Troy Town (RPG All)

A delightful air of romance and mystery surrounds the whole subject of Labyrinths and Mazes.

MAZES AND LABYRINTHS, W.H. Matthews, 1922 Longmans

I was recently reminded of this and thought it would repay a revisit.

Most of you know what hedge mazes are. They can be used to good effect in horror. Stephen King famously used one in the Shining, with Torrance stalking through it in search of his boy Danny. King has his version patrolled by peculiar hedge creatures, but in the film it's just an evocative location - probably the better fit, TBH, though I doubt King would agree.

However, that's not the kind of maze I'm talking about.

A Troy is a turf maze. There are no walls. The pattern twists in upon itself, straight to its center like Ouroboros. There is only one way forward. Nobody knows why they were made, but at one time there were Troys across Europe and some still exist, in forgotten little places. 

There are several examples in England. Most of the survivors are on private property.

A true Troy is cut to what's called a Greek, or sometimes Knossos, pattern, after the markings found on Greek coinage. It's possible those old coins were used as a direct reference, or perhaps the design survived in books, but however it came to be the people who made the mazes tended to follow that pattern. 

Nobody knows for certain why these mazes came to be. It's said that the original patterns were used for horsemanship games practiced by the Greeks and revived by the Romans. There are any number of folkloric reasons for the mazes; fishermen in Sweden, for example, used to march the Troy to throw off wicked spirits who might otherwise follow and bedevil them. Or they might have been fertility rituals, or tied to the legends of Ariadne, Fair Rosamund, St. Julian of the Hospice, Theseus' crane dance or any of a dozen other tales and legend-bearers.

From Mazes & Labyrinths

However, they exist and have done since memory forgot, and only the dead now know how they came to be. 

They were in use for a considerable period. Right up until the Great War, more or less, there would have been seasonal rituals, fetes, or more private marchings of the Troy. Like so many other bits of lore, the Troys tended to die out with the great withering on the Western Front.  

From an RPG perspective the great thing about a Troy is, because nobody knows why they were made or how they came to be, you as Keeper (or whatever the term may be) can use them absolutely anywhere.

The most logical-seeming fit is in a fantasy setting, of course. Serpentine, Ravenloft, any one of a host of others: any and all can benefit from peculiar rituals practiced in the dead of night or in the heart of some forgotten moor, with creatures or entities flitting the Troy in a dance that seems deceptively simple and in fact is tied to the soul of the universe. Or summons Cthulhu. Or whatever the case may be.

Night's Black Agents and similar supernatural settings could make good use of the Troy. In Night's the obvious uses are Damned or Supernatural but the thing about a hypnotic pattern is it could as easily be used in Mutant or Alien games. 

Quatermass and the Pit

But it could as easily be Cyberpunk, or Mutant City Blues. A neo-pagan movement captures the imagination of Night City and the desperate, the helpless, homeless, forlorn, dance the Troy. Why? Nobody knows. Or a bunch of bangers and gangers devise Troys as a non-combat means of settling disputes, with each side (or sides) nominating a team to dance the Troy, winner take all. The Troy becomes a modern dance movement. The Troy is a means of contacting alien life.

The Troy is, and is, and is. 

I've made frequent references to Rome and its Fourth Thing. A Troy is a pretty good match for that Fourth Thing. It's sufficiently mysterious and alien-seeming that it could be a stand-in for almost anything from fairyland to Leng. It's easily created by one person, cutting turf, but it could as easily be graffiti, or a complex of patterned lights, or a dozen other things besides. 

There's something about a maze that calls the eye and mind. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

YSDC's adaptation of my scenario The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby is going really well, and people seem to like it. In honor of that, here's a very skeletal scenario for you about a cursed French commode.

No, not that kind of commode.

It's based in part on Jules Michelet's book Witchcraft, Sorcery and Superstition. Michelet is a very clever French raconteur and scholar who makes the stories he tells come alive - even if he has to sacrifice detachment and accuracy to do so. If you have any interest in this topic I urge you to seek it out. I have the Citadel Press translation which is why the title's slightly different.

Caveat Emptor

The Hook

The investigators are asked to authenticate an allegedly cursed Louis Quinze commode, only to discover that the curse is all too real.

Louis Quinze: A term used by antique dealers and art historians, this means that the item was made during the reign of Louis XV of France, or 1715 to 1730. This is sometimes called the Regency period. The grand Rocaille stylings with their graceful curves and elements modeled on nature, an artistic rebellion against the heavy formal styles popular in Louis’ fathers time, are just beginning to come into fashion.

