Nodes, Glorious Nodes (Night's Black Agents)

If you're a Director planning out your first Night's Black Agents game, you may begin to wonder just what these Node things are that make up the Conspyramid. The main book goes into some detail, but ultimately doesn't tackle the question of what makes up a Node. Instead it focuses on what a Node does: provides protection, income, or blood, for the most part. It also provides some examples of potential Nodes, such as banks, human trafficking rings, local gangs, and so on. All of that's great, but the Director may wonder how to inject some personality into these skeletal creations. Otherwise the average Node is just a two dimensional punching bag for the players to smack on.

When discussing Bookhounds and the story arc, many moons ago, I mentioned the importance of the antagonist, using Sarah Montgomery and Stanley David Fentiman as examples. I went on to point out that, to be useful, an antagonist needs to have power, at an appropriate level for the setting and their function in the plot. I touched on Fentiman again when discussing Villains, using him as an example of villain design. In that example, I posited that the Director should decide what a villain wants, what the villain's prepared to kill for, and other background points.

All of which is a preamble for the point I'm going to put to you now: a Node should be treated no differently from a Villain, for the purposes of campaign design. A Node should have power to affect the plot. A Node has things it wants, things it's in charge of, things it's prepared to kill for. A Node has personality, and it's up to the Director what that personality ought to be.

Probably the best example of a Node in modern television fiction appears in HBO's crime drama The Wire, Season Two. Frank Sobotka, played by Chris Bauer, is a low level Node in a larger criminal conspiracy. That conspiracy is involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling on the Baltimore docks, and it needs Sobotka, or someone like him, because Sobotka, through his position as secretary treasurer for the local Stevedore's Union, can help them get their goods through Baltimore's docks without attracting attention.

Sobotka knows very little about the greater purpose of the conspiracy. He doesn't care to know, because if he did, he might have to rethink his position, and he needs the money the conspiracy provides to revitalize the docks and secure the long-term future of his union friends. He's also trying to keep his family clear of the conspiracy as much as possible, but thanks to the recklessness of his son Ziggy, that isn't as successful as he'd like.

Already we're beginning to see what makes this Node successful, as a character within a greater story. Frank doesn't have a lot of power. He can't sent hordes of faceless assassins or attack helicopters off to strike at his enemies. But he does have enough power for his role in the plot, as a go-between. He has enough power within his Union to arrange for some minor harassment and obstruction of the protagonists' efforts. He can call on more significant muscle through his links with more important Nodes in the conspiracy.

However what makes him really effective as a Node isn't the power he can exercise, but his personality. He has goals that go beyond his role in the conspiracy. He has connections - his son Ziggy, his nephew Nick, the power brokers he's trying to bribe to keep the docks alive - that complicate his life and keep him from getting what he wants. All this is important, if you want a Node to be effective within the narrative.

Note that this is a different thing from being effective as part of the Conspiracy. It could be argued that Frank's effectiveness within his Conspiracy is relatively low, but that doesn't make his story less interesting. Never forget that you're not designing a Conspiracy, but a story, and this story isn't about how wonderful or powerful the Conspiracy is.  It's about how the Conspiracy falls.

So what does make up a successful Node? Well, given the example, in order to be successful a Node would need:

• Power appropriate to its function.
• Goals, which may be personal or professional.
• Assets, which it uses to reach its Goals.

So let's design a Node from the ground up.

Let's make this one a level 3 Node, at the Provincial level. So it has a certain level of authority and importance, but isn't in charge of group policy. Let's make it part of the Conspiracy's income streams. In fact, let's make it a private bank, one of those staples of spy fiction. It operates out of somewhere like Switzerland or France, and rather than have it a centuries-old institution like Coutts or Landolt & Cie, let's make it a little more modern, and pattern it after something like NBAD Private Bank (Suisse). Banks like these exist to hold other people's assets, and do so discreetly. In NBAD's case it's wholly owned by another banking group, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, but we can assume that, if our Node is wholly owned by another group, that group isn't part of the Conspiracy. It has been corrupted from within, so only a few of its top people are actually aware of its role within the greater Conspiracy.

