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!

Bookhounds: Cameo Characters 4: The Exterminator

“All my lifetime I’ve been a-dealing a little in rats; but it was not till I come to London that I turned my mind fully to that sort of thing. My father always had a great notion of the same. We all like the sport. When any on us was in the country, and the farmers wanted us to, we’d do it. If anybody heerd tell of my being an activish chap like, in that sort of way, they’d get me to come for a day or so.

“If anybody has a place that’s eaten up with rats, I goes and gets some ferruts, and takes a dog, if I’ve got one, and manages to kill ’em. Sometimes I keep my own ferruts, but mostly I borrows them. This young man that’s with me, he’ll sometimes have an order to go fifty or sixty mile into the country, and then he buys his ferruts, or gets them the best way he can. They charges a good sum for the loan of ’em—sometimes as much as you get for the job.

“You can buy ferruts at Leadenhall-market for 5s. or 7s.—it all depends; you can’t get them all at one price, some of ’em is real cowards to what others is; some won’t even kill a rat. The way we tries ’em is, we puts ’em down anywhere, in a room maybe, with a rat, and if they smell about and won’t go up to it, why they won’t do; ’cause you see, sometimes the ferrut has to go up a hole, and at the end there may be a dozen or sixteen rats, and if he hasn’t got the heart to tackle one on ’em, why he ain’t worth a farden.

“I have kept ferruts for four or five months at a time, but they’re nasty stinking things. I’ve had them get loose; but, bless you, they do no harm, they’re as hinnocent as cats; they won’t hurt nothink; you can play with them like a kitten. Some puts things down to ketch rats—sorts of pison, which is their secret—but I don’t. I relies upon my dogs and ferruts, and nothink else.

Mayhew, LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR

One thing London is not short of is vermin.

It might be insects, it might be rats or mice, it might be termites or this or that or the other, but there is something that walks, slithers or crawls and you want it gone. Yesterday.

The Hounds might want it gone for practical reasons. These are the things that damage book stock.

Or perhaps it's not the Hounds but someone else, a neighbor, a friend. Their house, livelihood, whatever it may be, is under threat, and they need a remedy. 

Enter the Exterminator, of which probably the most familiar is the ratcatcher.

These tend to be mobile workers. They go where the trade is. However, with the rise of the urbis comes a spike in vermin population, and with it a chance for a settled life. No more traipsing from town to town. Now you can establish a business, get regular customers, have a share of a burgeoning market.

Jack Black, the hero of Mayhew's piece, relies on ferrets but even he knows a little about poisons. In the 1920s there would have been a tendency to the scientific method. Not that the ferret became extinct, but that in a world where technology is the New Normal people will be looking for technological answers. 

Given that the world's just had a War, there will be a number of ex-servicemen in the ratcatching business. It's a decent job, relatively well paid, and a lot of time you're outdoors. Perfect for the man who can't stand being cooped up thanks to spending too long in the trenches. 

Don't forget, rat-catching is the Law thanks to the 1919 Act:

Rats and Mice Destruction Act 1919

Which is a useful bit of trivia to fling the Hounds' way should you want an excuse for the Council (or whoever) to stick their interfering nose into the Hounds' business. Why, the Council's man has a perfect right to be here, in your shop, marching about with his big hobnail boots. Do you want a twenty quid fine? No? Then shut up.

All that said:

Claudia (Ratcatcher)

Athletics 5, First Aid 3, Scuffling 8

Claudia was a ratcatcher's wife, before the War, and did all the work keeping the dogs and ferrets. Then her Charlie and her son Bill went off to the trenches and never came back. Now she's the sole representative of Saxon and Sons, Exterminators, but she's a big believer in keeping family in the family business. That's why all the people who work for Saxon and Sons are her nieces and nephews, of which Claudia has a small army.

That doesn't mean Claudia doesn't muck in. She still goes out on jobs; not for her the office life, that's what lazy people do. She can clean up and dress like a lady when she feels like it, but she doesn't often feel like it, even these days when she has a Council job and has to deal with the muckety-mucks. That Council contract's good money for Saxon and Sons. She won't let anything threaten it, or her family's livelihood.  

As Ally 

Claudia can contribute 1 point The Knowledge of her patch of London; there's nothing she doesn't know about her Council. If the Hounds need some ferrets, some dogs, or a bit of friendly advice about Biology (particularly as it relates to rodents) Claudia's the go-to. If the Hounds need to ding someone else's Credit Rating Claudia can manufacture a rat problem that will temporarily inconvenience them.

As Clue

Claudia's almost as good as a tosher; look at this peculiar thing she found in some hole or other underneath London. Is it medieval? Roman? That peculiar rat behavior underneath (wherever it may be) might be an indication of some Mythos activity, and Claudia can pinpoint where the problem originates. She knows bites, and is almost as good as a forensic surgeon when it comes to identifying which animal made which wound.

In Play

Bluff, hearty and no-nonsense. Try not to disturb her on the 15th July; that's when her Charlie and Bill got theirs, at the Battle of Delville Wood. She's in low spirits from the 15th to the 3rd September. When not out in the field with dogs at her heels, Claudia's doing her best to understand the modern methods, her nose buried in a book. No poison, thank you; she can't stand the stuff. Anything else, and she's a willing student.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Bookhounds Cameo Character 3: The Scribbler

The scribbler writes columns, or stories, or fiction, or all three simultaneously, for a Fleet Street newspaper, magazine, tabloid, or tip sheet. He (sometimes she) dresses badly or flamboyantly or both; even tailored suits look off-the-rack or worse hung on a scribbler. He wants news, scoops, gossip, and tips; he’ll offer up his own on a tit-for-tat basis (Oral History) Bookhounds Main Text p 43

This unkind verdict springs from tales of Grub Street. 

Grub Street doesn't really exist anymore. Once upon a time it was a cheap place to run a printshop. Newspapers sprang up there like mushrooms and with them came writers, fleas on the dog's backside. This is the kind of scribbler Bookhounds is talking about: write anything for pay, and the pay's better if you make it entertaining. Grub Street became a byword for hack journalism, and the name continues to this day even if the street does not.

