Stupidity in Spying (Night's Black Agents, Ripped from the Headlines)

I'm off for the next two weeks. Should be the last time this year, thank heaven.

This is going to be a brief one, inspired by the recent case of an alleged Saudi spy caught bugging a Silicon Valley AI firm.

Short version: MIT grad and new dad Abdulrahman Alfozan was caught trying to retrieve/replace a small bugging device he'd placed in a conference room at OpenAI, the firm that created ChatGPT.

There's a picture floating around that's too good not to share, posted by Justice:

That's Alfozan, caught trying to retrieve the device from the TV USB port it had been placed in.

The alleged spy used his wife's Chat GPT account to get the instructions to build the surveillance device. The presumption is he intended to hand over whatever data he collected to the Saudi government, though at time of writing none of this has been proved.

Honestly, if true, it makes you wonder just how stupid the average MIT grad is. 

Let's gamify this.

In Dracula Dossier there are several Edom establishments that might be espionage targets. Ring, Seward's Asylum, potentially Proserpine. That's before you consider that there might be outside British tech firms working with Edom, and any number of university science departments. 

The Saudis are nominal allies of the US, though they may not be feeling so friendly at the moment. Israel is a nominal ally of the UK and has already, thorough Prince, established connections to Edom.  

From this:

In Plain Sight

Edom has cause to believe that someone has planted a bug at one of its establishments (pick the one you like best) and sets up a sting operation to catch the spy. Your agents are either tasked with running this sting (if Edom) or with extracting the alleged spy (if working against Edom).

The spy is an Israeli, Aviel Malka, who was recently brought on board by Prince. The idea was that Malka would conduct research on the potential uses of AI clients in Edom. The unofficial presumption was that Malka, like Prince, had links to Unit 8200, though this was never confirmed. Malka is young, married, and his assignment is due to come to a close within a month. He'd return home once the assignment completed.

The surveillance device is a small electronic bug inserted into a USB port in one of the many, many bits of tech scattered about Edom's establishment. Edom already knows where and what it is. Steps have been taken to disable it, so the spy will return to retrieve it. 

What nobody realizes is that Malka used his wife's AI client to design the device, and he did that because his wife is Renfielded and is secretly running the show for the Conspiracy. It's the Conspiracy using the Malka family for its own ends; the agents, if working against Edom, think that they're operating on behalf of a more-or-less benign third party; the Mysterious Monseigneur, say. 

Potential Thrilling Chase; potential Thrilling Digital Intrusion. 

The bigger question, if the agents are Edom, is did Prince know about this? Is Prince working secretly for Israel? Or is this an attempt to blacken Prince's name by whoever's running Malka?

Potential Thrilling Interrogation.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

 

Campaign Design Night's Black Agents: Burn Stakes

OK, last post for this series.

Let's talk about the opening scenario and what it means to play Burn Stakes.

I'm going to try to avoid scenario spoilers but I can't discuss without spoiling a little bit, so be warned.

One of the Agents has a contact, a fence who deals in rare books and stolen art, named Pierre Athanese; he’s an old scoundrel and a crook, but he knows the stakes. Athanese runs a small bookstore in the French city of Strasbourg, close to the German border, and the game begins as the Agents arrive there.

This scenario assumes the characters are after a particular letter allegedly written by Van Helsing, and that the McGuffin is also the target of at least one other faction. There are a couple of moments within the scenario where sound, and potentially music, are important parts of the narrative. One of the main plot devices is a church bell whose ringing affects the supernatural entity at the heart of the dilemma. All this works very well with the ongoing plot device of the Pentheus and Maenad; not much change needed to make it work with the campaign device.

So far, so good. What about this Burn Stakes stuff?

Well:

BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.

STAKES:  The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. 

The obvious way to make the players keenly aware of Burn style games is to challenge their stability every chance you get. There are plenty of opportunities to do this in combat scenes. Or in scenes with emotional focus, such as those involving a Source of Stability or similarly important person.

Difficulty Numbers for Stability tests also change depending on the character’s attitude toward, or familiarity with, the destabilizing event. Characters who would logically be inured to a given event face a Difficulty of 3, while those especially susceptible face a 5. [main book p 82]

Seeing a fresh corpse, for example, is worth a 1-point potential loss. A grisly murder is potential 3. Seeing a Network contact killed is 5, and so on. All of which could become very relevant in the opening scene, when the characters' contact Pierre Athanese is threatened, and possibly killed, by Conspiracy goons. In my version, I had Athanese's shop on fire within about half an hour of scenario start. Your milage may vary, but as a rule the more physical damage you dish out to third parties like Athanese, the more emotional damage you cause the characters. 

That doesn't mean you want corpses every other page. Repetition blunts impact. You could as easily injure Athanese or let the agents watch Athanese's life's work go up in smoke as the bookstore burns. There are many ways to endure loss; death isn't the only stressor. For that matter, gruesome injuries to the opposition can be helpful too. Gouged out eyes and broken teeth can happen to anyone. Plus, having a human opponent attack is a potential 2 point and killing someone in a fight is a potential 3 point. So many options!

Never forget to layer those stressors. Yes, there's the potential for Stability loss in the opening scene. There's also a good chance to gain Heat. Car chase, involvement in a burglary or assault, all this in a tourist district too ... that Heat will be ticking up. I would advise you keep a list of potential uptick items close at hand so you can impose them as necessary, and have some Police on standby. Are they Conspiracy friendly? Who can say? They're definitely a pain in the ass, which should motivate the players. 

Even if you don't use the Police in the opening scene it should be obvious to everyone in that scene that you *could* have used them if you wanted to. Burn isn't just a mechanic. It's a way of life. You want the players to feel the same way about their Stability that a gambler feels about their dwindling stack of chips.

OK, that's Burn. What's Stakes?

It's described as a higher purpose, but honestly, it's a murky pool. Revenge is hardly a higher purpose, but it gets the job done. 

    Three Days of the Condor Trailer

This is the kind of mood you're striving for. Cut off, isolated, begging for help, not knowing which way to turn. Your enemy today may be your friend tomorrow. Because what matters isn't that the Station got hit, or who you're working with right now to get the job done. What matters is Why. Understand the Why, you appreciate the Stakes. Then you can act with purpose. Until then, you're flailing.

In Condor, the Why is information. What did the Station uncover to make it a worthy target for hired killers? In the scenario, the Why is also information, which you as Director can use to great effect. 

In this example, the McGuffin at the heart of the narrative is a letter from the vampire hunter Van Helsing. It can lead to a valuable artefact, Van Helsing's Case, complete with vampire hunting equipment. Acquiring that case is a turning point in the narrative. Until the agents retrieve it, their odds of success against the supernatural opponent are low. Not zero, but not good.

But the McGuffin also hints at other information: dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. It hints at the heart of the supernatural, while at the same time leading to a confrontation with the supernatural opponent.

The Why is with that supernatural opponent, and the information the players collect leads to that Why. The Why is the horror. Unless someone confronts it, many more might die. If the Conspiracy gets its way, thousands more may die. Dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. This is something you, as Director, need to make very clear. 

In Condor, this is made clear in two events. One is the opening moment when the Station gets hit. The other is when the Agency tries to bring Condor in, and it goes horribly wrong. Loss, followed by loss.

This is the essence of Stakes. Not so much that they exist, but that they are difficult to attain, and the cost is usually paid in blood. It's not enough that the agents are tough, experienced professionals. They need to lose and lose again. It's only through that loss they will begin to understand the Stakes. 

 

After all, without that motivator, what point is there in the game?

Twilight Zone

That's it for this week. Next week: something different!

Campaign Design Night's Black Agents - Stone Age Soundtracks

 

Stone Age Soundtracks (Channel 4, original concept Paul Deveraux)

The quality's not the best but I recommend watching the whole thing. I have mentioned this documentary before; it stuck with me.

Brief and inadequate summary: our ancestors discovered the power of ritual sound by accident, in ancient caves which they transformed into temples. They attempted to replicate the effect, with some success, in artificial environments - long barrows and similar megalithic sites. 

That's the core concept for the Node I contemplate coming up again and again in this campaign: the Ritual Site.

