Female Sleuths

Private Enquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths by Caitlin Davies (History Press, 2023 hardback) is a fun little thing and just in the right timeline for Call/Trail of Cthulhu … and yes, I know I said ‘fun little thing’ and I’m sorry about that but I don’t really know what other words to use. There’s a trend I’ve noticed in recent British publications; they seem softer, somehow. Not as challenging. Nice. Cozy. Easygoing. Like someone dumped an industrial quantity of tranquilizers and weed into the cake mix and now the Vicar’s tea party is happily contemplating their third eye. 

It’s a good book but I wonder how often I’ll be returning to it. It may be a one-and-done. 

Still. The topic is great and something I’d like to know more about, so I’m not sorry I picked it up. There’s something for the back of the book jacket, hey.  

Davies has a chunk of fiction and non-fiction under her belt tackling, among many other things, Holloway Prison and female crooks from the seventeenth century to now, so this is a natural progression. She kicks off with a great little vignette about Annette Kerner, Queen of Disguise, and frankly, if you Keepers out there aren’t using Kerner as a template for your NPCs there’s no saving your grey, bespotted souls.

Honestly, what’s not to like? Kerner runs away from home to become a nightclub singer and ends up working in British Intelligence before founding the Mayfair Detective Agency. Just that one sentence has enough plot threads for a mini campaign. Perfect material for anyone’s table. 

Then Davies moves on to … actually, I’m not sure. This is the point in the movie where my eyelids go leaden and then, when I wake, I’m fuzzy on where exactly I am in the plot. Except here’s Davies telling me that Kerner wrote a memoir, Woman Detective, published 1954. So now I know what’s next on my reading list, if I can find it. (Amazon tells me there’s also Further Adventures of a Woman Detective so, y’know … if I can find it …) 

See, what Davies wants to do is tell me about her life and times. Except I didn't walk in the door looking to learn about Davies' life and times. I wanted the female sleuths. The history. What I'm getting is a strong whiff of author insert followed by a brief bit of history.

I think it's intended as a framing device; I just don't know why anyone thought this material needed a framing device.

There’s a lot to like about this book. I just wish it wasn’t stuffed with fluff. Unlike Winnie the Pooh, I have no affinity for fluff. I don’t need to know about Davies’ trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum or about her experiences taking the Association of British Investigators’ exam. I came here for the Kerner and her like, not the Davies. 

I do find it frustrating. I could cheerfully read an entire book about Kerner, Clubnose, Kate Easton, Mathilda Mitchell or any of the other characters who flit in and out of the narrative. What I wasn't expecting was a book in which Davies tells me all about her rambles through London looking for old office buildings, interspersed with Davies' trials and travails trying to pass a private investigator's exam, and then a chapter covering someone's entire career in a whirlwind of text before back I am on the Davies trail in the next chapter. 

Do I recommend it? Yes, but not in hardback unless you’re getting it from a charity shop. It’ll be out in paperback soon. Wait. It’s the kind of book you can data mine for more interesting information which you can then delve deeper into elsewhere. 

It could be an interesting resource for Mutant City Blues games. As presented, Mutant City is a near-future setting but there's nothing to say it has to be. It could be a 1890s Science Hero setting, set around, say, a department store ... like Selfridges ... where Mathilda Mitchell plies her trade as a store detective. Food for thought, particularly since the latest version of Mutant City includes variant rules for Private Investigators.

That's it for this week. Enjoy! 

Source Material: American Decades

I spend a lot of time talking about RPG materials, and not nearly as much time talking about inspiration. Today I'm recommending a book series: American Decades, published by Gale Research. Various authors and editors, but the copy I have in my hands is 1930-39 edited by Victor Bondi. I also have the 1920-29 and the 1980-89.

I first discovered these back when I was working on the Prohibition supplement for Call of Cthulhu. I was working on that in the happy carefree pre-Wikipedia era, and you might think that the internet has supplanted books like these. Well, you're right - to a degree. So long as you don't mind floundering in a sea of links and seemingly unrelated tangents, or relying on what might turn out to be a poorly researched YouTube rant.

Price tag varies. Amazon alleges you can get these new for stupid money, but you don't need new. You need second-hand, ex-library copies. Mine comes courtesy of the Johnson County Library, wherever that is. Ex-library can be had for less than $10 plus shipping. 

Why recommend this series? There must be other, better sources, right? Again, yes - to a degree.

I'm recommending these as a solid first stop for any project set in the US. It's not a deep-dive. It covers everything from world events, politics and the economy to fashion, lifestyle, media and sports. It's the whole package, 600-700 pages long.

So if you're thinking about a scenario idea that involves, say, sports, and you know very little about what sports were popular in the 1930s, American Decades can give you the basics, and also short biographies of important people active in that field at that time. It's not exhaustive, but it doesn't have to be. All it has to do is give you a starting point. You can conduct any follow-up research yourself.  

From the Sports section: 

America's Queen of Bowling

Never too late. America's greatest woman bowler in the 1930s was thirty-five before she even bowled her first game in 1923 - but Colorado's Floretta Doty McCutcheon kept getting better and better at it. By 1927 she was beginning to secure her reputation with a series of high-scoring games and exhibitions, and on 18 December she defeated world champion Jimmy Smith in a challenge match, making sports headlines across the country. When she went on tour for the Brunswick Corporation a year later, she was already something of a legend. She told women they could begin bowling at almost any age and in any physical shape.

Role model. Throughout the 1930s she continued to bowl professionally; she also gave free lessons at bowling alleys around the country and through the Mrs. McCutcheon School of Bowling, sponsored by local newspapers. She toured from 1930 to her retirement in 1938, organizing leagues and teaching classes for high school and college students. She saw bowling as one sport in which men and women could compete equally ...

OK, hands up if you'd ever heard of Floretta McCutcheon before now. Put those hands down, you fibbers. 

That's where this book comes in handy. No matter how much of a polymath you believe yourself to be there's always something you don't know. Like Helene Mayer, the Jewish German fencer who fled Germany for the US to avoid persecution, and fenced for Germany in the 1936 Olympics. Or the Rhens, a black basketball team from Harlem, New York, the best team in the sport between 1932 to 1936. Or Hold That Co-Ed, a 1938 film in which a girl dresses up as a boy to win a football game.

But OK, you cry, Wikipedia exists. Why get this when I have that for free?

Well, why do you buy Investigators' Handbooks? Players Guides? Keeper's Kits? You buy those things to have all those period details together in one place so you don't vanish down a clickhole of entwined links when all you want to know is what speakeasies were like. That's why you need these books.

Probably the best thing about American Decades - incredibly cheap on the secondhand market, I reiterate, maybe $6-7 per plus shipping - from a Cthulhuhounds' perspective is the series divides itself up into decades. Playing Fall of Delta Green? Get 1960-69 for maybe $9. Trail of Cthulhu? 1930-39 is maybe $5 on the second hand market. 

Will it cover every possible topic in exhaustive detail? God no. But in 600-700 pages it will cover most topics in some detail, and give you leads that you might not have found otherwise.

It doesn't do Victoriana, which is a shame. Its earliest volume is 1900, which by its nature must cover some 1890s material but not in any kind of detail. The latest volume goes to 2009, but TBH I doubt most of you will need that. 

Put it to you this way. If you're coming to Call, Trail, Fall, or any of the other Cthulhu variants for the first time and you want to run games, or write them, then you want something like this in your research library. It won't be the last book you buy. God no. But it will be one you turn to time and again when you want to remind yourself what the politics were like then, or the technology, or what was in the news, or who was important in, say, the film business.

It's a solid first step. It's cheap. Plus, it's big enough to use as a doorstop. 

Bonus!

Dangers of Modern Living (Trail, Bookhounds, Dreamhounds)

 

Videos sourced from Absolute History.

OK, so why am I telling you about this? Well, for one the channel's great, especially if you have any interest in history or storytelling in a historical context. The material's fascinating, story's well told, and there's no shortage of detail. By the time you finish one of these you should have at least two or three ideas for a scene, even a scenario.

Which brings me neatly onto 2: while these shorts are talking about the Victorians, the Edwardians and so on, you can bet the farm and all the chickens in it that these threats continued well into the 1930s. After all, bookshops, to name but one example, aren't usually fitted out with the latest and greatest when the doors open on the shop's first day. I guarantee you nobody's taken out the old gas fixtures, never mind renewed or repaired the electric wiring first put in by Bob back before the War. Bob could read and write, you know. That made him an expert in electrics. That peeling wallpaper, half-hidden behind the bookshelves? I'm sure it's a-OK! The dodgy fridge in the staff break room? Luxuries! Why, in my day we had to walk twenty miles uphill both ways before we even saw a fridge ...

