New Rule (Cranfield, Birmingham)

New rule: check your bags.

For years I've been wheeling a carry-on secure in the knowledge I can get off the plane straight away and walk out of the airport. I avoid paying the fee of [whatever it may be]. Score! So clever am I!

This was a good rule. Then everyone started following it. This trip to the UK started with a mad scramble to get everyone's bags in the overhead. I genuinely thought someone might die, probably one of the flight attendants from an aneurism. We left a few minutes behind schedule; by the grace of God it wasn't much more than half an hour. Opening the containers up again was like Russian roulette with carry-ons. That's before you consider that for a lot of folks it wasn't carry-ons; it was duty free, it was duffle bags, it was this, it was that, but it wasn't the standard size bag. Which makes a huge difference when the overheads can only take two or three standard size.

No, no. Never again. I'm going to get a larger bag (because why not) and whenever I fly long haul, that bag gets checked. I don't care if the airline charges me. It is worth the cost to avoid the pain. Short haul is different. If I'm only going to be out of country for a few days, it makes sense to use a smaller bag. But long haul, with a larger bag, I can carry more books. Which are duty free. Alleluia!

Now, the conventions. 

Chaosium UK was an eye-opener. I'd forgotten how desolate UK villages can be; there's nothing in Cranfield beyond a couple pubs, a chippie, a Chinese, and one decent restaurant. Allegedly decent. I never saw it because it wasn't in walking distance and Cranfield's Uber drivers are double-charging weasels.  

I tell you, these places are deserts where you park your 2.4 kids until they're old enough to feck off to uni. I cannot imagine living there. You'd start to see the walls move in and out after a while. Which is very odd, for a university village. I can only think the students make their own fun. Or get the hell out to Milton Keynes as soon as possible, but that would involve functional public transport or a willingness to get robbed blind by the aforementioned Uber weasels.

Cranfield School of Management was great and the staff did their best, though I did feel as if I'd gone back in time and was a student again. At least this time the bar had a decent selection of non-alcoholic beer! Food was British Stodge, and while I do not mind a bit of Stodge I can't imagine living on the bloody stuff. You'd need a cast iron stomach and the epicurean incuriousness of a billy goat.

Another thing I had forgotten: UK cons are mostly about gaming. I've become used to the North American version, where there's a much larger vendor presence, film, guests, panels, the whole schmeer. As a result I didn't sign up for anything like as much gaming as I could have, though I did enjoy dipping into a Rivers of London game, Route 66, and was able to sit in on the start of a Jimmy's Last Dance session. Plus, Miskatonic Playhouse! Ahh, fun times. I did spend money. One of these days I should also claim the .pdf version of some of those games I bought. I tell you, it's easy to get sidetracked in a dozen different directions if you're not careful.

Then there was the Birmingham Expo. 

Yes, there is a vendor presence at the Expo. However did you guess?

One thing Birmingham does not know how to deal with: heat. It was baking in there. Thank God it was high ceilings at the Expo centre for the heat to bleed out or I think there would have been a couple heatstroke cases.

I went to one panel - Off With Your Head, a ton of fun, my allegiance remains with King Non-Copyright Mouse - in something called Piazza Five, which is a tiny brick oven at the heart of the Expo centre. I think I caught a breath of fresh air once, briefly, at the start of the show, when the aircon wrote its will and collapsed. I was in the front row, because I like to be in the splash zone. If someone on stage spontaneously combusted and burnt to ashes on the spot, I would not have been surprised. Credit to Sam See, the Vizier and Master of Ceremonies. He did not wilt. Which must have been a temptation.

For the love of God, put in more water stations at least, inside the halls. Better yet functional HVAC, but water stations, por favor. 

Books!

Where did I go? Foyles, of course. Rare Books & Curios, Greenwich Market. Henry Pordes on Charing Cross, The Bookshop on the Heath (an old favorite), Criminally Good Books in York. Plus a side trip to the bookstalls outside Southbank BFI.

What did I get?

Yellow Kid Weil: the autobiography of America's Master Swindler.  I knew I had to have this the second I saw it. Read it before two days passed. This is one of those must-haves for anyone who delights in crime, the Roaring Twenties, or both.

Coming Up For Air, George Orwell. I haven't cracked this one yet but I'm looking forward to it. A nostalgia tour of the world before the Great War. 1960s paperback reprint of the 1939 original.

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, edited and rewritten by Charles Dickens. I love the stage and I admire Dickens' writing style. I haven't finished this one yet but am working on it. My God, Grimaldi had a punishing father. 

Death In Captivity. Michael Gilbert. Chewed this down within a day. A prisoner is found dead inside a second world war internment camp. Why was he killed? Who's responsible?

Crook O'Lune, E.C.R. Lorac. A remote farmhouse is set ablaze and a woman dies of smoke inhalation. Why do this? Is it to distract attention from sheep smuggling or is there something more sinister at root?

Impact of Evidence, Carol Carnac A car wreck in the Welsh Borders kills a retired doctor, and a second body is found. Who's the extra dead man? Why was he in the doctor's car?

