Treasure Maps (Bookhounds of London)

I've been re-reading Dorothy Sayers, particularly her short stories where she occasionally gets experimental and decided that her detective Lord Peter Wimsey will, this episode, look for buried treasure rather than unburied corpses. Usually the beak-nosed sleuth is asked to do so by some reluctant socialist (Uncle Meleager's Will) or similar hanger-on who wants the loot to do good with; sometimes Lord Peter stumbles onto it while rooting about in an antiquarian book store (The Dragon's Head), though even in those instances there's some helpless do-gooder in the background waiting to turn the loot into a cure for cancer. Heaven forfend people get the money so they can spend it and have fun. However it happens, soon Lord Peter is off solving crossword puzzles or doing something similarly useful in search of a fortune in ... whatever it may be.

Sayers isn't alone in this. M.R. James often had his protagonist out looking for buried treasure of one kind or another (Abbot Thomas) and E.G. Swain had his priestly Mr. Batchel out looking for Stoneground loot about one episode in three, more or less, often to be thwarted by his ghosts. 

Sayers is possibly a little unique in that Lord Peter regularly finds important clues in antiquarian books, or libraries. In The Bone of Contention, which features not one but two ghosts, the all-important will of Dead Rich Man is found in an edition of The Nuremberg Chronicle kept in the dead man's library, sadly neglected. It's because the book is stained with damp, but the will is not, that Lord Peter smells a rat. In The Dragon's Head, Lord Peter and his nephew Gherkins find clues to the location of pirate treasure in Munster's Cosmographica Universalis.  

M.R. James also hid wills or other important clues to cash in antiquarian volumes (Tractate Middoth) but tended to be less obscure; a biblical quote or two, certainly, but actual treasure maps, no. 

Consider: most people go looking for Mythos texts because they contain knowledge . Things Man Was Not Meant To Know (Or Spell. Or Smell, For That Matter). Which is all well and good, but what happens when someone who couldn't care less about occult knowledge happens to pick a Mythos text in which to hide the clues to the loot?  What if that book is a treasure map?

Sayers had one advantage over the rest of us. Her audience was keen to solve mysteries, which is why she could devote chunks of her narrative to, say, solving an actual crossword puzzle. I suspect if you, the Keeper, were to present the players with an actual crossword puzzle to solve before they could advance the narrative, there'd be a revolt. It might be perfectly in keeping to present the characters with a Latin Squares puzzle to solve - first invented in 1783, apparently - but you'd be unwise to present one unless you'd like the game to come to a crashing halt. 

Dungeons and Dragons is particularly fond of presenting players with abstruse trap-puzzles to solve lest the player-characters be perforated by pitchforks. Some DMs seem to find great pleasure in designing peculiar puzzle palaces. I often wonder how happy their players are to find these encounters.

No, while the average player likes putting together clues to advance plot nobody wants some kind of quasi-Resident-Evil hunt for the Rooster Key before they can go through the Rooster Door to find the Oyster which contains the Pearl which when combined with the Ruby and the Emerald will ... and so on. Besides, while the character might be an analytical genius capable of solving sixteen impossible challenges before breakfast there's no guarantee the player is. 

Hence the Clue system in Gumshoe, both Core and Optional.

Figuring out the puzzle is hard enough for a group of armchair detectives, without someone withholding half the pieces from them. GUMSHOE, therefore, makes the finding of clues all but automatic, as long as you get to the right place in the story and have the right ability. That’s when the fun part begins, when the players try to put the components of the puzzle together. 

Gathering clues is simple. All you have to do is:

1. Get your Investigator into a scene where relevant information can be gathered,

2.Have the right ability to discover the clue, and

3.Tell the Keeper that you’re using it. [Trail, p.51]

To expand on this, I'm going to rely on point 1., Get your Investigator into a scene where relevant information can be gathered, and suggest to you that the Core Clue scene can be layered with other scenes to create a treasure map.

Example: in Sayers' Dragon's Head Lord Peter, through the innocent purchase of an antiquarian book by his nephew Gherkins, discovers that the book contains information that will lead to loot. However, he cannot understand it. He knows the information's there, but doesn't know what it is. 

To completely understand what's going on, Lord Peter has to do two things. First, he has to learn more about the book's previous owner. He can do this anywhere; he doesn't need to be in a particular location or scene. Second, he has to go to the place where the loot is hidden and use the book in a particular way. In case you hadn't guessed, I'm trying to avoid story spoilers as much as possible; hopefully this doesn't make my point obscure. 

In short, he has the Clue and knows it is a Clue, but needs more information before he can completely appreciate the Clue. It is a layered Clue. It has multiple meanings leading to a final result, and that final result can only be obtained by going to a scene where relevant information can be gathered.

In game, Keepers sometimes express this layered Clue in terms of Pool Points. Reading this text, for instance, gives the player 2 pool points in Uncovering The Treasure. However, in order to use those pool points the character has to get to the scene where those pool points become relevant.

A Keeper in this situation is free to rule that spending one of those points allows the investigator to work out where (ie. in what scene) the Clue can be used. It saves time, is a viable use of the pool, and allows the investigator spotlight time. 

It's what I like to think of as a By Jove! moment. The Great Detective, thanks to an info revelation, suddenly knows who did it or what really happened. Often it's the Detective's Watson saying something apparently trivial that sparks this intuitive leap, but it can as easily be the Detective poring over some text or other looking for inconsistences. 

In this case By Jove! basically means the character works out, from the information in front of them, where they have to go next. It does not necessarily tell the character how to get there, or what's in the way. There may be sinister cultists waiting in ambush, or lethal traps at the story location. There may be logistic reasons why the characters can't just easily transition from one place to another; perhaps the place they need to get to is in the middle of a civil war, for example. All it does is tell them where, not how, or whether there will be problems along the way.

Let's put all this into practice. For the sake of example this is going to be a Bookhounds seed, but a Treasure Map could be used to fit many different situations and settings.

For this example I'm going to use one of the Ripley Scrolls as my Treasure Map. Alchemist George Ripley (c. 1415–1490) is alleged to be the creator of these scrolls, which are transcriptions or variations on a lost 15th century original text. Nobody knows whether this is so, but occasionally some of Ripley's poetry is found in the text so the scrolls became known as Ripley scrolls. These are examples of emblematic symbolism, less physical chemistry and more esoteric philosophy, perfect for my purposes.

Of course, it's a scroll, not a book. That doesn't have to be a problem but I'd prefer it was a book, since that muddies the waters even further by obscuring the true nature of the original text. 

I'm going to say that in this example the scroll has actually been cut up and tipped into a larger alchemical work compiled by an unknown academic at some point in the 17th century. Using the Shelfware and Foxing section of Bookhounds I shall also say that:

• At some point in the 19th century the cheap paper wrapper collection was rebound in morocco leather;
• That it is infested with alien insects (of which more later);
• That part of it is in code, a variant of Alphabetum Kaldeorum ("alphabet of the Chaldeans") 
• That it has no name or title, but is known as ex libris August Strindberg, after its most famous owner.

So here we have a text of dubious origin allegedly owned by a famous playwright and occultist, which has clearly gone through several hands since its creation in the 15th century. Always assuming it wasn't a fake to begin with.  

To add that Mythos tinge, let's go one step further and say that the Scrolls were created by someone - Ripley, or another - under the domination of the Great Race. That's why it is always infested with those strange insects; it is a point in space/time permanently linked with Pnakotus, and while not quite a functioning Gate it is just enough of a portal to allow small things through. This works both ways, so on the other side of the connection is a small pile of mouse bones, roaches, and other oddments from Earth. Nothing larger than a signet ring can pass, in either direction. 

