Rubacava

Rubacava is the high-life port town in LucasArts Adventure Game Grim Fandango; it is on the coast of the Sea of Lament, the great ocean that stretches across the Land of the Dead. It is apparently said that all souls come to Rubacava; hopefully to buy passage on a ship.

Rubacava is first seen in the game when Manny Calavera arrives looking for Mercedes Colomar. When it turns out that she is not there yet, Manny decides to wait for her and takes over at a small cafe on the cliff as a mop-man. He spends a year in the city and soon buys the property calling it Calavera Cafe.

However, when Mercedes does arrive in town, she is captured by Domino and so Manny is forced to leave the port-town in which begins a series of events. In order for Manny to leave Rubacava, he must leave on a ship going to the other side of the world, where Meche is heading.

Manny returned to Rubacava, two years later and found it run-down and miserable. This is presumed by the takeover of Hector Lemans during Manny's absence for those two years. A strange lift device is used to get from the cliff-top to the lower port-town, yet the bridge across from the cliff to Maximino's cat-track can also be used.

Locations Within Rubacava

Calavera Cafe

Manuel Calavera sets up his casino/bar from the old Rub-A-Mat cafe on the cliff-face. He owns three roulette tables and Glottis is his piano-player/bouncer in the club. While business in the bar is dead on the Day of the Dead, the casino is always running and is visited by such guests as Chowchilla Charlie and Chief Officer Bogan. Manny owns this club on a lease and pays crime-lord Maximino for keeping it.

The Blue Casket

Owned by Olivia Ofrenda, this club is a beatnik favourite and is dark and cold within. Behind the scenes there's deception in the air; yet open mic night can only seem to get those souls to recite poetry. The venue is popular also with beatnik revolutionaries, who express their communist views within the shadows of the club.

Feline Meadows and the High Rollers Lounge

Feline Meadows is the giant cat-track that dominates Rubacava and is owned by kingpin Maximino. The High-Rollers Lounge is for exclusive members only, manned by demon Aitor and a new snooty-waiter Raoul. While screens show those VIP guests the races, the best seats in the house are seen from the personal office of Maximino or from a balcony where the bets take place. The race-track also boosts a gigantic litter-box for those giant race-cats.

Olivia II Boarding Area

Manned at night by security officer Carla, the Boarding Area has strict surveillance by metal-detectors and even its own bomb disposal unit; this extra security is probably down to the tragedy of the first Olivia Blimp, which crashed on the tracks of Feline Meadows.

Velasco's Dock

Velasco's dock is for manual-labour ships only; while passenger ships are nearby the race-track here is where the quiet dockmaster spends his time day and night. In his little shack he constructs small ships to pass the time on the docks.

Membrillo's Morgue

Here is where the unfortunately sprouted come to Membrillo; the town coroner. Here on the slab he searches for the identity of the sprouted victims, though it seems with his equipment the search can go on forever.

crimshaw

Toto Santos, Rubacava's only Scrimshaw artist, lives here and carves tattoos in the arms of sailors that come by the docks. He has many different designs in his book and carefully drills them into the arms of his clients, having covered himself in them too.

Characters in Rubacava

Chowchilla Charlie

Known for his petty crimes, Chowchilla Charlie is seen as a pest in most establishments in Rubacava; having been thrown out of the High Rollers Lounge after printing fake betting stubs he comes to Calavera Cafe. He set Manny out to find his money that Maximino stole from him after a large bet went wrong; in return he promised to fake Manny a Union Card. However when Manny got the suitcase for him, Charlie turned on Manny with a gun and demanded the case back; he gave Manny his Union Card and backed away. Charlie was seen again in Hector's Casino at the end of the game; he was seduced by Mercedes Colomar who was able to get his suit for Manny. What happened to him remains unknown.

Olivia Ofrenda

Owner of the Blue Casket and a man-seducer; Olivia is entirely incapable of love unless there's power or money behind it. Such as her relationship with crimelord Maximino; however in reality she never loved him. Seeing as the first proposal of marriage went wrong in the fate of the Olivia I, Olivia began an affair with Max's trusted lawyer Nick Virago. On the night Manny left Rubacava; she was captured on camera kissing Nick by photo-girl Lola; though the crisis was resolved when Manny blackmailed Nick in return for a legal favour.At some point, crimeboss Hector Lemans took over Rubacava and Olivia was immediately attracted to him for power; she also had a known association with Manny Calavera; on the night he returned she offered to go with Calavera back to El Marrow. She rooted out Lost Souls Alliance Agents in Nuevo Marrow and also it seems beheaded their leader Salvador Limones; after capturing Manny and the tickets she took him to Hector's hideout on the Edge of the City. During her rifling through the Double-N-Tickets she saw Manny talking to the head of Salvador; she pulled Manny out of the car and threatened to shoot him and then taunted Salvador. Yet unknown to her was Salvador's explosive tooth and so when in close range he detonated it with a bite that sprouted him as well; Olivia caught in the blast was sprouted from the face and eventually ran off into the meadow where she finally rested amongst the flowers.