Both these last are technically cozy crime, but they're as far from cozy as it is possible to get. Ate these within 24 hours of purchase.

Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings, short story collection. Because how could I resist? Bought on the Saturday, finished same day. Highly recommended to horror fans, there are some interesting pieces here you won't see elsewhere.

Farmer Giles of Ham, J.R.R. Tolkien. See, this is why you go to places like the BFI bookstalls. Lovely little 1979 imprint of the 1949 original. I've read this before. it was a treat to read it again.

The Chinese Nail Murders and The Phantom of the Temple, both Robert Van Gulik, both BFI bookstalls. Lovely 1960s Panther paperbacks. I've a lot of time for Van Gulik. He tackles his subject with aplomb. I look forward to reading these.

She Walks At Night, Seiko Yokomizo. Pretty sure I picked this up at Foyles the first day I was there. Brilliant stuff, with an ending that subverts all that has come before.

Suspicion and Inspector Imanishi Investigates, both Seicho Matsumoto, bought at Heathrow Airport. Because all the other books were in my case and that had been checked in. Finished Suspicion as I was waiting to board the plane.  

Film! Yes, I did buy some blu-ray, mostly from the BFI but also from Fopp. Which, you ask?

Well!

Night of the Comet

Black Lagoon

Gremlins

Gremlins 2

 

BFI Classic Ghost Stories

As for the RPG stuff, that can wait another week.

See you soon!

Wild Wild West (Bookhounds)

Last post before I fly. I'll be offline for two weeks; won't see you again till the beginning of June.

Reminder: I'm one of the hosts of a Friday panel at the UK Chaosium thing in Cranfield. Come say hi!

***

Wild West shows were a big thing, once upon a time. Buffalo Bill is supposed to have started the first, after Ned Buntline's novel made him famous, but in their day they were the Great Big Thing of entertainment. By the 1880s there were several troupes travelling the US and making a big splash abroad. They began to die out around about the 1890s, and the biggest and the best, Buffalo Bill's, fell to bankruptcy shortly before the First World War.

Broadly speaking, the format was the same across the board. Daring displays of horsemanship, shootist talent, and glammed-up frontier life, capped with an Indian raid on some burning cabin or other, repulsed by the brave cowboys and their allies. Historical accuracy was so far from the point as to be living in another country under an assumed name. Buffalo Bill and his fellow entrepreneurs knew one thing and one thing only:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

This is why Stoker uses a cowboy stereotype in Dracula. Not that he gives a damn, but he knows what his audience likes. They knew cowboys. Dime store novels and Wild West shows told them everything they needed to know about the heroes of the prairie. 

In the 1930s, Wild West shows are dead and gone. The West as a genre of entertainment is still alive and well; the riders and daredevils move on to film. There are still novels, just not dime novels.

There are collectors who want those novels.

Ghost Woman

The Hounds know that someone out there wants all the copies of Doc Cantrill's Burning Sagebrush they can get their hands on. It's not clear why.

Burning Sagebrush is a tell-all that first saw print in the States back in 1908, went out of print for a while, then saw a new edition in 1931 as a tie-in for a Tom Mix flicker. Mix's film wasn't a faithful adaptation of Burning Sagebrush, which is just as well since the novel's next door to pornography. At its release, there were calls for it to be banned under the Obscene Publications Act.

Sagebrush is the story of a wild west desperado who rides with a Wild West troupe, having adventures across the US and, in the final chapters, in Europe. Bedroom antics made it notorious, in its day. Cantrill's tour of the boudoirs of Europe, in company with his ride-or-die Indian queen Ghost Woman, kept boys awake at night. 

In the film, much is made of the final chapters in which Cantrill and Ghost Woman restore a Ruritarian monarch to the throne, in the guise of a thrilling Wild West show which is actually an excuse to smuggle guns to the rebels. In the novel, this bit takes up less than a chapter and is capped by a daring raid and 'rescue' of Princess Kinbote from an unhappy marriage. Kinbote joins Cantrill and Ghost Woman in the show. This never happens in the film.

There's a lot of money on the table, but why is someone so eager to get all the Burning Sagebrush they can handle?

Option One: Hollywood. The buyer is a studio executive who realizes that the novel is actually coded for some sort of 'kookie European cult'. The executive wants in on the cult and figures that they can curry favor by presenting them with a gift: covering up their deeds. The cult in question is the Keirecheires, which the executive thinks is some kind of upper-class supper club. The Keirecheires is the inspiration for the Ruritarian romance. The cultists don't mind the book so much, but they become concerned when Hollywood comes knocking on their door. Surely this little man doesn't want to film their activities?

Option Two: Kinbote. Formerly Annie Love, a star of the British stage who happened to go round with Cantrill's show for a while as the poor victim rescued from the clutches of wicked Ghost Woman. There's a bit in the British version of Cantrill's novel that Annie Love, now a woman of leisure living in Brighton, really would rather the world not know about. Turns out those clutches were clinches, and there are photos to prove it in the British version. Unfortunately for Love the ghost of Cantrill is just as eager to see his work in print as she is to keep it out; it's a struggle between a dead man and a living woman as to who will come out on top.

