Forgotten London: Mother Red-Cap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So after all that, what have we?

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

Scenario Seeds:

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

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

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

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

Blair2 - Cool Britannia (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

 Last time I introduced the concept: a Night's Black Agents game set in Blair's Britain. The next step is to establish the terms of this tragedy. Who's on stage? What do they want?

In tragedy we start with hamartia - the fatal flaw. Often this is hubris, or overweening self-confidence. The essence of hamartia is to miss the mark, to fall short in some way, and in Greek tragedy the one who falls short is often also the one with all the gifts. The hero, the prince, the semi-divine, the one whose fall from grace is all the more poignant because they started so well. 

From hamartia the peripeteia results - the reversal of fortune. Somehow the protagonists' falling short causes, inspires or otherwise brings about the tragedy that irreversibly dooms them. Not just them; in a Shakespearean context a tragedy usually brings about the destruction of any number of hapless bystanders, like Ophelia in Hamlet, or Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet. 

Though in this instance the better text might be Marlowe's Faustus, in which the hero with many gifts sells his soul for material gain.

1967 film adaptation with Richard Burton and Andreas Teuber

Before I talk about who's on stage, it would be better to set the stage.

Cool Britannia is a 1990s phenomenon that began before Blair's premiership, but Blair made it his own. It's a youth culture movement, Britpop, Four Weddings, Tracy Emin's bed and half a shark all mixed up in an over-sugared trifle. It's all the pent-up optimism that had been smothered in the 1980s, suddenly bursting free. The generation that might have been born in the 1970s but has no memory of strikes or Harold Wilson comes of age. 

It's also, incidentally, the early budding of Brexit. If you're 20 in 1997, you're mid-40s, rapidly approaching your 50s in 2021. All those ambitious dreams, fading away, optimism replaced by bile, ready to be persuaded that it's all someone else's fault. After all, it can't be your fault that something which began so well ended so drably. Boris Johnson's a political columnist in the 1990s, dripping his poison. Domenic Cummings is in Russia, trying to build a Sanara-Vienna airline. UKIP's political journey begins in 1993. Nigel Farage is floating adrift, politically, after leaving the Conservatives in 1992, and is trading commodities in the City. David Cameron's an ambitious young wannabe, flitting from the Treasury to the Home Office to the private sector; at the time of Blair's first victories he's working for Carlton Television.

So you've got an early burst of overweening optimism, of pop culture and youthful exuberance - a colorful repudiation of the grey and stodgy Conservativism John Major came to represent. Ultimately the Tories get swept aside by Labour in 1997, as Cool Britannia crests. 

That's the stage. Who are the players?

Blair's the Sun King in this narrative, but having the UK PM as an actual person the characters can interact with, and by extension manipulate, is probably counter-productive. This story doesn't need a Sun King; it needs a Gary King.

The World's End opening scene, sourced from SceneScreen

The one with all the gifts, the natural leader of the group - the one who'll become the biggest disappointment. If this is a straight Edom Files game then this is probably one of the Dukes, but let's say it's not. What then?

Whoever this is, it has to be a patron figure, potentially an Icon if we're using 13th Age concepts. Someone who provides not just money but also motivation, a walking, talking inciting incident. The one with a big enough mouth and personality to get the gang together. and back together again after the inevitable bust-up.

This isn't someone who takes attention from the PCs. Whoever this King is, their job is to alert the agents to danger, to uncover hot spots, and ultimately fail. Again, if the Icon rules are being used then this Icon will ultimately be dethroned - and whoever replaces them may not be inclined to help the agents in any way.

Finally, this King needs to fit whichever concept the campaign is designed around, and for a reminder those concepts are:

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

Supernatural: Their markers are strange superstitions, their emphasis hunger.

Damned: Their markers are holy symbols and spiritualism, their emphasis is seduction. 

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

Since we have four concepts let's have four potential Kings: the Politician, the Media Mogul (alternately the Financial Mogul), the Tech Guru, and the Priest.

The Politician's a fairly obvious pick: a Blairite, someone who might be on the Cabinet someday but for now is holding down a senior post in the government. 

The Media or Financial Mogul is a bit different. An Alan Sugar type, pre-Apprentice, best known for being best known. Sugar himself is busy making computers at this point in his career, but if people know his name at all it's because he part-owns Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Alternatively the Media type is someone high up in the DGMT which owns, among other things, the Daily Mail, the London Evening Standard and the Metro. This is useful because the DGMT is founded by the Viscount Northcliffe and owned by another Viscount, his descendant the Viscount Rothermere who, as fortune would have it, is a very recent appointment in game terms; Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, to give him his complete name, takes over in 1998 when his father unexpectedly dies. So you've got an entrée to the nobility as well as a media mogul in one handy package.

The Tech Guru is probably building one of the many Dot-Bombs in 1997 - though of course nobody knows that yet. Awash with cash and charisma, famous and adored, the Tech Guru flits from Big Moment to Big Moment, and never misses a First Tuesday. Nobody questions anything they say or do. It wouldn't be proper. Their genius means they're always right, a quality they share with Doctor Who - tho Christopher Eccleston won't revive that character till 2005.

The Priest might be an Ultraviolet-type quasi-bureaucrat, (first aired 1998); it's never very clear who Philp Quast's ex-religious is meant to be working for, though there's a strong Catholic vibe to his character. 

