Drowned Kingdom (Night's Black Agents)

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

This week’s post is inspired by the Jumbo Floating Restaurant of Hong Kong, AKA Jumbo Kingdom. First floated back in 1976, she’s capsized under what can best be described as uncertain circumstances near the Paracel Islands, while on her way to … actually, nobody seems to know. 

Jumbo Kingdom was launched by billionaire businessman Stanley Ho Hung-sun, AKA the King of Gambling, back when he was a sprightly 50-year-old in search of new worlds to conquer. Stanley Ho was a significant investor in real estate and casinos across the Pacific, but he’s best known for his enterprises in Hong Kong and Macau. Along with Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok, Macau gambler Yip Hon and his brother-in-law Teddy Yip, Ho was one of the consortium that made Macau the gambling empire it is today. In 1976 he’d have been on top of the world having seen off all rivals to become the leading light of the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau which meant that in terms of financial pull and influence he was the de facto boss of Macau. 

Jumbo Kingdom was meant to be a floating Imperial Palace, and in its heyday it looked the part. Beautiful alfresco banquet hall up on the top deck, Dragon Court fine dining on the first deck, a culinary school where eager students learned from the best, exhibition halls, outdoor gardens – it had everything you could wish for, smack in the middle of Hong Kong’s famous Aberdeen harbor. You couldn’t dream up a more iconic Hong Kong landmark, floating in the middle of another iconic Hong Kong landmark. 

COVID definitely played its part in Jumbo Kingdom’s downfall but there’s probably another factor: the decline and death of Stanley Ho. By the end he did his best to distribute his assets among his family, but what with familial disputes, a stroke and other issues the Floating Kingdom’s boss wasn’t around to look after her. Ho died in 2020.  

By that point the Floating Kingdom was on a downward slide. It went through a renovation in 2003, sold off some of its assets, but by the end Jumbo Kingdom’s owners couldn’t even give her away for free. 

Nobody’s said why she was towed out to wherever it was she was being towed – a shipyard in Cambodia is the latest tidbit, which sounds awfully like ‘the knacker’s yard’ to me – but she capsized in deep water and while in theory she can be salvaged in practice it’s probably more than the Kingdom’s worth to refloat her.  

Presumably at least some of her fittings were still aboard as well as all of her fixtures, which means there’s a lot of cutlery, chairs and whatnot undergoing the Shakespearian full fathom five right about now. They’d have cleaned out most of the fittings and whatever was in the freezers, and no doubt the departing staff nicked a set of spoons or two, but a floating restaurant of that size – she could seat over 2,300 diners - would have had a ton of stuff aboard. It seems unlikely it was all offloaded before she was shipped off to Cambodia. 

However, one man’s disaster – gosh, I sure do hope she was insured – is another man’s interesting RPG location.  

There’s a lot of adventuring meat to be had in upending a ship, as The Poseidon Adventure (in its various incarnations) demonstrates all too well. You have all the glitter and glitz of, say, a luxurious superyacht, except it’s upside down and smashed to hell and gone. Anything could be aboard her.  

Absolutely anything.  

Kismet  

A super yacht known to belong to a Conspiracy asset has, through some mysterious set of circumstances, capsized somewhere in the Pacific. Details are sketchy. Location is uncertain. However, this is potentially the heist of the century if the agents can get there before anyone else does and make off with the prize. 

It doesn't have to be a super yacht, of course. It can as easily be a gigantic floating restaurant like Jumbo Kingdom, or a cruise liner. However, a super yacht has the advantage of being a contained location, which may be helpful to the Director. A floating restaurant gives the Director more rooms to play with but that might be more hindrance than help, depending on the story you want to tell.

This is, broadly, the plot of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, novelist Paul Gallico’s sequel to the original Poseidon Adventure. In the sequel seagoing bandits show up to loot the capsized ship. Gallico died before he could finish the novel. The book’s a turkey, and the film adaptation is also a turkey. Mind you, even a turkey has its merits, when properly roasted and served with mashed potatoes and gravy. 

A Thrilling Infiltration scene follows, complicated by the Kismet’s capsizing and deteriorating weather conditions. Can the agents make it before the Conspiracy’s rescue team arrives? What’s aboard the Kismet? 

• Option One: loot, glorious loot. Enough cash and art can be salvaged to make the agents very rich bandits. Of course, before they can loot the Kismet they’ll need to deal with the strange and hideous entities in the summoning pool. They weren’t expecting the Kismet to go belly-up, and they’re not happy about it. 
• Option Two: banes. The Kismet was collecting special (possibly antique) anti-vampire equipment for study and secure disposal. If your campaign has a particular anti-vampire McGuffin, then this is where it is. The crew and stews are all drowned and gone, but wouldn’t you know it, that zombie serum is kicking in …  
• Option Three: Coffins. The Kismet was transporting a Conspiracy bigwig, and that bigwig is particularly annoyed at this debacle. Also, hungry, Very hungry. There’s only so many survivors aboard, after all. Fortunately it looks as if someone ordered takeout … enter the agents, looking all tasty and full of vitamins.  

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Big Winner (Night's Black Agents)

From Thrilling Locations, Victory Games James Bond 007 RPG:

It has been compared with being reborn. Once a person experiences casino life, the rest of experience pales. People entering a luxurious casino for the first time have noted physical and psychological changes taking place in themselves. They shed their mundane lives, like butterflies emerging from cocoons, and leave their worries and troubles at the door. Once inside, they are insulated from the ravages of the world by the cloak of the casino ...

From Double Tap: Cameos, Pelgrane Press, NBA:

The jangling crash of slot machines fills the air. You’re surrounded by mass market elegance, a vast honey trap designed to separate tourists from their money in a thousand little ways. Gorgeous couples saunter past towards the high-stakes tables, and tourists wearing Hawaiian shirts sit at slot machines and mechanically press the buttons to the sound of bells and chimes. Gossip in a dozen languages hangs as thick as the cigarette smoke ...

Particularly in Stakes games, which tend more towards high-octane action than John le Carré-esque multiple layers of deceit, a scenario set in a casino sets expectations. Yes, it could be the kind of Vegas strip let's-all-gawk mass market theatre, with pirate ships gunning down frigates every hour on the hour. Vegas shares that kind of showmanship with Macau, but there are plenty of examples of the opposite approach. Monaco built its reputation on high-end gambling, the kind that wouldn't be caught dead in a Hawaiian shirt. Moreover casino architecture design can be a gorgeous flight of fancy, the kind of thing that excites the senses just by being there - even if the point is to maximize the amount of time the average customer spends in their chair.

People go to casinos to stop being themselves for a while. They want to be successful, risk-takers, the sophisticated elite. Whether they are or not is neither here nor there, but the casino's job is to indulge this fantasy. To cocoon the gambler in a comfortable environment, one in which they feel free to do as they please - and spend money for that privilege. To feel like the big winners they know they are. 

For the purpose of this post I'm going to use the Casino La Seyne of  La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, as an example. My attention was drawn by this blog post by Archute, and further information has been taken from this architectural document by Archdaily. The Archdaily document is particularly useful for Directors, as it includes floorplans. 

Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archute.

La Seyne-sur-Mer has been an industrial, shipbuilding commune; it also built Iraq's nuclear reactors, destroyed by Israel back in 1981. It is part of Toulon, itself a major naval port, home base to the Mediterranean fleet;  La Seyne-sur-Mer is to Toulon's west. 

In recent years La Seyne-sur-Mer became more of a tourist destination, exchanging its shipbuilding docks for hotels and parks - not a million miles away from the changes that turned London's Canary Wharf from a maritime hub to a high-tech commercial hub. It's part of the Riviera, the famous Côte d'Azur, with its brilliant blue ocean. 

According to Archute: Visually it is a wide, relatively low, and geometrically simple building, said to resemble a great, docked ship from certain angles. It is only up close that you notice some of its sleek, glass-walled sides. The casino is also situated beautifully, in between an active marina and a new public park, as well as near a newly opened hotel.

It's relatively small as casinos go, if its Companies page is to be believed. It has less than a hundred staff, and earns less than $10 million revenue per annum. As a very rough comparison, the Hotel Ritz Paris employs over 400 people, while the Société des Bains de Mer of Monaco employs over 4,000 casino staff spread across several different installations - though with COVID those numbers have fluctuated. 

