Berlin, Wicked City Remix 1 (Campaign and First Scenario)

The three scenarios in the source book Berlin Wicked City can be ran as a loose campaign, with thematic consistency. It allows the players to live through the period of 1922 to 1932, that is, experience the years of the so-called Weimar Republic, when Germany tries to rise from the ashes of its defeat in the Great War and build a democratic state, under pressure from the far-right and the far-left; with a difficult financial situation, and a social turmoil that eventually will lead to the rise to power of the Nazi party. This complex historical period is the background that permeates all the scenarios, giving them a very special character and tone. In these scenarios, the supernatural seems to emphasise the contradictions and turmoil of the age.

I ran this campaign four times. The period and the scenarios touch extremely interesting themes and characters, but sometimes the way the scenarios are written is too linear and leaves little space for the investigators to go off the rails. Furthermore, there are some wonderful ideas that the scenarios hint at but never develop, or do not develop in a way I find satisfactory. My plan is to write about how I handled this and help Keepers get the maximum out of a BWC campaign. To make it manageable, I will break this into three parts. This is the first one, is about some general considerations on the campaign and the first scenario, The Devil Eats Flies. Two following post will discuss the second and third scenarios.

First things first: watching the show Babylon Berlin (or reading the books it is based on) will help you a lot getting into the mood. Also, be sure to have a discussion with your players about what they are comfortable with. This is a city of nightclubs and wild, extravagant partying, but also a city of prostitution, sex, drug addiction and misery. And with all the gangsters and political militias on the streets, it is also a very violent city.

Concept for the team of investigators: It is not easy to come up with a good concept for the team of investigators. Reading through the scenarios, it is clear that they are expected to act like a group of friends that socialise with  and assist each other. However, the first scenario also expects them to act like a group of detectives that are hired to solve a case. And the case, at presentation, it is not even a supernatural case, but a much more common missing person case, so a group of occult investigators does not fit too well.

To connect the characters, the groups I played used the following ideas:

1. the investigators are a group of veterans from the Great War: the characters served together during the war, and still find emotional support in each other;

2. the investigators are inhabitants of the same house: nothing more normal in a metropolis like Berlin for a group of young professionals to rent rooms in a private house. One of the characters can be the house owner and the others renters that keep excellent relations with their landlord/landlady.

3. the investigators are a group of friends from school/university.

4. in a case where I had only two players, one was a reporter and the other one was his “muscle man”, a hired bodyguard to keep him safe. Note: while it is possible to run the campaign with only two characters, 3-4 is ideal, and five is ok.

During  character creation, the players should think about  how their characters lived through the Great War,  their social class, and maybe define their political views. During the Weimar years, German society was heavily politicised.

Also, Berlin in the 1920s is very welcoming to  LGBTQ investigators. For many, life was all about transgression, about challenging and breaking the norms of the old world and creating a newer, freer one. And that also meant sexual liberation and gender fluidity. 

From this point on, there will be many spoilers for the scenario The Devil Eats Flies and the other scenarios of Berlin Wicked City.

The Devil Eats Flies

The first scenario in the series follows the investigators through four days of summer in 1922, first working to find a missing person, then protecting her and others from the vengeful spirit demon of a psychotic killer.

Historical research: beyond the notes provided with the scenario, I think it is interesting to read more about the assassination of Nabokov, the assassination of Walter Rathenau, the story of Anna Tchailovsky, Manfred von Killinger, and Karl Grossmann. And it is hard to beat a photo of the real life Karl Grossmann as a handout. The man just looked evil.

Timing: As written, the scenario is tightly timed. If the players don’t find Anna in one day after being assigned the mission, they will read about where she is in the newspaper. I would try to avoid this, and let the secret of her re-appearance extend for maybe one or two more days to give the investigators a chance to find out for themselves where she is. If you don’t want to mess up with the dates of the historical events intertwined with the scenario (especially the assassination at the end), starting the scenario one day earlier should suffice to make it likely for them to find her.

Inspector Krieg: I suggest that inspector Krieg - if he makes an appearance - should be portrayed as a sympathetic person, a steadfast public servant trying to do his best - so that it will be more of a shock when and how he shows up again in the last scenario of Berlin Wicked city.

The Morgue: Investigators often want to see the body of Grossmann in the morgue There morgue was in the basement of the “Alex” police station - also known as "Rote Burg" (Red Castle), at Alexanderplatz - it is very prominent in the Babylon Berlin series. Since I almost always had an investigator who was a police inspector or a forensic doctor, the investigators often managed  to get access to the morgue to see the body. In the scenario as written this leads to very little

I propose that when they inspect the body at the morgue, they find a tattoo on his arm of a butterfly with a skull shape on its wings, Moreover, the body carries marks of ritualistic suicide: some cuts made on his chest and forehead before he hanged himself.  An Occult roll recognizes them as crude depictions of ancient (maybe Egyptian?) symbols for metamorphosis and resurrection.

