I'd love to say that I picked this game to do in February because it's Black History Month, but the truth of the matter is that I asked my friends to choose a game off my list and my gf chose this one. With that said, since it is Black History Month, maybe I'll do games from Black creators in February. (My goal this year is six characters a month.)
The Game: Harlem Unbound
The Publisher: Darker Hue Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Well, that's kind of a special case
Books Required: Just the one, for my purposes
Harlem Unbound is a Mythos game, and it's really a supplement for both Trail of Cthulhu (kind of, it's got all the relevant rules in it so it's really a standalone GUMSHOE game, I guess) and Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. I do not own the latter, so I'm gonna make a character for the GUMSHOE variant.
Harlem Unbound is basically a Mythos investigation game set during the Harlem Renaissance, and if you're a white American like me, you might not know much about the period. The book therefore gives you a lot of history and context for the period it's describing the kinds of stories it's meant to evoke, and if anything I think it could have gone a little harder with the Mythos stuff, but honestly it's easier to find info on how to run a Lovecraft-inspired RPG than to run one dealing with racial tension and the Black American experience. Harlem Unbound was nominated for (and won) a bunch of Ennies back in 2018, and deservedly so.
Anyway, let's make a character! The book asks me to consider what my life was like before being shattered by some Cthulhoid horror. Having just played a very long game of Arkham Horror the other day, I think I shall take a bit of inspiration and make a photographer. I think my character was inspired by the work of James Van Der Zee (where's his fuckin' biopic, his life sounds really interesting) to start clicking pictures. He procured a camera at a young age (gift from a relative, maybe?) and kinda learned as he went, and tried to make some money selling snaps to newspapers and so on - those that would buy from him. He wound up taking gigs as he could, and one day he showed up to an apartment that was decidedly seedy, figuring he was going to take some candid shots of someone's wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. Turned out that a weedy fellow named Horace wanted him to take some pictures of some weird-looking shit floating in jars, things that looked like fish or crabs or...fish-crabs. My guy took the pictures and was figuring this was all carnival mermaid kind of shit, and one of the things in the jar moved.
Horace paid him in advance, which was good because when he went to deliver the prints the apartment was empty and no one would even admit that Horace had ever lived there. He still has those prints.
Good start! A little more personal data. His name is Reynold Baker (but call him "Ray"). He was born in Memphis in 1905, but his mother moved to New York when he was still a toddler, so for all intents and purposes he's a New Yorker. He's skinny and wears pants that are too big with black suspenders, an overcoat that he found on a park bench, and a hat that blew off somebody's head and bounced down the street. He really did try to find who lost it, but no luck.
Investigative abilities! Figuring, as usual, that any game I played in would have at least 5 players, I get 12 points. Let's put 2 in Photography right off the bat. One in Art History, one in Library Use, one each in Assess Honesty, Bargain, Inspiration, and Renaissance. Four left. Art, Chemistry, Craft, and...hmm. I'll put one in Cop Talk. Figure that Ray has wound up taking pictures at crime scenes (hey, they sell), so he's learned a little about how cops work.
General abilities! I get 60 points, as is the custom. Let's see, which ones do I want ratings in at all? Athletics, Conceal, Disguise, Fleeing, Preparedness, Scuffling, Sense Trouble, Shadowing, and Stealth are all good choices. That's 9 different abilities without considering Sanity, Health, or Stability. I only get 3 Sanity and 2 Health and Stability to start, which ain't much. Let's put 1 into Health (again, skinny, and hasn't got much in him if things get violent) and 2 each into Sanity and Stability. 55 more points.
Well, 6 into Athletics and Fleeing. 5 into Conceal, 5 into Scuffling, 8 into Shadowing, 5 into Stealth. 5 into Preparedness and Sense Trouble. 10 more. I'll put 4 into Disguise (he knows how, but not especially well), and I'll split the last 6 up evenly between Conceal, Scuffling, and Sense Trouble.
That's pretty much it, I think. Oh, wait, I could give him a Drive (though there's no place on the sheet for it, grr). Actually, I think his "Drive" would be kinda bad luck - he finds himself in these situations and his brain says "take pictures" rather than "run screaming." When he thinks back on things later, sometimes he realizes that running and screaming would have been smarter, but here we are.
And that'll do it!
