Hush Hush House 2 - the NPCs (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

This week's post is inspired by this article over at the Guardian. It's a photographic spread featuring actors/military portraying OPFOR in military exercises.  

Once upon a time I wrote about Hush-Hush Houses and described two possible locations, Glen Eagles and Brinkley/Piccadilly.

Glen Eagles is the code name for Pitfour House, a hunting lodge in the Grampians. Built in the Scottish Baronial style, this property was requisitioned by the SOE early in the 1939-45 war and has remained in Government hands ever since. The property is remote and inaccessible; the best way in is by air, via helicopter. In its day it was a training ground first for Polish commandos and bag and burn experts, until Edom acquired it in 1940. There's plenty of evidence of the former occupants, from graffiti on the walls to the marks of hobnail boots on the floors, as well as the old explosive ordinance testing grounds. 

Brinkley is a 1970s urban brutalist build on the outskirts of Manchester. It's always been government owned but has housed a variety of government offices and schemes; currently its main tenant is MoneyForce, an organization whose purpose is to help armed forces members with money management. Anyone with Architectural or Military Science knowledge will wonder about those preternaturally thick walls and peculiar sightlines; its almost as if an iceberg settled in a suburban district, its deepest secrets hidden deep below the earth.

The original article assumed both locations were Cool or Warm, as per the Dossier's usual formula. The Guardian photoshoot kinda pushes things towards Warm; it's difficult to imagine someone trying to pull off a complicated test case like this without a pre-established testing location.

However, it could be interesting to imagine a Cool site becoming Warm. 

Suppose that there was an Incident. It doesn't really matter what, except that Incidents usually come with body counts and embarrassing headlines. Fine, say the Princes; lessons learned. We need more field testing before anything like that happens again. Don't we have some old field test sites on the books? Let's reactivate those, shall we?

It could even be a good starter scenario for beginning Agents. In this campaign frame the Incident, whatever it was, has already happened. In fact, the players' Agents may have been on the periphery of the Incident. Not directly involved; they'd be dead. But they saw the bodies first-hand. They helped clean up the mess.

Now, their first task: reactivate Glen Eagles and repopulate it with actual NPCs, so Edom's finest can start live testing again. [I could do both Glen Eagles and Brinkley, but I think Glen Eagles has more potential as a large-scale live fire testing zone.]

A reminder:

Cool: While still on Edom's books officially, nobody's paid attention to Glen Eagles since the 1970s. This quietly crumbling edifice is home to bats, birds and rats now, keeping lonely watch over a forgotten part of Edom's history. Potential clues to the 1940 mission or a series of 1970s interrogations can be found here, but any important files have long since been transferred elsewhere. The fake French street built adjacent to Glen Eagles, with its wonky wire-operated targets, are all that's left of the Kill House. Some old remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940 are rotting away here, possibly even a live round or two for those who like playing with out-of-date potentially lethal explosives. Poachers sometimes come here but are put off by the poor quality of the game; it's almost as if something's blighted the land.

I like starting with action, so in this case I'd start in the immediate aftermath of the Incident. The Agents are carting out bodies or attending forensic examination of the recently deceased. They get to see first hand what happens when things go tits up. 

Then we move to the hook.

Once upon I time I opined 

[a good hook] poses a problem that the players have to solve. 

In this instance the problem is how to set up a testing base, preferably a live fire base, at short notice and in an inaccessible location?

Well, there are several optional scenes involving potential Edom support. They could:

• Go to the Archivist to find out more about Glen Eagles.
• 0 point: get plans of Glen Eagles to help the rebuild effort
• 1 point: find after-action reports, diaries and other records concerning Glen Eagles in its last days of operation.
• Go to Tinman or Fort for supplies to rebuild.
• 0 point: get supplies.
• 1 point: get some kind of personal input into the rebuild, eg. the Prince lends their personal support staff or some other kind of valuable assistance.
• Go to E Squadron to find out more about their operational needs from a Hush-Hush House.
• 0 point: get insights that help efficiently develop Glen Eagles.
• 1 point: an E-Squadron assistant (eg. Veteran Rating) is assigned to the project as an advisor.

However, ultimately the Agents will be getting into a chopper and flying out to the depths of the Grampians to see Glen Eagles for themselves. 

As we already know there are several potential plot points to be discovered, among them:

• Potential clues to the 1940 mission
• Potential clues to the 1970s interrogations
• Remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940

As Keeper you could add something else, like a Sealed Coffin, but ultimately you should pick one and stick with it, not sprinkle in all three or four. Given kittens three possible toys to play with and they will try to play with all three at once. Give them one. Then, if they don't like that one, you can always add another. 

Whatever that one thing is, it should probably tie directly to that 1 point spend they made earlier. If, say, the Archivist's 1-point (the after-action reports and diaries) leads directly to the potential plot point at Glen Eagles, that only reinforces the value of point spends and you want the players to be spending points all the time. The more reward you offer for point spends, the more likely it is there will be future plot spends.

Then there will be something along the lines of a training montage, in which the Agents rebuild Glen Eagles. In game, this is best represented by Thrilling dialogue (provided by the Agents, natch) and some point spends. These point spends build up Glen Eagles, effectively providing a Preparedness pool for the firing range. Exactly what that looks like in play is up to you and your table. Do they hire roleplayers to fill roles within the defence team, as the Guardian article suggests? Do they go more high-tech with screens and electronic gunplay? Do they go old-school with wires and moving targets?

Eventually the montage concludes. By this stage we're at the Midpoint. The questions posed by the Hook have been asked and answered. What questions are being asked at the Midpoint? Probably something along the lines of 'is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose.' Also, 'where does this plot point lead?' 

That second question I'll leave floating, as it can only be answered by Rome, and it's not part of this exercise to tell you where Rome is. Only that there has to be a Rome. There has to be a final destination of some kind. 

If, say, your final destination is Betrayal (eg. one of the Princes is a rogue agent and the reasons for their betrayal are linked, somehow, to the 1970s mole hunt) then you can start to lay the groundwork now by having that Prince subtly undermine the agents' efforts to rebuild Glen Eagles. Your final destination will vary. But whatever that final destination is, this is where you start to drop hints.

However, that first question (is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose) can only be answered by a field test.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Thrilling [fill in the blank, probably Sneak, Hunt, Hit or Destroy]. The veterans of E-Squadron are the ones on the attack, the Agents, working through the new toys at Glen Eagles, are the ones on defence. If the Agents hold up E-Squadron long enough, or if they prevent E-Squadron from achieving their objective, then the Agents win. If E-Squadron busts through with ease, then the Agents have failed. 

Failure or success in this instance does not mean It's All Over or We Are The Champions. It means bureaucratic failure or success, which can be just as lethal. After all, in future scenarios the Agents are going to rely on support from their bosses and the higher-ups to get the job done. That's going to be difficult if the very first thing they did was embarrass themselves in a live-fire demo at Edom's hush-hush house. 

However, conflict does lead to plot ...

That's it for this week! Enjoy.