can it inspire the
recognition of patterns and hidden relationships in the physical (and,
perhaps, spiritual) world. In this story, Ellsworth and Burgess draw
from two common models of sacred geometry: the vesica piscis and
the golden ratio.

chicago wo rking s

two equilateral triangles whose sides equal a. The points have begat
circles which have begat the vesica piscis which has begat triangles.
From those two points a world is being created. By adding other points
equidistant from points 1 and 2, more and more fertile areas can be
created. This repetition can be completed into infinity.
The vesica piscis represents creation and fertility. It's an image of
cellular replication. In some traditions, it and its component circles
symbolize female genitalia or ovum. Displayed horizontally the almond shape may symbolize a fish (the fanning curves of the circles
bending away from one tip are sometimes depicted as a tail). To the
Pythagoreans the ratio of the vesica pisci's height to width (265:153) is
a holy value. In the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ was reported to have
created 153 fishes (the miracle may have had a different meaning for
Pythagoreans of the time).

The golden ratio reveals itself to be an irrational number when

figured algebraically. In short, if the lowest possible expression of the
golden ratio is a/b, then the golden spiral demonstrates that a/b equals
b divided by a b. But if a/b is the lowest value of the ratio than b/(a
b) is lower than the lowest. How can its smallest form reveal a smaller
version of its form? It contradicts itself into infinity. (To see the spiral
expand outward, do a web search for "Fibonacci numbers.")

The Golden Ratio

This information can be shared with the player of any character with at
least one dot in the Occult Skill, as described in the scenes "Tales of Angels"
and "Inside A Burgess Property."
The golden ratio (or golden section, or a hundred other "golden"
names) is another geometric discovery attributed to the Pythagoreans.
It exemplifies the beautiful patterning inherent in geometry (and by

The Chicago Working Folio

Only the original (unknown) creator of the Chicago Working Folio,
Ellsworth and Burgess have heard of this work. Characters can learn this
information only when revealed during relevant scenes.
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extension, the universe) and how that patterning is irrational and

beautiful. The golden ratio defines a logarithmic spiral that personifies
the universe.
To understand the golden ratio, take a rectangle with a short side (a)
and a long side (a + b). Draw a line through the rectangle such that a
square with sides equal to a is created. This leaves a rectangle remaining, with sides equal to a and b. This new rectangle can be divided just
as you divided the first one, leaving another rectangle, which can also
be divided, and so on, ad infinitum. The recurring process creates the
beautiful, endlessly unspooling golden spiral.

chicago wo rking s

and physical changes can be wrought. In the areas defined by Burgess's

network, people become greedy and Spartan. In the areas defined by
Ellsworth's network, people become proud of their neighborhoods and
protective of their people.
But Ellsworth and Burgess were each working from portions of unfinished notes they didn't fully grasp. They were building their networks in
the dark, adding buildings and resonance with little awareness of the spiritual consequences. Their matrices overlapped and interfered with each
other. Their competing resonances created accidental disharmonies and
spiritual static. Their feud transformed each other's bodies with illness.
As the architects of their networks, each had a certain sympathetic
connection to their creations. Each was affected by his matrix of properties no matter where he went.
But Burgess was the first to attempt the greatest feat of the philosophy. He encased himself in stone and entombed himself in one of his
properties, thereby installing himself within the spiritual matrix he
created. He unlocked a new level of control over his network, and an
ability to transform the state of the points that defined it. Unfortunately, Burgess had long ago forgotten that those points in his network
were real houses inhabited by real people with lives of their own.
What Burgess and Ellsworth Know
Burgess and Ellsworth each ended up with different halves of the
Chicago Working Folio. It was divided between the two of them, and
the place where their knowledge overlapped the creation of mystic
grids became their battleground.
Ellsworth had the fundamental notes, including the secret techniques
of tuning into the voices of the city's angels. He understands how to
create and maintain a geomantic grid and how to plug himself into it
by burying his body in stone, in a part of the grid. But Ellsworth doesn't
know how to impose his will on others through geomantic resonance
and doesn't know how to create Burgess's zombie-like Minions.
Ellsworth's share of the Chicago Working notes are hidden in the Chicago
Cultural Center on Washington Street. (See the scene "The Folio.")
Burgess, meanwhile, had the later notes from the Folio, including
the theoretical techniques of merging one's spirit with space through
sacred geometry and the rite through which the vesica piscis can be
used to fashion life-like creatures. Many of these notes were incomplete
in Burgess's half of the Folio, and its likely that his usurpation of his
Agents' bodies has more to do with the resonance of his phenomenal
greed than any particular geomantic rite.
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Look back at the triangles in the vesica pisci. Before those lines were
drawn, those triangles did not necessarily exist. They are whole new
things within the circles, sharing points with the circles but not actually parts of the circles at all. New, artificial spaces have been created
within the natural spaces, using the grace of the radius that existed in
a new way. This is the symbolic root of the mystic concepts sketched
out, but never completed, in the Chicago Working Folio.
By identifying and linking points in the natural spiritual landscape
on the invisible but tangible expanding circles of the cosmos an
architect can capture the sacred space between those points in spans of
spiritual power. Those triangles can be extrapolated out into infinity as
well, as new points are discovered are linked into the web of triangles
to create new triangles.
In the first few pages of the Folio, this idea is use to describe how a
person impresses spans onto a personal space through repetition. That
is, repeated spiritual input and emotional resonance can define an area.
A space that is subject to repetitive emotional resonance (the three
sides of the triangle) will create an area (the area of the triangle) defined
by that same emotional resonance. (This emotional imprinting on an
area is the same kind of spiritual resonance explained in Werewolf and
Mage.) The revolutionary ideas of the Chicago Working theorems lay
in the way it redefines scale of resonance and the ways that resonance
can be manipulated and redistributed.
What if each point on the expanding web of triangles was a building? Then the areas of spiritual resonance being defined could cover
whole blocks of a city.
What if the lines radiating from each point to create the areas of
influence could be spiritually linked to transmit at a shared spiritual
frequency? Then whoever did the transmitting could define the type
of spiritual resonance in each area.
So What's It Mean?
Simply put, each property prepared according to the principles of
the Folio becomes another point in the architect's mystic network.
The spokes between points carry spiritual resonance throughout the
network. The more points the architect has giving off the same resonance, the stronger the signal and the greater the control he has over
that resonance.
Resonance the frequency at which the buildings hum and the rails
rattle can impact a variety of spiritual and arcane qualities within any
area of the network. Emotions sway, luck changes, spirits are attracted

the background, which shows the traffic backing up on the Dan Ryan,
where that car that drove by is headed. Snippets of sound come from
all over, out of windows open a crack, through car doors, from inside
the apartment upstairs, from inside the restaurant you walk past and
from the wind as it gets scraped off the sky by Ceres atop the Board
of Trade building.
Finding the truth of Ellsworth's death in this story should be like
finding one cable in the workings of a giant engine and following it,
hand over hand, to the outlet in the wall.

Burgess's half of the Chicago Working Folio is presumed destroyed

(to keep anyone else from learning its secrets), though that's ultimately
up to you. In this story it's just a background detail explaining his
power. You may decide that Burgess's half is still hidden in the city
somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
Others reap what you sow. The things you do live on after you're
gone. The places where we live also live in us.
On some level this story is about the ways people affect those around
them, the way that people in close proximity are constantly acting on
one another. How a neighbor changes the way you see the world. How
a stranger changes the way you treat your employer. How the person
who built your house changes the way you live.
The spaces we inhabit seem so separate, but they are also interconnected. In the city, we live in apartments and houses built decades
earlier by people we've never met and, usually, have never heard of.
We live inside their work, in places others have held dear before us
and others will cherish after we're gone. We live inside the houses of
others without knowing why they were built as they were.
Ellsworth and Burgess spent their lives acting against each other in
ways they barely understood. They were groping in the dark, pulling
on strings in a desperate struggle to get through to the other one. To
change the way the other thought and lived. And their struggle begets
struggle.
Each of them has projected a portion of his self onto his part of the
city. Ellsworth wanted to feel good about his work and he wanted others to feel good about the places in which they lived. Burgess wanted
to feel about his work, too, and he thought that with enough money
and enough property he could prove its value to himself.

USING CHICAGO WORKING WITH VAMPIRE,

WEREWOLF, MAGE OR PROMETHEAN

This story is written for mortal characters, but it could, with

some adjustments by a Storyteller, be run for supernatural
characters. It presents little challenge for such characters,
however; it might work best as a short introduction to a
greater mystery, such as the identity of the original author of
the Chicago Working Folio. Below are some suggestions for how
to make this story important for supernatural characters.
Vampires: Perhaps a characters new haven is in
one of Burgesss buildings, and hes beginning to suspect
rst hand the strangeness of such places. Maybe one of
his ghouls or trusted Retainers is co-opted by Burgess
as an Agent, prompting the vampire to investigate what
rival of his is stealing his pawns. Its also possible that Ellsworth
has sparked some remembrance in the vampire of what it
meant to be human. Revenging Ellsworth helps the character
cling to that feeling.
Werewolves: Ellsworths and Burgesss mystic
grids almost surely intersect a locus or two here and
there. Spirits who wish to reside in these places might
ask the characters to clear them out rst, to make
their resonance more palatable to natural spirits.
Mages: Was the author of the Folio a mage? Did
he leave other arcane works in the city, waiting to be
discovered? Was one of the characters his apprentice,
or was he a criminal condemned by the Consilium
and now the characters are tasked with collecting all evidence
of his work? The characters might well be interested in taking
control of the mystic grids, once theyve dealt with their previous
owners.
Promethean: Perhaps Ellsworths grid suffers a

Mood

Huge mystic mechanisms turning in the background. Being in the

midst of something vast and complex, struggling ahead on the little
glimpses you can see of the larger whole. The sense of unknowable
things working in the background must be palpable.
Everywhere, from the first scene until the characters step into
Burgess's house, there must be background action going on. Cars grind
through snow outside, past people waiting for the bus, who are being
watched by the lady in her kitchen upstairs, who has the news on in

theme and mood

chicago wo rking s

Theme

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uptown?" On that ride through town, the characters see the pulsing
lights of squad cars and stumble on the story's next crime scene.
The players may see right through your subtlety when the Ally asks for
a ride, but that's fine. You don't want to be so subtle that no one catches
on. Remember, you want to communicate ideas to the players. You want
to be understood. It's not enough to hope they'll ask the right questions or
stumble onto the next scene. A Storytelling game should never devolve
into the frustrating boredom of a pixel hunt in a video game, because the
supreme hint guide is right there with them. It's you. Getting stuck is no
fun, and fun is what everybody showed up for. A great story that grinds
that to a halt isn't so great. It's certainly not better than a great story with
a few hiccups and bumps along the way. So, when you have to, sacrifice
subtlety to get the players playing again. Sometimes it's all right to say,
point blank, "The convenience store clerk doesn't know anything else."
And, of course, some of these antagonists can challenge the characters directly. In this way, each character is another potential scene you
can create to enrich or excite the story. Simply putting the characters
alone in a splintering tenement with some of Burgess's zombie-like
Minions creates a scene of suspense or action, for example, while
putting the characters into Ellsworth's study with him one more time
before his death could create a quiet, charmingly comic scene to throw
his death into stark relief.

