Whitechapel — Day 1, Monday, November 14, 1892, 6:25 PM Location: Dorset Street, under a flickering gas lamp. Weather: light rain, low fog, cold wind from the east. Time: evening.

The gas lamps have just flickered to life, one by one, like yellow eyes in the mist. The cobblestones are black with rain, slick under a layer of muck and horse manure. Carriage wheels creak in the mud. A newspaper seller, soaked to the bone, his skin purple from the cold, waves a sheet on the street corner.

— Disappearance in Spitalfields! The police are keeping quiet! Four pence! Four pence for the paper!

The smell of gin, sweat, and stale tobacco hangs over the gutters where brownish water stagnates. Someone has vomited against a wall — a yellowish streak spreading across the damp brick. A door slams. A stray dog runs across the street, a rat carcass between its teeth, ribs protruding under its dirty fur. A disheveled drunk staggers into an alley, muttering incomprehensible curses.

No one says his name too loudly, but everyone is still thinking about it. The Ripper. Four years have passed, yet Whitechapel has never truly healed. Here, a woman who doesn't return before dawn is enough to wake the old nightmares.

In front of a dingy boarding house whose facade oozes dampness and whose door reeks of rancid grease, a woman in a dark, hole-ridden shawl counts three pennies in her calloused palm. Her nails are broken, blackened. Not enough to pay for her bed. She looks up at you — wary, tired, lips chapped, a thin scar crossing her left eyebrow. Not broken. She has known worse.

Further away, a constable walks up the street with a heavy step, lantern in hand, truncheon at his wrist. His breath forms a white cloud in the cold. He sizes you up from the corner of his eye — a look of weary authority, that of a man who has seen too much shit to still believe in excuses. A window above a pub lets out muffled curses, then the dull sound of a blow. Someone laughs in the nearby pub — a short, drunken laugh that stops immediately.

Before Whitechapel judges you, choose who you are for this game.

This choice will be final.

You can choose a suggested branch or invent your own:

Police officer
Journalist
Doctor
Former soldier
Wealthy client
Local criminal
Amateur detective
Poor resident of Whitechapel
Newly arrived foreigner
Another credible role of your choice

State your name, your adult age, your branch, your social background, and, if you wish, a secret or a personal goal.