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“They say the goddess on the roof watches over the city. Me? I think she’s keeping something in. Markets crash, men jump, and the building never blinks.”

Location: South end of LaSalle Street, in The Loop
Established: 1930 — built on the ruins of older financial halls and buried copper vaults
Access: Public during business hours / Restricted at night
Connected Factions: Independent financiers, occult hedge guilds, CPD Arcane Division (monitoring the 21st floor anomalies)

Description - Exterior

A towering Art Deco sentinel, the Chicago Board of Trade stands at the south end of LaSalle like a monument to ambition. Crowned by the faceless statue of Ceres, goddess of grain, the limestone and glass façade casts long shadows through the city’s canyons. No one remembers who built the copper glyphs etched into the alley-facing side. Most assume they’re just “decorative.”

Description - Interior

The trading floor vibrates like a tuning fork—hundreds of feet stomping in sync, dozens of voices rising in controlled chaos. Brass elevators click behind mirrored doors. A visitor might notice some rooms echo wrong, or that some floors have more offices than windows. The 23rd floor isn’t on the directory, but janitors say they mop it clean once a week. And always alone.

Public Face

A bustling hub of commerce and capitalism—commodities, futures, and deals made in handshakes and contracts. The beating heart of Chicago’s financial sector.

What's Really Going On

The building was designed with intentional geomantic symmetry—every angle focuses psychic residue toward the trading floor. Some days it just makes the air heavy. Some days, it causes stock crashes or prophetic dreams. Several financial firms keep “clairvoyant advisors” on retainer. Ceres hasn’t moved in decades—except during the Blackout of '51, when a watchman swore she turned and looked directly into his soul.

Notables

Baxter & Vale – A boutique firm run by twin brothers who never blink and only trade in agricultural futures
Marjorie Raines – A former psychic who now works as a night secretary. She refuses to work past 2 a.m.
The 23rd Floor Circle – An unlisted group of financiers rumored to “read” the markets using human hair and burnt ink

Rumors & Hooks:

• Every crash year corresponds with a death inside the building—always someone unremarkable, always on the same day.
• A door in the freight tunnel under the basement vault reads “First Trade.” No key opens it, but sometimes it’s ajar.
• The CPD Arcane Division flagged the 21st floor for “temporal bleed.” No one who investigates remembers what they found.
• Ceres glows faintly under a blood moon. On those nights, a single contract always vanishes from the building’s ledgers.
• One elevator stops at 13½ if the passenger has committed financial fraud. The ride takes nine minutes. No one speaks of what’s seen inside.
• An ex-trader lives in a sanitarium in Hyde Park. He paints the building constantly. It’s always on fire.
• A Veil-sensitive client hires the crew to find a “phantom trader” whose name appears on recent slips—but who died in 1938.
• A sealed briefcase turns up in the building’s archives. It has the crew’s fixer’s name on the tag, in a future date.
• Someone is drawing glyphs into the grout between lobby tiles. When the last one is carved, something old may be released.