The Big Bad City (RPG All)

Once again, inspired by Baldur's Gate 3. 

After over 200 hours noodling on other playthroughs (got to see how Gale does it, nearly had a Dark Urge moment - but that's for a different discussion) I've finally reached the city proper. No, the nice auntie was not able to homeopath me back to health but I have had some refreshingly direct discussions with my Githyanki physician. I'm sure the psychological trauma will wear off. Eventually. 

Now I get to see how the dev team handled city building. It's interesting, certainly. You are kinda left with the impression that the city exists for player characters to experience, but I suppose the same argument could be made for, say, New York. Every tourist thinks that New York was built for them alone because they only ever see those bits of New York that were built with tourists in mind. Students at CUNY probably feel the same way, at least in their first year, before they start stepping out of their comfort zone. When in a curated environment everything seems built for you, until you start looking for the things that aren't.

When designing an urban environment of the fictional variety it's usually a good idea to look at how it's been done before and by that I do not mean 'how did Tolkein do it?' No, I mean how did we do it, and the answer can be found in the oddest of places. 

It depends on what kind of fiction you intend to write. For Keepers and Trail GMs, I always recommend Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen, followed by Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America, and then, if you're really ambitious, Big Change: America transforms itself, 1900-1950. There is no better coverage of the period. If you really want to go gonzo nuts then Middletown: A Study in American Culture by Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd is worth your time but it's a bit of a brain-breaker. 

The point being that you do not know what tools you have to play with until you look into the box and see those tools for what they are. There are always ideas you haven't thought of. Concepts that never occurred to you, worries that you never knew anyone had, and you won't have the slightest idea until you go looking for them. Or to put it another way, until you start looking for the things that aren't built for you, you don't know what's really out there.

Let's say this is a fantasy setting. What resources exist?

Well, Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a damn good start. If you, as an author, can read that without blushing and confessing, perhaps through gritted teeth, that you too have been to Fantasyland, then you're a better author than I.

However, if you're looking for a fantasy city (or possibly a fantasy village) then I highly recommend Joseph & Frances Gies' Life In A Medieval City, or Life In A Medieval Village. Perhaps followed by a dessert course of Myddle by Richard Gough, if you enjoy period pieces. Life in a burgher's household, big business, small business, the church, the condition of the streets, books and authors, disasters, fairs - it's all here. A moveable feast of material. 

What kind of feast? 

Well, taking a look at Life In A Medieval Village: 'One holiday, Wake Day, the feast of the local parish saint, varied from place to place. Probably in the 13th century, as later, the villages kept vigil all night, in the morning heard Mass in honor of their patron saint, then spent the day in sports. Often the churchyard was turned into a sports arena, a usage deplored by the clergy ...'[p102]

Let's say this is Ravenloft. In that setting there is the Church of Ezra. 'Pious souls in various domains pray to Ezra, an aloof god who embodies the Mists ... With no domain-spanning organization, the church serves largely as a formalization of local superstitions ...' 

It's reasonable to think that, in at least some of the Ravenloft realms, Ezra may have local saint figures or provincial heroes who fill the same role. Or that Ezra has different aspects, just as in, say, Greek mythology where Zeus has many aspects:  Zeus Agoreus, Zeus Xenus, and so on.

Let's say that this is Mordent. Ravenloft's equivalent of Hammer Horror Cornwall/Kent/Sussex. Mist-shrouded coastline with a ghostly secret.

Captain Clegg (1962, Peter Cushing)

Now we have:

The Demon Fiddler

The characters arrive in Oxney, which overlooks Lazarette Rock, just before its annual feast. The Chapel, the only building in Oxney made of stone, plays unwilling host to the feast; the priest, Berriman, does their best not to intrude, as the last priest who did was run out of town. By tradition the villagers gather in the churchyard for the celebration, eating specially prepared cakes over the graves of their forebears, telling stories of ships at sea and the fabled Lazarette Rock, where the long-term contagious are, by tradition, left, so as not to spread their sickness to healthy folk. In the morning, again by tradition, there is a service, followed by sports, games and a ritual dance, again all in the churchyard for the benefit of the dead. This ritual, it's said, keeps the dead quiet in their graves. Not walking about or harming honest folk.