Option Three: Ghost Woman. Formerly May Lillie, a kid from Brooklyn who saw the world on horseback and ended up running cabarets in Soho through the 1920s after Cantrill's show went bust. She supported herself during the war with unsavory photographic displays; very artistic, but not the sort of thing she wants publicized. However, the Keirecheires, who took those photos, are keen to get them back out there for cult reasons of their own. May Lillie knows the cult of old and is gathering friends from her Wild West days to put a stop to it. She's willing to use the Hounds to find out where the Keirecheires is hiding, but the Hounds aren't friends of hers. She'll sacrifice them to get the information she needs.

That's it for this week. See you in a bit! 

  

Not Quite Review Corner: Kolchak the Night Stalker

Kolchak: the Night Stalker Kino Lorber blu-ray 2021 edition, first filmed by CBS way back in the mid-70s.

Sourced from CINE CLASICO DE TERROR

My collection grows apace. I've known about this for a long time. Pretty sure I first heard of it when Stephen King referenced it, probably in Danse Macabre. I'd never seen it, so when Kino told me a sale was on (I think Kino has my number) I figured I could spend a few bucks and find out what the fuss was about.

Well. 

Hum.

It's ... interesting? I can't put myself in the 70s and imagine what it would have been like to see this on the small screen in a darkened living room. I think it hits differently under those circumstances. I can understand why the likes of Chris Carter (X-Files) cite it as an influence on their work. It has flair, even charm. 

Where it loses me a little is with the monsters. 

Carl Kolchak faces off against pretty much everything you can think of, from relatively ordinary beasties like zombies and vampires to the more esoteric aliens, ghost knights and killer robots. They're a grim bunch. Richard Kiel of Jaws fame plays the gribbly at least twice. Thing is, they lack personality. They exist to menace. But even the ones that might have a little something, like Jack the Ripper, are one-dimensional. This Ripper is a wooden slash-slash killer with almost no dialogue. There's a side character who reportedly has whole conversations with him, off-screen. But nothing out in the open where the audience can see it. 

It doesn't help that, since this is a 70s TV show and not a movie, the effects are minimal and there's no blood to speak of. Not that I like to wallow in gore, but if you're going to have a dog viciously attack someone on-screen there ought to be at least a hint of claret.

It's just about as cheaply made as you'd expect. Lots of clips sourced from other stuff with voiceover attached. Cardboard sets. Minimal fight choreography. There was one moment that stick in my mind, where Kolchak meets a source of information. This source is introduced, given a bit of background, but they never speak and you never see their face. It's almost as if they couldn't afford an actor so they dragooned one of the studio lot lice, put him in a dark suit, and said 'wave your arm around when I tell you to.' Somehow I don't think they had a union card.

But when it works, it works. This is due in no small part to the lead, Darren McGavin, who grabs the screen and doesn't let go. It's a treat to watch him scuttle around, fight his bosses with pop-eyed enthusiasm, dive after a story despite compelling reasons to run the other way. His Kolchak does what some Cthulhu investigators fail to do: he investigates. He actively goes after clues. Interrogates witnesses. Challenges authority. He's no angel, but fights on the side of the angels. 

I know McGavin didn't like working for TV. He felt the work was soul-destroying. If you know him at all, it's probably thanks to his role in A Christmas Story, not this show. Still and all, this is damn fine work from someone who didn't like television. He put it all out there, and in doing created a character that's fun to watch.

A neat little Kolchak trick: he's at a hospital, trying to get a photo of the patient in their hospital bed. The door between him and the patient is shut and a cop stands outside, not letting Kolchak in. Kolchak engages the cop in conversation, gets the cop to agree to have his photograph taken. At the fatal moment, the hospital door opens and a nurse comes through. Kolchak whips around, gets a shot of the patient. 'Thanks!' Off he scuttles. 

Another neat Kolchak trick. He has a recorder in a bag with a strap on it. The crime scene is on a stairwell. He knows he's not supposed to be at the scene, so he hides one floor up and lowers the recorder by the strap close enough to hear the forensic techs gossip. When caught, he loudly protests. When dragged away, his camera pointing at the ground, he makes sure he's dragged over the body on the stairs (which even in the 70s must have been a crime-scene no-no) and the viewer sees the flash go off.

That's Karl Kolchak in a nutshell. He finagles. He twists, he schemes. He does not bluster or start fights. He's no action hero. But he's got a lot of courage and he doesn't mind taking risks to get a story. 

The blu-ray set is the full TV series, but it does not include the movie version which kicks it all off in 1972. It has a couple of special features but nothing too fancy, no commentary track. Worth picking up if you like this kind of thing, but not something I'd call a must-have. More a might-if-on-sale.

