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!

Rose Colored Spyglasses (Night's Black Agents)

Russia's FSB overestimated Russia's chances of success in Ukraine, and Russia's army is paying for that mistake. As the Washington Post puts it:

“There was plenty of wishful thinking in the GRU and the military, but it started with the FSB,” said a senior Western security official, using the GRU abbreviation for Russia’s main military intelligence agency. “The sense that there would be flowers strewn in their path — that was an FSB exercise.” ... the FSB now faces difficult questions in Moscow about what its long history of operations against Ukraine — and the large sums that financed them — accomplished.

How did it come to this? Wishful thinking played its part, but this habit isn't limited to the FSB. Every would-be cardshark who's ever set foot in a casino knows that losing is somehow unthinkable, that the next turn of a card will be exactly the card you want.

Let's assume that they knowingly lied or exaggerated. Why might that be?

If your promotion depends on it, you lie.

If your bosses expect a certain outcome, you lie.

If your budget depends on good news, you lie.

If everyone around you tells you that the lie is the truth, you lie.

If an expert tells you something and you believe the expert, you lie. Unknowingly perhaps, but it's still a lie.

If there are no consequences for telling lies but there are consequences for telling the truth, you lie.

Where else might we see an environment where people's budgets, promotions, depend on lies? Where there are no consequences for lying but there are consequences for telling the truth?

Edom. 

The Edom files make it clear that each of the Dukes has their own department, their own agenda. Hound is the most obvious about her objective, but they all have objectives of one kind or another which may or may not advance the goals of the Edom project. Then of course there's always the possibility that Dracula left a gift behind in the 1970s. Are all the Dukes loyal? Is one of them deep in the enemy's councils?

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that Edom has a long-term project it's pursuing in, say, Romania. Not unlike the FSB in Ukraine Edom is going to cultivate assets in the project area, carry out punitive operations against enemy assets, and generally try to gain maximum advantage for minimum effort. 

But.

The people running those operations know Hound doesn't want to hear bad news. They know their budgets, promotions, depend on funneling good news up the chain. They have experts from Edom telling them one thing, and perhaps the situation on the ground is telling them something else but acknowledging that reality would mean admitting the experts were wrong.

Most importantly of all they know that if they keep telling lies there will be no consequences but if they start admitting unpleasant truths the bosses will not be happy.   

If things start going wrong it's natural to assume it's because of enemy action, but what if it's because your own side is letting you down?

Audit Trail

Location: Bucharest

Asset: Romanian Mortician

Task: Evaluation

Summary: an important location (doesn't really matter which, but for the sake of this discussion a Heal The Children office) was the target of a black bag job and the Mortician was assigned to make the initial evaluation. Elvis trusts her evaluation; Osprey does not. The agents are tasked with auditing the Mortician using a second opinion of the black bag job as an excuse. This may be their first visit to Romania; a nice, low-stress bit of fieldwork.

Possibilities:

• The Mortician has given a straight, no-nonsense report on the black bag job that contains one nugget of embarrassing information. Heal The Children is meant to be an Edom asset, but it's been diverting funds - which means Edom's cash - to its own executives to fund a luxurious lifestyle. Those executives have direct, personal connections to Osprey; he helped them get their jobs. If the Mortician's evidence gets out and is believed by Elvis and the other Dukes, that's very bad news for Osprey. He'll do his best to make sure the agents get buried in Bureaucracy, if it looks as if they back the Mortician's story. Osprey would never take direct action against Edom agents, but those Heal The Children execs aren't above hiring a few goons to protect their interests.
• The Mortician's report is pretty basic, and that's because the Mortician knows that Hound has taken a personal interest in Heal The Children and doesn't want to get in the way. As far as the Mortician's concerned she likes her job and wants to keep it. She knows that if she tells the truth Hound will make her life a living hell. What Hound doesn't want the rest of Edom to know, since Romania isn't her territory, is that she was following up on Tradecraft rumors that Heal The Children is connected to some Conspiracy actors outside Romania, in Saudi Arabia. Hound's information is false but by acting she's compromised herself and Project Montsieur, which is something she doesn't want the rest of Edom knowing about. Especially not Elvis.
• The Mortician has told Elvis exactly what he wants to hear, which is that the Heal The Children job was backed by the Conspiracy. Elvis thinks everything in Romania is Dracula's doing. If his agents agree with him they get rewards and promotion; if not, they get punished. The Mortician is only doing what she's been doing for years: telling the bosses what they want to hear. In fact, the Heal The Children job was carried out by the mafia, and only so the mafia could use Heal The Children's computers as part of a crypto scam. Elvis will argue that the mafia's connections to the Conspiracy are well established, which is enough to foozle the other Dukes. Except Hound, who's often wondered whether the Romania desk wouldn't be better under her control.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

The Room Where It Happens (Dracula Dossier)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (BBC)

Standing, Sam sank his hands in his pockets, shook his head, and, rather as Jerry Westerby might have done, began meandering about the room, peering at the odd gloomy things that hung on the wall: group war photographs of dons in uniform; a framed and handwritten letter from a dead Prime Minister; Karla's portrait again, which this time he studied from very close, on and on.

John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy.

Portrait of Dracula (Dracula Dossier Item)

appearance: An oil painting on cheap canvas. Painted by the artist Francis Aytown, this painting depicts the faces of two men, one old and one young. The features of the two men are extremely similar, and might be father and son, or possibly even the same man at different stages of his life.

The elder has a strong, aquiline nose with oddly arched nostrils, a high forehead, thick white-gray hair and a white mustache. His heavy eyebrows and teeth are emphasized by the artist, and his dark eyes seem to follow the observer around the room. He has a livid red scar on his forehead. 

The younger figure has dark hair and a mustache, and appears full of youth and vitality. In contrast to the paleness of the elder, his face is ruddy. The artist appears to have been indecisive over whether or not the subject had a beard - the younger figure’s chin appears muddy and was painted over several times (Photography: X-ray analysis shows that the figure was originally bearded). The same scar is present, but much less noticeable due to the change in complexion. 

The neck and shoulders of both figures are merely hinted at. In both cases, the portrait is oddly unsettling, as the proportions and perspectives are subtly off ...

The Honourable Schoolboy is the second in le Carré's Karla trilogy. In the first, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Soviet spymaster Karla recruits a British agent who rises to the very top of the British spy establishment. Thanks to the efforts of George Smiley, Karla's man is knocked out of the Circus and the Soviet intrusion largely dismantled. 

In this second novel Smiley is now the Circus ringmaster, but the old place has fallen on hard times. Nobody knows who to trust; the networks and agents promoted by Karla's man were deliberately chosen to be ineffective, and the Americans - the Cousins - have no faith in the Circus now its lead performer has been exposed as a fraud. 

The Circus rebuilds - or at least it tries to. Thus begins The Honourable Schoolboy.

One of the recurring elements in that novel is Karla's portrait, which Smiley has deliberately placed at the heart of the Circus so everyone who visits Smiley in his offices can see it. The portrait is a slightly ghoulish reminder of the Circus' recent failings, and it appears again and again in the opening chapters. 

Which made me think of that mysterious portrait of Dracula, listed as one of the items the agents might find in the Dracula Dossier. As with all such items it might be Major, Minor or Fraudulent - that is, really useful, moderately useful, or bogus.

However the point le Carré makes is that the portrait on its own isn't worth a damn. What matters is how you display it, and where. 

Karla's photograph might have been put anywhere. It might have been on Smiley's desk, where only he could see it. It might have been in some secure vault, or hung in the lavatory. Smiley deliberately gives it prominence front and center, where everyone can see it. What's more, by hanging it in the same room as those wartime photographs of the old crew and the congratulatory letter from a dead Prime Minister (presumably Churchill, though it might as easily have been Clement Attlee) Smiley links Karla with the glorious past. It's a reminder to everyone who visits the Circus that the past is tainted, and hints that the Circus needs to redeem itself.

Which brings me back to that portrait of Dracula. Again, what matters isn't so much the portrait itself - though the portrait is important, and might be very important. What matters is where it is displayed, and by whom. A portrait doesn't exist simply to exist. Like all art it exists to be seen, and how it is seen determines its effect and thus its value to the onlooker. 

