Philmon's is an all-night diner in the City's downtown wich is a meeting place for adventurer-types. As such, it's seen its share of unusual late-night visitors. Here are a few possibilities:
1. Well-known loanshark Arman "The Brain" Rothwald looks none too happy--and neither do his two out-sized friends. Someone owes him dough and hasn't kicked it back, and The Brain's outsized friends tend to resent that sort of thing.
2. A beautiful, dark-haired dame in a blood red evening-dress walks by and everybody takes notice. There's a whiff of brimstone as she passes.
3. A police prowl car creeps by outside the window. There's no one inside.
4. Two dirty hobogoblins try take a seat, but are tossed out by the staff. One shakes his fist and warns that the King in Tatters is coming to deal with all you swells.
5. A torch-singer is trying to look inconspicuous as she seems to be waiting for someone. The cloth-wrapped parcel sitting on the counter next to her may have just moved.
6. Professor Wickenwyre, a prominent inventor recognizable from the papers, sits nervously at a booth with two strangely-accented bruisers in trench-coats and fedoras.
7. A wizened hermit from the Far East, proclaims loudly that he is looking for the student to whom he is fated to teach all his secrets. The signs say he is to meet that student tonight.
8. A pale, blank-expressioned little girl carrying a teddy bear walks up and silently holds out a black envelope.
9. The well-known moll of a murderous gangster talks in whispers with a known newshound, only the moll's corpse was pulled from the Eldritch five days ago.
10. A shabby, Vaudevillian ventriloquist and his dummy have an argument that gets increasingly heated--until the ventriloquist lies stabbed and bleeding, and the dummy is nowhere to be seen.
12. A disheveled tough guy with nervous, darting eyes, holds his right hand in his left, like he's protecting it. He keeps whispering conspiratorially into an large, antique ring he's wearing.
13. In the street outside, a procession of ten or so showgirls in full costume bop along glassy-eyed behind a satyr blowing a crazy tune on a set of bone pipes.
14. A natty stage magician in tux and tails takes a seat. He's amnestic..and he has a fist-sized hole in the center of his chest to--elsewhere. There's no blood, but tendrils of smoke rise from it, and raspy, malevolent whispers can be heard from within the darkness.
15. An ugly and dwarfish professor-type walks in carrying a large jar full of a yellowish liquid and dragon-like animal. He asks if anyone has seen "M'Gurk."
16. For a minute and a half, a static-y, but intelligible, firebrand sermon from a radio evangelist can be heard. There is no radio.
17. A blonde in a khaki explorers outfit, carrying an over-sized rifle, sticks her head in the door and asks (out of breath) if anyone's got fifty-foot of rope.
18. A police detective named Faulke, flanked by five uniforms, comes in and arrests someone.
19. A veiled, exotically dressed woman and her stern, bearded and turban protector ask for directions to an infamous opium den.
20. An imp in a tux, spats, and monocle appears in mid-air with an audible "pop" and issues a challenge in a supercilious tone.
Great post and nice to see Hopper's Nighthawks getting an outing again.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteLove that picture and the random encounters.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. I had had the thought of using Nighthawks for a bit, but finally thought of the right post to use it with.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff! Love the Ventriloquist!
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. Glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteGreat work--Nighthawks is a great painting and you really make the all-night diner work. 8, 9, and 12 sound especially fun to use as a launching-off point. 14 sounds like realy trouble...just the sort of thing to get things rolling for a bunch of characters.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually precisely the setting I want to be playing in right now. Have you perchance been listening to too much Tom Waits?
ReplyDeleteIf not then it's always a good idea.
@NetherWerks - Thanks! It's hard to say, but 8 is probably one of my favorites as well (I see the girl looking something like Dorothy of the anime Big O but that's just me), and then 11, as they both show the "oddness" of the city, but one with a creepy vibe and one with a humorous vibe.
ReplyDelete@Tom - Thanks, Tom--your Omentide post was one of my inspirations.:) And can one ever listen to too much Tom Waits?