The Grimoire

It used to be the practice in this town that taxation for a business property was predicated, oddly, on the amount of storefront it presented to the street. As a result, the Grimoire which took over this existing store-front some years ago appears to be one of those places that is bigger on the inside, but actually, the building was built to present a minimal storefront and yet go back and back and back.

This, is a running theme. The Grimoire is often mistaken for something it's not.

It's a shop where one can buy occult books and paraphernalia of all sorts. It's a gathering place for people who are a part of the Occult subculture of your town. and it's owner is considering the possibility of opening a web presence for occult articles in the way of E-BAY and ETSY.

The place is owned by a large bearish man who goes, unsurprisingly, by the name Bear. He is a large man, hirsute and covered with tattoos that are a roadmap of bad decisions, and shamanic understanding. He thinks carrying both are valuable. Bear's real name is Gilbert Houseman, but only his mama still calls him that.

Bear was a biker for a time, knows how to handle himself in a fight, and may, in fact, be entirely bereft of fear of any man or beast. Even in his fifties he can be an imposing and intimidating presence.

But he only puts that on when he needs to. He smiles. He laughs and is as open as anybody you'd meet. He's widely read on subjects in religion and philosophy and mythology. True, as he's gotten older he's gotten a bit more skeptical and pragmatic about what he believes in. He's certainly able to size up and chat up prospective customers about their interests in the arcane world. But he's not one to have a lot of faith in the whole concept of "Magick" beyond what human beings do when they create actual art. Often, he has the look of someone who is in on an elaborate joke.  Much of this is amusement at people who are more the wild eyed crystal waving type.  If there is anything that Bear thinks he's on the fence about, it's ghosts. He allows that what happens after we die is still a great big mystery and even skeptics don't seem to have a lot of good answers. EVP may be bullshit and some ghost-hunting shows on TV are obviously staged, but the sheer proliferation and pervasiveness of ghosts and ghost stories makes him think there may still be something to it. 

Bear Houseman is a pretty good debater and enjoys talking to people who are capable of listening. If it's clear that you've stopped listening, He'll close down and begin trying to hustle you out of his store. "You gonna buy that or what? I don't care either way hoss."  The only other time that Bear tends to get angry with customers is when certain types of christians come into the store either to make trouble, or to buy books on Angelology, and then end up arguing with other customers. He hasn't punched a customer in a good long while.

Bear's old lady Penelope Houseman (Penny, or Pen-Pen) is perhaps the polar opposite. Serious and a true blue believer in all manner of…things. She doesn't have an un-kind bone in her body, and that's the thing that enables the two of them to stay together. They argue…A lot. but it's rarely acrimonious because Penny never stops listening. Penny Houseman is the sort of willowy woman who looks great well into her fifties because she does yoga and is a strict vegan. (She credits that to beating cancer some years ago. The real story is a bit more complicated than that.)  She's also the sort of person who will walk up to you with her eyes shut and one hand up saying, "I sense a shadow on your aura. Have you ever had your chakras aligned?"

Penny, may not necessarily be supernatural in any way, but she is one of those people who walks around with her intuition turned up to 11. This can, of course, be mistaken for real power by actual supernatural beings and as a result, Penny has had her memory tampered with more than once.  Penny is also something of an artist.  Always making something with her hands. She knits, macrames, bakes, sculpts and throws pots, and when not involved in these activities, carves candles at the register with a jeweler's loupe and an Exacto knife.  Her candles are actually in demand amongst serious supernatural practitioners,(They are extremely well made.) and she's gone to some lengths to develop contacts among artisans who might craft things that they then can turn around and sell.  If you need to find a rosewood coffin crafted by buddhist nuns, Penny might not know where to get that, but in a couple of days, she might be able to run it down for you.  This kind of shit does NOT turn up on Amazon.

Luna Rowan Bright-Blessing Krummholtz mans the register when Penny is crafting or isn't feeling well. Luna is a right proper gloom-cookie and as dour as a goth hospice nurse. She's pointedly NOT pagan, like her folks, but she knows the culture and the players and if working here will get her through her chemistry degree. She's not complaining.

Ok. Bullshit. She's complaining.  But if there is anyone who knows things about bath salts, tinctures,incense, and  poultices, it's Luna. Again, her materials are often in demand, mainly because they smell great. Luna is also an attractive little thing and seems to have a fairly active love life, that she sabotages like clockwork.  Luna can occasionally be a source of tension because she never really stops carping about the nature of her fucked up life, and that can get on anyone's last nerve.  But she actually likes working here and actually likes the people she works with and it comes out in odd ways. Penny swears that Luna was a powerful Bruja in a past life and she's fighting with it in this one. Who knows. Maybe she's right.

Luna's best friend also works here. Noel Loughlin.  Noel is an art school drop-out with hipster glasses, a thin reedy voice, a receding hairline in his 20's, a tendency towards scarves and hats up to the dead of summer, and the sort of ambivalent sexuality one might expect from a kid like that. Bear is a little unsure of what to make of him, Penny mothers him, and Luna tells him every detail of her sexual adventures and their eventual crashing and burning. Noel's job appears to be stocking, ordering, doing the books, and making snide comments about the customers.

Weirdly, Noel tends to bring out the protective instinct in people. Once, one of the local Satanists took a dislike to Noel, and as he began to get verbally abusive to Noel, Bear casually pulled out the baseball bat he keeps beneath the register and placed it on the counter. He did not even look at the man, but the guy got the message and rolled on.  

The Grimoire is closed on Sundays. but is open from 11:00 to 10:00 on weekdays and is open from 11:00 to 1AM on Friday and Saturday.  If you see the fat orange tabby roaming around. That's Ms. Blavatsky. Best not to try to pet her. She's a bit of a drama queen.

