The Red Queen (Fall of Delta Green)

Recently, on the Bookshelf for YSDC, I talked about a Vietnam War novel, Play the Red Queen, by Juris Jurjevics. At that time I'd forgotten Michael Herr's Dispatches, or I'd have mentioned that Jurjevics borrowed his entire plot from a paragraph of Herr's. I'm going to quote that paragraph now, leaving out a small portion that might be considered Red Queen spoilers:

Those nights there was a serious tiger lady going round on a Honda shooting American officers on the street with a .45. I think she'd killed over a dozen in three months; the Saigon papers described her as 'beautiful' but I don't know how anybody knew that ... [redacted.]

Herr goes on to say:

Saigon, the center, where every action in the bushes hundreds of miles away fed back into town on a karmic wire strung so tight if you touched it in the early morning it would sing all day and all night. Nothing so horrible happened upcountry that it was beyond language fix and press relations, a squeeze fit into the computers would make the heaviest numbers jump up and dance. You'd either meet an optimism that no violence could unconvince, or a cynicism that would eat itself empty every day and then turn, hungry and malignant, on whatever it could for a bite, friendly or hostile, it didn't matter. Those men called dead Vietnamese 'believers', a lost American patrol was 'a black eye,' they talked as though killing a man was nothing more than depriving him of his vigor. 

One thing Jujevics hammers, which Herr does not (as he spends more time out of Saigon), is how irredeemably corrupt Saigon became in this period. Everyone's on the make, from the corporals to the colonels to the astrologer telling fortunes in the tea shop. Troops go back and forth to the Indian money changers, there to exchange their pay (and extracurricular funds)  at favorable rates. Spooks from Langley are ferrying vast quantities of dirty currency to Hong Kong, there to be laundered and put back in circulation. Up in the Ambassador's Mansion Henry Cabot Lodge is scheming, and down in the town the Red Queen is picking her next target - though whether she's doing so on the CIA's behalf, the Viet Cong's, or on a mission of her own devising is an open question. 

This is all the more pressing because, at the time of Jurjevics' novel, Prime Minister Diem is on the verge of toppling, yet again. His generals are plotting to depose him, everybody knows it, and the only serious consideration is whether or not Diem and his closest people be extradited somewhere safe before the ax falls. It's not the first time Diem's regime, and life, has been threatened but everyone thinks it will be the last.

The Fall of Delta Green takes place during this period. Perhaps the most likely occult organization to be involved, aside from Delta Green itself, is the Order of the Black Buddha (p305). It's a fair bet that any Delta agents operating in Saigon are at least going to spare a moment's thought for American officers being gunned down by a mysterious female assassin. Using Constructing a Crime (p 312) as a baseline:

The Victim(s): An American officer of captain rank or higher. Further investigation shows that they're all working in procurement in one capacity or another; these aren't just REMFs, they're accountants and auditors - the people who know where the money goes and who set it in motion.

The Deed: Each time the target was shot at a distance by a woman using a .45 caliber pistol, who immediately speeds away on the back of a scooter driven by an accomplice. The weapon, forensics can determine, is a Savage 1907, manufactured for the French in the Great War; it probably made its way to Vietnam as a police sidearm, before the assassin got hold of it. Her marksmanship is impeccable, never more than one shot per kill. Funny thing; at each scene there's a graffiti skull on the ground or wall next to or very near to the victim. It seems to have been put there beforehand.

The Culprit: The assassin is a Vietnamese woman approximately between the ages of 25 and 30, according to witnesses, who also describe her as 'beautiful.' She has one or more accomplices who act as getaway drivers, and there may be still others who act as spotters. All of them appear to be VC, and judging by strategy and tactics are veteran guerillas. The shooter is a class apart, with talent that could easily have taken her to the Olympics - but will probably take her to the boneyard. Further investigation brings their allegiance into question; is this actually a CIA-backed cleanup crew, eliminating witnesses that might later testify as to the source and whereabouts of its slush fund? Or is this a Russian effort, perhaps GRU-SV8 working through KGB cutouts, to destabilize a Delta Green cash cow? Who really controls all that money flowing through the system to Hong Kong and back? Criminals? The CIA? Someone - something - else? 

