Violet Firth aka Dion Fortune

 Last week I talked about ritual magic and this week it's Dion Fortune. Some of the material I'm going to discuss comes from Francis King's The Rites of Modern Occult Magic. 

Violet Firth (born 6 December 1890 died 6 or 8 January 1946) was introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1919, when she would have been in her late 20s. MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Golden Dawn, had died the year before during the influenza epidemic and the Golden Dawn was under the occasionally shaky leadership of his widow Moina Mathers, working in partnership with an ageing J.W. Brodie-Innes. Brodie-Innes was himself not long for this world and would pass in 1923. 

Firth came from a wealthy background and was well educated. Her father, anxious not to be seen as a money-grubbing parvenu, adopted the motto God, not Luck - Deo, non Fortuna - from which she would derive the pseudonym by which she is best known. Though in her view Dion Fortune wasn't so much a pseudonym as Violet Firth was her deadname. 

Fortune had a long-standing interest in occultism before being introduced as a neophyte in Alpha et Omega in 1919. She was well versed in psychotherapy, the works of Freud and Jung, and had experience as a medium and psychic sensitive. She'd also served in the War in the Woman's Land Army but had never been posted overseas. 

King says something interesting, though it's a bit of a non sequitur. He describes Fortune as a 'slim young girl' in 1919 and goes on to add that 'later she was to become very fat; for some reason most mediums seem to do this - probably there is some relationship between mediumship and the glandular balance of the metabolism.' Which, frankly, sounds like utter garbage, but in a game world where Y'Golonac exists there is something to be said for a fictional universe where mediums become enormous under psychic influences.

Fortune soon becomes disenchanted with the Golden Dawn's mismanagement and its lack of a rigorous training program. It doesn't help that Mathers is milking it for every spare dollar, pushing Alpha et Omega as if mystical learning is a self-help experience. Initially Fortune counters this by trying to bring in new blood, with Mathers' blessing. New recruits were a good thing for Mathers the Empire-builder. This creates the Fraternity of the Inner Light, a sub-group within Alpha et Omega, in which Fortune is a leading player. Mathers hates that idea; in Alpha et Omega, Mathers is Imperatrix, the only leading player.

Fortune and Mathers soon fall out, and Fortune alleges that Mathers engages her in psychic assault. This takes the form of a plague of cats. "I suddenly saw, coming down the stairs towards me, a gigantic tabby cat, twice the size of a tiger. It appeared absolutely solid and tangible. I stared at it petrified for a second, and then it vanished. I instantly realized that it was a simulacrum, or thought-form that was being projected by someone with occult powers." Fortune beats off this attack with her own occult powers but not without cost; when she goes to bed, she sees she has been scored as if by claws. 

Again, going back to gaming, this can be significant in a game world in which dreams, mystic cats, and Bast worship exist. Was Mathers secretly a worshipper of the cat god, or had she, by chance, discovered a means of using Bast's powers? Was Mathers a Dreamer?

This becomes even more important later, when Ms. Netta Fornario, a member of Alpha et Omega, dies under very mysterious circumstances. She travelled to Scotland in 1929, evidently engaged in some kind of ritual exercise on the Isle of Iona, and was later found dead there. Possibly her death was the result of exposure to the elements, but there were deep score marks on the body and, before her death, Netta claimed she was being attacked psychically. Fornario and Fortune were friends. Fortune believed Mathers was responsible for Fornario's death.  

By this time Mathers was dead; in fact, she died the year before Fornario's trip to Iona. Any further breach between Fortune and Mathers was irrelevant, at least in the physical realm, though Mathers' psychic influences may have remained.

Again, going back to gaming, this could also become in-game relevant if Mathers was a Dreamer, and if her Dream-self survived. Particularly if you, as Keeper, intend this to run contemporaneously with Dreamhounds of Paris, since Mathers will be in the Dream fomenting occult dissent just at the time the Dreamhounds are sculpting the Dreamlands in their own image. What would Mathers do if her Egyptian, Bast-centric artistic vision is interrupted by French Surrealists while she, at the same time, is continuing her feud with Fortune?  

By this point Fortune is utterly disenchanted with Alpha et Omega. Fortune has effective control over her own Fraternity, and she's more interested in personal development than getting bogged down in psychic attacks and the day-to-day bother of running an esoteric society. She begins corresponding with other occultists across Europe, expanding her horizons and generally making a name for herself. Not just living occultists either; through meditation she contacts Madame Blavatsky, and more esoteric entities. Her career as a writer begins to flourish, and her most well-regarded book, The Mystical Qabalah, is published in 1935. 