This also means that destroying the book causes the portal to explosively decompress, allowing whoever destroyed it a close-up look at Pnakotus. Mythos shock, stability Loss +3, Sanity Loss +2, damage as pipe bomb (p 67 main text) which means everyone within 30 to 40 yards is in danger, and anyone who dies as a result is sucked into Pnakotus. In theory, if the Keeper is feeling particularly unkind, something from Pnakotus could be sucked through. Perhaps one of the Great Race, dazed and bleeding from transit, could spend a few rounds being unpleasant to everything nearby until it works out how to return to Pnakotus.

Skimming gets the reader 2 pool points Uncovering The Treasure. Poring over it gets +2 Mythos, no spells, and +1 Occult.

The Treasure is something completely unrelated to the Mythos text. It has to do with Strindberg, when he was going through his Inferno (1869 – 92) period.

Strindberg allegedly suffered temporary insanity, at least according to his contemporaries. A self-proclaimed  "socialist, a nihilist, a republican, anything that is anti-reactionary!... I want to turn everything upside down to see what lies beneath," he switched completely and became a mystic Catholic. He claimed an outside force, The Powers, had forced this on him, causing physical and mental suffering as part of their revenge on humankind for their wrongdoings. 

One of the results of this period was his semi-autobiographical work, Inferno. The other, allegedly, was the Golden Fleece, which Strindberg accidentally discovered during his Parisian sojourn. Experts are divided as to whether this is a philosophical construct (as hinted at in Strindberg's letters to Nietzsche) or a physical artefact which, for whatever reason, Strindberg couldn't bring himself to sell to solve his money problems.   

Those who say the Fleece is a physical object claim that Strindberg hid the location of the Fleece in ex libris Strindberg. Wild-eyed literary wackos and get-rich-quick chancers from all over the world would give anything to obtain it, though whether they could understand its literary allusions is another matter. 

So there are plenty of people who want this book who have no idea what the Mythos is, and could care less. Given the treasure's alleged location, Paris, it could be interesting to mix this with Dreamhounds and say that some of those trying to understand ex libris Strindberg are surrealists who want ex libris for its philosophical underpinnings, not the Fleece. However, surrealists are poor as dirt and couldn't afford to be in the same room as ex libris, much less purchase it, so they're quite likely to want to 'liberate' (steal) it.

OK, we have a book, a treasure, and a potential locale, Paris. What next?

Divide up the sequence into the appropriate scenes.

The Opening Scene is the acquisition of the book. Maybe in a house clearance, an auction, or however, but the Hounds get ex libris. As a result of that acquisition they get their first Core Clue: The Map. They understand that the information leads to treasure, and they may even know what the treasure is, but they don't know how to interpret it.

Optional lines of investigation include translating the Chaldean code, finding out more about Strindberg, finding out more about the source of the book (who sold it and why), finding out more about the provenance of the book (is it what it claims to be?) Meanwhile there are other things going on. The alien insects make their presence felt. Maybe someone picks up on all that Mythos knowledge and makes some bad assumptions about the nature of the problem.

Play it all out, but remember the key point: while they have the information, they are not in the right scene to make full use of it. The Hounds are in London. To make full use of the Clue, they need to be in Paris.

The easiest kind of transition is geographic. To be in the right scene, the Hounds need to change location. It's not the only way to handle the problem. The Hobbit did exactly the same thing with hidden lettering on Thorin's map, making it so the map's secrets could only be read at a particular time of year, under certain conditions. So in that situation the transition is time, not location. In a related Hobbit scene, the transition is expertise. Only one person, Elrond, could translate and understand the map. Finally, the information the map provided could only be acted on at a specific time of year, in a particular location. 

Transition in time, in geography, in expertise - all in one map.

But for our purposes in ex libris, the transition is purely geographic. The Hounds have to get to Paris. this allows the Keeper a chance for transit shenanigans Orient Express style, with mysterious strangers on the train perambulating around like little red herrings - until one of them makes a play for ex libris. Whether for its Mythos importance or its value as a map. After all, the Great Race might be very interested in this little travelling portal to their time/space dimension and yet have no interest  in the Golden Fleece. Whereas your average treasure nut has little interest in the Mythos but really wants the Fleece.

Once in Paris the Hounds can use the Core Clues to their fullest, working out precisely where the Golden Fleece is from the information in ex libris. What they do with this information is up to them. As an artifact the Golden Fleece is incredibly valuable, but surely there's a reason why Strindberg didn't try to sell it. Is there some curse? Does it have magical properties? Is there a guardian - ghouls, perhaps, or a serpent?

All that's for you and your players to determine. 

That's a Layered Clue. Obtained in one scene, but can only be properly understood in another, the two scenes being divided by geography. 

This is a relatively simple example with only two layers; it's easy to imagine a Layered Clue with multiple layers, divided not just by geography but also time, and possibly other factors as well. A Layered Clue that can only be properly understood by someone with the In The Blood drive. Or someone with 1 or more Magic pool, That only gives its secret up when the right stars shine overhead, or when the moon is full. A complicated Layered Clue could be the centerpiece of an entire campaign, depending on just how complicated the Keeper wants to make it.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Ruritanian Romance (GUMSHOE all, King In Yellow)

Paul Alexis had evidently had a well-defined taste in fiction. He liked stories about young men of lithe and alluring beauty who, blossoming into perfect gentlemen amid the most unpromising surroundings, turned out to be the heirs to monarchies and, in the last chapter, successfully headed the revolts of devoted loyalists, overthrowing the machinations of sinister presidents, and appearing on balconies, dressed in blue-and-silver uniforms, to receive the plaudits of their rejoicing and emancipated subjects. Sometimes they were assisted by brave and beautiful English or American heiresses, who placed their wealth at the disposal of the loyalist party; sometimes they remained faithful despite temptation to brides of their own nationality, and rescued them at the last moment from marriages of inconvenience with the sinister presidents or their still more sinister advisers; now and again they were assisted by young Englishmen, Irishmen or Americans with clear-cut profiles and a superabundance of energy, and in every case they went through a series of hair-raising escapes and adventures by land, sea and air. Nobody but the sinister presidents ever thought of raising money by the usual financial channels or indulging in political intrigue, nor did the greater European powers or the League of Nations ever have anything to say in the matter. The rise and fall of governments appeared to be by a private arrangement ...

Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase  

In a spacious meeting room overlooking the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a vision to “save Haiti” took shape. The $83 billion effort would reinvent the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, lavishing it with roadways, electricity grids, seaports and airports.

Haiti’s new dawn, attendees at the May 12 meeting were told, would be led by Christian Emmanuel Sanon — a 63-year-old Haitian American and self-described pastor and physician now detained in Haiti in connection with the investigation into the audacious assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Sanon’s stated mission during that gathering: Turn “Haiti into a free and open society,” said Parnell Duverger, 70, a retired professor who attended the Fort Lauderdale presentation and had drafted the redevelopment plan pitched by Sanon ... 

The revelations of a grand plan to rebuild Haiti backed by Sanon and others — as well as the draft contract and list of costs obtained by The Post — add a new financial dimension to the roiling investigation into a presidential slaying that has upended the fragile Caribbean state, leaving it rudderless amid a leadership squabble. Haitian and Colombian authorities, along with the FBI and Interpol are scrambling to unravel a cast of suspects that they say includes a former Drug Enforcement Administration informant nicknamed “Whiskey,” an opposition politician, Colombia mercenaries and Haitian Americans from South Florida ...

Washington Post, Records reveal how Haitian American held in assassination probe financed a ‘personal security’ team

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose 

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, The Wasps. Translation: the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.

Marx Brothers, Hail Hail Freedonia

A Ruritanian romance is a peculiarly 19th century phenomenon that occasionally resurfaces today. At its heart it's a yearning for Daddy. Through no real virtue on Daddy's part, beyond birth and a certain charm, Daddy establishes himself on the Ruritanian throne and all is well again. Nobody ever asks whether Daddy is the right man for the job, or whether the country was better off without Daddy on the throne. Nor does anyone insinuate that a usurper, whoever it may be, might be challenged by other nations. It's accepted as a fait accompli. Daddy's home. Nobody questions Daddy.