The Puzzle: That graffiti skull at the crime scene uses magical theory derived from Hermann Mülder's 1939 text Geheimes Mysterium von Asien, the limited edition published for the Karotechia. Use some of your own blood to make the paint and inscribe the death image at a place of your choosing. So long as you're shooting at that point, you gain 4 points Firearms pool and can spend or pull off combat tricks as though you had Cherry level expertise, whether you do or don't. Damage is always considered to be Point Blank for the weapon, no matter how far distant the shooter. This doesn't affect forensics, only damage - so, eg, no gunpowder burns from muzzle contact with flesh, but the wound is in all other respects as bad as it would have been if the weapon was pressing against the target's forehead. Of course, you need to make sure your target is standing where you want them to stand, which is a whole other problem. [Note: DG doesn't use Cherries but NBA does, extra text included to ensure NBA rules taken into account.] There's one other catch. For 24 hours after this magical shootist's trick, the shooter is exceptionally vulnerable to being shot and takes +2 damage from any successful Firearms attack.

Question being, how did this hit team get hold of a Karotechia text? 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten London: Mother Red-Cap

From The Lore of the Land, Westwood & Simpson, 2006:

A Camden Town pub now called the World's End was formerly a famous coaching inn, the Mother Red Cap. It got its name because it was built on the site of an old cottage, the home of notorious seventeenth-century fortune-teller known either as Mother Damnable or Mother Red Cap. ... According to the account in Samuel Palmer's History of St. Pancras in 1870 (itself based on an older pamphlet), her parents were suspected of practicing black magic and were hanged for killing a girl by witchcraft ... She was strikingly ugly, kept a huge black cat, and like many who practiced magic for a living, she enhanced her reputation by eccentricities of dress - in her case the red bonnet which gave her the nickname ...

Allegedly the Devil came to claim her when she died, and this was witnessed by hundreds of people who gathered at her deathbed. The Lore of the Land says this could as easily have been one of the bystanders playing a prank, perhaps trying to scare the old woman to death. If so, it worked.

A coaching inn, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a waypoint. Before railways became the new mode of travel, if you went by road then you probably went by coach or at least horse, which meant you needed places to stop and rest your horse along the way - or, if you were a coach, swapping out the tired nags for fresh ones. Typically they provided accommodation, food and drink, and some became notorious as highwayman haunts. After all, how better to find out which coaches carried wealthy passengers or important packages than to spy out the goods at the inn?

A typical coach could manage perhaps 15 miles at a stretch (on good Roman roads) before needing to stop, so the coaching inn network spread like spider silk along the main roads, fifteen miles or so apart. Like society, inns and coaches were divided socially; the best class of passenger rode on top of the coach, the less wealthy were inside, and there were less well-appointed coaches for those who could only afford third class travel. Equally the inns split their accommodation into first, second and third class, with separate bars and lounges for different classes of traveler. If you were the poorer sort of passenger then you might be expected to share a bed, never mind a room, with one of your fellow unfortunates. 

The coaching inn was built around a courtyard, with stables, and that meant constant noise as different coaches arrived at different times of the day or night. Sleep was almost impossible, though if you got one of the rooms facing out rather than into the courtyard you probably had a better time of it.

Red Cap is not an uncommon English pub name, suggesting that the story isn't unique to Camden - and nor, probably, is Mother Damnable. Either that, or there's a host of Mothers Damnable out there, which isn't entirely surprising. 

Borrowing from the Two Nerdy Girls blog which in turn got its information from The English Inn Past and Present:

No definite system of planning seems to have been adhered to through the centuries for inns other than to provide a yard around which were grouped sets of lodgings and a further yard for stabling and wagons ... The old inns of London consisted in the main of a block facing the street with an entry to a courtyard within, the front part of the house being reserved for sitting-rooms and eating parlours. The problem of the Georgian buildings was to provide easy ingress though an arched entry for coaches, which made their way out through a gate in the further yard.  To right or left of this entry, which varied according to circumstance, there was generally a large room where coach passengers could dine; to the left was the coach office and a passage connecting with the bar and the coffee room.  The drawing room was on the first floor.  This arrangement was generally followed in all parts of the country.