On the other hand it is very new; the build completed in 2016. That implies everything is as modern as can be managed. It also implies there may be snags that can be exploited; there are always problems with new build.

According to Archdaily: The newly completed complex is bordered to the east by a great leisure craft marina and to the west by a recently landscaped public park, at the end of which, just by the old drawbridge, stands a new three star hotel. The casino is thus at the heart of a series of large existing and future installations in the centre of a cultural and commercial hub which will breathe life into the old brick buildings, docks and the marina extension, along a privileged and autonomous beachfront.

                                            Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archdaily.

Image by Javier Callejas, found via Archdaily.

Now we've gone this far, let's talk about some scenario seeds that might use this location.

Data Tap. A hacker team set up a data leak to steal the personal information of the casino's high rollers, and everything was going according to plan - when the guy who was supposed to be extracting the data dropped dead of an overdose. Nobody else on the team knows how to remotely extract the data, and time is a factor, so somebody's going to have to go into the casino and take out the device manually. That means bluffing your way past security, getting into the theatre (seats 500), cracking open the cooling system and taking out the data collection device by hand. Sounds like a job for professionals - but why did that fella drop dead, anyway? Was it really an overdose, or did something else happen to him?

Beautiful Foil. An asset of interest who happens to be very close to a Conspiracy Node bigwig is currently enjoying the casino's hospitality. They particularly enjoy Texas Hold'em, and the casino boasts precisely one Hold'em table. If the agents want to find out more about the Node bigwig they're going to have to talk to the Foil, but that means getting into the Casino and staging a showdown at the poker table. Or perhaps inveigling the Foil to a dinner at one of the Casino's luxury restaurants, or maybe just cocktails at the bar overlooking the marina. Better find some way of neutralizing the Foil's personal security, or Fido's liable to tear the interfering agent a new one.  

Hollow Triumph. A former Cospiracy asset, now a desperate freelancer trying to stay one step ahead of his former comrades, has hit upon the perfect retirement scheme - rob the Conspiracy, which owns the casino, of hundreds of thousands in Euro it has in its vaults. This asset has inveigled his way into the casino as a croupier under a false identity, and is bringing in experienced professionals to help him stage the robbery now he's been able to case the joint. However those professionals don't realize they're being conned; he doesn't want money, he wants revenge. He's staging this robbery the same night his former master - his tormentor - is meant to be visiting the casino aboard her superyacht, docked at the marina next door. The casino vault isn't a vault; it's a vampire safehouse, where Conspiracy bigwigs come to meet face-to-face. He figures his heist buddies are useful scapegoats, and by the time the Conspiracy finishes chasing them down he'll have got what he wanted. [Potential Initiation scene for new characters.]

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Members' Voluntary Liquidation (Night's Black Agents)

You may have seen recent news articles about Gate Ventures, a British entertainment investment company that, its Chinese investors allege, ripped off its shareholders while at the same time making massive loans to celebrity backer Sarah Ferguson, (aka Fergie, aka Duchess of York) and handing out multimillion pound freebies to its former chair, Hong Kong businessman Doctor Johnny Hon. The company's investors put in over £24 million between them; the company now has less than  £5 million left, and can't afford to pay its lawyers, who recently quit. The company's current chair, Lord Grade, is now personally fighting the court case being brought by angry investors. Fergie and the Doctor jumped ship in 2019 and 2017 respectively. 

The Brits among you may remember that this isn't Fergie's first brush with financial unpleasantness. She was stung by a News of the World reporter back in 2010, in a cash-for-access exposé. There was loose talk about bankruptcy at about the same time, but Jeffrey Epstein, (yes, it is he), saved her with a loan. Her husband had an altogether different relationship with Epstein.

Johnny Hon, meanwhile, is doing very well for himself. The motto on his coat of arms, granted in 2018, is Ambition, Perseverance, Success. Apparently you can get that sort of thing from the Lyon Court if you own property in Scotland and are prepared to pay a fee. One wonders if Fergie lent a hand.

You may be wondering what members' voluntary liquidation is. In brief: if you are a company and want to die, you have to be wound-up. It's not unlike the reading of the will in a detective novel, except this time all the weeping relatives are actually weeping creditors. Their grief is none the less real, I'm sure. The assets of the company are then disposed of, in an exercise that can be prolonged or brief, depending on how much the company has in the bank and how angry the weeping creditors are. The longer it lasts the less cash there will be for the members, as whatever the company had left after paying its debts will be spent on admin and legal fees.

In a members' voluntary, all the members - the shareholders - have to agree that the winding-up should take place. In this instance, the shareholders were offered a carrot. They were told that if they agreed, the chair would be able to dispose of what was left of the company at a good price, thus allowing the shareholders to take home more money. If they had agreed, the winding-up process would be much easier.

They did not. One investor in particular, Zheng Youngxiong, aka Quentin, wants to know what happened to all those loans and freebies. His fellow investors, many of whom were sucked in by celebrity-studded investment drives held in Macau, are just as angry.

You have to wonder how Lord Grade thought he'd get away with members voluntary, particularly since the rats leaving the ship ought to have been a clear sign that she was holed beneath the waterline and the pumps were shagged. Or to put it in current terms, when the founders of the company vest their stock options and take long vacations in the fabled land of Anywhere But Here, now is the time to update your CV.

Now, what's in a McGuffin?

Video sourced from Overly Sarcastic Productions, highly recommended for lovers of tropes and history. Sometimes both at the same time.

When Hitchcock was still above ground, McGuffins were often plans - of the fort, the bomb, the experimental aircraft, whatever. The spies want it, so it's important. In the Cold War it made perfect sense that McGuffins were tools of war. In the modern world of fractured loyalties it's all about the dolla, dolla bills, so financial records make perfect McGuffins. They might be Worthless (my God! someone wiped the hard drive!), Tactical or Walking. In this instance someone like Quentin would be the Walking McGuffin, the only living person who really knows where the financial records are buried. It's the agents' job to make sure he lives long enough to testify.

The great thing about a financial scam is that it gives the Director an excuse for having scenes in smoke-filled rooms, casinos, or parking garages, where the agents try to flip an informant. Scenes without gunfights, very Dust plus a hint of Mirror, with looming dread of what might come. After all, if you follow the money, you don't know where it will take you.  

With all that in mind:

Members' Voluntary Liquidation

The agents are hired by a third party to go to Macau and meet with Cindy Cho, a financial expert and professional investor, who according to rumor is the whistleblower in a major scandal that's about to hit the City. Cindy is a significant investor in a gaming, gambling and entertainment mutual fund run by a London-based LLC, Eden Soul. The company's face and CEO is [insert celebrity here - or if playing the Dracula Dossier, insert Legacy], but according to City gossip the CEO's backed by some fairly dangerous characters. The City thinks it's a scam run out of Saudi Arabia to launder money, but the agents may wonder if the Conspiracy's involved.

Eden Soul is on the rocks and wants to wind up its affairs. The CEO's appealing to the shareholders in an attempt to get the company wound up without public fuss. Cindy Cho bought Eden Soul stock specifically so she would have a voice in company business; she represents a bloc of Chinese investors who bought into the mutual fund, since its business is gambling and Macau's a gambling town.  In the process she learned a lot more about Eden Soul than she ever wanted to. She knows where the money went, what it bought, and who benefited. She's making a stink, and if she and her notes ever see the inside of a courtroom it will be bad times for Eden Soul and its CEO, never mind those mysterious backers.

The agents must make sure she does have her day in court. If she doesn't live long enough, they have to get her notes to the press, or the financial regulator.

But, the agents may justly wonder, who is this third party who hired us to get it done?

• The Cushing Protocol. The third party is a well-heeled vampire hunter, possibly backed by the Vatican. The vampire hunter suspects, rightly, that Eden Soul is a machine designed by the Conspiracy to part suckers from their money so it can be spent on Conspiracy projects. The CEO is a hapless pawn, with minimal knowledge of Conspiracy affairs but a healthy regard for their own skin.  
•  The Hellsing Sanction. The third party is a Conspiracy puppet. The Conspiracy wants Cho silenced and the agents are Judas Goats whose purpose is to deliver Cho to them on a silver platter. The CEO is neck-deep in Conspiracy dealings but wants out, and the CEO knows the truth about the third party. The agents might find the CEO is an unexpected ally, if they offer some kind of deal.
•  The Hades Directive. The third party is a wealthy investor who knows nothing about the Conspiracy but thinks that Cho's the real deal, who can help the investor stick it to Eden Soul and its sneaky CEO. The problem with that plan is Cho's actually a plant, designed to draw the third party out into the open. Then the Conspiracy can deal with the pesky investor once and for all.