However, among the Gods of Grub Street are the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Kipling, H.G. Welles and John Buchan. They don't really fit the scribbler mold. Yet they dabble. Welles dabbled in science and technical journals. Buchan was an editor of the Telegraph and went on to write propaganda during the War. Kipling was a prolific writer on all things Colonial and Conan Doyle ... well, he has a reputation for psychic investigation.

You could hardly call any of them scribblers in the classic mold. 

No, for that you're looking at someone like Edmund Curll, who I've mentioned before. Writers of yellow journalism. Clickbait artists. Someone with more than a hint of Sax Rohmer. They know what they're talking about, for the most part. Truth has no meaning for them. What sells, that's what matters. They might be subject experts in [whatever it may be] but their expertise is just a screen. They'll use their talent to dress up a fiction rather than publish fact, because the audience doesn't want facts. It wants titillation, gore, and a bit of violence. Good must triumph over evil, of course. Everything needs its resolution. But before you get there, you first must have Villainy with a capital V. 

Oddly, one of the best examples of the type in cinema is James Cagney, Picture Snatcher.

This one's famous for, among other things, damn near killing Cagney. There's a moment about halfway through, more or less, when Cagney's disreputable former gangster turned newsman Danny Kean is caught in a gunfight. He sticks his head out of a window and almost has it taken off in a burst of machine gun fire. According to legend the director just told the guy with the tommy gun, make it look real but don't hit him. So he did. 

According to Cagney the director, Lloyd Thompson, finished the film in fifteen days. The usual turnaround for quickies in those days was twenty-one days. Cagney used to kid Thompson that he was getting a bonus for bringing it in ahead of schedule.

Cagney's Kean is the epitome of the scribbler. Almost as much crook as creative, the scribbler lives on scraps and dreams of the big time. Their bosses are just as crooked as they are, but the scribblers are the ones on the sharp end, getting things done. They take risks. They might get a reward, but they'll blow the loot soon enough on some thing or other. Then it's back to the streets for more stories.

The Scribbler

Disguise 4, Filch 5, Fleeing 8

Miko was a supercargo aboard a ship impounded on smuggling charges, and the ship's owners cast the crew adrift. Lost in an unfamiliar city, Miko vanished into dockland looking for whatever work he could get. He has two great talents. He can draw like a draughtsman, and he has a gift for languages. He used both to parlay his way into contract work for the papers. At first it was a few gigs here and there, then a steady stream. These days he's on exclusive for the Illustrated News. Editor Bruce Ingram calls Miko the Conscience of the East End; there's nobody knows what's what better than Miko.

As Ally 

Miko can help spike an unfavorable story, if he's promised something better. Miko knows every disreputable bar and nightclub in the East End and is no slouch when it comes to Soho either. If you want to know what's going on at the Police Courts, or want to get into the Court when it's in session, Miko can get you in by pretending you're a reporter. 

As Clue

If you want to know what the police really think and don't have Cop Talk, Miko knows the score. Miko has his sketchbook with him all the time and got a pretty good look at [whatever it may be]. If you don't have the Languages pool for a conversation with [whoever] Miko's a good interpreter. Miko collects books from his home country and if you're looking for something from that part of the world Miko knows where it can be found.

In Play

Miko can play clueless foreigner for the whites, but he's sharp as a tack. His love life is a tangled mess and he's always trying to get out of one entanglement while pursuing some other girl. Thanks to a lifetime diet of gangster films, he sounds more like an American than an Englishman.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Bookhounds Cameo Characters 2: Rough Lad

Peaky Blinders S1 Trailer

Peaky Blinders reminds the world that there were gangs before the Krays made it look cool. 

Broadly speaking, there are at least two kinds of Rough Lads. Those that do it for profit, and those that do it for fun or out of conviction. 

The ones that do it for profit are straightforward souls. They might have been in the military; they may have battlefield experience. Were it not for that, they might have found some other trade. Others may have fallen into it by other means, or because they had no other options.  

However, whether this is so or no, the profit-seeking Rough Lads have few convictions of their own and will do whatever seems most reasonable at the time. Not for them the political rallies, or fighting for a cause of some kind, or refusing to surrender. No, this type of Rough Lad will cheerfully back down if it means money in their pocket.  

Some of them can be bought very cheaply. A round of drinks at the pub, or a bottle of the pure. This kind of Rough Lad probably isn’t all that much in a conflict, but you never know; there could be a tiger hiding under that unprepossessing exterior.   

The ones that fight for fun or conviction can’t be bought. These are the ones in it for thrills, or because they believe in what they’re doing. They might be committed communists, committed fascists, or just plain ordinary one-shy-of-a-bushel, but whatever the case may be, they can’t be bought because, as far as they’re concerned, they’ve already been paid. In the only currency that matters. There will be a few who do it for love of the game, or because they took one too many shots to the head and now don’t know how to stop, never mind when.  

There’s no talking to these people. Rationality went out the window a long time ago. The best thing about them is, they’re predictable. Given the chance to do X, whatever X is, they will always do X. They can’t help themselves. 

A Rough Lad uses whatever tools are at their disposal. In Peaky Blinders, the rough lads use razor blades sewn into the peaks of their flat caps as impromptu slashing weapons. It's a basic form of concealed carry. 

There's a nice moment in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels when Rory Breaker pulls a similar oldy goldy out of his pocket:

Lock, Stock Pub Scene

Shout-out to Daniel John-Jules, a bloody good actor. Rough Lads have been pulling that trick since the days of yore. 

The only thing a Rough Lad probably won't do in a hurry is pull a pistol. The firearm laws in the UK are remarkably strict even in this period, when it's still (broadly) legal to own a gun. Just having one in your possession is probably enough to get you arrested; actually using one will get you the rope. It will also get you the undivided attention of every single copper around. Many's the cautionary tale of a hoodlum with more guts than sense who managed exactly that.