A bank of this type is often fairly small. Rothchilds, for example, employ a little over 1,600 people, while Warburg has only 1,230 employees. It often has several offices, spread over a large area. Warburg's base is in Hamburg, but it also has offices in Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Zurich and Luxembourg,. That suggests that the total number of employees in any one office is probably small, perhaps less than a hundred. You wouldn't need to corrupt more than one or two senior people to have control over an office, and that office probably supports a level of business out of all proportion to its size; millions at least, if not billions of euro.

As a private bank, it is run by a partnership, and again, this will be a small number of people, each of whom have power according to the size of their holding within the company. Again, the conspiracy will only need to corrupt one, perhaps two partners to have significant control over the Node.

With all that in mind, we have Bankhaus Klingemann, of Bonn. Established 1956, this institution is a post-war re-consolidation of three pre-war private banks, all of which failed as a result of losses incurred during the war. The assets that had become valueless were disposed of, while the assets that still held value were kept. At the time of its incorporation it was suggested that the Bankhaus was established not because their predecessors had failed, but in order to launder assets held by former Nazi elite. These rumors have, of course, been denied repeatedly over the years by the partnership, of whom Joachim Klingemann is the senior partner. His son Eric and daughter Lisle are both partners, as are four others, each of whom have connection with the pre-war banks.

Bankhaus Klingemann is an investment bank. It advises its clients how best to raise financial capital, and as a consequence it has its fingers in many different pies all over the world. In its early days it focused heavily on construction and real estate, as part of the post-war reconstruction effort; currently its main interest is software development companies, particularly in jurisdictions within Europe, though it has a significant sideline in mining, especially in East Asia, a holdover from its former interests.

The Conspiracy controls Lisle Klingemann, and one other partner, Albert Ahrens. Through them it controls the Bankhaus' Swiss and Paris offices.

The Conspiracy roped in Lisle thanks to her gambling addiction. In her younger years she was a notorious high-stakes player, known from Macau to Monte Carlo for the extravagance of her bets. Her father always helped her out of whatever hole she found herself in, until one day, on her twenty fifth birthday, he lowered the boom: no more, or I disown you. That was when the Conspiracy stepped in, and offered her a way out. Become one of us, and you can have the power to make people do whatever you want. In return, we expect you to join your father's bank, and rise in its ranks. Rather than give up her lifestyle, Lisle agreed.

Albert was one of her first victims. He'd been Uncle Albert to her, all her life; fat, disgusting Uncle Albert. It was far too entertaining a thought not to make him her slave. He'd bark like a dog if she told him to. However she was indiscreet, and her brother Eric caught on. Not to her new found power, but her relationship with Albert, which Eric sees in an altogether different light.

Since then Lisle's been much more cautious. She needs to be, in order to influence their father, who's much more strong willed than she would have given him credit for. Also, she lacks the technical expertise Eric has in abundance, which makes her less able to talk to software development clients on their own terms.

There are three questions to consider: what is this Node's power? What is its Goals? What Assets does it possess?

This Node's power is financial. It can leverage millions without any effort at all, It maintains several private accounts whose sole purpose is to act as a kind of slush fund for Conspiracy assets. As a consequence of this financial power, it has a certain level of influence in many different areas. Government officials will bend over backwards for a bank able to affect, positively or negatively, the state's economy. Companies who want investment capital will help this Node when they can. Certain industry events or conventions may be funded by the Bankhaus, and so on.

Its Goals are to keep the Conspiracy's financial operations running smoothly. Lisle and Albert have their own Goals, of course. Lisle wants to consolidate her control over her father, and edge her brother Eric out of the partnership altogether. She also wants to gamble whenever she pleases, but she's got to be much more discreet about it these days. Unexplained trips on the company jet may reveal her itinerary. Albert wants to keep Lisle happy, but it's possible that her continued mental domination has awakened certain desires in him that, until now, he's been able to suppress. He may have a collection of Lisle-a-likes kept at private apartments, or be a familiar figure at local BDSM establishments.