chicago wo rking s

Storyteller Characters
and Antagonists

The conflict between the players' characters, on behalf of Simon

Ellsworth, and the designs of the dead architect, John Michael Burgess,
is the source of all the action in this story. The best thing you, as the
Storyteller, can do to prepare is to understand Ellsworth and Burgess.
Understanding Ellsworth enables you to make his importance felt
throughout the whole story, even after his death, and use that importance to motivate the players' characters. Understanding Burgess,
especially his goals and his methods, gives you the freedom to react to
the characters, to mold and expand the story around them, wherever
the players' decisions take them. With a good grip on these characters,
and the supporting cast, you'll find it much easier to adapt the scenes
in each act to whatever unique story unfolds at the game table.
These characters are yours to control; use them however you can
to guide, direct or lure the players' characters toward the next scenes.
Sometimes you can tip off the players, hinting through dialogue or narration that it's time for them to wrap up one scene and move the story to
a new location. You describe the cab driver "leaning out the driver-side
window, holding his hat on his head in the wind. 'I'm not sticking around
here, man! But you'll never get another cab down here. You coming or
not?' he shouts over the rain." That sends a signal to the players that it's
time to move on. "The light in the woods is weakening, turning from an
afternoon's orange glow toward dusk's dead gray. Not much time left to
get out of here before dark," you say, for the same effect.
The same technique can be used to lure characters into another
specific scene. An Ally might get up off the couch at the club where
they've been negotiating with the characters, stretch her arms and say,
"All right, it's late. I got too much to do tomorrow. Give me a ride back

Simon Ellsworth's Plan

The public library of a great metropolis is appropriately the palace of the

people. It is the one building which by its very nature is best fitted to exercise
a strong refining and elevating influence on the masses.
Inland Architect Supplement, vol. 30, no. 6, January 1898
Ellsworth doesn't have the domineering aims that Burgess does. Still,
he has a desire to influence the course of his city's history by becoming a part of it. For him, however, that simply means leaving a mystic
legacy behind for others to build on. Ellsworth hid his portion of the
Chicago Working Folio in the old Chicago Public Library building
at 78 Washington Street (now the Chicago Cultural Center) for just
that purpose so that some other young researcher working in those
sacred halls might stumble on it one night. Ellsworth wants to leave
great things behind for those who come next.
Ellsworth's plan to become a part of his mystic grid is simple: have
his ashes buried on a property in his mystic grid, in the sacred cask he
created to transmit his essence. To do that, he needs reliable executors
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Prometheans Wasteland effect at a slower rate than

elsewhere, tempting a nomad or throng of them to
stay in the city for a while. The kindness Ellsworth
bestows on them (he seems unaffected by their
Disquiet, protected as he is by his grid) is invaluable, and well
worth rewarding by helping the old man even after his death.
Indeed, burying Ellsworth and uninstalling Burgess might serve
as a milestone for one or more of the characters.

chicago wo rking s

Simon Ellsworth, Architect

Quote: The places where we live also live in us.
Background: Simon was born in Rock Island, Illinois, but raised in
Chicago from age 8. His family lived in Ukrainian Village and in Logan
Square on the city's Near West Side until 1939 when Simon's parents
died of influenza. He moved into a tiny apartment in a renovated Victorian house in the Washington Park neighborhood, between Englewood
and Hyde Park. That house is now an empty lot, brimming with broken
glass and spiked with used needles. He used to sit in the park and read
articles by its planner, Frederick Law Olmstead, and dream of being
an architect. He won his apprenticeship at Holabird & Root with his
sketches alone he'd had no formal education to rely on.
Ellsworth never started a family of his own. He always says he was
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"busy with work," then winks and says, "but when I'm finished I'll settle
down."
Description: He listens to you with one knotted finger in the air, at
the ready. When you finish, he points it at you as if to say, "Exactly."
Today Simon Ellsworth is a withered man in a bow tie. He's all but
bald and dotted with liver spots from his fingers to his face. His hands
shake. He turns his whole body instead of his head. Most often he
wears argyle V-neck sweaters or smoky cardigans and shiny loafers.
His wardrobe and his vocabulary make him seem as though he never
escaped the gravity of the 1950s. Yet he's no stranger to cell phones
or computers he uses email and the internet to keep up with realestate and development news.
Storytelling Hints: It's vital that the players and their characters
like Ellsworth. To make that happen, play to your audience. Ellsworth
can be an earthy veteran with a surprising awareness of popular culture
and a talent for cutting through bullshit, or he can be a talkative old
coot with stories to tell from fifty years of Chicago history, or he can
be the kindly but helpless relic just waiting out his years. Whatever
his demeanor, he is certainly a generous person with an apartment full
of junk to pass on to interested neighbors.
Ellsworth: "Oh, now that was a lovely one. I remember the day they tore
it down, after it had burned. We drank a lot of whiskey that night."
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 2, Resolve 4
Physical Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 2, Stamina 1
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 3
Mental Skills: Academics (Geometry, Mathematics) 3, Computer (CAD) 2,
Crafts (Architecture, Pottery) 4, Investigation (Research) 3, Medicine
(Cancer) 1, Occult 2 (Sacred Geometry), Politics (Zoning Boards) 3,
Science 2
Physical Skills: Athletics (Tennis) 1, Drive 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 2
Social Skills: Empathy 3, Expression (Drawing) 4, Persuasion (Seminar) 4,
Socialize (Fund-Raising) 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge (Lie) 1
Merits: Contacts (Chicago City Hall, contractors, architecture, charities), Architectural Attunement: Chicago (see Aftermath), Resources 3,
Retainer: Nurse (Richard) 2
Willpower: 7
Morality: 6
Virtue: Charity. Ellsworth has long had a reputation as a generous,
charitable humanitarian. On the rare occasions now when hes out

for his will. That's where things get tricky for Ellsworth. He can't create
a legal will and testament listing the properties where his ashes can be
buried, because Burgess could use such a list to break Ellsworth's grid.
He'd hoped that Richard would bury him, but can't trust him not to
just dump his ashes and piss away the inheritance.
So Ellsworth sets out trying to build bridges with people as soon as
he arrives in the city. He can pay someone to accept his ashes on their
property, but he doesn't want his installation to be about money. So
Ellsworth doesn't have a foolproof plan yet, and Burgess's attack against
him in the scene, "The Fire," comes before Ellsworth can commit to
choosing his executors. Everything that happens after his death is just
the movement of people's lives on the ripples of his half-finished plan.
Whether or not Ellsworth gets what he wants is up to the characters.
Ellsworth's Properties
Strictly speaking, Ellsworth's mystically prepared properties can be
anywhere you like. The scene "Burying Ellsworth" offers a few archetypal locations. In general, though, most of Ellsworth's geomantic grid
runs from Englewood, on the South Side, up through Wicker Park
and the Ukrainian Village on the West Side, where Burgess's and
Ellsworth's networks collide.
Remember, it's not enough for Ellsworth to own or reside in a property. (In fact, he no longer owns most of the properties on his mystic
grid, since he felt part of the artistic purpose of architecture was to pass
it on to others.) Only those properties Ellsworth was able to mystically
prepare according to the principles of sacred geometry are actual points
in his mystic grid.

chicago wo rking s

Some days his beard is just as long. He has the blocky build of a guy
who used to be in shape but has been softening for a year or so. His skin
is a vaguely drunk-looking red and his eyes are dark spots in shadowy
circles. He's always bored.
Storytelling Hints: Richard is a listless punk who can barely muster
enough interest in the world to hate a movie. Until his big scene he shouldn't
seem like more than a bland twenty-something slacker meant to show just
how polite and understanding Ellsworth is. Until his big scene, that's his real
purpose: to help the players like Ellsworth. Everyone should be able to agree
that Richard's a schmuck and Ellsworth is being too generous with him.
Richard fails a contested Social action: "Whatever, dude," he says,
as if he was blowing you off. But there he goes, just like you asked.
Richard succeeds at a contested Social action: "Yeah, I'll get on that,"
he says. But he just sits there, picking his teeth.
Abilities:
Chores (dice pool 4) You can hear Richard clattering around in the
kitchen, filling the dishwasher like a pouting child. Richard spends most of
his day doing regular chores for Ellsworth, from laundry and cooking
to mail runs and grocery shopping. All these domestic activities are
second nature to him, now. He doesn't think much about his chores
(he thinks more about what to do with his salary), but neither to they
take much thought. Use this dice pool to cover ordinary day-to-day
activities governed by Skills like Crafts, Computer and Driving.
Medicine (dice pool 4) He looses an exact count of pills with a single
practiced shake, thumbs the bottle shut in one hand and carries them pinned under
two fingers while palming a glass of water. When Ellsworth's taken them, Richard
tosses the bottles back into the cabinet like shoes into a gym locker. Richard is
a registered nurse, but not a great one. He gets by in positions like this
one because he's good at reliably doing repetitive work, so doling out the
same meds and running the same tests all day is doable for him. Medical
procedures that he doesn't do on a regular basis are quickly forgotten.
Subterfuge (dice pool 6) "I was at the Thirsty Whale, the night it closed
down, when this drunk dude was harassing all these chicks. And I was like, 'Shut
it, dude. My dad's a judge and I'll give him your name off your ID at the bar and
he'll have you getting pulled over every night for a year.' And we was all, like,
silent and shit. That shut him up." Though chores take up most of his day,
Richard lies all day long. He makes up stories about his past, claims to be doing errands when he's in fact going to the movies and insists that he doesn't
know "where that money on the hutch went, Mr. Ell." When it comes to
feigning ignorance and pretending to be sorry, Richard's a natural.

Richard, Ellsworths Nurse

Quote: Yep. But you don't need that today, I'll get it tomorrow.
Background: Richard floated through high school, having decided early
on that teachers were just penniless losers going through the motions like
he was. A few years of shit jobs and crap money went by before he got
kicked out of his parents house. He spent a year in a basement apartment
in Pilsen, biding his time until he figured his parents felt guilty enough
to loan him money. They paid for nursing school in Rochester, MN, and
Richard's been stealing from the refrigerators of bed-ridden grandmothers
ever since.
He was linked with Ellsworth by MediCourt, his medical temp agency,
a year before Ellsworth arrived in Chicago. Richard was approached by
one of Burgess's Agents as soon as Ellsworth's name starting appearing
on condo offers in the city. Richard agreed to sell Ellsworth out for a
great lease and some money before he even knew what it would cost
Ellsworth. To his credit, he feels sort of bad about it now.
Description: His head and his eyes are never facing the same way.
He faces down but looks up past his brow at you.
Richard keeps himself looking respectable for the sake of the nursing
agency that gets him his clients, but he's toeing a line. He sometimes goes
a week without shaving and seldom wears his uniform according to official standards. More often than not he just throws a dirty scrub top over
a Metallica tee and substitutes dirty blue jeans for scrub pants. He wears
the white jacket that the agency gave him when there's weather.
His hair is buzzed short all over, rounded to the shape of his scalp.
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and seeing people, he picks up the check, he loans out nice pens and
says keep it, he walks panhandlers into burger joints and buys them
food. He was a frequent and popular speaker at charity dinners. He
donates roughly the same worth as his monthly expenses.
Vice: Pride. Ellsworth was brought up to believe that a job he couldnt
be proud of just wasnt finished yet. His pride drove him to deliver remarkable work for unremarkable projects. It also drove him to downplay
and hide his illness until too late.
Initiative: 5
Defense: 2
Speed: 8
Size: 5
Health: 6

maintained ownership over most of his mystic properties (and many

others) while he was alive, because he was unwilling to part with them
and the rent checks they provided him.