It's not clear when Mother Red Cap changed its name to the World's End. Presumably it was still known as Mother Red Cap in 1870 when Samuel Palmer was writing about it. The website isn't clear (though that Underground live music venue is worth noting for scenario ideas), and I'm going to cross my fingers and say it probably happened in the 1980s when the site was redeveloped. There is one source that says it happened in the 1990s, for what it's worth, and also claims it was a notorious house of terror in the early 1800s. Certainly all records indicate there was an inn of one kind or another on that site since the 1690s.

The great thing about a scene backdrop like Mother Red Cap is it can be used in pretty much any of Gumshoe's established settings, from Night's Black Agents to Bookhounds to Fear Itself, Trail and Esoterrorists. It's been there throughout. In Night's Black Agents, for instance, in a Dracula Dossier setting it can be a place of interest from the Victorian age start of the Dracula story right to the modern Edom period. 

Moreover if the story about Mother Damnable's parents is to be believed then there's reason to think occult activity was significant well before it was an inn, suggesting it might have been some kind of ritual site or locus point. In Trail terms, a potential Fane. Added to that are the hints it might have had a bad reputation as an inn, at least in the early 1800s, and that Devilish visit when Mother Damnable died. "What haunts this seemingly innocent spot?" the players may ask. The answer may be more than they can cope with. 

So after all that, what have we?

An inn, in London, which has been visited by the Devil himself. A place where not merely a witch but a family of witches gathered, and which has been a London landmark for close on 400 years. A pub which is now a live music venue with two bars and a mezzanine level.

Scenario Seeds:

Gaslit (Bookhounds): The Mother Red Cap has had many famous or notorious customers over the centuries, one of them being Charles Dickens. A Hounds would-be patron (capable of bringing much-needed cash to the shop) is potty over Dickens and is convinced that a séance at the Red Cap would bring the great man back for a chat. He expects the Hounds to arrange this - after all, aren't they supposed to be expert in all things mystic? Whether they are or not, they soon hit a snag; yes, allegedly Dickens did live very near the Red Cap - when he was ten. Not exactly drinking age, even in the early 1800s when standards were lax. However if the Hounds probe a little further they do discover an odd Victorian shadow, very like Dickens, haunting the gaslit recesses of the old Red Cap. Whatever it is, it seems to know an awful lot about Dickens, but it only appears after midnight in the public bar. Its signature is remarkably like the great man's, which will please the Hounds forger no end ...

Coach and Four (Trail/Fear, 1970s): Camden was a nexus for trade, when the canals were still viable, and grand warehouses sprang up around the lock. When the canals failed the lock died, and with it went trade, leaving the warehouses to rot. In the 1970s a group of entrepreneurs banded together to create what we now know as Camden Market, but they find their efforts blocked by what people say is the Devil, come back to the Red Cap in search of old Mother Damnable. Or at any rate, in search of something ... A pack of Bleeders (Unremitting Horror) have set up shop at the Red Cap, and its sanguinary efforts are attracting attention. Peculiar thing; for whatever reason, the Bleeder attacks coincide with the sound of a coach and horses, as though a coach was trotting into the old Red Cap's yard.

Operation DAMNABLE: According to an article in Folklore magazine, written by one of the participants in the Highgate Vampire feud, a feral vampire haunts the World's End. The author references the Red Cap link and its devilish history, but claims that the more recent vampiric infestation is the work of Satanists. Ordinarily this would vanish into the murky dark from whence it came, were it not that a Russian attached to the embassy recently turned up beaten senseless outside the World's End. Probably just a night out on the town which ended badly, of course. Yet that same Russian was retrieved from the hospital by her embassy remarkably quickly ... and nobody knows where she is now. Even the Russians don't know, or that's what they say.

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

Bozos (Cyberpunk RED, CP2020)

I didn't expect the Bozos to become a thing, but they're a thing.

I'm running a short-campaign RED for my regular group, in which the lead, Shamus, is a Rocker-Chef, an Anthony Bourdain wannabe being run off his feet by his jealous mentor. He operates a food truck in Rancho Coronado and has just recently had his big face-off against Bob Ghandi's Bhaji Bomb (From Bradford To Your Belly) in which he emerged triumphant, thanks to his team and his encyclopedic knowledge of Friends trivia. Now he wants to break into Playland By The Sea, but there are challenges ahead. Think of it as Food Wars but with more gunplay and far fewer anime boytoys. Though Shamus is kinda the Idiot Hero ...