This year the service is attended by a Tiefling Bard (College of Spirits) who has never visited Oxney before. Nobody knows where the bard, Ariala, came from. Some claim she arrived all alone, by boat, from Lazarette Rock. Whether she came from there or somewhere else, she has unsettling tales to tell about the people of Oxney and the priest, Berriman. 

In the morning Ariala is found dead. How did she die? 

Option One: Unfriendly Dead. In Mordent nobody ever rests. The dead linger, and in Oxley the dead don't like having their stories told. It was the grasping hands of Oxley's ghosts that did for the bard but, in so doing, presented themselves with a problem. Now Ariala is one of the dead and, so long as she stays in Oxley, it will forever be feast night, where the villagers must appease the Demon Fiddler all night long ...

Option Two: Wicked Priest. The Bard dropped too many hints that she knew about Berriman's dealings with those out on Lazarette Rock. The priest slips the long-term sick shipments of luxuries to make their interment more pleasant, but each trip back and forth increases the risk of spreading diseases to the parishioners of Oxley. Now that dead Bard's ghost haunts the churchyard where she died, and Berriman's not about to reward adventurers who start asking why that should be.

Option Three: Ezra's Burden. There never was a Bard. There was a servant of Ezra, sent to warn the people of Oxley that their transgressions were going too far. When the people of Oxley turned their back on the Bard, Ezra turned her back on the people of Oxley. Now the church cannot protect the village, Oxley will soon know what it's like when its dead are no longer confined to the churchyard by yearly rituals of cake and storytelling ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

Female Sleuths

Private Enquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths by Caitlin Davies (History Press, 2023 hardback) is a fun little thing and just in the right timeline for Call/Trail of Cthulhu … and yes, I know I said ‘fun little thing’ and I’m sorry about that but I don’t really know what other words to use. There’s a trend I’ve noticed in recent British publications; they seem softer, somehow. Not as challenging. Nice. Cozy. Easygoing. Like someone dumped an industrial quantity of tranquilizers and weed into the cake mix and now the Vicar’s tea party is happily contemplating their third eye. 

It’s a good book but I wonder how often I’ll be returning to it. It may be a one-and-done. 

Still. The topic is great and something I’d like to know more about, so I’m not sorry I picked it up. There’s something for the back of the book jacket, hey.  

Davies has a chunk of fiction and non-fiction under her belt tackling, among many other things, Holloway Prison and female crooks from the seventeenth century to now, so this is a natural progression. She kicks off with a great little vignette about Annette Kerner, Queen of Disguise, and frankly, if you Keepers out there aren’t using Kerner as a template for your NPCs there’s no saving your grey, bespotted souls.

Honestly, what’s not to like? Kerner runs away from home to become a nightclub singer and ends up working in British Intelligence before founding the Mayfair Detective Agency. Just that one sentence has enough plot threads for a mini campaign. Perfect material for anyone’s table. 

Then Davies moves on to … actually, I’m not sure. This is the point in the movie where my eyelids go leaden and then, when I wake, I’m fuzzy on where exactly I am in the plot. Except here’s Davies telling me that Kerner wrote a memoir, Woman Detective, published 1954. So now I know what’s next on my reading list, if I can find it. (Amazon tells me there’s also Further Adventures of a Woman Detective so, y’know … if I can find it …) 

See, what Davies wants to do is tell me about her life and times. Except I didn't walk in the door looking to learn about Davies' life and times. I wanted the female sleuths. The history. What I'm getting is a strong whiff of author insert followed by a brief bit of history.

I think it's intended as a framing device; I just don't know why anyone thought this material needed a framing device.

There’s a lot to like about this book. I just wish it wasn’t stuffed with fluff. Unlike Winnie the Pooh, I have no affinity for fluff. I don’t need to know about Davies’ trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum or about her experiences taking the Association of British Investigators’ exam. I came here for the Kerner and her like, not the Davies. 