Keepers want this to steal NPCs from. It's vintage 70s stuff. If you have an NPC or a situation set in that period, you want to watch shows like this. Players want this because Kolchak is their patron saint. He shows you what it means to be an investigator into the mystery, and he never gives up.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

UK Travel & Other Stuff (Bookhounds)

A heads-up for the moment, but if you're planning on attending the UK Chaosium Con in May 2026 you may see me there, in one of them there speaking roles. Keris McDonald and I will host a panel at the Expo, all about Yanks and their peculiar ways in the Gaslight era. Come one, come all!

I will also be at the Birmingham Expo but I shan't be hosting any panels there. Popping in on the Friday to see the sights and buy stuff. Not a lot of stuff, my suitcase won't stand it. But, y'know, stuff ... 

There's been some writing gigs as well, and you may see my name attached to a project I hadn't thought was on the bingo card in 2026. However, more on that later once it becomes more of a thing.  

This does mean I shall be off island and away from keyboard in May, from about the 17th to the end of the month, so if you're wondering why I shan't be posting over that period, now you know. 

Speaking of, I do have a Bluesky account if any of you want to pop over and say hi. 

***

I've never been to Milton Keynes. 

It's kinda the iconic UK destination. Not iconic in the sense everyone wants to go. But it's the sort of place everyone thinks of as quintessentially UK, in much the same way that Main Street USA is quintessentially American. It has that 'green belt but with houses in it' vibe that many English towns strive for. Or at least, it's supposed to have it; having never been, I can't say for sure. 

I mention this because I've got to go through Milton Keynes to get to Cranfield, where the Expo's held. I'm curious to see what the place is actually like. 

Of course, in period there's no such thing as Milton Keynes, at least not the modern version which was founded in the 1960s. The older version is a gaggle of villages, hamlets and stately homes a short(ish) train ride outside of London proper. 

It's the sort of place you might find many a 'maudlin and monstrous pile,' a stately home with little of the stately left. The gothic-tudor-baroque mess put together at some point in the 1800s by someone with more money than sense, now rotting thanks to death duties and other unfortunate accidents. Bletchley Park of sainted memory was one such.

With that in mind:

A Visit to the Country

One of the shop's more reliable scouts has come back from a trip to the countryside. According to the scout there's a blessed pile moldering up near Milton Keynes, put together by some nabob back in 1820-somthing-or-other and left to rot after the grandson caught a packet at the Somme. Or perhaps it was the great grandson, but whichever it may have been there's none of the family left now and the place is in the hands of the trustees. Apparently there's some legal kerfuffle and the relatives, all of whom live in the States or the Colonies, are fighting it out among themselves. 

Meanwhile here's the pile, out in the country miles from anywhere, looked after by some doddering old retainer. There's meant to be a fantastic library, at least as far as the old catalogues can say. The paterfamilias (or perhaps it was the pater's pater) was rather keen on tales of folklore and witchcraft and built up a significant collection before popping his clogs the day before Edward VII's coronation. Dicky heart, they say. 

Do the Hounds fancy a visit to Milton Keynes?

Option One: Trust But Verify. Yes, the pile exists, and yes, it is looked after by a doddering retainer. Lonely spot out in the middle of nowhere, check. Valuable library, check. Is it ripe for the plucking? Well, theoretically ... if someone can deal with the ghost that's haunting it. The deceased is meant to be a witchfinder of the olden days bound to a collection of trial documents, but that could be a load of old piffle. Whether the spectre is or is not a witchfinder, there's something in that library.

Option Two: It's More of a Cult. The dead collector was an important member of the Witch-Cult, and surviving members of that same cult keep an eye on the place in their memory. Occasionally the woods near the house are used for sacrifices, and the doddering retainer is far less doddery than they seem. There are wards in place to keep the library secure. 

Option Three: Can't Get The Staff. The retainer has had plenty of time to study the texts in the library. They fancy themselves a bit of a Faustus and are working up the courage to attempt a summoning. Up till now they haven't felt the urgency. There's always tomorrow. But if the Hounds start poking around the place the retainer will realize that tomorrow's come earlier than expected, and will start the ritual they've been planning all this while. The consequences will be spectacular.

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

  

Book Thieves (Bookhounds of London)

FACILIS descensus Averni' might well be the motto for any article or chapter dealing with the above comprehensive 'avocations.' Once started on his career, the book-thief may be regarded as entirely lost. At the Middlesex Sessions a few years ago a genius of the name of Terry was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for stealing books. On inquiry it was found that this same person had already been in prison six times, two terms of eighteen months each, one term of five years' penal servitude, and another of seven years, all for stealing books.

Each thief has his own special modus operandi, which he varies according to circumstances. There are those who do it without any adventitious aid, and those who cover their sin with various accessories. First, the ordinary book-thief, who watches his opportunity when the shopkeeper is not looking, and simply slips the book quickly under his coat and departs. This method is plain and simple in execution, but sometimes dangerous in practice. Then there is the man who wears an overcoat, the lining of the pocket of which he has previously removed, so that he can pass his hand right through while apparently only standing still looking on, with his hands quietly in his pocket, possibly with one hand openly touching something, whilst the other is earning his dinner.