Anyhow in the first episode, when we were all just settling in and I needed to introduce the characters to the game world, they ran up against some Bozos who were holding kids hostage in Five, which I saw as an old Uncle McPorky's fast food joint long since stripped out and turned a bit Five Nights At Freddies. Acid balls in the ball pit, rats instead of golden tickets being poured into the ticket blaster, that sort of thing. 

Uncle McPorky's is all me, by the way. I was using that as a backdrop in CP2020, donkey's years ago. The Bozos are new to Cyberpunk; at least, I don't remember them being a thing in CP2020. According to the main book, p. 308:

When they first appeared, the Bozos were a prankster gang. Biosculpted to look like circus clowns with red bulbous noses, wild red hair, and long flat feet (no, not shoes) and costumed to the part, the Bozos became impromptu slapstick. But soon the Bozos became the ultimate killer clown gang. People living on Bozo turf learned the hard way that if you see a pack of Bozos, just run. Bozos enjoy playing on people's greatest fears: lurking in apartments in the dark, locking victims in small spaces filled with rats, stopping elevators midway and filling them with water. They are not funny.

I expected this to be a quick in-and-out, beat up the bad guys and save the day situation, with the added bonus that saving the kids would lead Shamus and his pals to a group living in Rancho Coronado that grows their own vegetables - perfect allies for a food truck business. 

Little did I realize the Bozos would become one of the most popular recurring gags in the series. Particularly the mimes ...

Incidentally if the players out there are wondering how best to encourage your GM in bad behavior, screams of fear, gibbering, and general expressions of terror will do quite nicely, please and thank you.

Killer Clowns aren't the most popular horror concept in the world. Everyone remembers Pennywise, and the classically minded might mention Pagliacci, but those are about the only killer clowns to have made a significant contribution to the medium. As a trope, they're not even a 0.1 on the Zombie scale. Gosh darn it, they're memorable, and that's what counts.

Still, even in Killer Klowns they are just ... clowns. Pancake make-up, red noses, big feet, pointy teeth, boom, it's a killer clown. Clowning has a rich history. Why not steal a few ideas and turn Bozo into something really special?

I'm using the basic boosterganger stats found in the main book (p 412), with minor modifications. Pyros and Psychos (p 416) for the main bosses, with the occasional Netrunner (p 414) Tech and Rocker as backup / floating opposition. 

I see these as Bozos with a purpose: cheap horror braindances. Jack in and be a Bozo out on the town, or see what it's like to be on the sharp end of a Bozo's rippers as one of the victims. There's going to be a market for that. There's a market for just about anything in Night City. Plus, the Bozos can sell surplus organs from their victims to Ripperdocs. Everyone's a winner!

At the very lowest level are the Mimes or Mummers, silent artists, working their way up to a speaking role. These are always basic Boosters. They can be mistaken for Posers since they sometimes borrow costume ideas from silent comics like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Variants: heavy melee weapon, cane with taser, light melee weapon, bowler hat with razor blades in the brim, both for swiping in close combat and short range thrown weapon, Oddjob-style. 

There's a strong temptation to incorporate Noh ideas in a variant Bozo gang but I don't know enough about Noh to really make it work. Still, Mime Bozos playing out a Mugen Noh plot complete with supernatural characters and themes is ... tempting. 

A step up from the Mimes are the ones with speaking roles, who I see as a Commedia dell'Arte troupe gone very badly wrong. Commedia relies on stock characters and cheesy storylines, and even if you've never once seen a Commedia performance in your life you can usually get the gist of it whether or not you know the language, because you've seen these stories before. It's soap opera with beautiful masks.

The usual characters include:

List taken from Wikipedia

You can probably guess, for example, what Arlecchino is going to get up to. A servant to two masters is the go-between, the hapless slapstick target. Maybe Arlecchino is cheating both of them, maybe Arlecchino is just one of nature's whipping boys. Il Dottore, the Doctor, is going to seem wise while spouting rubbish, but as Il Dottore is head of the household Il Dottore will expect to be obeyed. The old wealthy man is going to be trailing after the perky maid like a dog in heat, and so on. 