I do find it frustrating. I could cheerfully read an entire book about Kerner, Clubnose, Kate Easton, Mathilda Mitchell or any of the other characters who flit in and out of the narrative. What I wasn't expecting was a book in which Davies tells me all about her rambles through London looking for old office buildings, interspersed with Davies' trials and travails trying to pass a private investigator's exam, and then a chapter covering someone's entire career in a whirlwind of text before back I am on the Davies trail in the next chapter. 

Do I recommend it? Yes, but not in hardback unless you’re getting it from a charity shop. It’ll be out in paperback soon. Wait. It’s the kind of book you can data mine for more interesting information which you can then delve deeper into elsewhere. 

It could be an interesting resource for Mutant City Blues games. As presented, Mutant City is a near-future setting but there's nothing to say it has to be. It could be a 1890s Science Hero setting, set around, say, a department store ... like Selfridges ... where Mathilda Mitchell plies her trade as a store detective. Food for thought, particularly since the latest version of Mutant City includes variant rules for Private Investigators.

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

Sinister Buns (Call of Cthulhu, Hong Kong Cinema)

I held off getting a blu-ray player for a long time. 

I didn’t see the need. Drives are dead. DVDs are yesterday’s tech. Physical is so last century.  

Then those wicked pork buns drew me back in. 

See, physical is still the best way to get hold of anything that isn’t Main Street USA. If I want Hollywood, if I want anything North American really, it is easily had. There are any number (God, oh God, so many) ways to get that content. Streaming options beyond the dreams of avarice. 

But. 

If I want, say, The Untold Story, how do I get that? If I want any kind of non-English language media, how the hell do I get it? There must be Spanish, German, Italian streaming services, and I shall want a VPN at the very least to access them, never mind a working knowledge of the language to understand the menu options. Netflix is a gateway but it offers only a glimpse; besides, damned if I’m paying $22/month for yet another streaming service. 

No, if I wanted my pork buns – hot from Terracotta in the UK – I’d have to get an external blu ray drive for my PC. Which is exactly what I did. 

The Untold Story is a retelling of the infamous Eight Immortals killings in Macau. Two high stakes gamblers, one a restaurant owner with a family of ten, argued over debts. The restaurant owner Zheng Lin refused to pay Huang Zhiheng so Huang, in a fit of rage, tried to force Zheng to pay up. That went badly wrong and Huang killed Zheng’s whole family, thus becoming the owner of the Eight Immortals restaurant. Briefly.  

How do you get rid of all those bodies? 

Well, there’s a perfectly good restaurant in need of meat for its famous pork buns … or so the story goes. That part may be apocryphal, but it became part of the narrative.  

The 1993 film version won awards and made a ton of money at the box office, but due to its graphic scenes of rape and murder – plus, of course, those buns – it was age restricted to 18 and up. It’s mildly notorious as a slasher, but difficult to get hold of. Unless you buy from an outlet like the folks at Terracotta.  

Having seen it, my review: 

It’s an odd little duck. The killing scenes are about as bloody and nasty as anything you’re going to see on screen and Anthony Wong Chau-sang as killer Wong Chi-hang is a standout. The comedy cops in hot pursuit are an incompetent bunch of bozos; they’re all stereotypes of one kind or other, led by their fearless Lieutenant Lee, and there’s a peculiar running gag where Lee parades around with a host of prostitutes on his arm much to the disgust of his only female subordinate Bo (Emily Kwan) who wants Lee all to herself. It doesn’t pair all that well with the main plot. That said, it does end in a stunning moment when all those same comedy cops realize that the pork buns they’ve been chowing down on free of charge came with a hidden cost. 

Cheap, nasty, entertaining. It may be the unrelenting realism of the gore scenes (a stark contrast with modern cinema) but it really does stick in your mind in a way that few other films can. 

If you want a good retelling of the pork buns saga I recommend Kento Bento’s version, which I believe is on Nebula; not sure as it’s been a while since I watched Nebula. 

From a gaming POV there have been plenty of examples of suspicious meat on the menu. Sweeny Todd, Telltale’s Walking Dead (the comic too, for that matter, in a different plotline), Fritz Haarmann the Vampire of Hanover, who allegedly sold the meat of his victims on the black market – take your pick, really. 

