Well.
I come to bury Caesar not to praise him, I suppose, since by all accounts Humphrey Smith is someone I would not get on with, had I met him.
He did run a damn good chain of pubs, mind.
You'll know them if you've ever been in one. Sam Smiths pubs (Samuel being the Smith who inherited the chain back in the 1880s and made it what it is) are unique. They serve their own stuff, exclusively. No televisions, no mobile phones, loud noises and swearing discouraged. Often the pub is in a listed (or at least architecturally interesting) building or has a storied history.
The Cheshire Cheese, for instance, is one of my favorite places in London, It's Fleet Street's pub. Generations of journos have gotten quietly pickled there. It turns up in A Tale of Two Cities. Dr. Johnson, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - they've all stood at that bar.
Since this is a family-owned concern and since there are still Smiths in the mix I'm going to cross my fingers and say that the brewery will survive. Whether the children will take the same personal interest their father did in the business is an open question. My understanding is that the old fellow used to haunt his pubs like some kind of roving specter. He was not above closing pubs down if something displeased him, and he could be displeased by, say, social media posts. Which seems ... petty. A bit unchristian.
Grinchian.
Once shut, Sam Smiths tend to stay shut. After all, the brewery owns the building. It can do as it likes with its property.
Who knows what the future will bring? A breath of fresh air, a change in ownership, something else? I may be in the UK again soon, unexpectedly, and if so will try to stop by a Sam Smiths before I fly home.
From a roleplay perspective, having a location that remains essentially the same over decades, centuries, is a useful tool. Particularly if it's as unique and identifiable as a Sam Smith's. You can't mistake those for anything other than they are. No TV, no swearing, no socials - it's almost the antithesis of a modern pub.
From Wikipedia:
Many have frosted windows and stained glass decorations. The interiors often have either brown or beige painted walls, or elaborate wall paper. Some have notable interiors such as the Crown Inn in Wetherby which has furniture by Robert Thompson or the Princess Louise in High Holborn with booths around the bar. Many of the pubs owned by the company, including many that it has acquired since the 1970s, are empty
Speaking personally I can recommend the Princess Louise. Been there many a time. Very cozy place.
Let's add some RPG elements and say we're talking about The Bull, an East End boozer I mentioned before in connection with NBA:
East End boozer near Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and on the edge of Limehouse, West India Docks, narrowly missed by Nazi bombs during the war and now a hangout for peculiar characters of all kinds.
Owned by: Ex-IRA (silent partner).
Publican of record: Charlie Brown (not the Charlie Brown), someone who everybody knows. The police may or may not realize he's a front for the Ex-IRA. Edom certainly knows.
The Brewer: Bowman Brewery, vans coming and going at odd hours.
Watched by EDOM via Maggie Canter, Church Scavenger (p96 Field Manual).
In this version, Bowman Brewery is a stand-in for Sam Smiths. Which means the Bull is like many another Sam Smiths pub. It lacks modern features, has no telly, no fruit machines, swearing is discouraged and the publican lives in fear of that fateful day when a beady-eyed old man walks in the door.
If Sam Smiths aka Bowman owns the place then, logically, the ex-IRA doesn't. He's very much a silent partner of Charlie's. He helped Charlie Brown out of a hole a few years back and now the publican serves two masters. He owes Bowman his job and livelihood; he owes the ex-IRA everything else. Bit of a tightrope walk, that.
Incidentally, this is the kind of thing I think of as quintessentially English. Not rolling countryside or fish and chips; this kind of my-way-or-the-highway thinking, where cutting off your nose to spite your face is standard practice.
New Face
Charlie Brown has a problem. One he can't reach out to his silent partner about, one he dare not talk to Bowman's about, but a problem nonetheless.
There's a new face at the pub.
This is a regular's pub; new faces stand out at the Bull. This one's been coming by once a week, every week, for about a month. Charlie knows them well enough to start pouring out the beer as soon as they walk in the door.
Here's the thing: whoever this new face is, they're not new. At least, not new to the Bull.
Charlie first became aware of this when he noticed a photo up on the wall. It's the same old thing Charlie's walked past once a day every day for his entire working life, without paying the slightest mind. Today he glanced at it, then took a closer look.
There they are. The new face. One of a celebratory group, back in the 1970s.
They haven't aged a day.
Perhaps Charlie can persuade someone to help him explain his dilemma?
Option One: A Misunderstanding
They're not the person in the photo. They're the child of, who happens to look exactly like. Except this isn't a coincidence. The new face is looking for more information about bartender Duncan MacNeil, arrested in the 1970s in connection with a string of slasher murders in the area. MacNeil killed himself before trial. The new face is convinced MacNeil wasn't the killer, that the killer still lives, and is one of the Bull's regulars. Are they right? If so, who?
Option Two: Poor Lighting
The lights either don’t work properly or are being interfered with in some way. Lights are seen on when they shouldn’t be and flicker off without warning. Tradition has it that this is ‘the spook’ monkeying with the electrics. Funny thing; this has been happening more and more often now the new face has shown up. In fact, the only reason Charlie noticed the photo is because the lights happened to go just as he was walking by, and the picture caught the reflected light - or at least, that's how Charlie explains that odd glow. What connection has the new face with the spook?
Option Three: Dead Man Walking
The new face is supernaturally inclined, either a Renfield or something of similar power level, and is here on a mission from one of the campaign's third parties (e.g. the Alraune). Perhaps it's some kind of diplomatic gesture, perhaps it's enemy action. Either way, the Bull has become the center of everyone's attention. The new face isn't the only one in that photograph who's about to come back for a return visit, but if the characters don't figure out why then things could get very messy.
That's it for this week!
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