It's remarkable to me that these events are set in roughly the same time period M.R. James sets most of his ghost stories. You almost never see an electric light or fixture in his tales, and I can't recall even one that had gas lighting. It's all done by candles. The only story I can think of where electricity plays any kind of part is Wailing Well, where the boy scouts have electric torches, but the torches don't play a significant part in the narrative. The same's broadly true for his contemporaries, like E.G. Swain who wrote the Stoneground Ghost Stories. It's only when the tale's written by someone like Charlotte Perkins Gillman that you get stories about wallpaper; it takes an engineer like L.T.C. Rolt to write about ghastly doings in factories and railway tunnels. Part of it is the old saw 'write what you know,' but what strikes me as telling is what M.R. James apparently didn't know - possibly because that side of life was all arranged for him without his having to think about it.

To set a scene you need to know what's in it, and (roughly) how it works. Then you can play with the set dressing until it does what you want it to.

Let's talk about wallpaper. Gilman's chiller has as its unnamed protagonist a woman suffering from depression. This has been interpreted many different ways in many different treatments of the story, from audio drama to television, but the key point is that her doctor husband advises fresh air and prevents her from working or any mental stimulation, so she can recover. She spends much of her time in the room with yellow wallpaper. The story progresses from there, but I shan't go further in case you haven't read it.

Taken in context with what we now know about the dangers of wallpaper, consider what might happen (in a Purist game in particular) where spending much time in a room whose air is contaminated by toxic fumes can cause temporary Stability loss, or permanent Sanity loss.

Let's say that room is the rare books collection, in the rear of the store. The bookshelves hide the remains of the old, toxic wallpaper; the store owner didn't bother to get rid of it since it would be covered by the shelves, mostly, and so wouldn't be objectionable to look at even if it was manky and peeling. 

But one of the problems with the slower arsenic poisoning, of a smaller amount over a longer time, is that it could cause very vague symptoms ... as the video puts it.

If the protagonist suffers 1 Stability loss every time they go into the rare books section, they may put it down to some Cthulhoid influence. After all, this is a Cthulhu game; Cthulhu is always sus. 

The Keeper should make it a toll, publicize it, put its name up in lights for all to see: every time someone goes into the rare books room they lose 1 Stability. If they are at 0 Stability they lose 2 Health or 1 Sanity. Sanity losses are always permanent; Health can be restored. 

I mention Dreamhounds because this applies equally to both settings, but consider: the Hounds enter the Dreamlands either in the flesh, or mentally. If mentally, then their bodies are still somewhere in the physical realm.

Now, imagine what happens if that light fixture in the physical realm becomes overwhelmed by all the cheap bits and bobs that the Hounds plugged into it - the heater, the kettle, the cooking pan. A cascade of fizzing adaptors, just waiting to go off. 

Hitchcock once said Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one ... The point I'm making here is that you can have a bomb that is not a bomb. Anything will do, so long as the audience knows it is dangerous and that it is about to go off. Imagine the Hounds' anxiety if they know, as they try desperately to finish what they're doing in the Dreamlands, that their cheap apartment is about to go up in flames because the electrics have given up the ghost. The Keeper can helpfully remind them of this every few minutes, by telling them what's happening in that cheap apartment. Smoke billows. Cheap adaptors fizzle, That printed tablecloth everyone hates goes up as soon as a few sparks drop on it - and all the while the Hounds are snoring away ...

Play with it further. The video points out that Victorian books sometimes used arsenical dyes. The example given is a wallpaper sampler, but really, it could be anything. Imagine a high-quality printing of an occult book. The obvious example is Yellow King, but that's a bit too on-the-nose, to have a book that already sends people mad also kill them with arsenic. As this Jstor article points out, using arsenic to make books was a common practice from the 1800s onwards; from the article:

Bartrip adds that it was “found in literally dozens of goods in everyday use,” including books. “Any manufactured item coloured green was as likely as not to have been dyed with arsenic, and in the mid-nineteenth century shades of green were the height of fashion, especially for home furnishings and women’s clothing.”

So let's imagine a limited edition of some occult text. Fairly modern, at least from a Bookhounds perspective. Let's say it's published aroundabout the 1860s or 70s. For the purpose of this example I'm going to say it's Magyar Folklore, published in English in the 1880s (borrowed from the old Keeper's Compendium for Call of Cthulhu) but really it could be any grimoire from about the 1790s onwards.

The Bad Penny

This is the third time your Hounds have noticed this particular book come to market: a limited edition of Theodore Dornly's Magyar Folklore, published 1881 in a very limited run of 100 copies. It's not especially sought after except by specialists; it has a lot to say about shamanism and demon spirits.

Funny thing. When it first came to auction a Cambridge academic bought it. He's dead now; heart failure. When it came to auction again a reliable shop customer, Major Thornton, bought it. He's dead now; a stroke. 

Now #26 of a run of 100, slight damage to the spine otherwise in excellent condition, is up for sale again. It's not supposed to be particularly dangerous in the occult sense, yet two people who've owned it have died within five years. Further research can find six other previous owners, all of whom have died under more or less mysterious circumstances.

What's so dreadful about Magyar Folklore - and should the Hounds stop another of their valuable customers from acquiring it? 

Magyar Folklore: Skimming gives 1 dedicated pool point, Occult or History, specialization Magyar. Poring over it gives +1 Mythos, no spells. However poring takes several weeks, as the text is rather esoteric and dry, and Dornly is very fond of his obscure Latin and Greek tags. Every week costs the reader 3 Health and 1 Stablity (arsenic poisoning). 

Enjoy!

 

Bookmarks of London (and Eversink)

Bookmarks have been with us since the earliest days. There's evidence that they were being used as long ago as the 1st Century AD, but we don't see what we think of as bookmarks - ie detachable, ephemeral, mass-produced - until the mid 19th Century, when books themselves become ephemeral and mass-produced. Up until that point, and even with the invention of the printing press, books are relatively rare and expensive to obtain. You had to be upper class or of similar status to be able to afford, never mind read, books. Once the middle and lower classes get in on the racket you start seeing changes in the trade. Less porn, for one thing. Well, not that much less. But they were slightly more discreet.

By this point booksellers and marketers alike are seeing potential in the humble bookmark. You can put your brand on them. You can put advertising on them. If you want to be very fancy you can embroider them, stud them with beads or semiprecious stones, design them with special rotating discs or tongues so they can mark not just the page but the very line you last read. Want to spread word of your hotel? Put free bookmarks in every room with your hotel's branding. Want to sell chocolates? Here, have a bookmark. Want people to know where this book was purchased? Here, have a bookmark.

I'm going to discuss this with an eye to Bookhounds of London and also Eversink (because why not). Much the same techniques could be used in Yellow King, but as I haven't read the Yellow King books yet I shan't comment. Heck, I've barely had chance to skim the post-playtest version of Serpentine.

First point: you can make bookmarks out of almost anything. Silk, paper, leather, cardboard, silver - whatever you like, which means in a fantasy or horror setting whatever you like. In a world where books can be bound in human skin, you can bet some charmer's tried to make bookmarks out of human leather. Moreover that charmer's almost certainly a medical professional, and probably someone working in the early to mid 19th Century, when interest in anthropodermic leather peaked. There's a certain macabre satisfaction in having a memento made from the skin of a condemned man. Murderabilia has become a recognized phenomenon in recent years, but as a tradition it goes back a very long way - after all, what's a hand of glory if not the ultimate collector's item? Of course in a fantasy setting this can run the gamut. A bookmark made of ghost? Why not? Leather tanned from the corpse of a dead God? Certainly sir - will that be letter of credit, or hard cash?

Second point: you can make bookmarks for almost any purpose. I've mentioned advertising and branding because those are the obvious uses, but you can spread any message. Religious or charitable groups make bookmarks to spread the Word, or perhaps just the word. It follows that any other organization spreading its word may do the same. Back in the 1970s, a Golden Dawn group issued 'magical' bookmarks to spread its creed. In a world where curses can be spread by bits of paper with runes writ on them, a bookmark could be a weapon. In a world where mind or dream control is a thing, a bookmark could be an infection vector.

Third point: bookmarks are transitory. People collect them inadvertently. I must have at least a score spread around the place, picked up in bookstores or on my travels. I've no idea where they all are or what they all are. Some came to me without my knowledge, stuck in the leaves of a book I bought second-hand. That's just the ones made to be bookmarks, mind - I'm not counting bits of used envelopes or old newspaper clippings shoved inside a forgotten tome. So there's any number of reasons you might find a bookmark somewhere in your house, your luggage, your hotel room. These things happen …

With all that, some seeds:

Graveyard Shift (Bookhounds): Your Shop decided it was time to spend a little on advertising, and bookmarks seemed the best way to go. A few hundred were ordered and you've been giving them away to favored clients. These aren't your standard bit of tat; you paid good money for best quality. You know the vendor; she's reliable, and a customer interested in Egyptology. Which would have been fine, except now all the Shop's best customers complain their dreams are awful. Some go on extended vacation - doctor's orders. Some customers just vanish ... Turns out that interest in Egyptology wasn't just academic. The vendor wanted to boost her luck and incised all kinds of charms in her printing machine. Charms invoking old Gods, meant to summon protective spirits. They attracted the attention of Rat Things, who decided to manipulate the vendors' interest for their own amusement. The Rat Things use the bookmarks as an infection vector, spreading dream control (nightmare fuel) with each bookmark. The bookmarks cause Egypt-themed nightmares which sap the owners' Sanity. This only works for a short period, perhaps two weeks, but it's long enough to cause the holder serious problems. Soon the Rat Things will get bored and move on, but not before causing as much chaos as possible.