Finally, the McGuffin: 

•  Cho and her photographic memory. Treat as Civilian with effective 3 point pools in Accountancy and Bureaucracy, no self-defense skills whatsoever, Hit Threshold 3, Health 1. Allergies, you know …
•  Cho's laptop/external hard drive. Of course it's encrypted. The question is, who encrypted it? If it was Chinese Military Intelligence, then it's probably as well protected as any electronic device can be, with extra spicy viruses waiting to snap the trap shut. If Cho did it, the encryption is basic stuff bought from a civilian vendor. If it was the Triads, then chances are good the drive itself is bogus and the McGuffin worthless; the Triads wouldn't leave anything like that hanging around for ordinary people to look at. Or maybe their crypto guy screwed up and wiped the drive when trying to protect it.
•  Cho's notes. She doesn't believe in electronic devices. Those things can be hacked. Besides, she thinks better on paper. Yes, those are coffee stains. Yes, they are heavily annotated in her own personal shorthand. Why yes. they are scattered across several different journals so they can be easily separated and carried off by mischievous thieves, spies, or vampires. Why do you ask? 

Enjoy!

Royal Flush (Night's Black Agents)

Ian Fleming's Casino Royale is his first Bond novel, and sets the scene for everything else. In it, neophyte 00 Bond has to beat the treasurer of a French union at cards. The union boss, Le Chiffre, is thought to be connected to Soviet intelligence, and the idea is to flip Le Chiffre by bankrupting him, then offer to bail him out of his financial troubles. In exchange, Le Chiffre betrays his Soviet masters. The 2006 movie changes this up a bit by making it terrorists, not Soviets, but otherwise the plot remains broadly the same.

This can be adapted to Night's Black Agents, and to do this I'm going to draw on a recent article about princelings. Deutsche Bank had to pay out $16 million in fines, thanks in part to its habit of hiring functionally useless, politically connected princelings from China and Russia. It doesn't matter that these little darlings are "a liability to the reputation of the program, if not the firm." Daddy says, so kiddie gets.

Now imagine what might happen if kiddie works for a Node. Probably a Level 3 at the least; you don't send princelings off to work for a downtown sleazepit. Naturally nobody's going to put this walking disaster in charge of anything important. They get a nice office, a secretary, a high-flying title, and are firewalled out of anything truly important. Except, darn the luck, being both nosy and bored is a bad combination, and the princeling gets hold of … the McGuffin. In this instance the McGuffin is probably data, which means it can be stuffed in the cloud or on a data stick.

The bored princeling then decides to take a vacation, and jets off to, say, Macau, for a nice, relaxing time at the tables.

The agents get wind of this, through unusual channels. Tradecraft or Traffic Analysis notices a sudden uptick in activity from the affected Node, as the powers that be realize what's happened. In a supernatural or similar game, Occult Studies indicate very dark portents gathering around Macau. High Society knows the princeling works for the Node, and also knows where the princeling is now - social media's a very useful tool. Negotiation hears whispers on the grapevine about the McGuffin, and how someone (naming no names) wants to use it to raise capital fast, to cover their debts at the table.

Opening Scene - Bad Feng Shui

The princeling is staying at a high end suite at the Venetian, and if the agents want to get close to the princeling they'll need to find a way in. A high-roller Cover or some form of disguise is needed. Disguising as casino employees may not be an option, unless the agents can convincingly pose as Chinese, or possibly a high-end prostitute. The Venetian doesn't employ that many Western staff, and those who are there all know each other reasonably well, by sight at least. That means disguising as Western staff increases Difficulty for tests by 1.

Failure in this instance doesn't mean the agents are kicked out of the Venetian. It means the agents attract the attention of the Triads, and gain 1 Heat. The Heat gain represents interest from Chinese military intelligence, not the police. The Macau police have very little interest in interfering with anything that happens at the Venetian. They know what's good for them. Agents prepared to spend at least 2 Streetwise can claim prior friendship with the Sun Yee On, which smooths the path, and the Director has the option of granting a Network contact.

The scene opens on the Cotai Water Jet from Hong Kong. The journey is smooth and luxurious. Passengers chatter among themselves, and oo and ahh at the traditional Chinese junks that the TurboJet speeds past - uncomfortably close, enough to set the junks bobbing in the backwash. Streetwise or Tradecraft (0 point) picks out a few obvious bad characters - Triads, grifters, probable low-level Chinese Military Intelligence assets. None of them have Conspiracy links, so far as the agents are aware. Think Casablanca, without the air of desperation.

1 point spend High Society recognizes the mark, or 1 point Streetwise realizes there is a mark but not who he is. The princeling may not realize the danger, but daddy does, and he sent a high-powered Hong Kong lawyer, Grenville Egan, an Australian who's lived and practiced in Hong Kong for more than 40 years. Egan's a criminal defense lawyer, semi retired, brought back into service in a last-ditch attempt to save the princeling's life. Egan doesn't know anything about the Conspiracy or the McGuffin; he knows the McGuffin exists, and it's his job to use it to bargain for the princeling's life. However the Conspiracy isn't having that, so a Hong Kong Node hired (X=N, where N is the number of agents) Triad to whisk Egan off to a quiet hotel room, far from the Venetian, where he'll be kept incommunicado until this mess is done. One Triad has a taser, the others knives. They intend to ambush Egan as he gets off the TurboJet, and hustle him into a waiting limo.

The agents don't have to intervene, but if they do then they get Egan's support for the rest of the scenario.

Treat Egan as a civilian with 3 points Law, 3 points Bureaucracy, 2 points Negotiation. The Triads are thugs, one has a taser, and one is a gym rat with 8 Weapons (cleaver). Overt violence here buys the agents 1 extra Heat; China doesn't like brawls on the doorstep of the Venetian, particularly brawls involving Westerners and high-flying Hong Kong lawyers.

The Rules of the Game

Macau casinos are relatively relaxed. You still have to dress like you belong in the High Roller lounges, but everywhere else is more accepting of casual attire and smoking. The Hong Kong dollar is the only currency accepted on the gaming floor. Drunkenness is frowned on.

Anyone with Streetwise realizes several of the security detail are Triads, as are some of the pit bosses.

The Venetian offers a wide variety of games of chance, from Caribbean stud to fan tan, but the princeling only plays at the high roller baccarat tables.

The princeling has courtiers. A local Triad boss, who operates one of Macau's many tourist concessions, realizes how connected the princeling is, and has made it his business to make sure the princeling isn't bothered by petty nuisances like, say, the agents. At any one time the princeling has at least two Triad bodyguards and seductive/handsome arm candy (civilian, but with 8 Athletics and 10 Hand-to-Hand). The bodyguards stay outside the princeling's door whenever the princeling retires to the luxury suite. Nothing but the best for daddy's little angel.

The Triad boss is from a different group than the ones which ambush Egan. The two groups have no formal contact, so the Triads the Conspiracy hired have no easy way to get this Macau group to lay off.

Ways to Get Close

Use Egan as an intermediary.

Gamble head-to-head with the princeling until the princeling is broke, at which point the princeling will agree to anything.

Persuade the Triad boss whose bodyguards are keeping the princeling safe that the princeling isn't worth protecting. This will require a Streetwise or Network spend.

Cunning plans, eg. slip something into the princeling's drink to make the princeling appear drunk. Rich or not, the casino bosses won't tolerate drunks on the casino floor.

Rope in a powerful third party. This can include supernatural entities; after all, someone's in charge of Macau, and it might not be the Conspiracy.

Where's the McGuffin?

Possible locations include:

In the safe inside the luxury suite.

Hidden in the luxury suite.

On the princeling's person.

Downloaded onto the hotel complimentary smartphone. No, the princeling really isn't bright at all.

Stolen by the seductive/handsome arm candy.

Held by the Triad boss for safekeeping; he doesn't know what it is.

