La Rue Macabre is an anomalous Free Port accessible by taking a left (on foot) off of Decatur Street (next to Jackson Square) onto Morgan. Filled with the bizarre, the forgotten, the outcasts, and the shunned, La Rue Macabre is a place made for the dregs of anomalous society. It's a place to meet, to share stories, to drink away worries, maybe make a few bucks working odd jobs in the city, or if you're really strapped for cash, out in the swamp, and to conduct trade. Life is slower here, sweltering in the heat of the swamp.
The setting is twofold. La Rue Macabre is essentially a very large, possibly endless, pocket dimension with a Way in the bend of the Mississippi River next to Jackson Square. The Important Folks don't decide who gets in, for the most part, but they definitely decide who gets to stay. One half of that setting is the settlement that makes up La Rue, with people moving around over the still waters, and the wild, untamed wetlands everywhere else. Odd things live in those waters, especially miles and miles from La Rue where folks don't often go. No one's gotten any proof of anything yet, but there are tales of thirty-foot gators ridden by the Gatormen, a theoretical race of sapient nomads, eons-old cypress trees that talk and maybe even move, and then there's the Shadow Man, who wears a coat made of shadows and spectacles made from the night sky. The Shadow Man's said to appear to folks who go out too far in the night and does… something to them. No one who might have talked to him long enough to know what that is has been seen again.
The most populated part of La Rue is the area "closest" to the French Quarter. The architecture is the same as the Old Quarter but without the benefit of a civic government keeping everything up to code, and it sits on a small island of dry land. The houses and buildings are crumbling or just showing signs of age. Eventually, that gives way to docks and wooden buildings built in a peculiar style unique to La Rue, all swamp woods held together with traditional joinery and their own secret tricks, with boardwalks over the swamp water in between. The visitor may then realize that the entirety of La Rue Macabre is built upon a swamp that stretches into the horizon all around the cluster of buildings that makes up the beating heart of La Rue Macabre.
The first and third Sundays of every month are Market Days, where the citizens of La Rue and whatever visitors are in all congregate to swap tales and food and sell whatever they found or built out in the swamp. This is a time for laughter and sorrow, to commiserate about the "old days", or to tell stories and jokes about whatever strikes their fancy. Market days are good days, and everyone looks forward to them.
The Important Folks
- Papa Legba - The ruler of Le Carrefour, a dimensional crossroads that can be accessed if you truly need his help. He helped settle La Rue Macabre, and is a very familiar face there. He loves dogs, sparkling water and sitting on his porch with a full pipe and a glass of, (you guessed it), sparkling water. He's generally a very well-spoken, kind, wise, and relaxed old loa, but has a sharp mind for negotiations and a hell of a poker face. It is unwise to bet against him. Papa Legba lives in a small but comfortable shotgun shack with the many stray dogs he's adopted off of New Orleans's streets over the years.
- Old Man Nancy - A very old man that used to be a very young man. Older than dirt, and the Greatest Storyteller That Ever Told a Tale, according to him. Will sometimes answer to "Anansi", if you catch him in a mood. He lives next to Papa Legba in a shack full of relics of days gone by. May or may not be a large spider in a human costume.
- Giraud Ealing Fonteyn - A tall, well-built, but still somehow skinny man. An immortal alchemist, carpenter, (as of late) and renaissance man. Is one of the generally agreed upon "leaders" of La Rue Macabre, which is mostly just someone who's been around for a while and tends to be trustworthy. Loving husband to Marie Haberdie Fonteyn, and brother to Raoul Fonteyn.
- Marie Haberdie Fonteyn - Far more than just an innocent housewife, Mrs. Fonteyn is respected and feared by everyone on La Rue, except her sole equals in hell-raising and alcohol-drinking, Giraud and Raoul. She's also one of the finer carpenters on La Rue, and provides a lot of the beautiful, intricate wood inlays the Fonteyns, and by extension La Rue, have become semi-famous for in the anomalous community.
- Raoul Fonteyn - Raoul is Giraud's younger brother, but people seem to be convinced that he's Giraud and Marie's son. The two men find it hilarious, and work to keep the misconception going. That or he is their son. It's not clear.