Ultimately, she approaches paganism, abandoning her former Christian beliefs. She begins to develop a mystical practice entirely her own, based on rituals of her own devising.

War approaches. The mystical Battle of Britain is about to begin ...

Ritual Magic (RPG All)

In the old year (feh! Fooey!) someone asked if I would write about Dion Fortune and the magical Battle of Britain. 

Happy to oblige. Before I do, let's set the scene a little and talk about ritual magic. 

Ritual magic, in Western traditions, is all about the big favors. You use it when you want to achieve a major result. In fiction this is sometimes with machines and modern (or at least modernist) technology. The Electric Pentacle and peculiar devices of Thomas Carnacki are an example of this type. You never know exactly what makes those devices hum. That isn't the point; the point is that they work. 

Same with rituals. If you really want to, you can find out how they're supposed to work. I have proof of this: academic tome after academic tome, Histories of Magic, long lists of names and attributes. All wordy, windy, esoteric. Filled with forbidden knowledge and tempting illustrations. 

However, from the point of view of the observer, how ritual magic works isn't the point. How impressive rituals are, is the point. 

Faust 1926, Murnau

The peculiar technology used by Doctor Frankenstein in the early films (and later, in Young Frankenstein) are in this tradition. Again, the desired result is something spectacular: the creation of new life, from dead clay. To achieve it an appeal is made to the heavens, and peculiar technology is used to make that appeal heard.

 Frankenstein, 1932

Early cinema, and plays like Marlowe's Faustus, latch on to this scene-play. They have those central dramatic moments when someone goes out to the crossroads on a dark night and evokes the weird. There's a suggestion that Faust and the rest are completing an esoteric ritual, but the details of that ritual are, at best, sketched in. So long as the visual is suggestive the means of getting there can slide a little bit. 

Video games pull much the same tactic. Whether it's the Rite of Thorns in Baldur's Gate 3 or any one of a dozen summoning rites in World of Warcraft, the implication is that so long as you get enough people chanting faux Latin and standing in something approximating a circle, you've got yourself some ritual goodness and can expect great results. 

In the historical record this often causes religious qualms. Appealing to forces beyond reality? Clearly diabolic. Burn those books. However, even the religious are not beyond a little magical temptation, so up springs a series of tomes that promise power from angels instead. Know the right angel, make the right appeal (in the Lord's name, of course) and you too can have whatever it is you desire. Or, if you're into slightly less work for slightly less reward, you can practice simple bibliomancy. Take out your bible, flip to a random page, and take the advice offered.  A very simple ritual designed to produce a simple result. 

But the key to ritual, whether religious or otherwise, is to know your terminology. You need to know the proper name of the angel (or whatever it may be) you're appealing to. You need to know the offerings that being wants, or the tools you'll need to make the appeal. You need to be able to recite the prayers exactly right each time, in the right order each time, as often as the ritual requires. You need to be able to do this while fasting, or while only drinking or eating the right things, or by only consuming the holy spirit, or whatever it may be. You need to get everything exactly right, possibly over a period of several days or even weeks. 

Get one little thing wrong, and the whole effort is for naught. Or, in the case of devils, get one little thing wrong and put your body and soul in peril.

The interesting thing about a ritual, I think, is that it doesn't rely on the magician, or the magician's innate power. This is the magician asking for a favor. Commanding a favor, really. They know the cheat codes, they press the correct button sequence, and boom! Magical gifts. Angels, demons, deities of the hearth or saints in charge of who-knows-what, beings that have existed before Man and which will exist after him, beings that have seen the face of God and tasted the eternal joys, suddenly bow down to some clown from Croydon, so long as that clown pronounces their name correctly and chants in the appropriate tempo.

In RPG terms, naturally the Bookhounds (or whoever it may be) aren't really appealing to angelic or devilish forces. They're relying on the Mythos to power their Megapolisomancy, their Rough Magick, or whatever else it may be. The ritual found in that collection of scrolls may reference Thoth, but to those who know it's really talking about [insert Mythos here].

Which raises a question. Most Mythos forces aren't interested in humanity and certainly aren't interested in anything humanity wants. Cthulhu could care less. Nyarlathotep is probably interested to a degree but isn't about to fetch and carry for any mortal sorcerer.

There are at least two ways to answer that question. 