As far as Burgess is concerned, he's already won. Ellsworth's mystic

grid has gone unattended for years and Ellsworth seems to have given
up the game. Burgess has installed himself into his mystic grid, thereby
gaining a degree of immortality, and yet is still able to expand and
improve his grid. All Burgess needs to do now is continue the gradual
expansion of his power, mystically incorporating properties into his
network and bringing in lucrative, respectable residents whose lifestyles
contribute to the harmonious thrum of his grid.
To Burgess's mind, that means stability. And to Burgess's mind, "stability" means "wealth." He wants tenants whose wherewithal doesn't
waver. Who can get sick, miss work, and still make rent.
Burgess's superstitious means of injecting some stability, some good
fortune, into his network is to evoke the Roman goddess of luck, Fortuna, in his designs. Specifically he incorporates her Fortuna Redux aspect into his properties Fortuna Redux's purview is the safe return of
a person to his home. (Burgess's wooden coffin in Graceland Cemetery
contains a statuette of Fortuna Redux instead of his corpse.) Burgess's
take on Fortuna Redux is an image of a woman in neoclassical robes
lifting a blindfold off of one eye and standing on a spoked wheel. This
is meant to represent Fortuna cheating blind luck, choosing fortunes
instead of trusting to the chance of the wheel.
Ellsworth's return to Chicago has the potential to upset Burgess's plans,
though. Burgess thinks he is so close to feeling complete that he can't
bear another setback. He kills Ellsworth to protect his investments.
Burgess's Properties
As with Ellsworth's, Burgess's mystic properties can be anywhere you
like. Only one of his mystic properties is absolutely essential to the
story, and even that one's interior is more important than its location.
See "Burgess's House" and the scene "Uninstalling Burgess" for details
on that property.
In general, Burgess's mystic properties are scattered from the Near
South Side north to Lincoln Park and Lakeview, with an arm of properties extending west through Bucktown to Wicker Park, where Burgess's
and Ellsworth's mystic networks interfere with each other the most.
Remember, it's not enough for Burgess to own or reside in a property
for it to be a part of his network. Only those properties he was able to
mystically prepare according to the principles of sacred geometry are
actual points in his mystic grid. Unlike Ellsworth, however, Burgess

Burgesss House
Quote: In the momentary light of the swinging bulb you see that the
shadows cast off the ridges of swollen paint on the wall form the words, Get
Out. When the bulb swings back a second later, the shadows are gone.
Background: Burgess built his house in Old Town in 1959, knowing full well what role it would play after his death. He tore down a
historic townhouse, erected on the spot in 1881, and used materials
salvaged from it and other demolished houses from throughout the city
to build his new home. These salvaged materials gave Burgesss home
an arcane connection to sites throughout the city and saved him
money. Burgess lived in the house from 1959 to 1964, but didnt sell it
when he moved out. Rather, Burgess kept the house in his estate until
his death in 1996, when it was sold to the unknowing developer who
became the first of Burgesss Agents. Through him, Burgess gradually
destroyed most city records of the building dating from before 1990, in
an attempt to hide the houses importance from Ellsworth. On paper,
it would appear like just another point on Burgess's grid.
When Burgess died, he was secretly buried beneath the house in an ornate
triangular prism made of stone and carved with art deco designs depicting
Ceres, Vulcan and a stylized skyline view of Chicago across each face. This
concrete coffin is laid on its side in the houses cellar behind a stone slab
depicting the Fortuna Redux aspect of the Roman goddess of luck.
Burgess's spirit resides in the house now. He's not exactly a ghost and
not exactly a spirit, in the sense that mages or werewolves would understand them. He has no ephemeral body and no presence in Twilight.
He is little more than a willful resonance echoing throughout his mystic
geometric matrix from the spiritual transmitter that is this house.
Description: If it were shorter, it'd be a German bunker. If it were taller,
it'd be a smokestack with windows.
The house was a cutting-edge design in 1959, a strict stone riff on
glass-focused designs of the day. Four stories, from cellar to master suite,
it looks more like a modest Deco office with its glass bricks and steel
bars. Over the years its interior has been cosmetically redesigned. Today
it has a bland, eggshell-white interior with shiny black countertops
and matte black fixtures. Most of its ground-floor portals are barred
with black iron rods. Its narrow yards are concrete slabs stained with
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chicago wo rking s

John Michael Burgess's Design

chicago wo rking s

Burgesss Minions
Quote: In the hush you can hear it sucking for air like a child in a plastic
bag.
Background: Burgess's corpse was planted in the ground like a seed.
His will grew up through his house like a tree. These are fruit it bears.
The Minions are utterly lifeless supernatural creatures grown in the
walls of Burgess's properties through a mystic rite contained in his
pages of the Chicago Working Folio. They derive their power from
the fertility of the vesica piscis.
Description: If it has a face, it's underneath the paint and the plaster,
behind the long crack that would be between its eyes, but all that's there is
stretch of gauze studded with steel nails.
Burgess's Minions are faceless, man-shaped creatures with primerwhite skin the texture of wet plaster. They smell like sawdust and the
electric stink of a power drill. They're lean like marathon runners.
Their bodies and heads have hints of features, as if a real person was
trapped inside them, but they are nothing but wood fibers and plaster
dust. This one has a screaming mouth sealed shut with a curve of dry
plaster, that one blows little puffs of asbestos out of its nostrils.
Storytelling Hints: Though they are, functionally, zombies, avoid
the temptation to have the Minions groan or lurch like animated
corpses. These are creatures the characters will (presumably) never
see again, so make them distinctive. When they move they run both
hands flat along walls and floors. They tip their rough heads up as if
they were smelling the air. They tap their four fingers on the walls as
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Initiative: 6
Defense: 0
Speed: 0
Size: Three floors, plus basement.
Corpus: N/A. The house has all the durability and solidity of its excellent construction. Damaging its plaster and breaking its windows isn't
enough to affect its wellbeing. Burgess's spirit can only be overcome
by neutralizing Burgess's casket and destroying the house, as described
above and in Act Three.
Numina: Animal Control (6 dice), Clairvoyance (6 dice), Compulsion
(6 dice), Ghost Sign (6 dice), Magnetic Disruption, Telekinesis (6
dice). These Numina can only affect subjects in contact with the house,
whether it's a crow on the gargoyles or an intruder in the basement.

water rings from metal flowerpots. A metal door with prison cell-style
windows leads into the house at the front and back. No doors access
the cellar from outside.
Inside the house has a severe 1980s design style, almost like a
black-and-white version of Miami Vice. What furniture there is looks
square-ish and uncomfortable. Art consists mostly of serrated abstract
metal ornaments and decorative glass shapes hanging from the walls.
Carpets, blankets, pillows, shelves, tiles and doors are white. Upholstery
is black. Nothing is wood-colored.
Storytelling Hints: The inside of Burgess's house is cold and bizarre,
like a sterile futuristic environment. The Agents who live in the house
do nothing but eat simple meals and sleep here, so the house has no
books, television or other human details. The severe art on the walls
is intended to intimidate visitors and gash intruders through Burgess's
telekinesis. To convey the eeriness inside, remind the characters how
cold it is, because the heat's off. It's uncomfortably silent, at every hour
of the day. The sound of the refrigerator making ice seems as loud as
dropped pool balls in here. The sound of feet on the tile is like a museum. The air stings with the alcoholic bite of heavy-duty cleaner.
Destroying the House: As described in the primer to Act Three,
Burgess's ghost can't be permanently damaged through simple physical harm to the house. As long as Burgess's concrete casket is in the
cellar, he can continue to exert his will on his anchor property. To
do away with Burgess for good, the mystic symbols on the faces of his
casket must be defaced (Durability 2, Size 6, Structure 8; Structure
must be reduced to at least 2 to fully deface it), breaking its spell. This
removes Burgess's ghost from the grid and, thereby, his control over
his Agents and his Minions. (See "Aftermath" for the consequences
of his removal.)
Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 1, Resistance 5
Willpower: 10
Essence: maximum 10 (Burgess collects Essence from the resonance
of the properties on his mystic grid, so long as their present conditions
remain within the parameters he planned for in their architecture.
He regains 1 spent point of Essence per day. Significantly altering his
properties might slow this rate.)
Morality: 2
Virtue: Prudence. (See Burgess's Agents)
Vice: Pride. (See Burgess's Agents)

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Preservation 3 These eerie creatures do not suffer damage over

time. They do not rot or decay, they do not bleed or starve.
Quick Movement Despite their weak minds and imperfect bodies,
these creatures are capable of steady movement. Their Speed is equal
to 5 + Power + Finesse.
Regeneration By returning to Burgesss building and resuming
their places in the basement, these creatures regain one point of Health
per hour. Only Health, not Physical Integrity, is healed in this way.
Sensitivity (dice pool 6+) The creatures of Burgesss house can
sense living creatures through the studs, floorboards and bricks of the
house, through the asphalt and concrete of the city, no matter how
well they hide. Only objects not built by humans like grass, water,
soil and trees do not conduct the voices of the angels in the architecture and guide these creatures in their search of prey. To sense
the telemetry of a living being through the fibers of architecture, the
creature rolls Finesse +3 in a contested action against the subject of
its search, who rolls Dexterity + Stealth (but see below for rules about
using the Stealth Skill). If the creature and its subject are in the same
building, it gains an additional +1 to its roll; if both are on the same
floor of the same building, it gains a +2 to its roll. The range of their
mystic sensitivity stretches out 24 yards, unimpeded by walls or other
man-made barriers.
The Stealth Skill is useless when hiding from these creatures as long
as the character is in contact with an architectural medium. Before
Stealth dots can be of any use in the characters contested dice pool, a
character must first run to, climb to or otherwise reach a place where
cement and steel wont relay his pounding pulse back to Burgesss
creatures. For example, once a fleeing character has managed to reach
a tree and climb it, she can use the Stealth Skill to hide from Burgesss
Minions. Until she reaches the tree, however, her every step along the
sidewalk or street sends a tremor back to the creatures, reducing her
dice pool to her Dexterity dots alone.
Solid Materials These creatures are made from a mystical assemblage of plaster, drywall, nails, cement and fragments of sheet rock.
Their arms, legs and heads are like clubs, dealing Damage 2(B) on all
unarmed attacks.
Special Attack: Crushing Grip (dice pool 7) Burgesss creatures
have hands like vices, capable of crushing bone and splintering wood.
When able to get a grip on an enemy or an object, these creatures gain
a +2 bonus to Power-based attacks.

if feeling for studs. They stop in place for a moment then resume
their hunt.
The primary purpose of these creatures is to frighten the characters.
Their secondary purpose is to threaten them. The Minions aren't
comically idiotic, merely unimaginative. What they lack in creativity
they make up for in thoroughness, scouring any area for signs of prey
before giving up. In a chase, they sprint without fear. Burgess doesn't
hesitate to command them to destroy themselves if his Minions could
be followed or otherwise convincingly revealed.
Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 3, Resilience 4
Health: 5
Initiative: 3
Physical Integrity: 10
Size: 5
Speed: 9
Defense: 0
Attack
Damage
Dice Pool
Brawl
2B
5
Crushing Grip
4B
7
Aspects:
Crumble When destroyed, when in danger of being revealed or
when ordered to do so by Burgess, these creatures crumble apart into
ruined plaster, splinters, particle board fibers and nails. Their corpses
leave no evidence of their supernatural origins and no shapes, features
or remains to suggest they were once mobile, malevolent beings.
Indestructible Burgesss minions are inhumanly resilient. Though
they have no natural healing, they do not suffer wound penalties. Once
a minions Health is depleted, subsequent damage is lost from Physical
Integrity. The only way to destroy these creatures is to reduce their
Physical Integrity to 0. A minions dice pool for any action cannot
exceed its current Physical Integrity.
Limited Intelligence Minions are capable of extremely basic problem solving on their own. They may turn doorknobs, navigate fire escapes
and use basic tools. If tools and other improvised weapons capable of
dealing better than Damage 2(B) are within reach, they use them.
Power Climb (dice pool 6) Through a combination of mystic
synergy and brute Strength, Burgesss creations can climb man-made
structures with frightening ease. They gain a +3 bonus on all attempts
to scale scaffolds, walls, fences and other structures.