- Joseph "Cotton Eye" Le Monde - Ol' Joe may be an eldritch god of Louisiana's swamps, but don't let that fool you. He's friendlier than one of Legba's strays if you want to spend an afternoon smoking a few and shooting the shit, but God help you if you break the rules in his domain. That's not to say God has the power to help you in Joe's swamp, though. His boyfriend is a demon that calls itself Scratch, and he's the lead guitarist for their band, Pyroclastic Pirogue.
- Scratch - Scratch may not be The Devil, but he's sure as shit A Devil. He's very fond of his horses, his dog, and Joe, but tends to mostly lukewarm about everyone else, unless he's pissed with them. His dog, Brandy, is the only successful cross-breed of a Great Shuck and a Hellhound. That girl's howl can and has turned a full moon pitch black. Percussionist and vocalist for The Pyroclastic Pirogue, retired Baron of Sheol("Hell"), loving boyfriend.
Other long-time residents and transients:
- Baron Samedi and the Guédé - Baron Samedi is the charismatic leader of the Guédé family of loa, and while his brethren can easily match his crude humor and sharpened sense of debauchery, they can't match his skill for words. He may be a crass and often-times rude individual, but when push comes to shove, he's a very gentlemanly man, relatively speaking at least, and a good person to have on your side. He spends the majority of his time smoking cigars, drinking rum, making off-color jokes, and escorting the dead to their final home. He can sometimes be found in La Rue's graveyard, helping Scratch and Brandy dig graves for those without one, or changing out flowers. He's a lot more gentle to the dead souls he helps escort to their eternal fates than he is to the living.
- The Darkwater Lodge - A Neo-Sarkic cult, primarily made up of the distinguished Sabatier and Duvernay families.
- Good ol' Willie - Willie is the best moonshiner who has ever lived, or at least he claims to be. Hard to argue with him though, because one sip of his shine will put you in the gutter. If you are looking for Willie, then you can bet that you will find him socializing at the Never 'n Not, where he produces and sells his shine. Willie is probably the nicest man you will ever meet, but be warned, if you mention his missing eye, or arm, you will regret it.
La Rue Macabre is a crossroads, a nexus between the worlds. It's a place of magic and mystery, and most everything works, just sometimes not quite the way it was expected to. The pace of life is slow, and the weight of a long life can seem light in comparison.
Seems only fitting that La Rue gets its share of strange visitors.
Regular Visitors:
- Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting - There's a small open platform set up just for the Circus. They come here primarily to relax, but will occasionally put on a show. It's common to see a Circus performer walking the streets or attending Market.
- Various anartists - From Backdoor SoHo, to down-on-their-luck members of AWCY?, many anartists have found their way to the streets of La Rue Macabre. Some come seeking inspiration, some just trying to find a place to hide.
- Various Type Greens and Blues - Several reality benders of varying degrees of power call La Rue home. Many are on the run from the Bookburners, but some just want a quiet place to call home.
- The McNeals - Mick, Mack, and Spook are a trio of ex-UIU Agents currently working security for Herman Fuller's Circus Of The Disquieting. They've been killed somewhere in the ballpark of 70 times, and that's just counting the ones the UIU was responsible for. Mick and Mack'll stop to shoot the shit, but Spook is liable to just give you a funny look if you say hi. (It's unwise to accept any challenge they put forth, especially to a contest of drinking, dancing, or card-playing. They've been doing all three since Jay Gatsby was in diapers.)
- La Famille Natau - A Proto-Sarkic family living deep in the swamp to the south of New Orleans. At least one of the Manmas makes the trip to La Rue for each Market Day. Sometimes to sell fish or frogs, but sometimes looking to purchase.
- The Mekhanics - A syncretic Mekhanite cult that combines Cogwork and Maxwellist doctrine and techniques. Just about no one knows exactly why they hang around or how they get their hands on the things they get their hands on, just that other Mekhanites don't like them very much and it's probably not altogether very legal. They come and go a whole lot.
- MTF Beta-2 - The Bayou Boys have long since realized that they can come here and catch a drink, or a story, or a laugh, or… whatever else. It may seem strange to see the SCP emblem being flashed so openly here, but really, they're just the Boys.
- The disenfranchised and dispossessed, the penniless and homeless, generally anyone the anomalous world has cast aside.
The Sometimes-Visitors:
- Various angels, demons, and gods.