Before I said: 

This, ultimately, is location-based. In the earliest days it would have had sacred fanes high up on the mountain top, some grove or cave or other hidden place where the rituals are conducted. There the Omadios, eater of raw (human) flesh, awaits its portion, and in exchange grants a kind of extended life. Brings the dead back from the lands of Hades. At least, so goes some of the tales.

Omadios is a variant name for Dionysus, as in Dionysus the Raw-Eater. Sacrifices of flesh, usually thought to be human flesh. There's an old tale of Zagreus, son of Zeus, in which the child was butchered by Zeus' enemies and his flesh torn apart, devoured, some of it cooked. When Hermes discovered what had happened he informed Zeus, who destroyed the child's killers with divine thunderbolts. Zagreus' heart was the only thing that survived, and was later used to create Dionysus. 

From that myth our vampires are born, the Pentheus and the Maenad variants. They hear a sound, a song, that echoes through the ages. Some claim this sound is the echo of the Titans, the hideous creatures that tore apart infant Zagreus. That, if they can somehow make sense of it, the Titans will come again. Of course, this is coming from a group of creatures whose mental stability can best be described as Shaky, so take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it is what some of them work towards, even if in an indirect way. They are constantly looking for old ritual sites, so they can examine the design and use it in their own projects. 

This has been going on for a very long time. It's likely that some of those old, abandoned castles mentioned in the Dracula Dossier were ritual sites with their own sound chambers, once upon a time. That locations like Carfax or HMS Prosperine might have sound chambers, or that someone's been working on an old orphanage run by Heal the Children to turn its concrete corridors into a ritual location. Opportunities abound.   

Mechanically, something similar already exists within the Dracula Dossier setting: the Red Room.

The Red Room was a place of power for Dracula in London. Magically (or tellurically) designed to focus and amplify vampiric energies and wavelengths, he used it (or planned to use it) in 1894 to cement his hold over the high-society degenerates he recruited to his faction. Since then, Edom might have taken it over for their own purposes, or Dracula may have created another, or both. [p187 DD]

In that text the Room is a singular area in a specific place, with a variable power set. I'm proposing multiple Rooms in many areas, with one known power set (create vampires, under specific ritual conditions) and any number of unknown power sets. Not all of the Rooms work. Many or most probably don't work, or, if they do, they work in unexpected ways. Not even the vampires understand them, though there are some within the Conspiracy who claim they do. 

The perennial McGuffin in this situation is something I'm going to call the Instruction Manual. It might be a crumbling set of texts held in some forgotten monastery, translations of some Greek histories that go all the way back to Herodotus. It might be a transcript from the researches of the magician John Dee or some similar occult experimenter. It might be research notes from a Silicon Valley tech bro relying on the previous researches of a former Nazi, but whatever it is, it represents the most likely means of finding out how the Ritual is supposed to work. 

Everyone wants it. Factions within the Conspiracy - all of them a Pentheus variant - want it because they think it will help them create more Pentheus. The Maenad want it because they think it will create more Maenad. Other occult factions want it because they believe it will help them do X, whatever X may be. Immortality is a popular choice, but you do you. 

Meanwhile the various factions continue with their occult traditions, experiments, what-have-you, relying on the broken version of the Ritual that they think they understand, in hopes of getting what they want. This broken version sometimes does what it's supposed to but there are nearly always side effects, and most of the time it doesn't work at all. This may be because the Ritual site is contaminated or broken in some way, or it may be for some other reason. 

Note that in this version the Conspiracy has factions within factions working against each other. Broadly speaking, this is true of any organization. Regardless of the united front it presents to the world anything, whether it is a business, political party or other collective organization, has factions within it that want to promote X, whatever X is. Point being that, in this fictionalized example, those factions are hyperviolent blood drinkers who may or may not be insane.

The important thing to bear in mind, from a Director's perspective, is that this Conspiracy has one defined Goal: understand, and replicate, the Ritual which creates Vampires. Regardless of who's doing it, this is what they are doing. That gives this Conspiracy an end goal, whether they're in Turkey examining Neolithic sites, in Ireland digging up a megalith long barrow, or in some secret underground bunker in, say, Texas, surrounded by technology of dubious origin.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!    

 

Campaign Design: Night's Black Agents - Which Way?

OK! First post in February comes with some tooting of the horn. I'm writing material for Pelgrane's Page XX which will appear at some nebulous point in the future. To give you an idea of what I'm working on:

New Fun

A Trail of Cthulhu scenario in which the investigators are tasked with finding a new comic talent for the funny papers.

The Giffard Auction

A Trail of Cthulhu scenario set provisionally in Lovecraft Country, in which the investigators are hired as protection for an auction bid.

Blood Cocaine

I’ll grind your bones to make my bread. [folktale, Jack & the Beanstalk]

A Night’s Black Agents Node which distributes Blood Cocaine and is linked to several smaller criminal syndicates which may or may not be part of the Conspiracy proper.

That's enough of that. 

Now, back in the Before Times I asked whether there was a campaign setting you'd like me to sketch out. There were several votes for different things, and more than a few asked for Night's Black Agents. Fine. That's February's project. 

It does lead to a question, though. Which flavor is your favorite?

As with most of the Gumshoe settings, NBA comes in several possible types and has the additional challenge of several possible adversaries. As a reminder:

BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.

DUST: Recreate the gritty, lo-fi espionage world of Anthony Price or Charles McCarry, similar to the TV series The Sandbaggers or Rubicon, or films like Three Days of the Condor, by “de-powering” the game.  The vampires and their agents will be far more challenging and powerful in open combat.

MIRROR: In mirror mode games, your contacts and even your team are unreliable; your partners can help you with Trust or destroy you with Betrayal. Unlike the other modes, mirror mode games encourage player vs. player story lines or active conflict.

STAKES:  The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. 

Meanwhile those pesky Vampires can be:

SUPERNATURAL: Their markers are strange superstitions, often surrounding childbirth and burial customs; their emphasis is hunger. 

DAMNED: Their markers are holy symbols and symbolism; their emphasis is seduction.

ALIEN: Their markers are various uncanny effects; their emphasis is invasion.

MUTANT: Their markers are medical symptoms; their emphasis is infection.

So! My question to the madding crowd: which, from this smorgasbord, would you like to see? Pick a setting type and an OPFOR type, and I shall go from there. 

To add to the mix, whichever campaign I sketch out will begin with this scenario from the Free RPG day collection: 

The Van Helsing Letter.   The player characters are about to obtain a letter from Van Helsing to the director of the hospital where his son died, a letter that hints at a (second) failed attempt by British intelligence to recruit Dracula as an intelligence asset. The clues in that century-old letter will lead the Agents to cross paths with modern-day minions of Dracula.

The weather's about to get very cold down here. Storms inspired by whatever-it-is happening in the States right now have impacted the island. If you'll excuse me, it's time to prepare for harsh weather and potential power outages. 

Hush Hush House 2 - the NPCs (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

This week's post is inspired by this article over at the Guardian. It's a photographic spread featuring actors/military portraying OPFOR in military exercises.  

Once upon a time I wrote about Hush-Hush Houses and described two possible locations, Glen Eagles and Brinkley/Piccadilly.

Glen Eagles is the code name for Pitfour House, a hunting lodge in the Grampians. Built in the Scottish Baronial style, this property was requisitioned by the SOE early in the 1939-45 war and has remained in Government hands ever since. The property is remote and inaccessible; the best way in is by air, via helicopter. In its day it was a training ground first for Polish commandos and bag and burn experts, until Edom acquired it in 1940. There's plenty of evidence of the former occupants, from graffiti on the walls to the marks of hobnail boots on the floors, as well as the old explosive ordinance testing grounds. 

Brinkley is a 1970s urban brutalist build on the outskirts of Manchester. It's always been government owned but has housed a variety of government offices and schemes; currently its main tenant is MoneyForce, an organization whose purpose is to help armed forces members with money management. Anyone with Architectural or Military Science knowledge will wonder about those preternaturally thick walls and peculiar sightlines; its almost as if an iceberg settled in a suburban district, its deepest secrets hidden deep below the earth.

The original article assumed both locations were Cool or Warm, as per the Dossier's usual formula. The Guardian photoshoot kinda pushes things towards Warm; it's difficult to imagine someone trying to pull off a complicated test case like this without a pre-established testing location.