The first is manipulation. Humanity isn't drawing directly on Mythos forces. Rituals are ways of channeling power, leeching power that would otherwise go to waste or be used for something else. This may be deliberate manipulation, or it may be an accidental effect, something that's survived from the days of Mu and which some mortal lucked into. When a sorcerer uses a ritual to achieve an effect that sorcerer is accessing Mythos forces that exist around us all the time, in the same way that we might dam a river or redirect a stream to irrigate cropland. We didn't create the river. We merely adapted it to our use. 

The other is natural tendencies at work. Humanity is Mythos. There's some lurking corruption at the heart of us all, and when we manipulate forces to create a ritual result we're drawing on the Mythos inside us to do it. We bring ourselves closer to Cthulhu, or whichever Old One it may be. Perhaps that's what is meant by 'the stars are right' - not that some anticipated conjunction of heavenly bodies will bring about a result, but that we are the stars spoken of in prophesy, and when our devotions over however many millennia finally bear fruit, we will be the reason why Ry'leh rises and why the Old Ones return. Like ants building a mountain, we strive in our own cause, but build something beyond our scope or our ability to understand. 

Now, next time - Dion Fortune!   

 

Hind Horn (Bookhounds)

Last post before the holidays! No post next week. Next post will be the first week of January 2025!

Hind Horn is a Scottish traditional ballad with many, many variations. The story goes that Hind Horn, the hero of the tale, is given a ring as a token of love from the King's Daughter. The ring has diamonds, and she tells him that when those diamonds grow pale and lose their luster, it means her love for him is fading.

They part. He notices that the diamonds are in fact fading. He returns to the kingdom to find that she is being married to another. He approaches the wedding party disguised as a beggar and contrives to show her the ring. When she sees it, she offers to go with him, beggar or no, and they go off together.

This legend is one of the reasons why it became traditional that, should a beggar come to a house where there is a wedding, the beggar be given whatever reasonable thing they ask for.

With that in mind:

Hind Horn in Winter

The Hounds find a job lot of old ballads, loosely compiled, in one of the boxes from the last auction.

On inspection, most of them seem to have come from a house sale somewhere up North, and the Hounds find with the ballads notes on someone's academic work. The parson, or some other minor church functionary, was amusing themselves between sermons by collecting, transcribing and examining old ballads. Most of them seem to have been local to wherever the parson was (that part's not clear) and some of them seem to be much older than first glance. 

If the Hounds examine the documents very closely they find (1 point) that one of them is in fact a 15th Century manuscript, 3 pages long, apparently a version of Hind Horn written/transcribed by Charles of Orléans. God alone knows how that treasure found its way into an obscure parson's trove. 

It's not quite a Windfall but it is a very valuable find. 

The air is chilly, the mornings frosty, and it's getting more and more difficult to heat the shop. As winter draws ever nearer the Hounds find three customers all determined to purchase (or steal) Hind Horn: A Scot cleric, Andrew Baird, lean and corpselike; a young man, John Egan, poor as dirt and importunate; a young woman, Hattie Keeble, an upper middle class coquette. They all want Hind Horn. They seem to know, without telling, that the Hounds have it. If one of them gets it, the other two will be outraged and cause all sorts of scenes. Diplomacy is called for ...

Just as this becomes a problem, a peculiar item turns up in lost property: a diamond ring. A wedding band. Nobody recognizes it or knows how it ended up on the shop floor.

Option One: Dusty Memories. None of this is real. There's a Dust Thing attached to Hind Horn which, in fact, is not a 15th Century original but an 18th Century forgery. It's quite a good forgery, so it will pass muster for all but the most eagle-eyed of experts. The Dust Thing is drawing on the Hind Horn story to create ring, Baird, Egan - but not Keeble. Hattie is real enough. She saw the document at the auction but lost out to the Hounds, and now she wants another bite at the apple. 

Option Two: Dead Men's Tales. Baird is in fact what's left of the parson who, all those years ago, compiled the documents. Baird was also an experienced Dreamer and picked up some very peculiar, Mythos-oriented, views on the origins of human folklore. Baird became convinced that stories like Hind Horn are actually about Mythos narratives, and spent his life trying to prove his thesis. His life, and beyond; his compulsion leads him to defy death itself. Egan, Keeble, the ring and the fable are all dreams, part of Baird's delusion, though he believes they're real enough. If this goes too far, the shop may find itself incorporated into the dead parson's fantasies.