- Assorted individuals with unnaturally long lives
- Ulysses B. Donkman has been known to drop by once or thrice. Usually to yar with Nancy, or to spend some time drinking with his buddies.
- Different lone/small and insular groups of nomads and wanderers
- Separate large nomadic groups
- Market Square - On Market Day, the Square fills with people and stalls and long trestle tables full of food and drink and all manner of things to consume. Everyone comes to Market Day to see or be seen. Whether they're there to buy produce or alchemy reagents, or to watch the musicians and performers go at it on the stage, or to engage in epic storytelling contests with Nancy and Donkman, everyone tends to have a good old time. The La Rue Macabre Board is here, right out in the open.
The Never 'n Not Bar & Grill
- The Never 'n Not - This bar & grill looks about inviting as a kick in the crotch, but it's got some of the best goddamn swamp brew ale in La Rue Macabre. They've also got froglegs, alligator balls, and enough different catfish fillets on the menu to make one question one's sanity, it's a place full of laughter, tall tales, and the occasional fisticuff.
- The Darkwater Lodge compound - This collection of old Creole-style buildings are set back from the street and tucked behind a crumbling stone wall. Usually the gates are open, and the Sabatier and the Duvernay kids can be seen playing in the courtyard or listening to Enu teach lessons on history and faith.
- Maison du Fonteyn - This mansion is La Rue Macabre's semi-famous combination carpentry shop and artist's studio, though they also provide room and board for workers, themselves, and a few tenants. If you want an animated bird toy for your kid's birthday, a small semi-living statue for your wife's garden, a new house, a mildly anomalous renovation for your house, similarly anomalous maintenance for your house, an honest job and a place to sleep, or just some normal cabinet work, the Fonteyns can and will provide it.
- Le Pavillon - When the Circus is in town, everyone's here. Also, when La Rue needs to meet up and discuss things of great importance, this is where they gather.
The first thing to remember is that La Rue is intended as a setting. We left it as open-ended as we did so that it could fit into as many canons as possible.
Aside from that, the only hard and fast rule for La Rue is that everyone in La Rue plays nice with everyone else. Sure, everyone has disagreements from time to time, but generally, people are polite to each other (more or less). In the event that someone decides not to play nice, Cotton Eye Joe and/or Scratch will pay them a visit. If that doesn't clear things up, then they are dealt with in a very real way.
Like, either they get put out and stay out, or they get "lost" in the swamp kinda way.
La Rue can be a setting for tales, or skips about things from La Rue. The Foundation has a bit of an unspoken truce with La Rue, and we envisioned that in most canons, the Foundation has decided to take a hands-off approach with the citizens there. As long as La Rue doesn't become a mess or spill out too excessively into New Orleans, the Foundation will not bother them.
On the format:
The format itself is designed to look like a posting on the Bulletin Board at the center of La Rue Macabre. Maybe someone is looking for something, or they've got something for sale. Maybe it's a rumination on life in the swamp. Who knows why someone decides to post something for everyone else, but here is where they do it.
How to use it:
We've created a template for you that can be easily integrated into whatever you're working with.
Author Resources
| Title |
Summary |
| LaRue Format Template |
Directions below! |
| La Rue Site Theme |
For use with SCP articles and Tales |
This template can be used by importing this code:
[[include component:laruepost image=[1]|title=[2]|subtitle=[3]|content=[4]|content2=[5]]]
- [1] is the image filename, and it is constrained to being 200px wide. If you put a tall image in here it'll change the wordcount. I suggest a 200x200px image.
- [2] is the Title, I suggest 2-5 words
- [3] is the little subtitle in parentheses. I suggest 5-8 words.
- [4] is the first page content. You've got about 150 words, depending on paragraph breaks & the size of your image.
- [5] is the second page content. You've got about 350 words, again depending on paragraph breaks.
This was designed for fairly short-form stories. This should scale easily with mobile devices, as long as you follow the directions.
The following can be inserted AFTER you use the top stuff.
@@ @@
[[div class="rmpostcontainer"]]
@@ @@
[[div class="rmpostcontent"]]
PAGE THREE CONTENT GOES HERE.
Again, about 350 words, depending.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]
- All of the images were made by
MalyceGraves and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
- The font is Gochi Hand and comes from Google Fonts.