Its primary Assets are Lisle and Albert themselves, but each will have secondary assets of their own. Secretaries, assistants, houses, cars, the company jet, and so on. The offices they command could also be considered assets, as well as the accounts they control. Each probably has at least one bodyguard. Lisle may have a hacker permanently on her payroll, to ensure that her constant drain of company funds, to fuel her gambling addiction, goes unnoticed. If Uncle Albert kidnaps Lisle-a-likes to populate his private dungeons, then he may have a kidnap team on the payroll. Each office will have some kind of security detail, probably sub-contracted, and while these won't be fully armed mercs they will be at least moderately competent. Finally, one or both of them may have sufficient criminal contacts to hire an outside hit man. All this is in addition to whatever muscle the Node can leverage from other, lesser Nodes.

That's enough to be getting on with, I think. With this information the Director knows enough about the Node to determine what it wants, what it can do, and what it might do when threatened by the protagonists. After that, it's up to the players how things proceed.

Enjoy!

The Unblinking Eye (Night's Black Agents)

Recently Frederick Forsythe issued an annotation to his celebrated novel, The Day of the Jackal - a book I encourage you to read - in which he described three reasons why the Jackal's 1963 plot would not work today. The third item is CCTV, "which would have recorded (for example) all cars entering France via the Ventimiglia crossing point." Never mind all the other opportunities; after all, the Jackal crosses more than one border in his quest to assassinate de Gaulle.

There's an interesting Urbaneye research paper concerning CCTV in London, which states among other things that, in 1999, someone walking through London could expect to be filmed by over 300 cameras on 30 different CCTV systems. Of course, over a decade and a half has passed since that statistic was compiled. No doubt things have progressed considerably.

The article also states that the official system has been integrated with that run by the City's many banks and private entities. Those same private entities are notoriously touchy when it comes to security; taking pictures of the Gerkhin, in London, often attracts the attention of internal security, who in turn inform the police.  

All of which leads up to an important question: how difficult is it, with the spread of CCTV, for the agents in a Night's Black Agents game to avoid attracting attention? How quickly will they be picked up, if they do anything that raises Heat?

In a previous post, I mentioned the early progenitor of CCTV, and pointed out that it could theoretically affect a campaign as early as the mid to late 1930s; the first recorded instance of security cameras is 1942, at Peenemunde. Thus in a Dracula Dossier game it is reasonable for CCTV, or the equivalent, to become an issue at any point after the war. The characters are unlikely to encounter CCTV deployed on the streets of a city until roundabout the mid 1980s; there were early experiments in the 60s and 70s, but it's not until the 1990s that everyone started installing them, everywhere. However they will encounter cameras pretty much every time they go inside an official building, or an important location, like a bank.

Of course, certain tourist destinations were well ahead of the game on this issue.

It's reasonable to assume that, in any game set during the 2000s, CCTV is present in every European city the agents visit. It's also reasonable to assume that the CCTV system in a major urban center - Paris, Berlin, London - is capable of facial recognition and video content analysis. Finally, it's also reasonable to assume that the system in any border control point - say, Lille, with its Eurostar connection - is at least the equivalent of a Paris or London system, due to the increased importance of border control. 

With regard to the Conspyramid, it's a fair bet that any Node within a major urban center is going to have, or want to have, some level of control over the CCTV network. A Level One Node probably can't manage much, if anything. Perhaps it's bribed one of the police officers whose job it is to run the system, or perhaps it has a small CCTV network of its own. More likely it just wishes it does, but any Node at Level 3 or higher is definitely going to have its fingers in the official CCTV network, either directly, or through bribed proxies. That means that any Heat breach caught by CCTV is going to be in the Conspyracy's hands fairly quickly, perhaps 24 to 48 hours after it happens; probably longer, for low level Nodes.

Blanking the CCTV system to conserve Heat is certainly possible, but increases in difficulty with the sophistication of the system. Your average branch of Lloyds Bank probably has protection up to Difficulty 4 Digital Intrusion, or similar, and blanking it out won't get much immediate attention. Blanking out all the cameras at, say, Bank Tube, is probably close to Difficulty 6 or 7, and will certainly get immediate official attention; the security services tend to be extremely paranoid when it comes to the public transport network of a major urban center. Blanking out the CCTV at Parliament is definitely Difficulty 8, and will absolutely get an armed response. For that reason, simply knocking out the CCTV isn't always the best option. A response of whatever type can be expected within anywhere from five to six hours, for a simple breach on a soft target, to immediate, for a hard target like Parliament or Bank Tube.