Velasco

Velasco is the dockmaster in Rubacava; while he doesn't need the eyepatch that he wears he says it reminds people of the phantom pain. Velasco first meets Manuel Calavera after he fell off a cliff and had to save Manny from the depths of the Lament. He took a shine to Glottis and the Bone Wagon and offered to keep it safe in a small ware-house on the dock. On the Day of the Dead, a year later, Velasco saved Manny from the sea again when he tried to board the SS Lambada and failed. Manny then wanted to travel on the SS Limbo which was a small-cargo ship; Velasco refused but offered Glottis a job as a mechanic in the engine room of the Limbo. However Manny was able to get his own card from Chowchilla Charlie, and the tools and when cook Naranja was mysteriously 'sprouted' Manny was given the job on the Limbo.Two years passed before Manny returned to Rubacava; Velasco had grown tired of the way Rubacava had become a mob-town and when he met Calavera again, he told him that they had sailed back on the SS Lamancha; Velasco had once loved the ship and went off to find it again in Puerto Zapato- whether he was able to or not remains a mystery.

Lola

Lola was a photo-girl who had once loved crime-lord Maximino but was soon replaced by Olivia Ofrenda. Fuelled by jealousy and also wanting to prove the Olivia was betraying Max, she set up to get a picture of her affair with lawyer Nick Virago. Lola got her picture and quickly ran away from Nick; her exact movements afterwards her not known essentially yet it is presumed she went to the photo-finish booth in the race-track and swapped the photo of the finish with the one of Nick and Olivia kissing; she then took that photo to Scrimshaw artist Toto Santos and took his photo from the album under the name of 'The Rusty Anchor' she then took her coat with the piece of paper saying the 'The Rusty Anchor' to Calavera Cafe with a note for Manny. Yet it seems that this maybe where lawyer Nick Virago caught her and with the key in the note took her to the lighthouse and shot her. Manny was able to get to the lighthouse but too late, Lola was sprouted and blew away with the wind; leaving only a small tile behind bearing a tongue.Lola was honoured later when Manny took over the SS Limbo and renamed it the SS Lola.

Maximino

Crime-lord over Rubacava and King of Cats; Maximino owns his great cat-track, which rakes in thousands every year. Yet on the Day of the Dead, numbers seem to fall. Maximino was partnered with Olivia Ofrenda, yet it seemed their engagement was to be doomed after he built a blimp called the Olivia I, bearing on the side 'Marry Me Olivia' - the blimp exploded and crashed into the track. Yet Maximino built a second blimp which went to the Land of the Living and back; amongst his other extravagances was his personal counsel Nick Virago who began an affair with his girlfriend. Maximino's fate is unknown in the game; when Manny returns to Rubacava in the final year the place seems run-down and the cat-track ruined. Maximino apparently was ruled by the bosses in El Marrow - presumably by Hector Lemans.

Nick Virago

Nick is a lawyer who works for Maximino exclusively; though the snake is known to go behind his employer's back and liaise with his girlfriend Olivia Ofrenda. Such acts were caught by Lola, who he tracked down and shot later in order to keep her silent. Yet the past came to haunt him when Manuel Calavera tracked down the incriminating photo and blackmailed Nick into getting the rioter Terry out of Jail. After Nick agreed the photo was presumed destroyed and after a quick punch from Manny, Nick returned to his business.It is presumed that Nick got out of town during Rubacava's takeover after Manny left. Nick apparently bought a ticket on the Number Nine and was going towards sweet freedom. But the ticket was counterfeit and Nick along with all the other souls were plummeted with the train straight into the bowels of a fiery hell.

Terry

Sea-Bee and now unemployed; once he found the words he was able to excite a riot on the docks, whereafter the bees rebelled against the law. However he was arrested by Chief-Officer Bogan and put into jail. Luckily he was released when Manny was able to get lawyer Nick Virgao to argue his case for him. Terry continued to riot down on the docks yet when Manny returned to Rubacava; the docks were silent and empty. It is presumed in the gangster takeover that Terry and the Sea-Bees were thrown out of the docks and went elsewhere.

Lupe

A young lady who works at Calavera Cafe yet she seemed overly too keen about the job. After Bogan shut down the club it is unknown what happened to her.

Carla

The officer that upholds the security on the blimp boarding area at night. Once a personal favourite of Manny she stays away from the club after Lupe's appointment; she also falls out with Calavera over a metal-detector.

Raoul

Maximino's waiter in the High Rollers Lounge; it is presumed he quit after Manny locked him in a pantry and the claustrophobic waiter knocked himself out inside. He was later released by Glottis who was going on a drunken rampage that night on the Day of the Dead.

Chief-Officer Bogan

The one man who upholds the law in Rubacava is also a crook at heart - a terrible gambler with a grudge against businesses which he doesn't win in; he also monitors the docks for trouble. Such an incident was when Terry made a riot and Bogan arrested him, yet he was fortunately released; he then later lost in the Calavera Cafe and closed down the business; whether it opened again in the game remains unknown.

Other characters such as Toto Santos and Membrillo played minor roles in the game, but also appeared in Rubacava.