Similarly Christian Emmanuel Sanon seems to have believed nobody would challenge him once he attained the throne - beg pardon, the presidency. He doesn't seem to have had a plan for establishing control of the country, or opening new relations with Haiti's neighbors, never mind the United States. Nor did he really have a plan for paying for it, beyond taking out a mountain of debt and trusting to his ability to raid the country's coffers once established. A very 45 way of looking at the world; I have to wonder who Sanon was expecting to win the 2020 election.

There have been many versions of Ruritania over the years, from the Marx Brothers' Freedonia to Robin Laws' King in Yellow, itself inspired by Robert W. Chambers' version of a Ruritanian version of New York in which modernity (and representative democracy) is vanquished and replaced by Imperial Dynasties. 

One morning early in May I stood before the steel safe in my bedroom, trying on the golden jewelled crown. The diamonds flashed fire as I turned to the mirror, and the heavy beaten gold burned like a halo about my head. I remembered Camilla's agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act, and I dared not think of what followed—dared not, even in the spring sunshine, there in my own room, surrounded with familiar objects, reassured by the bustle from the street and the voices of the servants in the hallway outside. For those poisoned words had dropped slowly into my heart, as death-sweat drops upon a bed-sheet and is absorbed. Trembling, I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition ...

A version of the Ruritanian romance turned bad that I have long wanted to see and have read several times is The Empire Builders, a play by Boris Vian. A respectable bourgeoise family led by Daddy flees a strange, unknown and terrifying Noise, running further and further upward as the stairs, rooms, apartments below vanish - or are absorbed. They pretend nothing is truly wrong. 

Yet always ahead of them, with them, haunting them is the Schmürz. The audience is never certain what the Schmürz is, and the cast pretend it does not exist, though when they think nobody's looking they kick, whip and torment it as though it were the cause of all their troubles. Yet nothing rids them of the Schmürz. 

MadLab Theatre, Columbus Ohio

Though a Ruritanian Romance horror plot has many echoes of Pulp I think it would be better played Purist, and The Empire Builders is the reason why. That slow collapse of established order; the grinding, inescapable Noise; the omnipresent Schmürz.

At its heart Purist is an inescapable doom. There is no killing Cthulhu, any more than Daddy can smash the Schmürz.  

So, what three things hide at the center of a Ruritanian plot?

1. Daddy's In Charge. There's someone who ought to be on the throne - and it is a throne, whether or not deluded thinkers call it a presidency - and currently is not. The central focus of the plot is to put Daddy back on the throne.
2. Simpler Times. Aspects of modern life that Daddy doesn't like get pushed aside. It's a lot like living in a Studio Ghibli setting. Old fashioned, virtuous, and not a whiff of modern ways beyond maybe the radio, rotary aircraft or funky robot ninjas. Nobody ever asks whether indoor plumbing has been invented yet or where Porco Rosso keeps his latrine, probably because they wouldn't like the answer.
3. Wicked Viziers. Sometimes called Presidents, Councilors, Prime Ministers or similar. These are the forces keeping Daddy from the throne. They represent all that is wrong with modern life, and must be swept aside so Daddy can take charge. 

Turn that Purist and make it a horror plot, and you have:

1. Daddy's On The Run. Maybe Daddy still has hopes of regaining the throne, but right now it's time to beat feet. If you're a little slow, a little late, it will go very badly for Daddy - and by extension, for you.
2. Times They Are a-Changin'. Black is now white. Dogs and cats, living together. Whatever was accepted as the norm is now completely and utterly other. Things are out of place, zeppelins fly overhead, Azimov's rockets are gearing up for launch to the stars. Lethal injection chambers in every public square. It's a new dawn, a new day - but Big Brother has replaced Daddy, and His eye is always on you. What is that peculiar Noise?
3.  The Schmürz. Your sins follow you like flies on garbage. Always one step ahead, they greet you at every turn. You can beat them, punish them, blame them for your misfortunes but they cannot, will not die. The next door you open, there they are. In King In Yellow terms a Schmürz has a lot in common with a Walking Corpse (p166 Paris book) except it cannot truly die and has no attacks to speak of. It exists to be attacked and is indifferent to attacks - but it is always there. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!   

The Man In The Middle (RPG All)

This post comes courtesy of Dorothy Sayers and the Armitage Files.

I've been rereading Sayers over these last few weeks. She's a remarkable talent with a very human writing style. Her views are not mine, to put it candidly, and there are times I have to grit my teeth and bear it, particularly when she starts talking about Jews or any non-white character. Yet she has a knack of showing (not telling) what makes people, people, and that's what draws me in. 

I've also just finished an Armitage Files game, and became intrigued by the setting only to realize I had a copy but had never read it. So I waited until the last remnants of humanity had gone up in a puff of ashes, and then downloaded the .pdf from my Pelgrane shelf. 

The Sayers I've been reading most recently is Murder Must Advertise, in which her aristo sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey puts off the ermine and pretends to be an ordinary citizen in order to infiltrate an advertising agency. He does this because he has reason to believe that someone in the agency is neck-deep in crime, and murdered a fellow employee to keep their nefarious doings secret. 

It turns out this particular nogoodnik is a mere cog in a larger machine, a man in the middle trying to stay afloat in choppy waters. It occurs to me that characters like this get short shrift in most games, which is a shame.

Take Orlando, for instance, whose machinations in the first season of HBO's The Wire kicks off one of the major plotlines of that season.

Orlando's entire value to the organization he works for is that he's a clean face, with no record. He exists, and gets paid, to do nothing but be honest and run a nightclub. Doing nothing is boring, so Orlando wants to get into the game, sell a little narcotics on the side. 

It's that little itch, greed, cupidity, that gets him deep in trouble. 

The Armitage Files, and for that matter the Dracula Dossier and a host of other games, are all about conspiracies and, by extension, organizations. Nothing gets done by doing nothing. If you want to take over the world, you're going to need help. Sure, this means you hire a lot of people with guns, magical knowledge, what-have-you. Troops. Mooks.

It also means you hire a lot of middle men. Honest fronts. Cogs in the machine.

To borrow a line from Bioshock, somebody's got to scrub the toilets. There are jobs that need to get done, bribes that must be paid, ongoing deals that need to be managed which by their nature don't need some necromancer or armed thug in charge. If your criminal organization owns a restaurant for whatever reason - to launder money, to prepare cannibal feasts, whatever it may be - someone's name has to be on the lease and liquor license. 

In the Wire, Orlando is that middle man. The club is a front for a criminal group, but the club still has to appear honest. So they need someone like Orlando. 

In your occult-tinged spy thriller, apocalypse drama, or cold war witch hunt (with real witches), your conspiracy is going to need an Orlando too. Someone who appears honest because they are honest. They're paid to be honest. Being a bland-faced stooge is their whole deal.

In the Armitage Files, much like Night's Black Agents and some of the Pelgrane titles that come after it, NPCs are multipurpose. They might be Stalwart, which means they're against the dark powers that threaten to consume the world. They might be Sinister, which means they're working with those same dark powers to bring about the apocalypse. Or they might be Innocuous - exactly as honest and naïve as they seem. 

I propose this: even if they are Innocuous, that doesn't mean they're Innocent. They could be Middle Men. They don't realize that the messages they pass on every other month are actually related to a sinister conspiracy. That the newspaper clippings they've been told to collect are some kind of occult code. That the purchases they make on behalf of their benefactor are actually helping to bring about the End of the World.

Further, like Orlando, they may not understand that the things they do to benefit themselves - like branching out into a new line of business - might anger their backer. Until it's too late, of course.

I don't want to use any of the Armitage Files NPCs as an example, as that might spoil something for someone. Ditto Dracula Dossier. However, Double Tap has some useful Cameos that won't spoil anything for anyone, so let's have a shot at the Building Superintendent.