Disguise or similar can be useful aids, but never forget that facial recognition systems can render disguises useless, and video content analysis can pinpoint people behaving suspiciously. Depending on the system this may not be a problem, but if you're somewhere important - public transport, any border control point, government buildings, certain private buildings - the system is likely to be sophisticated enough to detect simple disguises and strange behavior. Face concealing items, like hoods, hats and long hair, may be the best defense in the short run.

Does this mean CCTV is infallible? God, no. Ultimately these things are hooked to a computer network - there aren't enough operators in all the world to directly manage this flow of data - and computer networks can always be fooled. That, and CCTV placement is a perennial problem. Are all the important areas covered? Is anything blocking the view?

Or perhaps the problem can be managed by simple misdirection; cause an obvious breach in one location, and while forces are mustering to deal with that, hit the system from another direction. In game, this could perhaps be represented by the protagonists deliberately splitting into two groups, one of which does something to generate a lot of Heat, very quickly, while the other group does what it needs to do. Spoof the emergency services, and have a fleet of ambulances or fire trucks turn up at the front door while the insertion team makes its way in through the sewer. Set a fire or make a bomb threat, then have the insertion team arrive in uniform, sneaking in as part of the emergency response team. Those firemen's outfits are great for concealing identity; all bulk, and handy, concealing facemasks. This probably won't work as well for, say, Parliament or the headquarters of MI6 as it would for a softer target, but it stands a fair chance.

In the end, your best option for minimizing Heat in the CCTV age is not to attract it in the first place. Loud explosions and automatic weapons fire may be cinematic, but they're also very problematic. Never rely on any Cover lasting long; get in, and get out, as quickly as possible. When in doubt, use your Network connections to hide the camera information, rather than try to wipe the system yourself.

Oh, and smile for the camera. It's always watching you.

Not Quite Book Review Corner: The Book of Spies (NBA)

Silly, but entertaining, and with a very interesting plot hook. Which isn't something I was sure I was going to be able to say about Gayle Lynds' The Book of Spies. I picked it up mainly to data mine it for Night's Black Agents, and it's perfectly serviceable in that role. If you happen to be a Director and want some inspiration for your campaign, this is a good place to look for it, as it plays out much as you'd want a good RPG to: lots of travel to exotic locations, fun combat moments, and engaging villains. Just don't expect all of it to make sense.

The central hook is what lured me in, and that didn't disappoint. Rare book curator Eva Blake is drawn into a conspiracy surrounding the mysterious Library of Gold, once owned by Russian despot Ivan the Terrible, now thought lost to history. Eva's dead husband was a foremost expert on the mysterious library, but it seems his death isn't as kosher as first thought; not only is he alive, he's now the head librarian. But what's the connection between this most secretive of book clubs and Islamic terrorism?

Things I didn't like: oh, brother, it's a gimmick book. You know the type: Mysterious Clues have been left by Eva's long lost husband that, if pieced together, will lead to the Library itself. Mysterious clues like the tattoo on his head, or the ancient Latin code kept secret in Rome, or the annotations in the main McGuffin, Ivan's fabled Book of Spies. Piece together the picture formed by the moles on Washington's buttcheecks, as revealed to the righteous in the fabled naked Washington portrait painted by his secret lover, Andrew Jackson, and you too will receive a Wally Walrus decoder ring of your very own. I have so little patience for that kind of thing. It reminds me irresistibly of Calvin and Hobbes'  G.R.O.S.S., and while I enjoy that stuff when a kid and his stuffed tiger do it, I find I have less patience for it when grown adults try the same thing.

Plus, the clues can only be pieced together by his wife, which means that if his wife hadn't been conveniently dragged into the plot, nobody would have the slightest idea what the hell's going on. Added to that, there's no convincing reason why he should leave behind the clues he does, beyond a quick handwave, and there's one particular clue that, as far as I can see, he had absolutely no business knowing about. Poor plotting drives me mental.