The Blue Lamp intro

From a Keeper's perspective, assume any weapon, concealed or improvised, used by a Rough Lad is equivalent to a knife, for damage purposes. A trick like Rory Breaker's is at best a Molotov, which is +1 at Point-Blank.

All that said:

The Rough Lad

Shadowing 3, Athletics 5, Scuffling 8

Red James is a bright feller, went to the Grammar on a scholarship. But you can't teach this dog new tricks, and his love of the fight game eventually got him expelled for gambling. Undeterred, he went into the ring full time for a while before busting a knuckle and retiring early. He drifted around for a while as a trainer and impromptu medic, even spending a little while as a backstage hand at a theatre before finding his true calling: violence on demand. 

Red James is a kind of Rough Lad fixer. He knows all the faces, he knows who's in chokey and who's looking for work. If you need reliable hands for a job, he can steer those hands your way. He still takes up the cudgel from time to time and misses his time in the ring, but he's philosophical. You can't change the past, he says. You can only learn from it. 

Pools he definitely would have if he were a PC: the Knowledge, Medic, Streetwise.

He's called Red James because of his hair, not his political convictions. That said, he's willing and able to bluff his way through a conversation with a Radical. He knows enough of the cant to pass for a Communist or a Fascist, though he sides with neither. 

As a reader, he has eclectic tastes but is beginning to be enthralled by this George Orwell character. Orwell speaks his language. If Red James hadn't made a mess of things, he thinks, he might have been an Orwell.   

Still, you can't change the past, can you?

As Ally

Can supply 1D6 Rough Lads as backup, on demand. Can provide a temporary safe house for those on the run from the law, or something very like the law; this only lasts for a day or two, but a day or two may be the difference between life and death. Knows a little about a lot, and can provide 1 pool point in Knowledge, Medic or Streetwise. Thanks to his time in the theatre, if someone needs an actor or actress for a dinner date or something like, he can oblige. Not that kind of date - Red James is no pimp - but actors are always on the lookout for a free meal. 

As Clue

Red James knows who hired those thugs who [insert crime here] and knows where to find those thugs, if the Hounds want to talk to them. Red James saw [insert character of ill repute] at the theatre the other night; would the Hounds like to know who [character] was with? In an extensive history of treating unusual injuries Red James has seen it all, and he can make an educated guess as to what caused this injury. Not quite the same thing as a dedicated pool of Forensics, but in a pinch it will do. Red James can also tell the difference between arson and accident, but don't ask him how he knows that.

In Play

Red hair turning to grey, a little prematurely, and he's sensitive about it. As Sordid, he may be on the edge of a narcotic habit to dull the pain of a lifetime's worth of regret and old injuries. Still as fit as a butcher's dog, and willing to prove it on demand. Buys drinks for the house when he's flush and is the life and soul of the party even when he isn't flush. If someone's playing the joanna (piano) he's right there next to them, singing his head off. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Bookhounds: Character Cameos

The street-sellers of stationery, literature, and the fine arts, however, differ from all before treated of in the general, though far from universal, education of the sect. They constitute principally the class of street-orators, known in these days as “patterers,” and formerly termed “mountebanks,”—people who, in the words of Strutt, strive to “help off their wares by pompous speeches, in which little regard is paid either to truth or propriety.” To patter, is a slang term, meaning to speak. To indulge in this kind of oral puffery, of course, requires a certain exercise of the intellect, and it is the consciousness of their mental superiority which makes the patterers look down upon the costermongers as an inferior body, with whom they object either to be classed or to associate. The scorn of some of the “patterers” for the mere costers is as profound as the contempt of the pickpocket for the pure beggar. Those who have not witnessed this pride of class among even the most degraded, can form no adequate idea of the arrogance with which the skilled man, no matter how base the art, looks upon the unskilled. “We are the haristocracy of the streets,” was said to me by one of the street-folks, who told penny fortunes with a bottle. “People don’t pay us for what we gives ’em, but only to hear us talk. We live like yourself, sir, by the hexercise of our hintellects—we by talking, and you by writing.”

But notwithstanding the self-esteem of the patterers, I am inclined to think that they are less impressionable and less susceptible of kindness than the costers whom they despise. Dr. Conolly has told us that, even among the insane, the educated classes are the most difficult to move and govern through their affections. They are invariably suspicious, attributing unworthy motives to every benefit conferred, and consequently incapable of being touched by any sympathy on the part of those who may be affected by their distress. So far as my experience goes it is the same with the street-patterers. Any attempt to befriend them is almost sure to be met with distrust. Nor does their mode of life serve in any way to lessen their misgivings. Conscious how much their own livelihood depends upon assumption and trickery, they naturally consider that others have some “dodge,” as they call it, or some latent object in view when any good is sought to be done them. The impulsive costermonger, however, approximating more closely to the primitive man, moved solely by his feelings, is as easily humanized by any kindness as he is brutified by any injury.

The patterers, again, though certainly more intellectual, are scarcely less immoral than the costers. Their superior cleverness gives them the power of justifying and speciously glossing their evil practices, but serves in no way to restrain them; thus affording the social philosopher another melancholy instance of the evil of developing the intellect without the conscience—of teaching people to know what is morally beautiful and ugly, without teaching them at the same time to feel and delight in the one and abhor the other—or, in other words, of quickening the cunning and checking the emotions of the individual.

Among the patterers marriage is as little frequent as among the costermongers; with the exception of the older class, who “were perhaps married before they took to the streets.” Hardly one of the patterers, however, has been bred to a street life; and this constitutes another line of demarcation between them and the costermongers. 

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

These next few posts are going to delve into Bookhounds territory, with some Cameos. 

Cameos are an idea I'm going to borrow from Night's Black Agents. Briefly, a cameo is a short description of an NPC the agents may meet. It's stat-light and intended for immediate use, the point being that you, as Keeper, may need to pull a rabbit out of a hat at short notice and this is as good a Lapine as you're going to get, Mr. Magician.