Ultraviolet trailer, sourced from Thespilian

There is another way to go. Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins, a female priest turned Deliverance exorcist, gets her start in 1998. Women have been able to be ordained as priests from 1992 but none are ordained until 1994, and women as bishops is a contentious issue right up to the first appointed female Bishop, in 2015. Merrily's a useful example because not only does she represent the very new, she also finds herself entangled in the ancient. She'd fit well into a Supernatural or Damned game, where a Philip Quast type is more generic.

Midwinter of the Spirit trailer, sourced from Acorn Media US.

With all that in mind, let's create some Garys.

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

Politician: Malcolm / Nicola Fleming, a spin doctor with the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. Fleming's authority is murky at best; at times Fleming appears to have the PM's ear, while at other times Fleming's in temporary exile to some forgettable post within the Department. Fleming's a political troubleshooter who deals with some of the government's messier problems. A firm proponent of the Third Way, Fleming's no old-school socialist nor yet a union sympathizer. Fleming didn't get to where Fleming is today by ignoring friends; their Network is legendary. A Cambridge graduate (Trinity), Fleming has friends at the Science Park to help Fleming with any science-related crusades.

Fleming's current obsession is BSE and infected beef, which Fleming believes is linked to something far more sinister. Fleming suspects this is the first in a series of attempts to weaken the country through artificial manipulation of infectious diseases - to what end? 

In Play: abrasive, confrontational and aggressive when pursuing an agenda, all charm and smiles when dealing with anyone outside the Department, particularly the Media. 

Hamartia: insatiable curiosity. Fleming has to know, and doesn't care about the cost of knowing.

Supernatural: Their markers are strange superstitions, their emphasis hunger.

Financial Mogul: Bruno / Teressa Montgomery. born Melnyk to Ukraine immigrant father who left after the war and married late. Montgomery changed their name in the 1980s to Anglicize it. A financial genius who got his start in Thatcher's Britain, Montgomery is a staunch Labour supporter thanks both to his father and his mother, a coal miner's daughter with family ties to Neil Kinnock. These days he's moved from fund manager to guardian angel, providing start-up cash to some of Dot Com's most promising tech startups. Montgomery is as likely to be seen at First Tuesday events as they are in the board room. Montgomery is no grey little gnome; Montogomery is a petrol head with a penchant for classic cars, and owns at least two 1920s Bentleys formerly toys belonging to Woolf Baranato. Rumor has it Montgomery has tried to match it against France's Blue Train, in a recreation of the famous 1930s races.  

Montgomery's eldest child, Martin, suffered a tragic accident that left the boy in a coma. That's when Montgomery was first approached by a group Montgomery calls the Syndicate, which made them a proposition: do as we ask, and you can have your son back. Montgomery, a lapsed Catholic, went back to the Church instead. Since then Montgomery has made it their mission to find out all they can about the Syndicate; Montgomery hates losing, to anyone or anything.   

In Play: urbane, talkative, more British than the British and very fond of traditional hunting/shooting/fishing pursuits. Enjoys being the smartest person in the room.

Hamartia: overwhelming ambition. It isn't enough to have money; Montgomery must have the fame and power that goes with it. 

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

Tech Guru: Alan / Elaine Augustin, founder and CEO of MilesToGo, an online retailer dealing in luxury travel and leisure. Augustin's a poetry geek and a tech geek, and is fond of quoting Robert Frost at business meetings. Augustin, a former model turned tech wizard who can dress the part as well as talk it, is as well known in Paris couture as they are in London's tech scene. Less well known is Augustin's addiction to Madame JoJos, a seedy Soho nightclub, but if you want Augustin's attention that's where you must go to get it. Make a splash there, and you've a fan for life.

Which is how (and where) Augustin first met what Augustin calls The Queen.  Terrified and intrigued in equal measure, Augustin has been tracking The Queen ever since. Augustin won't rest until their curiosity is satisfied, though whether this is about knowledge or domination is anyone's guess. 

In Play: Bumptious to the point of arrogance, with broad gestures and wild flights of fancy. Everyone expects a tech genius to be eccentric, even flamboyant, and the burden of living up to those expectations is exhausting. 

Hamartia: tragic error. Augustin fundamentally misunderstands The Queen, though in what way has yet to be determined. 

Damned: Their markers are holy symbols and spiritualism, their emphasis is seduction.

Priest: Emelia / Arthur Prentice-Jones, a new recruit to the Church of England's Deliverance ministry. Prentice-Jones is a former psychiatrist who suffered a crisis of conscience when a patient committed suicide. This traumatic event persuaded Prentice-Jones that there was more that could be done to help people, and that faith was the beacon that lit the way forward. An overachiever, Prentice-Jones soon won plaudits for their work and it's thought that one day they might ascend to a Bishopric; for now, their latest challenge is to reform the Deliverance ministry and bring it into the modern era. This they do with a will, travelling across the country to discuss spiritual and Deliverance issues with priests and people around the UK.

This peripatetic life led to an unexpected encounter in Suffolk, at the University, where what at first seemed to be a nervous breakdown proved to be what Prentice-Jones now knows is Renfielding. When Prentice-Jones sought to bring this to his superiors' attention he was rebuked, and now they wonder whether the rot is actually within the Church itself. 

In Play: Calm, collected, very nearly bloodless - some call them the Cardinal, as they seem to be addicted to power and to ritual in equal measure. A deep well of compassion for the afflicted hides under that austere demeanor; Prentice-Jones got into this to help the desperate, and will do anything towards that end. 

Hamartia: intense drive and passion for advancement. Prentice-Jones knows that they are right and the world is wrong; they brook no obstacles, no delay. If it must be done, it must be done immediately.

That's it for this week. Next time out, the first steps. 

Enjoy!