DIY

chicago wo rking s

Burgesss House was created using the rules for ghosts in the
World of Darkness Rulebook (though, strictly speaking,
no ghost resides there). You can easily swap out the Houses
Numina, or add new ones, to tailor its abilities to your players
characters abilities. Books like Werewolf: The Forsaken,
Predators and Mage: The Awakening contain other
Numina suitable for the House, too.
Burgesss Minions were created using the zombie-building
rules from World of Darkness: Antagonists and a few
new Aspects created especially for this story. If youd like to
modify these monsters, its easy to do using that book. These
creatures were made with 27 creation points; add or subtract
more dots and Aspects until you get the monsters you want.

Burgesss Agents
Quote: This flat has all the amenities youd expect, and the region is rapidly
coming into its own. Youre just steps from Whole Foods and Starbucks. Its
a very emotional property, sure to be snatched up soon.
Background: Burgesss handful of Agents are his greatest work:
people so utterly transformed by their environment that the people
they used to be no longer exist. They have moved into Burgesss spaces
and Burgess has moved into them.
Their bodies are facades. Inside, each is inhabited by an echo of
Burgess. This driving force is not exactly Burgesss ghost, and his
means of controlling them isnt exactly possession. Though each is
like a facsimile of Burgess, none contain his true spirit. Killing one of
Burgesss Agents does not physical or mystical harm to Burgess he
simply loses a piece of valuable property.
Each Agent began as an ordinary young man in residence in one of
Burgesss townhouses. For months, sometimes years, Burgess whispered
to them, almost imperceptibly, through the mystic architecture of his
buildings arcane transceivers designed and built just for this purpose.
Over time, each potential Agents individual personality was muted to
the point that he became one of Burgesss hypnotized Tenants. Finally,
each Agent was completely stripped of his own identity and remade,
inside, in Burgesss image. For most Agents, this process took mere
months of living and sleeping inside Burgesss work. For those with
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great Willpower, the process took a year or more, afforded to Burgess

with long-term, iron-clad leases.
All of Burgesss Agents are also real-estate agents. Each took the test with
Burgesss knowledge and passed on the first try. None were real-estate agents
before their transformation (though some were "flippers," buying houses and
selling them for a quick profit). The Agents work to get desirable owners
and renters into Burgesss properties, and to keep undesirables away.
Description: His smile comes on and off with the flip of a switch. He's
just waiting for you to stop talking.
Though each Agent began as an individual, every one has since undergone a complete makeover. Each is a clean-cut young Caucasian man
between the ages of 28 and 35. Each has the same haircut, an old-fashioned,
close-cropped, slicked-up do. Each dresses in modest, earthy clothes with the
same label (Whitworth). Each has the same ten ties in his closet, the same
three pairs of shoes. Each carries a zipper-shut leather folder with a notepad
and a pen. Each has the same make and model of camera-phone. Each has
the same shiny metal laptop. They are exaggerated metrosexuals, amplified
from simply stereotypical into something bordering on parody by Burgess's
fascination with the modern and desperation to be cutting edge.
They all talk alike. Despite the fact that every one Burgesss Agents is
American, each uses a handful of British vocabulary words, like flat and
lift and maisonette (a duplex). When an Agent is stymied or harmed,
he says bloody hell. None of the Agents attempts an accent. (Burgess
adopted these words to make himself look, or maybe feel, like a sophisticate.) These words are a touchstone for you to use. Establish that Burgess's
Agents use these words, then you can use them later to tip off the players
that the person they're hearing is one of Burgess's Agents, too.
Storytelling Hints: Most of the time, Burgess's Agents are listless, silent
organisms that cannot be fairly described as people. They sit in their condos
and wait for Burgess to steer them out into the world, to take meetings and
show properties and haggle over the cost of investment properties.
When under his specific command, an Agent seems genuine enough,
though stilted and awkward. Burgess was never very comfortable dealing
with customers outside of a business situation, and speaking through
his Agents isn't much easier for him. He relies on their young, wellgroomed faces and trained real-estate spiel to make a good impression.
(The Agents are, in a way, living tools, granting a +2 bonus to Burgess's
Persuasion dice pools; this is already factored into the stats below.)
Burgess's Agents should make the characters feel uncomfortable, but
not outright scared. Not at first. When an Agent isn't participating

introduction
to ellsworth

tales
of angels

[m ] [p ] [s ]

[m ] [p ] [s ]

[m ] [p ] [s ]

richard
the traitor

inside a burgess
property

tuning into
chicago

[m ] [p ] [s ]

[m ] [p ] [s ]

burying
ellsworth

tales
of angels

[m ] [p ] [s ]

[m ] [p ] [s ]

ac t
t hre e

act t w o

[m ] [p ] [s ]

uninstalling
burgess

chicago wo rking s ba sic plo t

the
fire

a ct o n e

chicago wo rking s

chicago workings"
basic plot

in a conversation, he seems blank, spaced out. Their practiced smiles

drop too quickly. Their eyes are somehow blank, even when the rest
of their face is animated.
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 3
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 3, Composure 5
Mental Skills: Academics (Geometry) 3, Crafts (Architecture, Carpentry, Masonry) 4, Investigation (City Records) 2, Occult (Mystic
Architecture) 2, Science (Chemistry) 1
Physical Skills: Athletics (Climbing) 1, Drive 2, Firearms 1, Larceny
(Breaking and Entering) 3, Stealth 3, Weaponry (Clubs) 1
Social Skills: Animal Ken 1, Empathy 2, Expression (Drawing) 2,
Intimidation (Civil Threats) 3, Persuasion 3, Socialize 1, Streetwise 3,
Subterfuge 1
Merits: City Status: Real Estate Agent 1, Iron Stamina 3, Resources 4
Willpower: 8
Morality: 2
Virtue: Prudence. Burgess was patient to a fault. When coworkers and
would-be friends tried to politely imply that he was no longer welcome
somewhere, hed stick around past the point of rudeness. He was prudish
with money and praise, because risks could cost him precious money or
status. Burgess would sit on a property for years and wait for it to slowly
ripen rather than risk investing too much money into it.
Vice: Greed. Burgess was an arrogant, self-centered son of a bitch
waiting to be applauded by betters he wished would consider him a
peer. But it wasnt strictly pride it was greed. No amount of ink in
architectural journals, contracts or signed checks was enough for him.
No one house was enough to stand for what he thought of himself, so
he collected them. No money was enough to compensate him for his
genius, so he skimmed and scammed more of it where he could. He
was greedy in the hope that it would lead to pride.
Initiative: 7
Defense: 2
Speed: 9
Health: 7
Aspects:
Iron Stamina 3: The Agents have a functional resistance to the
effects of pain. Their bodies are just appliances for their personality.
They feel pain, but are not affected by it.

[m ] [p ] [s ]

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ACT ONE

FOUNDATION
Do that another two times ("He showed up on your doorstep once,
asking for help hanging a painting") and then cut straight to the
night of "The Fire." "All those moments flashed through your head
when you heard the screech of a smoke-detector and ran to
the window to see smoke pouring out of Mr. Ellsworth's
windows," you say. Now you're in the real time of
the story and all those set-up scenes have played
out as an interactive prologue. "What do
you do?" you ask, and the story's off on an
exciting start.
This technique, when it works, is
great for keeping players on topic.
Some players want to run off on
their own side missions right
from the start, but if it feels like
you're just covering some quick
background material for really get
started you can keep them from
wandering away from the story
until your fiery opening. Create
momentum right from the start
and they have to hang on to your
words just to keep from falling off
the ride.
This also has the benefit of making
it easier for you to get the characters
(and the players) to like Ellsworth, because
you're implying that they already do. Set it up
early that he's likeable and they'll fill in a lot of
likeable details from their own imaginations. Some
players will also get instantly suspicious of a new, likeable
Storyteller character, assuming that he'll peel off his face or drink
their blood the moment they let their guard down. With this pacing
trick, they'll hardly have a chance to be suspicious before Ellsworth
gets killed and the story is unfolding in their hands.

Pacing

Don't dawdle in this act. Keep

things moving, even when you're
playing scenes about helping
an old man with his groceries.
Handle a series of encounters
with Ellsworth as a single scene,
dilating time to play through a
month's worth of Sunday-afternoon visits with grandpa in a short
stretch, if you can.
Maybe the tightest way to play
through this first act is to start it off in
the past tense ("Mr. Ellsworth moved
in almost three months ago, and since
then you've seen more of him than any of
your other neighbors") and play through
a few encounters with the feeling of a quick
recap. "One day, a month or so ago, you found him
outside his building struggling with his keys. Would you
have helped him?" you ask. Whatever the answer (maybe Ellsworth
outright asks if the player says no), you play the short scene in the
present tense and then "step back" to the past tense, reminding the
players that you're manipulating time in this sequence.

ac t one fo unda tion

chicago wo rking s

The first act of the story is for setting up the characters and ideas
you'll need the players to understand and be familiar with later on. In
this case, setting up the story takes however long your players need
to sympathize with Simon Ellsworth and get the basic gist of
his back-story. This goal is harder to attain with some
troupes than with others. Your players may never
really come to like Ellsworth, so don't force it.
What's more vital is that they understand
that he believed in the supernatural and
in sacred geometry.

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You also need to establish a few particulars about Ellsworth's apartment (or condo, or townhouse or whatever is appropriate for your
chronicle): It has windows visible from the character(s) residence or
office, it is on the second floor (or higher), it has hardwood floors and
the front door is the only way into the apartment.
If the characters don't introduce themselves, Ellsworth has Richard
walk him over to the characters and introduces himself.
Character Goals: The characters have no obvious goals at this point,
except maybe to get a read on their new neighbor. This is risky for you.
End this scene before they get bored.

SCENE

Introducing Ellsworth
Physical

Social

The characters meet their new neighbor, an eccentric but generous old
architect.
Overview: An old man moves in near the characters and gets to
know them. They also meet his nurse, Richard. In this scene, you're just
laying the groundwork, establishing how the characters know Ellsworth
and Richard. Remember, no matter how suspicious the players may get,
you don't want to give their characters reason to be. At the end of this
scene, you want the characters to be telling Ellsworth a little bit about
themselves this gets the players engaged in the scene and helps to
establish Ellsworth as somebody they can talk to.
If you can, play this scene as part of another story, a chapter or two
before you plan on beginning this story in full. That way Ellsworth
feels a little more established in the chronicle before he comes to the
foreground. This scene can then serve valuable double duty as a mundane counterpoint to something bizarre happening in another story a
valuable reminder that while the characters are investigating magic
artifacts the rest of the city is going about its daily business.
Description: From the furniture coming off the truck, it looks like your new
neighbor has just moved in from another era. His wood-armed couch looks like an
antique, but not next to the globe they're unloading now, which looks even older.
The owner, a shrunken little man in tiny spectacles and a bow tie, watches the
movers go by from a beat-up wooden bench of his sitting near the curb. From the
bare wood on its sides it looks like it came out of an old building somewhere.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Get the players to like Ellsworth. Use
Richard for contrast, showing how kindly and forgiving Ellsworth is
when Richard is being a lay-about.
You need to decide before you run this scene what Ellsworth's
connection to the characters is going to be. Is he simply a neighbor?
(With his charitable nature, but his great real estate connections,
it's not unrealistic that he could end up in a nice or lousy apartment
suitable for a few dots above or below his actual Resources rating.) Is
he someone's new landlord? Is he moving in near a character's office?
Ellsworth could very well be moving into a loft space in a neighborhood
otherwise filled with offices for rent, provided the building offers him
some historical or architectural interest.

