All Come to the Cabaret! (Roaring 20s Group RP)

[Renrenren]

What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play! Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret



Section 1: The setting

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome

We are in 1920s post-WWI Berlin, at the height of the jazz age. Germany, Europe and the world are changing rapidly, but the troubles of society at large are left outside the doors of the Kit Kat Club, a luxury cabaret club, famous jazz venue and boutique hotel that features an award winning cocktail bar, a well-stocked whisky and cigar lounge, and a secret opium den as well as a handful of lavishly decorated bedroom suites that can be rented by the hour. Leave behind the cold, austere and blustery Alexanderplatz and wander down a narrow, nondescript side street where one could easily walk past the converted four-storey townhouse without a second glance and easily miss the small brass plaque outside which simply reads "10-13 Wohlgeruchstrasse", if not for the queue of chauffeured vehicles outside. Footmen wearing white gloves bring patrons (sheltered and hidden by umbrellas on the short walk from their car and up the four stone steps) to the large black door with an unusual brass knocker that most visitors would blush to actually use.

Behind the main door, the Kit Kat Club's infamous bouncer Herman (that's Herr Herman to you, although he does not look German, and he holds himself with the composure of a military man and is clearly au fait with many types of combat) will check IDs and membership cards, confiscate prohibited items, check your coat and bag into the cloakroom and offer you a shot of Goldschläger (cinnamon schnapps) before letting you through to the Red Room - a cocktail bar where the three-piece jazz band is already playing away next to the upright piano in the corner.


The Golden Hall contains the main stage, which is surrounded by small tables for drinking and dining. Handsome waiters and waitresses glide around the room, expertly trained on food, wine and picking up social cues from their guests to ensure that all requests and tastes are suitably catered for. The high ceiling and pillars are gilded in gold, and the large crystal chandelier hangs above unused, in favour of smaller table lamps, spotlights dotted around the music hall and the glow from the large bar on one of the walls. Behind the long bar are shelves of fine liquor all the way up to the ceiling and in front of it are bar stools occupied by beautiful women who have certain agreements with the club for mutual endorsement. There are more secluded booths towards the back of the room, which are slightly raised from the floor and removed from the action by curtains and railings, but the stage is still perfectly visible and servicing the booths is not forgotten by any means - the low table is suitable for dining and there is a side table for bottles, and the large corner sofa is semi-private enough for all kinds of services.


The grand piano adjacent to the main stage hides the door to back stage, but not well enough as enchanted patrons desperately try to bribe their way through. It leads down a narrow corridor with notice boards and photos pinned along the walls, to two messy dressing rooms and the talent manager's small office. There is also a door to the outside, leading out to a small walled courtyard with a gate onto a back street.


From the Golden Hall, stairs lead up to the hotel concierge who acts as gatekeeper to the private rooms and glamorous suites, the limited staff quarters and the club owner's office. Stairs also lead down from the Golden Hall to the basement, which contain a bathing room for guests, a snug speakeasy and various other mysterious areas.



If you want to get away from the fanfare of the main hall, a guarded door next to the long bar is a portal to a quieter, more civilised space away from the girls and the performers, known as the Green Lounge because of the oriental furnishings and jade sculptures that adorn it. Over the rare cigars and peaty whisky, business is done - this has always been the club owner Max's preferred approach for lowering the guard of his business partners while also showing them suitable decorum and deference.

Section 2: The characters

A tiger is a tiger, not a lamb

Emcee is the famous master of ceremonies of the Kit Kat Club. A migrant from the German countryside, he has made a name for himself as the charismatic, witty host of the club's cabaret shows. He knows everything about everyone, and there is no business in the club that he is not aware of. In fact, he is at the centre of the club's most profitable business, which is arranging the private services of the cabaret performers for the club's most valued clients. The trilingual Emcee is a smart and deft negotiator, and a masterful manipulator. He is simultaneously aloof and intense, relaxed and intimidating, cheeky and cold. When he focuses his gaze and attention on someone, they feel like the only person in the world and he is staring into their soul, but he is impossible to read much like a skilled poker player. Emcee is very aware of the effect he has on people, and uses it to seduce and deceive to his heart's content. He is narcissistic and obsessed with self-image, but loves love and gives it out freely. This is why he has sexual relations with almost every person who works at Kit Kat Club. His affections and actions are not hidden at all, and he loves nothing more than a good night developing into a great orgy. With a questionable understanding of consent (made worse by serious substance abuse issues) and even more questionable political views, he may be the pimp for the club's most high end escorts but he certainly does not look after them holistically.