The princeling knows the McGuffin is important, but doesn't know how important. So the princeling will take a little effort to hide it, but isn't clever or determined enough to really take trouble to hide it.

What will the OPFOR Do?

The Conspiracy is mad as hell, and there's no way the princeling's getting out of this alive (unless the agents protect the princeling, that is). However the McGuffin complicates matters. The Conspiracy doesn't want that McGuffin to slip though its cold, dead fingers, so, like the agents, the Conspiracy needs to secure the McGuffin before it can deal with the princeling.

Also, the Conspiracy would rather not cause a major incident in a world-famous tourist destination.

If the Conspiracy has access to abilities like mental attacks or mesmerizing, its first target is the arm candy. The Conspiracy then gets the arm candy to lure the princeling somewhere useful - a late night gondola ride, say, that ends with an unfortunate drowning. Shapeshifting into the eye candy, blood magic to make the princeling sick enough to call the hotel's doctor (calling Doctor Killpatient …) - whatever works. The Conspiracy can afford to be subtle, but it can't hang around in Macau forever, so its primary goal will be to get the McGuffin quickly, kill the princeling, and then get out.

Conspiracy assets on the ground include at least one supernatural assassin of vampire quality or similar, and (X=N) Triad thugs from Hong Kong, one of whom is an expert (6 pool) at Infiltration.  He'll need to be, since the princeling is just vampire-aware enough to put blocks on his hotel door and windows; no turning into mist and sneaking under the door.

If the Conspiracy has no strong Nodes in Hong Kong, the supernatural assassin may be hired help rather than someone directly connected to the Conspiracy. This means the assassin will be more concerned about their own skin than about completion of the mission, so Intimidation or Negotiation has at least a slim chance of success.

The OPFOR knows it must get the McGuffin at all costs, and is willing to let the agents, and even the princeling, live, if it means the McGuffin returns to the Conspiracy.

That's it for this week! Sorry about the missed post last week; I didn't get internet back till Weds, and by that point it seemed sensible to let it slide rather than post late.

Enjoy!

The Kill Team (NBA)

Last year I wrote about the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, and his alleged killers' trials proceed apace. The prosecutors say the two women who claim to have played a prank on the North Korean dictator's half-brother were working as part of a trained kill team, and the prank was just cover for the kill. The women are sticking to their story, and say that when they sprayed Kim Jong-nam with the nerve agent they thought they were taking part in a comedy reality show.

In Night's Black Agents the central conceit is that the agents used to be the vampires' puppets, but they broke free and are now on the run. I don't know of many games that actually play it that way, possibly because while that works for one agent's backstory it begins to look shaky when four or more agents are in play. One escapee is unfortunate, two looks like carelessness, and more than two makes the vampires look less like an all-encompassing threat and more like the Elmer Fudd Conspiracy.

However there is a way to work it that could be very interesting:

The Kill Team

You come to, tired and with an awful thirst. You're in a nondescript hotel room in one of the cheaper hotels in Macau. You're dirty and haven't bathed or shaved in days, but you've no idea why nor any clear memory of the last … how long? It can't have been that long, surely, but according to the news it's been [months, years, whichever the Director prefers]. You don't have any equipment but you do have a suitcase full of cash, mostly Macanese Pataca with a mix of Chinese renminbi, Hong Kong Dollars, Maylay Ringgit and a small amount of US$.

When you switch on the television you're horrified to see your own face looking back at you, as part of a news item about an assassination. [High profile victim] was killed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and according to the media you, and a handful of other people you've never seen before, are part of the kill team. At least one of the assassins died at the airport, preferring to swallow poison rather than get caught.

While you'd swear you've never met any of these people, you know them professionally - highly trained, reliable, and as far as you know they have nothing to do with murder, whether political or otherwise. Which is why you're even more shocked to discover that each surviving member of the alleged kill team is staying at this hotel, on the same floor - the same corridor, even.  

You each have a suitcase, a pill bottle containing God alone knows what, and whatever else a Difficulty 5 Preparedness might get you.

What do you do next?

Director's Notes

The agents start with Heat 4 or 5 depending on the importance of the High Profile Victim. This will go up by 2 if they attempt to spend any of that money, since it's counterfeit. In fact until a few days ago it was the property of the Royal Malaysian Police CID, and it has told Interpol about the theft of the funny money.

The pill bottles contain ordinary aspirin.

There is a Conspiracy agent at the hotel. She arranged for the agents' accommodation and oversaw their arrival. She is the only vampire-influenced person at the hotel, (Renfield? Maybe) but she has ordinary civilians and criminal goons on the payroll.

The scheme was supposed to be simple: get the agents to kill the target in a way guaranteed to attract attention. Have them flee to Macau, and then have them arrested by the Chinese. There was to be a flashy gun battle, and few if any of the agents were supposed to survive. Their lives weren't important. The idea was to make everyone think the Victim was killed by [whichever agency the agents used to work for] thus spreading chaos and furthering the Conspiracy's schemes.

It went wrong because the agents took one day longer than anticipated to get to Macau. They only had enough [compound X, presumably vampire blood but it could be something else] to last a certain amount of time. Once it wore off, their conditioning would break. That extra 24 hours gave the agents time to recover their wits, and it also meant that the agent at the hotel had to make new arrangements with her friend at Public Security. The raid they'd planned couldn't go off at the time they wanted, and now the higher-ups are asking questions, making the operation more delicate. However the plan is still the same: raid the hotel on the pretext of cracking down on pro-democracy dissidents, guns go off, everybody dies.

Unless the agents move quickly that's exactly what will happen.

Possible Avenues of Attack:

The hotel provides cell phones to all its guests, and these phones are linked to the hotel network. A little Digital Intrusion jury-rigging, possibly with some Wire Rat expertise, allows an agent to get into the hotel's email server which lets them see the communications between the vampire front desk agent and her handler.

Human Terrain or Military Science spots the military build-up outside the hotel. They're trying to be as inconspicuous as it is possible to be, bearing in mind they're People's Liberation Army heavy squad. Blowing two points Military Science allows an agent to identify someone on the team that they've worked with before (former colleague, cooperated in a police raid, something else) who they might be able to work with, if they can get to that person without being spotted and blown away. This person only joined the squad today, and was appointed because the higher-ups want someone on the ground they can trust implicitly - further complicating the Conspiracy's plans. The Chinese higher-ups don't think this is about pro-democracy dissidents; they think the PLA agent organizing the raid has been corrupted by Triads and is abusing his authority to carry out Triad reprisals. This does not mean that they'll welcome the agents with open arms; if the Chinese get hold of them they'll likely vanish into some forgotten prison, never to be seen again.

Human Terrain also notices the conspicuous lack of hotel service on the agents' floor. The hotel staff who do show up, if the agents press the issue, clearly aren't trained members of the service industry; they look and behave more like Triad thugs in fancy dress. They're freelancing gangsters paid off by the Conspiracy front desk agent, who are supposed to make sure the agents stay precisely where they are. They are armed, if it comes to a fight.

Incidentally Streetwise knows that these Triads aren't with the gangs who run this particular hotel chain. The Kung Lok have this hotel sewn up, and will not be pleased to learn some rival nobodies are trespassing. A Network spend or clever use of Urban Survival or Streetwise points get the Kung Lok involved, to the detriment of the Conspiracy's goons.

Getting out of Macau is challenging. That's the whole point of dumping the agents there in the first place. Unless they want to cross the border into China - not recommended - they can fly out via the International Airport or take a ferry to Hong Kong. The airport and land border are heavily screened, and with all that Heat the agents will find those routes impossible unless they have Network contacts who can help them. The ferry terminal is probably the least scrutinized exit, but it does leave them on a boat for some time - and who knows what might happen then?

One option for the brave is the Hong Kong-Zuhai-Macau Bridge which was scheduled to open July 1 2018. It's 58 km long with six dual lanes and an undersea tunnel about 6.7 km long. In other words, it's a lengthy, exposed, monitored and flashy way to exit Macau that, depending on when you set the scenario, might not be officially open yet.

One other possible solution would be to steal a boat and sail out discreetly. Again, the best and closest option is Hong Kong, but they might try to strike further afield. Here's hoping they don't end up in North Korea by accident, and style points if they steal a traditional junk rather than some modern sailboat.

Thrilling Options:

Discreet foot chase involving Surveillance, Athletics or similar. Possibly involving both the Triads and the PLA.