Option Three: Hind Horn Redux. The document was never written by Charles but it is a 15th century manuscript, a Mythos text hidden in a literary code. It is in fact dedicated to Gol-Goroth, the Fisher; it is the Old One who created the ring, which is a holy thing. Gol-Goroth uses text and ring as lures, and it has three on its hook: Baird, Egan and Keeble. Possibly the Hounds as well, if they get too close. If Gol-Goroth manages to lure someone close enough, that person becomes part of the narrative, and the text grows ever longer. Those too close to the story begin to dream of cold climes, far, far colder than London, and of peculiar dark mountains where strange treasures are hid. The text of Hind Horn is part finished; if Gol-Goroth gets all three - Baird, Egan and Keeble - then the text will be complete. Much more valuable, too, from the Hounds' perspective.

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

 

Vagabond Voyaging (RPG all)

I've been reading the saddest book.

It's not the book's fault. It's meant to be a jolly romp, all about holidays and where you can go, how much you're likely to spend, how long you'll be. I picked it up at the Argosy for a nominal sum, not expecting to be brought to tears. 

Picture this: a stunning cruise across the ocean, from some coastal US town to wherever you care to go. Nothing fancy; no Cunard prices here. This is holiday on the cheap. This is around the world on a buck a day.

This is Vagabond Voyaging: The Story of Freighter Travel, written by Larry Nixon, press agent, newsman and travel author, he who wrote See Canada Next. Published by Little, Brown & Company.

In 1938.

He published See Canada Next in 1940 and What Will Happen And What To Do When War Comes in 1939. I admit, I'm tempted to seek out that last one. I'd be very interested to see what Nixon had to say to travelers in the Bogart/Casablanca era. 

I don't have much information about Larry himself. His name is sometimes given (on Ye Olde Internet) as Laurence A Nixon but I can't help but wonder if that's a typo, since there's a much more famous gent with that name and Vagabond doesn't give him as Laurence anywhere in the text. The copyright's in Larry's name, not Laurence. To my knowledge these are the only three books he ever wrote, though he probably published plenty of articles in magazines and papers.

This one flew off the shelves. My edition is a fourth reprint, November 1938. It first came out in July of that year and was republished three times in 1938 alone.

It probably would have been republished many more times were it not for ... circumstances beyond the author's control.

You hear about girls fresh out of high school who catch a boat across the Pacific to visit their brothers stationed with the Naval Air. You know full well what's going to happen to that brother in short order, but in the book it's all smiles and dances with handsome cadets. 

But the story that really got me was the one about the young bride who goes all the way across the waters to meet her Royal Navy beau. "'The Captain gave me a dinner,' years from now she'll tell her guests at tea. Her grandchildren will hear: 'All the passengers were so nice, they gave me presents when I left the boat.' Now you understand the Why of the gifts for the departing guest. You're attending a shower for a bride! She's up to reply, poor girl, she is embarrassed, but happy ... 'And you must all come and visit us in our little home on May Road, the Peak.'"  

The Peak in Hong Kong. 

Yeah, those grandchildren might be a little theoretical.

It comes to something when you wish you had a time machine to tell a bride to be to be careful about having children in the first year or two of marriage.

People say Americans don't like to travel but, if this book and its four printings in four months is any indication, there was a time when they were incredibly adventurous. 

Every single freighter that pulled into an American port kept a half-dozen births or more aside for passengers. That argues insatiable demand. Moreover, it was cheap as chips; round the world on a couple dollars a day. The biggest constraint, as Nixon points out, isn't money but time. It takes weeks or months to cross the ocean in a freighter. But, if you have the time, you can go round the world. Nobody's stopping you.

Money really isn't a constraint, if you're determined. Remember my other bit of book loot from a while back, Head-Hunting in the Solomon Islands? This is exactly what those two kids were doing. They got on a ship headed roughly in the right direction and, when they needed extra cash, they painted a few portraits. They saw it all and paid almost nothing for the privilege.

The people who boarded those ships were willing to go wherever the ship went, because there was no absolute guarantee that a ship bound for Toulouse wouldn't, say, be redirected to an African port on the way. These were jobbing vessels, after all; they went where the cargo was. If that happened and you were on board your options were get off or go to Africa.

They ate what the crew ate. A Japanese ship served Japanese food, and so on. There was no all-day buffet, nor was there separate dining. You ate with the crew. They'll do their best for you, but they won't change their meals just because you're used to whatever they serve in Peoria.

You're traveling on almost nothing. This is an age before passports and what we now think of as international banking. You carry hard currency and letters of credit. You carry letters of introduction to prominent citizens at your proposed destination, so you can prove you are who you say you are. 