There is a Mysterious Assassin With a Conscience. Kinda like a Hooker with a Heart of Gold, these fabled beasts only appear when the writer's up shit creek without a paddle. Naturally the main villain lies to the MAWC to get him to go after the book's heroes, and naturally the MAWC ends up turning against the main villain because the heroes seem so nice and righteous. Sweet jumping jellybeans, Batman, why the hell didn't you hire one of those assassins who don't have a conscience? Surely there are one or two of them left?

The plot is introduced when one of the conspirators has doubts, and meets with his old CIA buddy in a D.C. public park. He literally has just enough time to say, 'important clue concerning the nature of the McGuffin' before a sniper takes him out. I think the last time I saw that gag, Sax Rohmer was writing it. Life must get very frustrating for those poor snipers, who have to wait just long enough for the victim to say something significant before they can blow the victim's brains out.

So I don't recommend this book for its plot. You could drive a sixteen wheeler through the damn thing. No, I recommend it because of its McGuffin, the fabled Library of Gold, and the mysterious power brokers who own it. That whole set-up could be stolen wholesale by a Night's Black Agents Director. All you have to do is put Dracula in charge of the Library, and you're golden.

Plus, Lynds clearly seems at her most comfortable when talking about the Library, and other ancient sites. It's when her prose starts to come alive, and the character seem at their most human. Even the villains seem interesting, once they get to the Library and start sipping the brandy. Entire scenes could be taken from this book and transplanted into your campaign, and there's a very useful appendix where Lynds talks about the history behind the myth.

So on the whole, a qualified recommendation. It's worth bearing in mind that I did finish it, in spite of my vehement dislike of its structure and plotting. It's the kind of book you can probably devour in a few hours, or a long plane journey. In fact, it's exactly the sort of book you're likely to find in an airport newsagents, so if you should spot it, and it's going cheap, by all means give it a shot. Just don't expect too much from it beyod a few rollicking action scenes and a McGuffin so good, it really ought to have been in a better book.

Enjoy!

Not Quite Review Corner: Walk Away (Fear the Walking Dead)

I didn't bother to see the whole thing, which is why this isn't a review. I got bored halfway through, when I realized that there was nothing on screen that I wanted to see.

Things I liked: one of the main settings is an LA public school. The US' crumbling school system has been a metaphor for disaster and mayhem since the 1990s. It's become iconic, and will probably stay that way regardless of how wonderful, or not so wonderful, the school system actually is. Making two teachers main characters is very symbolic; the people who are trying, and failing, to hold the school together will also be trying, and probably failing, to keep it together during the zombie apocalypse.

Nobody says anything. Really, why would you? Even if you've seen dead people walking, talking about it will get you nothing but a strait jacket and some calming medication. Strait jackets are notoriously problematic when trying to run away from zombies; the longer you stay out of one, the better it is for you.

 The acting is decent throughout, with some standout performances from the two leads. The bigger problem here isn't the performances, but the writing. None of the characters are really fleshed out, and many of them are just stock characters pulled out of central casting. Plus, since we're seeing all this from one family's perspective, we don't really get the city-wide feel this kind of television deserves. It almost needs to take a cue from all those old disaster movies, with their casts of thousands. Allowing the unfolding drama to be seen from different, unrelated perspectives would have made for much better television, and it's something that television could get away with much more easily than a movie length project. I didn't go so far as to see Ofelia and her family, which might have made a difference to me. But then, it seems as if we never meet them until the apocalypse is already well under way, which means we'll never see it unfold from their perspective,

Which brings me on to some of my dislikes. The show opens with Nick Clark, the drug addict son of one of the main characters, waking up after a binge to find that all of his friends are dead, and worse. My first thought: if habitual drug abuse is this good for you, I'm amazed more people don't take up heroin. The man's buffed, never seems to have missed a meal in his life, hair perfectly coiffed, skin unblemished - apart from one artful smudge of dirt on his cheek - and evenly tanned. I don't think we even see any track marks or scarring, though as mentioned I give up a the halfway point, so perhaps there's a reveal later.