Jordi Torres (order #98907)

Actions
Avoid using dice pools to resolve the action in this scene, if only to
dodge the potential time sink of a million perception tests. Some players find it easiest to engage a scene through the dice at first, though,
so you can use one of these actions to deliver for them.
Mental Action: Appraise the Damage
Dice Pool: Wits or Intelligence + Crafts or Academics + equipment
Action: Instant
While carrying a bulbous, green glassy lamp from the truck into the apartment, Richard slips and drops it, cracking its hood. Richard slumps and sighs,
but it's closer to a pout than anything else. "Don't worry about it, Richard,"
says Ellsworth. "You didn't cut yourself did you?" (Richard's fine.) With a
quick glance at the lamp a character can attempt to gauge its worth.
Failure: It looks like an antique, like it came off a wall somewhere. No
telling how much it's worth, but the old man's clearly being nice. He's sorry
to see it damaged.
Success: It's an antique brass wall fixture, like from one of the old
buildings downtown. You can't just buy those, it must be a keepsake from
somewhere. You can't replace something like that, and the old man knows
it. He's being nice, but he's upset to see it damaged.
Exceptional Success: It's the kind of ornate brass wall fixtures they took
out of the Chicago Public Library during the renovation in 1991. Those were
hand-made in the 1890s for the library, so its not like they can be replaced.
The old man's being a gentleman: that lamp's probably worth five figures.
Outcome: At the end of this scene, the characters should know
who Ellsworth is and have an invitation to visit his house for scotch
or coffee sometime.

int rod ucing ell swo rth

chicago wo rking s

Mental

20

sunlight reflecting off the Chicago skyline behind them. Ellsworth is tall and
dark-haired in this picture, a different person except for his squinty smile.
"That's me and John Michael Burgess," he says. "In our first years as
apprentice draftsmen."
ELLSWORTH: "You see this one? That's what the Chicago Public
Library looked like back when it was new. Not so different. She's a beauty.
A building like that does good for the whole city. It's like magic, the way a
glass dome can lift the spirit. The way arches can lend solidarity to a city's
identity. The places we live in also live in us. Buildings, I think, remodel us
as much as we remodel them."
"Think about the way a building controls the space around it. The way it
defines that space. Imagine if we could learn to really use the power to change
our lives, our minds, that comes with controlling the spaces we inhabit.
Buildings give off what's put into them."
Outcome: This scene sets up "The Fire." Once the players have some
sympathy for Ellsworth, move on to that scene.

SCENE

Tales of Angels
Physical

Social

A weird but brilliant old man tells the characters stories about Chicago's
weird past and his own.
Overview: This scene is actually several scenes, which you'll use
more than once during this story. This is another scene light on action
refer to the "Pacing" section in the act one overview for guidelines
on making this scene exciting.
Use this scene to hint at the occult war between Burgess and Ellsworth and their past as friends. Run this scene in Ellsworth's apartment,
or on the stoop in the neighborhood or anywhere else that Ellsworth
and the characters might talk. If the characters visit Ellsworth more
than once, run two or three variations on this scene.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Your goal is to inform the players in
these scenes. In Act One, you want them to know just enough about
sacred geometry that they think Ellsworth's death in "The Fire" is
suspicious (or at least noteworthy) and that the terrible things that
happen during "Tuning Into Chicago" aren't coincidences. Give the
notes on the vesica piscis and the golden ratio at the beginning of this
story to characters with one or more dots in the Occult Skill, either
to represent what Ellsworth tells them about sacred geometry or to
illustrate to the players what it is their character can talk to Ellsworth
about for two hours.
Character Goals: In Act One you run the risk of the characters
having no goals, unless their interest is piqued by Ellsworth's talk of
sacred geometry, in which case their goal may be to learn more about
Ellsworth's secrets. He has plenty of back-story to share without spoiling the end of the story.
Details:
Ellsworth's apartment is like the office of a college professor with tenure.
He's been here only a few weeks, but the apartment feels like its been
accumulating books and photographs for years. While Richard is clattering
around in the kitchen making coffee and Ellsworth is walking you through
pictures on the walls, a framed photograph catches your eye of a young
Ellsworth and round, mustached man in a room full of drafting tables, lit with

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Actions

SCENE

The Fire

chicago wo rking s

Mental

Physical

Key Action (Physical): Chasing A Shadow

Dice Pool: Stamina + Athletics + equipment (character) versus 4
dice (Resistance of Burgess's Minion)
Action: Extended and contested. The Minion begins with a 20-yard (2-success) head
start. (See "Foot Chase," p. 65, World of
Darkness Rulebook.)
While the firefighters and paramedics
are working in the front of the building,
the characters notice a figure, seemingly
barefoot in loose pants and a hooded
sweatjacket, creeping along the side
of Ellsworth's building. Just as the
characters notice it, the figure
breaks into a run into nearby
alleys. If the characters are
quick, they can still catch
the figure.

Social

The characters witness a fire inside their neighbors' apartment.

Overview: In the night, while the characters are together at the
home or office next to Ellsworth's, they hear the sirens of a fire truck
pull up outside their building. From the window they can see thick
black smoke and snapping orange flames coming out of the windows
of Ellsworth's apartment. It's already too late to save Ellsworth.
Paramedics and neighbors are gathering in the street outside the
burning building, and the rumors come fast through the crowd. "Mr.
Ellsworth was in there," they say. "His nurse had gone out for the night."
But near as anyone can tell, Richard doesn't come back.
What happened is this: Richard was approached by one of Burgess's
Agents weeks ago. The Agent said Richard would get a good lease on
a condo in Bucktown and an easy job doing handy-work around the
building if he would leave the employ of Mr. Ellsworth on that particular night and leave the door unlocked and the security system
off behind him. Richard accepted the offer.
Four of Burgess's Minions, dressed in rags, walked into Ellsworth's
apartment and started a fire in the kitchen. Ellsworth, knowing that he
couldn't fight or escape the creatures at his age, sat down in his chair
and slowly died while the Minions watched. When the firefighters
arrived, the Minions that were inside had already disintegrated themselves, their remains mingling with the damage in the apartment.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Raise questions. Raise the adrenaline.
Set up the mysterious circumstances of the fire so that these questions
motivate them in "Richard the Traitor."
This scene is also your earliest chance to deliver a Physical challenge
to the players whose characters are built for them. In this case, such
characters have a chance to save lives and discover an unsettling clue,
all with Skills like Athletics.
Character Goals: The obvious goal "save Ellsworth" cannot
be accomplished. The actions of the characters may also be able to
earn them a valuable hint of Burgess's power, however.
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the fire

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lering in the dark is not the most persuasive) as an instant action. If

successful, neighbors turn on the lights on their porches and garages,
reducing the darkness penalty during the chase to 2.
Equipment bonuses: athletic shoes (+1), flashlight (reduces darkness penalty to 2)
Outcome: The characters can be quite sure that something supernatural has happened, but they have little evidence of just what that
might be. The news they hear from neighbors and the newspapers is
mundane: Ellsworth died of smoke inhalation when a leak from his
gas range caught fire while he was sleeping. The house was locked up
at the time. Richard had gone to the movies. Ellsworth apparently left
everything he had to the Chicago Historical Society.

The Minion has little hope of escaping outright. Rather, it attempts to

get far enough from the scene of the fire to minimize witnesses if it is caught
and forced to disintegrate in front of human eyes. It sprints over the broken
asphalt of driveways and back alleys without hesitation or fear, unimpeded
by darkness, sensing its way by the resonance of the city alone.
Dramatic Failure: Your foot catches under a loose chunk of asphalt,
yanking your feet out from under you and dropping you chin-first on the
pavement. (The character suffers one point of bashing damage.)
Failure: His bare feet slapping on the pavement, the figure surges ahead of
you and dashes around a garage. For a second, in the sickly yellow glow of
a streetlight, you could make out a bald white head with seemingly no ears.
As you turn the corner after him, stumbling into plastic garbage cans along
the way, you find yourself in a little chain-link pen a dead end. There's
the pants and the sweat jacket you saw on the runner, in a pile of plaster
chunks and wooden splinters, but there's no sign of the man himself.
Success or Exceptional Success: Just as your strides bring you up behind
the runner he seems to stumble in the dark, falling to his knees and then his
face on the pavement. Your momentum carries you past him, but you can
make some of it out. When his body hits the ground, it's like a sack of sand
fallen off a truck: chunks of plaster scatter out from an empty sweat jacket.
There's a sound like a fistful of nails bouncing along the ground. Where, one
second ago, there was a person, there's now just plaster dust and gauze.
Obstacles/Penalties:
The alleys are one layer of broken asphalt over another. Trying to keep
your feet on level ground is like trying to run across a creek on a trail of
stones. (difficult terrain, 2)
In the dark of the alleys, with the shadows of telephone poles and garages slicing into the orange glow of the streetlights, you can see the runner
only here and there, as he slips across another amber patch of light. (bad
lighting, 4)
The half-hearted rain makes your teeth cold as you run. Every spot of
light is surrounded by a shiny corona, so seemingly solid you almost expect
to shatter one as you run by. (bad weather, 1)
Aides/Bonuses:
The chasing character(s) can attempt a reflexive Wits + Composure roll to get their bearings in the dark and gain a +2 bonus for the
familiar terrain near their home or office.
If the chasing character is known to the neighbors in the chase
area, he can make a Presence + Persuasion roll with a 2 penalty (hol23

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ACT TWO

Where In The City

The second act is, naturally, the middle of the story. Here is where
the players have the most freedom to act. Depending on the choices
they make, scenes may take place in different orders and
some scenes may be skipped altogether. The facts
of the story define a few distinct play areas here
the Burgess-owned apartment building, the
Chicago Cultural Center, the El so the
players shouldn't have occasion to wander
too far from the central story here.
The pacing here is flexible. Things
happen at the pace that's right for
your group, with Richard providing
motivation if need be. Avoid letting the story drag in the second
act, however. If the players get
stuck, they need more information. Richard can give it to them
or Ellsworth's ghost can make a
desperate plea as a disembodied
voice while one character is on the
El, if need be.

Every location in this act is an archetype. Though specific

neighborhoods are mentioned, you should be able to move
most scenes and actions herein to another part of the
city that suits you. The Chicago Cultural Center
could become Union Station, for example,
while Richard's apartment in Burgess's
building could move from Bucktown to
Lakeview, or anywhere else.

ac t two get ting chicago wo rking

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Getting Chicago Working

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Character Goals: Get the truth out of Richard. Find Ellsworth's urn
and his share of the Chicago Working Folio.