Dracula's portrait hung in a pub corridor that leads to the Gents is worth little. It might have been picked up as a job lot with half a dozen ink sketches of hounds at bay and a few ill-conceived bits of taxidermy. Dracula's portrait hung in the corridors of Edom has a completely different kind of significance, even if those corridors happen to be moldering and forgotten. 

Dracula's portrait hung in the ultra-modern offices of the new and improved Edom has a different significance again. 

So as an exercise in gamification, consider: what is that room like? What significance does it hold?

I'm going to assume for the purpose of this exercise that the room has the same significance as the portrait and might have similar, or related, characteristics. As you know, there are several different flavors of vampire chronicle: damned, supernatural, alien, mutant. I'm not going to delve into that here since exactly how that factors into your room will depend entirely on you. I'm simply going to say that it naturally will have an influence on the room. A Damned chronicle bears Damned fruit, after all.

I'm also going to assume three kinds of room: modern Edom, decayed Edom, other non-Edom. The other non-Edom could be anything from a superyacht's stateroom to a Legacy's apartments in Rome to a museum or art gallery. The precise location is up to you as Director.

With all that in mind:

Major    

In his obsession, Aytown captured something more — he caught some psychic essence or echo of the Count ...

Modern Edom (eg. the map room at HMS Proserpine, the conference rooms at Seward's Asylum). 

This portrait is among a collection of valued trophies, diagrams, schematics and satellite photographs of recent areas of operation. It is deliberately placed there by D as a reminder to the modern Edom of the kind of asset they are dealing with - cruel, implacable, and dangerous. Fort and Tinman have rigged its glass case with explosives as an anti-theft measure; if anyone tries to remove the painting the detonation should destroy the painting but leave the rest of the room more or less intact.

Decayed Edom (eg. some forgotten offices near Whitehall, an abandoned military installation, Ring). 

These dusty offices had some importance back in the 1970s, which is probably the last time any of the Dukes visited this place. The place stinks of mold and rats. Old filing cabinets long emptied of their secrets loll like hanged men, their tongues - the cabinets - swinging free. Photographs from the Second World War and old silver trophies and cups from some regiment still shine in their cabinets, but that regiment was amalgamated and forgotten back in the 1960s and not even the most dedicated military historian bothers to remember the regiment once had its home here.

Other Non-Edom

This is a peculiar collection put together by someone with an amusing mind. The portrait is in a place of honour where everyone who enters by the main hall can see it, but it is matched with Surrealist masterpieces and a rather nasty-looking portrait of the inmates of a a lunatic asylum, either a Goya or someone heavily influenced by the old Spaniard. The effect is dizzying; there is no corner of the room any observer can look at, and find comfort. 

Minor

Aytown’s portrait can be used to recognize the Count, but it has no other supernatural powers.

Modern Edom

This hangs in the offices of the commandant, perhaps D or the officer in charge of E Squadron. These are spartan rooms, and the portrait is the only art in the place; there isn't even a photo of the commandant's family on their imposing desk. It hangs there sullen and silent, like a child summoned to the Headmaster's office. All meaning seems to have been surgically removed, as if so many uncaring eyes having stared at it for over a century has sapped the painting's will - always assuming it had one in the first place.

Decayed Edom

At some point some forgotten bureaucrat thought it would be a good idea to strip the place of its valuables and put them in storage, but the plan never got quite so far as 'storage.' The portrait is in a back room along with a score of other items, carefully labeled back in the 1980s, and there are packing crates here in which the job lot was clearly meant to be sealed up. Whether money dried up, the bureaucrat lost interest or some other minor disaster happened, who can say? It's all a bit King Tut's Tomb, though if there is a curse it probably hit its expiration date long ago.

Other Non-Edom

The white patches on the wall indicate what happened to the actually valuable art. What's left are the dregs of a collection, some moderately interesting modernists, some Scots Baronial stuff, and a rather odd collection of statuary all jumbled together with no sense of order or style. Whoever acquired this portrait mislabeled it at Jacobethan, and (if this is an art gallery) is trying to sell it for at least twice its actual value.

Fraud

The portrait was actually painted by Viv Aytown-Baptiste, in an attempt to copy her great-grandfather’s style.

Modern Edom

This hangs in the offices of an Edom underling and was bought as a joke that didn't quite come off. It shares space with two Gantt charts and a dartboard, and has acquired several unfortunate holes in consequence. The dartboard has a photo of one of the Edom princes at its center; who can say why?

Decayed Edom

Once upon a time someone thought this was the real deal, and paid rather a lot of government money to purchase it. Embarrassment followed on swift and noisy stamping feet, and the prize was hurriedly moved somewhere where nobody important had to look at it. The typists in the pool, who have to look at it every day, sometimes wonder what happened to that high-flier who thought he was on to something good. Rumor has it he occupied that office at the end of the hall, the one that's now used for storage, until his dismissal in the middle 1990s. Or perhaps he was moved to the offices in Edinburgh. Or perhaps shame killed him. 

Other Non-Edom

It's odd what some people think ought to hang in the second lavatory, the one used by guests. Maybe it was meant to be a joke. It looks more valuable than, perhaps, its owner thinks it is. 

Enjoy!

All-Hallows (Edom Files)

 Today is All-Hallows, also known as All Saints, a Christian replacement of an ancient tradition. That is, it's November 1st - October 31st being the day before the festival day. 

Originally this would have been celebrated in March, which means technically Halloween is a March tradition. Pope Boniface moved it to November in the way back when, and in the Catholic calendar All Saints is followed by All Souls on November 2nd. The idea being that one day is dedicated to the saints and martyrs, another to everyone else, and the everyone else in this instance are those still suffering in Purgatory rather than the blessed in Heaven. 

There's a very old tradition that says should you give clothes or shoes to a poor man you shall receive the same when you die, to ease your passage. It's part of a general injunction to do right by the poor, and you will be rewarded in the afterlife - but if you don't, expect torment and fire when you pass over.

There's a further tradition which says you shouldn't wear new shoes to a funeral, in case the dead see them and get jealous. They may try to steal them, and your luck will surely turn bad.

All Hallows is also a very popular name for a church. A quick Google will show you how popular. One in particular, All-Hallows-The-Great of London, was ancient when it was destroyed in the Great Fire. Christopher Wren rebuilt it, and it lasted until the later 1800s when the neighborhood became far too commercial. The space was needed for development, so the Church sold the land and used the money to build a new church elsewhere. It was the London Brewery for a while before Hitler put a stop to that, and eventually became Mondial House, the great telephone exchange. It was a massive white elephant even when it was being built; construction started in 1978 and although the building itself was finished it still needed equipment. By the time BT finished installing all its kit, in the 1980s, the equipment it had installed back in 1978 was already woefully obsolete. Mondial was demolished in the 2000s; an office block stands there now.  

In the Edom Field Manual there's a contact, Maggie Canter, of Canter Antiques & Salvage, "a large junk shop in East London. Over the years, the business has come to specialize in architecture and furniture salvaged from churches and other religious institutions. If you want to outfit your hipster bar with a few pews from a demolished church, or are looking to buy a load of old-fashioned bedsheets and tablecloths from a nunnery that ran out of nuns, Canter’s is the place to go. She jokes that she’s just finishing up what Henry the Eighth started with the destruction of the monasteries ..."

With all that in mind:

Maggie's Back Room

Even Maggie Canter comes across items she can't sell. She got a job lot of office furniture and other bits and bobs when they broke up Mondial House, the sort of thing she'd be able to turn over in a heartbeat under normal circumstances. There's always some dodgy little startup looking for cheap office furniture, and while it's not strictly in Canter Antiques' usual line a quick clearance like this is bread-and-butter.

If only she could sell it.  

She knew there was something off when she took possession. It was just a feeling, and she ignored it. More fool her. As it happened the day after she brought back the goods was All Hallows, and that very day she heard someone walking around in the warehouse after hours. Couldn't catch him, mind. Funny thing; her warehouse foreman, Larry, lost a pair of shoes that day. Christ knew where those got to.

When they didn't sell straight off she shoved the kit in the back of the warehouse, making a mental note to take it to the dump tomorrow. Except tomorrow never comes, does it? So it was all still in the back next All Hallows, and once again she heard someone stomping around in there. Once again, someone's shoes went missing. Hers, in fact.