Commode: The meaning is derived from the French, meaning convenient, or suitable. A cabinet or chest of drawers, set low so as to be below the dado rail, or the midpoint of the wall.

The Awful Truth

In 1726 the notorious witch and false nun Madeline was brought by her confessor and captor Picart to a dungeon in his home at Rouen. There she was to be starved to death, but she proved remarkably difficult to kill. Over time Picart relented, but only because she was still useful – he could bring her to trials as a so-called expert witness to accuse other witches. All the while he and the staff of his house sexually abused and tormented her, thinking her less than human.

They grew so used to her that they seldom bothered locking her up. There was nowhere she could go. No family in Rouen would take her in, her family had renounced her, and to the wider world she was the notorious witch, baby-killer and false Bride of Christ. She had the run of Picart’s household.

Picart and his people failed to realize that whether or not she’d been a servant of dark powers before her incarceration she certainly was now. She had congress with strange creatures while locked in that cellar deep below ground, beings that advised her the best way to revenge herself on Picart. She scrawled her curses in blood on parchment stolen from Picart’s desk, and carefully concealed them in a false drawer of the commode. Then she waited for the curse to do its work.

She hadn’t long to wait. Before the month was out Picart had vanished, stolen into the void by the Dimensional Shambler her curse had summoned, but not bound. As it wasn’t bound the creature could return again and again, so long as it remained within a short distance of the commode. It did. Within another month, two of Picart’s servants disappeared, and people began talking about a curse.

Over the years the Shambler emerged from beyond our dimension again and again. Sometimes it didn’t take a victim, but allowed itself to be seen. On other occasions it merely wounded its target, or left bloodstains and other marks behind for people to wonder at. Often its victim would simply vanish without a trace.

These repeated visits began to damage the commode, in a dimensional sense. It no longer exists just in our world; it has a parallel existence across the void. It creates a hole in reality.

Holes allow passage in both directions.

The Cursed Commode

Date made: around 1710 to 1725

Artist/Maker: attributed to the workshop of Pierre Couchois, Rouen.

Medium: Oak and Fir veneered with amaranth, bloodwood and warama; gilt-bronze mounts; marble top.

Dimensions: 85.7 cm by 131.4 cm by 58.4 cm.

First known curse event: the disappearance and presumed death of Father Picart, Jesuit and witch-hunter, 1728.

Second known: The murder of banker Marius Harel and his entire family, eight people in all, 1789. Also known as the Night of Blood in some of the more lurid histories.

Third known: The disappearance of Deidra Van Stratten on her wedding night, leaving only her ring finger behind, 1865.

Fourth known: The strange decapitation of auctioneer Ralston Hayes, 1902.

There are several disappearances also blamed on the curse, but without evidence it’s impossible to link any disappearance with the commode.

Opening Scene

The investigators are asked to authenticate the commode by an important auctioneering firm.

Initial examination finds nothing untoward. The commode is authentic, and rather plain for the period. Its lurid history is its main attraction, otherwise an ordinary example of early Louis Quinze furnishing would attract little interest.

Clue:                     There are some signs of refurbishing, possibly in the early 18^th Century, which warrant further investigation. Perhaps this isn’t an original piece; someone may have cobbled it together from period parts.

Confrontation: The Confession

Soon after the investigators start their examination they discover mysterious writing appearing in every notebook, newspaper or similar. The writing only appears if the item is left in the same room as the commode, for any length of time. It’s in archaic French.

The writing disappears after several hours, but if the paper was torn or damaged those marks remain.

Clue:                     If translated, the writing proves to be a series of confessions. Whoever wrote them was in a very disturbed state of mind. The person confesses to congress with the Devil, witchcraft, baby murder and a hundred different things. Often the writer is so disturbed that whatever they use to write with breaks or tears through the paper. The name Picart appears again and again.

Clue:                     Whatever it is, it’s not invisible ink. Despite every test, once the writing vanishes it’s as if it was never there.

Clue (hard):        The writer refers to herself as ‘unhappy Madeline’ once.

Confrontation: A Break-In – Or Is It?

The contents of the room the commode is in have been moved by person or persons unknown, and they weren’t too careful when they did it. Some things are damaged or smashed beyond repair. The commode is untouched, and remains exactly where it was left.

Clue:                     Judging by what might be a footprint in the dust, whoever did this was very large. Possibly more than seven foot tall. How does someone that huge break in, and nobody sees a thing?

Refurbished Or Not?

