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Hoodoo Hucksters

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If I had a dollar for every bauble, gris-gris, talismen, and knock-off relic hucked at me 'long Coven Lane I'd buy 'em all out and put 'em in the gallows.

'Least, that's what I'd like to do. Wouldn't be smart though. Hoodoo hucksters have long memories and one hell of a sense of right and wrong. You cheat one of a vial of holy water and they'll stick the souls of the damned to your apartment walls and slide doom curses under your door every night. Unpleasant stuff.

Most hoodoo hucksters aren't worth mentioning. They sell small time things that run off of a flimsy battery of belief harvested from some backwaters superstitions. Their talismans will fail you and their gris-gris will leave you unprotected when you go touring the Blood Allies or Swamp Styx. But there are a good few who know their stuff; they work with something and make something as a result. Sounds simple, eh? Not really. They are hoodoo hucksters after all--for every real piece of power you buy, you're getting nineteen lies.

See them now. Tired, older, unkempt. They work a mean street game and nothing else. They shout you down and ask you what's up and tell you some real ominous shit about how you got some curse on your back and how you need to shake it off real quick and they got just the thing for you.

Look in their eyes. They tellin' the truth but not the whole truth and certainly not nothing but the truth. Nah, what they saying is that they know you about to be in a bad spot and they will make you think you're ok. Whenever a hoodoo huckster shouts you down, listen to them. Half of what they say your problem is be true. Usually it's something like this...

D10 | Hoodoo Huckster Dooms

  1. Someone's put an evil eye on you out of spite, man. Rough week coming in.
  2. Something's a-hungering for you real fierce. Better cleanse or it'll get a good meal out of you.
  3. Looks like you done put some spirits in a tiffy. Better watch out or they'll trip you big time.
  4. An old thing done fixed itself on you. Come burn it off before it hollows you out.
  5. Royalty looming real big over you. Their shadow going to darken your days.
  6. How you going to break and oath you didn't know you made? You gots to make it right man.
  7. Not all laws are fair but you still got to follow them. Shouldn't have broke that one just now.
  8. Offending a boss ain't very smart. Suppose you'll figure that out soon without some help though.
  9. They liked you and you done gone and cold-cut 'em. Now they going to come at you hard.
  10. Stealing from one of us was wrong. I can make it right as rain though.

Hoodoo Hucksters never clarify their prophecies, no matter how hard they're pressed. Truth is, they can't. When they see someone doomed they get a cold feeling in the back of their neck that makes their hairs stand up all high-like. Most in the port know this. It's common wisdom to ignore a hoodoo huckster twice and then to buy from the third one, since that means the curse is something serious.


All hoodoo hucksters know each other. They all also work for the same man. Or woman. No one knows what's really going on at the top of that food chain, and the hierarchy amongst these vendor magicians is nebulous at best and nonsense at worse. A hoodoo huckster always know their place amongst their peers and, somewhere out there, a council of old ones or a singular master of charms and rights is keeping a whole profession impenetrable and strong. District leaders have put great effort into finding out who heads the hoodoo men and the yet the mystery still remains either unsolved or publicized.

Becoming a hoodoo huckster is a simple enough thing. Find another one, ask him if such-and-such corner is available for racketeering and then set up shop. Eventually you'll be worked into the fold. Or killed. Wouldn't be the first or last unproven hoodoo man to go sailing back down the styx.




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