It's a metaphor that the zine's founder and editor, Gabriel Pitt, uses to describe how people view the Occult Underground. When you first encounter it, it's all just a bunch of mystical mumbo-jumbo as far as you're concerned. You're accustomed to the "light" of the rational, mundane world. But if you stick around for awhile, your outlook adjusts just like your eyes adjusting to the dark and you gradually see more and more.
It's also the title of a really cool Danielle Dax album, a novel by Ruth Rendell writing as "Barbara Vine", and a 1994 movie based on the book. I only knew about the Danielle Dax album when I came up with the name.
I've reconsidered the idea of posting character sheets. I don't want to constantly update this page every time somebody spends a couple of experience points, and I'm not sure how useful a page of out-of-date character sheets would be. So this remains just a list.
Becker. Shane Peter Beckenridge is DAE's webmaster, archivist, database administrator and all-around tech support guy. He doesn't like to talk about it, but some incident in his past convinced him of the reality of magic and also left him with a severe fear of the dark.
Arnulph Bedewarden. A martial arts expert and ex-Marine, Arnulph is a reporter and does general "grunt work" for DAE.
Raymond Williams. Ray had a small part on Out of the Night until most of the cast and crew were killed in a bizarre accident. Suspecting that the accident was arranged by some cult or other group who thought something on the show hit too close to home, Ray became heavily involved in the occult underground scene. His obsession with the relationship between perception (especially perception as shaped by films and other fiction) and history led him down the path of Cliomancy. He's now an investigative reporter for the DAE and is still trying to learn the truth behind the accident.
Floyd Sangl. Floyd is a big, heavyset, totally bald young man who enjoys "freaking people out" by confronting their unconscious and preconceived notions. Despite his size and odd appearance, Floyd is quite well-read and studious. Another DAE reporter, he's also a conscious avatar of The Scholar.
Kellie. Kellie Pam Klein is a recent college graduate obsessed with finding beauty in everything. Being the staff photographer for DAE is her first "real world" job.
George Keane. Not a DAE staff member, but a contact of theirs, George is a paranoid, alcoholic Gulf War vet and former eco-terrorist, who's also a Dipsomancer and small-time player in the LA occult underground.
Gabriel Pitt. The founder, owner, and editor-in-chief of The Dark Adapted Eye. In his early 30s, Pitt made a bunch of money in the early '90s Internet boom and unlike many of his contemporaries, held on to it in the inevitable bust. Nobody really knows what motivated him to start the DAE, but he's very serious about it. Like a lot of webzine publishers he talks about someday putting out a paper version and paying his staff a better wage.
Scaggs and Bonetti. Bryan Scaggs and Jake Bonetti are operatives for the New Inquisition. Normally based out of Seattle, they work all along the West Coast. Scaggs is a big arm-breaker type, Bonetti's an ex-cop. They've got an uneasy truce with the DAE gang at this point.
Alison Campbell. Alison is a database programmer who sometimes has prophetic visions. For a while, everybody thought her name was "Monica Lane," including Scaggs and Bonetti, who had been sent to LA to find Lane.
Monica Lane. Monica is the daughter of a big LA real estate tycoon. She dated David Temple for a while. She's also a "Sleepwalker:" someone who has access to powerful magic while she's asleep. She brought either the Blind Man or some sort of projection of his image to LA. Last seen with Scaggs and Bonetti, on her way to visit TNI.
David Temple. Temple is well-known in the LA occult underground as a powerful Cliomancer. He's also well-known in the community at large as a powerful movie producer. He's gathering biographical and genealogical data on actors and models (and others: Janice Wainwright got a questionnaire) for some reason, using a program that Alison Campbell worked on.
Mister Black. Often talked about in the occult underground, but never actually met, Mr. Black is supposedly a sort of occult "Godfather" type.
The Blind Man. Very big in the New York occult scene in the 1950s and 1960s, the Blind Man seems to have died or otherwise dropped out of the picture around 1974. His agents, always a pair of young men dressed in suits and carrying umbrellas, have started showing up in LA recently.
Jason Rice. A minor player in the occult underground, Rice is fairly well-connected and often has access to new rumors and gossip. Most nights, Rice can befound hanging around the Eye in the Pyramid.
Janice Wainwright. A tall, dark-haired woman who dresses like a Goth, Janice is pretty well clued-in to the LA occult scene. She frequents the Grove, where she's generally surrounded by a small group of young women (and the occassional young man), also dressed in Goth style.
Phillip "Doc" Westlake. A drinking buddy of George's, Doc is no longer a certified physician, but he still provides medical services for those who wouldn't like to answer a lot of questions at a hospital. (Questions like "Who shot you?" for example, or "What's with the stigmata?")
Prometheus Christian. Real Name: Peter Christian de Jong. Once a somewhat prominent "police psychic," Christian had some sort of life-transforming event in his office in mid-December, 2001, and has become a visible and vocal debunker of fake psychics.
Eric Snow. Eric is a dwarf, recently arrived in LA, where he believes a new Fisher King will be crowned. He is constantly fiddling with a deck of Tarot cards.
Travis Crowe. Crowe is a uniformed LAPD officer who seems to know more than he lets on about the occult underground. He prevented Ray from harvesting charges in Hollywood and broke into the building where the DAE offices are, probably to tap the DAE phones.
Russell "Cutter" McGlynn. Cutter is a Santa Monica beach bum. A friendly, goodnatured kid, but not particularly clever. He seems to be a powerful avatar of the Fool, but he almost certainly doesn't know anything about the Invisible Clergy or the Occult Underground.
Oscar's. A little dive bar in a mostly empty strip mall. George, "Doc" Westlake and (lately) Eric Snow hang out here. The jukebox is broken, but if you put in a quarter, push a couple of random buttons and ask a question, you'll get a reply in the form of a short snippet of an Elvis Costello song. So far, the jukebox has proved generally accurate but quite cryptic.
The Eye in the Pyramid. A live music venue, popular with the occult underground. The club is considered more-or-less "neutral ground," but sometimes it's more like "stay out of other people's fights."
The Grove. An after-hours, all-ages Goth club, mostly populated by wanna-be vampires and the like. There are a few clued-in types who like the place, including Janice Wainwright.
The Dark Adapted Eye office. The DAE leases the top floor of a three-story warehouse in a slightly seedy part of downtown LA. There's a door on the street level with an intercom where you can be "buzzed in" to the building. The first floor of the building is all storage except for a tiny lobby and a small office used by the property management company. On the second floor are a theatrical costume company and a documents storage company. The third floor loft is the DAE office. Access to the second and third floors is via a self-service freight elevator. There are no internal stairs but there is a fire escape on the outside.
The Moroccan Arms Located across the street from Prometheus Christian's downtown LA office, this five-story art deco hotel was built in 1924 by renowned LA architect Andrew Scott. It also looks like it was redecorated once in the 1950s and then cleaned once in the 1980s. The penthouse suite, which is rented out for parties and the like, is much nicer than the rest of the building. There's also a small and depressing bar on the main floor. LA mob boss Nicky Murphy was shot and killed in the penthouse in 1956. Earlier this year, a couple of the Blind Man's agents rented the penthouse and performed some sort of ritual with a Ouija board and a deck of strange Tarot-like cards.
While the campaign is running, I'll be updating this campaign log on a regular basis. Players, let me know if there's something you think should be added or clarified.
Update: June 24. The campaign log is current.
Links to other UA resources on the web
The UArchive, a collection of fan-written material (mostly new archetypes and schools of magic).