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H. P. Lovecraft

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by

FRED VAN LENTE

additional materialJAMES CAMBIAS, OWEN GUTHRIE & TOIVO LUICK, KEVIN ROSS, CHRIS WILLIAMS

cover artworkSCOTT BAXA

interior illustrationsEARL GEIER, M. WAYNE MILLER

mapsSTEWARD NOACK

editorial and layoutJANICE SELLERS

cover layoutSHANNON APPEL, CHARLIE KRANK

readersJAMES CAMBIAS, NICK NACARIO

Chaosium Inc.2009

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Secrets of New Orleans is published by Chaosium, Inc.Secrets of New Orleans is ©1997, 2009 by Fred Van Lente. Contributions by James Cambias and Chris Williams are ©1997,

2009 by them, respectively. Contributions by Owen Guthrie & Toivo Luick and Kevin Ross are ©1986, 1996, 2009 by Chaosium,respectively. Interior illustrations are ©1997, 2009 by Earl Geier, M. Wayne Miller, and Steward Noack. Cover illustration is

©1997, 2009 by Scott Baxa. All rights reserved.Del Rio’s Arcane Bookshop and Papa Screech appeared previously in

“Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?” in Great Old Ones, ©1986 by Chaosium.Call of Cthulhu® is the registered trademark of Chaosium, Inc.

Similarities between characters in Secrets of New Orleans and persons living or dead are strictly coincidental.The reproduction of material from within this book for the purpose of personal or corporate profit, by photographic, electronic, or

other methods of retrieval, is prohibited.The latest information on Chaosium books and games can be found at

www.chaosium.com

Chaosium Publication 23114. Published in September 2009. ISBN 1-56882-302-9

iv — Secrets of New Orleans

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v

French/Cajun Pronunciation Guide . . . . . . .vi

History of New Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Historical Events (box)

Getting There

Social Customs

Creole-Cajun Name Generator (box)

Mardi Gras Themes (box)

1920’s New Orleans Occupations (box)

New Orleans in Different Eras

The French Quarter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12French Quarter Buildings

Cities of the Dead

Below the French Quarter

Areas of Interest

Jean Lafitte (box)

La Santa Hermandad (box)

The Greater City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31On the Waterfront

Rampart Street

The Zobop (box)

Garden District

Universities

Lake Pontchartrain

Plantations

Areas of Interest

The Ku Klux Klan (box)

Bayou Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Traveling the Swamplands

Cajuns

“The Call of Cthulhu”

Oil-drilling Complexes

Indian Burial Mounds

The Esoteric Order of Dagon (box)

Acadian Coast

The Mafia (box)

Voodoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58Humfor

Black Spiritualist Churches (box)

Mambos and Hungans

Conjure Doctors and Bokor

Voodoo and the Mythos

Loa

Voodoo Grimoire

Marie Laveau (box)

Scenario: Twilight of the Fifth Sun . . . . . . .71Getting Started

The Widow

The Charlatan

The Musician

The Scholar

The Holy Terror

The Gate-crashers

Conclusion

Bibliographical Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

Contents

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Won’t-cha come a-long with me,

To the Mis-sis-sip-pi?

We’ll take the boat—to the lan’ of dreams,

Steam down the river down to New Orleans;

The band’s there to meet us,

Old friends to greet us,

Where all the light and the dark folks meet—

—“Basin Street Blues”

N ew Orleans learned long ago how to hideher secrets well. Everywhere you go, yoursenses are assaulted by exotic delights.

Loud, raucous jazz escapes the closed shutters ofBourbon Street speakeasies. From the waterfrontand the kitchens drift the sharp smells of Cajunspices. Mardi Gras revelers, laughing madly behinddistorted masks, bump into you, grab you, temptyou to further debaucheries. The intricate iron laceof the verandahs and the green Edenic bliss of theFrench Quarter gardens seduce your eye, captureyou, hold you prisoner to their beauty. You are sodistracted by cosmetic spectacle that you nevernotice that the real New Orleans lies behind you,just over your shoulder—and that this New Orleanscontains so many more … novel sights.

Not all visitors are so easily deceived by thetrinkets and baubles New Orleans puts on displayfor tourists. There are those who walk the tenuouspath between the comforting facade we call realityand the sanity-curdling horrors of cosmic truth;these investigators of forbidden secrets, due eitherto foolish ambition or tragic heroism, dare to lookover their shoulders and see the real New Orleans.They see the voodoo and mysticism that thrive inthe private parlors of the city’s most powerful resi-dents. They see the dense swamp jungles anddecaying plantation mansions that lie on her out-skirts, concealing sinister intrigues in their sultrydimness. And they see Great Cthulhu, lurking inthe degeneracy of the ages, orchestrating unspeak-able acts in New Orleans from his sunken tomb-city. For these benighted investigators, simply dis-covering the mysteries of the Crescent City is not

enough; to them goes the burden of solving themysteries, as well.

This book aims to assist investigators in bring-ing the mysteries of the Crescent City to light, andto assist their Keepers in bringing those mysteriesto life. Welcome to a guide to the New Orleans ofthe 1920’s, which weaves together history and leg-end to provide a rich and exciting campaign envi-ronment for Call of Cthulhu gamers. The firstchapter is an introduction to the city for both play-ers and Keepers, outlining the basics of history,custom, and social interaction that most NewOrleans natives would know. The remainder of thebook is mostly for Keepers only, detailing variousaspects and sections of the city, with some of themystical enigmas to be encountered therein;Keepers may wish to restrict their players’ accessto those sections, so as to preserve surprises thatlay in wait for PC’s during adventures. The secondchapter goes to some length to describe the FrenchQuarter, the oldest and most exciting section ofNew Orleans. In the third chapter, the rest of thecity—the waterfront, the Garden District, the uni-versities, and so forth—is detailed. The fourthchapter focuses on the deadly and beautiful bayouswhich make up the terrain of southern Louisiana.The fifth chapter provides rules and backgroundfor voodoo in Call of Cthulhu, with new spells andmonsters; the sixth chapter presents an adventure—“Twilight of the Fifth Sun”—with which to start off aNew Orleans campaign.

So: The moon has begun to rise over the mam-moth live oaks of Bayou St. John, and the songs ofthe banana workers on the waterfront have subsidedto a hypnotic hum. There are Vieux Carré loa cere-monies to attend, Creole mansions to explore, andforeign sailors to interrogate in some seedy GallatinStreet dive.

Read on ….—Fred Van Lente

History of New Orleans — v

IntroductionMysteries of the Crescent City

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