I'm off for the next two weeks. Should be the last time this year, thank heaven.
This is going to be a brief one, inspired by the recent case of an alleged Saudi spy caught bugging a Silicon Valley AI firm.
Short version: MIT grad and new dad Abdulrahman Alfozan was caught trying to retrieve/replace a small bugging device he'd placed in a conference room at OpenAI, the firm that created ChatGPT.
There's a picture floating around that's too good not to share, posted by Justice:
That's Alfozan, caught trying to retrieve the device from the TV USB port it had been placed in.
The alleged spy used his wife's Chat GPT account to get the instructions to build the surveillance device. The presumption is he intended to hand over whatever data he collected to the Saudi government, though at time of writing none of this has been proved.
Honestly, if true, it makes you wonder just how stupid the average MIT grad is.
Let's gamify this.
In Dracula Dossier there are several Edom establishments that might be espionage targets. Ring, Seward's Asylum, potentially Proserpine. That's before you consider that there might be outside British tech firms working with Edom, and any number of university science departments.
The Saudis are nominal allies of the US, though they may not be feeling so friendly at the moment. Israel is a nominal ally of the UK and has already, thorough Prince, established connections to Edom.
From this:
In Plain Sight
Edom has cause to believe that someone has planted a bug at one of its establishments (pick the one you like best) and sets up a sting operation to catch the spy. Your agents are either tasked with running this sting (if Edom) or with extracting the alleged spy (if working against Edom).
The spy is an Israeli, Aviel Malka, who was recently brought on board by Prince. The idea was that Malka would conduct research on the potential uses of AI clients in Edom. The unofficial presumption was that Malka, like Prince, had links to Unit 8200, though this was never confirmed. Malka is young, married, and his assignment is due to come to a close within a month. He'd return home once the assignment completed.
The surveillance device is a small electronic bug inserted into a USB port in one of the many, many bits of tech scattered about Edom's establishment. Edom already knows where and what it is. Steps have been taken to disable it, so the spy will return to retrieve it.
What nobody realizes is that Malka used his wife's AI client to design the device, and he did that because his wife is Renfielded and is secretly running the show for the Conspiracy. It's the Conspiracy using the Malka family for its own ends; the agents, if working against Edom, think that they're operating on behalf of a more-or-less benign third party; the Mysterious Monseigneur, say.
Potential Thrilling Chase; potential Thrilling Digital Intrusion.
The bigger question, if the agents are Edom, is did Prince know about this? Is Prince working secretly for Israel? Or is this an attempt to blacken Prince's name by whoever's running Malka?
In Cthulhu style games, no matter the system, there's nearly always an element of investigation. The protagonists are trying to find out who did what to whom and why. Broadly speaking, they act as police (unless, of course, they are the police). They have the same objectives and work towards the same end result.
Then they conduct initial investigations of the scene.
They interview witnesses.
They collect evidence for further study.
Let's say we're dealing with an event at an occult bookstore, and for purposes of this experiment I'm going to borrow the bookstore from the Nights Black Agents Free RPG day scenario The Van Helsing Letter:
Pierra Athanese runs a small bookstore in the French city of Strasbourg, close to the German border, and the game begins as the Agents arrive there. The occult bookshop is called Athanor. It’s at the end of a narrow, winding dead end street in the medieval Grande Île district of the city.
Further, I'm going to assume the Disgraced Doctor (cameo, Double Tap) is in this scene as a witness.
Rielle knew her days were numbered during med school. The Oxycontin addiction was getting out of hand, even for her standards, and she really didn’t want to put out a shingle and spend fifty years wiping snotty noses and listening to old people complain about lumbago or gout. So she just never “applied herself” and after she graduated, she never went on interviews. Which is fine, interviews are for suckers. She dresses down; jeans and sweat shirts, just like residency.
The exact nature of the crime doesn't matter so much, but let's call it assault. Someone came into Athanor and beat the snot out of shop owner Pierre. The characters arrived on the scene just after this happened. Pierre is oddly reluctant to say what happened.
Secure the Scene Crime scenes are fragile. They are a snapshot in time and the more time goes by the blurrier that snapshot looks. That's without even considering those who might damage it by removing evidence, adding evidence, or just generally being a pain in the neck.
In this example the protagonists aren't cops. If anything, they're the opposite. They have no official standing so they're going to have to rely on personality and perseverance to keep the scene secure. This may involve posting a player character on the door to make sure nobody gets in. Someone will need to go round the shop making sure nobody else is on the premises, that there are no other ways in or out.
Conduct the Initial Examination. If this were a homicide, the first thing the detectives would do is ignore the corpse. It isn't going anywhere. Of all the things in the scene, it's the least likely to change in the next few minutes, and it's going to be investigated carefully so odds are any evidence will be found. Whereas the scene itself is mutable, and this is probably the one time it will be looked at carefully. Anything not found now will likely never be found.
In game, as Director, you need to ensure that there's at least one clue in this crime scene that leads somewhere. Depending on how complicated you want the crime scene, you could plant multiple clues. You may want multiple ways to find that same clue, if you think the players might not have the appropriate pool or not use it when needed.
In this scene, Forensics (possibly Outdoor Survival or Reassurance on witness Rielle): there's some wet footprints on the floor. It hasn't been raining, but there is a puddle out back of the shop; water collects there due to bad drainage. Whoever left those marks came from the back of the shop. There's an alley there which isn't easily seen except from a neighboring bistro, The Drunky Fox Social Club. The alley serves both the bookstore and the bistro's kitchen.
Interview Witnesses. There are two in the scene, disgraced doctor Rielle and the shop owner, Pierre. Witnesses are valuable for detectives because at some point they need to convince a jury that A happened because of B. Witnesses are very persuasive; people tend to believe their lying eyes.
For protagonists in a game like this, juries are the last thing on their mind. They just want evidence, any kind of evidence, to lead them to the next scene. The question is, are these witnesses truthful?
Pierre is keeping his mouth shut. He says he didn't get a good look at them, it all happened so fast. One of them wore a brightly colored shirt. The other spoke German. That's all he remembers. Bullshit Detector knows he's lying.
Rielle is also in the scene. She was in the back of the store, browsing, and the attackers didn't know she was there. Pharmacy or a 3-point Medic notices her calmness, apathy and short attention span - classic signs of opiate addiction. This suggests she may not be a reliable witness. She says there was only one attacker and that he was short, cropped hair, wearing a hooded jacket with a logo on it. She doesn't remember the logo.
Again, you could put more than one clue in this scene, but a lot depends on how complicated you want to make it. You already have one clue - the footprints. Another clue here is fine, but add too many and you'll be drowning in clues.
I would put in one clue and make it obtainable from either witness. Interrogation on Rielle, Intimidation on Pierre. Use the wrong technique on either witness and they clam up, making the clue unobtainable from that witness.
The clue: the attacker was finishing off an energy drink as they came into the shop, and dropped it on the floor. That can will have fingerprints, maybe even DNA evidence, which will help to identify them.
Of the two witnesses, Rielle is the more reliable, but the players won't know that.
Collect Evidence for Further Study. This will include that can, which is still there on the floor whether the players got the clue from the witnesses or not. The players still have a chance to pick that up. They could examine Pierre's injuries, to see if the damage was done by a professional or an enthusiastic amateur. They could look around the shop for further evidence.
Again, I would be inclined to have only one clue available from this avenue of investigation, but notice how these clues are piling up. It's a simple scene, but we already have two significant clues. A third one can be had by collecting evidence, and in this case I would be inclined to have that clue available to those who follow up on those wet footprints. They lead to the alley which is next to the Drunky Fox Social Club, and if they go there they discover that the attacker came back through the alley, into the bistro's kitchen, and out through the front of the bistro. On their way, the attacker dumped a hooded jacket into the bistro's garbage, probably attempting to change their look in case they were being followed. Witnesses in the bistro (Reassurance) identify the attacker as a woman with close cropped hair; opinions vary as to whether her hair was blonde, dark or artificially colored. All agree she was short and muscular. The jacket (Streetwise, possibly Urban Survival if the character has Strasbourg as a familiar city) has the logo of a Strasbourg martial arts dojo.
In summary: yes, you want a series of scenes that connect up to reach certain Core moments which, in turn, lead to a resolution. There will be a certain amount of improvisation but improv doesn’t solve all your problems. Improv is a support for your existing structure, not a replacement for that structure.
