Intro to Poughkeepsie.

And so we begin.

-Moe

Poughkeepsie, NY, USA a.k.a. "Fray", "the Bubble"

Poughkeepsie is a smallish American city of about 30,000 people located in New York State; it's a river city, with a history stretching back several centuries.  Humanity doesn't have much to say about the place; in the mundane world it's mostly known for its mildly memorable name and Vassar University.  In other words, to mortal eyes the city is not particularly noteworthy and hardly especially significant.  To celestial eyes, it's a place of horror - and we're talking in-space-nobody-can-hear-you-scream style horror.

As near as anyone can tell, it all started on August 23, 1908, when an otherwise routine reconnaissance mission resulted in what the research metaphysicians call a 'cascade'. As has been noted elsewhere, the primary result of disturbance is the rewriting of reality in the near vicinity: generally speaking, the larger the disturbance, the greater the rewrite. Presumably, that is: given that celestials are equally vulnerable to the effects, it's actually a bit hard to tell just what happens. Cascades are simply rewrites large enough that people notice the flotsam.

 

To complicate matters further, this was an anomalous cascade, albeit with a rather flexible definition of 'anomalous': in this case, the reweaving process that the Symphony uses to repair itself has stalled, apparently permanently. There is a metaphysical blank spot - globe, actually - five miles in diameter and centered on the shore of the town. Inside that globe, nothing supernatural works. That means no resonance use, gathering or expending of Essence, Song use, imposition of dissonance conditions, celestial combat (or even taking celestial form), long-term maintenance of vessels not specially designed for the specialized environment, any sort of Undead, Superior invocations: nothing.

 

Luckily for the human beings actually living there, the old wives' tale that when a person dies his or her corpse loses a quarter's grain of weight is quite true (in this universe, at least); souls have a physical component, so anyone who dies in Poughkeepsie is not instantly subject to the True Death. On the other hand, anyone who dies in Poughkeepsie is not automatically sent on to Heaven, Hell and/or reincarnation. They have to leave under their own power... and, given that they aren't Ghosts, either (with a Ghost's stubborn drive and focus), the will to do so is quite often not available. The result of this is that the least supernatural section of the corporeal universe also has one of the highest concentrations of apparitions and spooks. Generally speaking, they don't do much, but their relative presence triggers human subconscious attitudes; the town 'enjoys' a reputation for being boring, stodgy and - tellingly - dead. Aside from that, it's interesting to see how little things change when angels and demons are taken out of the picture; the town is not notably worse or better off for having no celestial oversight - which is actually quite odd, given that human beings are unable to even unconsciously spend Essence while inside the Bubble. Perhaps everything balances out in the long run.

 

As noted above, celestial vessels not designed for the place tend to degrade over time. Most vessels aren't really designed to work the way that a real body would; trying to keep muscles working when they're being supplied by a digestive and circulatory system that's largely ceremonial isn't exactly easy. In game terms, every 24 hours spent inside the Bubble will cause one hit of damage to a vessel, and there's no real way to for celestials and/or ethereals to properly heal damage while still inside the no-supernatural zone. They can stop bleeding and set bones, and that's about it. The only two exceptions to this are Grigori and Lilim - the former supposedly are both immune to the daily damage and can heal normally there, while the latter seem to just be able to 'encourage' their vessels to take on a functionally human aspect. It should also be noted that both Nephellim and Gorgons immediately lose all of their supernatural aspects while in the Bubble... which can include their Disadvantages. They may still suffer lingering physical effects, but not many crossbreeds care.

Comments

[Chris Anthony]

Nice! And sorry for taking so long to respond - I'm still a bit in shock that this is actually getting written, you see...

I do have one question - can ghosts, of the In Nomine taxonomy, form in Poughkeepsie?

(Also, I presume that this means that you got the thumbs-up from SJG? :)

[Chris Anthony]

The more I think about this, the more interesting implications I come up with.

At the moment, I've got two:

• Given the nature of the place, Divine and Infernal Interventions probably don't happen. Sure, you can roll the right numbers on the dice - but they're just ordinary failures and successes, as befit the actual values of the dice.
• The prevailing theory (and perhaps the Correct one - I don't remember) of the Infernal resonance is that each demon creates a personal mini-Symphony, which allows him to create the effects that he creates. Since Infernal resonances are nullified as well as Divine, it's safe to assume either that the personal-symphony theory is wrong at least in the details, or that it's not just The Symphony that's been disrupted. (Or perhaps it is - and it's just that Lucifer's connection to the Symphony that allows him to create the mini-Symphonies has been disrupted.)
• Since resonance use is disallowed in Poughkeepsie, and the same is true of assuming celestial form, it stands to reason that neither Kyriotates nor Shedim can enter the city at all (since to do so would mean either exercising their resonances or being in celestial form). Does a Kyriotate or Shedite in a host simply stop at the edge of the Symphony-Free Zone, or does the host continue on, leaving the possessor at the edge? (This could be interesting for creatures such as Kyriotates of the Sword or Shedim of Death, whose hosts can be bodies to which no other soul has a claim...)

Nice work, Moe. I look forward to seeing more.

[Moe Lane]

And I look forward to writing more... obviously, I'm back, and we'll gear up a bit with I Left My Heart In Old Poughkeepsie (and Can't Get It Back, Dammit) And Other Difficulties With The Region sometime this weekend. :)

Good comments, by the way.