From there you can dig deeper into the lore to come up with variations. Arlecchino is also Harlequin, variously a devil figure and a trickster, a sword-carrying bravado and an indigent  wanderer. And that's all before you get to the modern interpretation.

From Batman and Harley Quin (2017)

So there's a heavy emphasis on sexual comedy with all the broad tropes and dick jokes that implies. Someone's in love (possibly more than one someone), someone's in the way (possibly more than one someone) and it's up to whoever it may be - usually the servants - to sort this mess out so everyone can live happily ever after.

There are variations. One of the most famous is the British puppet version, Punch and Judy. In that blood-soaked narrative Punch is both protagonist and serial killer, and if he avoids the hangman it's only because the world is crazy.

Mr. Punch is one jolly good fellow,

His dress is all scarlet and yellow,

And if now and then he gets mellow,

It's only among his good friends.

His money most freely he spends;

To laugh and grow fat he intends,

With the girls he's s rogue and a rover;

He lives, while he can, upon clover;

When he dies-its only all over;

And there Punch's comedy ends.

Punch. [Knocking down her head.] I thought I should soon make you quiet.

Judy. [Again raising. her head.] No.

Punch. [Again knocking it down, and following up his blows until she is lifeless.] Now if you're satisfied, I am. [Perceiving that she does not move.] There, get up Judy, my dear; I won't hit you any more. None of your sham-Abram. This is only your fun. You got the head-ache? Why, you only asleep. Get up, I say.- Well, then, get down. [Tosses the body down with the end of his stick.] He, he, he ! [Laughing.] To lose a wife is to get a fortune. 

The best advantage of a Punch and Judy theme is the wide variety of characters. Crocodiles, ghosts, devils, hangmen, policemen, skeletons, Toby the Dog, lawyers, servants, blind men - you can stuff almost anything into Punch and Judy. Also, since murder's all part of the plot, Punch & Judy's practically built for Bozo. 

OK, so all that in mind, what next?

First the basic structure, in a kind of loose Cospyramid a la Night's Black Agents.

At the very outer rim are the collaborators and business partners, the Ripperdocs, Fixers and Media willing to work with the Bozos to distribute the dances. These aren't Bozos proper but if anyone ever found out they were working with Bozos their Reputation would be trashed. 

I see these as low-level characters about on par with the pregens found in the Single Shot Pack. Anyone more influential wouldn't be caught dead working with Bozos. They might have a few allies or know where to find some Solo muscle if necessary, but otherwise anything they do, they do themselves.

Closer to the Bozos proper are the Netrunners, Techs and Rockers who create, edit and prepare the dances for distribution. They also prepare the lures and traps the Bozos use to sucker in victims, and maintain the Bozo vehicle fleet, such as it is. 

These are no higher than Mimes and Mummers, and might not have body mods yet. They can wear masks and costumes, and they're committed to the Bozo lifestyle, but they can't afford the full sculpt. This is both a financial and a practical problem. Someone's got to be the go-between. Someone's got to meet the collaborators and business partners. You can't do that if you look like a Bozo.

Next up the chain are the Mimes and Mummers, the ones with actual biosculpting. These are the basic boosters, and they're the muscle for the high-ups. When people talk about Bozos, the Mimes and Mummers are usually what they're talking about. They can look like anything - Chaplin tramps, exaggerated whiteface, something out of the Wicker Man parade - but their stock in trade is funny/scary. 

One step up from the Mimes are the Commedia, and these are the ones committed to their particular bit. Arlecchio is always Arlecchio, Il Dottore is always Il Dottore. These are the speaking roles, and while some of them may have Booster stats they're generally one step up from your average Ganger. Better equipment, better armor. Pyros and Reclaimer Chief types - mini bosses.

At the very top is the Psycho, the Boss Clown. Punch, or Pierrot if we're being classical. Punch can only tolerate other Bozos, and even then it's a very thin-ice arrangement. Seeing anyone who isn't a Bozo drives Punch crazy. When not laying about with his club (or gun, or grenades) Punch is kept happy with a combination of drugs and games. The minute Punch's happy pills run out, or the game isn't as entertaining as it was, is the minute everything goes pear-shaped. Probably in a six-block radius. For Punch is a jolly good fellow ...