The refurbishment actually was a concealment. The commode had a secret compartment in one of its upper cabinets covered by a false bottom, and someone went to a great deal of trouble to seal and conceal that false bottom so it couldn’t be detected or opened. Inside is a parchment written in blood. It appears to be a magical curse.

Clue:                 Whoever went to all that trouble must have been a very clever artisan, probably someone in the mid to late 1700s. Nobody else would have had the skill, knowledge or materials.

Clue:                    The document is written in the same hand as the confessions.

Clue (hard):       The document curses Father Picart “to eternal and unending torment in the realm   beyond, where the Old Ones await.”

Soft Spot

The room where the commode is kept develops what can only be described as a soft spot. The walls feel spongy, the floor insubstantial, and if someone tilts their head at just the right angle they can see beyond the room to something, or somewhere, else. Potential Sanity/Stability loss.

Clue:                     The sensation never lasts very long. When it happens, any reflective surface in the immediate area glows with a faint blue aura.

Research

The investigators may chase up the Father Picart angle, or poor Madeline.

Clue (Picart):     Father Picart was a confessor in a nunnery who fell in lust with one of the nuns. He wooed her and promised to marry her, and when she objected that they could not be wed in the sight of God he said they should be married with the Devil’s blessing. Later, when she was with child and the whole story was about to be revealed, to save his skin he portrayed himself as the heroic redeemer who discovered this witch nestled in the haven of Christ’s Brides. Her punishment, overseen by Picard himself, was starvation. She survived and he later used her as an expert witness to accuse other witches. He vanished, the first victim of the curse. The records don’t say what happened to her.

Clue (Mad):        Madeline de Poitiers was from a rich family that had too many daughters, and being the youngest she was sent to the nunnery at the age of 12. There she met Father Picart, who seduced her before her fourteenth birthday. Though the records don’t say what happened to her after his disappearance, some legends say she appeared again and again in his house, an angry spirit wanting revenge.

Dimension Hopping

The Shambler moves from its dimension to ours, but thanks to the curse the investigators can move to its realm.

There things fold in on each other like paper dolls made of string. The investigators see things that are familiar to them – streets, houses, towns – yet they constantly shift away, always out of reach. Everything is seen through a blue filter, as if the inside of the investigator’s eyeballs had been painted over. Always the things they see are torn apart and remade, never the worse for wear, only to be shredded again and a new thing made.

The one exception to this is the commode. It exists in every place they go in this new dimension. It’s not always the same size or shape, but it’s the same thing.

A woman shouts obscenities somewhere nearby, yet it’s impossible to hear exactly what she’s saying.

Endgame

If the investigators want to end the curse, they need Madeline’s help. It’s thanks to her power that this all started, and being trapped in the alternate dimension has one big advantage: our time doesn’t exist there. For her, it’s still 1726. If she does something here, it affects our world in 1726. Theoretically the investigators could put a stop to the curse before it starts, saving many lives. All they need to do is persuade Madeline to rescind her curse.

This does mean that Father Picart will not die. The curse will end before he gets destroyed by the Shambler. The investigators will have to come up with a way in which Madeline can be persuaded to give up her vengeance.

If the investigators don’t do this, they might try to destroy the commode. The Shambler will intervene forcefully before that happens. Moreover since it exists in alternate dimensions even if they do destroy it the commode can be replaced. All the Shambler has to do is ‘borrow’ one from an alternate dimension and move it here. This further weakens an already unstable dimensional rift, but why should the Shambler care?

Killing the Shambler stops it from coming to our dimension, but only for one day. Time doesn’t exist in its dimension, and neither does death. It can reform a body and return. A day’s grace is all the investigators get, and that only because a day will make them think they might have won.

This concludes the scenario.

Miskatonic Repository Teaser

First this week, a teaser. You may be aware that, over at DriveThruRPG, Chaosium have opened up what it calls the Miskatonic Repository, an official online collection of user-made content. Sounds like fun. I thought I'd dip my toe into those unholy waters, and see what develops. Hopefully not some kind of fungal infection, but you never know ...

At any rate, consider this your official notice. The scenario's written, formatted, and almost ready for prime time. There's a few last tweaks I need to complete before sending it off into the great unknown. This is an experiment, to see just how viable the platform is. If it looks as if it's a winner, I may put more resources into this. Being more of a GUMSHOE fella, I'd love it if Pelgrane did something similar, but I'm a CoC guy from way back too, so writing this material is no great hardship for me.