Crucially, you need to bear in mind that your structure isn’t some magical castle in the clouds that can only be reached by imagination wizards. Your structure is very simple. It starts with this:
You put yourself in the characters’ shoes and ask yourself, if I had to answer this question, what would I do?
The same design principles apply here. Slightly modified, because this time you're not putting yourself in the characters' shoes. You're putting yourself in the attacker's shoes, the person committing the crime. You ask yourself, if I had to do this thing, how would I do it? From there, you piece together a line of action which in turn leaves a trail of clues. You entered from the back of the shop, you did what you came there to do, and you left the same way, trying to throw off pursuers by changing your appearance.
Each of these activities has the potential to leave a trail of clues. You know this. The question is, what clues, and how best to collect them?
This week’s post is loosely based on this Guardian news article about museum robberies and a recent EUROPOL report. The report is timely; Friday that same week there was another article about a museum robbery in which a diamond necklace belonging to Egyptian royalty was snatched.
“Additionally, some thieves apprehended in recent cases appear to coordinate their efforts on an ad hoc basis, often recruited locally through social media and instant communication channels, without prior connections to each other. This differs from the usual structure of criminal networks involved in cultural goods trafficking, which typically operate in a core group organised around a leader.” EUROPOL report
The full report can be had here. It's not long. Broadly speaking, the papers published the bits everyone will be interested in.
All of which made me think of Night’s Black Agents and the recruitment process.
Night’s Black Agents’ central conceit says espionage assets brought in by the vampire Conspiracy are used, abused, abandoned, and now find themselves on the run from their former employers. In a Bourne-style world, what is it like when Treadstone (or the equivalent) is a supernatural horror show?
One of the recurring issues in a setting such as this is how to bring the characters on board. What was the inciting incident?
In another post I speculated a potential infection vector: the Kill Team.
Thanks to EURPOL, there’s another way in: the Heist.
The protagonists are all recruited to carry out a museum robbery. The target: Dacian artefacts held in a museum in Ghent. Once they complete the task they’re supposed to take the stolen items across the border to France, where they’re to hand off the artefacts to their paymaster in exchange for large bags full of cash.
Dacians: The German linguist Paul Kretschmer linked daos to wolves via the root dhau, meaning to press, to gather, or to strangle – i.e. it was believed that wolves would often use a neck bite to kill their prey.
Done and done.
The characters are brought in by an unknown third party who reached out via, say, Telegram. Their job is to break in and steal a particular thing, but they are encouraged to steal other things to make it look like a ‘normal’ robbery. Plus, anything extra they steal is a bonus to their pay packet.
Ghent: a historic medieval port town in Belgium, once big on textiles, now big on tourism and shipping. Very significant architecturally, practically car-free in the old town center. Infested with religious architecture and churches, which may be significant to any supernatural element that dislikes religion or has religious Banes.
Museum of Antiquity and Harmony (Double Tap Establishing Shot):
Statuary, paintings, and the wonders of antiquity surround you on every side. You move along with other tourists, past bored museum guards and sophisticated alarm systems you could easily hack. The museum has high ceilings, a maze of large rooms filled with the detritus of history, and enough museum visitors to make action somewhat problematic.
extras and cameos: Knowledgeable historian, pretentious art student, clump of foreign tourists; Ex-con Forger, Hacker, Occult Bookstore Owner, Second-Story Man.
clues: Mysterious carved tablet recently put on display; obscure 17th century portrait that looks identical to a well-known billionaire; ancient weapon thick with legends.
rules effects: Spending a point of Art History allows the agent to befriend a museum administrator or art historian, giving them inside information about how the museum is run. Alarm systems range from Difficulty 2 to 6 against Infiltration tests, depending on the museum and the exhibit. Cinematic jewels or the main prize of the operation, of course, have multiple layers of security and a final, laser filled Difficulty 8 chamber.
in a fight: Ancient weapons and armor can still be used in combat; priceless statues too easily toppled; poles with velvet ropes still attached, used as crude bludgeons.in a chase: Dive through interactive exhibits of video and holograms; lift disguises from the museum gift shop; slow and mingle with the crowd as a maze of room displays blend into one another.
Museum Backstory (core clue): this place has a peculiar reputation. It's privately owned and those guards aren't your standard retired cop looking for an easy gig.
Museum Backstory (point spend): This museum is privately funded by the Catholic Church. Certain dignitaries and experts are often seen here. Director's choice as to who that is. but it should be someone fairly significant, eg. Dracula Dossier's Mysterious Monsignor. The guards are former members of the Vatican's Rapid Intervention Group (GIR). Occult Studies will notice vampiric Banes in strategic locations.
The Meet Cute (Opening Scene)
The protagonists gather in a location assigned to them by their employer, probably a shady low-class hotel somewhere close to the Port of Ghent. It's the kind of place beloved by truck drivers and other transients who aren't here for tourism. This may be the first time any of them have met, though they may know each other's professional reputation.
Whatever equipment they might need, including a vehicle, is supplied by their employer and can be found on site. A regular car, most likely, though if any of the agents have cherry level Mechanics they can specify that the car is souped-up or has a modification of their choice. Protagonists with specific equipment needs (the Hacker, the Wire Rat) can also have those supplied now.
The job is to hit the museum, grab a particular item (the McGuffin, assumed to be some kind of Dacian artefact of interest to the Conspiracy) as well as any other item(s) they see fit, and get across the border to France where the hand-off will take place in a warehouse not far from Lille.
Surprise Pregnancy (The Heist)
The agents hit the museum however they wish.
On their way in they find themselves face-to-face with a significant, nemesis-level NPC. Perhaps it's the Mysterious Monsignor or someone of equivalent campaign importance. It might even be an Edom dignitary. The obvious one is Pearl, who was brought in by the Vatican to give his professional opinion regarding museum security. Whoever it may be, their mere presence in the scene ups Heat by 3 as alarm bells go off all across the continent, and this increases by a further 2 if that NPC is significantly injured (or, God forbid, killed) in the ensuing mayhem.
Additional complication: there is a Very Valuable Item, say, a diamond necklace, easily stolen. However, if the protagonists take it they incur the wrath of the owners, who lent it to the museum. The owners aren't the Conspiracy but they have access to considerable resources of their own, not all of them human. They launch a parallel chase, trying not to attract the attention of the authorities (or Edom or the Vatican) but they really want their McGuffin back and aren't fussy about the casualty rate. While this does complicate the protagonists' lives it opens up a Yojimbo option.
Why Choose? (The Hand-Off)
Assuming the protagonists get away with it and get to that warehouse near Lille, they discover their mysterious employer mysteriously dead. At any rate, there's a corpse on the ground (possibly several) and their Telegram messages are going unanswered. Turns out there is a Third Party in the mix, the Conspiracy. The Conspiracy didn't want the heist, didn't need the headache it caused, but, well ... there is that McGuffin, all valuable and shiny ... gosh, it would be a shame to let it go back to that musty old museum ... you know what, let's just make lemonade out of these here lemons. In fact, if these resourceful little suns-of-guns want it, there's a job opportunity waiting for them in Lille. Of course, the benefits aren't great, but life itself is a benefit, don't you think?
The protagonists must make a choice. Do they want to work for the Conspiracy? If not, they'd better be prepared to go on the run, as of right this minute.
In fact, not only will they be on the run from the Conspiracy, they'll also be on the run from the Vatican and whoever that other party was they unexpectedly ran into at the museum. If they carried out that Very Valuable Item robbery, well, that's another powerful enemy to worry about. Perils of greed, honestly.
For that matter, they still don't know who their mysterious employer was, or whether there's someone out there in the darkness connected with their mysterious employer who would really like to know what happened at that museum in Lille. So that's yet another complication to think about.
Then of course there are the authorities. You know, EUROPOL. Who would like to arrest them. For crimes.
Gosh darn it all. If only the protagonists had some friends!
I mentioned I might have to take a trip to the UK. Well, fiddle dee dee, life makes a mock of us all. I shall be getting on a plane this week, which means no posts for two, three weeks after this one. Family stuff. I shan't go too deep into it except to say that, if you have any Bournemouth recommendations, I should like to hear them. Not that I expect to have much free time, but it's nice to have options.