Steal a taxi and race across the crowded streets of Macau. Style points if the agents steal a three-wheel pedicab, but if they do that they'll likely be caught. On the other hand, it's what Roger Moore would do.

Gun battle inside the hotel. The PLA have the agents severely outmatched, so they'll need to make it a running gun battle with some escape objective in mind - out the kitchens, via the roof, something else?

Macau's a gambler's paradise, so if the agents want to discreetly switch out their dodgy cash for clean currency one way to do that would be to hit the tables. Of course, they'll need to think of a way to dodge their PLA and Triad shadows first.

Heat: 

The agents really did kill that High Profile Victim so their Heat is about as bad as it can get. Their old agencies won't trust them and criminal fraternities will be very cautious in their dealings with them - they don't want the trouble that getting involved in assassinations will bring down on them.

The first order of business - survival.

The second order - how did they get involved in this, and can their names be cleared?

Enjoy!

The Luck Ambassador (RPG Scenario Seed, Macau)

I haven't had two seconds to think about it, so the Benson / One-to-One bit will have to wait. Another idea presents itself. A while ago I discussed Halloween, and mentioned in passing the Chinese festival of the dead. This week I want to delve into that in more depth, with a scenario seed.

According to Funk & Wagnalls Standard Folklore Dictionary, the Seventh [moon], the Moon of Hungry Ghosts, is the Autumn moon. The festival ... lasts from the 15th to the 30th of the month. On this day food is prepared for the ghosts who have no descendants to care for them, and therefore are always hungry. Lotus-flower lamps are carried through the streets, or at dusk candles are stuck into tiny boats and floated down the streams.

There's the key: these ghosts don't have anyone to look after them. There are other festivals - the Tenth Moon also has a festival of the dead - but those ghosts are well cared for. Because hungry ghosts lack descendants, or have descendants who don't care about them, they never receive offerings, and are always starving, so when the gates of Hell gape wide in the Seventh month there's a real risk of harm - unless those ghosts are propitiated.

The festival has Bhuddist overtones, but at its core it is Chinese. Many hungry ghost stories arise because of mistreatment, either of the living or the dead. So, for example, when a rich man who has to leave on business instructs his wife to feed a hungry monk, and that wife instead withholds the food or punishes the monk, she becomes a hungry ghost when she dies.

These ghosts can, if not taken care of, cause bad luck, or attach themselves to people who are not their descendants. That's why people offer so many bribes, of food or other things - they don't want ghosts hitching along for the ride. Similarly during a live performance, say of opera - and there are many performances during the festival - the first row of seats is traditionally left unoccupied, so the ghosts can have them. The boats and lotus lamps are to help the ghosts find their way home again at the end of the festival. The ghosts are said to have found their way back to Hell when the lamps go out, and the boats carry them home.

The most common image is that of a ghost with a sack for a belly and a needle-thin neck. The belly signifies constant hunger; the needle neck, how difficult - impossible, even - it is for the ghost to find and eat food. Generally speaking there are three types of hungry ghost: those with no money, those with a little, and those with great wealth. The ones with great wealth are the rulers of ghosts, who live off of things lost or forgotten; the ones with little or no wealth are scavengers, sometimes with mouths so decayed that they can no longer eat, but yet are driven by insatiable need. Naturally there are far more of the latter than there are of the former.

From there I'm going to pivot to a podcast: Adam Ruins Everything with Professor Natasha Dow Schull. It's about gambling, and how casinos use slot machines to encourage gambling addicts. I can't call myself a huge fan of Adam - I don't watch the show and I only occasionally listen to the podcasts - but I'm always intrigued by his argument.

In that podcast, Professor Schull points out that slot machines, particularly cloud-based machines, can be rigged and re-rigged pretty much at the casino's whim, adjusting odds and changing the game on the fly to suit the intended audience. The main protection against this, in the States at least, relies on a law that prohibits the changing of a game's odds while the game is being played.

Of course, Macau doesn't have to play by those rules. It can switch up whatever it likes whenever it likes, and it has plenty of slot machines. Which is where the Luck Ambassador comes in. This Ambassador is employed by the casino to help a player out, which in turn encourages the player to stay. Helping can involve any of a number of different bennies, and although human helpers have been used in the past, with a virtual game system like a cloud-based slot machine, the Ambassador can be completely subsumed in the game's subroutines.

So here you have a slot machine that knows exactly who you are. It's tracked you from the moment you checked in at the hotel, and can continue to track you via the courtesy smartphone that the hotel gave you, or through your guest card, or any number of different ways. It can switch up the odds as it sees fit, to keep you playing. It can judge your tolerance for loss, and keep you pumped up for as long as your money holds out.

Now imagine if that machine was haunted - say, by hungry ghosts.

With that in mind, here are three options:

1) A Ghost King has taken over the casino. It sends its lesser minions from slot to slot, gobbling up cash which the King uses to fund its ever-lavish lifestyle. The trouble is, in its overwhelming greed it has overextended itself, and is causing player deaths in its helter-skelter attempt to keep the money flowing. The casino hires a Tao master to bring things to a head, and this master - actually more of an acolyte with excellent PR - brings the characters on board. As helpers. Or cannon fodder ...

2) A Conspiracy asset has taken over this Macau casino, and is slaving hungry ghosts to its slot machines in order to keep the money flowing. Unfortunately for the Conspiracy asset, the people it hired to keep the ghosts in line aren't as necromantically skilled as they pretend to be. Ghosts are escaping into the wider world, and that can only attract the wrong sort of attention.

3) For a Fear Itself vibe, imagine a slot machine that knows you - that can follow you around. It can migrate from console to console; after all, it's in the cloud, not in the circuitboard. You see it in one casino, then another. You might try to leave the casino, do something else, but now it's on every device you see or touch. What's more, there's a face floating behind the game - a broken face, with a needle-thin neck, and it wants everything you have.

To Whom It May Concern (Night's Black Agents)

Once more we venture into the uncharted waters of short scenario design, this time for Night's Black Agents.

I run a movie night, and this month has been Roger Moore/Adam West/Martin Landau, in honor of the fallen. Last night was The Man With The Golden Gun, and I'd forgotten that parts of it are based in Macau, for which I've already prepared some background material. You should refer to that material when using this scenario.

The title comes from Queen And Country, by Greck Rucka. The line is Tara Chace's, in her first appearance, and she says:

It's not the bullet that has your name on it you have to worry about .. it's all those other ones ... marked 'to whom it may concern.'

Shortly after speaking that line, Tara is shot.

Usually I try to keep these to 2,500 words or less, but this time I exceeded the remit by a hundred forty seven words. Final count: 2,647.

**

Director's summary:

• A Conspiracy asset hires the agents through a cut-out, tasking them with retrieval of some very special bullets.
• The rounds were manufactured in the 1980s by a Portuguese craftsman living in Macau, for a vampire hunter. The hunter is long dead, as is the craftsman.
• The craftsman's nephew inherited everything, but as most of it was useless to him he kept it stored away, until now.
• Another vampire hunter, seeking the bullets, went to the nephew and made a generous offer, but all that did was alert the nephew to the possibility that he was sitting on a gold mine.
• The nephew has been asking around, to see if anyone else is willing to offer him more than the vampire hunter. That's how the conspiracy learned that the bullets still exist; until now, they thought them gone, along with the original vampire hunter.
• In addition to the vampire hunter and the Conspiracy, a would-be conspiracy Node, local Triad gangsters, has decided to muscle in, thinking to impress the Conspiracy by obtaining the bullets. 

Meeting the Buyer

Contact is made via Macau fixer Jorge Nolasco, an ethnic Chinese with Portuguese ancestry. [Physical: sallow, always wears high-end suits, dislikes physical contact. Treat as Mafioso without Thugs.] The meet is held in a private cocktail room at China Rouge, an expensive member's club that lets in non-members so long as they look the part. No flip-flops or T-shirts. Décor: 1920s Shanghai, with deep reds, lattice screens, and innumerable depictions of the naked female form. A mural by Chinese-Kiwi artist Deng Xinli dominates one wall.  

