Violet Firth aka Dion Fortune

 Last week I talked about ritual magic and this week it's Dion Fortune. Some of the material I'm going to discuss comes from Francis King's The Rites of Modern Occult Magic. 

Violet Firth (born 6 December 1890 died 6 or 8 January 1946) was introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1919, when she would have been in her late 20s. MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Golden Dawn, had died the year before during the influenza epidemic and the Golden Dawn was under the occasionally shaky leadership of his widow Moina Mathers, working in partnership with an ageing J.W. Brodie-Innes. Brodie-Innes was himself not long for this world and would pass in 1923. 

Firth came from a wealthy background and was well educated. Her father, anxious not to be seen as a money-grubbing parvenu, adopted the motto God, not Luck - Deo, non Fortuna - from which she would derive the pseudonym by which she is best known. Though in her view Dion Fortune wasn't so much a pseudonym as Violet Firth was her deadname. 

Fortune had a long-standing interest in occultism before being introduced as a neophyte in Alpha et Omega in 1919. She was well versed in psychotherapy, the works of Freud and Jung, and had experience as a medium and psychic sensitive. She'd also served in the War in the Woman's Land Army but had never been posted overseas. 

King says something interesting, though it's a bit of a non sequitur. He describes Fortune as a 'slim young girl' in 1919 and goes on to add that 'later she was to become very fat; for some reason most mediums seem to do this - probably there is some relationship between mediumship and the glandular balance of the metabolism.' Which, frankly, sounds like utter garbage, but in a game world where Y'Golonac exists there is something to be said for a fictional universe where mediums become enormous under psychic influences.

Fortune soon becomes disenchanted with the Golden Dawn's mismanagement and its lack of a rigorous training program. It doesn't help that Mathers is milking it for every spare dollar, pushing Alpha et Omega as if mystical learning is a self-help experience. Initially Fortune counters this by trying to bring in new blood, with Mathers' blessing. New recruits were a good thing for Mathers the Empire-builder. This creates the Fraternity of the Inner Light, a sub-group within Alpha et Omega, in which Fortune is a leading player. Mathers hates that idea; in Alpha et Omega, Mathers is Imperatrix, the only leading player.

Fortune and Mathers soon fall out, and Fortune alleges that Mathers engages her in psychic assault. This takes the form of a plague of cats. "I suddenly saw, coming down the stairs towards me, a gigantic tabby cat, twice the size of a tiger. It appeared absolutely solid and tangible. I stared at it petrified for a second, and then it vanished. I instantly realized that it was a simulacrum, or thought-form that was being projected by someone with occult powers." Fortune beats off this attack with her own occult powers but not without cost; when she goes to bed, she sees she has been scored as if by claws. 

Again, going back to gaming, this can be significant in a game world in which dreams, mystic cats, and Bast worship exist. Was Mathers secretly a worshipper of the cat god, or had she, by chance, discovered a means of using Bast's powers? Was Mathers a Dreamer?

This becomes even more important later, when Ms. Netta Fornario, a member of Alpha et Omega, dies under very mysterious circumstances. She travelled to Scotland in 1929, evidently engaged in some kind of ritual exercise on the Isle of Iona, and was later found dead there. Possibly her death was the result of exposure to the elements, but there were deep score marks on the body and, before her death, Netta claimed she was being attacked psychically. Fornario and Fortune were friends. Fortune believed Mathers was responsible for Fornario's death.  

By this time Mathers was dead; in fact, she died the year before Fornario's trip to Iona. Any further breach between Fortune and Mathers was irrelevant, at least in the physical realm, though Mathers' psychic influences may have remained.

Again, going back to gaming, this could also become in-game relevant if Mathers was a Dreamer, and if her Dream-self survived. Particularly if you, as Keeper, intend this to run contemporaneously with Dreamhounds of Paris, since Mathers will be in the Dream fomenting occult dissent just at the time the Dreamhounds are sculpting the Dreamlands in their own image. What would Mathers do if her Egyptian, Bast-centric artistic vision is interrupted by French Surrealists while she, at the same time, is continuing her feud with Fortune?  

By this point Fortune is utterly disenchanted with Alpha et Omega. Fortune has effective control over her own Fraternity, and she's more interested in personal development than getting bogged down in psychic attacks and the day-to-day bother of running an esoteric society. She begins corresponding with other occultists across Europe, expanding her horizons and generally making a name for herself. Not just living occultists either; through meditation she contacts Madame Blavatsky, and more esoteric entities. Her career as a writer begins to flourish, and her most well-regarded book, The Mystical Qabalah, is published in 1935. 