Branko

Conceal 3, Infiltration 2, Mechanics 2

It’s not that Branko is a bad man, he’s just apathetic. Always wearing a stained sweat suit, unshaven, and reeking of  Gitanes and cheap slivovitz, his building slowly falls apart around him. But he’s been super in this building for a while, and he’s seen the neighborhood change … and not for the better. (Cop Talk, Intimidation, Negotiation)

At this point I could detail his role as a Sinister or Stalwart character. Maybe the occultist up in the penthouse seems like a Crowley-esque supervillain, but Branko down in the basement is the one holding the strings. Basically, a Casablanca set-up except Sam's the one who really own's Rick's. Or maybe Branko's operating a one-man war against vampires, and his super's office is stocked full of Banes and Blocks. 

However, that's not Branko's role today. 

No, Branko is a Middle Man. That means he's exactly as Innocuous as he seems, but he has his uses and the powers that be are manipulating him, for whatever reason. It could be something relatively simple. His name's on a lease, or he's signatory to a bank account that is of interest to the Conspiracy. But it's more fun to play with the set dressing.

Let's say that this is a Night's Black Agents game with Supernatural (or Damned) vampires, and that this particular game has a significant occult element. Branko might be getting an extra something every week to maintain a shrine out in the graveyard, or to bottle ghosts and deliver those bottles to the empty apartment up on the second floor, or to buy a particular foreign language newspaper and cut out all the obituaries, pinning them to a notice board in the apartment house lobby. Branko doesn't know what he's really doing. He's just going where he's told to go, wave a seemingly harmless bottle around for a few minutes, put a stopper in it and bring the bottle to somewhere that as far as Branko knows is normal.

Of course, if he gets bored one day and doesn't bother to wave the bottle around as he was told, but just sticks a stopper in it and takes it up to the empty apartment, that could lead to unfortunate consequences for all concerned. Especially Branko. 

Or, let's say Branko gets to talking with some nice, plausible player characters and they ask him what he's doing. He has no reason to hide. He tells them everything. He even lets them come along and watch as he waves the bottles around in that spooky alleyway he was told to go to. It's all a big game to Branko. 

It's not a game to the Conspiracy. 

In Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, the murderer is also a middle man. This middle man is effectively a messenger, passing on information about narcotics shipments. He knows, roughly, what he's doing and why, but he needs the money. 

This is a little different from Branko, in that Branko might not know what he's about. Branko might be a complete stooge. Murder Must Advertise uses a different kind of middle man, someone who understands what's at stake and may not like what he's become, but is too far gone to do anything about it. 

Orlando in the Wire is in a similar predicament. He knows exactly what's going on, but boredom and hubris get him into trouble. He could have kept making easy money and that would have been fine for everyone - but no. He wants what he can't have.

Using Branko again, let's say that Branko is that kind of middle man. In that case, he's not going to be talking to plausible agents, not unless they can guarantee him immunity from prosecution. He's still as Innocuous as he seems, but he's just too compromised to be entirely comfortable in his role. 

As to what he's up to, well ... let's say that the apartment on the second floor is used by Conspiracy operatives as a killing floor. They lure targets back to the apartment and butcher them, taking the bodies somewhere else to be dumped. 

Branko isn't directly involved either in the lure or the corpse clean-up. However, the Conspiracy pays him a stipend every month to keep an eye on the apartment and report back to them if the cops, or anyone else, starts poking around. Maybe he's been asked to deep clean the place a few times. Maybe he's had to find a new bed mattress after the old one got ... stained. Or throw some shoes and dresses into the building's furnace.

So now Branko knows more than is good for him. He doesn't have the full picture, but what he does know could get him into a lot of trouble and he's scared. 

Technically that leans more towards the Sinister side of the ledger, but Sinister carries with it the implicit assumption that the NPC will take action against the PCs if threatened or given adequate cause. That's not a middle man's role. No, a Branko will fold under pressure. He won't harm anyone. He's the guy who, in the Interrogation scene, says 'you don't understand. They'll kill me if I talk!' Then, just as he's about to spill his guts ... blam! Bullet to the head. Or explosive device, or what-have-you.

Middle man = walking, talking, Clue. Possibly a Core Clue, but in any case destined for a bad end. With Stability losses for all concerned.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Universal Aunts (Trail, Call of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents)

This post is inspired by Lucy Lethbridge's book Servants, which I'm reading for research purposes. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting period information on the Victorian era, the 1920s and 30s.

Lady-help is a catchall term for an unmarried woman without financial resources, who works as a kind of servant but isn't really from the same social class as a servant. Consequently they balance precariously between the group they feel they belong to, the middle classes, while at the same time not having the same claim to membership of that group as the people they work for. Lethbridge describes this as 'living on a social mezzanine floor, between one world and another.'

Often they do not, or cannot, perform the same tasks as a servant, having not been taught the necessary skills. Nor did they want to be taught. That's the whole point of being a lady; you don't have to do manual or domestic labor. So in practice the lady-help is a paid companion or quasi-governess, someone who can be set administrative tasks, like managing a diary or arranging train tickets and hotel stays, but who has no practical function, like laundry or cooking. Agatha Christie often makes use of the lady-help. Hildegarde Schmidt and Mary Debenham, who appear in her novel Murder on the Orient Express, are examples of the type.

In the Victorian and early Edwardian period, the lady-help's a bit vulnerable, particularly since they lack the money and the opportunity to save that guarantees a modest comfort in retirement. Again, going back to Agatha Christie, this is why legacies gifted in the master or mistress' will are so important. However for those not lucky enough to get a legacy, the best they can hope for is to live on charity - or, more likely, slowly starve on charity.

Things change in the 1920s. There are fewer men, thus fewer opportunities for marriage. Moreover the declining economy means families need cash, however they can get it. Unmarried daughters must work. At the same time, there's an innate horror in letting social standards slip. The middle class must remain the middle class; there can be no question of blurring the line between servant and master. Then there is the war, which among other things taught a whole generation of middle class women new skills, and confidence.

Enter new temporary employment agencies, like Universal Aunts.

'Britain's first personal service bureau' opened in 1921, on Sloane Street. Its founder, Gertie Maclean, wanted to create a venture "which will, I hope, fulfil my search for an opportunity to use my time and intelligence. I would hope too, that other like-minded ladies can become involved." They did, and soon Universal Aunts had a full catalogue of women capable of performing any task. Women with Zoological Society certificates, expert researchers fluent in many languages, women who knew about physics, spiritualism and foreign missions, who were qualified car and boat mechanics, and pilots.

Women who would make excellent investigators in any period horror game, especially Trail and Call of Cthulhu.

These kinds of agencies turn up in fiction now and again. Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey owned and operated an agency like this, with Joan Murchison, former secretary with a background in stock broking, as its founder member. However it wasn't until Servants that I realized this was an actual, historical event, not some backstory invented by a mystery writer. It opens up a range of options for the Keeper, or even the Night's Black Agents director. Consider:

• The agency can be a source of information. You can justify any skill set you care to name - Archaeology, Accounting, History, Library Use, Bureaucracy, High Society, Surveillance - and the agency can meet that need. So if the investigators pick up an interesting doodad, and don't know what it is or what it does, ask Universal Aunts to look into the problem. Or need someone followed, or something looked into.
• The agency can be an employer or patron, for female investigators. That former Dilettante who lost all her family money in the great Crash can find a new sense of purpose, and employment, with Universal Aunts. It might work even better with a group of all female investigators.
• It can be a clue dispenser. Are the investigators getting bogged down in minutiae, or lost in the weeds? Universal Aunts might point them in the right direction, albeit indirectly. Say the investigators are having trouble tracking down Stanley Fentiman, or they want to know why he was kicked out of his old College, or what he's been up to recently. Universal Aunts may know, because one of its members knows Fentiman, or used to work with him, or has connections with the College that chucked him out. Or Universal Aunts may come to the investigators and ask their help with Fentiman, thus giving the investigators a clue as to his whereabouts or plans. 
• It can be a training facility. If the investigator needs to brush up on her Latin, History, Vampirology, or whatever it may be, there's bound to be an Aunt who knows all about it, and can help.
• It can be an occult investigative agency. This is similar to the employer or patron option, above, except that it exists to combat occult threats. It hides this mission under some discreet front, but imagine a Universal Aunts founded, not by Gertie Maclean, but by Wilhemina Murray. Or Dion Fortune, or anyone with occult interests. Universal Aunts wouldn't be up there with Delta Green, sending out hit squads to eliminate threats, but there's all kinds of trouble it could get up to. That mysterious Count, for example, with his business interests in Whitby - no doubt the Aunts have crossed swords with him before. 