This week's post is inspired by recent events in Monaco.
A Ukrainian plutocrat was targeted by foreign assassins and very nearly blown to pieces. The target, Vadym Iermolaiev, managed to avoid death while his wife and their 13-year-old child suffered injuries. The wife seems to have been the most seriously injured. Monaco, famous for its security and serenity, is shocked to its core. Such things just don't happen there. Those security cameras are there for a reason; it ought to be impossible to do anything dastardly in Monaco.
The alleged assassin, 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, was later found dead in what can only be described as suspicious circumstances. It would not be difficult to imagine this as an espionage operation gone horribly wrong.
To that end:
The Fearless Vampire Killers
Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers
The agents, either Edom or Edom-adjacent, are called in to trace a bomber.
The bomber managed to blow a hole in one of Monaco's exclusive apartment buildings, injuring two, one of whom is still severely injured and in hospital while the other, suffering minor injuries only, has been released.
The alleged target of the bombing. Cypriot billionaire Chris Dravot, is in seclusion aboard a superyacht in Monaco's Port Hercules. No visitors, no press. Dravot suffered only minor injuries, according to the media.
The more seriously injured victim is supposed to be his wife, Monica. However, agents who poke around that yacht discover that she's aboard too, and perfectly healthy. It was another person altogether who suffered grave injuries, and that person is Edom's own Hound.
If the agents follow up on this they discover that the injured 'wife' was supposedly transferred to a military hospital in Germany, after her crypto billionaire 'husband' pulled some strings. Only the best for his beloved, after all. Except the injured party never got to Germany. They were sent straight to Proserpine, where Seward is now working to save her life.
Of course, the agents aren't told any of this. They're just told to trace the bomber, capture alive, and interrogate.
Cue Thrilling Chase scene across Europe, ideally finishing up in a forest in Romania - Hoia-Baciu. There the agents discover the bomber's handlers, agents of Romania's security services, Serviciul Informatii de Externe. They have an underground bunker in Hoia-Baciu, where they plan to carry out their own debrief of the bomber.
Turns out the Romanians believe Hound, and by extension Edom, has been turned to the Conspiracy. This operation was supposed to be a proof-of-concept, and the bomb was loaded with vampiric banes. The more injured the target, the more likely that the target is (preferably was) a vampire, or at least a Renfield.
The only person who knows exactly what went down in Monaco on the day is the bomber, and if the agents don't hurry up and get her back the folks from Serviciul Informatii de Externe are going to solve that problem permanently.
Let's talk about the opening scenario and what it means to play Burn Stakes.
I'm going to try to avoid scenario spoilers but I can't discuss without spoiling a little bit, so be warned.
One of the Agents has a contact, a fence who deals in rare books and stolen art, named Pierre Athanese; he’s an old scoundrel and a crook, but he knows the stakes. Athanese runs a small bookstore in the French city of Strasbourg, close to the German border, and the game begins as the Agents arrive there.
This scenario assumes the characters are after a particular letter allegedly written by Van Helsing, and that the McGuffin is also the target of at least one other faction. There are a couple of moments within the scenario where sound, and potentially music, are important parts of the narrative. One of the main plot devices is a church bell whose ringing affects the supernatural entity at the heart of the dilemma. All this works very well with the ongoing plot device of the Pentheus and Maenad; not much change needed to make it work with the campaign device.
So far, so good. What about this Burn Stakes stuff?
Well:
BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.
STAKES: The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge.
The obvious way to make the players keenly aware of Burn style games is to challenge their stability every chance you get. There are plenty of opportunities to do this in combat scenes. Or in scenes with emotional focus, such as those involving a Source of Stability or similarly important person.
Difficulty Numbers for Stability tests also change depending on the character’s attitude toward, or familiarity with, the destabilizing event. Characters who would logically be inured to a given event face a Difficulty of 3, while those especially susceptible face a 5. [main book p 82]
Seeing a fresh corpse, for example, is worth a 1-point potential loss. A grisly murder is potential 3. Seeing a Network contact killed is 5, and so on. All of which could become very relevant in the opening scene, when the characters' contact Pierre Athanese is threatened, and possibly killed, by Conspiracy goons. In my version, I had Athanese's shop on fire within about half an hour of scenario start. Your milage may vary, but as a rule the more physical damage you dish out to third parties like Athanese, the more emotional damage you cause the characters.
That doesn't mean you want corpses every other page. Repetition blunts impact. You could as easily injure Athanese or let the agents watch Athanese's life's work go up in smoke as the bookstore burns. There are many ways to endure loss; death isn't the only stressor. For that matter, gruesome injuries to the opposition can be helpful too. Gouged out eyes and broken teeth can happen to anyone. Plus, having a human opponent attack is a potential 2 point and killing someone in a fight is a potential 3 point. So many options!
Never forget to layer those stressors. Yes, there's the potential for Stability loss in the opening scene. There's also a good chance to gain Heat. Car chase, involvement in a burglary or assault, all this in a tourist district too ... that Heat will be ticking up. I would advise you keep a list of potential uptick items close at hand so you can impose them as necessary, and have some Police on standby. Are they Conspiracy friendly? Who can say? They're definitely a pain in the ass, which should motivate the players.
Even if you don't use the Police in the opening scene it should be obvious to everyone in that scene that you *could* have used them if you wanted to. Burn isn't just a mechanic. It's a way of life. You want the players to feel the same way about their Stability that a gambler feels about their dwindling stack of chips.
OK, that's Burn. What's Stakes?
It's described as a higher purpose, but honestly, it's a murky pool. Revenge is hardly a higher purpose, but it gets the job done.
Three Days of the Condor Trailer
This is the kind of mood you're striving for. Cut off, isolated, begging for help, not knowing which way to turn. Your enemy today may be your friend tomorrow. Because what matters isn't that the Station got hit, or who you're working with right now to get the job done. What matters is Why. Understand the Why, you appreciate the Stakes. Then you can act with purpose. Until then, you're flailing.
In Condor, the Why is information. What did the Station uncover to make it a worthy target for hired killers? In the scenario, the Why is also information, which you as Director can use to great effect.
In this example, the McGuffin at the heart of the narrative is a letter from the vampire hunter Van Helsing. It can lead to a valuable artefact, Van Helsing's Case, complete with vampire hunting equipment. Acquiring that case is a turning point in the narrative. Until the agents retrieve it, their odds of success against the supernatural opponent are low. Not zero, but not good.
But the McGuffin also hints at other information: dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. It hints at the heart of the supernatural, while at the same time leading to a confrontation with the supernatural opponent.
The Why is with that supernatural opponent, and the information the players collect leads to that Why. The Why is the horror. Unless someone confronts it, many more might die. If the Conspiracy gets its way, thousands more may die. Dead sons, dead relatives, tragedy, loss. This is something you, as Director, need to make very clear.
In Condor, this is made clear in two events. One is the opening moment when the Station gets hit. The other is when the Agency tries to bring Condor in, and it goes horribly wrong. Loss, followed by loss.
This is the essence of Stakes. Not so much that they exist, but that they are difficult to attain, and the cost is usually paid in blood. It's not enough that the agents are tough, experienced professionals. They need to lose and lose again. It's only through that loss they will begin to understand the Stakes.
After all, without that motivator, what point is there in the game?
Twilight Zone
That's it for this week. Next week: something different!
Stone Age Soundtracks (Channel 4, original concept Paul Deveraux)
The quality's not the best but I recommend watching the whole thing. I have mentioned this documentary before; it stuck with me.
Brief and inadequate summary: our ancestors discovered the power of ritual sound by accident, in ancient caves which they transformed into temples. They attempted to replicate the effect, with some success, in artificial environments - long barrows and similar megalithic sites.
That's the core concept for the Node I contemplate coming up again and again in this campaign: the Ritual Site.
This, ultimately, is location-based. In the earliest days it would have had sacred fanes high up on the mountain top, some grove or cave or other hidden place where the rituals are conducted. There the Omadios, eater of raw (human) flesh, awaits its portion, and in exchange grants a kind of extended life. Brings the dead back from the lands of Hades. At least, so goes some of the tales.