However, it could be interesting to imagine a Cool site becoming Warm. 

Suppose that there was an Incident. It doesn't really matter what, except that Incidents usually come with body counts and embarrassing headlines. Fine, say the Princes; lessons learned. We need more field testing before anything like that happens again. Don't we have some old field test sites on the books? Let's reactivate those, shall we?

It could even be a good starter scenario for beginning Agents. In this campaign frame the Incident, whatever it was, has already happened. In fact, the players' Agents may have been on the periphery of the Incident. Not directly involved; they'd be dead. But they saw the bodies first-hand. They helped clean up the mess.

Now, their first task: reactivate Glen Eagles and repopulate it with actual NPCs, so Edom's finest can start live testing again. [I could do both Glen Eagles and Brinkley, but I think Glen Eagles has more potential as a large-scale live fire testing zone.]

A reminder:

Cool: While still on Edom's books officially, nobody's paid attention to Glen Eagles since the 1970s. This quietly crumbling edifice is home to bats, birds and rats now, keeping lonely watch over a forgotten part of Edom's history. Potential clues to the 1940 mission or a series of 1970s interrogations can be found here, but any important files have long since been transferred elsewhere. The fake French street built adjacent to Glen Eagles, with its wonky wire-operated targets, are all that's left of the Kill House. Some old remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940 are rotting away here, possibly even a live round or two for those who like playing with out-of-date potentially lethal explosives. Poachers sometimes come here but are put off by the poor quality of the game; it's almost as if something's blighted the land.

I like starting with action, so in this case I'd start in the immediate aftermath of the Incident. The Agents are carting out bodies or attending forensic examination of the recently deceased. They get to see first hand what happens when things go tits up. 

Then we move to the hook.

Once upon I time I opined 

[a good hook] poses a problem that the players have to solve. 

In this instance the problem is how to set up a testing base, preferably a live fire base, at short notice and in an inaccessible location?

Well, there are several optional scenes involving potential Edom support. They could:

• Go to the Archivist to find out more about Glen Eagles.
• 0 point: get plans of Glen Eagles to help the rebuild effort
• 1 point: find after-action reports, diaries and other records concerning Glen Eagles in its last days of operation.
• Go to Tinman or Fort for supplies to rebuild.
• 0 point: get supplies.
• 1 point: get some kind of personal input into the rebuild, eg. the Prince lends their personal support staff or some other kind of valuable assistance.
• Go to E Squadron to find out more about their operational needs from a Hush-Hush House.
• 0 point: get insights that help efficiently develop Glen Eagles.
• 1 point: an E-Squadron assistant (eg. Veteran Rating) is assigned to the project as an advisor.

However, ultimately the Agents will be getting into a chopper and flying out to the depths of the Grampians to see Glen Eagles for themselves. 

As we already know there are several potential plot points to be discovered, among them:

• Potential clues to the 1940 mission
• Potential clues to the 1970s interrogations
• Remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940

As Keeper you could add something else, like a Sealed Coffin, but ultimately you should pick one and stick with it, not sprinkle in all three or four. Given kittens three possible toys to play with and they will try to play with all three at once. Give them one. Then, if they don't like that one, you can always add another. 

Whatever that one thing is, it should probably tie directly to that 1 point spend they made earlier. If, say, the Archivist's 1-point (the after-action reports and diaries) leads directly to the potential plot point at Glen Eagles, that only reinforces the value of point spends and you want the players to be spending points all the time. The more reward you offer for point spends, the more likely it is there will be future plot spends.

Then there will be something along the lines of a training montage, in which the Agents rebuild Glen Eagles. In game, this is best represented by Thrilling dialogue (provided by the Agents, natch) and some point spends. These point spends build up Glen Eagles, effectively providing a Preparedness pool for the firing range. Exactly what that looks like in play is up to you and your table. Do they hire roleplayers to fill roles within the defence team, as the Guardian article suggests? Do they go more high-tech with screens and electronic gunplay? Do they go old-school with wires and moving targets?

Eventually the montage concludes. By this stage we're at the Midpoint. The questions posed by the Hook have been asked and answered. What questions are being asked at the Midpoint? Probably something along the lines of 'is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose.' Also, 'where does this plot point lead?' 

That second question I'll leave floating, as it can only be answered by Rome, and it's not part of this exercise to tell you where Rome is. Only that there has to be a Rome. There has to be a final destination of some kind. 

If, say, your final destination is Betrayal (eg. one of the Princes is a rogue agent and the reasons for their betrayal are linked, somehow, to the 1970s mole hunt) then you can start to lay the groundwork now by having that Prince subtly undermine the agents' efforts to rebuild Glen Eagles. Your final destination will vary. But whatever that final destination is, this is where you start to drop hints.

However, that first question (is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose) can only be answered by a field test.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Thrilling [fill in the blank, probably Sneak, Hunt, Hit or Destroy]. The veterans of E-Squadron are the ones on the attack, the Agents, working through the new toys at Glen Eagles, are the ones on defence. If the Agents hold up E-Squadron long enough, or if they prevent E-Squadron from achieving their objective, then the Agents win. If E-Squadron busts through with ease, then the Agents have failed. 

Failure or success in this instance does not mean It's All Over or We Are The Champions. It means bureaucratic failure or success, which can be just as lethal. After all, in future scenarios the Agents are going to rely on support from their bosses and the higher-ups to get the job done. That's going to be difficult if the very first thing they did was embarrass themselves in a live-fire demo at Edom's hush-hush house. 

However, conflict does lead to plot ...

That's it for this week! Enjoy. 

Boots - Night's Black Agents

Putin noted that Russian societal unity is critical for Russian victory in Ukraine.[2] Putin alluded to the Russian Revolution, noted that Russian society collapsed during the First World War, and urged Russians to maintain support and unity as the war continues. Putin stated that Russia "will not give up" its "own" territory in future peace negotiations — likely referring to illegally annexed territory in occupied Ukraine.[3] The Kremlin launched the Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund in April 2023 to oversee social support for veterans, elevate veterans within Russian society, and monopolize control over veterans activities in Russia. 

Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day 

Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before -- 

(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!) 

There's no discharge in the war! 

Kipling, Boots.

There’s an interesting narrative percolating about Russia and Ukraine, which goes like this: Putin’s at a point where he cannot afford peace because, if there’s a ceasefire, the troops come home. With all their military skills, their anger, and their stories about life on the front.  

This is a narrative that pokes its head up every time there’s a significant military action, no matter who’s at war or what they fought for. The soldiers come home. They can’t handle peace. They don’t like the government. They know how to take direct action; direct action is all they’re fit for. 

After the Great War British misfits came home to farm chickens, because they couldn’t stand being cooped up in an office building, liked to work outdoors, and were attracted to rural life. You see this plotline pop up in Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie.  

Christie uses the war and its disruption as a background for her soft-edged detectives Tommy and Tuppence, both of whom served in the war. Sayers uses the war as a background for her detective Lord Peter, but she also uses it to good effect in her detective story The Bellona Club, where the action is set in a member's club for military men, should you wish to steal it for Bookhounds or Trail. 

Meanwhile in modern drama, Peaky Blinders makes much of Tommy Shelby’s time at the front, how it made him the criminal genius he is today.  

There was a time when the villain of choice for an American thriller was an ex-Vietnam vet looking for a little action. Whether it’s something like First Blood or Taxi Driver, where the psychological damage comes out in misanthropic physical action, or something more direct like Dead Presidents, if you went to Vietnam you were one bad day away from being Public Enemy Number One.

Dead Presidents trailer

Really, the only difference in that evolving narrative is the war, and the strength of society to deal with the consequences of that war. It probably hasn’t taken you ten seconds to think of a movie drama with broadly the same text as Dead Presidents, only this time it’s about the Iraq War.    

Even the so-called ‘good’ wars, like World War Two with its Greatest Generation, has its examples. After all it’s that same Greatest Generation that gave us Hell’s Angels, and with it any number of biker rebel narratives.  