If you want to, you can just vanish. 

Honestly, it's the kind of book that changes your whole perspective. Without it you might be tempted to think that the airplane opened up the world. It did no such thing. The world was already wide open. Moreover, it was open to anyone, regardless of income or class. It was the war that closed down travel, not opportunity.

Do you need this book? No, absolutely not. But if you're a Keeper looking to run a travel scenario set anywhen from the 1900s to the 1940s, this is the kind of resource you'll find useful. It has destinations, costs, travel times, accommodations, plus a decent picture of the kind of thing you'll find when you get wherever it is you're going. 

It's worth a trip to the library, put it to you that way.

That's it for this week!

The Perils of Witchcraft (Bookhounds of London)

Some housekeeping: no post next week, as I'm off-island wandering through the bowels of New York.

Also, a question to the masses: what GUMSHOE title would you like me to see write about in 2025? Bookhounds, NBA, Trail, something else?

Now, an extract from the Folklore of Guernsey (Marie De Garis, 2014 reprint, original 1975):

Until the First World War, the purlieus around the town church constituted a popular pied-a-terre for several charlatans and sorchiers. These were largely patronized by country people who, sure that they were being bewitched by certain neighbors or acquaintances, would visit those town quacks in hope of being given some counter-charm or advice ... The credulous wife of a well-known farmer residing in the higher parishes, used to be a regular visitor to one of these consultants, a certain Mrs. H. The wife's husband bore one of the most respected and honored names in the Channel Islands and was a man of standing in his parish. The foolish woman gave Mrs. H such huge sums of money that she beggared her husband entirely. The shame of being declared bankrupt so affected her husband that he hanged himself. The house was broken up. The mother went to live with her son but, so far from having learned her lesson, still continued to visit the town crone, passing her son's money to her until she nearly ruined him also. Her two unmarried daughters had to fend for themselves. One followed her father's example and committed suicide, while the other went to work as a maid somewhere ... When the mother finally died, her children felt so bitter about the ruin that she brought upon them that not one of them even wanted her portrait. 

Purlieu: The area directly around or outside of a place.

The Town Church of St. Peter's Port, aka Town Church of St Peter, Apostle & Martyr, dates back to the 1400s in its current form. There has been a church on that spot since the year 1000, more or less, and the building's history probably goes back to the Romans.

It's extremely close to the Market and there's a pub, the Albion House, a mere 18 inches away. That pub has been there since the 1700s, so when the writer talks about the church's purlieus, she probably means in or near the pub and what is now the market.   

St. Peter Port is the capital of Guernsey and, at the time of Bookhounds, it would still have been much as it was for centuries prior: a sleepy fishing port, occasionally enlivened by smuggling and war. It's watched over by Castle Cornet which, again during Bookhounds, is largely reduced to watching over the pond for toy boats built nearby, in the 1880s.

All that said:

Mrs. H.'s Library 

The Hounds buy a job lot in an auction, only to discover that most of the books they bought in that box of miscellanea belonged to a notorious fraud from Guernsey. 

Mrs. H, a well-known character in Guernsey circles, recently passed, and what's left of her family wanted to make sure that her memory was properly expunged. This meant, among other things, disposing of her belongings outside Guernsey. They could have burned it all, but her children share one thing with their parent: they're far too covetous to pass up a chance to make a shilling.  

This means her hand-written witchcraft journals and the scraps of knowledge that Mrs. H apparently picked up from a genuine Mythos text are now the Hounds' stock. 

As books these texts aren't worth much; about 1 point stock, more or less, History (witchcraft). If the Mythos text Mrs. H cribbed from could be found, that would be worth more. That, presumably, is in Guernsey. Lord alone knows precisely where, or even if it still exists.

Soon after the Hounds buy the job lot a widow from Guernsey turns up at their shop, a Mrs. De Beauvoir. She was a regular client of Mrs. H and, since the Hounds now have Mrs. H's books, they must be as knowledgeable as Mrs. H used to be. Mrs. De Beauvoir is being plagued by witchcraft. Can the Hounds help?