Omadios is a variant name for Dionysus, as in Dionysus the Raw-Eater. Sacrifices of flesh, usually thought to be human flesh. There's an old tale of Zagreus, son of Zeus, in which the child was butchered by Zeus' enemies and his flesh torn apart, devoured, some of it cooked. When Hermes discovered what had happened he informed Zeus, who destroyed the child's killers with divine thunderbolts. Zagreus' heart was the only thing that survived, and was later used to create Dionysus.
From that myth our vampires are born, the Pentheus and the Maenad variants. They hear a sound, a song, that echoes through the ages. Some claim this sound is the echo of the Titans, the hideous creatures that tore apart infant Zagreus. That, if they can somehow make sense of it, the Titans will come again. Of course, this is coming from a group of creatures whose mental stability can best be described as Shaky, so take that with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it is what some of them work towards, even if in an indirect way. They are constantly looking for old ritual sites, so they can examine the design and use it in their own projects.
This has been going on for a very long time. It's likely that some of those old, abandoned castles mentioned in the Dracula Dossier were ritual sites with their own sound chambers, once upon a time. That locations like Carfax or HMS Prosperine might have sound chambers, or that someone's been working on an old orphanage run by Heal the Children to turn its concrete corridors into a ritual location. Opportunities abound.
Mechanically, something similar already exists within the Dracula Dossier setting: the Red Room.
The Red Room was a place of power for Dracula in London. Magically (or tellurically) designed to focus and amplify vampiric energies and wavelengths, he used it (or planned to use it) in 1894 to cement his hold over the high-society degenerates he recruited to his faction. Since then, Edom might have taken it over for their own purposes, or Dracula may have created another, or both. [p187 DD]
In that text the Room is a singular area in a specific place, with a variable power set. I'm proposing multiple Rooms in many areas, with one known power set (create vampires, under specific ritual conditions) and any number of unknown power sets. Not all of the Rooms work. Many or most probably don't work, or, if they do, they work in unexpected ways. Not even the vampires understand them, though there are some within the Conspiracy who claim they do.
The perennial McGuffin in this situation is something I'm going to call the Instruction Manual. It might be a crumbling set of texts held in some forgotten monastery, translations of some Greek histories that go all the way back to Herodotus. It might be a transcript from the researches of the magician John Dee or some similar occult experimenter. It might be research notes from a Silicon Valley tech bro relying on the previous researches of a former Nazi, but whatever it is, it represents the most likely means of finding out how the Ritual is supposed to work.
Everyone wants it. Factions within the Conspiracy - all of them a Pentheus variant - want it because they think it will help them create more Pentheus. The Maenad want it because they think it will create more Maenad. Other occult factions want it because they believe it will help them do X, whatever X may be. Immortality is a popular choice, but you do you.
Meanwhile the various factions continue with their occult traditions, experiments, what-have-you, relying on the broken version of the Ritual that they think they understand, in hopes of getting what they want. This broken version sometimes does what it's supposed to but there are nearly always side effects, and most of the time it doesn't work at all. This may be because the Ritual site is contaminated or broken in some way, or it may be for some other reason.
Note that in this version the Conspiracy has factions within factions working against each other. Broadly speaking, this is true of any organization. Regardless of the united front it presents to the world anything, whether it is a business, political party or other collective organization, has factions within it that want to promote X, whatever X is. Point being that, in this fictionalized example, those factions are hyperviolent blood drinkers who may or may not be insane.
The important thing to bear in mind, from a Director's perspective, is that this Conspiracy has one defined Goal: understand, and replicate, the Ritual which creates Vampires. Regardless of who's doing it, this is what they are doing. That gives this Conspiracy an end goal, whether they're in Turkey examining Neolithic sites, in Ireland digging up a megalith long barrow, or in some secret underground bunker in, say, Texas, surrounded by technology of dubious origin.
... I see this kind of vampire as something that arises from a shared delusion, created less by a Sire and more by a Circumstance. At the back of it all might be a Dionysus figure but, ultimately, these vampires arise from supernatural occurrences and places and are drawn together by that shared experience, by the madness that propels them forward, always forward, in search of that elusive melody that lingers in the back of what is left of their mind ...
OK, no storms forecast for this weekend so with a bit of luck I can finish this thought.
Duckman
I see this vampire divided into two types.
The Pentheus is the planner, the organizer, the one trying to make sense of it all. They're the backbone of the Conspiracy. They accept their condition but are trying to prevent themselves sinking into madness. They don't really grasp the true nature of their condition because, if they did, they'd stop functioning. They see the others as a kind of Awful Warning. In a Dracula Dossier game, Dracula is the ultimate Pentheus, hanging onto sanity by the atoms on the tips of their fingernails.
The Maenads, on the other hand, are children of madness. They fulfil the commands of Dionysus, or at least that is what they say they do. They carry on a ritual whose purposes have long been forgotten. They have no idea if what they're doing is what they are supposed to do. They see themselves as driven by a higher power. Think of them as you would the Cthulhu Cult, except there is no Cthulhu, no promise of anything divine or beyond mortal understanding. Where they go, bloodshed follows.
At the heart of it all is the Ritual, which is how you get more vampires.
This, ultimately, is location-based. In the earliest days it would have had sacred fanes high up on the mountain top, some grove or cave or other hidden place where the rituals are conducted. There the Omadios, eater of raw (human) flesh, awaits its portion, and in exchange grants a kind of extended life. Brings the dead back from the lands of Hades. At least, so goes some of the tales.
Now, in this degraded modern life, a sacred fane might as easily be a site of mass murder. A place where blood soaks the soil, perhaps because of a terrorist attack, or some other hideous deed. From this horror madness springs eternal, and a corpse left in this place, treated appropriately, might come to life once more. It might help if that corpse, in life, committed some atrocities, or shed their brother's blood, or, or, or ...
Because that is the horror of the Pentheus. They don't know how it works. They serve the Ritual in hope of getting more Pentheus to carry on the tradition, but when it comes right to it the vampires don't understand the whatever-it-is that made them so there's no way for them to reliably make more. Instead, they flock to places where tragedies happen, sometimes engineering events so that a tragedy happens, and all the while it could be a colossal flop. All that effort, and no vampire to show for it. Or, which is slightly worse from the Pentheus' POV, all that effort and only a Maenad to show for it.
Meanwhile the Maenads flutter off like exploding butterflies. They have absolutely no self-control. They do not care what happens to them and they definitely do not care about other people. At all. A Maenad is driven by the song. They can hear it at the back of their minds. They might constantly hum it, or tunelessly sing it. A Maenad with some musical ability might perform it, but never perfectly, never the way they know it ought to be performed.
These creatures die off, but not before doing tremendous damage.
This kind of Conspiracy best resembles a terrorist organization. We think of these the same way we do organized armies. They have generals, officers, troops, a mission; they work towards a defined goal. This absolutely is not how these groups work in practice. Yes, there may well be a guiding brain - the Pentheus - out there somewhere, trying to make sense of all this. There may be schemes. There may be long-term plans. But the organization itself is as loosely structured as it is possible to be, because that's the only way it can survive and recruit. Everyone's hand is against it. It cannot afford the kind of structure an army has, because armies can be identified and met on the battlefield. This is, at its heart, a civilian organization. Destructured. Disorganized.
BURN: In burn mode games, psychological damage is more intense; the actions Many of agents must take inevitably burn away their humanity. Your Stability is capped at 12 and degrades faster. Killing is never easy, and never free.
STAKES: The characters derive their actions from a higher purpose than mere survival or “get the job done” ethics: patriotism, the search for knowledge, protection of the innocent, or even justified revenge.
SUPERNATURAL: Their markers are strange superstitions, often surrounding childbirth and burial customs; their emphasis is hunger.
With an additional call for drunken Dionysiac vampires. Well.
In a long-ago post about the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep I said:
In game, the protagonists are effectively the sons and daughters of Pentheus [tragic hero of the Greek play Bacchae]. Like the King of Thebes and the narrator of Lovecraft's short piece they too seek out the inner workings of the mystery ... The Crawling Chaos represents the reward all seekers into the mysteries ultimately receive: ignominious and pitiless destruction, not just of them, but of all their future hopes. Snakes and forgotten tram cars are their only monuments. Or, in RPG terms, a crumpled piece of paper with hasty erasure marks and repeated notches along the dwindling Sanity bar. Moreover none of them can claim innocence; ultimately this was what they wanted. Else why start on the journey in the first place?