Precious Memories (Eversink):  The designer Cestino once created a number of collectable cameos for adolescents wealthy enough to afford them. Several generations later those cameos are sought-after among the aristocracy, and anything rare and valuable attracts forgeries. The Cestino Bookmark is a particular kind of forgery, created as an attack on a particular aristo. Though it is made in Cestino's style (ceramic embossed in silver, with a little wheel attached to mark the exact line the owner was reading) it is actually marked with a discreet Rune of Humiliation, targeting the owner of the bookmark. Its creator intends to pass it on to someone they really don't like. The characters are either employed to deliver it to the target (a gift from an admirer) or to find out who made it (so the admirer can get their own back). Or both, as in 'find out who hired you to deliver this or I'll make sure your throats are slit one dirty night ...'

Enjoy!   

See This Now: Kingdom

Sweet Jumping Zombie Jebus.

Here's my dilemma: I really can't tell you a damn thing about this series beyond the bare bones, because there are so many good moments in this six part Korean historical zombie apocalypse drama that, if I were to spoil even one, you'd hate me forever.

When the trailers for this first hit, a lot of the comments section thought it was Last Train to Busan but with swords and funny hats. It really isn't. Really. REALLY. But I can't spoil, can't spoil, mustn't spoil …

Hokay. Take a breath.

The King is dead.

That leaves the Kingdom caught between two factions. The Crown Prince, played by Ju Ji-hoon, is the presumptive heir, but he's also the son of a concubine, so if any legitimate progeny happens to swagger onto the scene, his standing is shaky. The current Queen, Kim Hye-Jun, is pregnant, with a month to go. If her child's a boy, as hoped, then she and her family are set for life. But if the King's death becomes common knowledge then the Crown Prince gets the throne, and then it won't matter if she has quintuplets.

If only there was some way to bring the King back to a semblance of life, even just for a month or so. Luckily for the Queen and her scheming father, the Chief Councilor, masterfully played by Ryoo Seung-Ryong, there's a renowned physician who's supposed to be able to fix anything. The doctor knows of a plant that resurrects the dead, and tries it out on the King's rapidly decomposing corpse.

Which poses a significant problem for all concerned, when the King comes back to life with a ravening desire for human flesh. Fortunately he falls unconscious during the day, but at night his  ceaseless quest for meat really puts a strain on the kayfabe. Bodies start piling up, most of which are disposed of quietly. People start to suspect. The Crown Prince begins an investigation, fearing the worst.

Then everything starts to go wrong.

The series is written by Kim Eun-hee, who's been working on Korean television dramas since 2010. This is the first time her work's featured outside Korea, as far as I can tell. The series is based on her webcomic Land of the Gods, published with YLAB back in 2014. I don't doubt someone is negotiating for the foreign language rights as I type this, and I'd be amazed if it wasn't in graphic novel form in a dozen different languages by Christmas 2019. Mind you, I'm so out of touch with that sort of thing, for all I know it already is.

Set in the Joseon period, when the country is on the brink of destruction due to internal strife, this series really shines with its thorough and detailed depiction of an advanced society about to boil over. Kings, princes, nobles - their squabbles are weakening the Kingdom to the point of destruction. At over $1.7 million per episode, you'd like to think it was as near perfect as human hands can make it - and it is. My only mild quibble is with the subtitles. People say gosh and goodness a lot. I do not think that is what they are actually saying.

My personal fave character is the Prince's sidekick,  played by Kim Sang-Ho, a cross between Porthos and Aramis - mostly Porthos. There's nobody you'd rather have at your back in a time of crisis, and this definitely qualifies. He plays off well against the Prince, a mix of d'Artagnan and Athos, mostly d'Artagnan. However there's plenty to choose from, and it's a fantastic ensemble cast with no weak players - though given the subject, I wouldn't get attached to any of them if I were you.

Yes, there are only six episodes in the first series. Take heart. There will be more. Especially if you tell Netflix how much you love the first season!

London Booty

I'm back!

For the first time in my life I have jet lag. I can't blame the climate, as I had the same problem flying over as I did flying home. I have no idea how this happened. I've always been lag-free. I suppose this is one of those things that goes wrong with age, he says clutching a shawl around his shoulders and sipping tepid tea for fear of excess excitement.

This time out I thought I'd talk about the haul of books and DVDs brought home from faraway places. For those of you wondering what peculiar artifact this Digital Video Disc might be, it's a cinema format I find very useful, for two reasons. First, it's still the most reliable way to find odd, old, and cult cinema, and there are some temples where they might be found. Like Fopp in London within striking distance of the Orc's Nest, Music & Goods Exchange in Greenwich, and Timeslip on Trafalgar Road in Brighton. Second, it avoids the Foreigner Problem.

For those of you who don't have to put up with the Foreigner Problem, allow me to elucidate.

If you happen to live in a place like Bermuda, overseas vendors don't know what to do with you, but as you're a Foreigner they treat you like a peculiar, simple-headed soul. Someone who doesn't appreciate the good stuff. Someone whose first language probably isn't English. Someone you can overcharge for postage.

So if you're, say, an American service provider offering online movies, you certainly don't offer the full rate of programs to Foreigners. You short the bill, and if the series happens to be, say, Japanese anime, you offer subtitles in Spanish. Only Spanish. Because Spanish is what they speak in Foreign Parts. Portuguese would be better, but quel dommage! It's improved over the years, but this is what put me off online services for a very long time, and even now I'm dubious about a so-called service that can be withdrawn at the vendor's discretion. If I buy a movie, it's mine. It's not some peculiar form of rental.

So despite the climate being ruinous to discs, I still purchase DVDs. How ruinous, you ask? Our humid salt-laden air often kills DVDs within months. The outer skin of the disc separates ever so slightly, leaving the smallest of cavities, something you can't see with the naked eye. Then condensation builds up, the tiniest beads of water. Mold loves water. All it wants is water and darkness, and there's not much light inside a DVD case. When it's not mold, it's rust. I remember tape decks being much the same - you could see the rot spread, little greyish fingers of death. I've seen DVDs practically transparent, patched like a pinto pony. The lifespan of a disc depends on its quality. Your average HBO box set, manufactured by the lowest bidder, might die within a few months, maybe a year. A BFI high quality issue might last decades.

There are ways of solving the problem but I shan't go into them here. This isn't Technology Corner.

The list of books is short, but that only means I'm not including books bought as Christmas presents for other people. I'm not some animal.

London Cameos by A.H. Blake, Herbert Jenkins publisher, 1930. Purchased at Greenwich market.

Markets are very hit and miss. You can find treasures; more often you find junk. It's like prospecting for gold, with about the same success rate. "Surely there is no city in Europe that is as rapidly obliterating all the footsteps of the past as London," writes Blake. Just a moment there, Blake, old son, there's a Herman Goering on the line for you. Blake's done a brilliant job of collecting what amounts to a ton of scenario hooks - A Picturesque Inn, The Bell of Doom, to name but two of several score. I look forward to devouring them at my leisure.

Victorian and Edwardian Prisons by Trevor May, Shire Library, 2006. Purchased at the Museum of London Docklands.

I'm not going to spend much time describing this one. You can work it out from the title. However if you ever want source material for a UK game I highly recommend anything Shire publishes. It's always informative, packed with useful detail and evocative illustrations. Writers take note.

Folklore of Guernsey by Marie De Garis, originally published 1975, reprinted 2014 by La Societe Guernsesiaise. Bought in Guernsey.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, as you peruse the bookshelves, that nothing much happened in Guernsey until Hitler invaded. There's a few tomes on fishing and forts, then Whallop! Germany calling, and suddenly there's books by the dozen. Guernsey was the only part of Britain ever to be captured by the Nazis, and they left behind some calling cards, the odd gun emplacement, a well-stocked Occupation Museum. However I was surprised not to see more books about this dolmen-haunted island's history and folklore. The island's seen human habitation since before the birth of Christ and its archaeology is fascinating - yet so much of it has been dug up, used for building material or just thrown away to clear a farmer's field. I love books like this Folklore, and ate it up while waiting for Aurigny to wind up the rubber bands that power its aircraft's engines. I shall have to do something with this material.