There haven’t been as many haunted restaurants. 

There is a starting Call of Cthulhu scenario in the main book, The Haunting. It’s been around for donkey’s years. You can find it in the free-to-play Quick Start rules. In that scenario the investigators are called in to investigate a haunted house. So far, so normal – at least, normal in a Cthulhu-esque way. 

What if it wasn’t a haunted house? What if it was a haunted restaurant? What would need to change? 

Not much, really. The Keeper would need to change some of the details of the ground floor plan. But the plot would tick on regardless, and you’d have some interesting horror options – particularly in the kitchen. The family would live above the restaurant, so you wouldn’t have to change much about the upper floors. 

The Macario family would be the ones running the restaurant of course; a nice little red-sauce-spaghetti joint. Until Mr. Macario decided to add a little extra to the Bolognese. Then there’s a discreet pause while the place is shut up for … let’s call it redecoration.  At that point Mr. Knott, the building’s owner, calls in the investigators. He wants to rent the place out to new tenants but the restaurant’s reputation frightens off any interested parties. If they could just give the place the all-clear, he could rent the place out. 

A potential plot change: as written Vittorio Macario, the former restauranteur, is locked up in the asylum. His only plot function is to hint at a way of defeating the evil. 

Suppose he has a secondary function. Suppose he escapes from the asylum with one thought on his mind: a grand reopening of Macario’s Restaurant.  

He’ll need meat for the Bolognese, of course … 

That’s it for this week. Enjoy! 

Heaven's Library (Bookhounds of London)

This noble room, situated at the west end of the Cathedral, immediately above the Chapel of the Order of S. Michael and S. George, contains an interesting and important collection of books; comprising a number of early English Bibles, a few ritual books, a large and valuable series of Sermons preached at Paul’s Cross or in the Cathedral; a few plays acted by the “Children of Paul’s,” some royal and other important autographs, and over ten thousand printed books, besides as many separate pamphlets.

In the view is seen a model of part of the Western Front of the Cathedral, once in the possession of Richard Jennings, the Master-builder of S. Paul’s. In the case on which it stands is the superb large paper copy of Walton’s Polyglot Bible (large paper copies are of great rarity); an exceedingly fine copy of the Prayer Book of 1662, and of the Bible of 1640, both of which belonged to Bishop Compton, the founder of the Library, whose portrait hangs upon its eastern wall. Just to the right of this case, is a cast of an important Danish Monumental Stone, found in 1852, in S. Paul’s Churchyard: it bears a Runic inscription.

In the glass case in the middle of the room are exposed to view a considerable number of interesting objects: copies of episcopal seals, a facsimile of the tonsure plate once used at S. Paul’s, a chain with which a book was fastened to the Library shelves; some medals connected with the history of the Cathedral; and some curious books. The finely carved brackets which support the gallery, long ascribed to Grinling Gibbons, have been ascertained to be the work of Jonathan Maine, carver, in 1708.

VIEWS OF ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL

It adds a whole new meaning to bedtime reading: St Paul’s Cathedral is opening its hidden library for a once-in-a-lifetime overnight stay in honour of World Book Day.

For one night only, two guests will be able to stay in the “secret” room of the historic London landmark on 15 March. It is the first time anyone has officially slept inside the cathedral since the second world war, when a voluntary organisation protected the venue from bombing raids.

During their stay, the guests will enter the cathedral through the dean’s door and climb the spiral staircase, designed by the English architect Sir Christopher Wren more than 300 years ago.

At the top of the staircase is the recently restored library, which dates to 1709 and hosts a rare collection of more than 22,000 written texts, ranging from medieval manuscripts, books from the earliest days of printing to upcoming releases ...

The Guardian

It is often said that, at certain times of year, an auction of old incunabula is held in the crypts. This rumour began life, as far as can be determined, in 1713, when one William Fitzhugh attempted to convince a visiting Dutch merchant that the item Fitzhugh was attempting to sell came from the collection of the Prince of Lies himself ...