Stranger: Ah! Would you like to see them in their gatherings upon the mountain?
Pentheus: Very much. Ay, and pay uncounted gold for the pleasure.
Stranger: Why have you conceived so strong a desire?
Pentheus: Though it would pain me to see them drunk with wine-
Stranger: Yet you would like to see them, pain and all.
Let's talk OPFOR.
In a Dionysiac chronicle, the ultimate mystery is the Maenad itself. It's not clear who they were or what they were up to, historically speaking. They frolic. They are intoxicated by the Divine. They speak in tongues and commit atrocities. Devotees of frenzy. They might commit terrible deeds in their own right, or they might call on Dionysius to torment and destroy their enemies. Either way, where they go, trouble follows.
Dionysus itself is a peculiar creature. Sometimes called "the raging one" and "the mad one" they are known for pulling apart their enemies and, sometimes, putting them back together again. They delight in transforming; in one set of tales, after driving their enemies mad they turn them into bats. Forcing women to kill their children or their loved ones is a common theme in Dionysus tales. The best-known Dionysus story has Pentheus, the tragic hero, murdered by his own mother and sisters.
He touched the wild Cheek, crying: "Mother, it is I, thy child, Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echîon's hall! Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befall Through sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!" But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that run Like leaping fire, with thoughts that ne'er should be On earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly, Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she put Both hands, set hard against his side her foot, Drew . . . and the shoulder severed!—Not by might Of arm, but easily, as the God made light Her hand's essay. And at the other side Was Ino rending; and the torn flesh cried, And on Autonoë pressed, and all the crowd Of ravening arms. Yea, all the air was loud With groans that faded into sobbing breath
A chronicle of this type ought run red with blood, gore shed by those least expected.
The main book uses the vukodklak as a supernatural vampire example and, broadly speaking, I'm going to use that as a stats template.
When an evildoer dies unpunished and lays undiscovered for 40 days, he rises again as a vukodlak ...
With a few modifications.
I'm going to drop the following powers as being unhelpful to the narrative: Blight Crops, Tunneling (in rat form), Turn to Creature (rat, black eagle). Also the Compulsion Count Seeds.
I'm going to replace with: Compulsion Tear An Opponent Apart, Powers: Strength, Venom (hallucinogen, through song rather that spit - think of it as an entrancing technique that causes riots), Summoning (particularly those it shares blood with or has drained blood from).
I see this kind of vampire as something that arises from a shared delusion, created less by a Sire and more by a Circumstance. At the back of it all might be a Dionysus figure but, ultimately, these vampires arise from supernatural occurrences and places and are drawn together by that shared experience, by the madness that propels them forward, always forward, in search of that elusive melody that lingers in the back of what is left of their mind.
***
OK, I'm going to cut this week's post short. Apologies! We had another massive storm that knocked out power over the weekend. I'm playing catch-up and have no time to finish this thought. Let's return to it next week ...
This week's post is inspired by this article over at the Guardian. It's a photographic spread featuring actors/military portraying OPFOR in military exercises.
Once upon a time I wrote about Hush-Hush Houses and described two possible locations, Glen Eagles and Brinkley/Piccadilly.
Glen Eagles is the code name for Pitfour House, a hunting lodge in the Grampians. Built in the Scottish Baronial style, this property was requisitioned by the SOE early in the 1939-45 war and has remained in Government hands ever since. The property is remote and inaccessible; the best way in is by air, via helicopter. In its day it was a training ground first for Polish commandos and bag and burn experts, until Edom acquired it in 1940. There's plenty of evidence of the former occupants, from graffiti on the walls to the marks of hobnail boots on the floors, as well as the old explosive ordinance testing grounds.
Brinkley is a 1970s urban brutalist build on the outskirts of Manchester. It's always been government owned but has housed a variety of government offices and schemes; currently its main tenant is MoneyForce, an organization whose purpose is to help armed forces members with money management. Anyone with Architectural or Military Science knowledge will wonder about those preternaturally thick walls and peculiar sightlines; its almost as if an iceberg settled in a suburban district, its deepest secrets hidden deep below the earth.
The original article assumed both locations were Cool or Warm, as per the Dossier's usual formula. The Guardian photoshoot kinda pushes things towards Warm; it's difficult to imagine someone trying to pull off a complicated test case like this without a pre-established testing location.
However, it could be interesting to imagine a Cool site becoming Warm.
Suppose that there was an Incident. It doesn't really matter what, except that Incidents usually come with body counts and embarrassing headlines. Fine, say the Princes; lessons learned. We need more field testing before anything like that happens again. Don't we have some old field test sites on the books? Let's reactivate those, shall we?
It could even be a good starter scenario for beginning Agents. In this campaign frame the Incident, whatever it was, has already happened. In fact, the players' Agents may have been on the periphery of the Incident. Not directly involved; they'd be dead. But they saw the bodies first-hand. They helped clean up the mess.
Now, their first task: reactivate Glen Eagles and repopulate it with actual NPCs, so Edom's finest can start live testing again. [I could do both Glen Eagles and Brinkley, but I think Glen Eagles has more potential as a large-scale live fire testing zone.]
A reminder:
Cool: While still on Edom's books officially, nobody's paid attention to Glen Eagles since the 1970s. This quietly crumbling edifice is home to bats, birds and rats now, keeping lonely watch over a forgotten part of Edom's history. Potential clues to the 1940 mission or a series of 1970s interrogations can be found here, but any important files have long since been transferred elsewhere. The fake French street built adjacent to Glen Eagles, with its wonky wire-operated targets, are all that's left of the Kill House. Some old remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940 are rotting away here, possibly even a live round or two for those who like playing with out-of-date potentially lethal explosives. Poachers sometimes come here but are put off by the poor quality of the game; it's almost as if something's blighted the land.
I like starting with action, so in this case I'd start in the immediate aftermath of the Incident. The Agents are carting out bodies or attending forensic examination of the recently deceased. They get to see first hand what happens when things go tits up.
[a good hook] poses a problem that the players have to solve.
In this instance the problem is how to set up a testing base, preferably a live fire base, at short notice and in an inaccessible location?
Well, there are several optional scenes involving potential Edom support. They could:
Go to the Archivist to find out more about Glen Eagles.
0 point: get plans of Glen Eagles to help the rebuild effort
1 point: find after-action reports, diaries and other records concerning Glen Eagles in its last days of operation.
Go to Tinman or Fort for supplies to rebuild.
0 point: get supplies.
1 point: get some kind of personal input into the rebuild, eg. the Prince lends their personal support staff or some other kind of valuable assistance.
Go to E Squadron to find out more about their operational needs from a Hush-Hush House.
0 point: get insights that help efficiently develop Glen Eagles.
1 point: an E-Squadron assistant (eg. Veteran Rating) is assigned to the project as an advisor.
However, ultimately the Agents will be getting into a chopper and flying out to the depths of the Grampians to see Glen Eagles for themselves.
As we already know there are several potential plot points to be discovered, among them:
Potential clues to the 1940 mission
Potential clues to the 1970s interrogations
Remnants of Edom weapons tech circa 1940
As Keeper you could add something else, like a Sealed Coffin, but ultimately you should pick one and stick with it, not sprinkle in all three or four. Given kittens three possible toys to play with and they will try to play with all three at once. Give them one. Then, if they don't like that one, you can always add another.
Whatever that one thing is, it should probably tie directly to that 1 point spend they made earlier. If, say, the Archivist's 1-point (the after-action reports and diaries) leads directly to the potential plot point at Glen Eagles, that only reinforces the value of point spends and you want the players to be spending points all the time. The more reward you offer for point spends, the more likely it is there will be future plot spends.
Then there will be something along the lines of a training montage, in which the Agents rebuild Glen Eagles. In game, this is best represented by Thrilling dialogue (provided by the Agents, natch) and some point spends. These point spends build up Glen Eagles, effectively providing a Preparedness pool for the firing range. Exactly what that looks like in play is up to you and your table. Do they hire roleplayers to fill roles within the defence team, as the Guardian article suggests? Do they go more high-tech with screens and electronic gunplay? Do they go old-school with wires and moving targets?
Eventually the montage concludes. By this stage we're at the Midpoint. The questions posed by the Hook have been asked and answered. What questions are being asked at the Midpoint? Probably something along the lines of 'is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose.' Also, 'where does this plot point lead?'