SCENE

Richard the Traitor

Physical

Social Action: Getting the Truth Out of Richard

Dice Pool: Wits, Presence or Manipulation + Intimidation or Persuasion + equipment versus 4 dice (representing Richard's desire to
help but propensity to lie)
Action: Contested. Can be retried.
Ultimately, the characters will be successful. Dish out the following
information as necessary to maintain the mood the players are showing
you they want. The question is whether they do anything to Richard
along the way that could get them charged with assault if they want
to turn him into the police.
Success: "I didn't know what was going to happen. Okay? I swear I
didn't. I thought maybe they were gonna lift some of his antiques, steal a deed
or something. I didn't think anyone was going to fucking kill the old guy! All
I had to do was walk away and my days of sponging old men were over."
"The guy who made me the deal was some real-estate agent, I think. I
don't know anymore. He told me to call a number and tell them I wanted
the caretaker job at the condo building on Walcott, and I did, and I got the
job. But, man, listen: I don't know what is going on there, with those guys. I
don't want to go back there, man. There are sounds in the storage area."
"The old man's note said he wanted his ashes to go into an urn he hid
in the, ah, the library. When they made it the Cultural Center. I had to
walk the old man down there a couple times. He had this spot he liked in
the room with the big dome. Gotta be in there. They've got big-ass vents in
there with fancy grills, and he used to always touch this one. Like for luck
or something."
Action: Finding the Folio
Dice Pools: Intelligence + Crafts + equipment (remove vent cover),
Wits + Dexterity (feel inside the wall for the urn), Strength + Dexterity (pull the urn out)
Action: Each is an instant action that takes two minutes and can
be retried.
The vent in the Cultural Center where the urn is hidden is located
in a large reception room at the top of a grand marble lobby off of
Washington Street, near Millennium Park. It is a public area, but with
no exhibits or events that day it is not a high-traffic area. Visitors come

Social

The characters come face to face with the man who may have sold out their
friend and learn valuable information about what really happened that night.
Overview: The characters can come to this scene in search of
Richard, or he can come to them. Richard is currently living in the
basement apartment of a Bucktown church that's been converted to
modern condominiums. A for-sale sign on the lawn for one of the
condos features the gleaming white smile of one of Burgess's Agents.
Richard had a key to a safe-deposit box of Ellsworth's, which Richard
was hoping would have something valuable in it. Instead it had a letter
in Ellsworth's hand explaining his desire to be cremated and buried in
a special, stone urn he hid in the walls of the former Chicago Public
Library when Holabird & Root updated the site in 1991. Richard
thought this sounded like more of Ellsworth's "holy geometric bullshit"
and was just going to skip the details, but he saw something in his
condo that has him freaked out and now he's interested in cooperating with the only other people who listened to Ellsworth's weird talk
the characters.
Whether the characters come to Richard or he comes to them, he
still needs some cajoling before he becomes completely cooperative.
He has nowhere else to go, though, so sooner or later he tells the characters what he knows. Exactly how the scene plays out is up to them.
Richard may end up admitting what he knows in a wet-eyed whisper
or he might cough it out through bloody-nosed sobs, depending on
the characters' methods.
However it turns out, Richard begs the characters to see to it that
Ellsworth gets buried like he wanted, "'cause you seem to understand
that stuff." Richard has already received Ellsworth's ashes from the
funeral home. He has them in the simple brown jar the crematorium
supplied. He'll take the characters to the spot at the Cultural Center
where he's sure the urn must be.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Your goal with this scene is to give the
players new leads and reward them (after the automatic tragedy of "The
Fire") with the chance to choose Richard's comeuppance.

richa rd the t raito r

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Actions

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chicago wo rking s

richa rd the t raito r

through to see the famed Tiffany-glass dome and the exceptional oriental-style tile work on the walls. The room is two stories high, decorated
with sage passages in a half-dozen languages, from Latin to Arabic to
Hebrew. It's a grand, echoing room with nowhere to hide.
The urn is behind an ornately decorative heating vent, up in the wall
on a shelf of stone. A Size 5 person can lean into the vent but cannot
fit in the space in the wall. Searchers must grope around with an arm
until they find the urn, then pull it down one-handed. It's a stone triangular prism about twice the size of a football, decorated with images
of Ceres, Vulcan and the Chicago skyline in a flowing, Art Nouveau
style. Rolled up inside it is Ellsworth's half of the Chicago Working
Folio (see "Tuning Into Chicago") and a list of three suitable properties
where his ashes can be buried (see "Burying Ellsworth").
Obstacles/Penalties:
A visitor to the center wanders by the characters while they're
retrieving the urn. A contested fast-talk action (p. 83, World of Darkness Rulebook) versus 4 dice eases her suspicion. With a failure, she
mentions what she's seen to one of the docents. The docent arrives
two minutes later.
A docent in a blue jacket, with a walkie-talkie in hand, approaches
the room where the characters are working. Fast-talking her requires
a roll versus 5 dice. If the characters fail, she goes to get a guard. The
guard arrives two minutes later.
A civilian security guard arrives to investigate the characters' actions. Fast-talking her requires a roll versus 6 dice. If the characters fail,
she radios for more security and the police. Building security arrives in
two minutes, the police in six. If the characters flee, the security guard
only pursues them to the doors.
Aides/Bonuses: Toolkit (+3, remove vent cover; +1, fast-talk), ID
Badge (+2 fast-talk)
Outcome: It's essential that the characters retrieve the urn and the Chicago Working Folio. The penalty for being caught "stealing" the urn must
not be immediate; instead of being arrested or having the urn confiscated,
identified characters are blacklisted from the likes of the Art Institute,
the Field Museum and the Chicago Public Library. Certainly they should
never be able to return to the Cultural Center if they're caught.
Once the characters part ways with Richard, he disappears. He may
leave town to avoid the characters, the police, Burgess or all three. He
may be caught by Burgess's Agents and buried in a hole somewhere.
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order. There isn't a great deal to discover in the building aside from the
nature of the Agents and the discovery in the storage room.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Your primary goal here is to creep out
the players. Second to that, you want them to take Burgess seriously as
an antagonist by showing what his Minions and his Agents are like.
Character Goals: Find out what's going on at the building where
Richard was living.

SCENE

Inside A
Burgess Property
Physical

Social

Actions

The characters explore the strangeness going on inside a tenement renovated

by the mad spirit of a geomantic architect.
Overview: The characters arrive at this scene if they choose to
investigate Richard's condo. If they agree to do so, he gives them his
keys. He's unwilling to return there himself.
The building was a church until it burned in 2003. Now it's home
to five of Burgess's Agents in five different condos. A sixth condo is
currently for sale. Richard's apartment in the basement is the only
non-condo unit in the building. The two-story stained-glass window
in the front of the building is now a set of four bay windows looking
into very public, very Spartan modern living rooms.
While there, the characters might encounter any or all of the Agents
who live in the building. If the characters watch the place before entering, they can get a glimpse of how the Agents live. They sit, quietly and
motionlessly, in their carpeted living rooms, doing nothing. Between
11:30 pm and 12 am, each stands up, turns out the lights, and goes
to bed. The next morning they get up in the same order they went to
sleep, get ready for work, and leave the condos, one after the other,
about fifteen minutes apart. They always leave one Agent behind.
An investigation of the publicly accessible areas of the building reveals nothing remarkable. If the characters go knocking on doors, they
experience eerily similar conversations with the Agent in each condo.
If an Agent is attacked it does the best it can to dial 911 or hit the
panic button on its security system. Failing that, it becomes completely
catatonic, jettisons Burgess's personality and goes limp.
Remember that each Agent was a unique person before Burgess got
a hold on them. They're not all identical, just strangely similar. Their
condos still contain remnants of their old lives, such as pictures, CDs,
books; these items just go unused. Still, you must make it clear that
the Agents are living people, not like Minions.
If the characters resort to breaking and entering, alarms go off in short

Action: In the Storage Room

The storage room is located in the basement of the condo, next to
Richard's apartment. The other half of the basement is the boiler room
(Richard's key doesn't open that door). The storage room is a long, low
room (about 10 yards) that smells like wet concrete and drywall. A
few squat square pillars rise through the naked rafter of a drop ceiling
to the cement above. There is no power to this room.
Near the back of the room, in both corners, the walls are deformed,
as though the foundation were falling behind the drywall. Brown water stains makes odd shapes in the bowing plaster. Drawing closer, it's
clear that the walls are being pushed out in the shapes of adult humans
curled in the fetal position, as though the walls were pregnant with
grown men. Here there's a handprint pushing out for freedom. There
the wall is dried around the bulb of a head. This is one area where
Burgess births his Minions.
If the characters take action against the Minions in the walls, the
Minions split cracks in the drywall and fight back, hands groping out
from the walls for flesh. (Each Minion must spend just a single action
to free itself from the wall. If it forgoes this action it can attack only
targets close enough to reach from its nest in the wall.) The walls contain enough Minions to overwhelm the characters (make that clear to
them), so that flight becomes their best option. If the characters stay
and fight (and live), any Agents upstairs call the police. The Minions
collapse into drywall and dust if they are in danger of being seen by
anyone but the characters or Burgess's Agents.
The Minions let characters flee the building if they can escape the
storage room.
If the characters do not act out against the Minions in the walls,
they can quietly leave the room without trouble (unless you think your
troupe needs an action scene here).

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chicago wo rking s

inside a b urgess property

Obstacles/Penalties: Gloomy (2 to all visual perception rolls)

Aides/Bonuses: Flashlight (eliminates penalties for the gloom)
Outcome: The characters should come away from the property
convinced that something really weird is going on. If they encountered the Minions in the basement, theyll know that the problem is
definitely supernatural. If such things as the Minions can exist, then
maybe Ellsworths own ramblings about the citys architecture and its
meanings are also true. This thought should spur them into honoring
Ellsworths burial wishes.
If, after this, they dont honor Ellsworths burial request (see Burying Ellsworth), then you can repeat this scene at another building
owned by Burgess, one that the characters (or a single character) do
not expect to be associated with all this weirdness theyve stumbled
onto. Once they encounter creepy new Agents (or even Minions), in
a completely different building, they might be inclined to revisit the
whole Ellsworth business. A good location is Watertower Place, on the
north end of downtown, near Michigan Avenue. There are enough
restaurants and stores in the area to provide an easy excuse for the
characters to be there.

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Burying Ellsworth

chicago wo rking s

Mental

Physical

Social

The characters must convince an ordinary home-owner to let them bury an

occult artifact on his property.
Overview: This scene occurs any time after the characters retrieve
Ellsworth's urn from the Chicago Cultural Center and before the end
of Act Two. Strictly speaking, this scene could even be played for
denouement at the end of Act Three, but you'd need to keep a tight
hand on the rudder to avoid dragging the story out after the climax
just for a curious Social challenge.
In this scene, the characters must choose a final resting place for
Ellsworth's ashes and potentially a house for him to inhabit. Only
three properties (on a list folded inside Ellsworth's urn) are suitable
for Ellsworth's mystic needs. The characters therefore have three tries
to execute Ellsworth's last will.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Your goal is to make the decision
whether or not to participate in this scene as dramatic as possible.
The characters are essentially giving Ellsworth a semblance of what
Burgess has (though they may not fully appreciate that yet). Use this
scene to demonstrate the difference between Ellsworth's and Burgess's
properties, too.
Character Goals: Convince a homeowner to accept the burial of
a bizarre urn on their property (or do it in secret) without resorting
to bribery.