From Double Tap:

Each writeup includes: important abilities, a physical description, a story hint in the text, and the preferred Interpersonal method to win their cooperation. Then come three things they can provide as an asset (for the vampires or for the agents), three clues they possess, and three handles for roleplaying them.

Henry Mayhew published his work in the 1850s and 60s. The great thing to bear in mind is, if Mayhew's writing about it in the mid-19th century, then it probably still exists in some form in the early 20th century. Not exactly like, obviously; but enough like that you, as Keeper, can borrow ideas Mayhew expounds for your own work. 

We're looking at someone older. Someone born in the 19th century, who grew up in the shadow of the greats - or at least, the people they thought were great. They live by the dodge, whatever their particular dodge is. They have a line of patter that they have practiced and used a thousand thousand times before. They're a bit like comedians, in that they make a complicated spiel seem effortless. Their self-esteem is impervious to the battering of fate. Whoever this is, they probably belong to what Mayhew would have described as the third class of patterers:

those who, whatever their early pursuits and pleasures, have manifested a predilection for vagrancy, and neither can nor will settle to any ordinary calling.

They are constantly on the move and probably operate from a barrow, which they either push around themselves or have a donkey to do it for them. Their wares are broken down and tired, but that doesn't matter. Their bones ache, but that doesn't matter. They have an inner well of pure optimism that sustains them through the coldest winter, and they know things. All kinds of things. In fact, if there is one Bookhounds pool which they have in abundance, it's The Knowledge. They may or may not know a little Magick as well, depending on the nature of your chronicle.   

With all that in mind:

The Patterer

Auction 3, Conceal 5, Shadowing 7

Grocer George/Judy, so called because their parents were grocers in Leadenhall Market, has been a fixture of the scene for as long as the Hounds can remember. Nobody's sure how the Grocer came to be a street vendor. There are all kinds of stories. The most popular is that they were wronged in marriage, and went on the dodge immediately afterward. 

The Grocer allegedly has family still living, scattered across the City of London. It's true that children flock to the Grocer, their so-called nephews and nieces, but whether any of them are actually the Grocer's family is an open question. The Grocer has a way with children. The stories the Grocer tells keep them wide-eyed and begging for more. 

The Grocer is a superstitious soul and will not sell or do anything on a Sunday, except huddle under a bridge or somewhere else safe and wait for the day to be over. It's impossible to get the Grocer to do a stroke of work, or any other thing, on a Sunday. They barely eat on the Sabbath. Yet on the Monday they rise bright and early, march off to Smithfield for a hearty breakfast, and then get about their weekly routine. 

The Grocer's main gaff is fortune telling. There's many a merchant who swears by the Grocer's ability to see into the future by the patterns birds form when they fly. The jury's out as to whether this is some kind of druidic survival into the modern era, or whether the Grocer is a servant of darker powers.

As Ally

Access to any one London location or resource capable of granting 1 point Mythos or Magick. Grocer happens to know the secret of this particular location/resource and can get the Hounds to it without trouble. If the Grocer were not there, then the Hound either will not find the location/resource or will have to fight to get it. 

As Clue

The Grocer knows who's been troubling Fate recently; the Grocer remembers, after the course of a very long and disreputable life, where old secrets are buried; the Grocer, through their Knowledge, can tell the Hounsds the history of a particular London location or show them the location of a London secret.

In Play

The mysterious old soul, part Falstaff, part Chaplin, who flits in and out like a sparrow. They run impossible risks and make it seem effortless. When talking, they do not shut up, but when not talking they pay attention to everything, no matter how small or meaningless. They always have an old crust or dab of food hidden somewhere on them. There's always a new bit of clothing, it might be a hat, a scarf, a shoe, and the Grocer can never remember where it came from. As an auctioneer, the Grocer never takes a bribe or favours one side or the other; they are scrupulously honest and not easily fooled, when an auctioneer. At all other times, they're as bent as a dog's hind leg.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Campaign Design Night's Black Agents: Burn Stakes

OK, last post for this series.

Let's talk about the opening scenario and what it means to play Burn Stakes.

I'm going to try to avoid scenario spoilers but I can't discuss without spoiling a little bit, so be warned.

One of the Agents has a contact, a fence who deals in rare books and stolen art, named Pierre Athanese; he’s an old scoundrel and a crook, but he knows the stakes. Athanese runs a small bookstore in the French city of Strasbourg, close to the German border, and the game begins as the Agents arrive there.

This scenario assumes the characters are after a particular letter allegedly written by Van Helsing, and that the McGuffin is also the target of at least one other faction. There are a couple of moments within the scenario where sound, and potentially music, are important parts of the narrative. One of the main plot devices is a church bell whose ringing affects the supernatural entity at the heart of the dilemma. All this works very well with the ongoing plot device of the Pentheus and Maenad; not much change needed to make it work with the campaign device.

So far, so good. What about this Burn Stakes stuff?

Well:

BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.

STAKES:  The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. 

The obvious way to make the players keenly aware of Burn style games is to challenge their stability every chance you get. There are plenty of opportunities to do this in combat scenes. Or in scenes with emotional focus, such as those involving a Source of Stability or similarly important person.

Difficulty Numbers for Stability tests also change depending on the character’s attitude toward, or familiarity with, the destabilizing event. Characters who would logically be inured to a given event face a Difficulty of 3, while those especially susceptible face a 5. [main book p 82]

Seeing a fresh corpse, for example, is worth a 1-point potential loss. A grisly murder is potential 3. Seeing a Network contact killed is 5, and so on. All of which could become very relevant in the opening scene, when the characters' contact Pierre Athanese is threatened, and possibly killed, by Conspiracy goons. In my version, I had Athanese's shop on fire within about half an hour of scenario start. Your milage may vary, but as a rule the more physical damage you dish out to third parties like Athanese, the more emotional damage you cause the characters. 

That doesn't mean you want corpses every other page. Repetition blunts impact. You could as easily injure Athanese or let the agents watch Athanese's life's work go up in smoke as the bookstore burns. There are many ways to endure loss; death isn't the only stressor. For that matter, gruesome injuries to the opposition can be helpful too. Gouged out eyes and broken teeth can happen to anyone. Plus, having a human opponent attack is a potential 2 point and killing someone in a fight is a potential 3 point. So many options!