The Wild One

Ultimately it comes down to the strength of civil society. A weak civil society can't handle returning soldiers. A strong one can. There will be unrest, some disorder, a few thrilling moments and a shaky narrative, but the society will survive. Changed, probably. Change will come whether asked for or not. There's an argument for saying that returning soldiers accelerate the process, but it is an acceleration not a causation.

Russia has particular concerns. 

The original Revolution was kicked off by troubles on the Western Front. Russia wasn't the only nation that struggled; France and England both worried that slaughter on the battlefield would cause revolution at home. In Germany the Nazis came to power, in part, on the back of this fear that revolution was in the air. Yet it was Russia that fell to revolution, though there's a case to be made that, had Germany somehow lasted longer than it did, England and France would both have endured protracted revolutionary action.

Meanwhile, in modern times, the collapse of the Soviet regime came after the destruction of the Red Army in the Afghan debacle. The Wall came down, Yeltsin went out the door, and with him went the Soviet Union.

Russia’s modern history can be summed up as ‘troops come home, disaster follows.' Which suggests a strong reason for keeping troops in the field, but the problem with that is, no army can stay in the field forever. At some point, all wars end. 

Sometimes they end with an angry army attacking the leadership. That was what scared Putin half to death when Prigozhin took his Wagner mercenaries home. Sometimes they end with reverses on the battlefield or a protracted stalemate that turns into a peace agreement because nobody can force anybody to a different conclusion. That seems to be what might happen in Ukraine. 

In-game, groups like Edom have their own issues with returning soldiers. Specifically, their Jacks of E-Squadron. 

Here we have a group of heavily armed, well-trained troops up to their eyeballs on peculiar substances who go out, do unspeakable things, and come home again. 

Intact in body, perhaps. Longer lived, perhaps; the Seward serum does strange things to a man. But intact in mind? That's debatable.

You'd want to keep an eye on people like that. 

Psych Eval

Social Worker Neela Chaudri (Edom Field Manual) has been tasked with carrying out wellness checks on former E-Squadron personnel, of which there are perhaps a dozen, all-told. Rotated out, retired, living the civilian life. 

Some of them date back to the Second World War and aren't in the best of health. Most are 1970s-80s recruits, one is a 1990s man with artificial legs. All of them are psychologically scarred by their time in the trenches. 

Edom picked Chaudri for this job because she's already got the clearances, thanks to her work with Chain Home Deep. She just doesn't know it. Edom didn't care whether or not this overloaded Chaudri or caused her any problems. From Edom's perspective, the fewer people with their eyes on Edom's business, the better, and Chaudri is already a known face.

The problem with this darn fine scheme is, just as with Chain Home Deep, nobody at Edom is paying close attention to Chaudri's reports. After all, why should they? The point was to get a report, not to read the damn thing. Let alone take action based on that report.

Pity. Because, if someone did read them, they might notice disturbing similarities between the experiences endured by some of Chain Home Deep's crew and the veterans of E-Squadron. Particularly in the dreams they experience ...

Option One: A 70's Kid: The trooper, David Allenby, served during the time of the Mole Hunt and was there at the death, when the mole was run to ground. Allenby suffered a traumatic encounter with several SBAs in the final months of the Hunt and this left him with scars both mental and physical. However, it also left him a peculiar gift: he can spot Renfields. It takes him maybe 30 seconds, and his success rate is 100%. The thing is, he's convinced there's a Renfield near him now. At all times. Who can it be?

Option Two: A 40's Veteran:  This might be Van Sloan. It's certainly someone of similar vintage, who was there during Edom's assault on Schloss Karnstein. He remembers everything. He goes back there at night, in his dreams. Something is calling him there. Something in his dreams wants to get out. This could be an entry vector to the Carmilla Sanction in the Edom Files, or a postscript dream-sequence to that operation in which one of the entities killed during the assault on the Schloss wants to come back to life and is using the Veteran's mind and body to do it.

Option Three: The 1980's: The trooper, Simon Yellern, went through any number of peculiar operations back in the day but the one that sticks in his mind is the incident in Afghanistan during the Soviet's Operation Curtain. While attempting to extract Yellern and his team were caught up in a Soviet special forces raid against the mujahideen they were working with, and those forces were very special indeed. Yellern was the only survivor from his unit. Thing is, he swears he saw one of those Soviet troopers in England. Chaudri has it down as a nightmare due to carelessness with medication, but Yellern's convinced the man he saw was real - and died during that 1980s raid. Yellern should know. Yellern killed him.

That's it for this week!

 

The Floater (NBA, Dracula Dossier)

Floater: Person used for a one-time or occasional intelligence operation. Generally a floater is a low-level person, sometimes used unwittingly. A floater might be a waiter sent to a hotel room with a bottle of champagne allegedly from the management - in order to see who is in the hotel room.

Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Polmar & Allen, Random House 1998.

Retired KGB Agent Dmitri Lobanov. Lobanov was one of the KGB’s field hands during the late 1970s and ’80s, until he was burned by a former colleague and arrested in England — for assault and grievous bodily harm, not espionage. Ten years in Long Lartin prison followed; MI5 discovered Lobanov was a spy and debriefed him while he was incarcerated. These days, he’s a plumber doing odd jobs around North London. Dracula Dossier p97

Archives/Library Establishing Shot: Endless rows of metal racks hold dusty case files (or civil archives, or Securitate surveillance reports, or dissertations on medieval Romania). Strata of labels, each one stuck over its predecessor, trace the development of the filing system, from handwritten notes to typewritten ones to bar codes. Dracula Dossier p254

A North London archive of importance to Edom, the Conspiracy or a significant third party is penetrated by a Floater - the retired KGB agent. The agents are alerted to this after the fact through security camera footage, or perhaps they were conducting surveillance of the archive only to find Lobanov already on-site. Lobanov's a face, a known quantity. That he was even seen near the archive is a problem for the higher-ups. The higher-ups hate problems. 

The question that needs answering: is Lobanov a Floater, and if so to whom does he report? Or is something else going on?

After all, there are any number of legitimate reasons why a plumber might be on-site. It might just be bad luck for Lobanov that he was called out to this particular location. Or someone may have paid Lobanov to go to the archive to see what happens next. If the agents overreact, this might tip off whoever Lobanov's employers are that there's something interesting in the archive. 

They can't afford to be too gung-ho, nor can they ignore the situation altogether. This calls for delicate handling.

Additional complication: Lobanov isn't alone. He has a youngster with him. The kid might be an apprentice. A quick background check shows that Lobanov recently took his nephew into the family business. Is this the nephew? Or did whoever sent Lobanov think he needed additional support? 

Potential Thrilling Surveillance: the agents covertly pursue Lobanov and his apprentice across North London, to job sites, pubs and finally Lobanov's main gaff in Hammersmith. If Lobanov spots the tail and is innocent, he may assume that the agents are working for some leg-breakers he has reason to know all too well; he has gambling debts. If Lobanov spots the tail and is a Floater, then he reacts badly. It's been years and years since he was in the field, and the last thing he wants is to go back to Long Lartin - or worse.  This could turn the Thrilling Surveillance into a Thrilling Chase.

Potential Thrilling Interrogation: the agents corner Lobanov and try to get him to talk. If innocent, he assumes that the agents are working with Edom and are really here about the mole hunt, despite whatever they may say about archives. He went through all that years ago. He hates going through it again. If a Floater, then Lobanov assumes the worst and goes straight to combat, if he can. He had his suspicions about this job, and now they're confirmed. He doesn't know anything useful, but he doesn't think he can convince his captors he's just a pigeon.

Potential complication: The kid. He's maybe sixteen, but he has a mouth on him like a sewer and he's a little too handy with his fists. Treat as gym rat for stat purposes. 

As an innocent, he's actually the son of an influential Russian oligarch. The oligarch remembers Lobanov from the old KGB days, back when the two of them were in the same line of work. The oligarch is sick of his no-good, layabout son drinking all the time and getting into trouble. He figured a few months working a real job with his old buddy Lobanov would straighten the little turd out. However, just because the oligarch wants his son on a diet of bread and skilly for a while doesn't mean he wants him dead or up on charges. 

As a Floater, the kid's actually a Renfield and while he still has the mouth and the gym rat stats, he's considerably more dangerous. As are the rat swarms he can call on as backup, should the need arise.

