This week's post comes to you from a state of exhaustion.
I've been working on a play for the past (I have forgotten how many) weeks and we unexpectedly lost a cast member this Thursday gone, so we're starting off on the back foot. Her replacement's working out but it's still a slog at the end and I shall not be sorry when opening night has come and gone.
However!
I've been working on a Many Mansions series to be published via the Miskatonic Repository and thought it time to boost the signal by posting about it.
There are three scenarios:
In Memoriam - In which the investigators may attend a funeral in a church that does not yet exist.
When Tides Are Right - In which the investigators may find themselves adrift on Pilot Island.
Your Number, Please - In which our protagonists chase up rumors of a fault on the telephone line.
All of these stories take place in Kingsport, South Shore, in the 1920s. It's part ghost story, part Dreamlands, with a dash of Jacob's Ladder thrown in for fun - and if you recognize that film reference then you know where this is all going.
Part of this will be recognizable to those of you who followed the Many Mansions posts a while back. This is an extension of that concept. It's written for Call, not Trail.
I don't want to beat you down with references and trivia since the whole point of a teaser post is to, well, tease (you naughty thing, you). However, since we're here, let me tell you a bit about South Shore and the Underwood Park cemetery, where the action takes place.
South Shore
The Many Mansions scenarios all take place in Kingsport and are focused on Kingsport’s South Shore neighbourhood.
South Shore is mostly residential with a smattering of tourist businesses. Some of Kingsport’s oldest, most historically significant places are in South Shore.
The oldest part of South Shore is that section which is closest to the sea proper. Merchants and families of merchants used to sit atop their houses’ sea-facing walks and cupolas, watching activity in the harbour.
The most modern sections, built in the mid-1800s or later, are towards the south of South Shore. These are often large, with walled gardens, and are some of the more expensive pieces of real estate in Kingsport.
It’s very rare to find a house in South Shore built later than 1900.
As this is a section popular with tourists, street lighting is more common and better maintained here that other sections of Kingsport. The roads tend to be paved and in good repair, often with modern sidewalks. Cars are often seen here, and there are plenty of places where interested persons can rent pedal cycles.
The public wharves and Coast Guard station are in South Shore, as is the rather exclusive Stratton Yacht Club. While there are some fishers that operate out of South Shore most of them are in Harbourside, along the Water Street wharves. The boats that call South Shore home tend to be more expensive, delicate creatures, not workhorse fishing vessels.
- You’ll find more out-of-towners in South Shore than anywhere else in Kingsport. It’s not uncommon to hear refined French, Russian or German spoken; refugees from war-torn Europe with money in their pockets.
- There are plenty of ghost stories in South Shore but most of them are gaudied up for the tourists. The most gruesome centre on Underwood Park cemetery, though that’s probably because most of the graves and tombs there are the over-elaborate and evocative kind favoured by wealthy, lachrymose mourners.
- Lawyer Charles Bompas has his offices in a grand-looking building on Beach Street, not far from the Coast Guard station. He deals mainly in real estate disputes and wills and is well-regarded, if not well-liked.
- Rome: nearly every house in South Shore has a witch ball hanging in the window. These small glass balls are supposed to ward off evil. At night, at about one in the morning, they glow with a peculiar greenish light and it is difficult to avoid the feeling that something inside the ball is peering out. SAN 0/1 penalty.
- Underwood is overstuffed with gaudy memorials. Weeping angels, somnolent cherubs, elaborate masonry and saccharine epitaphs prevail.
- Underwood’s trails are well-marked and wide, but it’s still possible to get lost in them. Old George has to rescue tourists now and again, who find themselves at a loss how to get out of Underwood.
- Underwood has plenty of ghost stories and Old George knows them all. Once a year at all-Hallow’s Eve, Old George hosts a nighttime storytelling session out at the Underwood vault. Invitation only, and Old George is quite particular. Money doesn’t buy you entrance; Old George has to like you.
- Rome: Those who go into Underwood at night say that the cemetery is much larger then than it appears during the day. Those who go there when the moon is full say that, if you stand at the Underwood Vault and look out over South Shore, you see a completely different, alien Kingsport. SAN 0/1D2 penalty at night, rising to 1/1D4 at a full moon.