Never forget to layer those stressors. Yes, there's the potential for Stability loss in the opening scene. There's also a good chance to gain Heat. Car chase, involvement in a burglary or assault, all this in a tourist district too ... that Heat will be ticking up. I would advise you keep a list of potential uptick items close at hand so you can impose them as necessary, and have some Police on standby. Are they Conspiracy friendly? Who can say? They're definitely a pain in the ass, which should motivate the players. 

Even if you don't use the Police in the opening scene it should be obvious to everyone in that scene that you *could* have used them if you wanted to. Burn isn't just a mechanic. It's a way of life. You want the players to feel the same way about their Stability that a gambler feels about their dwindling stack of chips.

OK, that's Burn. What's Stakes?

It's described as a higher purpose, but honestly, it's a murky pool. Revenge is hardly a higher purpose, but it gets the job done. 

    Three Days of the Condor Trailer

This is the kind of mood you're striving for. Cut off, isolated, begging for help, not knowing which way to turn. Your enemy today may be your friend tomorrow. Because what matters isn't that the Station got hit, or who you're working with right now to get the job done. What matters is Why. Understand the Why, you appreciate the Stakes. Then you can act with purpose. Until then, you're flailing.

In Condor, the Why is information. What did the Station uncover to make it a worthy target for hired killers? In the scenario, the Why is also information, which you as Director can use to great effect. 

In this example, the McGuffin at the heart of the narrative is a letter from the vampire hunter Van Helsing. It can lead to a valuable artefact, Van Helsing's Case, complete with vampire hunting equipment. Acquiring that case is a turning point in the narrative. Until the agents retrieve it, their odds of success against the supernatural opponent are low. Not zero, but not good.

But the McGuffin also hints at other information: dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. It hints at the heart of the supernatural, while at the same time leading to a confrontation with the supernatural opponent.

The Why is with that supernatural opponent, and the information the players collect leads to that Why. The Why is the horror. Unless someone confronts it, many more might die. If the Conspiracy gets its way, thousands more may die. Dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. This is something you, as Director, need to make very clear. 

In Condor, this is made clear in two events. One is the opening moment when the Station gets hit. The other is when the Agency tries to bring Condor in, and it goes horribly wrong. Loss, followed by loss.

This is the essence of Stakes. Not so much that they exist, but that they are difficult to attain, and the cost is usually paid in blood. It's not enough that the agents are tough, experienced professionals. They need to lose and lose again. It's only through that loss they will begin to understand the Stakes. 

 

After all, without that motivator, what point is there in the game?

Twilight Zone

That's it for this week. Next week: something different!

Campaign Design Night's Black Agents - Stone Age Soundtracks

 

Stone Age Soundtracks (Channel 4, original concept Paul Deveraux)

The quality's not the best but I recommend watching the whole thing. I have mentioned this documentary before; it stuck with me.

Brief and inadequate summary: our ancestors discovered the power of ritual sound by accident, in ancient caves which they transformed into temples. They attempted to replicate the effect, with some success, in artificial environments - long barrows and similar megalithic sites. 

That's the core concept for the Node I contemplate coming up again and again in this campaign: the Ritual Site.

Before I said: 

This, ultimately, is location-based. In the earliest days it would have had sacred fanes high up on the mountain top, some grove or cave or other hidden place where the rituals are conducted. There the Omadios, eater of raw (human) flesh, awaits its portion, and in exchange grants a kind of extended life. Brings the dead back from the lands of Hades. At least, so goes some of the tales.

Omadios is a variant name for Dionysus, as in Dionysus the Raw-Eater. Sacrifices of flesh, usually thought to be human flesh. There's an old tale of Zagreus, son of Zeus, in which the child was butchered by Zeus' enemies and his flesh torn apart, devoured, some of it cooked. When Hermes discovered what had happened he informed Zeus, who destroyed the child's killers with divine thunderbolts. Zagreus' heart was the only thing that survived, and was later used to create Dionysus. 

From that myth our vampires are born, the Pentheus and the Maenad variants. They hear a sound, a song, that echoes through the ages. Some claim this sound is the echo of the Titans, the hideous creatures that tore apart infant Zagreus. That, if they can somehow make sense of it, the Titans will come again. Of course, this is coming from a group of creatures whose mental stability can best be described as Shaky, so take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it is what some of them work towards, even if in an indirect way. They are constantly looking for old ritual sites, so they can examine the design and use it in their own projects. 

This has been going on for a very long time. It's likely that some of those old, abandoned castles mentioned in the Dracula Dossier were ritual sites with their own sound chambers, once upon a time. That locations like Carfax or HMS Prosperine might have sound chambers, or that someone's been working on an old orphanage run by Heal the Children to turn its concrete corridors into a ritual location. Opportunities abound.   

Mechanically, something similar already exists within the Dracula Dossier setting: the Red Room.

The Red Room was a place of power for Dracula in London. Magically (or tellurically) designed to focus and amplify vampiric energies and wavelengths, he used it (or planned to use it) in 1894 to cement his hold over the high-society degenerates he recruited to his faction. Since then, Edom might have taken it over for their own purposes, or Dracula may have created another, or both. [p187 DD]

In that text the Room is a singular area in a specific place, with a variable power set. I'm proposing multiple Rooms in many areas, with one known power set (create vampires, under specific ritual conditions) and any number of unknown power sets. Not all of the Rooms work. Many or most probably don't work, or, if they do, they work in unexpected ways. Not even the vampires understand them, though there are some within the Conspiracy who claim they do. 

The perennial McGuffin in this situation is something I'm going to call the Instruction Manual. It might be a crumbling set of texts held in some forgotten monastery, translations of some Greek histories that go all the way back to Herodotus. It might be a transcript from the researches of the magician John Dee or some similar occult experimenter. It might be research notes from a Silicon Valley tech bro relying on the previous researches of a former Nazi, but whatever it is, it represents the most likely means of finding out how the Ritual is supposed to work. 