Actions
Key Action (Social): Negotiating For A Grave
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + equipment versus the
Composure + Empathy or Subterfuge dice pools for the four potential
properties, below
Action: Contested (for fast-talking)
Obstacles/Penalties:
Englewood Property: On the outside, this pointy Victorian house leans
like a witch's hat, but through the curtains you can see handsome framed
pictures and a glowing plasma-screen television. Edward (Composure +

b urying ell swo rth

Subterfuge, 7 dice), the owner here, is a mechanic; he answers the

door in a shirt with his name on it. He has plenty of yard to spare for
an old man's last request, but what's in it for Edward? (Any bribe or
gift is something for nothing to Edward, good for a +2 bonus for the
characters.)
Wicker Park Property: It's a renewed brick townhouse with windowboxes and little winged gargoyles. Tricycles and skateboards clog the front
walk, spilling over into the disheveled rock garden between the iron fence and
the arched basement windows. Maria (Composure + Empathy, 6 dice) is
a stay-at-home mother who does telemarketing work from her kitchen.
She loves her little townhouse and doesn't want strangers digging it up,
but she likes historical knick-knacks and might fall for a story about
the renovator who loved this house, too (+3 bonus).
Ukrainian Village Property: This little bungalow looks just the
same as the others on the block, until you get near the front door and see
that, inside, it's full of restored details like leaded-glass doors on built-in
bookshelves and decorative flourishes that recall the golden spiral. Pieter
(Composure + Empathy, 6 dice) is a factory manager who inherited
this house from his father. He's wary of strangers poking around his
family's property and doesn't like to be blustered. He's a sucker for a
sob story, though (+2 dice).
Outcome: If the characters succeed in finding a resting place for Ellsworth, they each regain one Willpower point and Ellsworth's spirit slowly
dissipates into his mystic grid over the course of several days. (Eventually
he is nothing more than a resonant sense of charity and pride.) If the
characters resort to bribery, secrecy or deception to bury Ellsworth they
regain no Willpower, but Ellsworth is successfully put to rest.

SCENE

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Tuning Into Chicago

chicago wo rking s

Mental

Physical

Social

The characters gain insights into the mystical nature of the city while traveling
to sites on Ellsworths mystic grid.
Overview: It is assumed that the characters have played out the
Burying Ellsworth scene and succeeded. The characters involvement in the decades-long battle of the geomancers did not end with
Ellsworths burial. Its only just begun.
Over the coming hours and days (pace this however you like), the
characters begin to suffer what they probably at first will assume to
be hallucinations: Faint voices are heard speaking to them, seemingly
coming from the walls or pavement. Ghostly figures are briefly glimpsed,
appearing to be construction workers from the turn of the last century,
still hard at work making the city. Buildings seem to glow from within
their very bricks, glass and steel, their colors imparting emotions resonant with those buildings: peacefulness at a church, excitability at a
playground, and sorrow at a graveyard. The wind rushing through the
streets seems to turn the characters heads, in time to catch the motion
of light across prominent buildings, seeming to form glyphs and sigils
from the Chicago Working Folio.
Characters who paid attention to Ellsworths talk about the city and
its architecture might remember his talk of angels and their voices.
This sure seems a lot like whats happening now. The city itself or
its angels seems to be speaking to them, not via air pushed through
human lungs, but in light, wind and the vibrations within wood, stone
and steel structures.
The characters are experiencing an effect similar to that afforded
by the Architectural Attunement Merit (see Aftermath), allowing
them to perceive the citys secret resonance, as ordered and controlled
by human architecture. This effect is most prominent in areas near
Ellsworths mystic grid (see Ellsworths Properties, p. XX), but can
be felt in any area of the city.
It is Ellsworth himself who is reaching out to the characters, trying
to recruit them again to finish the battle that he now realizes has not
ended with his and Burgesss deaths. While he is content to withdraw

t uning into chicago

and watch over only those places on his grid, Burgess is still expanding
his grid, and co-opting the lives of those who reside in his properties.
For the characters to truly understand whats been going on the
war of the geomancers and their still-potent grids they need to see
and hear it for themselves. Ellsworth reaches out to them through the
resonance he now has with them by way of their burying his ashes, and
opens their eyes and ears to the secret hum all around them.
Once hes sure he has their attention, he makes his message even
more clear: He wants them to take the L train as it travels between
certain key locales on his grid. Once they have encountered that
is, passed through via the L the resonance of at least three of these
areas, theyll become attuned enough to the grids frequency that
Ellsworth can appear to them and speak his final words.
Ellsworth delivers his message about the L through a number of
different means, each of which can be experienced by different characters:
A newspaper page blows past a character and suddenly veers, flying
straight into his face. As he peels it away, he notices a map of the L,
produced as part of a story on local points of interest for tourists. What
seems strikingly obvious is how, seen over the folds of the crinkled
map, some of the stations seem to form a sigil of sorts, if an imaginary
line were to be drawn between them. If the paper were flattened out,
the effect disappears, but when it is folded just the right way, the sigil
is clear.
A taxi driver delivers a character not to his requested destination,
but to one of the L stations. Here ya are, mac the L. When the
character complains, the driver seems shaken, as if hes just woken from
sleep. He is apologetic and offers to drive the character to his proper
destination, but admits hes woozy and not sure he should be driving.
(The guy lives in a property that is a major point in Ellsworths grid.
Hes not an Agent, like those Burgess controls, but only a temporary
vessel for Ellsworths message.)
A television or radio broadcast is interrupted by a news report of
an old man seen throwing himself on the tracks of the L. A witnesss
description of the victim describes Ellsworth, down to the clothes he
was wearing the night he died. Strangely, police have yet to find the
body. The strange thing is that witnesses at another station claimed
to have seen the same man leap onto the tracks at about the same
time. (These two stations form points on the sigil seen in the crinkled
newspaper.)

SCENE

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Once the characters are on the L, the journey through mystic Chicago
begins. Many of the stations on the Blue Line pass through Ellsworths
territory. You can choose three stations along the route (a map can be
found here: http://www.transitchicago.com/maps/maps/2006N.html) to
provide the main points of this journey. The Western, Logan Square
and Belmont stations are ideal. The California station, even though
it is between Western and Logan Square, is not part of the grid, and
so can provide a mundane contrast to the strange visions afforded to
the characters on their trip.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Reveal the true war going on in Chicago:
the mystical geography fought over by Ellsworth and Burgess.
Character Goals: Realize that something truly supernatural is going
on, and find out who killed Ellsworth and why.

chicago wo rking s

Actions
Visioning the Grid
As the train travels down the line, the characters see more than
just the usual sights their temporarily altered vision awards them a
special view of the geography. The perspectives of buildings and streets
seem to warp and realign themselves according to mysterious new law
of physics actually, very old laws. Some lines glow like neon as they
traverse the cityscape: These are ley lines, ancient currents of power,
channeling resonance in its many flavors across the land. Ellsworths
grid has taken advantage of these lines, and rearranged them in places
to make their flow more efficient or to bring subtle energy to certain
regions.
At each stop along the line, the effect is even more powerful, as if by
the grids taking the Ls own straight lines into its pattern, the overall
effect has increased tenfold. The monumental scale of the project is
finally laid bare, and is dizzying in its hubris.
At times, figures seem to move along the lines or to revolve around
points on the grid like cars stuck in a British roundabout. It is impossible to make out their features, although some of them occasionally
catch the eyes of the characters and seem, for a brief, shining moment,
to be filled with light then, just as briefly, consumed by shadows.
Are these Ellsworths angels? Or mere ghosts caught in the machineries of his vast project?
The purpose of this journey and these visions is to give the characters a sensory experience of the mystic grid, to show them that its not
just an idea but a reality even if its seems unreal and hallucinatory.

t uning into chicago

They dont have to solve any puzzles here or fight any foes; they merely
need to become convinced that the spoils of the mystic war between
Ellsworth and Burgess are real.
You can describe the grid anyway you like. One way to approach it is
to illustrate the meaning and significance that the grid lends existence
architecture, street signs and even graffiti. Signs that before seemed
random and haphazardly placed now, when taken in sequence, seem
to spell out some greater message: Coke adds life + Grays Anatomy,
Sunday Night on CBS + Affordable Health Care from Doctors Who
Care = this area has healing properties.
Key Action: Ellsworths Final Tale
Once the third point on Ellsworths mystic grid has been traversed,
Ellsworth appears:
A century's worth of Chicago architecture slides by in the dark outside the
train window. Gargoyles and stone arches pass close enough that you could
grab them through the emergency window, punctuated by twinkling downtown
lights. The train jostles back and forth on the rails, lulling you almost to sleep.
Your eyelids sag down, then snap open, and there's Ellsworth in the fluorescent
reflection in the windows, as if he were sitting on the train with you.
But he's not. He's only out there in the reflection, mingled with the view.
When he talks, it sounds like he's speaking from the other side of the window.
You can hardly hear him over the rattling of the train.
The players have only as much ability to interact with Ellsworth's
ghost as you think the scene can muster without losing its surreal
edge. He can share as much information from his back-story as you're
comfortable with improvising dialogue about. When you're ready for
him to explain the end of it all: "We were friends, John and I. But, he
Burgess confused who he was with what he owned. He's so far gone now.
I can hear him in the rails, through the rafters. I can hear him all over. He
killed me. He killed me. He was afraid I was going to find him and ruin all
his hard work. It won't be me, but he's right: someone has to.
"He's become a part of his house, where he was buried. He's stealing
the people who live in those buildings of his. He's taking their lives. It's not
enough that he take people's homes now and get rich off those. Now he's
taking their lives their bodies. He can't tell the difference between people
and things anymore.
"Dig him out of his grave in his cellar. He's underneath that ugly stone
townhouse across from the Fichtner's in Gold Coast [or wherever you choose
to put it]. Down in the cellar. Break his casket and break his spell."
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chicago wo rking s

t uning into chicago

Thugs on a Train
If the players prefer action to words, all this traveling might get
boring for them. Before Ellsworth appears, spice the journey up with
some of Chicagos night denizens: thugs who board the train and begin
giving passengers a hard time. If the characters attempt to intervene,
the thugs target them for intimidation and, if the characters dont back
down, a possible beating.
Use the traits for the Gangbanger on p. 205 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, except that these guys dont have guns.
If the characters do poorly against the thugs, and the train has passed
the third station, have the thugs flee when Ellsworth appears. Theyll
leave the characters train car for the next over, and exit at the next
stop, already shaking off their fear with false bravado.
The thugs arent part of the mystic action going on, but they do
represent an unfortunate fact about the L and the dangers of taking it
at night. Through the eyes of the characters temporary Architectural
Attunement to the city, though, these thugs seems to take on a mythic
role: that of the Guardians of the Threshold, challenging all who would
seek the citys deeper mysteries.
Outcome: The characters now know who killed Ellsworth. They only
have to decide if they're going to do the bidding of a ghost or not.

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ACT THREE

Demolishing
This is where it ends. The characters have a chance to stop Burgess,
if they're willing to accept the risk.
Though this act is only one scene long, this scene could
become develop into a complex and lengthy affair if
the characters become trapped or captured. Avoid
rushing this scene.

chicago wo rking s

ac t three demolishing

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Burgess's Agents are free to roam the house. His Minions lurk in the
cellar, near his casket. In an emergency, the Minions climb the cellar
stair to support Burgess or his Agents.
Storyteller Goals and Tips: Scare and thrill the players.
Character Goals: Find Burgess's casket and destroy it.