Story Ideas:

• Where's the Baby? Punch has lost track of the Baby, and the other Bozos want it back. If they don't get the Baby soon, Punch will start looking for it himself - and then things will get very complicated very quickly. Turns out, the Baby is at the same Night Market the characters are currently shopping in - the little scamp! Exactly what the Baby is, is a matter best left to the imagination; stats-wise, it's no tougher than a Booster, but nobody's allowed to hurt the Baby except Punch.
• Jealousy. Pierrot is in love, again, and that can only be bad news for the inamorata. The Bozos have taken over an abandoned multi-story car park and turned it into a theme park filled with traps and unpleasant vignettes. Then they place the bait: braindance volunteers wanted to run the maze, with some valuable McGuffin at the top of the car park as the prize. Pierrot will 'fall in love' with one of the dancers and pursue them through the maze, singing all the while. A few other speaking role Bozos will also be on hand, to make sure the fight's as fair as it can be.
•  Uncle McPorky's Strikes Back. The Bozos have captured a food truck and turned it into their own special mayhem delivery vehicle. They travel around Night City selling treats to whoever will buy - but those treats are nightmare-inducing hallucinogenic 'pork rib' kibble. Or perhaps that's not really rib of pork at all ... They film the trippy antics of their victims before going in for the kill.  

 La commedia è finita!

Blair5 - The Precipice and Crash

It's all been leading up to this.

By now the agents have been cooperating with the King for some time, to their mutual benefit. However the King has feet of clay, and that's about to become a problem. This should start with some kind of personal reversal followed immediately by temptation, with the reversal out in the open and the temptation hidden, to be revealed when it's least convenient.

Exactly what that reversal is will depend on the nature of the King. The Politician suffers some political reversal and is banished to the outer reaches; something like the Department of Administrative Affairs, say, a career-ender for almost anyone. The Financial Mogul might see their business empire collapse, or it might be something more personal; the son in the coma finally dies. The Tech Guru's Dot-Com finally bombs. The Priest's campaign for a bishopric fails at the first hurdle. Or it could be something else entirely, related to events in your game. 

Whatever it is, it happens in the open for all the world to see. The temptation is hidden. The Conspiracy reaches out, and this time the King takes the bait - or perhaps just seems to. Whichever it is, the agents find out and have to decide how much they trust the King after what's happened. Trust, like double-edged swords, cuts both ways. Perhaps the King feels they can no longer trust the agents, not completely. The King might feel guilty about being tempted and try to keep it from the agents at all costs, or perhaps the King's beginning to wonder if the agents are loyal to the King or the Conspiracy. 

Thus the King sets up what amounts to a department of oversight; someone or some entity to watch over the agents' every move. The King wants to be absolutely certain the agents are to be trusted. Or perhaps the King is setting up some level of plausible deniability, so the King can publicly betray the agents and keep clean hands. "I had no idea what was being done in my name. but thank God I set a watchdog on them to gather evidence of their betrayal!"

Meanwhile external events are taking on a life of their own. The case for war in Iraq is gathering steam, and Blair's doing everything he can to help Bush. Alastair Campbell's putting together what will become known as the Dodgy Dossier.  Dr. David Kelly, the weapons expert and former head of the Defence Microbiology Division at Porton Down, dies under circumstances best described as cloudy; nobody knows at the time whether it's suicide or murder. Those who favor murder claim it's because Dr. Kelly knew too much about how the Dodgy Dossier was put together. 

  Sourced from AFP

Protestors are flooding the streets of London, trying to stop the rush to war - and the government ignores them. The decision's already been made. It was made long before, in Washington; Blair's just along for the ride at this point, though he probably doesn't see it that way. 

From the Conspiracy's perspective this is great news. Exactly why this is depends on the nature of the Conspiracy. Mutants see a chance to spread the infection, Damned to corrupt the great and good, Alien to gather resources and Supernatural to glut themselves on rivers of blood. However the Conspiracy, like Blair, the King, and probably the agents, is going to be disappointed. This isn't a moment of triumph; it's a tragedy, and whether it's a revengers tragedy or one of Shakespeare's slightly less blood-drenched affairs, there is always collateral damage. Nobody gets what they want. 