Furthermore, when the investigators decide to leave the morgue, Grossmann's corpse stands up, looks at them with his tiny beady eyes and says in a hoarse voice:"Those bloody sluts thought that they could run away. But I will be there, everywhere, waiting for them!” and then he laughs, a mean, self-satisfied laughter. 

This should trigger a sanity roll (1/1D6). The characters then see that the body is still lying.

I add this scene because if the investigators get to the morgue, you want the scene to provide useful clues and add dramatic tension.

Grossmann’s Journal: investigators may try to get their hands on Grossmann’s journal. I created some confused texts about metamorphosis and death as a rite of passage, mixed with drawings of animals that go through metamorphosis, in particular butterflies. For instance, the investigators may find scribbled over and over in a page of the journal "Death is the chrysalid of the butterfly GOD of vengeance!".

The message is that Grossmann saw death not as the end, but as the beginning of a new existence. 

You can add many mentions of  his need to get “revenge” on all women, especially the ones that escaped him before. I did write some texts for this, but I do not include them here since they can be quite disturbing. Contact me if you are interested in having them for your own campaign.

Grossmann’s Neighbours: Some of these are truly amoral, nasty people. My advice is to not play it down, not try to paint a nuanced, subtle picture. This is expressionism.. Make the neighbours gossip about each other in low whispers, contradict themselves when trying to hide their own moral faults. Helene, in particular, should be untrustworthy, mean, selfish, and shameless. She should relish the attention she gets for telling gruesome tales about Grossmann.

In short, the investigators should feel like they need a good bath after spending some time in the apartment building.

Anita Berber: she makes a cameo, appearing at the Red Mill cabaret naked, with a boyfriend, a pet monkey, and drugs. You can find lots of information about Anita Berber on the internet: photos, videos, and texts. In 1922, she was a cultural icon, transgressing every norm and being loved for it. Make sure that she does appear, that she is loud and extravagant, and that she interacts with the investigators. This will pay off later on, in the second scenario.

Russian Refugees: the keeper should try  to understand the politics, ideology,  and mentality of the Russian aristocratic refugees and their German far-right allies,  as there will be many of them to talk with in the party at the Baron's house. Most had an extreme hatred of communists, and  had very extreme nationalistic ideas. Although the source book does a good job at giving you an idea of all the complexities involved, I would complement it with reading novels and historical texts about the period.

Anna: the investigators should feel some attachment to Anna Tchailkovski. Since they only meet her in a scene before she disappears again, the Keeper has to make this one count. She is very vulnerable and scared. She will talk and feel attached to anyone who shows a bit of kindness. She must  talk about how she loves zoos and ask a character to draw her an animal. Without that core clue, it will be impossible for the investigators to figure out where she will go when she runs away.

Killinger and his squad: Although Killinger is a total PoS, the worst type of person, I believe it is better not to depict him as a cardboard caricature of a nazi. Show that he is a competent son of a  gun, good at commanding “his” boys. He is loyal to his allies, and he gets things done.  Of course, given a chance he will be a bully. He will not fail to show contempt towards foreigners (except for Russian nobles) and especially towards Jews and PoC. As for “his” boys, they may be fascists, brutes, and anti-semites, but they are also young kids, lost, traumatised by the war, and most of them very naive and impressionable. They will switch from boyish shyness to a rush of aggression and back very quickly.

Location of the ritual: from my experience, it is really much better if the ritual is performed in Grossmann's apartment as the combat with the possessed people can be made more interesting than in the allotment park. You could leave clues to influence the choice of the investigators in that direction. I personally didn’t do it in any of my runs.

Albin Grau: This guy is going to be the connection to the next scenario in the campaign. You could introduce him during this scenario. If one of the investigators needs help with the occult, you can suggest that the character has Albin Grau, the architect, writer, and movie producer, as an acquaintance. Albin at this time would be a rather famous man, after the great success of the movie Nosferatu, that he wrote and produced, and which premiered in March of that year (1922). 

If you are a bit more daring, you can even go as far as having Grau ask the investigators (or one single investigator that has more tendency to engage in illegal activities) to steal the Vermis Misteriis from the false Prince. This will create a link towards the third scenario, where the Necronomicon is stolen by an associate of Grau.

And that is it for now.

Next post will be about the Second Scenario, Dances of Vice, Horror, And Ecstasy.

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