It's been years, and every year on All Hallows someone marches about in the warehouse like some kind of night watchman. Every year someone's shoes go missing. She's started buying cheap trainers and boots to leave behind for whoever it is; better than letting the good stuff go.

If Edom's finest want to get on Maggie's good side, they could tell her what's going on and how to put a stop to it. 

• The Corpse Watchman. Back when the Church had to worry about bodysnatchers, All-Hallows-The-Great built a watch house and put a permanent watchman on staff. Except the Church put its faith in the wrong man, and several corpses ended up on the dissection table before the ring was put out of business. The Watchman barely escaped with his life; the mob wanted to tear him to shreds. Legend has it for years afterward you could hear the Watchman on patrol, forced to look after the dead he betrayed while he was alive.
• Weird Science. Edom had its fingers in Mondial House. Specifically the Boffin, (Dracula Dossier), who was forever experimenting to see if he could come up with a more efficient, scientific way to deal with the vampire problem. Mondial House already had a bit of a reputation among the frivolous; after all, it had been built on All-Hallows' churchyard, even if all the bodies had been moved before they built Mondial. The Boffin thought he'd create a vampire trap, but all he ended up doing was losing a perfectly good assistant. Nobody knows where Norman ended up. Rumor had it he never left Mondial ...
• Footsteps of the Damned. It's got nothing to do with the office furniture. Once upon a time Dracula's Node in London (the Satanic Cult, for instance, though it's up to the Director as to exactly what form the Node takes), found out about Maggie's links to Edom and decided to assign one of its more disposable assets to watch her. Trouble is, nobody rescinded the order, and when the Node got bored and forgot about Canter's, the asset kept coming back. Again. And Again. Almost as if it was compelled ...

  Enjoy!

Dirty Dick's (Forgotten London)

Until it was remodeled in the 1980s, Dirty Dick's Pub in Bishopsgate, (East End/City of London), was covered in cobwebs, filth, and long-dead mummified cats and rats. There was one cat in particular that visitors were encouraged to stroke for good luck, and it was fitted with a spring so that it leaped when touched. Fun times were had by all, I'm sure.

Allegedly the pub got its memorabilia from the estate of eighteenth-century eccentric Nathaniel Bentley, who was to marry his sweetheart - but she died on the wedding day. Heartbroken, he refused to leave his rooms and when he died fifty years later he was cocooned in muck. Apparently he was very fond of cats and when one of his pets died he refused to bury it, letting it mummify in his collection instead. The pub got its pick of the best bits and carried on the tradition in Dick's memory.

There is an alternative version of this story. From the History of Signboards (1866):

The name of Dirty Dick, which graces a public-house in Bishopsgate Without, was transferred to those spirit stores from the once famous Dirty Warehouse formerly in Leadenhall Street, a hardware shop kept in the end of the last century by Richard Bentley, alias Dirty Dick, in which premises, until about fifteen or twenty years ago, the signboard of the original shop was still to be seen in the window. Bentley was an eccentric character, the son of an opulent merchant, who kept his carriage and lived in great style. In his early life he was one of the beaux in Paris, was presented at the court of Louis XVI., and enjoyed the reputation of being the handsomest and best dressed Englishman at that time in the capital of France. On his return to London he became a new, though not a better, man. Brooms, mops, and brushes were rigorously proscribed from his shop; all order was abolished, jewellery and hardware were carelessly thrown together, covered by the same shroud of undisturbed dust. So they remained for more than forty years, when he relinquished business in 1804. The outside of his house was as dirty as the inside, to the great annoyance of his neighbours, who repeatedly offered Bentley to have it cleaned, painted, and repaired at their expense; but he would not hear of this, for his dirt had given him celebrity, and his house was known in the Levant, and the East and West Indies, by no other denomination than the “Dirty Warehouse in Leadenhall Street.” The appearance of his premises is thus described by a contemporary:—

“Who but has seen, (if he can see at all,) ‘Twixt Aldgate’s well-known pump and Leadenhall, A curious hardware shop, in generall full Of wares from Birmingham and Pontipool! Begrimed with dirt, behold its ample front, With thirty years’ collected filth upon’t; In festoon’d cobwebs pendant o’er the door, While boxes, bales, and trunks are strew’d around the floor. ....... Behold how whistling winds and driving rain Gain free admission at each broken pane, Safe when the dingy tenant keeps them out, With urn or tray, knife-case or dirty clout! Here snuffers, waiters, patent screws for corks, There castors, cardracks, cheesetrays, knives and forks; There empty cases piled in heaps on high, There packthread, papers, rope, in wild disorder lie.” &c.&c.&c.

The present Dirty Dick is a small public-house, or rather a tap of a wholesale wine and spirit business in Bishopsgate Street Without. [note: that means it's on the East End side of the Bishopsgate border, between City of London and East End,] It has all the appearance of one of those establishments that started up in the wake of the army at Varna and Balaclava, or at newly-discovered gold-diggings. A warehouse or barn without floorboards; a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from the black rafters; a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer; numberless gas-pipes, tied anyhow along the struts and posts, to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps; sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves,—everything covered with virgin dust and cobweb,—indeed, a place that would set the whole Dutch nation frantic.

Yet, though it has been observed that cleanliness of the body is conducive to cleanliness of the soul, and vice versa, the regulations of this dirty establishment, (hung up in a conspicuous place,) are more moral than those of the cleaner gin-palaces,—as, for instance:—“No man can be served twice.” “No person to be served if in the least intoxicated.” “No improper language permitted.” “No smoking permitted;” whilst the last request, for fear of this charming place tempting customers to lounge about, says, “Our shop being small, difficulty occasionally arises in supplying the customers, who will greatly oblige by bearing in mind the good old maxim:—

‘When you are in a place of business, Transact your business And go about your business.’”

The great thing about Dirty Dick's, from a gaming perspective, is that it covers a wide range of possibilities, from Victorian to Call to Trail to Bookhounds to Dracula Dossier, or Esoterrorists. Who knows what secrets lie under a pall of ancient dust? Mind you, I can't help but have sympathy for the no smoking rule - imagine what would happen if that place caught fire! You wouldn't have time to blink before the whole thing went up like Guy Fawkes, and good luck finding an emergency exit. 

It must have been interesting trying to justify all that to the Liquor Licensing Board and whichever body handled fire safety - probably the local council, in the 1980s. Still, for it to survive for more than a century argues it must have been profitable; not a gold mine, I suspect, but it paid its way.

Technically there's still a Dirty Dick's in London but somehow I don't think it has the charm of the original. It does claim to have some relics of the old pub kept under glass, which extends the plot life of this location into the 21st century. This PubWiki has some photos of the old Dirty Dick's, but not that many shots of the interior which seems a shame. 

What kind of stories can be told with a backdrop like this? Trail? Bookhounds? Dracula Dossier? 

There's one obvious story that can be told in any setting: the McGuffin. Somewhere in that pile of God knows what is a relic, weapon or other item that is critical to [insert plot here.] Someone thought it would be a good idea to hide it in plain sight, and it can be difficult to find a specific tree in a forest. 

So they squirreled it away in Dirty Dick's, perhaps when it was still a warehouse. Naturally whoever it was wouldn't leave it unguarded, but as to what or who that guard is ... if it's a Mythos entity of some description then Dust or Rat Things seem logical choices. It could also be someone like the Enigmatic Monsignor (Dracula Dossier) - in a Protestant country that's historically been very anti-Catholic for centuries, somewhere like Dirty Dick's might seem an attractive hiding place for a Catholic relic. It is Bishopsgate, after all, and Bishopsgate Without is home to some of London's ancient churches, as well as the old Bedlam hospital; plenty of story fodder there. Or some ex-Edom bigwig like the Boffin might have camouflaged something in his favorite drinking hole. It could even be a fake McGuffin, a ruse planted to attract the unwary.

Trail is technically a 1930s setting but there's nothing in its mechanics that prevents you from playing in the late Victorian period; you wouldn't even have to change the skill list, beyond making a note that Driving applies to horse and carriage. Though if the characters want to be one of the first to drive a car Frederick Bremer and Frederick Lanchester are making them in the 1890s. Dirty Dick's could also be a good Yellow King backdrop. As for what kind of story you'd tell in a Victorian setting, why, a ghost story, of course. Why waste all those cobwebs? The darn thing's practically screaming Gothic. Mummified cats! Need I say more? 