Those of you who've got copies of The Long Con and The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby, both of which were originally written to help fund YSDC and which are now available via Pelgrane, may wonder if this is a London-based scenario. No, not this time: the action is set in Harlem, NYC. I shan't say more than that; a full promo will be published here when the scenario hits the digital shelves.

Price tag provisionally set at $4 a copy for a 24 page document, which is broadly the same rate charged for The Long Con and Edward Bigsby. This is, I freely admit, a practical decision; the way DriveThru calculates who gets what from each sale means it's much easier to keep track of everything if we're all dealing in round numbers. So where $3.95 would be a sod to calc, $4 is blissfully simple.

Anyway, once it comes out, I hope you enjoy it! If it works, I will publish more via Miskatonic.

Some Housecleaning and Other Strangeness (Monte Cook Games)

First, a bit of news. The scenario I wrote for YSDC, The Long Con, has been nominated for a UK Game Expo award. As I write this, votes have either been cast or are being cast for this award; not sure which. If you're reading this, and can vote, please do! Hope all's well over in Birmingham, Paul!

Second, if you listen to the Plot Points podcast, there's a show coming up that you'll be veeeerry interested in. I don't know how much I can say about it now, so I shall say nothing, except stay tuned!

Recently the Plot Points folks have been talking about Monte Cook's The Strange RPG, which I reviewed for the Escapist, but the review never saw print. Rather than waste material, here's the column that never was. Enjoy!

***

System: The Strange

Creators: Bruce R. Cordell, Monte Cook

Publisher: Monte Cook Games

When I saw that RPGgeek had nominated The Strange in both its Game of the Year and Best Presentation categories for 2014, my first thought was, ‘bwuh? I’ve never heard of this one. Monte Cook I know – difficult not to, if you’ve ever been interested in Dungeons and Dragons - but this Bruce Cordell guy is new to me.  Oh, another Dungeons and Dragons alumnus, eh? Perhaps this is worth seeking out …’

Yes. Yes, it is.

The Strange assumes that aliens once created a communications and transport network, which humans now call the Strange, many billions of years ago. For whatever reason, that network was abandoned, and over the years has become chaotic and difficult to navigate. Among the many creatures living out there in the Strange are planetovores, creatures capable of devouring Earth, and which can get to Earth via the Strange, if a connection is created between their reality and ours.

However there is a defense network, of sorts. Stable, imaginary little islands in the Strange, called Recursions, form a buffer zone between us and the planetovores; a Warsaw Pact of sorts, where creatures of magic, weird science and pretty much anything else in between stand between us and destruction, merely by existing. These Recursions are essentially fictional, mostly created by human imagination, but the Strange gives them a kind of life. As far as each Recursion is concerned, it’s the reality, and we’re the fiction, though some Recursions have a better idea of the nature of the Strange than others.

The game assumes that each character is a member of the Estate, a quasi-governmental organization with the self-appointed task of keeping the Recursions more or less stable, thus staving off attack from those all-devouring planetovores, or even the inhabitants of those Recursions less inclined towards civilized interaction with fellow sentient beings.  After all, Recursions cover the entire scope of humanity’s imaginary worlds, and that means everything, from zombie apocalypses to world-conquering Nazis, ravaging Mongol hordes, immortal Pharaonic priest-kings, and so much more. It should come as no surprise that some of them want to invade our version of Earth, for reasons of their own.

However the Estate isn’t the only organization which knows about the Strange. The Office of Strategic Recursion is a nice, friendly agency which really just wants to get along with everyone, and weaponize whatever Strange technology it can pick up. The September Project may or may not be using the Strange to develop the next generation of quantum computers. The Circle of Liberty wants to use the Strange to get rid of governments worldwide. That just scratches the surface, and it doesn’t include the many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals who are also aware of it, and are busily exploring or harvesting its riches for their own benefit.

This, mind you, all in North America; what with all the dodgy physics and mystic forces floating around, if you wanted, say, a Torchwood-style group, or any other kind of Strange-exploiting organization elsewhere, no problem.

Character generation is a breeze, even for novices. Fill in the blanks: I am an adjective noun, who verbs. Or, I am a fast spinner, who solves mysteries. Fast means you have a tier tree linked to the attribute fast, spinner that you’re a character type who relies on bluff, manipulation and subterfuge, and solves mysteries gives you access to a tier tree that revolves around solving mysteries.  That, and a little bit of point spending on your three attributes of Might, Speed and Intellect, and you’re good to go. Shouldn’t take longer than half an hour, even if you’ve never played tabletop before in your life.

