SMOOSH JUICE
The Gentlemen’s Carnival
No one is born a man, says the Carnival; he becomes a man by developing the proper taste for well-tailored three pieces and the adrenaline high of a heist well pulled, the ultimate game of candor, tactics and subversion. They say society has no longer a place for gentlemen, barbarity running through electric veins all around. To be a gentleman is to be clownish, to bring carnival and uproot the inexorable march of time away from proper masculinity’s Eden.
Tasteful suits make the man, well-painted white masks make the clown. A trilby seals the deal (roll d3: either it is run by chalk-like lines, has a red-as-a-phoenix feather attached, or it has been replaced by the delightful cuckoo).
Assign three things they want to steal in the city. You know how to run them.
Resources: Putting on complex, disfiguring makeup at blistering speed. Complex illusions to pull escapades. Connections and elegance to mingle with the upper classes. Deep understanding of art history and its occult significance.
Potential Twist: One of the players’ Contacts is secretly a Gentleman. In pure sportsmanship, the Contact will never tell a lie or frustrate their efforts as a trusted advisor, but he will still report their plans to his gang.
Inspirations: Clown sightings, The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), The Killing (1956), deliberate misreading of Mikhail Bakhtin.