The best thing about Universal Aunts, of course, is that it still exists. Anything For Anyone At Any Time is one heck of a motto to live up to for over a hundred years, but Universal Aunts has managed it. 'Universal Aunts still endeavors to rise to any challenge.' I bet it does! This means it can be a resource in Call, Trail, and Night's Black Agents; plausible in any era. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

The Art of the Deal (GUMSHOE all)

I've been playing Batman Arkham Underworld, a fun little clash of clans app that has you, as one of Gotham's would-be villains, storm the city with your thugs and hired supervillain. At first I thought I wouldn't like it, but I'm being sucked in. The Dead Rabbits will crush the Bat! Or words to that effect, anyway.

That's not what I'm going to talk about. There's an in-game mechanic whereby you can speed up the build time of a room or item, or just get more in-game currency, by watching video adverts. I'm interested in advertising in an amateur know-thy-enemy way, and I'm just as fascinated by advertising done poorly as I am by well-crafted attempts.

Make no mistake, this is bad, bad stuff.

It's not that the mechanic doesn't work. It does. I often set up a room to refurb in, say, a couple hours, turn on a few of the ads to get it done in a couple minutes, and then get on with my day. From a game perspective, I get what I want, and the game maker gets the ad revenue. So we both benefit, but as soon as I set up the ad view I walk away. I don't absorb the content, and that's because it's really poorly targeted.

The game must already know my age and gender, from the data already available on the device. I would be amazed if it only knew my age and gender. So why is it trying to sell me a match-three garden building game? Or a dating sim? Why, when it targets me with a spokesperson, does the ad use a girl who looks all of sixteen spouting a load of old wank about dragons?

Why advertise Facebook, at all? Surely everyone with a mobile device knows what Facebook is by now? Doesn't it come pre-loaded on Apple tablets and phones, and probably most if not all the Androids?

It's as if the game either doesn't know my age and gender - which is utter balls - or it doesn't care. I suspect the latter, but it means a lot of people are spending a ton of money to no purpose.

At least trying to sell games is understandable. All the games are either pay up front or freemium, which means they're heavy revenue earners. But even then the ad could do a better job selling me the product.

Take the story sims Episodes and Choices, both of which seem very similar in style and content. In each case the app tries to sell to me using romance ads. Why? Both apps also have mystery stories, danger stories, fantasy plots, and any of those would have been a better ad choice than romance.

Or take the Facebook ad. It makes perfect sense to sell me something that isn't a game. After all, there's a ton of products out there I might be interested in. Yet of all the products in all the world, it has to walk in with Facebook? Sure, Facebook's probably one of the few non-game vendors interested in putting ads on the Apple game store. But if this is how Zuckerberg's spending his ad buy, the guy's much, much stupider than I ever thought.

Somewhere west of Laramie there's a bronco-busting, steer-roping girl ... who knew how to sell cars. Advertising's an art, and I often think there are no artists in advertising any more. God knows what happened to Don Draper's grandkids, but they lost the knack of making sales when they went all-in on the internet. I'm constantly being told that advertisers are collecting everything up to and including shoe size and pet's sexual preference in order to better target me. So why do I feel as though I'm not being effectively targeted?

I first became interested in using adverts in-game when Cyberpunk 2020 was still a thing. Now there's a genre that believes in style over substance. Its Chromebooks were essentially lists of in-game stuff your character could buy, and as with any list of stuff in RPGs the whole point is to get better stats and improve your efficiency at in-game tasks. But the Chromebooks made it interesting by pitching each item with its in-game ad buy.

Want to buy clothes that boost your stats or which provide better armor? Sure, but you're not just buying a leather jacket with better SP. You're buying a Ruf Tread(tm) combo bodysuit and jacket. 'If it can stop a round and won't embarrass you to wear it, it's cool,' says a satisfied customer.

You have a need for speed? Try the Ares Combat Bike. It uses the patented Brennan cycles Gendarme chassis, making it one of the most durable cycles on the road. Maybe it comes with its own steer-roping girl ...

Ultimately it's all about world building. Cyberpunk sold itself that way because it wanted to create the kind of world cyberpunk could flourish in. It wouldn't feel the same if the Chromebooks were just a list of stats, and nothing else. Whereas the old D&D equipment guides were often just a long list of glaives, guisarmes, guisarme-glaives, glaive-guisarme-glaives, guisarme-guisarme-glaive-glaive, old MacDonald bought the farm, ee ai, ee ai, critical hit. It didn't try to sell the gamer on the game world because it assumed it didn't have to, in its first incarnation. Its subsequent iterations have become much more savvy.

I've touched on world-building using background noise before. However it's worth going a little further with the concept, because everything you do here helps your players envision the kind of world they're in, and therefore the kind of environment they can help you create.

Let's take Bookhounds of London as a starter, and add in a bit of Dorothy Sayers.

Sayers once worked in advertising, and used this as the background for her mystery Murder Must Advertise. In that story her detective Lord Peter Wimsey disguises himself as his alter ego Death Bredon and works at ad agency Pyms to uncover a dope ring. While there Bredon becomes fascinated by advertising and invents a campaign for Whifflets, a cigarette brand. The idea is this: each time you buy Whifflets you're given stamps. On their own they're worth little, but if you collect enough of them you can exchange them for free goods or services, anything from a tea set to a trip to Portsmouth. WIFFLE YOUR WAY AROUND BRITAIN screams advert banners on a bus.

'The only thing you cannot get by Whiffling is a coffin,' Sayers remarks. 'It is not admitted that any Whiffler could ever require such an article.'

This happens in 1933, if the novel's publication date can be considered the actual timeline. That means Bookhounds will get the full force of the campaign. So what do they smoke? Do they collect  Whifflet coupons? If so, what are they saving up to get? Can they use a Whifflet obsession to ingratiate themselves with an informant? Can they use Whifflet coupons as a Bargaining chip?

Expand that and see what happens: ask yourself what they drink, wear, drive, where they go on holiday, what's in the cinemas right now. Remember that you can make all this up as you go along, and consider that you're trying to enforce a particular aesthetic, be it Arabesque, Technicolor, or Sordid. So taking Sordid as an example:

A long line of cinemagoers eagerly await their chance to see Hitchcock's latest murder chiller, their blue clouds of Whifflet smoke snaking up into the iron sky. They stand not ten feet from the spot where a flusher was found frozen to death, next to a sewer grate, with a diamond in his hand. Billboards shriek every way you turn: Lovely Day for a Guinness, Are You Whiffling Too?, Nutrax for Nerves. Winter bites through your coat and down to your bones, and you light up in a reflex action to ward off the cold. One of the cinemagoers asks if you're going to save your Whifflet coupon ...

No fellow feeling here, no inquisitive stares at the spot where a man died. The only spark of human interest is in the Whifflet coupon: an extra touch of covetousness in a world drowning in greed.

Of course all that's before we even consider the possibilities of subliminal advertising, which would be perfect for a Night's Black Agents game. Imagine a world in which vampires and their crowd-controlling products and messages could only be detected with special sunglasses, or in which a particular targeted ad could drive your brainwashed black program badass nuts.