But everybody's on the make. 

This is the precipice. In theory the agents or any of the main players could pull back from the brink. It's the same precipice that the great powers have been dancing on since Mutually Assured Destruction became part of the human experience. Some can dance on the edge of the precipice and come out ok, even better than they were before. Most won't. 

If Edom exists within this narrative but isn't a focal point thus far, for instance, then these early years are when Edom does very well, and begins to put together what will become Operation Montseir. Anyone interested in, or in a position to, cream off some of the billions of dollars flowing into the Iraq conflict will do very well. Personal rapid advancement, professional rapid advancement, all can be had so long as you're willing to lie to get it.

Of course, odds are Montseir ends badly for Edom. Those who play with the truth to get what they want often end up burnt.

The agents are going to have to decide how altruistic they are, and how far they're willing to go to stop the Conspiracy.  If they genuinely are willing to sacrifice everything then they might be able to win a kind of victory, say by manipulating the powers that be into seeing the Conspiracy as an outgrowth of terrorism - broadly the same objective Edom pursues with Montseir. 

This can involve some very difficult moral dilemmas. Say that the murder of your campaign's version of Dr. Kelly is deliberately orchestrated to ensure the UK goes to war, and your agents know they need this to happen to get the resources they need to take on the Conspiracy. Or say that the bombing on 7/7 is something that the King, or the agents, believes has to happen for everything else to fall into place. What do your agents actually do?

I was in London for 7/7, but I haven't any stories to tell. My main memory of that day is sitting on the Underground for what felt like forever before they let us out of the tube station. I couldn't even tell you now whether it was London Bridge, Bank, Canary Wharf, or one of the stops inbetween, but it would have been roundabout there as that was my route.  We didn't know anything about it until much later. Our main concern at that point was to get from point A to point B, and like typical Londoners we were all confident we knew how to do that. Little did we know the entire system had shut down. Shank's mare for most of us, at that point.

London afterward went into a state of paranoid lockdown for months. Wherever you went, whatever you did, there were extra security procedures. I recall going to the Soame Museum and having my bag searched, something that hadn't happened before, and thinking, first, that you'd have to be a funny sort of terrorist to target the Soame, and second, if I did have a bomb in my bag I doubt the elderly gent on the door could do anything about it other than burst into tears. But that's by the way.

7/7 is a kind of crescendo; it happens in Blair's third and final term, and is probably the most memorable event of that term. Other things happen; perhaps the most politically damaging is the cash-for-honors scandal. However Blair by this point is soiled goods, and so is the King in this narrative. Whatever happened before they're a third-rate power now, hanging on by their fingertips. The Tech Guru has blown most of their influence and all of the money in a Dot-Bomb, the Financial Mogul has been ousted from the Board of their own company, the Politician is well and truly on the outside and might no longer be in politics, the Priest may have been defrocked.  

How to end this? With a Crash.

I favor a Duchess of Malfi-esque bloodbath. Playwright John Webster is one of the best-remembered names in Jacobean tragedy, but the basic point is this: everyone seeks vengeance for slights actual and imagined, everyone is tainted, everyone dies, some of them go mad before they die. The average Revenger's Tragedy has a cast list of about fifteen, more or less, and if three of them survive to the end credits it's a bleedin' miracle. 

The King should not be one of them. The main Conspiracy face should not be one of them. One or more agents should probably get the chop. In fact, if ever there was a moment for a Blake's 7 endgame, this is it. 

As a backdrop I'd use the investigation into the 7/7 bombers, which leads to arrests in 2007 - the last years of Blair's premiership. As a cover for hunting vampires - or enemies of the state - this is ideal. It's also a hunt with tragic consequences, though an all-in Operation Kratos shoot-to-kill tactical philosophy is broadly the kind of thing the agents have probably already been doing in their own investigations. As an aside, I've often wondered whose bright idea it was to name the Operation after God of War. Kratos does have classical roots but I very much doubt that was the first image that sprang to mind.  

However you end it, it's not final death for the Conspiracy any more than Blake's 7 manages to kill off the Federation. The Conspiracy may be crippled, and some of its more notorious members staked, but the fight continues. 

Someone else will have to pick up the torch.

That's it for the series! Next time, something completely different.

Enjoy!