Mechanically, The Strange’s Cypher System is about as simple as you can get, and still involve random chance. Tasks range from Routine Difficulty, which doesn’t require a dice roll, to Impossible. That Difficulty setting determines the Target Number, which you have to roll equal to or greater than on a d20. The outcome is dependent on the character’s Might, Speed or Intellect – whichever is most appropriate to the task – with any special benefits, items or other modifiers factored in. Roll the dice and find out if you did it or not. As the character, you’re always going to be the one driving the action, and you’re going to be the one rolling dice. Conflicts between NPCs are decided by the Game Master, who decides which result would best fit the narrative and goes with that.

Simplicity is one of the things I really appreciate about The Strange. Sure, I loved First Edition Dungeons and Dragons when I was a teen, and had the time to master all of its arcane subsystems, tables, and charts. Those days are done. Now what I want out of a game is an intriguing core idea, and rules mechanics that are lucid enough for anyone to pick up without any difficulty.

That core idea is definitely intriguing. You can quite literally go anywhere, anywhen. The main book describes several different Recursions, including one based on a fantasy video game RPG, another on a dystopian world racked by nuclear war and inhabited by, among other things, hyperintelligent roaches, and yet another where Sherlock Holmes plays violin and waits for clients at 221B Baker Street, London. You can go to Shangri-La, Innsmouth Massachusetts, King Arthur’s Court, the Land of Oz, or anywhere else you fancy. It’s not difficult to see how the Game Master could design a whole raft of scenarios around this core concept. For those willing to dive right in and just go nuts, The Strange offers all kinds of pulp fun.

Its Dungeons and Dragons roots are pretty clear from the example scenario and scenario seeds in the main book. You are made aware of a potential problem by your employer and are sent out to investigate. You go into what amounts to a dungeon, whallop a few mooks, and perhaps negotiate your way past the tougher obstacles. There is a boss encounter of some kind, and after you deal with that, you go back and report to your employer. Job done, until next time, when your employer makes you aware of another potential problem, and the cycle begins anew. The game certainly doesn’t have to play that way – the rules are simple enough and the setting loose enough for any kind of play style - but those are the examples on offer: light on investigation, heavy on the action. I was particularly struck by one encounter, which could have come straight out of Grimtooth’s. You have to wonder where the bad guys get their contractors. There’s no Angie’s List for that sort of thing.

Do I recommend it? Sure, it’s a great little knockabout. The rules are simple enough that anyone can get to grips with them without too much effort, and the core concept’s strong enough to engage even the most jaded of players. Its malleability is one of its strengths. If your group is tired of horror, play fantasy. Tired of fantasy, play sci fi, and so on. The Recursion idea is pretty close to the old Ravenloft concept of the Mist, with little pockets of reality hidden away from each other behind a mysterious wall, which is great for changing up the setting when you feel the need.

Would I play it? Hum. As a break from a different system, yes. It’s perfect for that one or two session hiatus game, where you put your main campaign on hold for a while, so everyone can recharge their batteries, but The Strange’s malleability is a problem as well as a benefit. It can become so many things that it almost lacks an identity of its own. 

Oddly, it reminds me a little of Atlas’ horror title Unknown Armies, in that I feel the same way after reading The Strange as I did when I first read Atlas’ game. There are so many ideas here, a lot of them really great, but what do I do with them all? Monster of the week it, try to go for high concept, immerse in the fantasy aspect, something else? How do I pitch it to the players? Is this something for a particular kind of gamer, the way Wraith suits certain players and not others, or will anyone be able to get on board?

On the whole, these feel like minor worries rather than dealbreakers. It’s still a system I’d like to try. Wandering through the multiverse with an Estate gold badge, like some kind of modern day Wyatt Earp with all the potential layers of existence as my Tombstone, has a lot of appeal. I’d recommend The Strange to anyone who enjoys Dungeons and Dragons style monster bashing, with a touch of Torchwood, and just a little hint of X-Files. Enjoy!

Things That Must Be Done

Whew!

The last two weeks have been a lot of fun. I went to the UK for a couple weeks, and was lucky enough to spend some time with Simon Rogers and the Pelgrane folks, before heading off to Eastercon. Eastercon, for those who don't know it, is a fantasy and science fiction event that takes place every year at Easter, hence the name, and its writer's track is phenomenal. I have to go back next year. I don't think I've seen that many fiction creators in one place before. I now have plenty of material for a few reviews, which I'll be posting shortly.