Everyone wants it. Factions within the Conspiracy - all of them a Pentheus variant - want it because they think it will help them create more Pentheus. The Maenad want it because they think it will create more Maenad. Other occult factions want it because they believe it will help them do X, whatever X may be. Immortality is a popular choice, but you do you. 

Meanwhile the various factions continue with their occult traditions, experiments, what-have-you, relying on the broken version of the Ritual that they think they understand, in hopes of getting what they want. This broken version sometimes does what it's supposed to but there are nearly always side effects, and most of the time it doesn't work at all. This may be because the Ritual site is contaminated or broken in some way, or it may be for some other reason. 

Note that in this version the Conspiracy has factions within factions working against each other. Broadly speaking, this is true of any organization. Regardless of the united front it presents to the world anything, whether it is a business, political party or other collective organization, has factions within it that want to promote X, whatever X is. Point being that, in this fictionalized example, those factions are hyperviolent blood drinkers who may or may not be insane.

The important thing to bear in mind, from a Director's perspective, is that this Conspiracy has one defined Goal: understand, and replicate, the Ritual which creates Vampires. Regardless of who's doing it, this is what they are doing. That gives this Conspiracy an end goal, whether they're in Turkey examining Neolithic sites, in Ireland digging up a megalith long barrow, or in some secret underground bunker in, say, Texas, surrounded by technology of dubious origin.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!    

 

Campaign Design Night's Black Agents Burn Stakes II

 ... I see this kind of vampire as something that arises from a shared delusion, created less by a Sire and more by a Circumstance. At the back of it all might be a Dionysus figure but, ultimately, these vampires arise from supernatural occurrences and places and are drawn together by that shared experience, by the madness that propels them forward, always forward, in search of that elusive melody that lingers in the back of what is left of their mind ...

OK, no storms forecast for this weekend so with a bit of luck I can finish this thought.

Duckman

I see this vampire divided into two types. 

The Pentheus is the planner, the organizer, the one trying to make sense of it all. They're the backbone of the Conspiracy. They accept their condition but are trying to prevent themselves sinking into madness. They don't really grasp the true nature of their condition because, if they did, they'd stop functioning. They see the others as a kind of Awful Warning. In a Dracula Dossier game, Dracula is the ultimate Pentheus, hanging onto sanity by the atoms on the tips of their fingernails.

The Maenads, on the other hand, are children of madness. They fulfil the commands of Dionysus, or at least that is what they say they do. They carry on a ritual whose purposes have long been forgotten. They have no idea if what they're doing is what they are supposed to do. They see themselves as driven by a higher power. Think of them as you would the Cthulhu Cult, except there is no Cthulhu, no promise of anything divine or beyond mortal understanding. Where they go, bloodshed follows. 

At the heart of it all is the Ritual, which is how you get more vampires. 

This, ultimately, is location-based. In the earliest days it would have had sacred fanes high up on the mountain top, some grove or cave or other hidden place where the rituals are conducted. There the Omadios, eater of raw (human) flesh, awaits its portion, and in exchange grants a kind of extended life. Brings the dead back from the lands of Hades. At least, so goes some of the tales. 

Now, in this degraded modern life, a sacred fane might as easily be a site of mass murder. A place where blood soaks the soil, perhaps because of a terrorist attack, or some other hideous deed. From this horror madness springs eternal, and a corpse left in this place, treated appropriately, might come to life once more. It might help if that corpse, in life, committed some atrocities, or shed their brother's blood, or, or, or ...

Because that is the horror of the Pentheus. They don't know how it works. They serve the Ritual in hope of getting more Pentheus to carry on the tradition, but when it comes right to it the vampires don't understand the whatever-it-is that made them so there's no way for them to reliably make more. Instead, they flock to places where tragedies happen, sometimes engineering events so that a tragedy happens, and all the while it could be a colossal flop. All that effort, and no vampire to show for it. Or, which is slightly worse from the Pentheus' POV, all that effort and only a Maenad to show for it. 

Meanwhile the Maenads flutter off like exploding butterflies. They have absolutely no self-control. They do not care what happens to them and they definitely do not care about other people. At all. A Maenad is driven by the song. They can hear it at the back of their minds. They might constantly hum it, or tunelessly sing it. A Maenad with some musical ability might perform it, but never perfectly, never the way they know it ought to be performed.

These creatures die off, but not before doing tremendous damage.

This kind of Conspiracy best resembles a terrorist organization. We think of these the same way we do organized armies. They have generals, officers, troops, a mission; they work towards a defined goal. This absolutely is not how these groups work in practice. Yes, there may well be a guiding brain - the Pentheus - out there somewhere, trying to make sense of all this. There may be schemes. There may be long-term plans. But the organization itself is as loosely structured as it is possible to be, because that's the only way it can survive and recruit. Everyone's hand is against it. It cannot afford the kind of structure an army has, because armies can be identified and met on the battlefield. This is, at its heart, a civilian organization. Destructured. Disorganized. 

Lethal.  

Next time: an RPG exploration of numinous sound and ritual locations, with a view to creating a new kind of Node.

Campaign Design - Night's Black Agents Burn Stakes

The mob has spoken!

BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.

STAKES:  The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. 

SUPERNATURAL: Their markers are strange superstitions, often surrounding childbirth and burial customs; their emphasis is hunger. 

With an additional call for drunken Dionysiac vampires. Well. 

In a long-ago post about the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep I said:

In game, the protagonists are effectively the sons and daughters of Pentheus [tragic hero of the Greek play Bacchae]. Like the King of Thebes and the narrator of Lovecraft's short piece they too seek out the inner workings of the mystery ... The Crawling Chaos represents the reward all seekers into the mysteries ultimately receive: ignominious and pitiless destruction, not just of them, but of all their future hopes. Snakes and forgotten tram cars are their only monuments. Or, in RPG terms, a crumpled piece of paper with hasty erasure marks and repeated notches along the dwindling Sanity bar. Moreover none of them can claim innocence; ultimately this was what they wanted. Else why start on the journey in the first place?