Options:

• Ghost Hunters: Mrs. De Beauvoir has driven her family to penury thanks to her obsessions and she brings with her a collection of ghosts, all of whom hate her guts. That's why she thinks she's being plagued; she is, just not by witches. If the investigators aren't careful, these ghosts will turn their attention to the Hounds and the shop. When that happens, Reversals are sure to follow.
• Crawling Chaos: Mrs. H isn't as dead as people like to think. She picked up just enough knowledge to become a kind of crawling one after death, only to find that Guernsey isn't as accommodating to her after death as it was during life. The undead Mrs. H is looking for a new home, and as 'Mrs. De Beauvoir' she's hoping that the Hounds will be gullible enough to assist.
• Family Pressures: Mrs. De Beauvoir thinks that her family doesn't know that she's stolen their savings to make a trip to London to see the Hounds. They very much do, and they want that money back, along with anything that Mrs. De Beauvoir might have given the Hounds. Break-ins, ambushes, tearful scenes at auction houses in front of God and everybody - anything is possible. This may cumulate in an accidental Megapolisomantic effect, as a slice of Guernsey interacting with London mystic forces is just the kind of spice that creates a very peculiar soup.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

OPFOR (RPG All)

'I feel like I still have a few questions about how to run the antagonist, particularly in its weaknesses and method of being defeated.'

OK, let's talk about the OPFOR.

While this question arose as a result of a particular scenario this response will cover all possible scenarios.

Like Nodes, any opposition has:

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

Depending on the system, any given enemy may have very explicit powers. Dungeons and Dragons is infamous for having very detailed notes on every conceivable monster type, to such an extent that I begin to wonder whether the average DM is a control freak with certain ... fetishes. GUMSHOE is a little more loosey-goosey, Call of Cthulhu and BRP in general leans towards the crunchy side of the power spectrum, and there are too many other systems to name in anything like detail.

The Goals, and the Assets, are ultimately up to the DM, but to a certain extent they can be inferred without having to break your brain. When discussing the Rule of 4, I said about the Rowdy Yates street gang that 'It's not reasonable to suppose a street gang made up primarily of loafers and lowlifes control the hidden secrets of the universe, or even the hidden secrets of the coffee machine down at Screamin' Beans Coffee House.' The same can be said of any OPFOR. 

A bad cop based in Los Angeles has some impact in Los Angeles. They have almost no interest or impact on what's going on in Berlin. Not even Berlin, Texas. A Dragon might be the terror of the kingdom; that doesn't mean that same Dragon has much impact or interest on what's going on in the Underdark. They might, but it's not nearly as likely as them having an impact on the nearby township, Snackington. 

Let's follow through on that logic and discuss some specific examples.

Let's say we're talking about a Deep One. Those are relatively common in Cthulhu tales. Not, mind you, a specific Deep One, a named character with a role in the narrative. No, for purposes of this example we're talking about the third Deep One from the left, carrying spear. 

Deep Ones have specific statistics, as follows:

Abilities (on land/in water): Athletics 8/12, Health 9, Scuffling 8/12, Weapons 6/4

Hit Threshold: 4/5

Alertness Modifier: +0/+1

Stealth Modifier: +0/+1

Weapon: +1 (claw), +1 (trident) 

Armor: -1 vs any (scales and skin)

Stability Loss: +0

Already you can put some ideas together. You can see that this creature is stronger than the average human (NPC) and can (with Health 9) absorb at least two or three solid hits without going down. That suggests it probably isn't afraid of attacking a single human. It might be cautious around two or three humans. There's a greater risk of them losing a fight. 

It knows it can be punched or stabbed without too much risk of fatal damage thanks to its armor. It probably also knows that firearms, especially heavy firearms, are a significant threat since the damage they do effectively negates any advantage it has through armor. 

Finally, it knows that it's punching above its weight. The average Deep One can inflict as much damage as a human armed with a heavy firearm. That suggests it expects to win most fights quickly, against the average human.

It also knows, thanks to its stats, that a Deep One can act on land and sea but is more powerful at sea. That might inform its decision making.

You, as DM, also know, thanks to its description, that it's as intelligent as a human, effectively immortal, driven to create more Deep Ones through intercourse with humans, and that it worships Cthulhu. The main Trail text gives several options for Cthulhu but I'm not going to get too deep into that pool, as the rules are about to be re-issued in a new edition. Just be aware that the Deep One is driven by these compulsions. 

With all that in mind:

• Powers: mostly physical. It can do damage. It's capable of tactical thinking and can use tools, which means it can ambush and set traps. However, the average Deep One is a team player, not a leader. It can follow instructions but might not be that good at issuing them.
• Goals: Spread worship. Spread infection. Survive. 
• Assets: other Deep Ones, human worshippers, potential access to Magic but that doesn't seem to be widely spread among them. Main asset is their personal strength and their increased ability when striking from the ocean.

