Fangs Of Columbus

An adventure for New Orleans PCs, working for Belasco’s Rare Books.

Two dead men floating in Havana Harbour. Bloated and nibbled by fish. Drained of blood.

Soldiers on leave from the American occupation of Haiti. Last seen in the Hotel Sevilla-Biltmore, drinking rum cocktails with Sybil Vandervelde, a flamboyant New York heiress caught up in her third messy divorce.

Sybil is still missing. Paul Vandervelde, her soon-to-be-ex-husband, has posted a substantial reward for her discovery.

He works for the National City Bank, and is visiting Havana to manage their acquisition of Haitian debt. He reports directly to Charlie “Sunshine” Mitchell and has no enemies that he can think of - “except some of the Haitians, of course”.

Havana’s a boom town, full of American tourists fleeing Prohibition. Bars everywhere. The Rialto, Sloppy Joe’s, the Busy Bee Cafe. Thronging with flappers, mobsters, sleek men in pinstripe suits.

Bright young socialites. Uptight New York businessmen looking to unwind in a place where life is cheap.

Rumba dance halls, cockfights, underground roulette games. Live sex shows at the Shanghai Theatre. Boxing matches at the Black Cat Ring. Fat cigars, fresh from the factory, sold by little boys on every street corner.

Bloodless corpses found in the streets from time to time. The police hush it up. Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, political lesbian and journalist for the left-leaning Bohemia magazine, is looking into the deaths, but she hasn’t got too far.

Juan Ortega of the Club de Cantineros, the society of barmen, runs the show at the Hotel Sevilla. He cuts out tourists who seem like they won’t be missed and directs them to “the Blue Room”, at a certain address on Empedrado Street.

He promises them “a real show”.

Sybil had a long-time interest in the occult. She ordered books from Belasco twice a year - that’s why you’re involved in the case. Her room at the hotel conceals a nganga cauldron - holding railroad spikes, perfume, human bones.

An experiment she was running. She’d been trying to gain access to the Abakuá - the West African religious fraternity that secretly runs Cuba’s railroads and ports. She wanted to be the first woman to plunder their secrets.

Juan was under orders to recruit her.

Father Gaspar Gorricio dwells in a vault beneath the Havana Cathedral, pale and bloated, clad in his wide-brimmed black hat and priestly robes. Deacons serve him. Victims are brought to him through the network of secret tunnels that underlie Havana.

He was a Carthusian, a follower of Joachim of Fiore, a true believer in the Tiburtine Sibyl and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. He helped Columbus write his Book of Prophecies and sailed with him to the Americas in 1502. He jumped ship at Cape Honduras and caught a ride with Mayan traders to the Orinoco Delta.

He found his way to El Dorado - a golden city, ruled by vampire priests, located in the Sima Martel sinkhole on the Sarisarañama tepui at the heart of the Venezuelan jungle. (They have dinosaurs, as well.)

He returned to Hispaniola, vampirised, and established a secret order of bloodthirsty priests whose influence spread across New Spain. He believes he is the Last World Emperor - destined to conquer Antichrist, restore Church rule and bring on Armageddon. The vampire pope of the New World.

The richest men in Havana all pay blood homage to Gorricio - kidnapping innocents to feed his endless hunger.

Milton S. Hershey, the chocolate king. Owner of Central Hershey, a private refinery town east of Havana where five sugar mills work night and day to feed his confectionery empire. Plagued by insomnia. Still mourning the death of his wife Kitty. Head of the Rational Knights of Matanzas, a Bolivarian Masonic lodge.

Lillian Molton, the tobacco queen. Runs a dozen cigar factories on behalf of her mentally crippled father. Southern belle - active in the Knights of the Golden Circle, who want to make Havana the capital of a pan-American slave empire. Sleeping with Fulgencio Batista - grooming him for power. Has the army on her side.

Roger Farnham, former City Bank VP. Responsible for planning the Haitian occupation and stealing half a million dollars in gold from the country’s national bank. Now a free agent. Found a stash of cursed Aztec treasure on the island of Tortuga, left there by Henry Morgan - uses it to back colonial schemes.

“Big God” Gutiérrez, Abakuá high priest. Descended from the Obongs of Old Calabar. Controls the trade unions. Master of Palo Mayombe (you can mix and match religions) and commands a legion of ngangas judios, feeding them on blood. Secret doors beneath most of his nightclubs lead to pirate tunnels.

He runs the Blue Room, where conga drums beat all night long. Smoke hangs in the air. Dancers in silk shirts and rumba sleeves bait you inside. Once you’re through the door they show their teeth.

Sybil is now a vampire.

She’s hiding out in Los Jardines De La Tropical, a decaying Moorish castle and pleasure garden in a jungle at Havana’s edge. Every night she ventures out to terrorise the peasants, drinking cow blood and slaughtering old men in the street.

Pirate king Francois l’Olonnais - another ancient vampire, known as “the Torturer” to his friends - is showing her the ropes. The plan is to fully indoctrinate her into the vampire conspiracy, get her back with her husband and use the couple to take over Wall Street. Gaspar has visions of Manhattan as the heart of his empire of blood.

Sybil’s not that into it. Yet.