Dirty Dick's could be a good location for a time travel story. Your Trail investigators find, say, an iPhone buried in the other rubbish, and try to work out how it got there. Is there some strange Yithian device at Dirty Dick's that's inadvertently pulling in items from other time periods? Alternatively are Ythians or Mi-Go secretly operating Dirty Dick's, using its well-known squalor as an excuse for why everything seems just a little odd? Is that mummified cat crouched atop a brain case - and just how mummified is it, really? Or one of the vampire types that play with reality could be using Dirty Dick's as a kind of interstitial safe house - an alien stone hidden amongst the cobwebs fractures space and time while spreading its vampiric influence across London. 

Or Dirty Dick's could be a cult node, disguising its malign influence as an innocent, if eccentric, public house. With a name like Dirty Dick's (note - don't Google, unless you enjoy watching folks doing unspeakable things) this seems like the perfect place for Bookhounds' Keirecheires, but it could as easily be somewhere for the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh or the Witch Cult to hang out. After all, in its heyday Dirty Dick's warehouse was known across the empire; a globe-trotting organization like the Brotherhood might have snapped it up as a London base for its activities ages ago. Or a more local organization like the Witch Cult might be hiding a Dark Grail or some other artefact amongst the other rubbish, to be used in strange ceremonies.

Dirty Dick's could be a gateway to other places as well as other times. Where better to hide a Gate to the Dreamlands, the Library of Celano or some other mystic haven? There's a reason why Dick's is dirty and it has nothing to do with branding; the best way to hide magical chaos is under a grimy pile of mundane chaos. It could even be a means of passage from Earth to other worlds - Eversink, for example. Imagine vanishing behind a cobwebbed barrel only to reappear in another version of Dirty Dick's, in a different reality altogether.

Megapolisomancy might use Dirty Dick's as a kind of landmine, or it might already have been used as a landmine and exploded, hence its current condition. It's no longer really part of the city and can't be used as an anchor, but if you get too close your Magick might be scrambled. Just as a radioactive device leaves radiation behind so too do powerful Megapolisomantic activities leave marks of their passing, like cancers growing in the body politic. Maybe Dirty Dick's is spreading its filth across Bishopsgate, and maybe it's thanks to some protective working placed in the long-ago that it hasn't already spread beyond Dirty Dick's. Of course, if some foolish investigators look too close they might upset that delicate working ...

Enjoy!

  

Wicked Whitby (Dracula Dossier)

 Any Director who plans on a Dracula Dossier campaign probably has a Whitby moment in mind for their game. It's the one place you can guarantee the players will have heard of, it features in most of the traditional Dracula retellings, it's a spooky coastal town - what's not to love?

Here's some interesting Whitby folklore you may not be familiar with.

The Alum Smuggler. Once upon a time in the way-back-when, Pope Pius II (elected 1458) declared the alum trade in the West a papal monopoly and threatened dire punishment for anyone who dared infringe. Whitby infringed, earning itself the mother of all Papal curses.

Alum (potassium aluminum sulphate) is used, among other things, for fixing dyes. Alum is a naturally occurring substance that for many centuries was thought to be unique to Syria, but a clever Italian merchant living in Constantinople and making his fortune from dyes noticed that a certain plant seemed most abundant in areas where alum was found. When that merchant went home he found that same plant growing in Tolfa, near Rome. That merchant died a very rich man, and the Pope found himself a new source of filthy lucre.   

Along comes a thieving Englishman, Sir Thomas Chaloner. While visiting the Papal alum-works he realized that the mineral they were processing bore a striking resemblance to a substance he knew for certain could be found near Whitby. However Sir Thomas lacked the know-how to put his information to good use. Skilled craftsmen were needed, and the Pope jealously guarded his workers.

Sir Thomas came up with a plan.

He stuffed three workers' pockets with cash and promised much more if they'd come to England. Once he had them he found a ship bound for England and loaded up his cargo - large barrels, three of which were much heavier than the rest. Presumably once he was safely at sea he let his new employees out of their confinement. It would have been a very long trip for them otherwise.

Legend has it that when the Pope realized what had happened and that his lovely monopoly was about to go up in smoke, he issued a curse so detailed, so vile, so thorough in every respect that it defies reproduction. The curse of Ernulphus (Tristram Shandy, book III ch XI)  is said to be an approximation. 

Just a taster:

May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly!———May he be cursed in the hair of his head!——May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex” (that is a sad curse, quoth my father), “in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers!

May he be damn’d in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach!

May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin” (God in heaven forbid! quoth my uncle Toby), “in his thighs, in his genitals” (my father shook his head), “and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails!

It was so utterly abhorrent that, when a folklorist tried to get it typed up for a book he was writing in 1923, the typing school's headmaster promptly flung it back as far too outrageous for his female typists to gaze upon, never mind type up.

History does not record whether Sir Thomas exploded, but Whitby made a ton of money from the alum trade.

From Funk & Wagnall's Dictionary of Folklore:

Curse: a malediction; the wishing of evil upon a person; also, the effect of such wishing, and, loosely, any persistent evil. ... A curse invokes a power - divine, demonic or magical - against which the person cursed has no defense, unless he in some manner propitiates the power or brings to bear against it a stronger power. The curse is dangerous; it must alight, even after seven years ... it may affect later generations ... or, if laid upon an ancestor, all the relations of the person accursed. It may however return upon the head of the curser, or if sufficiently strong injure both curser and victim, or anyone who hears it. Some curses, a father's or the curse of the dying, are more potent than others ... curses are thus a kind of spoken magic, spells of evil wished upon others. With the loss of belief in the efficacy of magic, curses become either blasphemy - the fruitless and irreverent invocation of the gods - or a meaningless ritual unless performed by the divine being himself, since man cannot force his will upon the gods.

Man can't. On the other hand, the Pope might.

Wicked Whitby

Warm: You get a familiar thrill as you arrive in Whitby. It’s the starting gun, the gear shift from observation into action ... yet at night dread overcomes thrill and you begin to wonder what's hiding in the shadows. Why did Dracula come to Whitby? Was it Edom's trickery, or did Dracula know something you don't?

The Curse abides, and waits its moment. There are reasons why Whitby is economically stagnant, why so many here live on the poverty line, dependent on benefits; why the young leave, and the elderly die alone in cold beds. A casual visitor will not notice, but people living there can smell Whitby's decay, like an unburied corpse in a ditch, denied last sacrament. This is why rats fattened on blasphemy chatter to themselves in the basement of Billington & Sons, why evil creatures are drawn like moths to a flame, why the Madman howls in the graveyard, and unclaimed, bloodless corpses are found washed up by Whitby's tides. Nobody's been able to overcome the Curse; it is Whitby's despair and ruin.

Except Dracula, trained at the Scholomance, thinks he's found a way.

Not that he wants to reverse it for Whitby's benefit, o no. Dracula knows a curse can be turned against its sender, and the Prince of Darkness has enemies in the Vatican - the Enigmatic Monsignor for one - he would very much like to smite. A Papal curse can be turned against the Papacy. Dracula would love to see that happen.

The Satanic Cult is tasked with, among other things, making sure that it happens. 

The Harbour Watcher Family-owned transient hotel (page 257, main book). The Hesps (John, Judith, daughter Sarah and her partner Emily Poor) own and operate this very low-end lodging house. Foreigners often stay there for a night or two, economic migrants trafficked in only to be shuffled off somewhere else. The Hesps distrust strangers asking questions. Their role is to prepare the ground for the ritual to come, and to that end they conduct rituals and sacrifice in the quiet hours, incinerating their victims in the hotel's basement furnace.

Enjoy!   

Romanian Mafia (Dracula Dossier, Night's Black Agents)

Videos sourced from the Organized Crime & Reporting Project

The Dracula Dossier goes into some detail about the Romanian mafia, though it is brief by necessity as covering it all would be at least one book in and of itself. I recommend the OCCRP as a useful source of supplementary information and this week I'm going to draw on it to sketch out a mini-scenario for you to use as you see fit. 