Guernsey as it used to be, a tour of the town in Victorian times by George Hugo, originally published 1933, reprint 2017 Blue Ormer.

Yes, I shall definitely have to do something with this material.

Vampire the Masquerade by Ken Hite and others, World of Darkness. Bought at Orc's Nest, London.

I went over with one eye on this and another on The Fall of Delta Green, which no doubt made for a peculiar facial expression on my part, but thankfully I didn't have to see it myself. There was no way I was buying both. Leaving aside the cost - this one item makes up about a fifth of my book budget - there was no way both would fit in the suitcase, not with everything else that had to go in. Read it on the plane, need to read it again. Mechanically it's not a million miles away from the version I played at Uni, but there are significant differences. Culturally it's a whole other universe away. This is Vampire for the 21st Century, and it looks hellishly entertaining.

The Vampire, by Nick Groom, Yale Uni Press 2018.

Yes, it's a new history of your friend and mine. Yes, it's very, very good. Highly recommended. Am still reading. Go away. Shoo! Still reading … Depending on my Shoggee I might have to get someone this for Christmas.

Dogs of War, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, first published 2017, this edition 2018 Head of Zeus.

Adrian's been a mate since university, and he kindly gave me this. It's a near future dystopian sci-fi in which bioform weapons are used in place of robots, because the robots can't be trusted. Rex is a Good Dog, leader of his squad, but he's beginning to wonder whether he's really such a Good Dog after all, and if he's not, what to do about it. What fascinates me is that it's as much about international, human rights and war crimes law as it is Big Guns Go Bang; it takes a lawyer's mind to pull that one off.

The DVD list includes:

Lucky Luke 2009, French. I loved this Western gunslinger comedy comic when I was young. Can't wait to see the big screen adaptation.

A Private Function 1984, a British comedy of manners about a roast pig dinner gone awry.
 
Thief 1981, in which expert bandit James Caan wants to settle down, but the mob prefer him out on the streets working for them.

Arsenic and Old Lace 1944, and if you don't know what this is you should be ashamed of yourself. Fun fact - this is based on a 1941 stage play in which Boris Karloff played the monstrous Brewster played in the film by Roger Massey. The film was being shot at the same time Karloff thrilled audiences on Broadway.

Watership Down 1978, animated. I remember watching this when I was a kid. I have young nieces. I see no reason why their childhood shouldn't be blighted too. ;)

Big Trouble in Little China 1986, and how could any sane soul resist this film? I won't ask if you know it - but when was the last time you saw it?

The Monster Club 1981, a horror triple bill with Vincent Price, Donald Pleasance and John Carradine.

Ray Harryhausen, the Special Effects Titan 2011, documentary about the man who made stop motion movie magic possible, from Jason and his Argonauts to tentacled horrors tearing apart the Golden Gate bridge.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten London:The Strand, St Clement's Danes Church

Image taken from British Museum Collection

The inspiration for this post comes from Steve Roud's London Lore.

The spot where St Clement Danes Church in the Strand now stands has had a church on it since the tenth century, but the current church is a Wren rebuilt after bombing damage during the Second World War. It's allegedly the church from the children's rhyme: oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements. But why is it called Danes Church?

Allegedly this is because a Danish King is buried there. According to chronicles, Harold son of Cnut the Great reigned officially for three years; he spent more time as regent, but was opposed in his bid to wear the crown by his two brothers. When he died he was buried at Westminster, but his half brother Hardicanutus, angry because his mother had been usurped by Harold's, dug up the corpse and flung it in the Thames. 'where it was by a fisherman taken up and buried in this churchyard.'

Harold was only in his early 20s when he died. According to legend his death was divine retribution for taking the town of Sandwich from the monks of Christchurch. Though there are other Kings of the period who died as young or younger, usually it was on the point of a murderer's poniard. In Harold's case it was a mysterious illness that laid him low at Oxford.

Harold was one of the first royals to be buried at Westminster, and at the time nobody really understood why. It's thought a royal residence was nearby, but the Abbey may have had particular significance for the Danes, which might explain why Hardicanutus was so keen to get him out.

From 1862 until the later 1920s there was a school nearby, St Clement Danes School, built on land purchased by the churchwardens. It moved twice, eventually ending up in Hertfordshire.

From 1919 onwards there has been a yearly event, initiated by Reverend William Pennington-Bickford, at which oranges and lemons are handed out to boys and girls of the parish.

Sir Christopher Wren's 15th century design was extensively remodeled by the Luftwaffe on May 10th, 1941. Bombs gutted the interior, burnt its organ, and flung the famous bells to the ground. In the 1950s after a fundraising drive from the RAF the church was rebuilt, and since then it has become the RAF's most honored Central Church.

With all that in mind, what could be done with this setting either in Bookhounds or Dracula Dossier?

The temptation with Bookhounds is to either go Arabesque or Sordid. Technicolor could work, but those two directions seem more fruitful.

In Arabesque St Clement Danes becomes the Eternal Flame. The Blitz wasn't the first time the church surrendered to overwhelming blaze. One alternate link to the Danes has it that a party of Danes burnt the church that stood on the site before they were killed, and that's why it is known as the Danes church. No matter whether it's day or night, there is always a burning flame at St Clement Danes - it might be a candle, a bonfire, or an unexplained glow from the stained glass windows. On one special night each year the Rector closes the doors for a sermon to be read to the flames themselves, to keep the church from burning in the coming year. It's said the repentant Danes gather to worship there, one night only. Those who somehow manage to overhear what's said at that sermon gain 1 point The Knowledge or 1 point Magic, in exchange for 2 points Stability. Stability lost in this way cannot be refreshed for one month; it takes time for those memories to fade.

In Sordid the old rhyme Oranges and Lemons plays a part. The children of the parish are encouraged the play the game, in which the final lines are here is a candle to light you to bed, and here is a chopper to chop off your head. Folklorists don't know exactly what the rhyme means; it has an old an murky history, and different versions have circulated since at least the 1700s. The churchwardens have a particular reason for wanting this game played. It allows them to randomly select a child to sacrifice, to ensure the protection of the church. This doesn't happen every year; it only happens when the previous sacrifice fails, at which point the child selected by random ballot - effectively - is killed in a staged accident. The parish always buries that child free of charge, and the body is swiftly taken into a hidden vault where it is interred in a special coffin with a glass lid. So long as the sacrifice holds, the body remains intact - preserved. The minute it starts to rot the protection fails, so the churchwardens have to go looking for another sacrifice. This practice ends after the 1941 bombing, which destroys both the church and the last few churchwardens who know the ritual. A protagonist who assists in this year's sacrifice will be taught many odd tricks of Megapolisomancy, adding 1 point Magic to their pool.

St Clement Danes isn't mentioned in the Dossier and to my knowledge there is no immediate vampire connection - though with these old churches, who knows? However that 1941 bombing looks fruitful, particularly when you consider Edom can never have been entirely sure Dracula's influence was driven from London in the 1890s. There's that Satanic Cult after all, never mind any vampiric by-blows that might have been lurking in the shadows. Along comes the Blitz and everybody's plans are upset, including the Cult's, and many a vampire haven must have gone up in smoke.

I'm particularly lured by an old war film. The Small Back Room, which tells the story of a disaffected scientist, one of the back room boffins, who thinks wartime research is being completely misapplied.

This sounds like a job for Tinman.

Plot core: It's 1941. Edom has become aware of a small pocket of Dracula-inspired resistance in London. Possible suspects include the Servants, Satanic Cult, a Feral, Lucy, or similar. At about the same time German bombers start dropping particularly unpleasant booby-trap bombs during the Blitz, and while these bombs kill people they're also clearly intended to kill vampires. Edom's task is to find a way to deal with these booby-trapped bombs while at the same time trace the lingering elements of Dracula's initial Conspyramid to its lair. Investigative scenes include other booby-trap sites, a bombed-out London where black marketeers trade in questionable, Satanic curios, a former hideout of the Cult now bombed to rubble, all leading up to the climactic moment at the heart of the May raid, where the last remnants of Dracula's by-blow are traced to St Clement Danes. They hide in that church because they've been able to deconsecrate it, using child sacrifice - here is a chopper to chop off your head - as the catalyst. Surely, the Dracula remnant reasons, nobody will think to look for me in a church? At which point the whole church is bombed to blazes, and the characters have to deal with escaping vampires or similar while at the same time defusing the booby-trapped bombs before they take out innocent civilians.

As for the question of why should the Germans want to kill vampires, at least two possibilities arise: the Germans don't want the British to get an edge on their own vampire program, and second, Dracula's using his influence in Germany to wipe out some disloyal former allies. Or something else entirely, of course …

Enjoy!