That second question I'll leave floating, as it can only be answered by Rome, and it's not part of this exercise to tell you where Rome is. Only that there has to be a Rome. There has to be a final destination of some kind.
If, say, your final destination is Betrayal (eg. one of the Princes is a rogue agent and the reasons for their betrayal are linked, somehow, to the 1970s mole hunt) then you can start to lay the groundwork now by having that Prince subtly undermine the agents' efforts to rebuild Glen Eagles. Your final destination will vary. But whatever that final destination is, this is where you start to drop hints.
However, that first question (is this new Hush Hush House fit for purpose) can only be answered by a field test.
Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Thrilling [fill in the blank, probably Sneak, Hunt, Hit or Destroy]. The veterans of E-Squadron are the ones on the attack, the Agents, working through the new toys at Glen Eagles, are the ones on defence. If the Agents hold up E-Squadron long enough, or if they prevent E-Squadron from achieving their objective, then the Agents win. If E-Squadron busts through with ease, then the Agents have failed.
Failure or success in this instance does not mean It's All Over or We Are The Champions. It means bureaucratic failure or success, which can be just as lethal. After all, in future scenarios the Agents are going to rely on support from their bosses and the higher-ups to get the job done. That's going to be difficult if the very first thing they did was embarrass themselves in a live-fire demo at Edom's hush-hush house.
I’m working on some pieces for Pelgrane’s Page XX and in one of them I posit a potential inciting incident that happens offstage, for plot purposes.
Let’s bring that inciting incident onstage and explore it a little.
The Incident takes place at Vostochny Cosmodrome, which I’ve discussed before. It involves a member of Russia’s Space Force and a meteor strike at Vostochny.
Russia’s had a Space Force since 1992, roughly speaking, but it’s been through some reorganization initiatives since its founding. As of time of writing, it’s a new beast, courtesy of a merger between the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces in 2015. Its big thing is missile attacks; in the event of a missile attack, when everyone else is putting heads between legs and kissing things goodbye, its role is to keep leadership informed of the attacks’ progress.
My fictional member of the Space Force was put in charge of an investigation into a meteor strike at Vostochny while it was still under construction, which was at the time believed to be a potential missile attack. Fortunately for everyone the Russians decided it wasn’t a missile strike, but the damage put Vostochny’s schedule back by several months.
At least, meteor strike was the publicly announced reason for the explosion at Vostochny. Whether that story has any factual basis is, at best, murky. It’s not as if there are many journalists at the closed town of Tsiolkovsky, which is the only urban development nearby.
Soon after the investigation my fictional member of the Space Force defected to the West, where he became part of a different story.
This is the story of The Incident.
25 May 2014
In the early hours of the morning of the 25th a small explosion damaged part of Vostochny. While accidents, explosive or otherwise, are not uncommon at Vostochny, this incident caused great concern at the highest level of government. Not only did it mean delays for Vostochny’s construction schedule, it also brought something called Operation Eternity to an abrupt end.
Western intelligence agencies do not know what Operation Eternity is. The explosion was the first indication that there was such an operation. The only reason anyone outside Russia knows about it now is because of the defection of the Space Force officer in charge of the investigation, and that person’s abrupt disappearance from the public stage created more questions than answers.
The only narrative available is that being pushed by the Russians, which is that a meteor strike at Vostochny caused damage to the Cosmodrome but was not, ultimately, significant enough to cause anything more than a delay to the planned construction schedule.
The miraculous coincidence of a meteor strike happening to hit a Cosmodrome has not been remarked on. What little evidence is available suggests the meteor was no more than 2-4 m diameter.
The only thing known about Operation Eternity is that it was being backed by tech billionaire Mikhail Mordashov, who was understandably upset that Eternity was blown up. At the time of the incident Mordashov was living in Monaco; since those carefree pre-Ukraine days are over, Mordashov's current location is a closely guarded secret.
The exact nature of the Incident will depend on the kind of campaign you're running, which can be divided up into Damned, Supernatural, Mutant and Alien.
Damned.Their markers are holy symbols and spiritualism, their emphasis is seduction.
Eternity was trying to create the perfect human, by infusing embryos with angelic properties. The Cosmodrome was used because it was secure and had special equipment for examining biological specimens. This equipment was installed at Mordashov's direction and involved special materials sourced by Mordashov. Wouldn't you know it; some of those materials were demonically tainted, hence the explosion. Nobody's sure what happened to the experimental subject. Unless the Space Force investigating officer knows - but they dropped off the radar shortly after defecting ...
Supernatural.Their markers are strange superstitions, their emphasis hunger.
Eternity was trying to use ley lines and direct magical power to improve the capacity of the Cosmodrome's launches. Mordashov had a particular interest in some of the satellite payloads meant to be launched from Vostochny and wanted an absolute guarantee of success. Except the so-called experts he brought on board to achieve this flubbed the incantations, attracting a heavenly body - the meteor - to earth, rather than guarantee successful spaceflight. Nobody knows what that heavenly body really is, except possibly the Space Force investigating officer ...
Mutant.Their markers are medical symptoms; their emphasis is infection.
Eternity was meant to improve the human condition through technological advancement, using material sourced from space - first hinted at through specimens retrieved from orbit in the 1970s - to supercharge the human embryo. Specifically Mordashov's embryos; the billionare has 100 kids and counting. He's still hoping for the superchild, but whatever it was Eternity was working on is out of reach. Unless the Space Force investigating officer knows where it is ...
Alien. Their markers are various uncanny effects; their emphasis is invasion.
Mordashov knows there are aliens out there. He's seen them. They inspired Eternity, which was meant to establish contact. Except something went very wrong with Mordashov's attempts, hence the explosion at Vostochny. That earned Mordashov a very black mark in the Kremlin's book of naughty billionaires, and if anyone knows why Mordashov is still alive it's that pesky Space Force investigating officer, but nobody knows where they are ...
Johnnie To is, by far, the best action cinema director working today. I'm going to take one of his films and make a Night's Black Agents Thrilling scene out of it. The film is Three, set in a hospital, where the cops have a robber in custody and are trying to get him to talk before manure hits the fan.
Antiseptic, organized to a fault yet seething with chaos underneath. Security is tight yet not so tight; a little bluff, a little chutzpah, and anyone can get anywhere. Harried medical staff rush from crisis to crisis. Nurses exercise whatever authority they possess, as often as they can. Low chatter from the patients, sometimes moans, once in a while a scream. Expensive machinery hums and gives out information, to what end is unclear to anyone except the medical staff. High-powered consultants breeze in like little Gods, then breeze out again, leaving stressed medical staff in their wake.
Extras and Cameos
Grim policemen watch over a captured felon. Injured Civilians from all walks of life kibbitz their fellow sufferers, offering unsolicited advice. Medical staff rest wherever they can find an empty space, smoking forbidden cigarettes. Relatives and friends hover on the sidelines, not sure what to do or what civility dictates, anxious and afraid. A Disgraced Doctor on their last day before they get kicked out, trying to steal as much as they can. Reporters in search of a story pretend to be relatives or friends.
Clues
There's a lot of activity in the Morgue for some reason. That Civilian's symptoms are familiar - is this an indication of vampire activity in the Civilian's place of work or home district? Why does that Doctor seem to be under the influence? Is it illicit drug use or something more supernatural?
Rules Effects
It's easy to hide in this mess, provided you can score a medical gown and have any points in Surveillance. If that applies, refresh 3 points Surveillance at any time. Also, the difficulty for Preparedness for any medical-related task is reduced by 1. However, if an overtly violent act takes place Heat increases by an extra 1 point, due to the sensitivity of the location.
In A Fight
Preparedness can be used to score impromptu weapons (scalpel, syringes, bone saws) and drugs. If your game uses tasers and stun guns, then assume that Medical Staff have access to sedatives and other drugs that act in exactly the same way as a taser but require a Called Shot (Limb) to work.
In A Chase
Hospital corridors can turn from calm to chaos at the drop of a surgical mask. Assume chases start Open and move to Cramped within two rounds. Hazards include pools of unidentifiable fluid on the floor, unexpected medical staff or civilians in a romantic clinch in what was supposed to be an empty room, cleaners trying to get rid of biohazardous waste.