The main book points out that the thriller relies on escalating thrills to keep the viewer engaged. The reward for danger is information; having information puts you into danger. When the hero rests, add more danger. (p180, NBA). Double Tap goes on to describe several different Thrilling contests (Digital Intrusion, Infiltration, Surveillance, Manhunts) and the Resource Guide includes Mission Skeletons. I'm going to be using all of these.

Just looking at the videos, a couple of interesting scene locations pop out: Spain, Popa Sapca Prison, Istanbul, a construction company, nightclubs. I can borrow from this pool to create the locations I'm going to need. Quick and dirty every time, mind you; this isn't the moment to be describing cities in detail.

Now I need to decide the kind of operation I want to create. The Resource Guide offers several options, any of which might apply: Destroy, Flip (an asset), Heist, Hit, Hunt, Rescue, Sneak, Trace, Uncover. I'm going to go with Flip, with a touch of Rescue just for flavor. 

The asset I want to Flip is in Popa Sapca Prison. He used to be heavily involved in human trafficking, taking women from Turkey to Spain. He has information about a Conspiracy operation but he'll only talk if his conditions are met. Additional complication: Popa Scapa is unfriendly territory, and if he stays there then he may end up dead before he can talk.

Popa Sapca: Formerly for political prisoners, this is a working prison. If you don't work, you get half rations. You can work in the kitchens (very difficult to get assigned there, high demand), you can make wooden crates for transporting vegetables, you can work in a nearby concrete factory. This information dates back to the 1980s and things are almost certainly different now, but I can use this in plot so I'm keeping it. There's also a prison football team. Religious groups visit Romanian prisons. That's enough Google; it's easy to get bogged down in research.

So what have I got? A former Communist political prison now populated by some of the worst of the worst. There are work programs, a football team, and regular visits from an American evangelical religious group whose Chicago founders have Romanian links. Some of the work programs take place outside the prison, so in my fiction if there's any smuggling it probably happens via that work program; either the inmates or drivers/guards take packages into the prison. 

In Dossier terms this is a Warm site, which means the Conspiracy has its tentacles here. It probably doesn't have a full-fledged Node, but there are plenty of former Renfields behind bars strung out for lack of the good stuff, and more than a few Ruvari Sgzani. There are no secrets in prison; the Conspiracy will find out if anyone talks.

The Flip target is Sorin Barbu, a former human trafficker now serving a five-year sentence. He used to transport women from Istanbul, Turkey, to nightclubs in the New Golden Mile, Marbella, Spain. He knows more than he should about Conspiracy operations in Spain thanks to his connections with organized crime there, specifically the Romanian syndicate Wolf Brigade. According to Sorin the Brigade carried out several hits while he was working in Spain supplying girls for the Brigade's hangouts in the New Golden Mile. He knows the hitters, the targets, some of the burial sites, and he knows these things because the Brigade coerced him into disposing of the bodies. 'You used to work in construction,' they said. 'You know how to dig a hole.' 

Vampirology (0 point) soon realizes that some of these so-called hits are vampire attacks, and it's possible there may be some ferals down in the Golden Mile thanks to this creature's activities.

The Flip target comes to the agents' attention thanks to Charlie Popescu, an American evangelist trying to get attention paid to Sorin's case. Charlie thinks Sorin is unjustly imprisoned, and as a brother in Christ Charlie feels obligated to help Sorin out. Charlie's been talking to the American embassy in Bucharest, and he's been very indiscreet. If the agents know about Sorin, it's only a matter of time before the Conspiracy finds out.  

Sorin's flip trigger (on the MICE scale of Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego) is Ego. He sees himself as a protector, and he wants to go on protecting people - specifically Fatma Yildiz, a prostitute he became close to. He knew Fatma was falling in love with one of the johns, and he also knew that the john in question was one of the hitters whose bodies he was burying. This could only end badly for Fatma, so he brought her back to Istanbul where she would be safe.

Flip condition: If the agents ensure Fatma's safety, Sorin will talk.

What Sorin doesn't know: Fatma was the one who turned him in to the authorities.  

Danger: If the agents don't move Sorin, or arrange some kind of protection while he's in prison (Network is helpful here), then Sorin will end up shanked long before the agents can complete the mission.

Next step is to locate Fatma, which means going to Istanbul. I'm not going to go through a whole Google for that; Istanbul's a capital city, well known, unlike an obscure prison in Romania. Streetwise narrows the search to a Gecekondu (squatter district) on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, where Fatma's living with a dozen other women.  She works as a dancer in a Kadikoy nightclub. Fatma wants to go back to her lover in Spain. She's convinced he'll marry her and she'll live the high life on a yacht. The Conspiracy doesn't have any direct ties to the Turkish mafya group that runs the nightclub, but they have a friendly relationship. Fatma served her purpose when she helped put Sorin behind bars. The Conspiracy doesn't care what happens to her, but it cares very much if she goes back to Spain and causes a fuss. The Turks have been given a fat bribe and asked to take care of Fatma if it looks as if she's going to bolt.

Twist: Fatma isn't going to bolt. She's going into business. When she worked with Sorin she met quite a few Romanian mafia, including people who worked for a rival syndicate, the Centurions (cue Yojimbo option). The Centurions want their slice of Marbella's New Golden Mile. Fatma's being promoted from prostitute to procurer, and the women in her Gecekondu are her first shipment. 

So on the principle that Information leads to Danger, the Information that Fatma's in Istanbul working for a nightclub run by a Turkish godfather immediately leads to trouble when Fatma runs away with her Centurion pals, and the Turks assume these nosy agents had something to do with it. Violence ensues, as trigger-happy Turk thugs bust up the agents' safehouse looking for Fatma. 

By this point the agents have probably racked up Heat. If Heat is 5 or more, cut scene: Interpol. Turkey's well known for using Interpol aggressively to punish critics and dissidents. The Turkish mafyia pulls some strings and gets the agents put on an Interpol watch list for alleged organized crime offences (people smuggling). Senior Agent III Svitlana Dobrovolska is assigned the case. Cut scene ends with her beginning her investigation. This scene threatens Danger to come, since the agents don't know whether Svitlana's on the up-and-up. An honest Agent can be reasoned with; a crooked one cannot. 

The action moves to Marbella, Spain. The New Golden Mile is Marbella's latest attempt to capitalize on a vast sea of money. It's high end houses, businesses, golf courses, and expensive shops, as far as the eye can see. As to where all this money's coming from, it might have something to do with Marbella's corruption problem. Mayor after mayor has been jailed in recent years in a string of allegations of money laundering and bribery that goes back to Mayor Gil (1991 to his arrest in 2002). The town nearly went bankrupt in 2006, and was briefly run by an unelected, appointed council before elections in 2007 put the People's Party in charge. Marbella's heavily in debt, which makes it vulnerable to approaches from, say, Romanian organized crime. 

Or the Conspiracy.

There's been a Node in Marbella since the days of Mayor Gil, and a lot of the Conspiracy's money was funneled through friendly Marbella banks. The Conspiracy invested heavily in local Golden Mile real estate as well, banking its cash in brick and mortar. This came to a crashing halt in 2007 when investigations began in earnest, and the Conspiracy pulled out some of its assets and almost all of its money, selling its Golden Mile properties. However things are looking more promising nowadays and the New Golden Mile promises to be as lucrative as the old one was. 

The vampire in charge of it all, Anna Kaufman, whose antecedents go back to before the Great War when she worked in film, is taking charge of this effort. She's the power behind the throne for local drug gangs, and she works through a Renfield hitter nicknamed The Southpaw, also known as Zubi after the football player Andoni Zubizarreta. Through Zubi and People's Party politician Maya Bardina the Conspiracy exercises control over the New Golden Mile. 

Anna has a problem. Back in the early 2000s when things were looking much better she promoted a Renfield to full vampire status: Gordon 'Bones' Honeybone, a former London hard boy with remarkably handsome features. Bones was an excellent enforcer with criminal contacts in the UK, France and Spain, but he was never management material. His new status went to his head. He sees himself as a cross between Michael Caine and Christopher Lee, and relishes it a little too much. He's the one Fatma's in love with, and he's also the one whose carnal appetites has created a batch of new ferals that Anna doesn't know about - so far. Bones has killed some of those ferals himself, but the rest are causing trouble.

