A re-emergence: the past, present, and future of this blog

This is a public service meta-post to re-orient both myself and readers about the purpose of this blog.

A roundabout commentary on 2010s Hungarian politics

I started the blog as an investigation or thought experiment.

I was intrigued by how an increasingly authoritarian regime can stay popular solely, it seemed to me at the time, by channeling EU money coming into the country, skimming just as much off the top for its cronies to leave enough for visible growth.

I really don't know much about politics, so pardon the potential error, but (what I, an Eastern European who's never been in the region) Singapore, with its socially repressive but economically progressive regime looked like an analogy.

I hit upon the idea of the Danube that flows across Budapest bringing magical potential from its source in Germany (aka EU grants), had the Soviet-tinged Technocracy-aligned political elites leech off this Prime while somehow also managing to bring about socially progressive measures for the masses in exchange for their political loyalty, and cruelly repress dissenters and marginalized groups—which of course PC mages are in this game.

The central tension of the setting is between doing good for the wrong reasons; are the player characters who are more or less, explicitly or implied resistance fighters and terrorists right, given that the regime they fight against is actually evil, but is actually also improving (most of) its citizens lives?

The blog has been in hiatus (partly!) because the basic setup has changed, the well-meaning measures and the regime's popularity has waned in real life, and so the whole premise for a make-believe exploration of this started to feel wrong. However, I have now decided to pursue this project further again, as a sort of historical capsule. It's an alternative historical fictional setting, so why should it reflect actual contemporary dynamics?

Which brings me to the second motivation for the blog

Building up to publishable material on a neglected region

Budapest is under-served as far as tabletop rpg settings go, and

I'd like to make more people around the world aware of how wonderful the city is

how rich the heritage is, how much there is to explore in its architecture, history, and culture.

Starting a blog about this was a way to force myself to actually commit time and energy to the project so that a book good enough to publish on Storyteller's Vault may come of it.

It had worked for a time; perhaps it might drive me to write more content regularly again.

Watch this space for more

The Secret Turkish Bath (Portal?)

Rumours abound about a gay-men-only exclusive private Turkish bath somewhere in Quality Town (formerly known as Terézváros [ˈtɛreːzˈvaːroʃ]), which may or may not move around within the district, and (this should go without saying, really) may or may not exist.

What all accounts agree on is that it is run by and for homosexual males who must have a well-developed moustache to gain entry.

Romani in Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl

Romani willworkers are the setting's answer to the Dreamspeakers (Kha'vadi), and the Roma community as a whole is a significant part of the agglomeration, so it's high time Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl GMs and players are given some details.

This post is NOT intended as an accurate representation of real-world Romani, their beliefs, or customs. It is part of a satirical dystopian conceit of mapping selected aspects of contemporary Hungary onto a distorting cyberpunk/urban fantasy lens.

Chinese Elemental Magic in Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl

I've always found it constricting that every Mage tradition and even convention is using the same OoH-derived magickal system to define its mystic/enlightened.

I'm trying to give a unique twist to each magical faction - I hope this isn't heresy; I'll start with one that isn't covered in Mage: the Ascension.

This post is dedicated to Daoist elemental magic. (The post about the large ethnic Chinese minority in the citystate, whose mystics all happen to be Daoist sorcerers is in the pipeline.)

Disclaimer #1: I have no real knowledge of Daoist cosmology, but find it fascinating and many-faceted. I hope readers who actually know about Chinese elemental mysticism will forgive me.

Disclaimer #2: This is the first back-of-the-envelope iteration of something that may turn out not to be feasible.

Inspired by the system outlined in GURPS Chinese Elemental Powers

Corrupt officials

This level of corruption is routine in the Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl setting.

Sample Paradox flaws

As mentioned before, Paradox is supposed to be a metaphor for social exclusion and discrimination in the Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl setting.

Here's a listicle of some sample Paradox flaws for enterprising GMs and players to mix and match and get inspired.

The Budapest Co-Op is Crowdsourcing!

This product good example of what the Szekeres-Bara Life System would look like in practice.

Cleartown, also known as Budapest District 8.

Notable locations, encounter table, couleur locale, and plot hooks for one of the most magickal neighbourhoods of the Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl setting.

Prefab housing estates in Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl

Thirty-one out of the city's 32 lakótelep [lɒkoːtɛlɛp], that is, housing estates (groups of prefabricated high-rises/low-rises with a patch or two of green in between them) are hives of pro-regime activity, and literal high-speed nodes in the agglomeration interwebs.

Themes and Story Ideas

Some story/plot twist ideas to highlight the Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl themes [systemic corruption, social progress, magic, idealism, technology, apathy, treason/treachery, unity, rebellion, hopelessness, political dictatorship, disruptive DIY]:

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

Hardytown, also known as Budapest District 5.

In real life, Budapest has 23 districts, each with its distinct character.

This is the first in a series of district write-ups for Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl that take advantage of the concept of the Fate fractal to give prospective Storytellers a potted bio or nutshell review of sorts.

Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash

Politics and society in Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl

The setting is finally given the post-communist cyberpunk feel it has been sorely missing.