Ultimately, she approaches paganism, abandoning her former Christian beliefs. She begins to develop a mystical practice entirely her own, based on rituals of her own devising.

War approaches. The mystical Battle of Britain is about to begin ...

Tweety Bird and the Bug Zapper (Night's Black Agents)

This post is inspired by two recent news articles about stun guns and birds of prey.

The number of stun guns seized by British border police has increased by 70% over the last year, according to a recent Guardian article. The devices, which are illegal in the United Kingdom, are often brought in by criminals seeking to avoid more serious gun possession charges, but are sometimes 'smuggled' by accident as tourists buy novelty items, like stun guns disguised as mobile phones, without thinking of the consequences.

Meanwhile Dutch police are training birds of prey to bring down drones, again according to a Guardian piece. The birds have been tested over the last few years and the tests have been successful. The trained eagles bring down the drones like featherless pigeons, and though less tasty than their usual prey the eagles have a 100% success rate and no injuries.

In Night's Black Agents the use of stun guns is not precisely discouraged, but not welcomed with open arms either. 'Whatever other effects they may have,' say the main rules, on page 62, 'Tasers also short-circuit combat scenes, and turn fights into one-shot beats. In other words, tasers are boring.'  Of course on that same page the authors also say 'they're invaluable investigative tools in those minor excursions that precede [the climactic confrontation].'

It's a tricky balance. The problem is mechanical. Guns and other weapons do damage directly to Health; lose enough of it, and you fall over. It's a mechanic that's served us well since the first Fighter met the first Orc in a ten by ten room. Stun guns ignore that whole system by not doing damage to Health at all, instead producing a specific effect instantaneously. At least D&D let you have a saving throw, but in NBA it's zap-crackle-thump. It's like giving all wizards the Fireball spell right from the start.

Theoretically the Thriller Combat rules negate this by giving the skilled combatant extra tools to play with. If Woody Allen with a stun gun goes up against Schwarzenegger, the mighty Governator can Jump In and then Disarm, or Extra Attacks, or whatever else will pound Allen into hamburger before he gets a zap off. If the Governator's MOS happens to be Hand to Hand all the better, though knowing him his MOS is probably Shooting. Allen can't do much about this since his Weapons pool is, if anything, -3. His Athletics may be even lower.

Arguably in these circumstances a taser makes fights more interesting, not boring, because it ups the stakes. Suddenly your martial arts expert who was breezing through the fight has to think about what happens next.

However I've yet to encounter a player whose mastery of the combat rules is up to that task. More often than not the player doesn't know everything her character is capable of, and there's an element of deer-in-headlights the minute it becomes a Contest. This shouldn't be an issue with experienced players, but you can hardly give a group access to everything up to and including Hellfire missiles and then say 'No! You can't use the stun guns till you're experienced!'

The stun gun problem becomes even more of a conundrum when you consider that the police carry tasers. The UK police often use them, as do the French, and while less common elsewhere in Europe many of the European police forces have them. It's pointless pretending the players wouldn't have access to tasers, not when the characters get a free Glock with their Weetabix every morning.

On the flip side, players using stun guns against, say, vampires should get short shrift, and not just because tasering Dracula and then pounding pointy bits of wood into the Vampire Lord's quivering flesh - paging Doctor Freud, I say again, paging Doctor Freud - lacks drama. Tasers work on human biology, and the whole point is that biology is no longer an issue for vampires.

But there's that mechanical problem again. In game Vampires have Health like the rest of us. Hit 'em, shoot 'em, stab 'em and eventually they fall down. It takes a lot of effort, but it can be done. So if they're vulnerable to weapons, what makes tasers any different?

In those circumstances the best defense is a good offense. Specifically, an offense that doesn't let the characters get a shot off. Vampires didn't get to where they are today by letting a bunch of jumped-up monkeys take command of the combat arena. Distortion, Temporal Distortion, Vampiric Speed, Apportation, all make tasers a bit irrelevant. Moreover I'd argue that any Regeneration or Strength ability means whatever effect a taser might have is immediately negated as soon as the ability kicks in. Get in, wash yourself in the blood of your enemies, rinse, repeat.

All that said, would I encourage taser use in my game? Well ... yes.