Meanwhile the Centurions are muscling in on turf the Wolf Brigade controls. The Wolf Brigade has a mutual assistance pact going with Anna's drug dealers through Zubi, but the Centurions are hungry for power and see the Wolf Brigade as yesterday's villains. So far Anna's interests aren't directly threatened so she's happy to let all this play out - until the agents get involved.

Up in Popa Sapca, Sorin Barbu has a ton of information on all these players. He knows all the Wolf Brigade's officer cadre, and has a surprising amount of detail on Anna's people too. This includes businesses they own, operations they run and assets they control - but most importantly he knows which New Golden Mile mansions have bodies in their basements, because he put them there. If the agents can convince Sorin that Fatma is either safe or not worth protecting any more, Sorin will spill all kinds of beans. 

If the Interpol option is active then Svitlana Dobrovolska is in Marbella, gathering information and planning her next move. She'll need cooperation from the locals, but if she can get that then a sudden GAR raid is all too likely ...  

Enjoy!

Rockers, Spies and MICE - Flipping Vampires (Night's Black Agents)

This week's post is inspired by a Guardian article about the use of musicians and artists to shred the Iron Curtain.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. US government agencies - basically, the CIA - backed ideologically useful artists, singers, performers, and sent them across the Iron Curtain to boogie for their country. The idea being that if the enemy saw how wonderful freedom was, they'd stop being the enemy. Even when, as was the case with Satchmo, the artist in question faced significant restraints at home, they were expected to perform to order abroad. Except, as with Satchmo, they sometimes didn't; the celebrated jazz singer refused to do as he was told until Roosevelt mobilized the army to enforce anti-segregation laws.

So far, so Radio Free Europe. Let's talk about MICE.

Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego. These are the factors that flip assets. If you want someone's cooperation you appeal to at least one of those drivers. Compromise is perhaps the trickiest, as it can range from blackmail to revenge, but they're all straightforward human impulses, played on like a violin.

Human, yes - but vampires were human too, once upon a time, prey to all the ills flesh is heir to.

In Night's Black Agents the characters will frequently want to turn the Conspiracy against itself. Take one Node, play on its baser impulses, and get it to smack one of its neighboring Nodes until its chimes ring like Big Ben. After all they're vampires, not zombies - they have free will, and anything with free will can be subverted. Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego - and no prizes for guessing that Ego plays a big part in the vampire psyche.

You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. [now there's a dated reference. How many of you reading this have even seen a butcher's shop, much less sheep's heads for sale?] You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side.

Cultural espionage shows up in at least two Dracula Dossier scenarios, both in the Edom Files: Blood Coda, in which the action revolves around a Russian ballet troupe sent to London to dazzle capitalism, and Day of the Wehrwolf, where the agents encounter terrorists bent on blowing up Radio Free Europe. In each scenario cultural espionage is a background against which the main action takes place; nobody expects the agents to engage directly with ballet as an art form used to influence the West. However it can be a lot of fun to play with cultural espionage, as a form of gameplay.

Let's say the agents have a particular asset in mind. They've taken the trouble to know this asset inside and out. They're confident they have their fingers on the pulse, metaphorically speaking. They want to make the asset theirs, or at least influence the asset in a certain direction. But how to make the move? Just going in with guns and attitude escalates the problem. The soft approach is called for.

Show me the vampire who can resist a star. It's a huge ego-boost, particularly for those low on the Conspiracy's org chart. If you're in Dracula's clique then you know whatever you do for the rest of your unlife you will be second banana. If you're lucky. Did you command armies? Were you feared throughout Europe? Did the townsfolk not dare to speak your name aloud? That's great. No, really, super. Here's a scrub brush. There are toilets that need cleaning.

  
Now put a celebrity in the mix. Someone with fame, talent, charisma. Someone who's much more, well, likeable than you will ever be. Then imagine what happens when that celebrity finds you the most interesting thing on Earth - or performs just for you.

When Money won't work, when Ideology's a non-starter, the smart agent leans heavily on Compromise and Ego. All wrapped up in a pretty package, with charming smile to match.

The Wedding Singer

This story seed is nominally set in Monaco, but can easily be changed to a different location.

A celebrated Russian Mafia boss has arranged it so his daughter will have the ultimate private show - a concert in her honor at the Monaco Yacht Club. Invites are out, and this is very much by invitation only. If you don't have Streetwise or High Society sufficient to impress the higher-ups, you aren't getting in.

However the agents know that a very important figure within the Conspiracy is keen to get in. The performer is someone that Conspiracy bigwig rates very highly. They'd do, well, anything to get closer. Perhaps a quiet back-room conference - a quick bite, maybe?

In this seed the agents have two challenges. First, they have to get into that performance. They can't blunt-force this Infiltration. Monaco's much too high profile for stick-on comedy moustaches and a bit of the old Peter Sellers.  Force will be met with brutal retribution. Monaco's the most highly policed location on the planet, with cops and soldiers aplenty available at a moment's notice. With all those cameras watching everyone's least move it will literally need only a moment before Heat becomes unbearable. However they get in, it will need to be ironclad.

Second, they need to make a Network contact of that celebrity. Ideally this isn't just a point spend; you don't want the players thinking they can buy Beyoncé with X number of Network points. The agents will need some kind of leverage - which brings us back to MICE. Again, Ego is probably the most useful leverage but don't forget the power of Money. After all, Money bought Jackson Pollock. The rulebook calls it Excessive Funds for a reason. Given the Monaco setting this might be a fun time for some Gambling challenges to rack up funds. Perhaps the agents get the celebrity's cooperation through some strategic baccarat, in much the same way Sean Connery gets Sylva Trench's attention in the opening scenes of Doctor No.

All of which leads up to that psychological moment. Celebrity meets Vampire. At which point the agents presumably play their ace and flip that asset. Or not. Then, as with every con game, there is the blow-off, as the agents exfiltrate without arousing suspicion. Cackle bladder optional.

Mind you if it all goes wrong and Beyoncé ends up one of the Conspiracy's converted it shall be an interesting after-mission briefing with Edom (or whoever's paying the bills). The agents will be lucky if they escape with a written reprimand in their case file ... 

Enjoy!

A Million Dollar Trouper (Night's Black Agents)

This week's post is inspired by a recent Guardian news article about the antics and jolly japeries of the Barclay family.

The brief version is this: concerned that their uncle Sir Frederick was blabbing just a little too freely about the family's business interests, and in particular about the sale of London's Ritz Hotel to Qatari businessman Abdulhadi Mana al-Hajri, the younger generation bugged the Hotel's conservatory to listen in on Sir Frederick's business conversations. Sir Frederick's version is that he had buyers lined up prepared to pay over a billion pounds for London's most famous hotel, as discussed in those recorded conversations. The Ritz sold for much less than that. The implication is that the younger generation, which has control over the family's complicated financial structure, sabotaged his attempts to get a better price. The younger generation seems to think Sir Frederick is talking a load of old cock to leverage his way into a bigger payout.

Truly, the rich are different from you and me.

For those of you wondering 'haven't I heard the phrase Barclay Brothers before,' Sir Frederick is one of the two billionaire Barclay twins who, like Colossi, bestride the British financial world while petty men walk about under their huge ... well, that's enough of that. They're the ones attempting to take over Sark's feudal government, who've fiddl ... managed their taxes for years by claiming residence in Monaco (for health reasons, claims Sir Frederick), and who made sure the Ritz paid no corporation tax in the UK for 17 years. In short, wealthy weasels.

It's not entirely clear why the younger Barclays would deliberately sabotage a business deal that would earn them more money. Were I writing this as fiction, one possibility occurs: the deal wouldn't earn the business more money, but the buyer would sling a big fat financial inducement to the person who swung the deal. Sir Frederick, not having any direct say in the family's financial affairs, wouldn't benefit directly from a business deal, beyond the usual, but hankers after that big fat financial inducement. Hence those business meetings at the Ritz. As the family network wasn't getting any more cash no matter who bought it, the younger generation might be perfectly happy kicking old uncle Freddie in the statisticals if it meant a) he wouldn't get the B.F.F.I., and b) he'd keep out of the family's business in future. Game of Thrones, really, but with lawyers and bribes rather than stabbing and bribes.