One quick digression on the subject of reviews: one author whose works I picked up there and have since read is Janine Ashbless, whose work includes mainly erotic fiction. I won't be reviewing her stuff, not because I didn't enjoy it or because of the subject matter, but because she's been a friend of mine for years, and I don't think I could fairly review a mate. That said, I can recommend whoever I want, and I definitely recommend her novel Heart Of Flame, particularly to those who like their Arabian Nights fantasy colored with a little Lovecraftian horror, by way of Robert E. Howard. The plot is straightforward enough: a beautiful princess has been captured by a djinn, and its up to our hero Rafiq, and his sorceress companion Taqla, to get her back. But first they need to find the answer to a simple riddle ... I wish I'd also had the foresight to pick up Named And Shamed, as Janine held a reading of it on the last day, and it sounds really interesting. The setting is alternate history present, with our heroine having to tread carefully around the scheming Good Folk. Tansy stole a poem that the old people really, really want back; but she hasn't got it any more. A man's life is at stake, and now Tansy has to decide how far she's prepared to go to return the fair folk's prize. Given that this is the sort of fiction that features BDSM as well as debauched dryads, "how far" is a phrase laden with meaning ...

Now, digression over. One thing Eastercon taught me is the necessity of getting things done. My writing's been doing really well, recently; I've had plenty of articles in the Escapist, and my Pelgrane work is going great guns. I have several pieces in with them right now, some of which should see the light of day before the end of the year. One of these has the working title Storm Of Steel, an anthology - print this time, not .pdf - which will include several of the Great War scenarios, an expanded rule set, and other good things. In fact, I talked with the YSDC folks about that while I was in Bradford, and there's an interview due out at Yog-Sothoth very soon, which - if you're a patron there - you'll be able to listen to. I'll also be re-starting my Bookshelf segment at YSDC, on a monthly basis.

So I have every reason to be pleased with how things are going, but it's not enough. I keep telling myself that I ought to work on something larger, and each time I try to get started, there's something that delays it. If I'm truthful, "delay" is - at least in part - a stand-in word for "procrastinate". There's no excuse for it, really, try as I might to find one. I've met plenty of authors in the past few weeks, and while all of them were excellent people, none of them did anything that I couldn't do myself. I need to get started, and the best time for that is now.

The working title is Witchfinder General. It's alternate history, set in 1980s America. There are eight months left in the year; time to get this show on the road, and if I haven't broken the back of this particular project before Christmas, I'll know the reason why. It won't be because other things got in the way. It will be because I let them get in the way. 

There are some things that must be done, and this is one of them.

Trail of Cthulhu: Hauntings

On a completely different note, let's talk ghosts.

Ghost stories are a fiction staple. Writers like M.R. James turned the short haunting tale into an art form, and there's an argument for saying that ghost stories work best in short form rather than long. The short sharp shock is often what's needed here; carry on for too long, and the story gets stale. That said, when the ghost story works in longer form, it works really really well, and that happens at least in part because the authors of those stories never try to explain too much. The best ghost story is one with an irresolvable mystery at the bottom of it, so that the audience goes away with residual chills that will worry their sleep. It's not like a monster movie, where the dynamic almost demands a dramatic climax. A ghost story doesn't need resolution in order to work its magic.

In role playing games, ghosts often take the antagonist role, and usually only for a scene or two. They're an obstacle, sometimes a warning, and that's pretty much it. To my mind that's a pity, since they could be so much more atmospheric. I'm going to kick off this particular mini-discussion with ghosts of place, and I'm going to use Bookhounds of London as a setting.

Ghosts are often considered singular entities, and usually human, or at least linked to humanity. The murdered soul of dear old Auntie Doris, come to tell her doting relatives just where the will is hidden, for instance. There are several human links in that. First the crime of murder, which is something that humans do to other humans. Then there's Auntie Doris herself, and her relations. Finally there's the will, which represents a human desire to pass on an inheritance and accumulate wealth. For some reason the Auntie Dorises of the otherworld never tell their nearest and dearest to go stick it where the sun doesn't shine on account of that cheap casket she was buried in, and what happened to her dear old cat Mittens, eh? Down the river in a sack before Auntie's body was cold, no doubt.

However there have been other ghosts; trains, ships, battlefields, buildings; spirits of place, linked to the material world only by the most tenuous of chains. I particularly like the idea of a ghost building. The NY Times article linked to is talking about structures that never actually existed, of course, but to my way of thinking that makes the best kind of ghost story. An entire skyscraper, designed, planned down to the last rivet, yet never was built. Imagine what might be inside something like that. Who (what?) would work there, live there? Where would it get its heat, its power? What vistas could you see from its upper stories?