Photo by Mehdi Sepehri on Unsplash

The Water Tower High-Rise

The spirit of the tallest tower block has awakened in Budapest's District 15 (Újpalota [ˈuːjˈpɒlotɒ], although many local Szekeres-Bara practitioners now routinely call it Clear City. very Budapest district has been semi-officially been re-christened to reflect some benefit or tenet of the Szekeres-Bara movement; the pattern is '<unique-name> City|Town'), which is mostly one big prefab housing project with patches of greenery.

The Szekeres-Bara Life System

This is a more detailed write-up of the quasi-religious popular movement that has been developed and marketed by the new kids on the Budapest Technocracy block (the Szövetkezet (the Co-Operative), that has dominated the mainstream since the 2008 financial crisis hit the city), and which has taken Budapest by storm, fuelling spontaneous Paradox vortices around town.

Readily accessible cyborg technology as public good

A recent episode of BBC's Forest 404 discusses cyborgs as an essentially benevolent technology.
I'll surely be riffing on this approach when it comes to how the Agglomerációs Kibernetikai Intézet ("The Budapest Agglomeration Institute of Cybernetics", ([ˈɒɡlomɛraːt͡siʲoːʃ ˈkibɛrnɛtikɒi ˈinteːzɛt]), the setting equivalent of Iteration X) are going to feel about their work.

Things that go bump in the street

D10 random table to throw at PCs walking, cycling, driving, or taking public transport in a Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl session

The Batthyány Circle - Traditionalist faction in Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl, part 4

This is the last part in a series of high-level overviews of the 4 main Traditionalist factions in my Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl campaign.

Batthyány Circle

The Batthyány Market Hall's iconic clock

This is a highly secretive and close-knit cabal centred around a magical contraption that generates Bitcoin or some equivalent cryptocurrency.

A Mage: The Budapest Urbancrawl Dramasystem Series Pitch

This is an attempt to write up the setting as a Dramasystem series pitch. I have two reasons.
On the one hand, I would definitely do character generation (at least!) for any campaign in the setting using Dramasystem guidelines, and I would recommend it to anyone (I sadly wasn't yet aware of Robin D. Laws' system when I started with the present group.)
On the other hand, I feel formulating the setting in as many formats as I can certainly helps to get it across, so here goes.

Photo by Richard Bohus on Unsplash

Nutshell

The Margit-sziget Magick Market

As established, all sorts of Umbral creatures and talismans seep into Budapest across the Andrássy Rifts. It was inevitable that a semi-official market-place should spring up for people looking for magickal knick-knacks. In fact, this market-place was bound to be somewhere on Margaret Island (Margit-sziget [ˈmɒrɡit,siɡɛt]), smack in the middle of the stretch of Danube dividing the city into Buda and Pest, with magickal waters flowing around it.

The Polányi Tunnel footbridge

You enter the Polányi footbridge (pronounced [ˌpɔˈlɑːɲi]) at the Batthyány Square (pronounced [ˈbɒcːaːɲi]) quay, walk a 100 metres or so below the Danube river bed, and re-emerge on the Pest side a few hundred meters from Budapest Technocratic Head Offices (see earlier post for a bit more detail) - that is, when the tunnel isn't undergoing one of those frustrating re-constructions that seem to be happening more and more often.
(Disclaimer: I made this up wholesale - don't go looking for the underwater footbridge.)

There's neon-lit garish yellow tilework all through the tunnel, and it has two "lanes" for traffic, one for pedestrians, the other for bicycles, baby carriages, skateboards, et cetera, with a wide divider wall that's interspersed with openings running along the middle.
Motorized vehicles understandably banned.
Probably lots of service tunnels - emergency exits that lead into safe bunkers that can withstand water pressure and explosions, should there be any accidents. Drone of air circulation fans audible throughout the tunnel, louder in places.
Faint aroma of floor polish mixed with the catch of the day - takeaway coffee spilled by low-level ministry officials in a hurry, milk, fish, or vegetables dropping off carriages on their way to the Batthyány Square market hall, some decomposing pigeon pulled apart by crows in the relative safety of the tunnel.
Beggars, musician buskers (if there's more than 2, there is no way you can make out any melody as the tunnel acoustics mess up the sound), and usually quite a few security patrols.
CCTV.

What you can use it for

The tunnel is great for foot chases - especially when its under construction, and one or both lanes are barricaded off.
Given the thick divider walls, there must be quite a few niches where CCTV doesn't pick you up, should a mage require a secluded spot for the exchange of illicit goods and/or information.
There's always a chance of an accident, or better yet, a terrorist act that happens to include some of the PCs walking in the tunnel.
Hostage situation.
A mage terrorist cell (they exist!) attempting to infiltrate the Szabadság tér Szövetkezet ([ˈsøvɛtkɛzɛt]) headquarters from within the cover of the tunnel.
The whole site is kind of spooky, and I imagine both the Gauntlet and the Consensus are a bit flakier than usual down there - just remember that you're 15 metres underground, below a whole lot of water.
(Image credit Dominik Martin at Unsplash)