When discussing scenario structure I said:

Crucially, you need to bear in mind that your structure isn’t some magical castle in the clouds that can only be reached by imagination wizards. Your structure is very simple. It starts with this:  

You put yourself in the characters’ shoes and ask yourself, if I had to answer this question, what would I do?

Exactly the same applies with OPFOR. What they do and how they do it isn't locked in some imaginary castle. You don't need psychic powers to work this out. You just put yourself in the Deep One's shoes and say, 'if I was dealing with this problem, what would I do?'

Deep One versus solo PC:

• I know I can beat this guy one-on-one, unless he has a gun.
• I should attack from ambush whenever possible. 
• If I beat him easily, I don't have to kill him straight away. I could capture him for sacrifice to my God.

Deep One versus multiple PCs, or one PC and multiple NPCs:

• I will lose if I try and fight this many.
• I should try to run away.
• If I can get more Deep Ones, or maybe some human allies, I can come back here and deal with this problem.

None of these are very complex plans and strategies, because this is third Deep One from left carrying spear. Unnamed monsters tend not to have complex motivations or significant assets at their disposal. If they did, they would not be third Deep One from left carrying spear. 

Let's say we were talking about something else. Let's say we were talking about Lisle Klingemann of Bankhaus Klingemann fame.  Since I've already described Lisle and her co-conspirator Albert Ahrens I know that each of them has at their disposal:

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 [they] can leverage from other, lesser Nodes.

So for Lisle it's reasonable to assume that she has:

• Powers, nothing too physical, but all the power money can buy, plus whatever power her vampire masters are willing to lend her.
• Goals: survive. Gamble. Serve vampire masters. Get one over on her hated brother Eric and her despised father, Joachim.
• Assets: all those named above plus whatever else she can buy, plus whatever her slave Albert can muster, plus any asset her vampire masters are willing to lend her. 

Lisle is capable of complex plans and strategies. She's a Node boss; she wouldn't be where she is if she wasn't a significant threat. However, her power is mostly soft power, the kind that comes with having lots of money and a ruthless streak. It would be unreasonable for her to get into a fistfight with a PC, not when she can pay half-a-dozen hard lads to do that for her.

However, she also has a weakness. She's a degenerate gambler. If the PCs learn about this, they might be able to manipulate or intimidate her.

Finally, she has goals that have nothing to do with the PCs or the ongoing vampire conspiracy. She feuds with her father and her brother. That means she might be persuaded or led to do something that the PCs want her to do, because it wins her some advantage in her ongoing feud.

Lisle versus solo PC:

• This clown is beneath me. 
• I should crush him with the power of money.
• Failing that, I should get one of my many minions to crush him with the power of crushing.

Accompanied by:

• I should be careful not to let my vampire masters down.
• When in doubt, survive to fight another day.

Lisle versus multiple PCs:

• How did this happen? Where are my guards?
• I should throw my toughest assets against these clowns.
• Where's that emergency asset my vampire masters gave me?

Accompanied by:

• I must survive.
• These clowns will pay for making me look weak.

Again, there's nothing here that can't be put together by asking one simple question: if I were Lisle, a rich, arrogant person used to getting my own way and crushing people with the power of money, what would I do in this situation?

That's it for this week. See you next week!

Thrilling Combinations (Night's Black Agents)

 

Police Story (1984, Eng dub)

In Night's Black Agents main rules there's sections on Thrilling Chases, which later gets expanded to Thrilling (Any General Pool) in the Resource Book. There's enough high-octane action to keep anyone occupied. 

What happens if you try to combine two Thrilling possibilities?

Hong Kong action films are good for this. Last week I talked about Twilight of the Warriors, which has plenty of examples of Thrilling Combat combined in the same scene as a Thrilling Chase. Jackie Chan vehicle Police Story does much the same in this sequence, with a Chase mixed with Athletics and Hand-to-Hand plus a final Firearms confrontation - or Intimidate, depending on how you want to play that final showdown. 

If you, as Director, want a scene to flow like this, how would you go about it?

For starters, don't forget the existing Thriller Combat options like Feint, Evasive Maneuvers, Multiple Targets, Smashes and Throws. All these have their place in a Thrilling Sequence. If you want the players to make use of them, you may need to print out reminder cards with these rules printed out. It's easy to forget things like this in the heat of the moment. Players who're itching for Thrills may not need reminding but not every player lives for the moment when their agent get attacked by a machete gang.