However it did make me think about Night's Black Agents, and Nodes.

One typical version of the National or International level Node is the Corporation, or the Wealthy/Influential Individual. In Dracula Dossier terms, Klopstock & Billreuth, Bankers, or the Petroleum Executive.  These are the entities or people who can get things done, who by virtue of their own power/authority can affect and even direct the policies of small countries or nations. They have outposts in several different places, and luxurious homes in other places - Monaco, say. Often they're treated as monolithic or singular entities, but every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Far from being singular, the Petroleum Executive, say, will have a flock of hangers-on, employees, family. Klopstock & Billreuth, having more working parts, will have an even larger flock.

These people will notice if the Node does something out of character, say because it's being influenced by outside powers. The Conspiracy doesn't care about balance sheets so it might order the higher-ups at K&B to do something that doesn't benefit the bank but does benefit the Conspiracy. Or it might tell the Petroleum Executive to falsify reports on prospective oil fields. The people close to them, but not directly touched by the Conspiracy, will notice this. They may try to do something about it. Like the younger Barclays, they may get very reckless. They may plant bugs, or hire people to plant bugs for them. Put surveillance on mobile phones, track the company car with GPS - all the kind of things that sound or look cool in a TV show but often end up in court in real life, possibly with substantial damages attached. As happened to the younger Barclays.

With that in mind:

Niko, My Cousin

The agents become aware (High Society, Law, possibly Cop Talk or via a contact like the Journalist) that a scandal is about to break. Someone attached to a suspected Node has been caught planting surveillance equipment in the Node's luxury Monaco townhouse. Apparently this has been going on for at least a few months, but it only recently came to light when that someone - Nic Bellic, the Serbian fiancée of the Node's son/daughter - was caught replacing one of the bugs.

According to Nic, the intent was to protect the fiancée from the Node's questionable business dealings. Apparently the trust fund was being drained, for reasons Nic doesn't fully understand. Nic thinks it has something to do with the Node's business partners, but isn't sure of the details.

Currently Nic is under lock and key in one of Monaco's high-end hotels. Lawyers are said to be circling, and the fiancée is dithering between the Node and Nic.

The Agents will want Nic's data. So does the Conspiracy. The question is, where is it? Does Nic have it in the hotel room? Is it in Nic's lawyers' safe? Does the fiancée have it?

The Conspiracy will also want to silence everyone involved, but in Monaco that's a tall order. The recorded murder rate has been 0% per 100,000 people since 2007. Even in 2001, the high-water mark, the murder rate was 3% per 100,000. There are more police per capita here than anywhere else on the planet, and cameras all over every street, public place, and high-end hotel corridor. An actual killing will be difficult to pull off. The Conspiracy's used to planting snipers on rooftops, but this is more a 'death by natural causes' situation. It would be much, much easier if this happened outside Monaco, but none of the main players seem all that keen to leave the fleshpots.

Enjoy!

The Harker Intrusion & the Van Helsing Letter (Dracula Dossier)

I've been asked to talk about weaving (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter into an introduction to the gory chocolate box that is the Dracula Dossier. I've already talked about (S)entries and where I would put it in the list. Today's the day the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter get their time in the limelight.

As always I will try to avoid spoilers, but if you want to be completely unspoilt then stop reading now.

I should begin by saying that the Harker Intrusion appears in several different formats. It was a free RPG pdf download that was later incorporated into the Edom Files, and I believe it also features in a KWAS Collection. I'm unaware of any significant difference between the publications, but if there are any then you should know I'm relying on the version in the Edom Files for this discussion. To my knowledge the Van Helsing Letter only exists as a Free RPG day scenario.

Like (S)entries the Harker Intrusion demonstrates the core concepts of the game. However, unlike (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion isn't concerned with game mechanics. This one's all about mood. There's a potential Thrilling Chase early on, but this one's much more about chills than thrills.

The ultimate objective of the Harker Intrusion is to hand the players a McGuffin which can be used in later scenarios. There are some creepshow moments before that point, in several different geographic locations, and the climactic scenes take place in the heart of London. One optional moment puts the agents face-to-face with a significant threat, but it is very much optional; if the agents don't want to run the risk, they don't have to.

Whereas in the Van Helsing Letter the objective is to pit the agents in direct conflict with the Conspiracy. There is a significant threat, and it is not an optional encounter. An even mix of thrills and chills with this one, with the added bonus of an artefact which can be used in future scenarios - though there's no guarantee the agents will find it.

If I were using these three scenarios in combination then a great deal depends on whether they're playing as Edom, or whether they're playing against Edom.

In either case, (S)entries goes first. That's just good sense. Then I would use the (S)entries option whereby the NPC with the laptop is already in contact with Harker, who's the driving force in the Harker Intrusion. Harker's been gathering intel from several different sources and employing others to root out intel. The (S)entries NPC is just one of Harker's many sources. Perhaps Harker was trying to sell that NPC the Dossier, or some of the information that book contains. Perhaps Harker was after something else, but whatever it might have been there is enough information on that laptop to put the agents in contact with Harker.

Perhaps the agents contact Harker, or, if they do not, Harker contacts them. To get the laptop back, to find out who the agents are, it doesn't really matter; whichever way this goes, Harker and the agents are in contact by the end of (S)entries. If the agents are Edom, then this can be an elaborate double-bluff, since Harker is very definitely against Edom and all its works.

The question then becomes where to place the Harker Intrusion? The answer, as I've delicately hinted, depends on whether your agents are Edom or are against Edom.

If they are Edom, then Harker comes last. If against Edom, then Harker can be last, but fits in just as well in the second slot.

If they are Edom, then their role is either to protect the Dossier at all costs or to use it against the Conspiracy. That book is Edom's beating heart. This makes any scenario in which the Dossier plays a major role the natural capstone for the opening chapter. By obtaining that McGuffin they're doing their job, and incidentally opening themselves up to a larger, more complicated world.

The only real switcheroo is whether or not the OPFOR in Harker is Edom. That ultimately depends on how the Director intends to portray Edom. Perhaps the agency is corrupt, either suborned by Dracula or too committed to its own debased ends to care how it gets the job done. In that event Edom using lethal force against its own is par for the course.

Alternatively the OPFOR could be a different organization entirely. It might be the Conspiracy, or it might be one of the other intelligence agencies making a play for the ultimate prize. The logical choice, if using the Van Helsing Letter, is the German Vampire Program, Unternehmen Braun. However it could be any of the other contestants for the prize: the Vatican, China's Room 452, the US' Find Forever program - whoever you fancy, though it might be especially delicious if it was Find Forever since that pits UK vs US, and in any battle between those contestants the US will have the best toys and cash to burn. Added to that, if the agents upset the Americans then their own people will be very upset with the agents. Tea with the Queen is cancelled, that sort of thing.

Which brings me to Van Helsing, which in many ways is a much simpler introductory scenario. No globe-trotting, lots of chances for fisticuffs, big gribbly bad boy, spooky setting. Plus a genuine artifact from the Good Old Days, left behind by one of the major players in the first operation.

If the agents are Edom then there are good reasons to make this the second scenario in the trilogy. The best being that it shows them what might happen if Dracula's left to his own devices. It raises the stakes; Dracula isn't just some sleepy bloodsucker content to hang out in his castle, he's a mover and a shaker intent on nefarious goals. He has access to sophisticated equipment, minions, and big gribblies. Dracula's an active threat. This fits in best with Stakes games, but works just as well with the other variations on the formula.

The only change I might make depends on who the OPFOR is in Harker. If the idea is to make the OPFOR Find Forever, for example, then I would make it clear that Find Forever is linked somehow to Germany's Unternehmen Braun, since Germany's vampire program plays a big part in Van Helsing. Perhaps this dates back to the Cold War days, or even immediately post-war, when the US was snatching every ex-Nazi asset it could get its hands on. The same applies to all the other potential OPFORs, just with different variations on the theme. That provides a clear link between this scenario and Harker.

If Harker is still in play at this stage - which might not be so, if the Harker Intrusion was the middle scenario - then Harker introduces the agents to the NPC who kicks off the Van Helsing scenario. However Harker plays no other significant role; this isn't Harker's story to tell.