Short one this week! Enjoy!

PS - I'm headed to Toronto later this year and am putting together a list of bookshops to visit. Any shop you'd care to add to the list?

The Secret Triumverate (NBA: Dracula Dossier)

Here, the PCs are brought together by a mysterious scholar or spymaster who has a copy of the Dossier. For some reason, the spymaster can’t go into the field himself (he’s too old/too frail/has to avoid cameras because of facial recognition programs – the government’s searching for him/has to maintain his public persona), so he gives the player characters assignments to carry out based on annotations in Dracula Unredacted.

“Go here,” he says, “and find out everything you can about Klopstock and Bayreuth, Bankers”

Dracula Dossier Cuttings and Additions, p41.

Let’s play with this idea and put together a Secret Triumvirate.

ANTONY.: These many then shall die; their names are prick’d.

OCTAVIUS.: Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus?

LEPIDUS.: I do consent,—

OCTAVIUS.: Prick him down, Antony.

LEPIDUS.: Upon condition Publius shall not live,

Who is your sister’s son, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.: He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.

Let us suppose a conspiracy within Edom, assisted by China’s Room 452, represented in this drama by the Chinese Agent (p110 DD).

Antony, a senior agent within Edom, (Hopkins? perhaps) wants promotion. Antony's deep in the counsels of one of the Princes (it doesn't matter which, for the sake of this narrative) and expected advancement as soon as one of the Prince slots became available. Antony's been told that's not going to happen.

Antony turns to the Chinese Agent to help him shake up Edom, in the course of which Edom will lose a Prince or two (so sad) and enable ambitious juniors to get what they deserve. Lepidus, the Archivist, is brought in because Lepidus has the Dossier in his possession. Antony needs that as bait for Octavian; Octavian won't make a move unless there's sufficient reward on the table.

What the Antony of this piece does not know is that China's Octavian has, on his payroll, the Assassin. The intent being to clear the road of both Anthony and Lepidus as soon as the two have outlived their usefulness and provided that all-important Dossier.

Why do this?

Well, it’s fun. Which should always be the first point.

Second, if you’re going to have a Mysterious Scholar or secret spymaster of some kind handing out the missions it’s helpful if you have a defined endpoint in mind. After all, this game is meant to be about the player characters. If you have a Mysterious Scholar pulling the strings with no defined endpoint in mind, then there’s a risk that the narrative becomes about the Scholar and not the agents.

In this case the defined endpoint is the dissolution of the Triumvirate, quite possibly courtesy of an Assassin’s bullet. Because Octavian suffers no fools and has his own agenda.

Third, if there’s more than one figure in the mix then that gives the agents a mystery to unravel. Unravelling mysteries is what this game is all about. In this case the mystery is ‘who’s really pulling the strings here? Octavian, Anthony, Lepidus? Are we doing this for King and Country, or is there another player on the board?’

This works for Edom characters in the obvious way: Antony, the new Edom mole, brings them in to help him chase up Dossier leads. He's doing this because he has to prove provenance to Octavian's satisfaction. If he does this, Octavian helps him shake up Edom thus providing the impetus needed to push Antony to great heights within Edom. 

If non-Edom, then the characters are brought in by Octavian. The Chinese Agent needs a useful bunch of go-betweens to help him bring the Dossier out of storage and into the light. That's not going to happen unless Antony gets what he wants. So the Agents are brought in by China to do Antony's bidding, rushing about the place looking for clues sourced from the Dossier. Once Antony's happy, Lepidus brings the Dossier out of storage at which point Octavian snatches it. Octavian has no reason to care what happens to the Agents after that, leaving them in the traditional Burned status that all good games start in.

Essentially the Triumvirate acts as a Conspyramid in miniature. Its narrative purpose is to give the agents a small conspiracy to deal with, in preparation for the larger conspiracies to come. With the added bonus that this particular conspiracy puts them in direct contact with the all-important Dracula Dossier, which is the big McGuffin of the piece.

Think of this as the first act of the campaign.

When I discussed the first act a long, long time ago, for Bookhounds, I said:

The whole point of the first act, in any campaign, is to establish mood and setting … They don't even have to encounter the Mythos, or anything supernatural, in the opening act, so long as the opening act is true to the overall mood … What you as Keeper ought to be doing is getting the players to concentrate on the things that matter (at least in the short term): the setting and the starting location.

The same thing applies here.

When it comes right down to tacks, Night’s Black Agents is about spy stuff with vampires, and Dracula Dossier is about spy stuff with vampires and added Dracula hot sauce. In Bookhounds, you had the shop to concentrate on in the opening act. In NBA, you have the spy stuff.

You can add the hot sauce later. In Act Two. 

By all means hint at the hot sauce in Act One, have some mithering Renfields or old Conspiracy hotbeds like Whitby or Hillingham show up. But let these serve as hints of what’s to come, once the agents get their feet wet.

The big advantage is a wider canvas. Bookhounds is ultimately a one-city setting, but in NBA you can send the agents literally anywhere. Probably anywhere in Europe, bearing in mind the Dracula Dossier, but still, this week France, next week Romania, week after that, who knows? 

Don't feel limited. Klopstock and Bayreuth, Bankers, is a worldwide enterprise, after all. Maybe this week it’s the Board of Directors meeting in Dubai? Or a clandestine rendezvous with that activist investor in Montana?

The point to concentrate on is the spy stuff. The surveillance, the suborning, the gathering of intelligence, the car chases and showdowns. This does two important things: it keeps the agents on their toes, and it introduces them to the mechanics and tropes of the world they inhabit. Is it Dust? Mirror? Something else? What’s its history, its forward momentum? These are things the players will need to understand in order to portray their characters.

All of which is driven by the Mysterious Scholar who starts off as an unknown quantity and is revealed to be an Edom insider, perhaps mere moments before bullet meets grey matter.

At which point the Triumvirate dissolves, Octavian makes his getaway (or tries to), Lepidus is dead or in the wind, and that precious artifact, the Dossier, is in play.

Add hot sauce. In large quantities. It’s time to start Act Two.

Enjoy!

The Bull (We All Met At An Inn)

It's the perennial bugbear. The cliche to end all RPG cliches. The adventuring party has to meet somewhere. Why not an inn?

What would make it more interesting? 

It's your local. Nameless tavern number 368 in a life full of nameless taverns is not a good start. What if you and your mates have been coming here all your lives? What if you have history with this place?

The Bar, dir Álex de la Iglesia

So how does this work in practice?

Assumptions: Night's Black Agents, starting locale London, small Edom (as per Field Manual p58), Supernatural variant, and whether it's Thriller, Mirror or something else isn't relevant to this discussion. 

I posted the clip for two reasons: first, it's a brilliant film, go see. But second, just look at that bar. All those little details. I don't doubt for a minute I could walk into any one of a dozen different places in Madrid and find a bar exactly the same as that bar. It's the local spot on the corner. It's the place you walk by every day. If you didn't cross the threshold, you'd still know what you'd find if you went in there because it's no different than a dozen others. It's a bar.

And yet ...

The Bull

East End boozer near Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and on the edge of Limehouse, West India Docks, narrowly missed by Nazi bombs during the war and now a hangout for peculiar characters of all kinds.

Owned by: Ex-IRA (silent partner).

Publican of record: Charlie Brown (not the Charlie Brown), someone who everybody knows. The police may or may not realize he's a front for the Ex-IRA. Edom certainly knows.

The Brewer: Bowman Brewery, vans coming and going at odd hours.

Watched by EDOM via Maggie Canter, Church Scavenger (p96 Field Manual).

Four Things:

• The telly’s constantly on the go, showing football at all hours of the day and night. There’s usually half a dozen faces paying it attention. Sometimes the same half a dozen, day in, day out.
• The upper level ballroom used to be a second bar but that’s been closed for donkey’s years, used for storage and the like. The Ex-IRA’s pals sometimes meet up here.
• There’s a back way out not many people know about. It leads into a smelly little alley that runs along the cemetery wall; someone athletic could scale over the wall and get into the cemetery.
• FOURTH THING

The Fourth Thing will depend on what variant you shoot for. In this example I'm shooting for Supernatural: vampires are the result of magical or other supernatural activities on Earth; spirits, ghosts, witchcraft and the like. This can be a broad canvas, but I shall shoot for:

• Some say the old black and white photos framed on the wall have peculiar properties. You think it's all a load of crap, but there's no denying some of those photies are creepy as hell. Why does it always feel like the people in those pictures are looking right at you?