Have Fun Storming the Castle (RPG All)

In fantasy and in other genres the castle is something armies attack. Occasionally a band of plucky heroes sneak in before the army arrives, but as a general rule if it has crenellations and a porter its purpose in life is to be besieged and preferably beaten in some great battle.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A castle has two jobs: to exert authority, and survive. To exert authority it needs to have a minimum compliment of troops and a significant compliment of administrators. To survive it needs more castles and a bit of luck.

When William the Conqueror swept England after the great battles of 1066 one of his first priorities was to ensure motte and bailey castles went up as quickly as the Normans could build them, wherever they could build them. There wasn't a central planning bureau picking out exactly where things should be placed; put walls up, put archers on those walls, and send out the tax collectors, was the sum of the Conqueror's plan.

When Rome sent its soldiers out into the world and beat seven bells out of whoever it might be this week, its armies built fortresses or castrum as quickly as possible. Some permanent, some temporary, but all with the same purpose: plant the standard and provide a headquarters for the administrators. Possibly also a marketplace to do business with the locals, if circumstances warranted, but that wasn't its main purpose. Its reach extended further than its walls; it controlled a vast swathe of territory.

Look from culture to culture, from Sengoku Japan to the American frontier or the Aztec empire, and you'll find the same. First there is the period of conquest, where simple forts are flung up as quickly as possible. Not all of them will be built in good locations, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they fulfil their first purpose: to exert authority. In time the castles that no longer matter or which were built in poor locations will be abandoned. Sometimes this means they'll be destroyed so someone else can't use them, and at other times or in less organized societies old forts will be left to decay. Meanwhile the better designed or situated castles will be improved upon. Each surviving castle will carry out its intended purpose: to provide a base of operations for administrators to collect taxes and organize civil operations, say a court of justice.

However survival depends not on defenses but on your neighbors, and that's why castles need more castles.

Back in the day if you were standing at the top of a decent-sized tower and looked in any direction, odds were you'd see another castle off in the distance. It might only be a speck on the horizon, but it's there. The reason why it's there is very simple: an attacker might get one, but not all.

If you're attempting to invade a country your job is to get from the entry point to the main target as quickly as possible. This is even more true in situations where your army has to move on foot through difficult terrain, as has been the case for most of human history. There are only so many months in the year. Some are rainy, some are frozen, some are too hot. Your army might only have three or four months before it has to dig in and wait out the weather. That assumes you have a cohesive, professional army that is paid and trained to fight. For much of history that simply wasn't so. Generals and Kings had to make do with what they could scrape together, but that meant conscripting farmers and other people whose absence was keenly felt at home. Farmers have a nasty habit of deserting when the harvest and planting seasons come. Sailors don't want to work in dangerous conditions for little pay when they could earn much more in the merchant marine.

Even in the present it's ruinously expensive to keep a professional army in the field for longer than a few months. Remember a while back when I talked about the Muscle in Night's Black Agents? I quoted an article posted in the Guardian which said child soldiers fresh from conflicts in Africa were being hired by mercenary companies like Aegis - formerly Sandline - to do duty in Iraq.

"You probably would have a better force if you recruited entirely from the Midlands of England," [James] Ellery, a former brigadier in the British Army [and former director of Aegis], told the Guardian. "But it can't be afforded. So you go from the Midlands of England to Nepalese etc etc, Asians, and then at some point you say I'm afraid all we can afford now is Africans."

The point being that if your job is to get to and conquer the main target, anything that delays this advance is a threat to your economy as well as your campaign. If there are twenty castles in your way then there are twenty threats, and there are only so many options open to you.

You can attack. Congratulations, you just lost the war. A siege takes weeks, perhaps months, and may require specialized equipment you don't have. One siege is doable, maybe, if you're lucky. Twenty is not an option. Even if you capture one or two by quick movement and surprise attack, the others will be waiting for you.

You can ignore them. Congratulations, you just lost the war. Each of those castles has a defensive force and now that defensive force is free to attack your supply lines, your stragglers, and anything else it can get its grubby little hands on.

You can devote a small portion of your force to keep each castle's defenders under siege while moving your main force to the primary objective. Congratulations, you just made things much, much harder for yourself and may have lost the war. Your army is only so large. There's only so much it can do, and if you send one force off here and another off there and a third to God alone knows where, by the time you get to the thing you actually want to attack you may not have enough troops to knock it over.

This is why some of the most successful military escapades in medieval history were hit-and-run raids. The Hundred Years War and Omar's relentless attacks on Marlo Stansfield have this in common: it's not about territory, it's about making the other side bleed. Send the Black Prince and a band of thugs on Chevauchee, pillage everything in sight and run away before the enemy can get an army together. Do that often enough and you put the enemy on the defensive, forcing them to meet you on terms of your choosing.

This is also why when castles fall it typically isn't to an attacking enemy. When castles fall, it's because someone betrayed them. It might be that the defenders reached an accommodation with the attackers before the fight even began, or it might be that one or two people inside the castle let the enemy in. There's many a ballad and ghost story about a foolish lover who let her paramour into the castle, only to be stabbed and left in the ruins as the besiegers take the fortress.

All that said, what does this mean to your RPG campaign?

It means that when you design a castle in your game you need to think about its jobs. It has to exert authority and survive.  Authority doesn't mean knights and heroes, it means soldiers and administrators. Someone has to collect the taxes, administer justice, and do all the pesky things that need doing if the country's going to run smoothly.

It's great if the guy in charge is a hero, but it's not about the heroism nor is it about the noble lineage. When William divided up England he didn't give out manors to the most blue-blooded Normans he could find - he was William the Bastard, after all. He gave out manors to successful soldiers, and if, as time went on, those soldiers proved unworthy or died childless the manor would be handed out to someone else. Manors change hands all the time. That's what makes them so useful; the more manors you have in your gift, the more loyalty you can purchase from would-be manor holders.

In a fantasy setting, or in any setting where mundane power - swords, guns - can be outclassed by magical or supernatural power, this does not change the castle's first job. Its first job is still to exert authority. However it does change the castle's second job, because survival in a magical world is tricky business.

The point behind having a lot of castles is that it eats up an attacker's time. An army can't afford to lose even a day, never mind several weeks or months. However if an army has a dragon on its side then a castle might fall in a day. In fact, a dragon might fly ahead of an army and take castles by surprise, forcing their immediate capitulation. An undead army might march more quickly than a living one - no need to worry about fatigue - and doesn't care whether it's winter or summer. The list goes on.

So castles will need some form of defense against the threats that face it, and that may change the way castles are designed. When the threat was that someone might mine under the square corner of a wall to cause it to collapse, castle builders started using round towers which were much less vulnerable to that technique. When cannons made tall walls obsolete forts lowered their profile, eschewing tall walls for long, low palisades with interlocking fields of fire, to keep the enemy from getting too close.

If the castle designers know that dragons are going to be a threat, they'll start putting in anti-dragon measures. If they know undead armies are a thing, they'll start putting out anti-undead measures. Exactly what those are will depend on the enemies' characteristics and power set.

Say this is the typical kind of undead we're talking about, that can be defeated by holy power. In that case every castle has a picket line of shrines, each with its own minor holy relic - something blessed by a high-ranking official, a saint's finger-bone, what-have-you. The point being to keep the undead from getting too close, as well as providing a kind of early warning system. There will be at least one person at the castle whose sensitivity to the ebbs and flows of magic warns them when one of those shrines is interfered with. Equally it will be someone's job to make sure all those shrines are well maintained.

Moreover it will be someone else's job to steal the holy relics, because every castle needs them and there aren't enough to go around. There will be a secondary market in relics, many fake, because when demand is high and supply low, or restricted, black markets spring up like mushrooms. So it will be someone else's job to detect fakes, and prosecute the people stealing holy relics. Or just kill them. Whichever works.

This applies across the board. Castles aren't just for fantasy systems after all; every setting, from science fiction to gritty noir, has its equivalent.

Say we weren't talking about castles. Say we were talking about Facilities in a modern day game. Does anything change?

Not really. Whether a Facility is dedicated to Manufacture, Collection, Distribution, or Analysis, it still has those two basic functions. It has to exert authority and it has to survive. Exactly how it goes about those two functions will change depending on the setting.

Let's say this is an extra-legal facility in a setting like Night's Black Agents. Lets say that its job is to distribute McGuffins, and that it has to do that job within a developed, moderately policed environment. Anywhere in Europe, really; somewhere there's plenty of communication links, transport links, free movement, and enough cops to keep the peace. Not where movement is restricted or there's a significant number of secret police or armed forces checking everyone's papers.

So here is your castle: it's one distribution facility. It has to exert authority, and it has to survive. It has to do those things in an environment that is innately hostile: if the cops knew it existed, they'd shut it down, because it's an extra-legal facility.

So how does it exert authority and survive?

Castles exert authority by providing a base for administrators and tax collectors. The same applies here. The collection authority is a base for, say, vampire Conspiracy types. Since it's a distribution facility it probably doesn't have troops and bosses; it has trucks, drivers, and a bunch of goons. As D'Angelo points out in the Wire, the drug stash never moves without soldiers to protect it.