The objective of all three scenarios taken together is:

1. Introduce the players to all the major rules mechanics. (S)entries goes first, for that reason.
2. Introduce the agents to the major driving forces in the game world. Van Helsing works well as second scenario for this reason, but it could as easily be Harker.
3. Provide the agents with a dramatic capstone for the opening chapter while at the same time leaving dangling plot hooks for future scenarios. If the agents are Edom then Harker is the obvious capstone, but Van Helsing can be just as useful as it introduces the agents to the Conspiracy, with all the dangling plot hooks that implies.

Now, I've talked enough on this topic. Next time, something different!  

(S)entries & the Dracula Dossier (Night's Black Agents)

I've been asked to talk about how I would use (S)entries, the Harker Intrusion and the Van Helsing Letter as an introduction to the glittering treasure box that is the Dracula Dossier. This week I'll be discussing (S)entries, the opening scenario published in the main rulebook. 

For those of you who don't want any spoilers whatsoever, stop reading now. I'm going to be as spoiler-light as I can, but any discussion must inevitably drift into spoiler territory.

The opening scenario of any game needs to do two things: demonstrate the core concept, and show off the game world. The core concept is the crunchy rules bit of the campaign. How do you do combat? How do you resolve tests, uncover clues, uncover the twisty turns of the plot and win the day? Is this grim and gritty, high stakes stuff? Le Carre, Bond or Bourne? Who are these characters and what is their relationship with the setting?

(S)entries is very good at this. By the time the agents have completed their task they will have had to engage with most of the core mechanics of the game. They will also have encountered an unusual adversary. Odds are one or more of them will be injured, but unless things have gone badly wrong nobody will have died. However there is the potential for things to go badly wrong. This isn't a cakewalk. Incautious agents will get reamed. 

They will also have encountered a  McGuffin, and may still be in possession of same by the end of the scenario. 

Yes I know, you've seen that one before. It bears repeating. Particularly if you're new to this, you need to know just how disposable McGuffins are. That means if the players drop the McGuffin there is always another McGuffin round the corner. If, at the end of (S)entires, the agents no longer have the McGuffin that shouldn't bring the plot to a premature conclusion.

In the Dracula Dossier, the McGuffin is the Dossier itself. A copy of Stoker's Dracula that theoretically contains vital information which, if used correctly, can stop Dracula in his tracks. Or not. Several generations of spies have used it, and come up short. It is protected by the strongest and most lethal defenses Edom has to offer. Or it's been hiding in a box for however long. Or someone stole it. Or someone lost it. 

'Someone lost it' is more common than you might think, in spy circles. Magician John Mulholland's Manual of Trickery, written to help the CIA, went missing for decades after MKUltra went blooey. It finally turned up in someone's desk drawer in the early 2000s. Peter Wright in Spycatcher mentions in passing clearing out his office safe, full of all kinds of oddments he'd squirrelled away over a lifetime of espionage. Files get taken out of archive and not put back. Things get taken out of the office even when every available protocol says they shouldn't leave the archivist's store. It's said it's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission - some people seem to spend their entire careers asking for forgiveness.

In this instance I would play it that the McGuffin found in (S)entries is a much smaller version of the Dossier. A few pages at most, obtained at great expense and effort. When I did this in my game I had the scanned pages on the hard drive of the laptop that the agents have to snatch, and played it that the NPC the laptop belongs to was negotiating with the Dossier's holder for full access. The scanned pages were to establish the holder's bona fides.

The physical book is part of the Dracula Dossier set. However there's nothing to say that you, as Director, can't buy a copy of Dracula and use it in your game. In fact if you're feeling particularly crafty you can get a completely unrelated book and switch out the cover for the first edition. People assume that first editions must be spectacular, high-end items with lavish production values. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Theoretically the actual first edition ought to be a fairly battered artefact. Even if its owner kept it as pristine as possible, when first released Dracula wasn't what you'd call highbrow literature. Nobody was releasing high-end limited editions. This is practically Mills and Boon mass-produced commercial tat. Yellow cloth cover with red lettering, and eight pages of publisher's advertisements at the end. The 1927 Doubleday edition is prettier. The 1931 dustjacket is more evocative. The annotated version is more informative. None of that matters. People don't buy first editions to read them. First editions are all about bragging rights. 

In short: make your own Dossier. A little bit of Photoshop, and you're golden. Whatever it is, it's just as viable as any other version of the McGuffin. It can lose pages. It can be valuable, or at least desirable to a collector. Buy a cheap one second-hand and let the players keep it. Splatter it with blood or write on the pages with glow-in-the-dark ink. Treat it as disposable, because it very much is. 

For reference, this is the back cover of an Agatha Christie White Circle Pocket paperback circa 1930-something. The inside cover has an advert for something called Pelmanism. The back page just says I WANT CADBURYS. This is the very definition of cheap disposable tat. I picked this up when I was last in London for three quid and a bit, as the condition isn't collector's standard. Haunt your second-hand shop and you too can come away with gold. 

If I were using (S)entries as an introduction to the Dossier I wouldn't touch the scenario at all. I would leave it exactly as it is, but I would make sure that the McGuffin in the scenario either includes information that leads to the Dossier, or information about whoever has the Dossier. 

I would also make this the very first scenario of the series. In part because it does everything you want a first scenario to do, and also because there's a decent chance the characters will end up with the McGuffin at the end which in turn can include information that leads to other scenarios.

The Director-controlled character who possesses the McGuffin at the start of the scenario is fairly undefined. He has a name and a plot function, but there's nothing in the scenario to indicate why he's interested in the McGuffin. He may not even realize the importance of what he has. The only change I would make to the scenario is to tie that character more firmly to the ongoing plot as a whole. There are several ways to do this:

• The NPC is an agent working for X (Edom? The Conspiracy? Someone else?). In the course of the scenario the characters find out a little about X, and X's ongoing plot function.
• The NPC is a Legacy.
• The NPC is part of an independent group dedicated to finding the Dossier.
• The NPC is a Stoker enthusiast whose search for a first edition has uncovered some very odd facts.

In each of these instances it may or may not be useful if the NPC is a recurring character. Alternatively the NPC's mysterious disappearance or death shortly after the events of the scenario gives the characters the first indication of the seriousness of their long-term situation.

There is one other optional change the Director could make: change the location of the NATO base. 

The opening scenes take place in Bosnia, where the agents have to infiltrate a NATO base. However if you're playing the Dracula Dossier then some of the action - possibly a lot of it - will be taking place in Romania. As Director you're going to want to introduce the agents to the setting as early as possible. As luck would have it, there's a perfectly serviceable NATO base in Deveselu, Romania. It used to be a Romanian Air Force Base before it was shut down in 2003. Technically you may want to play with dates a little bit as NATO doesn't move in until 2016, and the usual modern day start date is 2014. That said, there's no law that says your game has to start in 2014, and if you wanted to move the occupation date for Deveselu forward a couple years nobody's going to cry foul. Plus an air base that's been mothballed for more than ten years in a relatively rural part of Romania sounds like the perfect setting for supernatural shenanegans.  

Understand, I'm not saying put Dracula's Castle in sunny downtown Deveselu. I'm saying lay a little groundwork for what's to come. Perhaps Edom's cup insignia on some old monument, or a fleeting glimpse of a Node like Heal the Children. If a Director-controlled character like the Psychic is going to be important later, have the Psychic appear on local television. Just drop hints, with perhaps a bit of folklore attached, so when the agents come back to Romania later it can be more along the lines of 'I remember this from last time - and it was just as creepy then, too.'

In a previous post, Messing with the Protagonists, I give an example of what can be done with the McGuffin itself. I let the players obtain information, but it came with a sting in the tail: viruses, which infected their own hardware. As Director you should consider doing something similar with your McGuffin. After all, once the players have it everyone else wants it, and that means the players will constantly need to defend their prize. The whole point behind a McGuffin is that everyone wants it. If the characters aren't threatened 24/7 as long as they have it, why, it's not a McGuffin.  

Anyway, that should give you enough to be going on with. Next time, a discussion of another scenario that can be used as a lead-in to the Dossier.

Enjoy!