Nolasco explains that the seller, Kim Sun Chan, is being greedy. Nolasco would cheerfully pay for the custom made bullets, but the price asked is far too high. He wants the agents to acquire the rounds for him, and is willing to pay the retainer he would have given Kim, had Kim not decided to get greedy. That retainer is US$60K, which seems over the asking price for 1,000 rounds of ammunition, but Kim is demanding more than US$100K, an outrageous sum. Nolasco's willing to pay half up front, half on delivery. The agents have carte blanche, but Nolasco says he won't intervene if they get arrested for any crime more serious than assault. He can help them avoid minor peccadillos.

Find out more - 

• about Nolasco. High Society, Tradecraft, Criminology. Nolasco is a 'club promoter,' which means he arranges junkets for Chinese businessmen and government officials from the mainland. He almost certainly has Triad connections or he wouldn't be in that line of work, but his Portuguese ancestry may mean he's no more than a Blue Lantern, or uninitiated member. He's suspected of having links with China's Ministry of State Security, but again his Portuguese ancestry and his Macanese nationality probably mean he's an informant, not an agent.
• about Kim Sun Chan. Gambling as an Investigative ability, Tradecraft, Criminology. Kim is a notorious gambler with ambition far beyond his talent. He's nothing special himself, but his uncle, Lazar, was a respected gunsmith who supplied some of the most famous names in the business, back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. However it's difficult to imagine even his best work being worth US$100 per round. Kim has very low-level connections with the local Triads, particularly the 14K, but that's because he owes them money.

Shaking Hands
Lead-in: Meeting the Buyer
Lead-out: The Game of Death, Death of an Industry

At some point the agents will want to contact or surveil Kim. [Physical: cheap suits, usually with something red, like a jacket or tie; elaborate sleeve tattoo probably intended to make people think he's with the Triads; gold tooth that winks when he smiles. Thug.]

If contact, he only agrees to meet in a public place, where there's lots of people. He's brash and demands the full $100K, no excuses. He says he knows what he's got, and if he doesn't get what he wants he'll sell it to the CIA. [Director: no he won't, but he thinks he'll get a better deal if he bluffs. Nolasco will be very unhappy if anyone tells him about the CIA threat.]

Clues: Bullshit Detector, Flattery, Flirting: he lets slip that there's another buyer, Emily Cho, who's got CIA connections. Cho, according to him, is more than willing to meet his price. Clues that lead elsewhere: Urban Survival, Criminology. Kim is being tailed by [N=P] thugs, and these really are Triad, 14K judging by the tattoos. Kim is either unaware or too arrogant to care.

Find out more - 

• about Emily Cho. Tradecraft, Vampirology. [Physical: athlete with former Olympic ambitions, fencer, scar on left hand, thousand yard stare. Asset Handler.] Former CIA stringer who went rogue after a disastrous operation in Turkey. The Americans would very much like to bring her in for extensive questioning, probably at a black or grey site like Diego Garcia. Potential links with Russian intelligence. Vampirology knows she went off-grid when two of her assets were taken out by the Conspiracy, and she evened the score by taking out one of theirs. Director: she's why Kim thinks he can sell to the CIA. He doesn't know she's no longer with the agency.

If surveil, Kim lives in a relatively modest single room near the Hong Kong Express ferry terminal, where rents are around the HK$4 to 5K mark and luxuries like private bathrooms cost extra. Difficulty 5 to surveil; a Difficulty 4 check still succeeds, but does not notice the 14K Triad thugs following Kim. Kim has a mundane routine - eat, sleep, gamble - but he detours to the floating Casino Macau Palace, currently anchored in the Inner Harbor.

The Palace is a former boat-based casino, now derelict, and its ownership is obscure. Bureaucracy, Criminology or Accounting traces it to a notoriously violent 14K Triad boss, Broken Tooth Koi, who was jailed in 1999 on extortion charges. The Macau Palace went bust at about the same time. Broken Tooth has since been released from prison, but no longer has his former influence or ambition.

Kim knows all this because, back in the day, he worked for Broken Tooth as a Triad Blue Lantern; he never made it as far as a 49 foot soldier. Kim figures if nobody's looking after the old Palace it's as good a place as any to stash the loot, but he can't stop himself from checking on it regularly. Difficulty 4 Conceal, or a Notice spend, finds the stash, hidden in an old secret safe in what was a manager's office. However if the agents make this search and did not notice the Triad thugs following Kim, then the Triads attack the agents.

• Triad 49s [N=P] use Thug stats, half are gym rats, and all of them use machetes (+0 damage). These are in the pay of Shrimp Boy Lai, an ambitious Triad who wants to make a name for himself, like the old days when men of power like Broken Tooth could chop people with impunity. He can't, because these days China would come down hard on anyone foolish enough to try. Shrimp Boy sees the Conspiracy as his way out; with the Conspiracy backing his play, he could do as he likes. Shrimp Boy may or may not know about the true nature of the Conspiracy, and in any case he's not very bright. Treat Shrimp Boy as a Mafioso with the gym rat and triggerman bonuses normally applicable to Thugs.

Casino Macau Palace: treat as a combination of Casino and Derelict Factory, not unlike a James Bond set allowed to go to seed. There aren't as many homeless people living aboard her as might be expected - they know that Broken Tooth still owns her, and they don't want to get on the wrong side of the 14K.

The Game of Death

Lead-in: Shaking Hands

Lead-out: Death of an Industry, Spooky, Payout

The agents may learn of Emily Cho through Kim, in which case they might get the drop on her. If they don't, then she learns about them from Kim, and gets the drop on them.

If the former, Traffic Analysis plus Tradecraft (studying the arrivals and departures list by air and ferry) or a Network contact allows them to track Emily from her arrival in Macau, two days prior, under the workname Mary Chow, an identity that, unknown to Emily, has already been exposed by her former CIA paymasters, so she's now on watch lists. She's staying at the Venetian Macao Hotel, (Difficulty 4 Infiltration), and when not on other business spends much of her time at its V Gym fitness center, with views of the Cotai Strip. Searching her hotel room finds a laptop (encrypted, CIA issue, stolen - the CIA would like it back) with some information about the failed Turkey op. Effective 1 point pool Vampirology, and Emily doesn't use it or connect it to the internet because she knows, if she does, the Agency will track her. She keeps it because it's evidence, and she's hoping against hope to clear her name one day.

If the latter, Emily assumes the agents are part of the Conspiracy. She's incredibly paranoid, not without cause. She uses Tradecraft to set up a safe house - short term rental, cheap one bedroom apartment, toilet optional - and pays some local prostitutes (Civilians, effective 2 point pool Flirting) to act as decoys while she slips an agent a sedative, either in a drink or injected. Onset 2 rounds, Difficulty 7 Health, success = Shaken, failure = incapacitation 1 to 6 hours. The incapacitated agent is taken to the safe house for interrogation, and since Emily thinks the agent is a Renfield or worse, she will not be gentle. However she will use techniques best suited against vampires or Renfields, so Vampirology will allow agents to convince her they really aren't undead or undead sympathizers. That goes a long way to earning her trust, but even so Tradecraft, Reassurance or Bullshit Detector (reading her for tells, the better to create an artistic lie) spends will be needed to win her over. These spends cannot be made unless the Vampirology hurdle is leapt first. Since Emily's working solo, a group of agents can overpower her, but she's no pushover.

• Emily Cho, Asset Handler. Base Asset Handler package, substituting Disguise for Shrink, plus 8 points Athletics, Weapons, 4 points Hand-to-Hand, Shooting. Effective 2 point pool Vampirology. Those using Vampirology to see if she's ever had dealings with them notice scarring indicative of vampire attack.

Escape: if the agents don't flip Cho and ally with her, or the other agents mount a rescue, then the cops show as she's attracted too much Heat. As soon as they do, Cho makes a run for it. This can turn into a Thrilling Chase, with everyone on foot, through the packed streets of Macau. 

Death of an Industry

Lead-in: Shaking Hands, The Game of Death

Lead-out: Spooky, Payout

The agents may be distracted by Shrimp Boy Lai and his 14K thugs.

Shrimp Boy pretends to have status, but he's no higher than a 49 - a footsoldier, the lowest rank on the scale, just above the non-initiate Blue Lanterns. When he got into the game Macau still had a fishing industry, and as he's from a fishing family he used his connections on the docks to move heroin and narcotics from Macau to mainland China. However Macau's fishing industry is in ruins thanks to industrial pollution, and its last shipbuilding company went bankrupt in 2005. Now the Coalone docks are eerily vacant, and Shrimp Boy scratches out a living as an extortionist and low-grade pimp.