SCENE

Uninstalling Burgess
Physical

Social

Actions

The characters venture into a house possessed by an insane architect to kill

him again.
Overview: This scene may involve a great deal of preparation on
the part of the players. They might choose to prepare an elaborate plan
to accomplish their mission, and that's fine as long as it's entertaining
for everyone. Ultimately, the task is simple, even if difficult. In this
final scene, the characters face off against Burgess's house, two of his
Agents and two more Minions than there are characters.
Burgess's house is specifically designed to make it difficult to reach
the cellar and his casket. A shaft running down the interior of the
house is only reachable from the top floor. A spiral staircase winds
down this shaft to the cellar. The floorplan of the cellar is the same as
that of the upper floors, except every doorway is empty, there are no
windows and everything is made of concrete. The course of a golden
spiral is marked in faded white paint on the floor of the cellar, symbolically funneling power from Burgess's casket to the spiral stair and,
thereby, the house.

Mental Actions
The characters may attempt to outsmart Burgess to get the odds in
their favor, by luring Agents out of the house or arranging for some
kind of distraction. These are viable approaches, but they do not solve
the ultimate problem of getting physically into the cellar and breaking
Burgess's spell.
Elaborate plans to tunnel into the cellar are probably more trouble
than they're worth, as once they reach the cellar the characters still
have to deal with Burgess's Minions. Still, a brilliant plan deserves its
chance to shine.
Burgess responds to mind games and Mental-based attacks as he
would to a Physical attack: with whatever cold violence is necessary
to protect what he has.
Physical Actions
Most likely, whatever the characters' plan is, they'll have to get
physically inside Burgess's house at some point to get at his casket.
They may attempt to finesse their way inside through stealth or they
may stage a home invasion. The consequences of a Physical approach
are clear: Burgess fights back.
Burgess reacts to a Physical intrusion proportionally if he can. If calling police (only the two Agents can do that) has a reasonable chance
of stopping the characters, he orders it. If it seems they're able to do
disastrous damage before police would alive, he tries to kill the characters and avoids involving a police investigation if at all possible.
Social Actions
Is it possible to negotiate with Burgess somehow? Yes. Burgess is
naturally suspicious of any proposed deals that come from the characters (especially if they've confronted Agents or Minions at Richard's
building), but he'll entertain arrangements that solve his problems
and also make him money. If the characters can come up with some
juicy arrangement, Burgess can be convinced to negotiate with them
in his house (through one of his Agents). The characters may have

uninstalling b urgess

chicago wo rking s

Mental

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chicago wo rking s

uninstalling b urgess

managed to get inside, but Burgess controls the house, so he feels plenty
confident himself.
Burgess is not above lying outright to get the characters in a vulnerable position. If he believes their intentions are to hurt him, he betrays
them. This could well lead to a situation in which the characters are
invited into Burgess's house for a meeting in which both parties are
planning to betray and destroy the other.
Obstacles/Penalties:
Guard dogs (p. 203, World of Darkness Rulebook)
Outer doors: Durability 3, Size 5, Structure 8, Damage 3
Outer locks: 8 total successes necessary to pick (p. 74, World of
Darkness Rulebook)
Inner doors: Durability 2, Size 5, Structure 6, Damage 2
Security system: 12 total successes necessary to bypass (p. 74, World
of Darkness Rulebook)
Aids/Bonuses:
An exceptional success on a Persuasion action at the record office
can win the characters a floorplan of the house (+1 to +3 bonus on
Stealth actions and tests to avoid surprise).

Defacing the Casket

As stated earlier, the characters must deface the symbols on Burgess casket to end his influence over the house, his Minions and his
Agents. The caskets traits are: Durability 2, Size 6, Structure 8. Its
Structure must be reduced to at least 2 to fully deface it, which breaks
the spell.
The casket, however, is behind a stone slab depicting Fortuna Redux.
It has Durability 3, Size 6, Structure 9. It can be lifted aside, but it
weighs 500 lbs. (no roll is necessary for Strength 5 and above).
Outcome: Defacing the casket causes what remains of Burgess to
dissipate. His Minions disintegrate and the Agents go catatonic. After
a while, the Agents own original personalities slowly awaken; they will
get up and wander away, confused and tormented by the unexplained
missing chunks of their lives (they have no memory of their time under
Burgesss control).

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Burgess on the city. Whether or not he helps the characters, hinders them,
or ignores them depends largely on how responsive they were to his needs
throughout the story. For instance, if they waited to honor his burial wishes
until after they could no longer deny they were important, he isnt fully
convinced that theyre the type of people worthy of inheriting his work.

Aftermath
Once Burgess ceases to exist, the supernatural element of this story is
over. Or is it? The characters can certainly try to explore the mysteries
of the Chicago Working Folio, although theyve only got Ellsworths
portion of it (unless you want to reveal clues on how they can find
Burgess half). Besides the supernatural, though, there are a number
of more worldly concerns to consider:

NEW MERIT: ARCHITECTURAL ATTUNEMENT ()

chicago wo rking s

Police Pursuit
If a home invasion was called in at Burgesss house, the police give
chase to the characters. If they arrive after the characters have gone, they
might follow the evidence back to them. Their willingness to investigate
this far depends on just what the characters did. Property damage is a
minor concern to the police, one they wont invest a lot of resources
toward investigating. Murder, however, is another story. If the body (or
bodies) of an Agent is left on the scene (or even the signs of a possible
murder, such as blood stains), theyll investigate with full force. How
close they get to the characters depends largely on how well they cover
their tracks and if they have previous criminal records (if theyre already
in the system, theyre easier to track through forensic traces). Getting a
murder charge to stick might be tricky; a good lawyer can probably get
the characters off, but only after lots of time and expense.

The Attention of Angels

Experience

The psychogeography of Chicago, no longer under Burgess and Ellsworth control (Ellsworth watches over only his own small grid), returns
to a natural state. That is, it tends to only get powerful around regions
of intense emotional activity (murder, rape, joy), and works more subtly in other places. Its reasons become obscure to the characters, even
those who have purchased the Architectural Attunement Merit (see the
sidebar below), as it is now largely influenced by happenstance and the
behavior of spirits, which are beyond the awareness of the characters.
Alternatively, the grids maintain their power but go wild, captured
by the unconscious whims of humans within their vicinities. Without
someone to tame them, these places become chaotic, magnifying the
good and bad traits of their residents.
Ellsworth might help the characters to inherit the grids, but he is reluctant
to do so. As time passes, his personality increasingly fades, becoming a mere
force of charity rather than a recognizable being. What remains of him is
filled with regret for his misuse of the mysteries of the Folio, and he doesnt
want to see others make his mistakes, or God forbid unleash another

Each Act awards 1 point of experience to each character who experienced

it in whole or part, so a character who experienced the entire story gets 3
experience points. Certain actions in different scenes award more points:
Characters who intently listen to Ellsworths tales of old Chicago,
and ask him questions that show theyre clearly paying attention and
are interested, gain 1 bonus experience point. Those who merely humor
him as he tells his tales gain no bonus.
Characters who engage in combat with Agents, Minions or even
thugs on the L train, gain 1 experience point for the first such physical
encounter, if they escape it largely unharmed or were victorious. Any
successive physical encounters, even if its against a new type of foe,
do not award further bonus points.
If the characters complete the final scene without causing the
police to respond or leaving behind evidence that causes them to investigate further (such as dead bodies and blood stains), each character
gains a bonus experience point.

af terma th

Prerequisites: Wits , Academics , Occult , Occult

Specialty: Sacred Geometry or Mystic Architecture
Each time this Merit is bought, it applies to a specic city. The
character can easily perceive any intentionally constructed mystic
grid within the city, such as those created by Ellsworth and Burgess
in Chicago. Further, he can perceive the resonance of the city as it
pertains to human-built structures (make an extended-action roll
using Wits + Occult, taking 10 minutes per roll), and given enough
time (an extended scrutiny action, rolling once per day of active
meditation while traversing the zone in question) read its deeper
uctuations and inuences. In addition, if the character were to
erect his own mystic grid (using the Chicago Working Folio and
years of planning), he would gain a +1 perception bonus and the
Danger Sense Merit while within his grid.
More details on Resonance can be found in Werewolf and
Mage.

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SCENE:

Introducing Ellsworth

HINDRANCES

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

SCENE:

Tales of Angels

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HINDRANCES

HELP

STs

Get the players to like Ellsworth

STs

Introduce sacred geometry; set stage of suspicions in later scenes.

PCs

None yet.

PCs

Learn Ellsworths secrets.

SCENE:

The Fire

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HINDRANCES
The chase:
difcult terrain 2
bad lighting 4
bad weather 1

HELP

SCENE:

Richard the Traitor

HINDRANCES

The chase:
Reexive Wits + Composure to get bearings (awards +2 for familiar terrain)

Getting truth: Wits, Presence or Manipulation + Intimidation or Persuasion +

equipment versus Richards 4 dice.

Alert neighbors (Presence + Persuasion

2); success turns on lights (reduce bad
lighting to 2)

Finding Folio: Intelligence + Crafts +

equipment (remove vent cover), Wits +
Dexterity (feel inside the wall for the urn),
Strength + Dexterity (pull the urn out)

Flashlight (reduces bad lighting to 2)

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

Finding Folio:
Toolkit: +3, remove vent cover; +1, fast-talk
ID Badge: +2 fast-talk

Visitors walk by: 4 dice to resist fast-talk

Docent arrives: 5 dice to resist fast-talk
Security guard: 6 dice to resist fast-talk

STs

Raise questions and adrenaline.

STs

Give players new leads.

PCs

Gain a hint about the supernatural.

PCs

Get the truth out of Richard. Find Ellsworths urn

and his share of the Chicago Working Folio.

Jordi Torres (order #98907)

SCENE:

Inside a Burgess Property

HINDRANCES

Storage room:
Gloomy (2 visual perception rolls)

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

SCENE:

Burying Ellsworth

HINDRANCES

Storage room:
Flashlight (eliminates the gloom)

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

Englewood: Edward has 7 dice to resist

subterfuge

Englewood: Bribing Edward gives +2

bonus

Wicker Park: Maria has 6 dice to appraise characters motives

Wicker Park: Telling house history to

Maria gives +3 bonus

Ukrainian Village: Pieter has 6 dice to

appraise characters motives

Ukrainian Village: Pieter is a sucker

for sob stories: +2 dice

STs

Creep out players; get players to take Burgess seriously.

STs

Demonstrate differences between Ellsworths and Burgesss properties.

PCs

Find out whats going on at the building where Richard was living.

PCs

Convince a homeowner to accept the burial of urn

on property without resorting to bribery.

SCENE:

Tuning Into Chicago

HINDRANCES

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

SCENE:

Uninstalling Burgess

HINDRANCES

Guard dogs (p.203,

World of Darkness Rulebook)
Outer Doors: Durability 3, Size 5,
Structure 8, Damage 3
Outer locks: 8 total successes necessary to
pick (p.74 World of Darkness Rulebook)
Inner doors: Durability 2, Size 5,
Structure 6, Damage 2
Security system: 12 total successes necessary to bypass (p.74 World of Darkness
Rulebook)

MENTAL

PHYSICAL
SOCIAL

HELP

(must be reduced to 2)

Exceptional success with Persuasion at

record ofce wins oorplan of house (+1
to +3 Stealth and surprise).

Stone slab atop casket: Durability 3, Size 6,

Structure 9; move with Strength 5
Casket: Durability 2, Size 6, Structure 8

STs

Reveal the true war going on in Chicago.

STs

Scare and thrill the players.

PCs

Realize that something truly supernatural is going on;

nd out who killed Ellsworth and why.

PCs

Find Burgesss casket and destroy it.

Jordi Torres (order #98907)