This is emblematic of the show as a whole. It has good ideas, but never really executes any of them. Maybe it's lack of will, maybe it's pressure from above, but it's never as scary as it could be, nor as gripping. Going back to the dialogue: there's nothing here that hasn't been said a thousand times before, in a thousand thousand different made for TV movies. There isn't a single cast member who has anything interesting to say. The star-crossed lovers Alicia Clark and her boyfriend nameless zombie chow are a case in point: you've seen these two in any number of Hallmark specials. The only interesting relationship on screen is between the two first episode leads, Madison and Travis, and there just isn't enough there to keep me watching.

It feels remarkably slow moving. I suspect part of this is down to it being part of the Walking Dead continuity. We all know what's going to happen, and with that element of suspense gone, all we can do is wait for the rest of the characters to catch up. It's not interesting watching boring people spend an hour figuring out something you already knew about from the first minute of screen time. It's perfectly reasonable for them not to believe, or suspect, that zombies are lurking in the shadows, but because we already know that zombies are the whole point of the series, we get frustrated by their continued disbelief.

The zombie effects are good, and in some instances even imaginative. However - and again, this may be due to it being part of the Walking Dead continuity - we've been beaten over the head with excellent zombie effects for years now. It doesn't matter that they're a little more gooey and fresh than we're used to from the main series. They're still just zombies, and we have seen zombies. God, have we seen zombies. The makers needed something evocative to make them interesting again, and while the early, well-executed scene in the church almost filled that need, it was too short.

To sum up: Fear the Walking Dead is an interesting concept, but it doesn't fulfill its early promise. There needs to be something else here of interest besides the zombies, and there really isn't. 

One Tiny Teaser (Fiction)

As I've said before, I'm running a Patreon, and every so often when I get new members I like to post new fiction. My original intent was to post this particular piece on the Patreon for free, but as it relates to a Pelgrane IP, I've agreed with Simon that it should go up on the Pelgrane site instead. You'll note that no actual IP terms are used, but you'll probably guess which IP it is.

With all that in mind, I'm posting a teaser here, so you'll know what to look forward to later. Not sure exactly when this is going up, but by the end of the month for definite.

Enjoy!

**


       Dorcas wondered, not for the first time, what her West African mother would have said, if she knew her Cambridge graduate daughter was cleaning offices at Canary Wharf, the very job she had done for fifty years so Dorcas wouldn’t have to. Dorcas didn’t think the Glock hidden in her cleaning equipment would matter much to Mum. She was a straightforward woman. She wouldn’t have had time or patience for Dorcas’ specialized position.


      It was time for check-in. Dorcas took out her cheap mobile and typed in, hey baby. It was script three, and just as they’d practiced, Roy’s reply was hey, you. :) Simon, the loaner from Special Reconnaissance Regiment, was the one who’d designed it. He’d pointed out that blending in was key, and nobody looked twice at someone texting. There was always a risk that the messages would be intercepted, so the textspeak was bland. The key was in the timing. Once every half hour, on the half hour. So long as you stuck to script, the chance that someone was impersonating the sender was reduced to nil, or as close to nil as Simon could manage it. So long as the texts kept coming in, all was well. If the texts stopped coming, or Dorcas sent want coffee? then it was time to send in the cavalry.

Gunpowder Treason and Me (Trail of Cthulhu)

In case you were wondering, this is how I spend my spare time. Yes, that daring fellow in the bedsheet running around on the beach is me, at the reenactment of the 1775 Gunpowder Plot, which supplied the American army with gunpowder stolen from the British in Bermuda. I played Governor George Breuer, a hapless military man stymied by the Bermudians and his own lackluster government at every turn, who suffered the ultimate indignity of having his gunpowder stolen right from under his nose.

I ended up overboard, which given the heat was a welcome benefit, even if it meant my costume became see-through.

The plot came about because, during the War, the Continental Congress decided to embargo trade with any British colony still loyal to the Crown. Several prominent Bermudians became upset at this; America was a valuable trading partner, and without it the island colony would never prosper. How to persuade the Americans to break the embargo?