While I agree with the concern that tasers make hand to hand fights less cinematic, I'd say that concern is over-hyped. I'd also say that there are mechanical ways around the problem, like Regeneration, or by using Aberrance (possibly combined with Strength) to overcome the effect. Finally I'd argue that in certain styles of game - Dust, Mirror - a means of knocking people out without permanent injury is extremely useful, and in keeping with the genre.

In The Prisoner, for instance, Number Six is knocked unconscious all the time; usually by gas, but then the taser hadn't really been invented yet, not in its current form. In fact the trope's borrowing from a very old pulp concept, the Mickey Finn. Sam Spade gets knocked out often by the old Mickey, as do all the pulp heroes. Turning to video games for a moment, in nearly all the Stealth genre titles - Thief, Dishonored, Deus Ex - there's some kind of sleep mechanic. Corvo has his darts, Adam Jensen his silenced sleep pistol and rifle, Garret his cudgel, bow and peculiar arrows. Heck, even Hitman, a series all about the killing, allows Agent 47 to knock out targets non-lethally.

In fact Stealth titles tend to have a mechanic that Night's Black Agents lacks; a hand-to-hand nonlethal takedown without the taser. There's an implicit assumption that combat must be lethal, an assumption that, I suspect, goes right back to that Orc in his ten by ten room. Yet most Stealth titles give out achievements by the bucketful for 'clean hands' Infiltration. Killing is implicitly discouraged, either by some hit to your character's karma or, as with Invisible Inc, by substantially increasing the difficulty of the infiltration with each kill.

So yes, I would allow the taser. I would encourage nonlethal takedowns, as they fit the setting and the genre. I'd up the Infiltration difficulty with each kill, and I'd probably invent new Achievements to encourage clean hands infiltration too, something like this:

Like A Ghost: complete the infiltration and exfiltration of a guarded facility requiring Difficulty 5 or higher Infiltration, without killing any guards or civilians on site. Refresh 3 points Infiltration.

Now let's turn to Tweety Bird.

When I first read that article my mind immediately turned to thoughts of bats, giant or otherwise, taking down drones. And lo, my heart grew warm with loving feelings. However it then occurred to me that I don't often see players use drones, at least not as efficiently as they could.

Now, this might be a geographic issue. I live in Bermuda; there aren't many drones here. There are some, and they do excellent work, but the fad really hasn't taken off the way it has in the States or Europe. So my players don't think of them as an option.

However there are plenty of examples, particularly in recent video games, of drones being used in ways I've not yet seen tabletop players emulate. Say, in Tactical Fact Finding Benefits or improvised Cooperative moves like this:

Military Science / Human Terrain and Mechanics / Surveillance: use a drone to scout ahead and tag potential targets and infiltration routes. Note that the benefit implicitly acknowledges there's more than one way to get the same effect.

Mind you, it also acknowledges that, as Director, I'm never sure whether a drone used this way counts as a Mechanics or Surveillance spend. I can see a good argument for Piloting too, but that just makes things even more complicated. On the whole I'd lean towards Mechanics.

A drone could also be used to spray an area with some kind of aerosol-based bane. This would probably be a Cooperative Mechanics/Vampirology, with a potentially devastating effect: imagine the vampire, having hidden itself in some inaccessible spot, emerging from its coffin only to get a squirt of holy water or similar right in the face.

Of course there's the more direct approach. Drones threaten airports all the time, hence the Dutch eagles. A private jet coming in to land could find itself taken out by an explosives-packed drone sucked right up into the engine.

Playing with the concept, there are those simplified inflatable fish drones. Picture a stealth kill in a crowded place, or a party, with one of those babies. It would have to be a very simple lightweight payload, probably some kind of contact poison spray, but for sheer cinematics you can't beat a flying fish killer. The target will never see it coming.

Then there's drone hacking. The Dutch, as mentioned in the article, have tried this but apparently it isn't as efficient as eagle hitmen. That said, an agency with government money to burn - like, say, Edom - has probably cracked that problem. I'd rate a drone hack at Difficulty 4 for commercial models, and 8 for military drones. At least, I devoutly hope it's 8 given the armament those things carry.

That's enough for this week. Enjoy!

Edit: ordinarily I don't update these, but in a Tweet this afternoon Ken Hite was kind enough to say:

'Nonlethal takedown is just HtH against a mook (Player-Facing Combat); drones use Piloting or Driving, Agents pick'

So the drone question is resolved.

Not as convinced ref: nonlethal, as treating it as basic HtH against a mook doesn't really fulfil the choke-hold visual you get from Stealth titles, which is what I'm struggling towards. It's a bit like the Outside Xbox three-ways-to-play videos; I'm aiming for a full Andy, and coming up with Jane, at best. Possibly Mike if things really go pear-shaped.