Objective of the Exercise
A Renfield of interest to the agents has been brought in for emergency medical treatment. If they don't get that treatment they will die within 12 hours. The Renfield is refusing treatment, for reasons known only to them.
The agents may be disguised as Police or similar, on a Preparedness check or a Cover spend. If they are not so disguised, they will need to justify their presence and may have to rely on Flattery, Flirting or other interpersonal skills. Anyone with 2 points Diagnosis can pretend to be a Doctor and avoid being challenged, but that only protects the one with Diagnosis, not any of their non-medically trained friends.
The agents must successfully Interrogate the Renfield before one of two things happens:
The Renfield dies.
The Renfield's heavily armed associates arrive to bust them out of hospital. The Renfield may or may not welcome this intervention.
Potential complication: there is vampire blood on the premises. It can be there by accident; it can be there because someone smuggled it in. Regardless, if the Renfield gets hold of that blood they can access all of their powers. Otherwise, they are normal for their type.
This seed assumes a base Thug template for the Renfield, with possible Gym Rat boosts.
This is an Open interrogation for rules purposes, in that the Renfield is in a public area watched over by medical staff and civilian patients.
Assume for purposes of Maneuver that the Renfield is less ethically constrained.
On the Thames, off Somerset House, was a timber shed built on a strong barge, and called “the Folly.” In William III.’s reign it was anchored higher up the stream, near the Savoy. Tom Brown calls it “a musical summer-house." Its real name was “The Royal Diversion.” Queen Mary honoured it with her presence. It was at first frequented by “persons of quality,” but latterly it became disreputable, and its orchestra and refreshment alcoves were haunted by thieves, gamesters, and courtesans.
"The Folly of the Thames", often just referred to as "The Folly", was a floating coffee house. Situated on the river Thames, opposite Somerset House, it was moored in London between the 17th and 18th century. Despite not being on land, the coffee house was hugely popular and in the evenings became a social hub where dancers performed waltzes and jigs.
NB: the Folly of the Thames also features tangentially in the Rivers of London, as a progenitor of the series' magical institute.
The Folly resembled a large one-storied house, very long in proportion to its width, built upon an immense barge. There was a platform at the top, defended by a strong wooden balustrade, and flanked at each corner by a little wooden turret, with a pointed top, surmounted by a small streamer. These turrets constituted small drinking and smoking rooms, and were fitted up with seats and tables. In the centre of the structure was a sort of open belvidere, covering the main staircase leading to the roof. On this a large flag was planted. The Folly was approached from the water by steps on three sides. It was lighted by a range of large and handsome windows, and entered by two doors, one at the end, and the other at the side. Within, it contained a long music-hall, with a frescoed ceiling, gilded and painted walls, an orchestra, and the necessary complement of benches, chairs, and small tables. There was, moreover, a bar, where all sorts of liquors, materials for smoking, and other tavern luxuries were dispensed. The rest of the structure was divided into a number of small apartments for private parties, and in short, boasted every sort of accommodation afforded by a similar place of entertainment on shore. In summer it was delightful — the view of the Thames from its summit being enchanting. The coolness and freshness, combined with the enlivening influences of beauty, wine, and music, must have made it, on its first establishment, a charming place of recreation; and it cannot be wondered that the Merry Monarch and his merrier court, found it so much to their taste.
Similar situations could be created in Swords of the Serpentine, or any fantasy setting. It's a floating pleasure palace, after all; you could build one of those anywhere.
In England the term coffee house has a special meaning, in the 17th and 18th century. People gather there, converse, exchange ideas. These are proto-clubs. Pubs and inns are where the other classes go; coffee houses are for those who have ideas. Hence the nickname penny university. You paid a penny to get in and then commenced your education.
It's not clear when the Folly on the Thames ceased to be. However, anything that lives permanently on a river will rot in short order if not looked after, and it's a reasonable bet that once the place became known as a resort of thieves and gamesters it stopped being looked after. Charles II, the Merry Monarch who popularized it, died in 1685. I'm going to hazard that the Folly went the way of all things in the early 1700s.
However, London has a knack for remembering its past glories.
Bookhounds: A Set of Engravings
The Hounds are made aware of a valuable lot coming up for auction. These engravings by an unknown artist feature the Great Frost and the fairs held on the Thames, and the most intriguing piece of the set is titled A Frozen Folly. It shows the coffee house locked by ice, with a dance taking place in its ballroom. Shadowy figures quadrille behind the frost-covered windows, while an amorous couple dally at the top of the little wooden turret. A devilish figure can be seen lurking at the other end of the roof platform. Mythos identifies it as a remarkably accurate depiction of a Nightgaunt. The complete set is worth about 1 point History; the Frozen Folly also confers 1 point Mythos, after careful study, not just of the Nightgaunt but also of the starry constellations seen above the coffee house.
One of the potential buyers is a megapolisomancer who, if allowed to purchase, will use the engravings to help their scheme of freezing over the Thames once again, for sinister purposes of their own. They draw on the power of Nodens to achieve this, plunging London into a dreamscape where all is frozen and silent.
Nights Black Agents: A Folly Reborn
A Node based in London (possibly linked with the Satanic Cult of Dracula) has recreated the Folly with a Thames-based restaurant, faithfully copying, among other things, the frescoed ceiling of the original. This classically-inspired artwork has, study will show, more than a few things in common with classical Satanism. Dark motifs and hideous meaning hide behind seeming mythological concepts. Its restaurant is working towards a Michelin star but its main attraction is its discreet gaming tables: poker and blackjack only.
What isn't immediately obvious is, not only is it copying the original Folly, it has brought back a kind of demonic Merry Monarch. This begins as what seems to be a stuffed and comical doll called Charlie, which presides over the casino tables. People rub it for luck. As time goes by it acquires a sinister reputation and few can bear to touch it; they say it feels clammy, slimy, and its flesh seems to yield. Some say Charlie moves around when nobody's looking. Some say Charlie craves blood ...
Putin noted that Russian societal unity is critical for Russian victory in Ukraine.[2] Putin alluded to the Russian Revolution, noted that Russian society collapsed during the First World War, and urged Russians to maintain support and unity as the war continues. Putin stated that Russia "will not give up" its "own" territory in future peace negotiations — likely referring to illegally annexed territory in occupied Ukraine.[3] The Kremlin launched the Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund in April 2023 to oversee social support for veterans, elevate veterans within Russian society, and monopolize control over veterans activities in Russia.
Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day
Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before --
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Kipling, Boots.
There’s an interesting narrative percolating about Russia and Ukraine, which goes like this: Putin’s at a point where he cannot afford peace because, if there’s a ceasefire, the troops come home. With all their military skills, their anger, and their stories about life on the front.
This is a narrative that pokes its head up every time there’s a significant military action, no matter who’s at war or what they fought for. The soldiers come home. They can’t handle peace. They don’t like the government. They know how to take direct action; direct action is all they’re fit for.
After the Great War British misfits came home to farm chickens, because they couldn’t stand being cooped up in an office building, liked to work outdoors, and were attracted to rural life. You see this plotline pop up in Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie.
Christie uses the war and its disruption as a background for her soft-edged detectives Tommy and Tuppence, both of whom served in the war. Sayers uses the war as a background for her detective Lord Peter, but she also uses it to good effect in her detective story The Bellona Club, where the action is set in a member's club for military men, should you wish to steal it for Bookhounds or Trail.
Meanwhile in modern drama, Peaky Blinders makes much of Tommy Shelby’s time at the front, how it made him the criminal genius he is today.
There was a time when the villain of choice for an American thriller was an ex-Vietnam vet looking for a little action. Whether it’s something like First Blood or Taxi Driver, where the psychological damage comes out in misanthropic physical action, or something more direct like Dead Presidents, if you went to Vietnam you were one bad day away from being Public Enemy Number One.
Dead Presidents trailer
Really, the only difference in that evolving narrative is the war, and the strength of society to deal with the consequences of that war. It probably hasn’t taken you ten seconds to think of a movie drama with broadly the same text as Dead Presidents, only this time it’s about the Iraq War.
Even the so-called ‘good’ wars, like World War Two with its Greatest Generation, has its examples. After all it’s that same Greatest Generation that gave us Hell’s Angels, and with it any number of biker rebel narratives.