That job is left to Miss Kost, the sweet, gently backstage manager and coordinator for the cabaret show. Although slightly older than the performers and unmarried, she gives great advice and is an important mother figure for the performers. As a trained nurse, she is also indispensable to the club and a trusted figure who is told everything by everyone. How did she end up here? Miss Kost fell in love with Max, the club's silent and mysterious owner, and they are in a non-exclusive, full time BDSM relationship. Desperate for his love and affection, she tells him everything she hears and would always choose loyalty to him even if that means betraying her friends at the club. She is conflicted about her arrangement with Max and dreams of a normal family life with him, but knowing that is impossible, she confines herself to life as his sex slave. Max does not openly partake in the amorous activities of the club other than his role as Miss Kost's dom but he is happy for the ongoing club activities to satisfy his voyeuristic interests. The club is not his only business although it was how he first made money. Now, he also profits from war manufacturing and other unscrupulous business relations, as well as clubs in London and Paris, and has become an increasingly influential figure in European society. However, he keeps his cards close to his chest, particularly given the fact that he is secretly an Austrian Jew, as he is aware of many of his associates' views on the matter, not least Emcee who sympathises with nationalist ideologies and many of the club's clients who are part of particular nationalist political movements.



Mayfair and Frenchie are the top earning performers of the club and have many regular patrons and the most affluent clientele in the club. Naturally, they are rivals and the other performers are also always on the lookout for opportunities to get a slice of their pie. Mayfair ran away from her comfortable middle class home in England (where she developed her expensive taste and her tact and charm) whereas Frenchie grew up on the streets of Paris and was regularly abused, so there is a bit of a class war between them as well.



Mayfair recently introduced a new girl to join the cabaret, Elsie, who is relatively innocent and inexperienced but was intrigued by Mayfair's extravagant lifestyle and was lured in to get a taste for herself. The cabaret troupe is not the most welcoming to newcomers, who are viewed as a threat to their status quo, and Frenchie takes on the role of training them with her sadist streak and plenty of sexual torture devices. New performers are introduced to the club with an auction of their "virginity" (much in the style of Memoirs of a Geisha) but this to Frenchie means getting her fist into Elsie's ass is the obvious way to go with Elsie's training. Frenchie's training is assisted by her closest friend at the club, the bisexual Russian dancer Victor who loves sex and hates when people aren't enjoying it (so he feels quite conflicted sometime when with Frenchie). Victor's masterful skills in the bedroom have earned him the adoration of his long-term client Mrs Schneider, a young and wealthy widow (who is not from an upper class family herself) whose husband died early under mysterious circumstances. Mrs Schneider is a regular at the club and is in love with Victor but enjoys the company of many of the performers and makes the most of all the trappings of wealth inherited from her dead husband.

Bobby is a gentle giant, he is muscular and handsome with a boyish charm, but he is also shy so comes across as the strong silent type, which means his clients (as well as Emcee) love to abuse him. He struggles with his identity as a gay man, and working at the club has both helped and hindered this. He has earned the affections of Fritzie, one of the cabaret's talented solo performers who is also one of the first trans women who went through gender affirming surgery in the 1920s successfully. Fritzie secretly loves Bobby, but knows that their relationship could never work because of Bobby's struggle with his identity and the fact that Bobby only views her as a friend.

Playable characters:

As indicated in the previous sections, there are a number of characters that already have roles, existing relationships and ready-made plot lines as described. Although much of their personality, interests and back story are set up, you have free rein to expand and elaborate on these and add your own touch when you fill out their character sheet. If no one is playing these ready-made characters, they will act as NPCs that anyone can claim and control as needed.

• Herman
• Emcee
• Miss Kost
• Max
• Sally
• Elsie
• Fritzie
• Frenchie
• Victor
• Mrs Schneider
• Bobby

If you prefer more free reign and want to come up with a completely new character who fits in with the main plot and/or has their separate storyline within the world of the Kit Kat Club, please claim one of the following characters and fill out the character sheet.