I'm tempted to use the Called Shot rules, but that can get very expensive very quickly which would make it pointless in mook combats. Still, a Called Shot Throat (from behind, to fulfil the cinematic requirement) would silence the target.

I think, reluctantly, that calling it pure hand-to-hand is the most practical approach, even if it doesn't scratch the itch. Pure HtH with an obligatory bit of technothriller monologue would be even better.

Brexit

I don't usually talk politics here. This isn't the place for it. However as a Overseas Territory, colony or whatever else you care to call it, when the English tore up their passports, they tore up mine too, and I didn't get the admittedly small consolation of voting in the referendum. So it's been on my mind.

I deliberately use the word English, by the way. It sure as hell wasn't the United Kingdom that voted Leave. Though to be absolutely fair the Welsh also had their hands in this decision, bad cess to 'em.

Assuming Brexit goes ahead as planned, it's a good bet that the United Kingdom will cease to exist shortly thereafter, probably within ten years. So a child born today may only know the United Kingdom as a fading memory, like old episodes of Looney Tunes or Trapdoor.

Scotland will go, for a start. God alone knows what will happen to Northern Ireland; there's a certain logic in rejoining the rest of Ireland, but that's not a logic I expect anyone to actually adopt, for reasons which ought to be obvious. Wales will probably go as well, not because it's annoyed by the result but because the Welsh know opportunity when they see it. Though what happens after the door shuts behind them is anyone's guess.

But let's talk about the Crown Dependencies for a moment, places like Sark, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey; and also the Overseas Territories, which is a slightly longer list that includes Bermuda.

If you think we're sticking around, you're off your bloody head.

I can only speak for Bermuda, but I'm pretty sure that the question of Independence has arisen time and again for each of those Dependencies and Territories. In most cases I suspect it was a very short discussion. Small countries do not do well on the larger international stage. We need someone to speak for us, and so long as the United Kingdom remained a strong, reliable force, there was never any reason to take Independence seriously.

Well, there's reason enough now.

Don't be fooled by the Little Britain attitude that places like Gibraltar adopt. Small nations have a very finely tuned sense of self preservation; we can jump ship in a heartbeat. Gibraltar, for example, has Spain. Yes, the Gibraltarians are loath to accept Spain as their savior - very, very loath, as shown in the 2002 referendum -  but they'll eat tapas and like it if their only other option is leaving the EU. Though I note that they'd rather eat haggis, if given the opportunity. They say No now. Give them a taste of financial decline post-Brexit, and they'll say Maybe. Once they say Maybe, Yes is only a few more hard years away.

Tears will be shed, I don't doubt. Tears cost nothing, and dry quickly.

Now, Bermuda's relationship with the EU has always been more theoretic than practical. I've often wondered why, for example, there've never been EU challenges to our Immigration laws. I'd have thought that, given our relationship with the EU via the UK and given that freedom of movement for workers is such a cornerstone of the relationship, someone would have tried to argue by now that our fairly strict Immigration laws were trumped by EU membership. Yet the challenge never happened.

But that's a relatively minor drop in the ocean. Fact is, we've never had to think about Europe, really. For the average citizen it's somewhere we can't really afford to visit on holiday very often, and besides, the flight's hours and hours. That said, I've just spent the last few weeks performing Shakespeare with a would-be student who's down in the dumps because her preferred choice of university is probably off the menu now. So take that for what it's worth.

For the businessman Europe is more of an issue, but even then our attention's usually focused on North America, mainly because of geography and shared history. Not all of it creditable on our side; we sold cotton and guns in the Civil War, and booze during Prohibition, for a start. But shared history nonetheless, and besides, there's a reason why the motto's Whither the Fates Carry Us. We know full well that the best way to get along is to shape our course to the prevailing wind, particularly if there's money to be made.

So here's my prediction, for what it's worth. If Brexit goes ahead, and if it's as nasty as expected, then Bermuda will go independent within the decade. We may not care about Europe but the one argument against independence which always succeeded was that having a strong partner on the world stage was more important. If England drops rapidly into political chaos and financial turmoil, that argument no longer applies.

What happens after that is murky. We'd do well not to tie ourselves to Uncle Sam, but that's the more likely scenario. In my ideal over-the-rainbow wishful thinking we'd somehow get back into Europe, perhaps via Scotland. God alone knows how. There's a reason why it's called wishful thinking.

