Snippet of… I dunno what to call it. “Obsequies for the Golden Emperor?”

Or something. This idea is probably gonna be the new RPG setting AND this month’s Patreon story, though. Efficiency! Cthulhu Mythos!

Also: Patreon!

You cannot believe your luck.

Oh, it is a sad day!  A day of mourning, and solemnity, and black-and-yellow armbands stitched on sleeves.  All of San Francisco mourns. All of California — poor, battered, blooded California — mourns.  The Golden Emperor is dead!  

How can it be, howl the women at night!  Tears water the ground where the Society matrons gather; some kneel in prayer, other wail their anguish at the dusty sky.  Their husbands show more decorum, keeping their anger at the horrid news cinched in tight, like they were a Castagne Steel Company’s steam-boiler that been fed too much coal.  You hear rumors that, here and there, a person of the lower classes has snapped under the strain of grief and lashed out with hand or foot or knife, the poor fellow. You hope that these rumors are untrue, but you feel pity for their plight.  You tell yourself that it is not their fault, really: for Emperor Norton is dead.  

And he has no heir.  How could he? What man could hope to take his place?