• Rosie / Lulu / Texas / Helga (one of the cabaret's female performers in the group numbers, who also works as a high end escort pimped by Emcee and is keen to compete for the opportunity to become a solo performer, which comes with more money, prestige and exposure to the best clients)
• Mr Isherwood / Mr Bradshaw / Mr Ludwig / Mr Schultz (a new or existing client of one or more of Max's cabaret clubs, having been referred or vetted by Max's associates and provided sufficient proof of funds)

Section 3: The plot

Here, life is beautiful

The cabaret performers work as a team and are generally loyal to the club, which has treated them well over the years. However, there are naturally rivalries for the best performance slots and roles, jealousies in co-worker love triangles, questionable training practices and working relationships, and betrayal to compete for the best clients.

As the Nazi party rises to power, the club's patrons as well as the cabaret performers themselves cannot escape the political tensions and plots. Rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful in such an intimate setting, at a time when important business and gentlemen's agreements were often conducted in the back rooms of high end private members' clubs like the Kit Kat Club, it is impossible to not overhear important information and get caught up in the political movements.

I envision that some of the following plotlines could be played out, but very open to any other ideas as well:

• Max has an affair and Miss Kost betrays him by feeding him false information from her new lover
• Emcee has various affairs and trysts with the cabaret performers and clients, including a dark twisted relationship with Bobby
• Mayfair falls for a wealthy client who has questionable business ethics and political leanings, and navigates leaving the club
• Elsie is inducted into the cabaret troupe and broken into the perfect sex toy by Frenchie and Victor
• Fritzie deals with discrimination and falls into cahoots with the communists
• Mr Ludwig is an alluring and wealthy Nazi sympathiser while Mr Schultz is a highly respected communist figure with a senior position in the opposition party, they know things about each other's personal lives because of things they witnessed in the club, so they have an uneasy truce
• Mr Bradshaw is pursuing Mrs Schneider romantically and shames her for being in love with Victor who is not worthy of her affections as he is a lowly male prostitute
• Max and Herman conduct dangerous business affairs with both the Nazis and the communists and navigate the spies (NPCs like the independent prostitutes that have an agreement with the club, and new waiters and bartenders and housekeepers) and secrets of the club
• The cabaret troupe compete for the best performance spots and also enjoy playtime in the club and with their clients

Section 4: Format and federal rules

The concept of this group RP is that there are some ready-made storylines that feature key characters and a main plot interwoven between them. As mentioned at the end of section 2 above, there is also an option to create a completely new character and story arc that fits into the main plot. The story, characters and scenarios are set up so that you can be involved as much or as little as you want, from a one shot fling with one character, to a low maintenance side story running alongside the rest of the plot, to fully immersing in the complicated intertwined lives of all the characters of the setting. The intention for the RP is that none of the characters ever leave the opulent surroundings of the Kit Kat Club as part of the story - this is to emphasise how much of a bubble it is from the outside world - but RP posts can mention briefly things that have happened with the character's day before they got into the club for work as long as it is for the purpose of character development or embellishing the plot, but the story should never take the characters out of the club until the very very end of the RP (i.e. we hit the 1930s, Nazis come and close down the club).

I hope my characters have intrigued you enough to tempt you to play one or more of them. Given how big the cast is, I would be delighted if you do want to play multiple characters, but I would suggest that three is the absolute maximum.

Ideally, posts would be 2-8 paragraphs and written in third person past tense. It would be helpful to try and remain accurate to the historical/social/scientific/political context (hence there is only one post-op trans person) but it's not the end of the world if someone gets something wrong - none of us lived in 1920s Berlin and few of us speak fluent German. We can assume that all the dialogue, while written in English, is actually German for our characters in their world.

Given the wide range of genres, interests/fetishes and spice levels this RP crosses, I think it would be good etiquette to indicate to the RPers playing the relevant characters where you intend to go and check if they are okay with that in OOC discussion.

Please let me know if you are interested below, or better yet, fill out a character sheet! I've left some inspo pics generated by DALL.E-3 throughout for your viewing pleasure - these are simply for inspiration and to help set the scene, you are very welcome to bring your aesthetic as you please!

Character sheet

Nickname: [i.e. the name of the character you have chosen from the list of playable characters at the end of section 2]
Real name:
Gender:
Age: [this doesn't have to be precise, you can give an age range]
Nationality/ethnic background:
Sexual preferences: [e.g. sexual orientation, kinds and fetishes, turn ons and turn offs]
Personality:
Backstory:
Faceclaim: [photo or digital art, as long as it is not the pointy face kind of anime, if you know what I mean]