An amusing incident was once the experience of a London bookseller. While sitting behind his counter inside the shop, he was amazed one day at seeing a man running at a tremendous rate, and, momentarily slackening his speed to seize a book off the stall, he had disappeared before the astounded bookseller was able to get to the door. And it is remarkable that, though many people were about, no one seems to have noticed the thief take the book, though they saw him running. Another favourite device is to carry a newspaper in the hand, and when no one is looking deposit the paper on a carefully-selected book within the folds; or having an overcoat carried on the arm to quickly hide something under cover of it. This latter method requires, of course, a well-to-do-looking man, and obviously is chiefly confined to the stealers of the higher class of valuable books. It also requires, like every well-managed business, a certain amount of capital, for it is absolutely necessary—in order to lull suspicion—that small purchases should be made from time to time in the hunting-ground that has been chosen for the season.  

THE BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON, W. Roberts

If a thing has value, someone will want to steal it. 

The Shop has plenty of things it keeps under lock & key. If it has a copy of a Mythos text, whatever that text may be, it's probably not up front with the Agatha Christies. It'll be in some locked glass-fronted cabinet, some secure-yet-public location. After all, if the public don't know it exists they won't try to buy it, so it's got to be somewhere visible (ish). 

But most of its stock will be out. Where people can touch it. 

That exposes it to risk. 

The thief is also exposed to risk. Arrest. Prison time. Roberts casually mentions a four-month bit for one unlucky book thief, which seems remarkable. It's difficult to imagine a shoplifter getting that kind of sentence, but then we're talking about valuable merchandise. But there's also the public shame, the damage to reputation. After all, when we're talking about book collectors we're talking about a small group of people whose identities are well-known. If it's public knowledge that they steal, then they'll have difficulty getting into shops, or buying on credit, or buying at all. That can be a fate worse than death for a bibliophile. 

But the chief thing to bear in mind is, this risk means everyone involved is going to be careful about what they do and how they do it. The simple quick-grab described above works for the stuff kept in an outside stall, but how many truly valuable items are going to be out there?

I've mentioned Book Row before. That New York institution demonstrates just how dangerous an organized book gang can be. Harry Gold and his confederates robbed libraries and Book Row blind and, at the same time, profited from Book Row by selling on his trophies. They developed book theft as a kind of organized network. There would be someone at the center - the Gold character - organizing the mob, giving it targets, giving it direction. There would be operatives who would go out and identify the most valuable items. Then, on the heels of those operatives, someone would actually do the stealing. They'd seem polite, knowledgeable, not suspicious at all. But when they left your shop or library your collection would be lighter.

From the Hounds' perspective an organized book theft ring is both a threat and an opportunity, assuming they're not the ones organizing the ring. Their collection is at risk. However, their collection can be expanded, if they're willing to buy stolen goods.

In game terms, the presence of book thieves can represent a Reverse. Someone's been targeting the shop's stock, so it could also be represented by reducing the Stock pool in some way. It could also be considered a ding to Credit Rating, which can affect the shop's ability to do business. In role play, this could be represented by an uncomfortable moment with a disappointed client, or an impervious bobby taking a statement. 

"What went missing, sir? I see. [scribbles in notebook]. A valuable item, would you say? I see. [scribbles]."

The professional thief is relatively well equipped and will have a decent Filch score as well as a means of hiding the goods, perhaps in a capacious overcoat specially equipped with hidden pockets. Or they may have a confederate waiting in the wings for a hand-off, but judging by what's written about book thieves they seem to work as lone operators most of the time. It's not like shoplifting, where a team might work the shop. 

Also worth bearing in mind is that thieves work for money. Seldom do they steal to enrich their own collections, if they have a collection. That being so, they're not going to steal anything which doesn't have a definite worth but they will steal to order, if asked to do so. Which suggests that they know a little about what they're stealing, but just enough to know valuable from tat. Not any real Magick, or any understanding of the Mythos.

Sounds like plot hook material to me.

With all that in mind:

Sticky Fingers

Rumor has it that someone's been targeting book shops.

That's nothing new. Thieves have always been a problem in the trade. The Three Blind Mice are a known quantity. But whoever this new chap is, they have a very specific type. They like occult grimoires, and particularly Mythos texts. You know for a certainty that several libraries have been pilfered, and that the British Library takes the threat so seriously it's taken special precautions over its copy of the Necronomicon. 

But who is this thief, and who are they trying to impress? There must be a well-heeled collector out there somewhere who's funding the show. Is this purely for someone's collection, or does the collector have a particular goal in mind?

Perhaps more pressing, how to stop this fellow from getting at the shop's stock?