The front room of the shop is where the register is located on a long rosewood counter. The area is dominated by corkboards with business cards and flyers from local counter-culture groups and local bands. The area in front of the counter is an elaborate cubbyhole assembly for Occult zines, local publications, and the university newspaper. A beaded curtain leads back into the main room right by a handicapped accessible restroom. As a result, the hallway is freakishly narrow and is one of the few places that is bereft of shelves.

The main room is a riot of color. Books, mathoms, tchotchkes, and curios litter every single flat surface. The place normally smells great from some thing that Luna has whipped up and the sounds of ambient music or NPR is usually on the sound system. (Although, on those rare occasions when Bear finds himself minding the place alone, he puts on "The Eagles Greatest Hits" and just leaves that on.)  The main room is dominated by an octagonal table that Bear built himself and eight chairs. It sits just under the skylight.  This table is often the meeting place of small groups of occult enthusiasts and occasionally also plays host to Penny's classes in spirit channeling. Bear keeps a notebook up front next to the register so that scheduling foul-ups are kept to a minimum. Nobody wants people Death-cursing one another over a typo.

The left hand wall of the main room is taken up with cabinets with key locks for small items that are easily shop-lifted. (Tarot decks, stones, jewelry and the like.)   The right hand corner of the shop features a large iron spiral staircase that leads up to the second level of the shop.  The second level goes all the way around the first and one can look down over the rail onto the octagonal table.  More of the same is up here. There is a locked door on the second floor that is marked "Restricted Access Collection"   This closet like area is where they keep any books on Tantrika, sex magic, Satanism, or anything that little kids ought not to bump into.  

Make no mistake, most of the books in this place are about as magical as a good healthy dump. One might find useful advice in a few of the books in the main rooms but that's needle-in-a-haystack time. You can find a few good overviews of occultism in the main rooms too.  And every once in a great while, you might see something in the main rooms, that, in the wrong hands can ruin a few lives.

Restricted Access is a bit different. There might be a few things here that in the hands of an adept might prove useful.  They've got a full color leather bound Voynich Manuscript. They've got a Necronomicon, (No. Not THAT one. The other one.) And a few interesting things which MIGHT be ghost anchors, or something on that power scale.  Generally though, there isn't really a lot of dangerous crap here.  

Although…Once a quarter, they hold an event here which is essentially an "Occult Flea Market"  This event may be a different story. If you like.  Also at the Flea market you can get Spirit photography, Ear Candling, Tea leaf reading and tarot reading by a dozen different people.  If that's your bag, Go for it.

The door at the back of the shop on the first floor leads to another cramped corridor that opens into a large brightly lit workroom with free-standing metal shelves that reach from floor to ceiling holding store stock. The far wall is all work-tables, bolted and hot-glued together into a completely solid, un-movable  mass. The smaller one is Luna's work area and is neat as a pin.  The larger one is Bear's area and is usually comprised of half a dozen wood or metal projects in various states of completion. This is the only place where Bear can get away with a smoke, without catching holy hell from Penny. A rickety set of stairs leads up to Noel's office where every single bit of space that is not Noel or Noel's chair is covered with paper and computer junk. There is a VCR that is actually recording from the extremely visible camera directly in front of the front door. (Although, the other camera over the loading dock is entirely spurious and doesn't function at all. Bear installed the cameras because there was a time or two where God-fearing church people would come around and vandalize the place.)  The rickety stairs dog-leg and continue up  to a door that leads out onto the roof that the place shares with the Cantonese place next door. 

The Workroom has a back door that leads to a minuscule loading dock. A hand truck designed for stacks of books sits next to the dock door.

Relations with the Cantonese place next door are thankfully friendly. This is mainly because Luna isn't into Chinese guys and as a result, hasn't screwed and dumped anyone working there yet. Bear is even picking up a little Cantonese. The place on the other side of the alley used to be a pawn shop and is constructed like a damn bunker. Luna is beginning to realize that she's never seen anyone coming into or going out of that place in the whole time she's worked there. Parking is across the street so…Hmmm…

Options:

Totally Unmagical: 

As above, Sure this place might be a good recruitment ground and a nice place to pick up supplies for something serious.  I mean, well crafted items CAN be hard to come by if you don't have much in the way of Crafts yourself.  But beyond the basics, it's not a place that is going to figure heavily into the local supernatural scene.

Right on the Edge: 

If there is anyone likely to become something MORE than a plain vanilla human here it's likely to be Penny. She's an ardent student of the occult, and well versed in over a dozen different disciplines of magic praxis. If someone coached her she's easily make the jump to hedge wizardry. Or who knows, she might wake up bolt upright some night and simply KNOW stuff.  She might even shake off the memory tampering that she's undergone and some people will likely be in BIG trouble.  Second Sight or Reliquary would be a proper direction to look in.

Luna doesn't realize it yet, but she's being considered for apprenticeship in the Ascended Ones. They're watching her and they like what they see…Well. except for the fact that she's a volcanically hot mess.

Boom goes the dynamite:

Okay, this would essentially be a white event. Some occult group comes in some night and does something, that THEY think is harmless and calls down something serious.   Let me put it this way. Bear is a skeptic because he's never really bumped up against anything that his mind couldn't wrap itself around. If THIS happened, he would suddenly have to re-think EVERYTHING.  And if he did, He'd have the tools and the aptitude to be a powerful practitioner, Penny too.  A whole chronicle could be built around a basic idea of an occult bookshop that goes from being a joke amongst actual supernatural creatures to becoming a serious player…or THREAT.