In Bookhounds, the protagonists are adrift in London, a tangled and bloated metropolis that has forgotten more about its own history than almost any other location on earth. It has reached out and swallowed villages whole, like Cronos devouring his children. It has seen out the Romans, witnessed the executions of Kings and the murder of princes, been the obsession of a long-dead multitude of men and women, been bombed by airships in the Great War, and in the early watches of the night it dreams about everything it has ever been.

A spirit of place, in a location like London, ought to reflect that half-hidden history. The ghost in this kind of tale isn't something that can be met, or neatly resolved by producing hidden wills. It is a memory trying to recreate itself, but some of its bones are missing and the rest are scattered. There may be great power at the back of it, but that power was squandered years ago, and now only a small residual current remains. Perhaps the memory is of recent vintage, say of a zeppelin raid, or perhaps some buried temple is trying to break free. Maybe the docks are trying to recall their Napoleonic glory days, or a hunting lodge still can't quite forget its past.

There are any number of tales that could be told, but there are some things the Keeper should bear in mind:

1. The truth of the haunting will probably never be known for certain, since most of the facts are unavailable.
2. It cannot be dealt with in the same way as, say, an ordinary antagonist encounter. Ghouls, for example, can be shot, or bargained with. There is no way to communicate with a haunting of place, and probably no way to kill it.
3. It has a great deal of power behind it, possibly magical power. That means other people besides the protagonists are going to be interested in it. That also means it could be very dangerous.

With that in mind, consider the following example:

Jerusalem Lane

This haunting is located in ramshackle early Victorian house overlooking a narrow lane, that runs between two rows of houses, with a long-neglected churchyard at one end and a busy shopping street at the other.

In the early hours of the morning, at any point between two and four o’clock, music can be heard from the upper window of the house, but this music can only be heard by someone standing in the alley. It sounds as though someone were playing scales on a piano, with a young boy or girl singing accompaniment.

At the same time this happens, those in the lane cannot find their way out again. It is as if the lane were impossibly long, and shrouded in shadow at the shopping street end. Some who experience this claim to have seen lights at the churchyard, but nobody has ever tried to investigate them.

The experience is said to last between one and ten minutes, no longer; potential Stability 3 loss.

·    Architecture The house from which the music sounds probably was built in the early 1830s, and would have been part of a larger development. James Camberwell, a prominent architect, was the developer. Camberwell is known to have battled in the courts for the use of the land, as there was some dispute over who owned it: the Church, or the man who sold it to Camberwell. The Church also objected to the height and scale of Camberwell’s development, claiming that it blocked their ancient lights. Camberwell eventually won his case.

·    The Knowledge The churchyard, in common with many other spots in London, is supposed to be a mass grave dating back to the Black Death, but this is probably more rumour than fact. It is supposed to have been dug out in 1873 when the church was deconsecrated and demolished. The bones were removed to a different parish, but the stones (some of them, at least) were left behind. In 1896 the bodies of two young boys were found in the long grass. Each had their throats cut, but otherwise the bodies were unmolested. In the present day the churchyard has a reputation as a lover’s lane, and a gang hangout. It’s not uncommon to find a group of men gambling there, or drinking, during the day, and youngsters sparking with their girls in the evening.

·    Streetwise and/or Magick The spot is thought to have had megapolisomantic significance before the church was demolished, as it stood on a ley path. However the destruction of the church and construction of the housing development has polluted the track, and it no longer provides the magickal power that once it did. However there are still one or two street magicians who try, every so often, to reconnect to the place’s dissipated essence. Strange creatures are thought to haunt the old churchyard, and it might be a place to meet a lone rat-thing or ghoul.

• Credit Rating or Bureaucracy The house in question has been owned by Erasmus Phillipson, an ex-patriot living in Boston, since 1902, and it is rented through the estate agents Dawson & Dawes. It is frequently untenanted for months at a time. The inhabitants never claim to have seen anything themselves, but the place has such an uncanny reputation that it puts off the better class of tenant. The last one was jailed on assault and indecency charges, and the place has been vacant for ten months since then. Before Phillipson there were two owners, a Mr James Copper (died 1900) and Miss Elizabeth Bowden (died 1864). Neither of them had children. Miss Bowden was the first owner of the house, and lived there with her sister for most of her life. Mr Copper did not die in the house and neither did Miss Bowden, though her sister Emily did. 

The Joy of Cooking

I've recently become an iPad convert. One of the apps I installed almost as soon as I got the Pad was The Recipe Box, which allows users to store all their recipes. I've been transferring pretty much everything (I love cooking; good job I'm a fast typist) over to the Box.