The exact nature of that authority will depend on the nature of the facility. A low-level, unimportant facility probably doesn't have powerful soldiers, and so on. But powerful or not, someone at that facility is in charge of making sure everything works smoothly, that the McGuffins get to where they need to go when they need to get there, and that the police or whoever is nominally in charge doesn't interfere with the facility's operation. Those are the administrators.

It also has to survive. Castles survive because there are lots of castles. The more of them there are, the less likely it is that any attacker will be able to take them all on. Sure, one or two may fall, but there are always other castles. The sheer number of them may be enough to persuade enemies not to attack at all.

Facilities can use the same trick. There's never just one distribution facility. There are dozens, hundreds. The larger the organization, or Conspiracy, the more likely it is that it will have many facilities at its disposal, some more important than others. If one gets destroyed, move operations to another.

There can be alternate means of survival depending on the nature of the threat, just as the best defense against an undead army isn't necessarily a large number of castles. If the threat comes from a bunch of unaligned burnt spies, then one way to ensure survival is to turn the Heat up as soon as the agents show their faces. Squeal loudly and often; let the cops know that crazy gun-toting madmen are on the prowl. Or, if the facility can't afford to get the authorities involved, tell other criminals. The agents aren't the only one with the Yojimbo option. "You know that shipment you were supposed to get, but which was intercepted by the cops? Yeah, it was these guys." For 'intercepted by the cops' read 'we deliberately didn't sent it' or 'we set it up to look like an ambush.' Whichever best suits the situation.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

New Gamemaster Month - Trail of Cthulhu

I'm not directly involved with the New Gamemaster Month program, but I thought it'd be fun to kibbitz and offer a little extra advice. The system is Trail of Cthulhu, and the sample adventure on offer is Midnight Sub Rosa, in which a group of investigators are sent to Rosa, Alabama to recover a diary written by necromancer Ezekiel de la Poer. If you want to download the scenario, I recommend you wander over to the New Gamemaster Month website where there is a download link.

I'm going to start the discussion with a note on historical accuracy. Thursday's New Gamemaster post says that you "don't have to have every nook and cranny of the setting committed to memory, either - in fact, the setting is yours to craft, and elements you interpret differently than what's in print (on purpose or by accident) make the setting your own. That's a feature, not a bug." This is absolutely true, but some people may find it difficult to believe, because of the historical accuracy problem.

Trail, like Call of Cthulhu and many similar titles, is set in a particular time period. This can cause novice Keepers, and players, concern. Sometimes this is because certain aspects of history are, at best, unsavory. The example scenario spends some time talking about race, a topic that's bound to come up in 1930s Alabama. However it just as often causes problems because people don't know enough history, and feel the lack. They get nervous that they're "doing it wrong," or worry that a particular technology might not have been available at the time. What does it mean for the scenario when a player says, "I turn on my flashlight," and someone else at the table says, "did they have flashlights back then?"

First thing: don't panic. Confidence, as the Thursday update says, is the only secret sauce. If you, as Keeper, choose to rule thus-and-so, it doesn't matter if history contradicts you.

Second thing: a little history can be very useful, and history's easily had.

You don't have to bury yourself in textbooks. The game manual is your first stop, but there are other sources. Writer's Guides for pretty much every period you care to name are available at very reasonable rates, and because they're pitched to people in exactly your position - creators seeking background knowledge - they're very readable. I have a copy of the Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition to World War II, which I see is going for silly money on Amazon, and while I wouldn't base my PhD on McCutcheon's work, it's certainly good enough for game night. It doesn't just give you timelines and dry facts; it has a list of slang terms, an essay on crime and a selection of cop slang, bits on transport, clothing, radio, music, dance, what people were reading, watching, talking about. If ever you want to add color to a scene, this is the kind of detail you need.

For example: Death Valley Days is a radio show that started in 1930 and went on, in one form or another, until 1975. Some episodes are available online. Nothing could be easier than to have that playing in the background; there are many apps that play old time radio, most of them for cheap or for nothing. Heck, even if you don't use these old shows as background noise, it's still worth listening to a couple, if only to steal characters to use as NPCs.

However there's another way history can help: it can give the Keeper ideas. Lots and lots of juicy ideas, many of which can be data mined from Wikipedia.

Consider the telephone. By the 1930s they were common; Rosa, Alabama has a party line, according to the scene Exploring Rosa. The scenario notes that the house where most of the action takes place doesn't have much use for electricity, but there are telephone poles. The characters are presumably staying at the lodging house, which definitely has a telephone.

Let's take a step back. What exactly is a telephone exchange? Well, when telephones were first used, they were single-function devices. You had a phone, it was connected by wire to another phone, and that was that. You could only call that one phone. If you wanted to make calls to other people, you had to install new telephones. This wasn't particularly useful, so someone came up with the idea of the exchange. Everyone's phone was connected to the exchange, and when you wanted to call someone you contacted the exchange and told them which telephone you wanted to connect to. The operator then physically connected you with that phone. This system continued, in one form or another, until the 1960s, when automation replaced human operators. If you read old authors, like Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, or Dorothy Sayers, you'll notice that whenever a character picks up a phone they talk to the operator first, and say "connect me to [letter code] [number]," and after maybe a few seconds, there's a connection. The letter code identifies the exchange, the number, the telephone. Usually the number is anywhere from three to five digits long, depending on the likely number of subscribers. The smaller the catchment area, the smaller the number. The letter code is often turned into a word for easy memorization, as for example with Susquehanna 4 7568.

That tells you, as Keeper, three things. First, that connecting with another phone is a lengthy process. You might have to wait a long time, perhaps several minutes, before you finally got to speak with the person on the other end. Second, that there is a human being, the exchange operator, between you and the other person - and the exchange operator can hear everything you say.

Third, that the number of numbers is limited. Take a look at Susquehanna 4 7568, an episode of The Naked City, a TV show that aired in the 1950s and early 1960s. The story kicks off when a young woman, new to NYC, gets a phone installed at her flat, only to discover that her number used to belong to someone else and she's getting his calls. Exchanges can only accommodate so many subscribers; eventually they have to re-use numbers. In The Naked City, the woman overhears a murder. In Cthulhu, the investigator might overhear almost anything.

The Keeper can complicate this further. As Rosa is a rural community, it has a party line. These are cheaper to run, and don't need an operator. In broad terms, everyone is connected to everyone else, on a loop system. The obvious problem being that there is no privacy on the party line; everyone gets to listen in, not just one operator. Moreover a user can monopolize the line, preventing anyone else from making calls, and this can happen by accident, when someone doesn't properly disconnect after a call. Party lines were still a thing even as late as the 1980s; it wasn't until people started using phone lines for other things, like answering machines and computer modems, that they finally died out. Stephen King, for example, references party lines in his fiction more than once.

The scenario says that the party line only connects three locations, but as Keeper you should feel free to modify a scenario to suit your needs. Remember, it's a feature, not a bug. If you want that party line to connect to other places, you can. Probably not very many other places, since, as written, Rosa is dirt poor. However a couple of the outlying farms could also have telephones, and there's no reason the Derby House shouldn't also be on the party line. It may even be that someone's illicitly connected; after all, it's not as if anyone's marching up and down the line looking for extra connections. This may come in handy if the Keeper intends to run any of the additional material provided with the scenario.

There are two plot-related points to make here.

First, the party line is an excellent way to provide clues, particularly via Oral History. People talk. Often they can't help themselves; they give away secrets and gossip in equal measures. Just listening in can provide an investigator with all kinds of dirt. Imagine what might happen if the investigators catch Sheriff Barnes on the line, discussing the situation with the state police, or listen to some of the citizens of Rosa dishing dirt on people's families and less-than-reputable pasts. "Of course, nothing good ever came from that side of the family. Why, my dear, didn't you know ..."

Second, if the investigators use the telephone, they have no way to ensure their conversation is confidential. It's wiser to assume someone's listening. Or something. After all, there's that o-so-intriguing section about Ghoul Changelings; imagine what might happen if one of those was listening in on an investigator's call for help.

But perhaps the most significant non-plot-related point to make is that a party line can add a lot of color to an otherwise drab setting. Gizmodo makes a similar point, when talking about barbed wire lines. People used to live their lives on these connections. They'd play music, talk about local politics or sports, read newspapers to each other, recite the weather report, pass on important news or alerts to the group. In many ways the phone lines acted in the same way a forum post does today; it passes on group messages, and alerts the group to important information. It adds that extra bit of vibrancy to a location if the Keeper bothers to add a few bits on non-plot related bits to a party line call. "Missus Sullivan's dog's missing? Better let the boys know, they might see 'er out in the long pasture. Gantry's sow dropped a litter of six last night, says he'll be selling off the weaners in a week or so, you want in on this you better go see old man Gantry afore they all leave the nest..."