OK, so that's the bare bones. This is the adventure hub. It's where the characters initially gather. I see this as a kind of Kingsman variant, where the characters start off as dumb kids messing about. Of course, they don't know what's hanging around in Tower Hamlets Cemetery which, conveniently for plot, is right next door.

So what will this hub have?

Well, it will have surroundings. There will be neighbors. There's that convenient cemetery, and Limehouse not far off. It will have history. It will have rival groups seeking to extend their influence over it, and those rival groups don't necessarily have anything to do with the Conspiracy.

Finally, it will have Plot Function. There's something about it that is necessary, perhaps vital, for ongoing plot. 

This week let's talk about the neighbors.

I've mentioned the Building before: that area in which you, as GM, expects plot to happen. For plot to happen, the GM needs to populate the Building, either with people or events with which the players can interact. 

That's all the neighbors are. They're part of the Building. These are locations where you, the GM, expect plot to happen. That doesn't mean they're all mandatory, that the characters absolutely have to interact with each and every one of them. What it means is, you, the GM, have options. Plot can happen in any of these places and, if you give yourself enough options, you'll never be flailing around wondering what the hell to do next because there will always be somewhere to go, something to do.

I'm just going to discuss a few options this week but always remember, the more options you give yourself the less likely you'll find yourself down a plotless blind alley.

Cowden Wing Tzun (Martial Arts Academy on Cowden Lane)

Popular among women and a slightly older crowd, this academy is open all day and night. The owner, Stanley Ho, is a friend of the Ex-IRA and occasionally does small jobs for Maggie Canter.

Four Things:

• The building was a funeral parlor in the 1900s-1930s and still has a large yard with what would have been a carriage stable back in the day and is now a tumbledown garage.
• Stanley Ho lives in rooms above the academy but his lifestyle is very Spartan; he seems to think that owning things is bad.
• Gym Rats know it as a prime place for finding students out on the prowl, wandering out of their comfort zone.
• FOURTH THING: Some say the carriage stable is haunted by a black carriage that wanders the streets at the dead of night. If you see it, pray it doesn't stop; it might be stopping to collect you.

Michael Townshend Memorial Statue

Made in 1954 by Avant-garde sculptor Townshend in memorial of an ARP warden who died trying to save children from a burning building. This is an abstract work that, to look at, resembles a pipe cleaner gone wrong. It stands close to one of the entrances of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

Four Things:

• There’s a persistent story that the statue or the immediate area of the statue is haunted by the ghosts of the children who died.
• The Feral Child Vampire (p191 main book) likes to hang out here and can often be found nearby.
• The street immediately in front of the statue is an accident black spot; rare is the month when someone isn’t sprawled bloodily in front of it. Bike accidents are particularly common.
• FOURTH THING: never, ever touch the black bike. If you see it chained up to the Memorial Statue railing, run.

Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park

Also known as Bow Cemetery, Tower Hamlets opened in 1841 and closed for burials in 1966. Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park today encompasses the original historic cemetery, bounded by historic walls, and additional pockets of land including "Scrapyard Meadow" and the Ackroyd Drive Greenlink. The overall site is today celebrated as Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature and Conservation.

Four Things:

• The Feral Child Vampire lives here and hunts here; the police know that assault victims turn up in the cemetery from time to time but haven’t made the connection.
• Victims of the Bethnal Green wartime disaster (173 dead) are buried here and the Feral Child Vampire sometimes uses their graves as a resting place.
• Scrapyard Meadow used to be housing until it was bombed flat and some say the house returns every so often; there’s a ghost hunting society spreading that rumor and investigating the site.
• FOURTH THING: The Man In Uniform is sometimes seen near Scrapyard Meadow. He looks official but a little old-fashioned, and whenever he's seen there's the persistent smell of burning, and scorched flesh.

Let's talk about this a little more. 

It should be obvious that I'm borrowing from reality to make this work. There really is a Tower Hamlets Cemetery, and it does have a Scrapyard Meadow. That much is true. Michael Townshend and the ARP warden story is completely invented. I ran a quick Google to see if there really is a Cowden Lane in that part of London and to my knowledge there isn't, so pop, there you go. The Feral Child Vampire officially hangs around in Kingstead, but ... well, Tower Hamlets is more plot-convenient.

Point being, you don't have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of London to invent a London that suits your purposes. You need to know just enough to invent a Building, and from that Building plot flows.

Think about it for a moment. Never mind what's in the actual London. What might you expect to find in any city, whether London or somewhere else?

• Public telephones. Bust, yes. But most places still have the spots where they've been. They just haven't bothered to remove them. The UK famously had its red box, and of course there is the Tardis box.
• Blind Alleys. Or narrow alleys, or closed-off-by-construction alleys, or any variant inbetween.
• Peculiar public monuments. That's how I got to Townshend but really, every city or town of size has some odd little statue or stone up remembering [insert peculiar historical fact here].
• Places that were used for something else once but have since been converted to new uses or left to rot. London's best example of this is probably Canary Wharf, which used to be shipping and docks and is now money and banks. You can still find bits of the old Canary Wharf, if you look hard enough. 
• Parks. Not just the big or famous ones, but lots of little parks with iron bars and sturdy gates. Perhaps this one is owned by the city. Perhaps it's owned by the neighbors. Perhaps nobody knows who owns it ... or who plays there after dark.
• Markets. London has more markets than you think. New York has markets. Washington DC has markets. Paris, Lille, Brussels, Berlin - markets, markets, markets.  

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure you can think of more. Point being, all these are, or can be, part of the Building. 

It's up to you. It's your Building.

Next week: the History.

The Grey Man of Berlin (Night's Black Agents)

I'm going to draw on some information from the Dracula Dossier, Double Tap (ekimmu, the Babylonian possessing spirit p107-8) and this article about Beckett's Head, Berlin.

What came before: the German Vampire Project, pre-war, experimented with various necromantic techniques to create their supernatural crew and one of the less successful projects was Rattenfänger, which created one successful prototype but was unable to replicate its work. 

Its prototype, the Ekimmu that came to be known as Herr Flint, escaped the lab in the hectic last months of the Nazi regime. It survived the immediate inter-war years by making itself useful as a freelance operative serving the Americans, British and Russians; Herr Flint knew where the bodies were buried, literally and figuratively. It passed itself off as a low-level research assistant who just happened to know where the good stuff was kept, swapping information for security. Twice its cover was penetrated, and twice it faked its own death only to pop up again months or years later as an informant. 

When the Berlin Wall shot up Herr Flint saw an opportunity and, using the contacts it had made in the inter-war years, became an independent information broker between the living and the dead, whether Conspiracy dead or just regular. It wore out several bodies but accumulated a small fortune, as well as a significant amount of favors - currency, in the Cold War.

Recently Herr Flint decided to retire, after a close brush with permanent death thanks to the Mysterious Monseigneur. However, it's under pressure from a Conspiracy node, the Bankhaus Klingemann. Lisle wants Herr Flint to do one last favor for her, and as a substantial portion of Herr Flint's assets are held by the Bankhaus the Ekimmu finds Lisle's blandishments difficult to resist.

However, Herr Flint doesn't want to have anything to do with Lisle's schemes and has hit upon a solution: the Yojimbo option.

Enter the agents.

From the Guardian:

Beckett's Head is unmarked save for an eerily glowing photograph of Samuel Beckett in the window, so you'll need to ring a doorbell to gain access to this Prenzlauer Berg bar. Inside are two elegant, dimly lit rooms (one reserved for smokers) with low tables and chesterfield sofas. The comprehensive drinks list – ensconced between the pages of a Beckett tome – is divided into sections such as fresh and funky, and herbal and floral, and always features seasonal specials. The ice is hand-cut, and staff are happy to tailor-make drinks for the undecided. Absinthe fans may wish to sample the bar's take on the classic Monkey's Gland, made with English marmalade.