Hello! This sounds great, I look forward to trying out the scenarios. Just a quick question: while your original intention was to write this for Trail, you have now decided to use Call as the rule base. Would you be willing to say why? I have looked forward to this scenario ever since you first teased the concept back in 2022.
ReplyDeleteHonesty time.
DeleteAs systems, I prefer Pelgrane's Gumshoe over BRP. I think it's a much better system overall at providing an investigative gaming experience. If I could publish Gumshoe titles under the OGL at DTRPG - especially if I could publish Bookhounds or Night's Black Agents material - I would. I'm bad at maps and art so that would be a challenge, but it's a challenge I'd happily rise to.
But.
Pelgrane's OGL specifically identifies titles like NBA and Bookhounds as Product Identity, which means I can't use those. You may recall I published two Bookhounds-friendly Trail titles back in the day, with YSDC. That was under special permission, and Pelgrane soon brought both titles under its umbrella.
So a chunk of the titles I might like to write for are locked off, unless I seek and obtain permission each time.
However, the bigger point for me is support.
Chaosium under its Miskatonic Repository label offers a template for scenario writing, free images, links to more free images, guidance - a ton of support. It's a tremendous help to a writer who doesn't have time to jump through extra hoops when all they want to do is get a product on the storefront.
Pelgrane doesn't offer that level of support. Its OGL is pretty dense, which means I'm not going to read it start to finish and ultimately leaves me feeling adrift. There are no templates for scenario writing. Lots of blank Word templates, but nothing with the useful bits filled in as far as I can see. The way the community content page pitches it, I thought the Word docs would have some style data, but either I was mistaken or something's gone goofy there. [There are other templates for other packages but I don't use those packages, so I can't comment.]
There's a bit in the OGL where it talks about updating the Abilities list to suit your game, and while I'm sure that was intended to be reassuring it actually made me feel as if I had to write chunks of that list - potentially all of that list - from scratch. I already find the stat blocks intimidating and a bit of a slog to write. The idea of reconfiguring the Abilities list leaves me cold.
I mean, if I wanted to publish something in Esoterrorists, say, I guess I can assume that all the abilities currently on the Esoterrorists list are available without rewriting anything. But how much of the ruleset would I have to rewrite? Whereas with BRP there's no question of having to monkey with the skills list. That almost never changes, and when it does it's often like for like - substitute drive horse and cart for drive auto, that sort of thing. Far less intimidating.
It doesn't help that it feels as if Pelgrane isn't as enthusiastic about its OGL content as Chaosium is about Miskatonic. I think there's been one Pelgrane OGL contest, back in 2020. Not sure what the result was. Whereas Chaosium's boosting Miskatonic all the time.
Maybe things will change now Robin's on board. I see that Pelgrane's Community Content page is beefier than it was a few years back, which is great. I could wish that more settings were available, and I'm honestly not sure why, say, Trail or Bookhounds or Dreamhounds or Tombhounds aren't on the list. Maybe Dreamhounds has copyright issues, what with all those crazy artists roaming around, but the other titles can't have that problem, surely? And why not Trail, the big daddy? OK, it's going to be updated soon, but it could have been OGL before now, surely?
Anyway, I feel as if I've blathered long enough and I hope I haven't hurt anyone's feelings, which was not my intent. I like Pelgrane's stuff. I'm just not a huge fan of its community content support.
Thank you for taking the time to write that long (and interesting) response. Makes perfect sense that you have decided to publish Many Mansions via Miskatonic Repository.
DeleteIt's a shame to read about the lack of support from Pelgrane Press, because I too prefer Trail overall to Call. It just handles investigations better and nowadays I definitely prefer lighter rule systems, which on the whole Trail is. I don't mind playing Call at all. But if I am going to be running a game, I would definitely use Trail. It is a good thing that it is very easy to convert one to the other. I look forward to Many Mansions!
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it once it's complete. The writing is nearly done. After that I need to delve into layout, art and so on - things I'm bad at, so it may take a short while. Still, I want to get these out this year so it's high on my priority list!
Delete