Option One: The Amateur. The collector is Jacob D'Aster the ghost hunter and vampire enthusiast. Jacob has decided to create the world's foremost collection of material related to hauntings and bloodsuckers and has brought someone over from the Continent to get this done. The Frenchman goes by the nom de guerre Flambeau, possibly borrowed from a popular novel. Flambeau, ironically, knows a bit more about the topic than his employer and is stealing things that D'Aster wouldn't know what to do with, but these are the genuine articles and D'Aster doesn't want to look a fool, so he keeps paying for them.  Problems will arise when some of the owners band together to get their mythos grimoires back.

Option Two: The Professional. The collector is a member in good standing of one of the cults of London - it might be the Keirecheires, or the Witch-Cult - and seeks promotion into the inner circle. For that to happen the collector needs a specific text but they don't know exactly what it is. Or where it is, for that matter. Their seniors guard that secret closely. However, not to be denied, they have embarked on this enterprise hoping that, as the thefts progress, they will find out what it is they want when their superiors start getting nervous and hiding the good stuff. The thieves are a small pack of shape-changing ghouls who are in the collector's service to pay off a debt. Once paid, they want nothing more to do with the collector.

Option Three: The Gifted Amateur. The collector is someone with a God's blood in their veins. If ever anyone had the In The Blood Drive, this poor soul does. They are convinced their time draws near and that they will be drawn up into the stars to face their destiny but, before that happens, they feel compelled to finish a particular ritual. This will ensure that they please their ancient fathers, when they ascend. But they don't know, exactly, what that ritual entails, so they're raiding the libraries of the occult to find out. They have brought on board the brood of Eihort; in fact, the brood may be the reason why the collector thinks they're on the verge of ascendance. The homunculi wanders from shop to shop, library to library. No ordinary lock or door can stop a flood of spidery creatures from getting where they want to go ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

 

Did Someone Say Murder? (CP RED, Gumshoe)

 

Writing and Design by Linda Evans and N Joll Art Direction by Winterjaye Kovach

Cyberpunk, as a system and setting, is something I've loved for a while. Mysteries are my bread and butter. When I saw this free RPG product offering from Talsorian, I was intrigued. Now I've read it, I'm still intrigued, but I wonder ...

OK, the very basics. CP RED is a combat game, with attitude. Its core mechanics revolve around the base concept of reducing something's Hit Points to 0, in creative and interesting ways. First, you have to hit it, which is a skill check. Then you do damage. 

I suppose it makes sense that this supplement says you should give a Mystery Hit Points and represent the investigative process by reducing those Hit Points to 0 in creative and interesting ways.  The system doesn't have Pool Points for investigative abilities, so it has to invent them by giving a number of clue types (Gossip, eg) and assigning those clue types existing skills within the game to provide the skill check. There's no such thing as a Core or 0-point clue and there's an argument that it's not very player facing, since the system relies heavily on a series of challenges set up like a shooting gallery by the GM. 

Or, as the text puts it, It is up to the GM to decide on the best course of action for their table.

Short version: I like it, but I wonder if I like it because I'm wired that way. I acknowledge that the groups which like playing CP RED aren't wired the same way as I. This is the sort of thing that has me enthusiastic, but if the rest of the table isn't, it's going to be a problem.

Also that It is up to the GM bit kinda grates on me. The GM is not and should not be the chef de partie. 

But!

There's an interesting concept buried in the text. Long Term Investigations.

An Edgerunner looking for someone who killed her lover five years ago may make a single Evidence Check per week as a side project when not focusing on other jobs. 

There are two ideas in there and I want to talk about both, in Gumshoe terms. 

First, it suggests that players may have individual, character-backstory mysteries to solve. This isn't something I've seen any Gumshoe setting do. I suppose that's to be expected. When the central mystery of the Campaign is whether or not the Dracula Dossier can lead the players to a final resolution of a tussle that's been consuming the brainpower and manpower of generations of spies through, among other things, two world wars and the Cold War, there's not much time for the less dramatic mystery of what happened to Uncle Bob two decades ago.

Second, it indicates that a mystery can go beyond the scenario. That it might take several scenarios to work out. Even, potentially, an entire campaign arc. 

In part, this is what Rome is all about. The central mystery that underlies all the other mysteries. The Truth. The Man Behind the Curtain.

The Wizard of Oz

But not entirely. After all, Uncle Bob isn't Rome. Also, Uncle Bob isn't a priority that the GM chose. It's a priority the player chose. 

It probably won't happen often, but there will be times when a player chooses a project to work on that's outside the campaign structure but which does require a certain level of mechanical input to close out. The closest I can think of in GUMSHOE is the Dreamhounds General Abilities Art-Making and Dreamscaping, both of which imply that something can be created or developed after passing a test. However, in neither case is the long-term nature of the project explored. It's just assumed that Player States X, a die is cast, and X either goes ahead as planned or it doesn't. 

However, there's something we can work with here.

Let's say for the sake of this example that the player has expressed an interest in a long-term goal. It doesn't matter what that goal is. Simply that, at the end of the project, the player expects to get a result of some kind which can be clearly expressed. Nothing nebulous, nothing Deeper Into The Mystery. An actual result.

Example: the player, whose character has the Revenge drive, wants to engineer a final confrontation between themselves and the vampire who killed their squad, back when they were still a trooper with the Black Watch. 