The Long Con

Good luck to whoever-it-may-be who ends up sleeping at St. Paul's on the 15th of this month.

Naturally this caught my eye. I enjoyed writing the Long Con for YSDC and was pleased when Pelgrane decided to pick it up. I hope anyone who runs it for their own group has a good time.

For those who don't know it: in the Long Con the characters are tasked with arranging a con game to sucker visiting American millionaire Hubert Walton, who bears a significant resemblance to actor Vincent Price.

His Kind of Woman

Price is one of my favorite actors and this is my favorite Price film.

Bookhounds has a fetish for unusual libraries and St. Paul's is undoubtedly one of the most unusual libraries in London. Substantially rebuilt since the Great Fire it contains all manner of oddities. As you might expect its main topic is Christianity and it's packed full of sermons, epistles, and theological texts, but you might find almost anything in there. The restoration project is the first time anyone's seriously looked at the thing since the 1900s, when they installed electric lighting and, shortly after, heating. 

Imagine going for over a hundred years and the only change that's ever been made, other than sweep up the termite dust, is to install electric light. 

"Our conservators were especially concerned about the safety of the gallery structure and the water-tightness of the roof." Well fork me blind, Lassie, I would be too. Now go fetch the boy out of the well, there's a good dog.

Moving on.

Late Returns

A post-Long Con scenario snippet.

After the events of Long Con, however that came out, the characters are approached by Cathedral representatives.

This may happen up to a year after the events of Long Con.

The Cathedral's people want the characters' assistance. Ever since the events of Long Con visitors to the Library have complained of strange events. The lights don't work as they ought, and there's a nasty burning smell that comes and goes. They've had electricians in to diagnose the problem, but as far as they can tell the lights are working as intended and there's no wiring problem. There's been a lot of loose talk about devils since the characters attempted their con game and the Church authorities want it very clear that there's no such thing as maleficent spirits, certainly not within God's House and the most important Cathedral in Great Britian. The authorities hope that by parading the characters through in a show they'll be able to stop loose talk.

While on site the Hounds' mouths will be watering: here are some of the most valuable books they've seen in their entire career, just ... sitting there. On shelves. If only they weren't under such heavy manners they might be able to lift something ...

Option One: Dusty Regret. One of the Dust Things managed to survive the events of the Long Con and made its way up here, where it bonded to a collection of sermons. It appears as a careworn priest with vacant eyes. It's beginning to propagate among the texts in the Library; if left to its own devices it will spread, infecting scholars who will, in turn, take Dust Things to their own libraries. The smell is coming from the electrics; lead-sheathed wiring that hasn't been looked after causes havoc when it comes into contact with Dust Things.

Option Two: Wiring Faults The wiring isn't everything it should be, but there are some indications that it's been fiddled with. There's a particular section close to the display cases that shows extensive signs of damage. This is because the electrician is trying to set up an opportunity for theft; if he can manufacture a 'fire scare' he can grab the opportunity and steal the items he has his eyes on. Why? Gentleman Jack, that's why; the scoundrel has decided to have another crack at St. Pauls and the electrician is his go-between.

Option Three: Devilish Drama The whole scenario is being manufactured by one of the Cathedral staff, who works at the Library. This staff member is enthralled with the idea of Devil's Auctions and the events of the Long Con inspired them to take it a step further. They've been carrying out rituals up in the Library to summon Old Nick, the idea being to start up a Devil's Auction of their own. The trouble is, they have managed to contact someone. It just isn't Old Nick; Old Nyalathotep, more like.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

BOOKWORM (Bookhounds of London)

 BOOKWORM wants young lady to catalogue library. Answer in own hand writing. Box 520. 

Lured (Cohen Film Collection)

Lured is a fun little film. Made in 1947 with George Sanders as suave clubman Fleming and Lucille Ball as showgirl Sandra who gets recruited by Scotland Yard to find a killer, it bounces along with verve and has some interesting twists before the end. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys cozy crime, or crime in general. It’s fun, it has laughs, it has Boris Karloff chewing all sorts of scenery, while Ball and Sanders bounce off each other nicely.  