Like most of us, when I'm doing something dull and repetitive, I crave distraction. I had the Escapist's most recent podcast on, and as it happens they're almost as obsessed with food as I am. Which is to say, about half as obsessed as the folks over at YSDC; the Bradford Players' audio games are liberally mixed with food references (about 2 tablespoons food to 1 cup game, I find), and they're particularly fond of hampers. Thus as I typed my mind turned to thoughts of food and gaming, particularly RPGs.

Food rarely appears in game, except for the occasional quick reference. I find this odd. In RPGs particularly, the Keeper often needs to create a mental image, or a sense of foreign climes, and the senses, including taste, are inextricably linked to memory. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, all evoke certain memories or reactions, and there are kinds of cuisine that automatically signal particular associations in our minds. Moreover history shows us that the search for food has changed our world. When Columbus went looking for the Indies, one of the things he was after was spices; Spain wasn't happy paying the high Venetian tariff for access to saffron and cardamom. When he accidentally came up with tomatoes, potatoes and corn he changed European cooking forever. It's almost impossible to imagine what Italian cuisine, for example, was like without the tomato, or what the English roast would be like without potatoes. Ireland's history would be very different were it not for the Famine, and there are hundreds of other examples of food gone wrong that had terrifying consequences. There ought to be all kinds of stories to be told about food, but we don't seem to tell them that often.

In game, I tend to set up a shortlist of locations and NPCs that I know the protagonists will encounter at some point. For instance, no matter what the setting, it's a pretty good bet that the characters will meet law enforcement officials at some point, or criminals, or innkeepers. That's just the nature of the beast; characters commit (or avenge) crimes, occasionally work for crime lords or the authorities, and always need a place to lay their weary heads. That's true almost regardless of setting, and in some cases the setting only reinforces the truism. Ars Magica had its mighty wizards deviously plotting their advancement, possibly even assassinating their rivals, but everyone wanted to stay on the good side of the Guernicus, and the sensible Storyteller always had a couple of them on hand for those moments when power-mad players started getting above themselves. Cyberpunk 2020 wasn't big on law enforcement, but crime ran rampant and more often than not it was the players who were up to their neck in the mud. Bond wouldn't be Bond without his encyclopedic knowledge of Chateau Lafitte. So on and on, and to that list of 'NPCs I know I'll use' can be added the Restaurant/Bar.

As Keeper, you know full well the characters are going to want to eat at some point. You also know that there are plot points that can be reinforced by eating. In Cthulhu gaming, the most popular plot point is cannibalism, and there are groups within the setting whose entire culture is defined by their dietary needs. Even without this direct plot link, there are going to be times when you as Keeper want to reinforce the nature of the setting by referring to the characters' surroundings. Or to put it another way, the characters have a different expectation of standards aboard the Orient Express than they do of the Stumbling Tiger Bar, Shanghai. Food is an excellent way to reinforce the nature of the setting. There's no reason why you shouldn't dwell on the excellence of the cuisine (or even borrow some inspiration from alternative sources). Alternatively the Keeper could focus on the liquid side of life, though I suppose it's not impossible that the Stumbling Tiger laces its brew with formaldehyde.

In each case I'd recommend simplicity. With any commonly encountered NPC type or situation, you shouldn't need more than one index card's worth of data. As this is information that isn't linked to a particular scenario, this is a mini database you can build whenever you have a free moment. Half a dozen restaurants, each with a shortlist of House Specials, or the same number of bars, each with its own peculiar cocktails or brews. That's enough for everyday use, and then they can be dropped into the game whenever you see fit. If you know you're going to be running a particular campaign, then plan tailored restaurants and bars to suit the setting. You don't have to know exactly what a fillet of beef pickled with juniper and coriander, served in a red wine sauce, tastes like, but you do have to be ready to use that menu information on the players so that they know they're on the Orient Express, not some trunk service to Brighton.

Point being, in an RPG the players need to feel as though they're playing roles, getting into character. For that to happen they need to have a clear sense of identity, and the senses are part of that identity. Food and drink helps reinforce identity, by giving a clear, unambigious message straight to the brain. 'This tastes good.' 'This reminds me of home.' 'Ugh! Funny stuff these foreigners eat.' 'Mmm . . . spicy!' Anything you, as Keeper, can do to reinforce the players' sense of identity ought to be done, since this can only help the game progress.

Of course, if their first reaction is 'dammit, now you've made me hungry. Let's order a pizza!' you'll know you've done your job properly!