So, going back to the original point: just by knowing a bit of history, in this case about the telephone, the Keeper can insert clues, link to scenes (even Antagonist reaction scenes), and provide enough color to make the setting come alive. None of this requires specialist knowledge; you can data mine from Wikipedia and similar sources to get everything you need.

So why the telephone? Why not? Everything has a history. Cars, nightclubs, public transport, trains, newspapers, factories and diners and a thousand things besides. You don't need to be an expert. You just need to ask yourself, "is there anything useful here?" Nine times out of ten, the answer's yes. Seek it out, and use it.

To all new Keepers and Game Masters, welcome to the hobby! I hope you enjoy yourselves.



             

Person of Interest: Anna May Wong (GUMSHOE Trail, Bookhounds, One to One)

I first saw Anna May Wong in the silent British classic Piccadilly, where she plays the doomed love interest of the man who later is accused of her murder.

It's a brilliant performance, and a remarkably fun movie. At its heart it's nothing but a potboiler, set in seedy Soho clubland. Wong plays Shosho, a Chinese dishwasher in the Club kitchens who unexpectedly rockets to stardom thanks to her dancing skills, only to fall in love with the Club's owner, Wilmot. Wilmot's former lover Mabel confronts her rival in Shosho's apartment, and later the next day Shosho is found shot to death. Was it Wilmot, Mabel or someone else who killed the dancing star?

As a movie I highly recommend it first and foremost because it's a good film, and second because it's one of the few times Wong was allowed to act in a sympathetic role. As a Chinese American, she often played villain roles, and the rules of the day prevented her from ever having an on-screen kiss from a white actor, which meant she'd little chance of playing the romantic female lead.

Wong's family arrived in California in the 1850s. Her father was a prosperous laundry owner, and Wong was the second of his seven children, born in 1905 and raised in Los Angeles. It was just the right time; the moving picture business was taking its baby steps, and you couldn't walk two feet in Los Angeles at that time without seeing some poverty row film unit shooting reel for a knockabout comedy or crime drama. Wong soon became hooked on movies, spending lunch money on cinema tickets and following every film shoot she could, practicing the actors' moves when she went home.

Her parents were less than thrilled. Her father wanted her to marry a good Cantonese man and help with the family business, but Wong wanted to be a film star, and even as early as 9 years old she begged directors working in her neighborhood for film parts. Soon she was a jobbing extra, landing her first role in 1919's The Red Lantern.

By 1921 she'd dropped out of high school to pursue the dream, allowing herself ten years to make it big, or bust out.  In 1922 she landed her first film lead role, and never looked back.

However she never really fit in either. She wanted to be an American, a jazz baby, a flapper. She talked the talk and danced up a storm, but to her white contemporaries she would always be Chinese. That limited the roles she'd be offered, and it only got worse as the decade went on. Early cinema was an unregulated wonderland, but in the aftermath of the Fatty Arbuckle sex scandal Hollywood became more prudish - outwardly, anyway. This meant, among other things, not even the slightest hint of miscegenation. This cost Wong several lead parts, demoting her to gangster's moll or Dragon Lady instead.

If an Asian role was the lead, it wouldn't go to Wong; it would go to a white actress, as happened later in the 1930s with Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. Wong was bitterly disappointed to see the meaty star role go to someone who could legally kiss white lead Paul Muni, who was playing Asian character Wang Lung. Instead Wong, the only actual Asian in the cast, was offered the part of Lotus - the only unsympathetic role in a plot stuffed with Asian characters.

Incidentally for those of you shaking their head and muttering, 'God, they were so racist back then,' bear in mind that far too little has changed in the years since. We're still talking about whitewashing today, almost a century later. Asian actors working in Western film and television still have to fit a certain stereotype if they want to get parts. The only real difference is the stereotype has changed.

"We're the information givers," said Yale School of Acting graduate Pun Bandu in a 2017 article. "We're the geeks. We're the prostitutes. We're so tired of seeing ourselves in these roles."

Meanwhile back in the 1920s things weren't any better for Wong on the other side of the ocean. Chinese audiences resented her American behavior, and seethed at her public persona. Affairs with white men, like director Tod Browning - and he thirty nine years old to her tender sixteen? This wasn't the behavior of a good Chinese girl.

Frustrated at the lack of opportunity in her native California she upped sticks in the middle 1920s and went to Europe seeking her fortune. She did well in Germany with Schmutziges Geld and Pavement Butterfly, rubbing elbows with the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. When she went across the water to England she starred on stage with Lawrence Olivier, and made Piccadilly, her last silent drama. Her first talkie was a British film, The Flame of Love (also known as Road to Dishonor) in which she finally got to kiss a white man on screen - only to have the scene cut for non-British audiences.

When Hollywood started poaching European talent in the early 1930s Wong came back to Los Angeles, only to find that things hadn't changed all that much while she'd been away. After playing a couple Dragon Lady roles she went back to Europe, only to find herself drawn to Los Angeles again at the prospect of a role in the 1937 adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer-winning novel about life in China prior to the Great War.

That ended in disappointment for Wong, who went to China on an extended tour only to discover that her Chinese critics were no more favorable than the American variety. To the Chinese Wong was a disgrace, a sexually charged scandal on legs. Friends with Dietrich? Then Wong must be a lesbian. Linked with older men? Then she must be a prostitute. The real problem was she was too American for Chinese audiences, and they let her know it. She eventually won over the Chinese press, but it was hard going - not that Wong was intimidated by hard going.

The war intervened, and Wong found herself in a string of patriotic B-pictures, always a heroine bashing the Japanese. She devoted herself, when not working, to war relief, sending as much money and support as possible to benefit Chinese refugees.

Later, the war over, Wong invested in real estate, and lived quietly with her surviving family. She had a minor post-war film role, in the 1949 noir B-picture Impact, and the lead in a TV detective series The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, which was cancelled after a single season and sadly no longer exists in any format. She appeared in some documentary work and some TV roles in the 1950s, but no leads and no film work. Her last film appearance was in 1960's Portrait in Black in which she plays the maid, Tawny. She got a star on the Boardwalk in 1960, and died of a heart attack in 1961, at the age of 56.

So let's talk about gamification.

As a walk-on NPC Wong could appear in Call of Cthulhu, Trail, or any of the 1930s era settings. As she travels extensively she could as easily be part of a Dreamhounds game as Bookhounds, or be encountered en route to some exotic location, say on a cruise liner or a very famous train. She's equally at home in modest as well as luxurious circumstances, and speaks many languages.

Her main attraction to the Keeper is that she knows almost everyone, in the States and abroad. She's on first name terms with a wide variety of people, from media moguls and film directors to dancers, composers, stage managers, restauranteurs, and many more. She can be a very useful link between the player characters and the local Chinese community, which might not otherwise open its doors to interfering investigator types. She can introduce them to artists, directors, powerful men. She's hobnobbed with everyone from the Los Angeles elite to the rising stars of Hitler's Germany. She's worked with the likes of Douglas Fairbanks and Alfred Hitchcock, as well as innumerable forgotten B-actors and directors. You name it, she's done it, or been there and loved every minute.

Perhaps the most obvious setting for her to appear in is the One-to-One Dex Raymond adventures, set in 1930s Los Angeles. Wong could drift in and out of Dex's life, always on her way somewhere else hoping for her big role, always frustrated at her lack of opportunities.

There's nothing to indicate any occult or outré connections, but she took great pride in her Chinese origins and would be very knowledgeable about anything to do with Chinese history, particularly its theatrical traditions.

As a One-to-One Source her skills favor performance, language, dance and high society. She can open many doors for other people, even doors that would remain frustratingly closed to her. However she's also got a strong business sense, which means she could be helpful in Bargain tests, and her extensive knowledge of Chinese culture and history gives her some Art History or History bonuses when dealing with Chinese culture.

For that matter there are few who know the film business quite like she does; she was there, on the spot, when it was being born. Any scuttlebutt or juicy bit of gossip relating to times long past - who was sleeping with who, who made shady deals to get financing, who worked in Poverty Row but likes to pretend they didn't now they've made it - is grist to her mill.

That's it for now! Enjoy.

Tally O: Fox Hunting (Bookhounds of London, Trail of Cthulhu)

If your campaign is set in the British Isles you're probably mainlining television programs like Downton Abbey, seeking inspiration. What did people look like, think like, want to be like? What sets a British location apart from, say, a French one, or a German? What habits, sports, hobbies are quintessentially British?

In that spirit, this time I'm going to talk about fox hunting. Most of the information I have comes from D.W.E. Brock's 1936 book, The ABC of Fox Hunting. He's writing at a time when the hunt, as he knew it, is already on its way into the history books. You can tell by the way he gnashes his teeth that he's well aware of this, and bitterly resents the influx of City men and other London fools who barely know how to ride, let alone what to do on the field.

