Mood Music
“The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.”
-- Michael Connelly
TL;DR Summary:
- - Set in late 90's Los Angeles.
- - Inspired by real-life events.
- - Also inspired by the works of writers like James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, and Ryan Gattis.
In Character Info
Los Angeles
1997
This is a city that shouldn't exist.
It was built in a desert, facing an ocean of useless saltwater. A city of transplants and transients either running away from something, or running to something. A city of health-crazed whackos blanketed by smog. A city of broken dreams and all that other cliche shit you've heard over the years. City of Angels said ironically and blah blah blah. All of that aside, the fact remains that Los Angeles was a city willed into creation by land developers and real estate men, men who stole water from hard-working farmers and plowed over orange groves. Men who lured greedy filmmakers out west because they wouldn't enforce patent laws. A city built by swindlers for crooks, thieves, and gullible marks.
It's the city where the Black Dahlia was cut in half, where Charles Mason's followers ran roughshod, where riots in the 60's and 90's tore the city apart -- it's where guys called the Night Stalker, the Lonely Hearts Killer, and the Hillside Stranglers all hunted and killed -- it's where a washed-up football player and his best friend captivated the world with a low-speed police chase on the 405.
Now three years away from the new millennium and civic leaders have called for healing. The names Rodney King, Stacey Koon, OJ Simpson, and Mark Fuhrman all left black eyes on the LAPD while images of the city ablaze and looting citizens were broadcast around the world. It has been a time of recovering from the decade of scandal and riots, but now something new and sinister looms on the horizon. The murders of Christopher Wallace aka "The Notorious B.I.G.," and LAPD detective Kevin Gaines are poised to uncover a network of corrupt cops, cops with gang allegiances, cops who act as little more than thugs with badges.
In South Central LA, Crips and Bloods continue their decades old feud and black men are killing and dying at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the city. For LAPD homicide detectives, to go "Ghettoside" in search of the killer is to negotiate a complex knot of neighborhood, gang, and family alliances. But unknown to both cops and criminals, a killer lurks among the people of South Central and he targets those that live on the margins of society.
All this and more await you. But tread lightly. This isn't a City of Angels. It's a City of Demons.
Out of Character Info:
If you made it this far, then congrats. This is pretty much going to be an open-ended game. I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of crime stories. Be it fictional or true. I want this game to mingle the two together and tell fictional stories while real events play out in the background. I have storyline ideas that the entire game can collaborate on, stories that would serve as through-lines across the game. Player choice is pretty much open with no restrictions, and that includes real life people if you feel so possessed.