Fine. From the Keeper's perspective, this is an achievable result. Getting that confrontation doesn't have to be a campaign-ending event, not unless that vampire was Dracula. A fight to the death with one of Dracula's minions is what this kind of game is all about. 

But! The player doesn't know, at the start of the project, who that vampire is or where they are right now. Just that a vampire did it. 

When the project is announced, the Player and Keeper should get together to brainstorm. The goal here is to identify how many milestones this project has. Two? Four? Six? After all, from the Keeper's perspective this confrontation might be a relatively minor event. or a major one, or a campaign-shaking one. The bigger the bang, the greater the leadup to that bang.

From the Player's perspective, this long-term goal may be the biggest thing they've ever done. Regardless of its impact on long-term plot. The Keeper should bear that in mind. The Player expects big things, even if that doesn't impact long-term plot.

Each milestone should represent a clue along the way, perhaps even a physical artefact. Milestone one might be getting hold of the Top Secret after-action report on the encounter between the Black Watch and whatever-it-was. Milestone two might be a tense, secretive encounter between the player and the secret agent who set the encounter up to see what would happen. Milestone three might be interrogating a Conspiracy goon or technician who has the complete scoop, from the Conspiracy's POV. And so on, but the point is this: whatever the milestone, it has a concrete result which is specified in advance. The Player doesn't know what's in that after-action report, but the Player does know there's an after-action report out there to be had.   

Why? Because Players react positively when they're invested in what's happening at the table. It's why this game is player-facing to begin with. The Player will be interested in the result of their long-term goal first, if they chose the goal, and second, if they have at least a rough idea of what they're getting out of it. The shiny loot. The clue. Remember that brain-storming session. They helped you decide what each Milestone was going to be. Let's not cheat and say that the Milestone you thought was X was Y all along. Red herrings can be entertaining; bullshit seldom is. 

OK, you've brainstormed, you have the milestones. Now what?

Now the Player needs to build up a pool to get those milestones. That pool can be made up of XP, gained at the end of every mission, or Clues gained during a mission. X number of pool points = 1 milestone. The Keeper and Player should agree between them as to whether a particular Clue counts towards the pool. The number of points needed to get a milestone should be agreed in advance and may vary, depending on the campaign importance of the end goal. 

In DD terms, an end goal that involves Dracula in some way, or some other campaign-ending result, should be more expensive than an end goal which does not touch on such a sensitive subject.

Now, XP is valuable stuff. It can be exchanged for permanent character boosts. If you're going to exchange XP for milestones, that milestone ought to be some kind of permanent thing. The after-action report, eg, counts as 1 pool point Research for campaign purposes, that sort of thing. The player can always use it for their stated goal without drawing on that Research point, but if they want to use it for anything else (divining a vampiric Bane, eg) then that Research point must be spent. 

As with all of this, the actual value of any given Milestone should be agreed between Director and Player. 

What happens when all Milestones are met?

The final result is achieved. There is a combat scene between the Player and the Vampire, on the Players' stated terms. Or they finally find out what really happened to Uncle Bob. Whatever the stated end goal is, that's what's achieved. 

I doubt this will come up often. Most players are happy with the campaign as is. But some of them are going to be invested enough to come up with special projects, now and again. Some end result that is outside the campaign framework.

Did Someone Say Murder points to a means by which that need can be met.

Enjoy!

Bone Ash - RPG All

This week's post is inspired by this Guardian article:

[Chinese] Practice of using apartments to store relatives’ ashes has risen as rapid urbanisation and ageing population increases competition for cemetery plots

It is difficult to picture a world in which space in cemeteries costs more than space in apartment buildings. Or that you can rent an apartment for more than three times longer than you can space in the grave. I have to wonder what happens to cemetery remains when your time runs out and there's no more money. Presumably the grave is emptied but I have a hard time believing the remains are just flung into a midden. Yet ... what else could happen?

Picture being the person who lives in the same building as one of these Bone Ash Apartments. You know what that quiet door on the same corridor as you hides. You recognize some of those who come and go. You can smell the incense. There may be peculiar deliveries. Perhaps priests come to visit. Or you hear ceremonies. But you can't intrude, you can't comment. That is their grief. One day it may be yours. 

There must be someone from the family who comes round on a regular basis. Someone has to make sure the proper observances are made, that the apartment is kept in good order. That person has to take time off work to do it, or perhaps they don't work, or perhaps they come round after work. They would be the public face of the family, the one the neighbors see. But there would be a family, perhaps dozens of people scattered all over, all of whom have an interest in what goes on in that apartment.

I wonder what effect this has on a person's social credit. It can't be misconduct, not precisely, and yet ... like any system there must be grey areas, the neither-this-nor-that, and operating a bone ash apartment feels very much a neither-this-nor-that. Someone's name has to be on the lease. Someone pays utilities. Whoever that person is, they're removing an apartment from the pool that might otherwise be occupied by the living. Does this count as 'other non-life and non-work essential consumption behavior'? If that person passes on the lease to someone else in the family - which presumably they must do at some point, since nobody lives forever and a seventy-year lease could easily go through multiple owners - what impact will that have on the inheritor? 