    Stranger: Ah! Would you like to see them in their gatherings upon the mountain?

    Pentheus: Very much. Ay, and pay uncounted gold for the pleasure.

    Stranger: Why have you conceived so strong a desire?

    Pentheus: Though it would pain me to see them drunk with wine-

    Stranger: Yet you would like to see them, pain and all.

Let's talk OPFOR. 

In a Dionysiac chronicle, the ultimate mystery is the Maenad itself. It's not clear who they were or what they were up to, historically speaking. They frolic. They are intoxicated by the Divine. They speak in tongues and commit atrocities. Devotees of frenzy. They might commit terrible deeds in their own right, or they might call on Dionysius to torment and destroy their enemies. Either way, where they go, trouble follows. 

Dionysus itself is a peculiar creature. Sometimes called "the raging one" and "the mad one" they are known for pulling apart their enemies and, sometimes, putting them back together again. They delight in transforming; in one set of tales, after driving their enemies mad they turn them into bats. Forcing women to kill their children or their loved ones is a common theme in Dionysus tales. The best-known Dionysus story has Pentheus, the tragic hero, murdered by his own mother and sisters. 

He touched the wild
Cheek, crying: "Mother, it is I, thy child,
Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echîon's hall!
Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befall
Through sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!"
  But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that run
Like leaping fire, with thoughts that ne'er should be
On earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly,
Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she put
Both hands, set hard against his side her foot,
Drew . . . and the shoulder severed!—Not by might
Of arm, but easily, as the God made light
Her hand's essay. And at the other side
Was Ino rending; and the torn flesh cried,
And on Autonoë pressed, and all the crowd
Of ravening arms. Yea, all the air was loud
With groans that faded into sobbing breath

 A chronicle of this type ought run red with blood, gore shed by those least expected. 

The main book uses the vukodklak as a supernatural vampire example and, broadly speaking, I'm going to use that as a stats template. 

When an evildoer dies unpunished and lays undiscovered for 40 days, he rises again as a vukodlak ...

With a few modifications. 

I'm going to drop the following powers as being unhelpful to the narrative:  Blight Crops, Tunneling (in rat form), Turn to Creature (rat, black eagle). Also the Compulsion Count Seeds. 

I'm going to replace with: Compulsion Tear An Opponent Apart, Powers: Strength, Venom (hallucinogen, through song rather that spit - think of it as an entrancing technique that causes riots), Summoning (particularly those it shares blood with or has drained blood from). 

I see this kind of vampire as something that arises from a shared delusion, created less by a Sire and more by a Circumstance. At the back of it all might be a Dionysus figure but, ultimately, these vampires arise from supernatural occurrences and places and are drawn together by that shared experience, by the madness that propels them forward, always forward, in search of that elusive melody that lingers in the back of what is left of their mind. 

***

OK, I'm going to cut this week's post short. Apologies! We had another massive storm that knocked out power over the weekend. I'm playing catch-up and have no time to finish this thought. Let's return to it next week ...

Campaign Design: Night's Black Agents - Which Way?

OK! First post in February comes with some tooting of the horn. I'm writing material for Pelgrane's Page XX which will appear at some nebulous point in the future. To give you an idea of what I'm working on:

New Fun

A Trail of Cthulhu scenario in which the investigators are tasked with finding a new comic talent for the funny papers.

The Giffard Auction

A Trail of Cthulhu scenario set provisionally in Lovecraft Country, in which the investigators are hired as protection for an auction bid.

Blood Cocaine

I’ll grind your bones to make my bread. [folktale, Jack & the Beanstalk]

A Night’s Black Agents Node which distributes Blood Cocaine and is linked to several smaller criminal syndicates which may or may not be part of the Conspiracy proper.

That's enough of that. 

Now, back in the Before Times I asked whether there was a campaign setting you'd like me to sketch out. There were several votes for different things, and more than a few asked for Night's Black Agents. Fine. That's February's project. 

It does lead to a question, though. Which flavor is your favorite?

As with most of the Gumshoe settings, NBA comes in several possible types and has the additional challenge of several possible adversaries. As a reminder:

BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.

DUST: Recreate the gritty, lo-fi espionage world of Anthony Price or Charles McCarry, similar to the TV series The Sandbaggers or Rubicon, or films like Three Days of the Condor, by “de-powering” the game.  The vampires and their agents will be far more challenging and powerful in open combat.

MIRROR: In mirror mode games, your contacts and even your team are unreliable; your partners can help you with Trust or destroy you with Betrayal. Unlike the other modes, mirror mode games encourage player vs. player story lines or active conflict.

STAKES:  The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge. 

Meanwhile those pesky Vampires can be:

SUPERNATURAL: Their markers are strange superstitions, often surrounding childbirth and burial customs; their emphasis is hunger. 

DAMNED: Their markers are holy symbols and symbolism; their emphasis is seduction.

ALIEN: Their markers are various uncanny effects; their emphasis is invasion.

MUTANT: Their markers are medical symptoms; their emphasis is infection.

So! My question to the madding crowd: which, from this smorgasbord, would you like to see? Pick a setting type and an OPFOR type, and I shall go from there. 

To add to the mix, whichever campaign I sketch out will begin with this scenario from the Free RPG day collection: 

The Van Helsing Letter.   The player characters are about to obtain a letter from Van Helsing to the director of the hospital where his son died, a letter that hints at a (second) failed attempt by British intelligence to recruit Dracula as an intelligence asset. The clues in that century-old letter will lead the Agents to cross paths with modern-day minions of Dracula.

The weather's about to get very cold down here. Storms inspired by whatever-it-is happening in the States right now have impacted the island. If you'll excuse me, it's time to prepare for harsh weather and potential power outages. 