Independence is not something I ever thought would happen, but then I never thought the United Kingdom would implode. Yet here we are.

Sorry for being a downer this time out, but I needed to say that. It's been brewing ever since the referendum.

Normal service will resume next post.

Hello, Vicar (Bookhounds of London, Trail of Cthulhu)

I've been mainlining the Merrily Watkins, Deliverance Consultant series by Phil Rickman. I've been a fan of his ever since discovering his horror novels, donkey's years ago, and I highly recommend them if you can find them. That may be difficult; I'm not sure any of them are in print any more. However the Watkins series is still going strong, and I now discover that ITV filmed a serial which will go worldwide release this year. That's a must-see for me, and I highly recommend it to you.

It occurred to me that, since for the last few weeks I've been discussing Bookhounds, it might be interesting to talk about the Church of England, particularly since those outside the UK may not fully appreciate its position within the social fabric.

Everyone knows this bit: once upon a time, King Henry VIII decided divorce was just the thing he needed, and since the Catholics weren't about to grant it he kicked them out of the country and invented what amounted to his own Church, with him at the head of it. That's the essential problem the Church was created to solve: not any complex theological issue, but instead who was in control. Was it to be the Pope, a foreign potentate who demanded loyalty both religious and, to an extent, secular, or the King, who would brook no equals, far less superiors?

This led to a series of conflicts, on several different fronts. Politically it brought the Kingdom into direct conflict with any Catholic monarch, such as when the King of Spain sent in the Armada when Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, was on the throne. The Protestant apostasy wasn't Spain's only reason for wanting to invade, but it certainly lent a piquant spice to the invasion. On the home front, the breakup of the Catholic estate and dispossession of its landholders, led to more than a few martyrdoms. Some of them were more dramatic than others, as with the visionary Holy Maid of Kent who became the only woman to have her head displayed on a spike on London Bridge. And then, of course, there were the traitors.

Guy Fawkes is by far the most famous, mainly because the celebration of his execution has become Bonfire Night, in which the fires and fireworks were originally meant to symbolize the infernal blazes, from which Papists came. Perhaps literally; one commentator warned of Papists tunneling 'from Oxford, Rome, Hell, to Westminster, and there to blow up, if possible, the better foundations of your houses, their liberties and privileges.'  Then of course there's the fictional Popish Plot, which saw 22 people executed, or the many other schemes both real and imagined, to burn down London, kill the monarch, and bring back Catholicism. This led in turn to legal persecution of Catholics, for as legal scholar William Blackstone pointed out, Catholics continued to put the Pope above the King. 'While they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.' It's an attitude that, to a greatly modified extent, persists today; whenever the issue of a Catholic, or Catholic-friendly, monarch ascending to the throne is discussed, constitutional scholars crawl out of the woodwork to render their judgment on the issue.

By the 19th century this attitude had been much-modified. There was no question of martyrdom by that point, and nobody was expecting Catholic sappers to emerge triumphant from the bombed-out ruins of Westminster. But by that stage the Church was a worldwide institution, for wherever the Empire went, it went too. That legacy is also still with us today, for the C of E is an international Communion, which has led to problems within the faith. When the question of gay marriage arose, for example, even though the Church leaders in the UK adopted a liberal position, elements of the Communion outside the UK were, and remain, vigorously opposed.

Within the UK, the C of E operates on the parish structure.  Each church administers to a set parish within a set geographical region. Several parishes make a diocese, under the supervision of a Bishop. The Bishops make up the church leadership, and are ultimately under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and through him, the Crown.

These churches are social centers as much as they are religious institutions; particularly in rural areas, the church is the center of day to day life. This has led to some unusual problems, not the least of which is financial. The Church owns a tremendous estate: 16,000 buildings spread over 13,000 parishes, never mind the 43 cathedrals, with a remarkable number of them protected due to their architectural and historic significance. Over 43% of the Grade 1 listed buildings in the UK are churches, Grade 1 being the most important, don't-you-dare-modify-this-ever-ever-EVER classification. Imagine the kind of income you'd need to take care of an estate that size, and then reflect that it's done mostly by donations. You can begin to see why dwindling congregation size is such an important issue for the C of E.

In fiction of the Trail of Cthulhu period, whenever C of E churchmen are encountered it almost never seems to be in their capacity as vicar, dealing with a spiritual problem. They might be persecuted by supernatural entities in M R James, or a body might have turned up in the vicarage courtesy of Agatha Christie, or some muscular Christian might be presiding over a Wodehouse village fete. Whatever their role is, it's almost always a secular issue; even in the Stalls of Barchester, James' protagonist is in the soup because he murdered someone for their living. But it's left to Catholics like Father Brown to point out that someone "who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil," connecting his spiritual role with his role in the plot.