Subliminals also work very well in an Esoterror context, for much the same reason. Picture a world in which the videos in your YouTube feed propagate Membrane-shattering messages, or a shadowy media corporation uses hidden messages to influence a crucial presidential election. The newly elected president then goes on to enact policies and force through budgets that completely shatter what little protection the Membrane has, and so on.

But that's enough from me today. See you next week!

Faces in the Crowd: Monty Egg & Inspector Japp (Trail of Cthulhu)

From time to time it occurs to me that campaigns can benefit from borrowing fictional characters. Not the famous ones, necessarily; there's a danger of overkill if the protagonists suddenly realize they're dealing with Sherlock Holmes, for example. The non player character shouldn't overshadow the player characters, and someone of Holmes' reputation is bound to take up center stage. In my own scenarios I've borrowed real people, like Holmes' creator, but I've tried to keep them as advisers or background color. Anything else risks derailing the plot.

Yet there are times when a more obscure fiction could come in handy, and for this post I'm going to talk about two detectives: Dorothy Sayers' Monty Egg, and Agatha Christie's Inspector Japp.

Montague Egg is a commercial traveler, operating on behalf of wine merchants Plummet & Rose, Piccadilly. He's a young man, well mannered, and usually well - if not expensively - dressed. He served in the War, though there's no mention of any distinctions, and is unmarried. There's no suggestion of a romantic life; the closest Egg gets to that is in Maher-shalal-hasbaz, in which he comes to the rescue of a young woman. Like most fictional detectives, his personal life isn't nearly as important as his deductive ability, and Monty scores here by being both observant and, in his own field, very clever. In once case, Sleuths on the Scent, he picks out which, of all the people currently in the same pub as he, is the chemist suspect the police are looking for, because he knows how chemists will pour out small samples from a bottle. In The Poisoned Dow '08, he suspects the killer - a servant - from the start because the last time Egg called at the house the servant was rude to him, whereas on this occasion he's startlingly polite. He's the sort of person who knows a lot of little things, and is willing to put the work in. His characteristic habit is to quote from his favorite reading material, The Salesman's Handbook, which contains such gems as:

To serve the public is the aim of every salesman worth the name.

Don't trust to luck but be exact, and certify the smallest fact.

The salesman who will use his brains will spare himself a world of pains.

The salesman with the open eye sees commissions mount up high.

A commercial traveler, for those not familiar with the term, is a traveling salesman. He might own his own car, or travel by train; Egg has a car. He goes from place to place persuading customers to order his company's spirits, in an age long before the internet, and in Egg's case he usually targets individual buyers rather than trade orders. A commercial traveler, by necessity, knows everything there is to know about the roads, rails and pubs on his beat; he relies on them for his food and lodging.

In a Trail of Cthulhu game someone like Monty is both antagonist and potential ally. The characters are often up to no good, even if their intentions are noble; Monty, in his role as amateur sleuth, might work out what they've been up to. As an ally Monty has a wealth of information to offer, both about his clients and about his beat. He also knows a great many police officers, which might come in handy if the protagonists find themselves in need of official help.

Montague Egg

Abilities: Athletics 4, Conceal 4, Driving 5, Firearms 4, First Aid 3, Fleeing 5, Health 6, Scuffling 4, Weapons 5 [note: his combat scores reflect his Great War service; Egg never got into scuffles in any of his stories.]

Alertness: +1

Stealth: +0

Special: If he becomes an ally, he acts as a free 1 point pool Cop Talk, or Evidence Collection.

Inspector Japp is slightly more famous than Egg, but that's thanks to his association with world-famous detective Hercule Poirot. Japp has a career of his own, and the Keeper may find it useful to have a Scotland Yard policeman on call who everyone will recognize. Japp is a competent investigator in his own right, but Poirot deplores "his general lack of method," and Poirot's friend Hasting thinks Japp's "highest talent lay in the gentle art of seeking favors in the guise of conferring them!"

His television appearances are much more frequent than his fictional history would suggest. He appears in seven novels and a handful of short stories, whereas in Suchet's television series he's pretty much the only policeman Poirot knows. Christie spends very little time describing Japp - she spends very little time on any of her characters, really - but if we take Philip Jackson's Japp as a model then he's an older man, probably in his mid-to-late 30s or early 40s, in good physical condition. He doesn't often get into fights in the stories, but it's reasonable to think he can hold his own in a brawl. In the television series he's more of an action hero, and is often seen taking down a suspect or chasing after one. As an investigator he is thorough and has good instincts, though he will sometimes come to the wrong conclusion because, as Poirot would describe it, he accepts what he sees without question, when he ought to see with "the eyes of the mind" and work out what must have happened from the available facts.  He rises to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, which means he ought to have significant authority, but it may be more sensible - from a game perspective - to keep him at lower rank, at least to start with.

As a policeman Japp's obvious use, to the Keeper, is as a potential antagonist. In The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby, Detective Inspector Howard is a Japp-alike, capable of causing the protagonists a lot of trouble. But if they manage to win Howard over, he can be a tremendous help to them. At the same time, Japp isn't going to overshadow the protagonists. He's no deductive genius, nothing like as clever as Poirot. He's very energetic and determined, but if the protagonists try, they can out-think him. 

Detective Inspector James Harold Japp

Abilities: Athletics 6, Conceal 2, Disguise 2, Firearms 5, Fleeing 6, Health 8, Scuffling 8, Weapons 4

Alertness: +0

Stealth: +1


Special: If he becomes an ally, he acts as a free 1 point pool Cop Talk, or Forensics.

Enquiring Minds

I've been reading a lot of Mutant City Blues recently. It's a fun RPG setting; I particularly like the concept of the Quade Diagram, in which various kinds of mutation can be linked to other kinds, creating a chain by which certain powers can be deduced, and weaknesses too, based on the observed powers of the mutant in question. Fun stuff!

If I'm disappointed at all - and I'm not even sure that disappointed is the right word - it's that, for a game in which crimes are solved, relatively little emphasis is placed on the crime scene. I suppose you could argue that this is the difference between, say, an Agatha Christie novel and a CSI scenario. The television series CSI, particularly in its more recent incarnations, sacrifices detail to tell a story, whereas a crime drama in its classic incarnation is all about the detail. The very first Hercule Poirot novel, for example, turns entirely on a point about a document that may, or may not, exist. The reader is able to deduce whether or not it exists and, as a consequence, what happened, next, by paying attention to details, chief among which is the discovery of the crime scene. Christie even goes so far as to draw a map of the house in which the scene takes place, so her readers can follow along and make their own deductions.

CSI follows a completely different path. Television is a visual medium; the viewer isn't supposed to supply intelligent input. Certainly the viewer isn't supposed to work out whodunit. The whole point of a crime story as presented in this light is to entertain, for an hour or so, and then present a result that the viewer finds satisfactory. Or at least that the network finds satisfactory, which is why so many follow the CSI path and so few the Wire. But that's a story for another day.

If you will write, then you must read. Write what you know is the popular credo, but as so few people know the intricacies of murder it follows that, if you are to write crime, you need to read a hell of a lot. All manner of odd, forgotten authors become grist to your mill, which is why I have a copy of Burt Rapp's Homicide Investigation: A Practical Handbook.  I'm not about to pretend that Rapp is an unsung genius. Apart from anything else, he's as dated as hell; that book was written back in the 1980s, when DNA analysis - never mind the computerized databases that are meat and drink to CSI - was very much in its infancy. Which, incidentally, makes books like Rapp's invaluable to anyone writing a story set before DNA and the current television cop; ie. anything set before 1989. Many of us can only imagine what that world was like; Rapp knew. But that's by the way. 

There's a section on canvassing for information that I want to cover here, and Rapp's text is as follows:

Canvassing isn't a casual task to assign to anyone who happens to be available. Canvassing requires dedication, intelligence, motivation, and skill in dealing with people. The officers assigned to canvassing should have a clear idea of the information they should try to elicit. Basic information is as follows:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Work address and telephone
• was person present during the crime?
• did the person see or hear anything?
• does the person know either the victim or the suspect?
• names of any others at this address
• names of any visitors during the period of the crime
• convenient time for another interview, if necessary
• witness' travel plans, for the foreseeable future 

I've been acting as Keeper in I don't care to guess for how many investigative games, for however long, and I can't recall any player asking any of those questions. Nor, for that matter, can I recall many of them taking notes.