The Wild One
Ultimately it comes down to the strength of civil society. A weak civil society can't handle returning soldiers. A strong one can. There will be unrest, some disorder, a few thrilling moments and a shaky narrative, but the society will survive. Changed, probably. Change will come whether asked for or not. There's an argument for saying that returning soldiers accelerate the process, but it is an acceleration not a causation.
Russia has particular concerns.
The original Revolution was kicked off by troubles on the Western Front. Russia wasn't the only nation that struggled; France and England both worried that slaughter on the battlefield would cause revolution at home. In Germany the Nazis came to power, in part, on the back of this fear that revolution was in the air. Yet it was Russia that fell to revolution, though there's a case to be made that, had Germany somehow lasted longer than it did, England and France would both have endured protracted revolutionary action.
Meanwhile, in modern times, the collapse of the Soviet regime came after the destruction of the Red Army in the Afghan debacle. The Wall came down, Yeltsin went out the door, and with him went the Soviet Union.
Russia’s modern history can be summed up as ‘troops come home, disaster follows.' Which suggests a strong reason for keeping troops in the field, but the problem with that is, no army can stay in the field forever. At some point, all wars end.
Sometimes they end with an angry army attacking the leadership. That was what scared Putin half to death when Prigozhin took his Wagner mercenaries home. Sometimes they end with reverses on the battlefield or a protracted stalemate that turns into a peace agreement because nobody can force anybody to a different conclusion. That seems to be what might happen in Ukraine.
In-game, groups like Edom have their own issues with returning soldiers. Specifically, their Jacks of E-Squadron.
Here we have a group of heavily armed, well-trained troops up to their eyeballs on peculiar substances who go out, do unspeakable things, and come home again.
Intact in body, perhaps. Longer lived, perhaps; the Seward serum does strange things to a man. But intact in mind? That's debatable.
You'd want to keep an eye on people like that.
Psych Eval
Social Worker Neela Chaudri (Edom Field Manual) has been tasked with carrying out wellness checks on former E-Squadron personnel, of which there are perhaps a dozen, all-told. Rotated out, retired, living the civilian life.
Some of them date back to the Second World War and aren't in the best of health. Most are 1970s-80s recruits, one is a 1990s man with artificial legs. All of them are psychologically scarred by their time in the trenches.
Edom picked Chaudri for this job because she's already got the clearances, thanks to her work with Chain Home Deep. She just doesn't know it. Edom didn't care whether or not this overloaded Chaudri or caused her any problems. From Edom's perspective, the fewer people with their eyes on Edom's business, the better, and Chaudri is already a known face.
The problem with this darn fine scheme is, just as with Chain Home Deep, nobody at Edom is paying close attention to Chaudri's reports. After all, why should they? The point was to get a report, not to read the damn thing. Let alone take action based on that report.
Pity. Because, if someone did read them, they might notice disturbing similarities between the experiences endured by some of Chain Home Deep's crew and the veterans of E-Squadron. Particularly in the dreams they experience ...
Option One: A 70's Kid: The trooper, David Allenby, served during the time of the Mole Hunt and was there at the death, when the mole was run to ground. Allenby suffered a traumatic encounter with several SBAs in the final months of the Hunt and this left him with scars both mental and physical. However, it also left him a peculiar gift: he can spot Renfields. It takes him maybe 30 seconds, and his success rate is 100%. The thing is, he's convinced there's a Renfield near him now. At all times. Who can it be?
Option Two: A 40's Veteran: This might be Van Sloan. It's certainly someone of similar vintage, who was there during Edom's assault on Schloss Karnstein. He remembers everything. He goes back there at night, in his dreams. Something is calling him there. Something in his dreams wants to get out. This could be an entry vector to the Carmilla Sanction in the Edom Files, or a postscript dream-sequence to that operation in which one of the entities killed during the assault on the Schloss wants to come back to life and is using the Veteran's mind and body to do it.
Option Three: The 1980's: The trooper, Simon Yellern, went through any number of peculiar operations back in the day but the one that sticks in his mind is the incident in Afghanistan during the Soviet's Operation Curtain. While attempting to extract Yellern and his team were caught up in a Soviet special forces raid against the mujahideen they were working with, and those forces were very special indeed. Yellern was the only survivor from his unit. Thing is, he swears he saw one of those Soviet troopers in England. Chaudri has it down as a nightmare due to carelessness with medication, but Yellern's convinced the man he saw was real - and died during that 1980s raid. Yellern should know. Yellern killed him.
Floater: Person used for a one-time or occasional intelligence operation. Generally a floater is a low-level person, sometimes used unwittingly. A floater might be a waiter sent to a hotel room with a bottle of champagne allegedly from the management - in order to see who is in the hotel room.
Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Polmar & Allen, Random House 1998.
Retired KGB Agent Dmitri Lobanov. Lobanov was one of the KGB’s field hands during the late 1970s and ’80s, until he was burned by a former colleague and arrested in England — for assault and grievous bodily harm, not espionage. Ten years in Long Lartin prison followed; MI5 discovered Lobanov was a spy and debriefed him while he was incarcerated. These days, he’s a plumber doing odd jobs around North London. Dracula Dossier p97
Archives/Library Establishing Shot: Endless rows of metal racks hold dusty case files (or civil archives, or Securitate surveillance reports, or dissertations on medieval Romania). Strata of labels, each one stuck over its predecessor, trace the development of the filing system, from handwritten notes to typewritten ones to bar codes. Dracula Dossier p254
A North London archive of importance to Edom, the Conspiracy or a significant third party is penetrated by a Floater - the retired KGB agent. The agents are alerted to this after the fact through security camera footage, or perhaps they were conducting surveillance of the archive only to find Lobanov already on-site. Lobanov's a face, a known quantity. That he was even seen near the archive is a problem for the higher-ups. The higher-ups hate problems.
The question that needs answering: is Lobanov a Floater, and if so to whom does he report? Or is something else going on?
After all, there are any number of legitimate reasons why a plumber might be on-site. It might just be bad luck for Lobanov that he was called out to this particular location. Or someone may have paid Lobanov to go to the archive to see what happens next. If the agents overreact, this might tip off whoever Lobanov's employers are that there's something interesting in the archive.
They can't afford to be too gung-ho, nor can they ignore the situation altogether. This calls for delicate handling.
Additional complication: Lobanov isn't alone. He has a youngster with him. The kid might be an apprentice. A quick background check shows that Lobanov recently took his nephew into the family business. Is this the nephew? Or did whoever sent Lobanov think he needed additional support?
Potential Thrilling Surveillance: the agents covertly pursue Lobanov and his apprentice across North London, to job sites, pubs and finally Lobanov's main gaff in Hammersmith. If Lobanov spots the tail and is innocent, he may assume that the agents are working for some leg-breakers he has reason to know all too well; he has gambling debts. If Lobanov spots the tail and is a Floater, then he reacts badly. It's been years and years since he was in the field, and the last thing he wants is to go back to Long Lartin - or worse. This could turn the Thrilling Surveillance into a Thrilling Chase.
Potential Thrilling Interrogation: the agents corner Lobanov and try to get him to talk. If innocent, he assumes that the agents are working with Edom and are really here about the mole hunt, despite whatever they may say about archives. He went through all that years ago. He hates going through it again. If a Floater, then Lobanov assumes the worst and goes straight to combat, if he can. He had his suspicions about this job, and now they're confirmed. He doesn't know anything useful, but he doesn't think he can convince his captors he's just a pigeon.
Potential complication: The kid. He's maybe sixteen, but he has a mouth on him like a sewer and he's a little too handy with his fists. Treat as gym rat for stat purposes.
As an innocent, he's actually the son of an influential Russian oligarch. The oligarch remembers Lobanov from the old KGB days, back when the two of them were in the same line of work. The oligarch is sick of his no-good, layabout son drinking all the time and getting into trouble. He figured a few months working a real job with his old buddy Lobanov would straighten the little turd out. However, just because the oligarch wants his son on a diet of bread and skilly for a while doesn't mean he wants him dead or up on charges.
As a Floater, the kid's actually a Renfield and while he still has the mouth and the gym rat stats, he's considerably more dangerous. As are the rat swarms he can call on as backup, should the need arise.
Short one this week! Enjoy!
PS - I'm headed to Toronto later this year and am putting together a list of bookshops to visit. Any shop you'd care to add to the list?