From Double Tap:

The ekimmu was a spirit of an unburied (or improperly buried) man that wanders the earth (or the underworld) bringing bad luck, disease, or a supernatural curse to its victims. Most often, the ekimmu possesses or attaches itself to a living victim, but some ekimmu animate corpses ... the ekimmu spends most of its time attached to or possessing a human or corpse, not least because (barring necromancy) it requires a human voice to interact with its Conspiracy colleagues. If it remains in the corpse too long, the skin shrinks over the bones and becomes pale or gray ... 

A Quiet Night Out

Information through the grapevine (tradecraft, streetwise or similar) suggests that important information concerning a Conspiracy operative is going to be traded in Berlin. One half of the deal is the infamous Grey Man of Berlin, but nobody knows who the buyer is. It might be interesting to find out ...

Opening

The agents pick up the Grey Man on the underground or U-Bahn, on his way to the meet. Surveillance is needed to avoid being spotted, and Sense Trouble notices a pair of disguised Bodyguards (p69 main book) following his every move. Herr Flint pretends not to notice these two, but he makes sure that they're never far away. 

The bodyguards look like a pair of students on a night out. Herr Flint looks like a bag of bones wrapped in an expensive suit. People on the U-Bahn avoid sitting near him if they can help it; he seems unwell. He has an expensive-seeming leather suitcase chained to his wrist. Anyone who pays him close attention also notices the gun he has in a concealed holster under his armpit. Agents with Law know that guns are heavily regulated in Germany; he's taking a big risk carrying something like that.

If the agents are spotted, Herr Flint tries to lose them by switching trains repeatedly on the U-Bahn (Difficulty 4 to keep up). It's a busy night and there are plenty of people trying to get home or to go out for a good time; a big crowd scene. If the bodyguards get an opportunity, they try to block the agents' path without seeming to do so deliberately.  

However, Herr Flint wants the agents to keep up with him so, if it looks like his attempt is successful, he'll deliberately sabotage it with an act of seeming carelessness. Clever agents with Sense Trouble may pick up on this deception and wonder why.

Agents who make a Sense Trouble Difficulty 5 notice that they're not the only suspicious characters on the U-Bahn tonight. A duo with special forces training (the agents may recognize them as members of the Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City State) are trailing Herr Flint and have identified the agents as potential threats. If the agents recognize them, it raises a question: what are the Vatican's people doing quite so far from their turf?

Agents who pay close attention to the Vatican's people see them conferring every so often with what can only be surveillance assistance somewhere off-site. So there are more of them out there somewhere.

Arrival at Beckett's Head.

This cosy high-end cocktail bar is the sort of place anyone with High Society might start an entertaining evening, and tonight a group of execs from Bankhaus Klingemann are enjoying the finer things in life. Among the group is Lisle, the queen bee, holding court. They're in the smoking section, which (tonight only) is marked off for a private party.

Agents with Vampirology or Occult may notice that Herr Flint reacts badly to Lisle's bright red dress; the color red is a Dread for his kind.

Herr Flint takes up a spot at one end of the non-smoking section, enjoying a herbal cocktail. His bodyguards, who saunter in after him if they're still in it, are not far away. 

The Vatican group take up observation outside the Beckett's Head. The agents may notice a nondescript van parked not far away; the Mysterious Monseigneur or one of his senior henchmen is paying close attention from that observation post. Meanwhile the two special ops types the agents may have seen from before work their way around to a back entrance; they expect Herr Flint to make his way there and are planning to hit him when he does. 

Herr Flint is toying with a chess problem and using a board in the bar to play it out. He's paying it close attention. What he's not paying attention to is his leather case, which is by his side, unchained. 

Lisle saunters over and pretends to be interested in the problem as well, as is one of her inebriated colleagues. Though Herr Flint isn't too happy about her choice of costume he accepts her interest with polite decorum.

The inebriated colleague wanders off in search of the bathroom, but not before picking up the leather case. His instructions are to check the goods and, if satisfactory, leave Beckett's Head. If unsatisfactory, he rejoins the party.

That's what Herr Flint was hoping for. As an Ekimmu he has a special ability: when wounded his blood becomes an aerosol phantom that takes the shape of a predatory bird or storm cloud. He booby-trapped the case with a blood bomb; the colleague sets it off as soon as he opens the case. Herr Flint used 5 of his Health to make the phantom, which is one of the reasons why he looked so unhealthy tonight.

The first the agents may know about this is when the blood bomb goes off and the Bankhaus Klingemann exec comes stumbling out, drained dry by the blood phantom and breathing his last. While this distraction is going on, Herr Flint collapses. 

Except not really. Herr Flint has decided the time has come for a change of body. He had intended to take Lisle but she protected herself by wearing red. Now he has to choose someone else.

His options, in descending order: the agents, the Vatican agents, a Bankhaus employee at the party, some random civilian.

Meanwhile his bodyguards, not realizing his deception, leap to the defense of their principal. 

Thus starts a three-way melee. Herr Flint's bodyguards are almost innocent bystanders in all this and are armed with non-lethal weaponry, but they are a complicating factor. The blood phantom is immaterial and is partly controlled by Herr Flint, but it lacks a motivating force and is basically draining everything it can. The Vatican's people will intervene as soon as they realize what's going on, but that will take a few combat rounds. Meanwhile Lisle, who has a bodyguard of her own at the party who doesn't believe in non-lethal weaponry, will first try to get hold of the briefcase and then, when she realizes it's a scam, make her exit.

Herr Flint's objective is to find a new body and get out.

The Vatican's objective is to put an end to Herr Flint once and for all, and they have the Banes to do it but lack a target - at least until they find out which body Herr Flint now operates from. 

Lisle and Bankhaus' objective was to get hold of the data Herr Flint promised them. Once they realize the data is a sham, their next objective is to get hold of Herr Flint.

Once Herr Flint has a new body he'll move outside, where he has a fast motorcycle stashed not far from Beckett's Head. This may provoke a Chase scene, as Herr Flint makes his getaway. 

Herr Flint has a safe house luxury apartment in Berlin where he'll stay the night and, if he isn't tracked down, he'll leave Berlin soon after in his new body. The Grey Man lives to fight another day ...

Interesting footnote: Prenzlauer Berg has been a center of youth counterculture and squats that, today, is undergoing gentrification. The old hippies are being squeezed out, but it's still a youth-trending neighborhood. Added to that, there are any number of WWII era bunkers under Berlin, including Prenzlauer Berg. You're spoilt for choice: that safe house could be in one of the few bits of Prenzlauer Berg that hasn't succumbed to gentrification, daubed with Cold-War era graffiti, or it could be in a lost Nazi bunker beneath Prenzlauer Berg. Either way, an excellent and evocative spot for a final showdown!

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

   

Bertie's Dross & Cast-Offs (Night's Black Agents)

 

Sourced from The Guardian

The heirs of Silvio Berlusconi inherited billions from his empire but now they are faced with a dilemma: what to do with his vast collection of mostly worthless artwork, including paintings of nude women and the Madonna, stored in a warehouse opposite his home near Milan.

The former prime minister, who died in June at the age of 86, reportedly amassed the 25,000 works during the final years of his life, buying the majority from late-night shopping channels in his quest to become a top collector.

Vittorio Sgarbi, an undersecretary at the culture ministry, art critic and close friend of Berlusconi, said the compulsion for buying art sold through TV auctions began in earnest in 2018 as a result of “sleepless nights”.

He told Report, the investigative series broadcast on Rai, that Berlusconi spent an estimated €20m on what Sgarbi described as a collection of “crusts”, and the focus appeared to be on quantity rather than quality.

Oh dear. 

Well, billionaires have their little quirks. Berlusconi's heirs will probably burn or otherwise get rid of the vast majority - they'll go to 'the most appropriate destination' according to the latest from the heirs - as it costs close to a million Euro to fund the warehouse where his collection's stored. Given than the average piece probably isn't worth $2, with frame, that cost must be eating away at their souls as well as their wallets. 

After all, a billion - one measly billion - would only fund about a hundred year's worth of storage. 

However, let's step back from the schadenfreude and gamify this. 