It all seems so simple, when laid out as Rapp has it, in order. If you want to know what happened, then you ask who was there, you ask what they saw or heard, and you ask if there was anyone else on site who might have heard or seen anything. Hardly the stuff of revelation.

Or consider something from a different source:

Similarly, an Edinburgh surgeon in 1880 diagnosed a patient as a recently discharged sergeant from a regiment posted to Barbados; the man was respectful but forgetfully kept his hat on, as in the Army, he was Scottish with an air of authority, and he had elephantiasis, which you get in Barbados but not in the Highlands. Elementary, my dear Joseph Bell (1837-1911).  [The Alarming History of Medicine, Richard Gordon]

Investigation is, above all, the art of paying attention. In RPG terms, it starts in the very first scene, and does not stop until the scenario is over. Players should never take the information as presented entirely for granted; there is always something there to discover. Equally they should never neglect the basics. Who was there? What did they see, or hear? What is present at the scene, and what might account for it being there? Tunnel vision never does anyone any good, and to wed yourself to a theory of the crime without sufficient evidence is to invite disaster. It isn't all about progressing from scene to scene; sometimes it's about making sure you're on the right path, before making that deductive leap that transplants a Scot to the isle of the Bearded Ones. Just one or two questions can prevent a great deal of useless, even counter-productive effort.

But perhaps most importantly, have a clear idea of the information you're trying to get. In many ways, it's like an exam; understand the question, and then attempt to answer it. That way you have a better chance of getting the right answer down on paper ... or at least, having the satisfaction of knowing that you understood, just before the horrific minions of Cthulhu come knocking on your door.

Murder Most Foul

Bookhounds of London offers three different kind of campaign settings: Arabesque, Technicolor and Sordid. This time out I’m going to go Sordid, and discuss the crime of murder.

Murder was an obsession of the Thirties. People read about them all the time – Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers made their careers out of murder – but apart from the fictional variety there were plenty of real killings to occupy headlines. Men like Doctor Crippen, who killed for money and finally fled, bloody-handed, with his lover Ethel le Neve, only to be caught on the SS Montrose while fleeing to Quebec. Or Doctor Buck Ruxton, who bludgeoned his wife and her maid, cut up the bodies, and then lied and said she’d left him. Then there’s Alfred Rouse, the blazing car killer who picked up a hitchhiker and set him on fire in an attempt to disguise Rouse’s own disappearance. Or Nurse Hopton of Gloucester, the poisoner, and any number of trunks with torsos – and other parts – shipped off to railway stations, the better to delay identification.

And when the murderer was safely arrested, there were other murderous celebrities to occupy people’s attention. Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous British pathologist who worked on so many bodies, was always news. Detective Chief Superintendent Edward Greeno was making a name for himself collaring some of the most notorious criminals of the age, as was Fabian of the Yard, aka Superintendent Robert Fabian whose memoirs became fodder for a BBC series in the 1950s.

We sometimes forget this, but the reason why writers like Sayers and Christie could make a living from writing crime novels was that their contemporaries were utterly obsessed with crime. It was what they saw every day in the news, which brought them stories of people – it might be your next-door neighbor – who’d sliced up their spouses, or been sliced up themselves. The criminals and those who caught them, all celebrities, clamored for attention every day. Then of course there were the trials, with their attendant photographers, reports, juicy transcripts full of gossip-fodder, and so on and on.

A truly Sordid campaign has to include murder. The Sordid London is the London of prostitution, drugs, poverty, desperation, extortion, and cruelty, as the rulebook puts it, and you can’t conceive of that kind of London without there being murders every day. Not the kind of killings that wind up in the comfortable stately homes of old England either; no, these are the brides in the acid bath, the abortionists with bodies in the basement, the elderly beaten to death for their jewellery and whatever cash can be looted from their bank accounts. These are the stories that will be on the front page of every newspaper, with the photo supplements that helpfully point out exactly where the body was found.

But how to introduce these murderers to the campaign? Well, there are at least two options. First, as background noise. If the Keeper is going to present a living world for the players to inhabit, that means there’s going to be a lot of things going on around them which they’re aware of, but do not necessarily directly affect the game. Income tax will be going up, up, up, for a start, and there will be rumblings of trouble in Europe. Yet another Council for Peace will try to persuade everyone to disarm or to compromise on war reparations, and be rudely told where to stick the notion. There will be roadworks and gas explosions, advertising campaigns and sermons. No doubt the Duke of Windsor is in the news again, as he and Wallis Simpson hob-nob with Hitler. All of these things will be going on all the time, and if the Keeper uses this as background then the players ought to be reminded of it all the time. Extra, extra, read all about it, the newsboys call, or perhaps the BBC drones on in their offices during the off hours.  It can be something to mention at the beginning of a scene, or as part of an important moment.

Say for instance that the character is due to find something in the newspaper. Well in that event it isn’t just a newspaper, it can be something like: ‘buried on page 12, underneath a photo array showing exactly where the Battersea Torso Killer hacked up his victim, you find …’ Or alternatively something like ‘the radio announcer is describing the crowd outside Birmingham Prison, where baby killer Victor Parsons is about to be hung, as the jingle of the doorbell announces the entry of a customer.’   Yes, it’s flavor text; but it’s text of a very deliberate sort, intended to reinforce the style of campaign you intend to play.

The other way is to make the killer a customer. There are any number of chemically or medically inclined murderers of the Twenties and Thirties. Aside from the doctors and nurses there’s people like Rouse, trying to use modern methods to disguise their crimes, and Haigh wasn’t the first acid bath killer by any stretch. People like that are going to have disposable income and a desire to spend it. Some of them, no doubt, will want books. They may not be particularly interested in Mythos tomes, of course, but that does not matter. What does matter is their usefulness as NPCs, either by supplying knowledge or services that the characters do not themselves possess, or by providing a non-Mythos hook to a horror-themed scenario.

Consider:

Ethel Pratt

Abilities:             Athletics 4, Biology 1, Bargain 4, Credit Rating 1-4 (varies), Chemistry 3, Flattery 3, Filch 6, Health 8, Law 1, Medicine 1, Oral History 3, Preparedness 6, Reassurance 4, Scuffling 9, Weapons 4

Damage:              -2 (fist, kick), -1 (knife)

Special:                dose of arsenic always handy by (nausea, vomiting, convulsions, coma, death); Health Difficulty 7 or suffer +1 damage for 4 rounds. There would be no treatment in the Thirties for severe arsenic poisoning.

Occupation:       Lady’s Maid

Three Things:    Perpetually shocked at the wickedness of the world; addicted to thrillers and crime novels of all kinds including true crime accounts; odd chemical odor seems to follow her wherever she goes.

Notes:  Ethel is the guiding mind in the Pratt partnership; Mister Pratt, a habitual drunkard, is either in her good graces and therefore allowed to come near her, or driven off with curses and blows if not. Mister Pratt was once a butler in a great household, but his addiction put paid to that and all other forms of permanent employment. Ethel moves from employer to employer every six months to a year, and usually has excellent references. Some of her employers – old Miss Willets, crumbling Miss Jefferson, aged and deaf Mrs Fowlkes-Willoughby – went missing soon after Ethel went into service with them, but in each case the old ladies were without family or friends and their disappearance went unremarked. As far as the neighbors are concerned they went abroad for the good of their health, on doctor's orders, and their loyal, helpful maid kindly stayed behind to lock the houses up. They've stayed locked up ever since. Were the police to check Mister Pratt’s tumbledown East End dwelling, particularly the acid-flecked drains in the yard, they would find something greatly to their interest. Ethel’s fortunes seem to flourish and die remarkably quickly; for a brief time she is flush, and goes to all the best places, but soon afterwards is stony and looking for another job. Ethel picked up some of her knowledge from her experiences as a nurse during the War, and the rest from books. She’s always keen to add to her body of knowledge, and never fails to pick up the latest crime novel.