All the more reason to try his luck with the Conspiracy, but his attempt to ingratiate himself by snatching the bullets has only annoyed the local Node, which already has a plan in place and doesn't like the Heat Shrimp Boy's drawing down.

The agents may use Criminology, Cop Talk, Urban Survival or Electronic Surveillance to track Shrimp Boy to the Coalone docks, but if they do then they discover that the Conspiracy got to Shrimp Boy first.

Shrimp Boy and his team have been bloodily wiped out. The abandoned shipbuilder's warehouse (treat as Industrial but for making traditional wooden junks, so less mechanical and more hand tools) where they had their base is awash with blood. Just being in that warehouse gets the agents 1 Heat.

If Emily Cho has not already been dealt with then she got here first, and can be found on-site. The agents might leap to the erroneous conclusion that she took out all these thugs herself. If confronted, she runs; Thrilling foot chase, and thanks to her Athletics she can use Parkour. Forensic Pathology, Notice or similar spots that Emily couldn't have done this, as she hasn't the strength. Nobody human has the strength to rip arms from sockets, or break a neck so that the head faces backwards. Cho only came here to find out why Shrimp Boy was so interested in the rounds, and whether he and his team were Conspiracy assets. When she found them dead, she started investigating, to see if vampires were involved.  

• Heat: if ever there was a moment for the cops to show, this is that moment. (N=P-1) armed police show up if the agents blow a Heat check, having been tipped by the Conspiracy Node that Triads have been fighting. The Conspiracy didn't intend for its own catspaws to get caught at the murder scene, but such is life.

Spooky

Lead-in: The Game of Death, Death of an Industry

Lead-out: Payout

The agents, once they realize Emily Cho has a CIA connection, may try to turn Cho over to the CIA or an intelligence agency. China's Ministry of State Security would be most interested in a former CIA agent and her encrypted CIA issue laptop.

They can reach out through Network to get this done, and if they do then the agency responds requesting a meet at the Venetian, on the walkway next to its fake canal and gondola.

The agent is only interested in facts, not stories, and couldn't care less about custom ammunition sales. The agent just wants to bring Cho in.

• Intelligence Agent: base Investigator, with two Bodyguard types close by.

If the agents reveal Emily's location, or hand her over themselves, they can reduce Heat by 2. If, however, they try to feed the agent a load of nonsense or disinformation, Heat increases by 2.

If attacked, the agent will immediately withdraw.

Payout

Lead-in: Spooky, Death of an Industry, The Game of Death

Endgame

If the agents successfully retrieve the ammunition from Kim and hand it over to Nolasco, they get paid. The Conspiracy will take the ammunition and destroy it. The agents will be marked down on the Conspiracy's books as useful people to do business with.

If the agents do not do this, or if they attempt some kind of double-cross, then the Conspiracy cuts its ties and tries to drown the agents in Heat. Nolasco, Emily Cho, Shrimp Boy or the Intelligence Agent from Spooky wind up publicly dead, and in such a way that the agents are implicated in the killing. Heat increases by 3, and security increases significantly at the ferry terminal and airport - the only viable ways out of Macau, short of crossing over into mainland China and going for a long walk. A Renfield will lead the security team sent to bring the agents in. If captured the agents will end up in a Chinese prison, but the Renfield's orders are to ensure the agents die, preferably shot while trying to escape. 

• Custom ammunition: exact details up to the Director, but the vampires consider this especially dangerous. Design with your campaign's vampires in mind. Given its unique makeup, forgery is not possible, particularly not with the agents' limited means.

Quick and Dirty: Macau (Night's Black Agents)

I enjoyed the Kabul piece, so I thought I'd return to the theme and talk about a city that has fascinated me for years: Macau.

Macau (also Macao)

The first European settlement in the Far East, former Portuguese colony Macau has been an autonomous territory under China's one territory, two systems policy since 20 December 1999.

Macau is famous - or possibly notorious - as a gambler's paradise. Over 40% of its GDP comes from casinos and games of chance, and close to 70% of government tax revenue. Macau is the preeminent gambling center in the world, with its 33 casinos bringing in somewhere near $30 billion annually. Vegas, by contrast, earns closer to $10 billion annually from over 120 casinos.

Its gaming history goes back to the 1850s, when the Portuguese legalized gambling. Macau's colonial masters needed a source of revenue; its preeminence as a trading port had declined considerably since the Portuguese took over in the 1500s. Chinese gamers flocked to Macau's fantan houses, but Macau's popularity as a gaming destination didn't really take off until the 1960s when the government, always a little leery of gambling and the crime that went with it, finally embraced gaming as a source of revenue and began promoting Macau as the Monte Carlo of the East.

In the 1960s casinos were operated by a monopoly, the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM), not unlike Monte Carlo's Societe des bains de mer de Monaco. However unlike Monaco's state-owned Societe, the STDM is owned by one family headed by Stanley Ho, or Ho Hung Sen, the 95-year-old King of Gambling. Stanley, with his financial backers Henry Fok and gambler Yip Hon, bid for Macau franchises when they were put out to public tender, and won the bid for Macau's gambling monopoly for a little under half a million dollars. Stanley Ho parlayed his stake into political power, and had an important role in the handover negotiations in the 1990s. It has also been alleged that he has links with the Kung Lok (Mutual Happiness) Triad.

In 2002 this monopoly system was broken up and Macau's casinos are now run by a handful of concession and subconcession syndicates, though the STDM still has 16 casinos of its own. Stanley Ho has made few public appearances since a fall at his home in 2009, and has fallen out with members of his family over business concerns.

In recent years Macau's economy, though still booming, hasn't been as robust as formerly. In part this is due to changes in China. Chinese anti-corruption laws are having an effect, but the larger issue is a change in tourism. Previously Macau was the preeminent destination for Chinese tourists, but with the expanding Chinese economy people have more options, and travel world-wide. This hasn't broken Macau by any means, but its gambling revenue has flattened since 2014, and the government has said it is looking for other sources of revenue.

Image sourced from Wikipedia under Creative Commons.

Macau is 60 kilometers southwest of Hong Kong. It has 41 km of coastline, and a vanishingly small land border with mainland China. It consists of the Macau Peninsula, the islands of Taipa and Coloane, and the recently constructed landfill Cotai that connects the islands.

The entirety of Macau is only 30 sq km.

There are eight parishes in total, and a significant portion of Macau's land mass is reclaimed from the ocean. The northernmost parish Nossa Senhora de Fatima, for example, which borders the Chinese city of Zuhai to the north, is made of land reclaimed in the 1960s and 70s. The Cotai Strip, where many of Macau's casinos are located, is reclaimed, as is Santo Antonio on the western portion of the peninsula.

Local currency is the MOP or Macanese pataca, but Chinese renmibi and the Hong Kong dollar is accepted everywhere.

Population

Just shy of 600,000 people, or about the size of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The median age is 39, and over 50% of the population is between the age of 25 and 50. Unemployment is very low, at about 5% for those between 15 to 24 years old, and in addition the government pays a subsidy to its citizens, amounting to a little over a month's minimum wage income. Literacy is over 95%.

The official languages are Portuguese and Chinese; only a little over 2% of the population speak English. Cantonese is by far the most wide spread language, but there's a good sampling of all the Chinese dialects as well as other regional languages such as the Philippines dialect Tagalog.  Portuguese is spoken by less than 1% of the population.

Formerly Catholic during Portuguese rule, and boasting the first Western Christian school in the far east, Macau is majority Buddhist.

Conflict

As a special administrative region Macau is overshadowed by China, but the relationship is complex.

Traditionally Macau has been a hub; goods, services and people flow to and from China via Macau. Today what this means is Macau supplies opiates, amphetamines and other narcotics to China, while at the same time stripping Chinese tourists of their cash at the casinos. Meanwhile poor Chinese flee the mainland via Macau, and often find themselves stuck in dead-end jobs cleaning, cooking and otherwise serving the rich who flock to Macau.

About a third of the population are migrants, and close to 10% live in poverty. The working poor find it all but impossible to live in modern, hyper-expensive Macau, and many have chosen to relocate to the mainland and commute to work. This leads to an odd situation where Macau natives have to move to China for economic reasons, while China's poor move to Macau, also for economic reasons.