The conceit is interesting. The Killer places an advert in the personal column of the paper, victims write in applying for the post, and whoops, strangle, strangle. The audience never sees the strangle, strangle. There’s a chiller moment about halfway through the film when Saunders is brought into the coroner’s office to identify a victim who’s been in the river for … a while … but the audience never sees the remains. Kudos to Saunders on keeping his composure. And his lunch.  

The personal ad has a long and studied history which I shan’t bore you with. Boredom is what Wikipedia is for.  

However, Lured isn’t the only example of a personal ad killer; far from it. There have been all sorts but the one I want to draw your attention to is Béla Kiss, the Hungarian vampire.  

Kiss, a tinsmith, practiced the romance bunco. He engaged in passionate correspondence with lonely women, drew them to his house, at which point they vanished. This was all pre-1914, and he was able to dispose of the bodies in tin drums filled with ‘kerosene’ that Kiss claimed he was hoarding in case war broke out. Lucky old Kiss: war did indeed break out. He was called up, went to the front, and in the meantime left the house in his housekeeper’s care. 

Kiss’ landlord decided to renovate while he was away. He raided Kiss’ workshop for supplies and found a quantity of tin drums. Cracking open the drums revealed horrors; corpses embalmed in alcohol, each drained of their blood, 24 in all. Documents found at the house showed he’d been corresponding with many more than 24.  

Kiss was off fighting the foe and was able to slip away when the authorities came looking for him. Some reports suggested he may have died. Sporadic sightings, most if not all of which were probably mistaken, cropped up over the years. The last recorded sighting was in New York, 1932.   

Then we have BOOKWORM’s personal ad, which crops up among the many that Lured’s Sandra Carpenter goes through in her search for the mysterious strangler. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it reference, but it’s there.  

From these we get: 

Brain Worm

The Hounds are asked their advice. 

One of the shop's regular customers (or perhaps a staff member) has been corresponding with a Lonely Heart that they met through the personal column. The writer, Bookworm, says he has a library that he wants the young woman to catalogue, and he seems ecstatic about her handwriting style. It's just what he's been looking for, he says, and he urges her to meet with him to go over details of the arrangement. She asks the Hounds: what do they think about her friend?

Going over the letters he's sent her indicates (0 point spend) that he's a foreign national, probably well educated judging by his language choices, and signs himself Kiss, which may or may not be an affectation. A 1 point spend indicates that the writer is probably Austro-Hungarian, judging by some of his word choices and grammar, and remembers the Béla Kiss story. The address is a post box; Kiss wants to meet her at an A.B.C. (Aerated Bread Company) shop not far from London Bridge Train Station. It seems harmless enough - it's a public place, after all. 

Option 1: Hungarian Nightmare. The writer is Béla Kiss himself. Having fled the front and escaped to London, he's set himself up as a tinsmith again but he can't get by on his own money so he's gone back to his old ways. This is one of his early attempts to lure in someone with the promise of work and then kill her, stealing what little she has. He's even gone back to his old methods of corpse disposal and leaves the bodies in tin drums at his shop. There are four such drums at his shop right now. What he doesn't understand is why those drums seem to be talking to him at night. Kiss is one short hop from becoming a ghoul, and the local ghoul population is watching him carefully.

Option 2: Copy Cat The writer is inspired by Béla Kiss. Occultist and fringe cultist Sam Scarlett has been trying to get the attention of the Keirecheires for some time but they've rebuffed his advances. He's come up with a new scheme: vampire-inspired pornography, complete with photographs. That's his ticket in. His lonely heart is destined to become his latest subject, and after that will be pickled in a tin drum. Scarlett's gotten moderately competent at tinsmithing; it's part of his Kiss persona. The Keirecheires are moderately amused by Scarlett's efforts; less so, at the Hounds' interference.

Option 3: Brain Bugs This is a Shan operation. The Bircester bugs have obtained a Mythos text that they're particularly interested in, but they've noticed that the text is difficult for their insect minds to decypher. If they can't do it they'll find a human who can. The library cataloguing is an invention but there really is a library; they just have one book that they want read. Just one. Then they'll take the head off for further study.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!