The Raid: Redemption

Next, establish a Win condition for the scene.

This needs to be understood by all participants in the scene. With Police Story, the win condition for Jackie Chan is to capture the bad guys; the bad guys' win condition is to escape. In Raid, Rama's win condition is to escape; the machete gang's win condition is to kill Rama. It's easy to imagine a win condition of capture the McGuffin (a camera or hard drive with vital evidence, say), or survive until dawn (useful in a vampire game). Whatever that win condition is, everyone in the scene needs to know what it is. If it were me, I would state the win sequence right at the start.

There's a strong case for saying that the Players should have input on the win condition. The Players are responsible for Thrills; they should have a say in how those Thrills come about. Not all Players are confident enough to get involved at this stage. If yours aren't (and you know your players better than I do) you could state the win condition without their involvement. Still, you should ask. They're not going to get confident by constantly dodging their responsibilities. 

Next, establish which two Pools are going to be used.

I would stick with two. There's an argument to be made that more than two pools could be used, but then things get more complicated than they need to be and the folks at the table start losing track of who's doing what.

Take the Police Story scene. There are at least two pools in play: Athletics, and Martial Arts. Technically there's a very short Firearms sequence at the end, which could easily be replaced by Intimidation. Or the Raid sequence, where again the two abilities in play are Athletics and Martial Arts. 

There are some General Abilities which work well together. I can see a case for saying that Thrilling Infiltration and Thrilling Digital Intrusion go together like peanut butter and chocolate.  Or Thrilling Surveillance and Digital Intrusion. 

The Conversation Trailer

There are some scenes which aren't as immediately obvious, but which still work together. 

Let's say that a Network Contact with vital information turns up badly injured and close to death, and a hit team is on the Contact's trail. The agents bundle the Contact into a car (or steal an ambulance, or however you want this to work) and take off at high speed for the nearest hospital. In that case, the two likely pools are Driving and Medic, with the win condition being get the Contact to the hospital alive, or at least get the Contact to cough up the vital information before they die.

You could pull much the same thing with Driving and Shrink. In this example the Contact isn't physically injured but their mind is fried, and the agents aren't getting the Contact to a hospital but instead to the nearest location with Blocks to defend against vampires; a Catholic Church, say. The agents use Drive to keep one step ahead of the hit team and Shrink to get the Contact to cough up vital information before the end of the scene. 

Shooting and Infiltration: the Infiltration team are sneaking into an armed facility, and the team sniper is taking out opposition so the Infiltration team doesn't get spotted. 

Piloting and Driving: the agents are in hot pursuit, and the eye in the sky is keeping them updated as to the target's route. Or Surveillance and Piloting, same deal.

Now, there's a case to be made that Maneuvers do the same thing, and I would definitely agree. If a result of equivalent use can be achieved through a Maneuver, do that. However, I'm suggesting this be used on those occasions when the Thrilling option is more interesting to the group as a whole than boiling it down to one Maneuver and a die roll. 

OK: you've established a win condition and the pools to be used to achieve that win condition. Next: use both those pools as needed in the scene. Let the players decide which pool is more useful at a given moment. That pool is the Primary pool for any given roll, and the Secondary pool is used either to establish a Raise, to Swerve, or is saved for the next moment it's useful.

Let's say this is that moment in the Raid where Rama is running from the machete gang. The Primary pool is Athletics. Martial Arts is the Secondary pool. Rama is the pursued, and the machete gang are the pursuers. In any given check, Athletics is the Primary, but Rama has the option of spending Martial Arts to Raise the difficulty in the chase. Or Rama can save Martial Arts for a later moment in the same scene, where Martial Arts becomes the Primary pool and Rama can use Athletics to Raise the difficulty.

The win condition is for Rama to escape, so the mechanics are the same lead/chase mechanics used in any Thrilling Chase scene. With the difference that Rama can spend Martial Arts to Raise or Swerve, and has the option of switching at any time to make Martial Arts the Primary and Athletics the Secondary pool. 

The obvious caveat is that this gives the agents a larger pool to draw on, which in turn means the agents may be more likely to win any given Thrilling sequence. That's not a huge problem. The players should be expected to win most of the time. A story is no story if the hero fumbles at the first hurdle. 

Where this becomes interesting is towards the midpoint or the end of any given story arc, because at that point the agents have probably spent a fair number of points and taken advantage of any refreshes on offer. Now it's do or die time. They'll need all the help they can get. 

Time for some Thrills.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!