In China, gambling is illegal. While Macau is tolerated, China sometimes lashes out. China believes gambling leads to or facilitates government corruption, particularly by local government officials who ought not to have the kind of cash Macau demands. Clearly they could only afford their gambling habits thanks to bribes or embezzlement.

These crackdowns cause a serious problem for Macau's economy, which is one of the reasons why Macau's government is traditionally very pro-Beijing. Macau is often thought of as China's filial child, while Hong Kong is considered more rebellious and wayward. Macau believes the best defense is to cause no offence.

Where Monaco, which relies on France for its external security, still has several hundred troops and police, Macau, which relies on China, has no troops of its own. It does have a police force, the Public Security Police, armed with Smith & Wesson Model 10 handguns, shotguns, MP5s and gas launchers.

China has an armed presence in Macau, the People's Liberation Army Macau Garrison, a little under 2,000 strong, about 600 of which are actually in Macau while the rest are just across the border in Zuhai. Its main base in Macau is on the Cotai Strip, among all the glittering casinos. Its soldiers tend to keep a low profile, and wear civilian clothes when off-base.

This may be part of the reason why, unlike Hong Kong, there is almost no pro-Democracy or independence movement in Macau.

Because Macau enjoys a unique relationship with China, foreign intelligence services have used it as a base point for operations. Bejing has long suspected that agencies like the CIA use US-owned casinos to tempt wealthy Chinese into foolish behavior, which the CIA then uses to blackmail them.

Triad crime is a significant concern. However as a result of the breakup of the casino monopoly, allowing foreign interests to invest in Macau, triads in the present day tend to work more cooperatively together and to spread their influence beyond Macau's borders, to China in particular. This requires diplomatic skills the triads never needed before. In the past, competition was dealt with directly. Now, in order to avoid anti-corruption purges and official displeasure, the triads adopt a softly-softly approach.

Beijing's concern about Macau corruption is not misplaced:

According to a member of the 14K Triad also interviewed for the study, most VIP-room contractors 'are triads or businessmen with a triad background ... The casino management would select the most powerful triads, based on a couple of factors including money, triad, reputation and ability to mobilize manpower.' ... VIP rooms are described in the study as 'bank-like' business enterprises. A junket must provide hotels, transport, loans and sex services. High rollers are expected to spend at least HK$500,000 per trip in a room.

That half-million dollars has to come from somewhere; bribes and embezzlement's probably the least of it.

Triads are also involved in casino security. In 2010 four men were arrested on conspiracy to commit bodily harm charges and a fifth on murder charges, as part of a retributive strike on a Macau casino employee suspected of cheating. Initially the men were supposed to break his arms and legs but, when the order came down to kill the dealer instead, one of the thugs balked and talked to the cops.

It turned out that the one who ordered the hit was a Wo Hop To triad boss, the person in charge of the casino's VIP rooms. Not only that, his company Jumbo Boom owned the junket concession; he got his both from those booking the holidays, and later from their expenditure while at the casino.

Most VIP gambling in Macau is leveraged, Reuters points out. Gamblers usually bet more than their cash on hand. This is particularly true of mainland Chinese high-rollers who, because of Beijing's strict capital  controls, aer limited to carrying the equivalent of US$5,000 in renminbi per trip when they leave China. Macau's six publicly listed casino operators lend to only a small minority of their patrons, according to company filings. This is because collection of gambling debt is illegal in China and Macau forbids casinos from writing off their bad or uncollectable debts.

Which begs the obvious question: if you can't legally collect on gambling debts in China, who do you turn to when a debtor in China refuses to pay?

This has proved a problem for US casino owners who can't or won't do business the Macau way. Either they get in bed with the triads - the only people who can collect on debts - or they don't do business at all.

Backdrops

Hac Sa Beach in Coalone, a black sand or volcanic beach. Due to erosion the government has shored up the beach with yellow sand. This is the largest natural beach in Macau, and is part of Hac Sa Bay Park. The Park includes a large barbecue area, mini golf, tennis courts, basketball and baseball fields, and there are many fast food stands if you don't care to make your own BBQ. The Beach is a popular spot for young lovers.

Mong-Ha Fort, built in the mid-19th Century to defend against Chinese attack after the First Opium War. The Fort was deactivated in the 1960s when the Portuguese military moved out, and this hilly area has since become one of Macau's green lungs. It's a public space with good views of Macau, though there isn't much left of the fort itself, and there are several walking trails. Mong Ha Hill also is home to the Lin Fung Temple, a restaurant and an art gallery.

Altira Macau Casino, formerly known as Crown Macau, opened in 2007 and boasts 216 guest rooms in its 38 floor complex. It's one of the tallest buildings in Macau, owned by a joint partnership between Hong Kong's Melco International and Australia's Crown Limited. There are 220 gaming tables, over 500 slot machines, a spa, fitness center, indoor pool, and seven different restaurants and bars. Its Yi Pavilion 5 star dining area overlooks all of Macau, and has only one table, seating up to 15. Rooms start at HK$1,500, or just a touch over US$192/night. Its website mentions its casino in the most tactful way possible, without even a picture of the gaming tables. 'Unlock a dazzling world of privileges! ... Terms and conditions apply. Participants must be 21 years or above. Gamble responsibly.' 

Three Hooks

The CIA has lost an asset. China, in another of its reprisals, arrested a half-dozen Western employees working in mainland China as publicists/junket bookers for a Macau casino, alleging that they are part of a criminal syndicate. However one of them is actually a CIA asset, though it's not clear whether the Chinese have figured this out yet. The CIA can't afford to make the snatch; if the agents do it, they can name their own price. What nobody's yet realized is that the whole thing's the brainchild of a Chinese government official who doesn't want to pay his gambling debts, and has engineered this crisis to bully the casino into backing off.

One of the People's Liberation Army non-coms enjoys a modest fortune acting as a broker for mid-ranking Chinese officials. He can arrange for pretty much anything, up to and including money laundering and lending at modest rates. As he's PLA the officials feel comfortable dealing with him, but in the grand scheme of things he's a bit player in a much larger, Triad dominated drama. Now he's provoked some very serious people, and wants out of Macau. He's willing to trade his contact list for safe passage - and he knows some very interesting people.

A would-be God of Gamblers has come from mainland China to strike it lucky. He wears red underwear, yells Deng! (eight, lucky numerology) at every turn of the card, and obeys all of the folklore rules except one: he deliberately cultivates bad feng shui. This is because he's actually a necromantic corpse, revived by a Jin-Gui who can't resist Macau's tables but who dares not come down to play in person. The Jin-Gui stays in the gambler's room; he says 'she's' his hot date, but you can't have sex before you play - it would drain the luck right out of him. The Jin-Gui controls the corpse telepathically and gets its thrills second-hand, but if anyone gets a good look at its dead pawn in an octagonal mirror, the truth will be revealed.

Thrilling Elements

These are unique to Macau:

• Street vendors serving up Macau's signature chee par pau, or pork bun; hungry customers cluster, and the delicious smells tempt the most jaded palate.
• Taipa, formerly a fishing village, now a laid-back tangle of shops and restaurants. Easy to get lost in its maze of streets.
• A flock of scooters breeze past, narrowly missing someone's expensive limo.
• Tourists cluster round the ruins of St Paul in the historical district, snapping photos.
• Glittering casinos with all the fakery and glamor you'd expect of a high profile resort, from Vegas-style Venetian mashups to T-Rex displays.
• Security guards on call at all times, ensuring that the gaming rooms are kept private; only guests of the hotel and gamblers allowed in.
• The Macau-Hong Kong Turbo Jet ferry shooting back and forth from the two former colonies, packed with tourists and workers.
• Night scene with neon signs and lights aplenty, dazzling the eye and screaming for attention: shop here, gamble here, come here and spend!
• Street signs on every corner, in both Chinese and Portuguese.
• Yet another extravagant fireworks display or huge event at one or more of the casinos.
• Police on an anti-subversion raid forcibly clear out a house or business, hauling away the occupants for vigorous interrogation.
• Hotel staff fawn over a visiting Chinese high-roller.
• Long queues, everywhere, for everything. Crowds everywhere, particularly on weekends and holidays.

Enjoy!