All that said, let's consider the RPG impact. 

Systems like D&D don't go much into religion or funerary behavior. Despite the number of scenarios taking place in crypts or graveyards. The role of the Gods is to grant spells to player characters and occasionally Smite things, not to actually have Views and Opinions as to what mortals should be doing with their time. When funerals come up, if they come up at all, there's the general (rather confused) view that funerals are a bit like the Judeo-Christian-but-not-really plop 'em in the ground and call it a day. Assuming there is a ground. Finding space for cemeteries is a problem that fantasy cities don't seem to have, in contrast to real-life London or Paris for whom cemetery space has been a constant headache. It's just assumed there's a nice spot round here somewhere to plonk your most recent player character, who tragically fell in the fight against Monster-of-the-Week syndrome.

Swords of the Serpentine goes out of its way to mention statues, and hints at an involved funerary practice.

Hundreds of thousands of statues. They’re in canals, on roofs, filling homes and staring out from niches in walls. It’s illegal to destroy a funerary statue, because that could destroy a soul, so families put the statues of their dead anywhere they can find space. A surprising number of crimes in Eversink involve funerary statues ... 

I don't think Cyberpunk RED mentions funerals, funeral homes or cemeteries at all. The impression the main text gives indicates Night City is desperate for space, so there seems to be no room for, say, a Père Lachaise or a Forest Lawn. Maybe a bone ash apartment would have a place in Night City but given how apartments are also at a premium that seems counterintuitive. 

Night's Black Agents mirrors the real world and Dracula Dossier makes time for Asian vampires so it seems reasonable that a scenario set in China, or somewhere influenced by China, would have a Bone Ash apartment. Theoretically they might exist outside China, anywhere there's a significant Chinese diaspora. I wonder, for instance, what the situation is in Macao. Or hell, Puerto Rico, or anywhere else there's been a significant modern Chinese presence. 

Let's establish some baselines.

• This is a public hidden space. It looks like an apartment, a business, a whatever-it-may-be, but it's not.
• It has deep significance for the people who maintain it, who regularly hold rituals here.
• It is owned/operated/maintained by a group of people who may or may not be related by blood but are definitely working towards the same end result.
• If there is a supernatural component, that component is more significant than a single ghost or haunting. In a world where, say, Aberrance pools exist, the site's pools might be higher than expected.

Dungeons & Dragons (or Similar)

The Guildhall

This space is within territory claimed by the Beggar's Guild, who may or may not be closely aligned with the Thieves' Guild. To look at, the building the space is in has been abandoned for years. However, there is a section protected by hidden walls and doors (makeshift, but surprisingly well constructed) where the beggars venerate their dead. Each soul memorialized here is represented by something they valued in life. It might be a cane, a scrap of clothing, a sketch. Whatever this thing is, it is up on a series of shelves put there by the beggars. At first it would have been a few items, nothing much, but over time the space has grown into a small library of the city's forgotten. These are the ones who couldn't afford anything better. Their successors remember them.

Swords of the Serpentine

City Watch Pub

From the outside, this is no different from any one of a dozen other cheap alehouses in the district. However, each of these is marked with Lady Swan somewhere on or near the door. This is where the Constables and Sergeants gather. Technically Inspectors and above are still considered Constables, but they aren't exactly welcome in the Pubs, though they are sometimes seen there. Each of the Pubs has a memorial board of some description. They vary from Pub to Pub, and some are much more elaborate than others. The Boards tell the stories behind the statues, remembering the deeds of Constable such-and-such who fell in the line of duty. The Constable's statue will be somewhere in the Pub. It is tradition for new Constables to 'buy a round for the house' after their first big arrest, and that includes the statues who get alcohol poured over them. It's said that Sorcerers covet the power that gathers in these places, or are afraid of these places, or that Sorcery works differently there. It's not clear whether this is so, or just something the City Watch tells themselves at night, when their fears hang on their shoulders.

Cyberpunk RED

The Wall

Every district has one. The taggers' Wall, covered in signs and graffito. Under all that paint there's a memorial for every joker who thought they'd make a name for themselves in Night City. Under all that paint, because every night there's more jokers adding their tags, making their names. The cops don't even think about touching the Wall. Every so often there's some Corporate who makes a big stink about quality of life, cleaning up the city, who promises big investments if only someone will take care of the Wall. It never happens. What's more likely to happen is that the Corporate in question is run out on a rail, sometimes literally. The last one got out buck naked in a corp limo so liberally covered in tags that, the stories say, the Corporation had to burn it and did their best to wipe the screams clean of all images. The most elaborate Wall, they say, is in Little China, which has a braindance studio attached. There, for a fee, you can jack in and listen to all the messages left behind by the dead. A kind of 'only after my death' message in the metaphorical bottle.  

That's it for this week. Enjoy!