If you're looking for a free resource that may provide scenario inspiration, I recommend Sabine Baring-Gould. If you recognize the name it's almost certainly because of his book on werewolves, but Baring-Gould was a priest and antiquarian as well as a novelist, and his books on country life and the role of the village parson in the community are well worth a look.

Closing out, let's consider what role a C of E vicar might play in Bookhounds.

The church is almost certainly a relic of times past, updated more recently. There was a spate of church renovations in the Victorian and Edwardian period, tossing out many of the old pews, carvings and other relics in favor of a more open, modern church, and the characters are more likely to encounter this in London than they are in rural areas. The roof may leak and the bill for repairs may be heavy, but the congregation is likely to be enthusiastic and involved; this isn't yet the dwindling period of scanty congregations and empty donation platters.

The vicar is likely to be involved in many areas beyond what might be considered his spiritual remit. If the parish is populated mainly by the working class and the urban poor, for instance, the vicar will be at least interested in union politics and poor relief. However the vicar is very much of his class, and that is likely to mean middle or upper middle class. Consequently although he may sympathize with the working class, he is not of the working class, and that is likely to make a difference in the way he is treated as well as how he treats others.

The vicar is an educated man, and may even have been to Oxford. Though there are no female vicars in period there are plenty of female lay readers, some of whom may have led their churches in wartime, when the men were at the Front. Moreover C of E vicars are allowed to marry, and their spouses are often central figures in the local community. In period it's usually one vicar, one church; in the modern era, when pay packets are small as is the number of candidates, never mind the congregation, one vicar often serves multiple parishes.

However unless the vicar is very high church he's unlikely to be that interested in mysticism. C of E vicars tend towards practicality and liberalism, rather than ritual. In the typical Trail period the vicar is also likely to have served in the Commonwealth in some capacity, and that can mean anywhere from Africa to Asia and beyond. Perfect for picking up the odd bit of occult lore, or even texts and artifacts, particularly since many vicars tended towards antiquarianism.  

With all that in mind, consider:

The Church of St Clement, in East London, was originally built in 1088, burnt twice over the next few hundred years, and rebuilt each time. The current Church was built in 1789, and extensively modified in 1882. Bomb damage in the War scars the steeple, but the damage was never filled in. It's remarkable for its stained glass window depicting Clement's martyrdom, as well as a much more modern Wartime stained glass memorial dedicated to the RFC. During the war, the then lay reader, Winnifred Jones, was an enthusiastic backer of air power, and as a result of her fundraising and tireless effort the parish donated enough money and material to build five aircraft for No 59 Squadron RFC, now RAF. The current incumbent is Michael Cunliffe-Scott, a high churchman who wants to bring back many of the old rituals and near-Catholic practices, an attitude that puts him at odds with a substantial number of his congregation as well as his lay readers.

From a Megalapolisamantic point of view, St Clement is an interesting and potentially powerful lever. However the Bookhounds may be more interested in Cunliffe-Scott as a potential customer; he fancies himself an antiquarian and amateur ghost-hunter, in the style of Harry Price, and is a keen seeker after book bargains.

That's it for now! Enjoy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope this was useful! Enjoy.

Shut Up & Sit Down

This is going to be a quick post because I want to talk about something else altogether, but I can't blether about that until I've blethered about this: Shut Up & Sit Down, a boardgame review site run by two guys in the UK, Quinns and Paul. This site is so much fun! Please go over there and give them a bit of your time.

I've loved board games ever since the year dot, but I hardly ever get a chance to play them any more. I lack both time and opponents, but there was a day when something like Knights of the Air, Kremlin or Fury of Dracula consumed hours upon hours upon hours of my free time. I still have all three games knocking around somewhere, but the odds of them ever coming out of the box for a bit of fun are, alas, very low. Watching these two nutbars have a casual meltdown, grins plastered all over their faces, as they get deeply involved in yet another video review is very satisfying.

I will say this: their vids can be a bit too long. They cover a lot of ground, but unless you have half an hour or so spare watching one can feel like a slog, however funny it may be. They seem inclined to switch to a ten-minute format, probably to satisfy their Penny-Arcade audience.  I hope they stick with the shorter shows, as they're much easier to digest in one sitting.