In his day the hunts are organized by the Masters of Foxhounds Association, which lays down the boundaries of the hunt. The Edwardians would have run the hunt themselves, with the Master owning and funding the hounds; indeed, the whole shebang. In Brock's time the hunt is run more along Club lines, with Secretaries and Committees. The Master is appointed by the Club, and runs the pack accordingly. That, in fact, is one of the Club's chief troubles; it's no joke housing and feeding all those hounds, and finding a suitable Master is no easy task. If you, as an ordinary person, intend to ride with the hunt, you pay for your membership; or, if you're a guest, you pay a daily fee, sometimes called a cap. Collecting that cap is the bane of the Master's life, as it's very easy to ride off and not pay, a tactic that may appeal to some Bookhounds.

The size of the hunt depends on how often it intends to hunt. The fewer the days in the week that the hunt meets, the smaller the hunt, so there can be two, three, or four day hunts. Any one hunt is strictly forbidden from drawing a fox in any territory other than its own.

The character of the hunt will depend on its territory. A grassland hunt, pleasant to ride over, is the kind that most people are familiar with from books and television. There are also hunts on the moors, which involve smaller packs because of the difficulty of the ground. Hilly or mountainous terrain means no horses, but there's still a pack of hounds, with the huntsmen following on foot.

A hunt is something that requires a great deal of preparation. A hunt doesn't just blindly ride out and hope for the best; instead, over the course of the year, the Master and his people look for where the foxes are, and mark out their earths. There's a Damage Fund set aside for farmers, to bribe them and hopefully prevent them from shooting or poisoning animals who might raid their farms. In fact, farmers are encouraged to leave food out for foxes, when their holes are spotted.

'Anyone knowing of the the existence of a litter of cubs,' says Brock, 'will be doing the vixen a kindness by leaving food, such as rabbits, rats or the cleanings of poultry, somewhere about a hundred yards from her earth. On no account should butchers' meat be given, for, though the cubs will eat it readily enough, it is very liable to give them mange.'

Come the day, the huntsmen set out the night before to find the fox's earth, and any other hole it might use as a hiding place. Foxes are nocturnal, and prefer to be underground during the day, so by stopping up their holes at night the huntsmen are forcing the fox to remain above ground during the hunt. Then the business begins in earnest.

The hounds are carefully looked after, in preparation for this moment; indeed, a hound's age is expressed from the first time hound meets fox. So a 1932 dog wasn't born in 1932; it first hunted in that year . The hounds are all tattooed in the ear with a simple cypher, say BV VI. The first letters refer to the hunt, so BV might be Blackmore Vale. The numbers refer to the litter, so VI means that this dog is from litter number 6. Each hound will have a name based on its litter, so that litter 6 might have dogs called Whirligig, Whale, Walpole, Wrale and so on, all beginning with W.

These most definitely are not indoor pets, and want nothing more than to run like a brainless maniac all the live-long day. They love to eat raw meat, and are typically fed an entire carcass, which the pack devours whole. 'In a very short time the whole pack is covered from head to stern with blood.' The pack size is expressed in  couples, each couple being two hounds, so a pack size of 30 is actually 60 animals. Imagine having to care for that many crazy, hyper-energetic, bloodthirsty hounds. It's no wonder Clubs had difficulty finding Masters.

The hunt has a very idiosyncratic dress, which you may think you're familiar with, even if you're not. The typical Ratcatcher style used by ordinary members of most Clubs includes a bowler hat, strengthened for resisting blows to the head, a white hunting stock or neckerchief, a tweet sports coat (the Ratcatcher of the title), and breeches of almost any color except white. The overall aesthetic is plain and sober.

There are variations on that theme. The Black Coat is much like the Ratcatcher, except you wear a top hat, a black or dark grey cloth coat, and white or colored breeches. The Scarlet Coat, which is the style everyone recognizes, is much as the Ratcatcher, except the coat is red cloth, with brass buttons. Depending on the Hunt, these variant costumes may be insignia of rank.

You address a professional huntsman by their last name, so Harry Flashman would be just Flashman. If, on the other hand, you're addressing a whipper-in, you use their Christian name, so in this case, Harry. The whipper-in is the huntsman's assistant and has two very specific tasks. The first whipper-in opens gates, removes slip rails, stops road traffic and generally ensures that nothing interferes with the pack. The second whipper-in keeps track of the pack, hunts down strays, and when otherwise not needed will keep an eye out for that tricky fox.

When out in the field, the Master always goes first. The Master directs the hunt, so he has to be in a position to see everything that's going on. For everyone else, there's an etiquette system. When in with the field, you're never to ride too close behind someone else. You're supposed to shout Ware Hole! if you see something a horse might stumble over. You take your time at a fence or gap in the hedge, and on no account make the attempt if there's someone ahead of you; wait until that person is clear before trying the jump.

Most importantly, you have a duty to farmers. 'Always remember you are a guest of every single farmer whose land you cross. Do not willfully damage crops or ride over greens, cricket pitches, football grounds. Do not frighten their stock. Do not leave fences open.' This is the point at which, I strongly suspect, Brock was writing with gritted teeth, and breaking the point of his pen on every second word.

So what's likely to happen during a hunt? Here's some examples to lend flavor to a scene:

1. A dog may be kicked and killed by an inexperienced horse, or rider.
2. The hounds may find another fox and set out on a false line, or kill the fox too early.
3. The hunt takes too long without result, and the hunters get bored.
4. The field (riders) scatters or gets in the way of the hounds.
5. The fox hides in unstopped ground.
6. The fox takes the hunt near a scent spoiler (eg cattle) or near road, or rail.
7. The hunt encounters a wire fence.
8. A horse falls, or encounters a difficult ditch.
9. The pack splits into two or more groups, or is lost from the Huntsman.
10. The fox hides up a tree, curled on a branch, or somewhere else high, like a rooftop.
11. The fox hides under a haystack. Remember, you're not supposed to inconvenience farmers.
12. The fox hides in the furrow of a ploughed field.
13. The fox hides in exposed drains, especially in a dry season. 
14. Fox hides in marsh or bog, knowing that the hounds don't like going near water.
15. The fox puts the hounds on the scent of another fox.
16. The fox doubles back, and dodges straight through the hounds.

Brock estimates that in a typical hunt the fox is killed one time in five, and that, in its lifetime, the fox is far more likely to die by poison, gun or trap than by hounds.

In a GUMSHOE game, a hunt is probably best expressed as a Thrilling Chase, as per Night's Black Agents. However if you're not comfortable with that, a simple Fleeing vs Athletics or Riding contest will do as well. The Fox should get a large Fleeing pool, representing not so much its natural athletic ability as its raw cunning and trickery. Its stats ought to be based on the Wolf, so:

Abilities: Athletics 9, Fleeing 14/18/12 (young/mature/old) Health 3, Scuffling 8
Hit Threshold: 5 (Athletics plus small and fast)
Alertness: +3
Weapon: -1 (bite)

So why will your players get involved in a hunt? Well, in Bookhounds, it's most likely to be a social class issue. The characters are always scheming to increase their Credit Rating, to get more patrons, to rise up in the world. How better to express their social importance than by riding to hounds with the Blankshires? Plus, it's an excellent way to toady to your social betters, thus worming your way into the confidence of future patrons. London is remarkably close to the countryside at time of writing; in the 1930s country lanes and open fields would have been almost on the protagonists' doorstep. (That was the whole point of Metro-Land, after all). One quick road or rail journey, and they can be riding to hounds over the weekend.

In Trail, a hunt is an excellent way to set the scene. It gives the characters a grand overview of the area they're in, and also offers a brilliant chance to get the characters lost in some kind of ancient and long-forgotten wood, or near some evocative, haunting ruins. If the characters have somehow annoyed the local cultists, it's also a good way to maneuver them into an ambush. Finally it can be a dramatic means of introducing some kind of challenge or event, say, if the hunt were to encounter a mangled body, or signs of otherworldly activity. Imagine a hunt, for example, that finds itself within the sphere of influence of a Color Out Of Space.Wandering into that blighted landscape unexpected could lead to all sorts of complications ...

To close out, a bit of hunting slang to add flavor to a scene:

Babbler: A dog who 'talks' too much.
Blind (country): Before winter; that is, with the leaves still on the trees. This is a dangerous time to hunt, as accidents are more likely with decreased visibility.
Blow Away: The horn sounds to get the hounds out on the trail. This is a quick, pulsating noise.
Blow Out: The horn sounds to call the hounds back. This is a long and mournful call.
Check: The hounds are said to check when they temporarily lose the scent.
Covert: Woods.
Drag: The line of the fox, leading to his lair.
Feather: The dog raises stern and shows tail, suggesting it is on the scent.
Huic Holloa: A cheer.
Tally O!: I have seen the fox.
Tally Over!: I have seen the fox cross this ride.

I hope this was useful! Enjoy.