The Ring

One of the difficulties with a setting as unique as Trail of Cthulhu is that some of the terms are going to be so unfamiliar as to deserve an in-depth explanation. Yet there's only so much space in the book, and some things are bound to be truncated to make room for other, more important elements. One such is the Ring, described as a cabal of book-buyers whose cooperation allows them to pull off the Knock; to cheat by agreeing to gang up on the competition, knocking them out early so that members of the Ring can then pick up the good stuff at bargain prices.

There's a story in Dorothy Sayers' collection of short stories, Lord Peter Views the Body, that features the Ring in all its glory. The tale is The Stolen Stomach and its hero, amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, is helping a friend in Scotland. However there happens to be an auction in London that Lord Peter is particularly anxious to attend, so rather than immediately dash off to the Highlands he sends a telegram and then goes off to the auction, with the result that he's not on-hand to deal with the problem in Scotland at a critical moment. Sayers describes the auction in some detail, which I will quote here:

[Lord Peter] had great fun at the sale the next day. He found a ring of dealers in possession, happily engaged in conducting a knock-out. Having lain low for an hour in a retired position behind a large piece of statuary, he emerged, just as the hammer was falling upon the Catullus for a price representing the tenth part of its value, with an overbid so large, prompt and sonorous that the ring gasped with a sense of outrage. Skrymes - a dealer who had sworn eternal enmity to Wimsey, on account of a previous little encounter over a Justinian - pulled himself together and offered a fifty-pound advance. Wimsey promptly doubled his bid. Skrymes overbid him fifty again. Wimsey instantly jumped another hundred, in the tones of a man prepared to go on till Doomsday. Skrymes scowled and was silent. Someone raised it fifty more; Wimsey made it guineas and the hammer fell. Encouraged by his success, Wimsey, feeling that his hand was in, romped happily into the bidding for the next lot, a Hypernotomachia which he already possessed, and for which he felt no desire whatever. Skrymes, annoyed by his defeat, set his teeth, determining that, if Wimsey was in the bidding mood, he should pay through the nose for his rashness. Wimsey, entering into the spirit of the thing, skied the bidding with enthusiasm. The dealers, knowing his reputation as a collector, and fancying that there must be some special excellence about the book which they had failed to observe, joined in whole-heartedly, and the fun became fast and furious. Eventually they all dropped out again, leaving Skrymes and Wimsey in together. At which point Wimsey, observing a note of hesitation in the dealer's voice, neatly extricated himself and left Mr Skrymes with the baby. After this disaster, the ring became sulky and demoralized and refused to bid at all, and a timid little outsider, suddenly flinging himself into the arena, became the owner of a fine fourteenth-century missal at bargain price. Crimson with exitement and surprise, he paid for his purchase and ran out of the room like a rabbit, hugging his missal as though he expected to have it snatched from him. Wimsey thereupon set himself seriously to acquire a few fine early printed books, and, having accomplished this, retired, covered with laurels and hatred.

Clearly Sayers knew a great deal about auctions, which given her academic interests is not surprising, but there are several elements here which will be useful to Bookhounds.

First, it makes clear that the Auction ability has little - if anything - to do with money. This is a mental trap that even my own players sometimes fall into, thinking that the person with the most money always wins. The above extract makes it clear that a bidding war is more about intimidation, psychology and deceit than it is about cash. You know how to handle yourself in an auction is the very first line of the ability description, and at no point does it even mention cash.

Second, it's a reminder that other abilities will come in handy in an auction setting. Clearly Lord Peter doesn't depend on his Auction score; either Stealth, Disguise or Conceal could cover the incident with the large piece of statuary, a fair amount of Intimidation was going on, and Sense Trouble could account for the a note of hesitation in the dealer's voice which tells Lord Peter that the time has come to jump ship. 

Third, it's a pretty clear indication that the Ring isn't just a shadowy cabal, but made up of people with their own goals and desires. If Skrymes had kept his head he and his partners might have carried off the knock even with Lord Peter's interference, but because he didn't the whole thing fell flat. Once Skrymes had been dealt with the Ring lost all hope, and Lord Peter was able to do as he pleased; even the little rabbit got away with his missal. 

To begin at the beginning: a Ring is an informal term for a collection of people acting together to fix the bidding. In its simplest form, members of the Ring viciously go after anyone not in the group while refusing to compete against Ring members. This keeps outsiders intimidated, and allows the Ring to pick up what it pleases at bargain rates. Members of the Ring are usually dealers who want to sell on their purchases for a profit, so the cheaper they can get their merchandise the better they like it.

However that isn't the only thing a Ring can do. Where the owner of the item being auctioned is a member of the Ring, one possible cheat is to bid up the article in question and then drop out once other bidders have joined in. That pumps up the initial price, which in turn means that the item's owner will probably walk away with more than he would otherwise have done. This is particularly likely to happen where the Ring is made up, not of dealers, but of owners; it may also happen that the Ring is made up of people trying to pass off fake goods, upping the bidding to make the item seem worth more than it actually is. Remember the auctioneers in the above description, who fancied that there must be some special excellence about the book which they had failed to observe. People in the auction room simply don't know what an item really is worth, and they can be persuaded - through psychological manipulation - that the stuff they're dealing with is worth much more, or much less, than it actually is. They're guessing, and so they can be bullied or tricked into guessing incorrectly.

It's all about psychology and intimidation, as anyone who's ever watched Storage Wars will know. That A&E show features a regular character, Dave Hester, whose 'YUUUUP' catchphrase is his trademark. Yes, it's about being heard, but it's also about letting the competition know who they're dealing with; not unlike Lord Peter's tones of a man prepared to go on till Doomsday. Money is certainly part of the equation, but in many ways its the least part of it; a flashy roll attracts the eye and makes the competition think twice, but whether it's all bills or bills plus newspaper clippings is impossible to tell at a glance.

In game terms, a Ring is clearly Cooperating, as described on page 58 of the main book. Several people pool their Auction scores together in order to achieve a common goal, which means that for purposes of gameplay the Ring's Auction ability is going to be very high. The Keeper should consider either designing several different cabal members, so that each has an individual Auction pool, or assigning a joint Auction pool for the group. That pool is going to be fairly high, whichever route the Keeper goes; scores of 15+ should be common for a Ring.

That probably puts them in a power position when dealing with an individual player character, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Intimidation can shave a few points off that total, and the players will probably come up with other ways to bluff the Ring into losing even more from their pool. Moreover as Skrymes shows individual Ring members can be split off from the pack - another reason for designing individual Ring members rather than assigning a pool - and defeating one of these on their own could be enough to break the Ring altogether. Remember, these aren't shadowy criminal masterminds; they're just bidders who happen to have formed a temporary alliance, perhaps over tea that morning. They don't have hordes of minions to do their every bidding; at best they may have suborned the auctioneer, or someone else working for the auction house, but dacoit assassins are well beyond their remit.

That said, they might know people who know people. Strong-arm men, forgers, burglars and con artists are just the sort of shady characters members of a Ring might know. In theory someone desperate to get their own back on an interfering player character could call on these resources, if they really wanted to. Again, this doesn't mean hordes of minions to fling into combat; at best it's two blokes willing to rough someone up in a back alley. Still, it's better than nothing, and a likely consequence of offending someone with shady friends.

One final word for the Keeper: remember that bidding in an auction has nothing - or very little - to do with money. It's about power, and who has it, which is why the Ring does very well for itself. They know the importance of power, and are willing to cooperate - temporarily at least - to achieve a common goal. If the player character wants to go up against the Ring he'd better be very sure of himself, otherwise he could be left - like Skrymes - holding the baby.