The Dark Side of the Opposition (BookHounds)

OK, we've discussed the Shop and the Neighborhood. The other thing the characters are going to be coming up against on a regular basis are the Opposition. Not the enemies of the campaign, necessarily, though that might be part of the problem. No, the point here is that there are rival groups, enemies, recurring faces which may not be part of the campaign's main problem but which complicate the characters' lives just by being there. 

The last time I spoke about this I said:

The big difference between antagonists like these and the band of orcs a bunch of murder hobos meet once, stab to death, and never think about again, is that these are recurring threats. Over the course of a campaign the investigators must expect to deal with these threats, but not necessarily defeat them.

It's useful to divide these antagonists into groups, as follows:

Minor Recurring (Normal)

Major Recurring (Normal)

Minor Recurring (Thematic)

Major Recurring (Thematic)

In any game the Minor players are going to outnumber the Major ones by a factor of at least two or three to one.

These are the folks, the things, the events, the rats in the walls which crop up again and again and again. They are as much part of the setting as the furniture and the floor. They are integral to the ongoing plot in that they reinforce the ongoing plot and provide opportunities for the players to gather resources and get support in their ongoing tasks. Or they frustrate the players by taking away those resources and support. 

Just as the neighborhood and the shop, they may have their Dark Side. 

That doesn't mean every fatberg in the sewage pipes below the shop comes straight from Cthulhu's nethers. Frankly, life would become boring if everything could be blamed on ol'squiddy. However, there always ought to be the possibility that these blocks, these stones, these worse than senseless things (knew they not Pompey?) have sinister ties. The players never ought to think 'this is harmless.' They ought to think 'this is probably harmless, but ...'  

The Recurring (Thematic) antagonists, by definition, have a touch of Mythos around them. Thus they have Dark Sides built in. 

Thematic ... differs from the Normal in that a Thematic antagonist reflects the Theme of the campaign. In Night's Black Agents the Thematic antagonists are the vampires, ghosts, Renfields and other damnable creatures of the night. In Call of Cthulhu the Thematic antagonists are cults, ghouls, Deep Ones and other elements of the Mythos. It's not simply that in a horror game you have horror things - it's that the antagonist fits the core activity of the setting. The Nodes and Mooks that work so well in Nights Black Agents are completely out of place in Cthulhu, just as Cthulhu is out of place in a slasher flick.

But that's not where I'm going today.

The Minor and Major Recurring (Normal) are, by and large, Normal. That's the point. But this is a horror game. Even the normal things in such a setting have the potential to be sinister. 

Let's take a closer look at Normal. Using the examples from last time:

Normal, Minor:

That One Weird Customer. Maybe it's the smell, his lack of respect for personal boundaries, or his obsession with a particular genre or author, but it drives the characters nuts. He just won't go away; perhaps he's protected by Mister Bourg, or perhaps he's rather more familiar with the locks and bolts on the doors than he ought to be.

The Water Pipes. They knock, they leak, they freeze, they burst. Nothing anyone can say to Mister Bourg gets the place re-plumbed; it's a maze of old pipes and patch repairs everywhere you look. Is your section flooded again? Better call the plumber.

The Rival Book Scout. How does he always get to the latest sale or trove of rare books before you do? Is the man psychic? Whether he is or isn't, he's the reason du Bourg's hasn't had a Windfall by now.

Normal, Major:

The Rival Store. It's not quite as old as du Bourg's and hasn't got its storied history. What it does have is staff that know what they're doing, premises that aren't crumbling to bits, and prices that are better than du Bourg's. Some of our oldest customers are being tempted away - and that has got to stop.

These are all antagonists, sure, They don't all have Dark Sides. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. But any one of them might have a Dark Side. 

The Hounds ought always be in doubt. 'Is it? Does it? Should I be worried?'

OK, fine. That's the threat. What's the action?

Well, in this case, it ought to be something that provides information as well as threat. In all the other instances the Dark Side has been a potential problem of one kind or another. A straightforward threat. But this is something that is, by definition, an antagonist. It already is a threat. Not a life threatening one, perhaps, but the characters already think of it as a kind of enemy. Adding threat on top of threat isn't interesting. It might raise the stakes, but that's it, and raised stakes aren't necessarily interesting. Thrilling, perhaps, but not interesting.

No, what's interesting is Information. Clues that lead to something. Clues that lead to Rome. Something mysterious about this particular Opposition figure gives the Hounds more information about the setting, the real threat, the Mythos hiding behind the curtain. In mechanical terms, uncovering the Dark Side of the Opposition ought to convey the equivalent of a 2-point Pool spend, and possibly other benefits as well, like 1 point of Mythos. Honestly, given the nature of the setting the Keeper probably should push out Mythos often and early. It's always useful, from a Keeper's perspective, to have one or two active characters in the game with points of Mythos to spend.

Should you assign this Dark Side to a particular Opposition figure?

No. 

Honestly, this is one thing you should leave up to Fate and the players. If you assign it to a particular Opposition figure, and the players decide they're not interested in that figure and won't engage with it. then it's work wasted. But if it's attached to something the players are interested in, it becomes more interesting, more valuable. It adds extra sparkle to the thing that, in their eyes, was already shiny.

But you should at least know what that Dark Side is, so you can plug it into whichever of the Minor/Major Opposition figures gets it. 

Mechanically I've discussed this in relation to Pool Points, which is a Gumshoe mechanic. That doesn't mean other systems can't use the same thing. The key is, they get information. All systems have information of one kind or another.  However, if I were using this in Bookhounds and wanted to assign a Dark Side to the Opposition, I'd describe it something like this:

Dark Side (2 point gain Academic or Technical Pool, potential 2-point Stability check, with a clue that leads to 1 point Mythos if the Hound follows it up. That peculiar smell? It just won't go away. There's something causing it. Under the floorboards? Behind the skirting board or the wainscoting? Or, if a person, hiding somewhere in their pockets? It would explain those insects which keep scuttling back and forth, the ones you haven't been able to identify in any entomology text. That said, you're certain you've seen something like it described in one of the esoteric tomes locked away in [INSERT LOCATION HERE]. If you could somehow get access to that text you might be able to figure out the mystery ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!