Let's say that there's a deceased billionaire. Accidents happen. Let's further say that they have an extensive collection of 'art' hidden away in ... oh, their mansion on the Côte d'Azur and a warehouse near Nice, why not. The news caught the silly season and there are some amusing TikToks and YouTube diatribes, but there the matter rests. 

Or does it?

The agents' Network hints at other developments. Someone connected with the Conspiracy is taking an interest. Who is this mysterious art speculator and why are they interested in Bertie's soon-to-be bonfire material? 

A point's worth of investigative pools finds out the identity of the buyer, but perhaps the real question is, who's put them up to it?

The Buyer

Options: 

• The Art Forecaster (p103 DD), and rumor has it that they're after a particular piece but don't want to say which of the many, many bits of tat they're after.
• The Online Mystic (p126), who claims that forces beyond the veil have directed them to make the buy.
• Van Sloan (p87) and not even his closest friends know why, but his catspaws are already on their way to the Riviera. 

But why do this?

The Art Forecaster wants to cover up two unfortunate facts. One is that the Forecaster was the billionaire's art expert who curated the collection; it's time to burn the receipts. The other is that some of the collection was actually an esoteric effort at mind control; it's not the bad art but the sigils on the canvases, obscured by the art, which are the key. Sure, if they're burned that solves a problem, but only if all the affected canvases are destroyed and the Forecaster wants to make sure of that. The billionaire was supposed to live for at least another decade to further the Conspiracy's goals, but cocaine and sex parties wore him out before his time.

The Online Mystic really has been directed by forces beyond the veil, but those forces are actually trying to lure the agents into a trap. The warehouse near Nice is the real target; the intent is to draw the agents into a killing zone and burn the place down, with them in it. If the agents dig a little deeper into the Mystic's social media posts they may discover clues that suggest the Mystic's talking to the Human Trafficker (p119) with the goal of hiring fascist thugs to carry out the ambush.

Van Sloan wants closure. The billionaire isn't just any old billionaire; he's the son of one of Van Sloan's wartime contacts in Italy. Van Sloan is the boy's godfather. Van Sloan left an artefact in his safekeeping: the Portrait of Dracula. It's this portrait (whether major artefact, minor, or fake) that started the billionaire on his art buying spree; he wanted to get the Portrait out of his head and tried to do that by drowning it in bad art. Van Sloan feels guilty. He feels he poisoned the boy's life. He wants the portrait back or proof of its destruction.

That's it for this week! Enjoy. 

Flipping The Personal Mystic (Night's Black Agents)

Servants seem out of touch. Enter the billionaire’s battalion of experts (Washington Post Christopher Cameron)

“There are areas I want to work on,” says Gill, who would prefer not to name the monk she met while at Tibet House US in New York, a cultural center established at the behest of the Dalai Lama. “There’s professional growth, being a better CEO and a better founder. So he helps me by organizing meditations, where we just sit in noble silence, or we may talk about things.”

To deal with stress and practice mindfulness, she joined a holotropic breathwork community with Angell Deer, a shamanic healer, mystic, medicine man, teacher, permaculturist, beekeeper and international speaker, according to his website.

In July, she traveled to Esalen, the storied Big Sur retreat known for its connections to the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s.

“I’m there exploring breath work and these new modalities, but it’s all very steeped in Silicon Valley tech culture. There’s a guy from Google there,” she says. Ben Tauber, a former Google product manager, was CEO at Esalen until 2019 ...

... Personal chemists now help CEOs hack their psyches with psilocybin chocolates, ayahuasca retreats, microdoses of LSD and IV drips of ketamine (Elon Musk is one alleged user). Teams of private doctors, dietitians, scientists, wellness practitioners and trainers help aging executives search for the Fountain of Youth — with occasionally gruesome techniques (like tech mogul Bryan Johnson’s “blood boy”). Shamans guide board room bosses through difficult decisions. Mixed martial artist Khai “The Shadow” Wu trains Mark Zuckerberg. “Pro-natalists” tap matchmakers to secure high IQ partners to produce elite super children for a world they agree is doomed to societal and environmental collapse ...

...  “I placed a full-time, permanent gaming expert,” says a person working for an UHNW family, who could not be identified due to a nondisclosure agreement. “My client wanted someone who was the best at all of the best games.”

Gosh, isn't it just appalling to have lots of money. 

Jeeves & Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse (Fry & Laurie)

We all knew the rich have peculiar tastes and the idea of a personal beekeeper is neither here nor there, especially if they happen to be a shaman on the side. A personal gamer, though? Someone whose sole job is to make psychedelic chocolates? That's a new one on me. No doubt I'm appallingly naive. 

However, it does suggest intriguing possibilities, particularly for Night's Black Agents.

The obvious is that handy-dandy narrative placeholder, the Strange Psychiatric Facility. The place way off in the never-know-where, or it might be Big Sur, that specializes in recovering your peace of mind, for a fee. The owner (or are they a cover for the real owner?) has all sorts of mystic credentials. Anywhere else, if you happened upon an impressive shrine dedicated to hideous beings from beyond the veil, you'd suspect foul doings; but here, that shrine's just part of the treatment. Meditate upon the swirling colors in that portal to another dimension. All will be well. All will be well.

The agent's task in this situation is to infiltrate the Psychiatric Facility to get closer to the billionaire and do whatever it is they've gone there to do. Warn them, remove their handler, extract the McGuffin before the Conspiracy before they get their greasy hands on it, whatever works for the narrative.

I want to go in a different direction.

Let's say that the Billionaire (civilian stats, bodyguards, martial arts trainers, the lot) is someone of importance to the Conspiracy but they're not yet part of the family. Maybe the billionaire has valuable documents they want to steal, or has connections within a particular industry, or valuable proprietary technology, or just lots of money. For all these reasons the Conspiracy might want to infiltrate the billionaire's luxury compound and gain control of the billionaire and their McGuffin. They might promise the billionaire something they really want, like a super-baby, extended life, or just pleasant dreams. 

For purposes of infiltration the mansion is Monitoring 5 Security 5. There's cameras everywhere, a small army of staff, any number of ways a snooper might get caught on the way in. 

The agent's job is to get in, identify the Conspiracy asset, neutralize that asset without killing them as a murder investigation will only complicate matters, and then get out.

The trouble is, which of the many, many possible subjects is the asset? Is it the chocolate maker with their peculiar candies? The Feng Shui expert (a possible Chinese spy, perhaps)? Their personal religious studies tutor, a high-ranking member of the Catholic church? Someone else?

For purposes of gameplay whoever it is has no supernatural background but does have sufficient Aberrance to power their magical/satanic/psychic abilities. Assume Aberrance 6 and the ability of the Director's choice, chosen from the Vampire list. Also assume that the enemy operative can regain Aberrance in some way, eg. by causing Stability loss which refreshes Aberrance on a 1 to 1 basis, blood sacrifice, use of magical/psychic artefacts or some other means.

But who is it?

Is it the Mysterious Monseigneur (p144 DD), providing spiritual guidance (and connections with the Vatican)?

The Medievalist (p122), who's advising the billionaire on his many, many trips to auction houses to refurnish that baronial castle he just bought?

The Retired MI6 Boffin, now a freelance cybersecurity expert for hire? Or possibly an adviser on that elaborate bitcoin mine the Billionaire's setting up in, oh, Alaska, why not?

Or one of the many, many, many flimflam artists, conmen and grifters who've sneaked into the billionaire's inner circle, to plan a party perhaps, or give them advice on the inner workings of the Bildeberg Group?  

Choices, choices ...

For an added bonus, what about flipping the Mystic?

In this version the job isn't to eliminate the Conspiracy asset. The job is to get in there and turn the asset to good use. Persuade them that the Conspiracy doesn't have their best interest at heart, that Dracula killed their Solace, or that the reward they were promised will never materialize. That way the asset will do the agents' bidding rather than Dracula's. Probably not for very long (Dracula will eventually eliminate them), but hopefully long enough. 

Where is this happening?

Well, the billionaire's mansion (one of several) is the obvious choice, as is their superyacht. But it could as easily be somewhere like Monaco or Macau, the Orient Express (or a facsimile thereof), their favorite ski resort, or some debauched party paradise. Anything's possible. Anything goes. 

Anything.

Enjoy!