Well, there was that store of gunpowder that nobody was using. Originally stockpiled to defend the colony, there were no troops manning any of Bermuda's extensive fort network, so it had gone to rot in the attic of the House of Assembly before the Governor decided to build a store for it and move it there. What if the rebels were to come in and steal it, nudge nudge, wink wink?

The Americans, and Ben Franklin in particular, were having none of it. They hadn't the resources to waste on what might be a wild goose chase, and in any case, if the Bermudians wanted to benefit, Franklin felt they'd better have some skin in the game. Instead the Committee, as the gunpowder plotters styled themselves, were advised to steal the powder and bring it to the Americans if they wanted any kind of reward.

This they did, on a warm August night. The powder store had no windows, so they cut their way in through the roof. There were perhaps a hundred kegs, but twelve of those had obviously gone bad, so they left those behind. About forty percent of the remainder was found to be bad when they reached Washington's army, so in the end the grand conspiracy netted enough powder for about a thousand men, to fire one or two balls each.

Naturally this Saved America.

The Committee did very well for itself, financially speaking. Not only did it sell the powder at market price - a little over two hundred pounds total, or about $30,000 in today's money - it also persuaded the Americans to break the embargo and sell food to Bermuda at cut rates, on the grounds that the colony was starving thanks to lack of trade. Except it wasn't really starving, and in any case the Committee exaggerated the number of people on the island by about 5,000. The Committee sold on the excess food at a handsome profit.

So, a dashing tale of heroism.

The colonial period hasn't really been covered in gaming. There's been an installment of the Assassin's Creed series, a few titles like Sons of Liberty, and several board games, but it's not really hit the big time. Every so often the Cthulhu crowd suggests that, perhaps, it might be a good fit for a horror setting, but so far it hasn't really caught on. There may be as many games written for Parisien Surrealists as there are for those who want to see redcoats eaten by shoggoths.

My contribution to the pile has been Hell Fire, which sends the characters from the fleshpots of London to the colonies, trying to stop an outbreak of Ygolonac worship. Oddly enough, the climactic scenes of that scenario are set in Bermuda. Can't think why.

If this scenario were to be turned into a gaming supplement, it's a bit difficult to see who the characters would play. Characters tend to be underdogs, but it's pretty clear that the Committee aren't the underdogs in this scenario. If anyone is, it's Breuer, who has no troops, no allies, can't get the British government to listen to him when he repeatedly warns the folks at home about the danger, and has to constantly be on his guard against treachery.

Trouble is, playing the authority figure never really sits well with gamers either, not unless you're playing the Judge Dredd RPG. However that title's success may be due to the players being authority figures who shoot anything that moves and most things that don't, which makes for great catharsis. So were I to gamify this, I think I'd have to boost Breuer, and make him the villain of the piece, or at least the main opposition. Perhaps he was able to persuade the British to send him reinforcements, or perhaps he's a potent sorcerer in his own right, capable of defending the store all by himself. That gives the characters a respectable home-grown opposition.

Or perhaps there's a third figure in all this, a mysterious and powerful British spymaster, who's watching all this from afar. If this villain has infiltrated the Continental Congress, then he'd know about the Gunpowder Plot, but probably not be aware of the details. Perhaps he has secretly supplied Breuer with the reinforcements he'll need, or perhaps he's willing to let the plotters steal the powder, so long as he can track them down later and dispose of them. Maybe he's doing all this to expose a valuable American asset, say the player characters' contact with the Continental Congress. Or maybe he's hidden something in that powder which will backfire catastrophically when the rebels try to use it.

If you like a bit of sordid moneygrubbing with your supernatural tinged adventure - a maritime version of Bookhounds, with powder and shot taking the place of old tomes - then you could play it straight. The characters really are double-dealing smooth talking rogues, with their own ship, an experienced crew, and a yen for easy money. To the Continental Congress they're fellow lovers of liberty, while to the Crown they're loyal subjects, lying to everyone they meet and dodging the blockade in search of that last big score that will pay all debts. Will you die a rich man in your bed, or will the sea swallow your bones full fathom five?

That's it for now. Enjoy!