Hush Hush House 2 - the NPCs (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

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. 

Then we move to the hook.

Once upon I time I opined 

[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. 

However, conflict does lead to plot ...

That's it for this week! Enjoy. 

Hush Hush Houses (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)

During the Second World War, the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, took over a number of English country houses to use as training bases. Called Hush Hush Houses by some - the need for secrecy was so great that not even the owners were told to what use their homes would be put - these country bases were used to train agents in every aspect of espionage, from wireless and demolition to small scale raiding.

Ring would have been such a house once upon a time, and Dracula Dossier Directors will know that Ring may, or may not, be active today. However I want to talk about a different use for the Hush Hush Houses, and tangentially about Eric Sykes and William Fairburn, who I've mentioned before.

Briefly: Sykes and Fairburn had both been in the Shanghai Municipal Police before the war, where they tangled with professional kidnappers and violent, gun-happy criminals. Their experiences inspired the 'shoot to live' policy which they passed on to their policemen, and later the SOE recruits. Among their training techniques was the Mystery House, which has been described as:

'... fitted out to look like the interior of a Chinese lodging house occupied by armed criminals. A trainee trod on floorboards which gave way under him as he entered a dimly lit room occupied by apparently harmless people who varied from mere lodgers to dope-fiends or stool pigeons. He had to take in the situation in a flash. Firecrackers, confetti, sticks and other physical objects were thrown at him. Anything like deliberate aim is a sheer impossibility.'

The SAS adopted this technique in its Kill Houses, which follow roughly the same pattern. Military training all over the world uses similar techniques, the biggest difference between modern and Sykes & Fairburn's Mystery Houses being the use of video screens rather than actual targets, which probably helps to cut down on accidents.

Their training influenced the construction of other ranges, like the one near Inverlair, in Scotland. Scottish hunting lodges and stately homes were often requisitioned by the SOE because of their remote, secluded locations; the neighbors never knew what was going on. The Inverlair range was like this:

'...the students were shown an elaborate little village, which lay at the foot of a steep bluff. At the top of a cliff a soldier stood beside a set of levers which looked somewhat like those in a railway safety box. The village we were informed was full of Germans. It was our business to kill them all. We were given two Colt .45 automatics already loaded, and two spare clips of ammunition apiece. Then one by one we were sent to attack each house in turn. The door of the first house sprang open in response to a brisk kick, and the signalman went into action. The houses were fully furnished and fully occupied. No sooner had a dummy, impelled by wires, leaped out of bed to tackle the intruder and been shot for his pains, than a trapdoor opened, men emerged from beneath tables, bottles and chairs came hurtling disconcertingly at the Gunman's head. Pistols blazing, one dispatched, as one hoped, all the occupants of the first house, and dashed to the second, where a fresh set of hazards presented itself.'

What does this mean for Edom agents, and E Squadron?

Well, Edom's bound to have at least one Kill House site for CQB training. There's bound to be a degree of role play involved too; the agents have to be able to deal with unusual situations involving SBAs or their minions. If Edom has a captive and compliant SBA on its roster it might use that SBA in training exercises; otherwise a human asset with superlative Shrink and Interrogation pools could substitute. As one SOE agent recalled, post-mission, the most frightening moment was 'The mock interrogation at Beaulieu'; what would Edom, with all the Grand Guignol special effects at its disposal, not do to assess the operational quality of its agents?

With that in mind I present two possible Kill Houses, one dating to the War, another to the 1970s.

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 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.

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.

Warm: The old sweats of E Squadron remember Glen Eagles fondly. It might look a relic but it's been carefully looked after over the years, like a well-oiled rifle. You don't get assignment to Proserpine without going through the Glen Eagles Hell Course first, a grueling shootout and CQB combat zone in which unmodified recruits go up against Jacked assailants as well as remote-control targets. You have to be able to tell the civilians apart from the targets; slip up, and it's back to your unit. To outsiders and Google this appears to be a privately owned outward bound hotel resort, but it's always booked up. Poachers are most definitely not encouraged, and the groundskeepers are very enthusiastic about keeping unwanted people off the property.

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.

Cool: Edom last made use of Brinkley back in the 1980s, and didn't remove traces of its CQB or interrogation chambers. The grey bureaucrats who work here never bother about the peculiar smells that keep floating up from the depths of the building, beyond occasionally complaining to the facilities management team. Clues involving the 1970s mole hunt can be found here, possibly even a bolt hole kept by one of the 1970s people, looking for a place to store emergency supplies or evidence where nobody will bother to look for it. A Sealed Coffin (minor item only) or Cryptic Lockbox (probably minor, but you never know) may be found here.

Warm: MoneyForce may be the name on the lease, but it's a cover for Edom's state of the art Kill House, also known as Piccadilly for its eerily accurate reproduction of a city street, all underground. Just above Piccadilly are the interrogation chambers, where recruits in training get a first-hand taste of what might happen to them if they ever get caught by the opposition. E Squadron recruits getting their first taste of Serum always start with a run at Piccadilly, with live ammunition. There's also a laser bullet range for non-military Edom assets; E Squadron calls it the Kiddie Pool. Any non-Edom personnel found on site wins a one-way ticket to Proserpine; Edom had one very nasty scare in the 1990s, and since then has become paranoid about Piccadilly's operational security. If Edom has a compliant SBA on its asset roster, this SBA can often be found here engaging in one-on-one training; known as Hades, this involves a Piccadilly run with the SBA as the opponent.

That's it for now! Enjoy.

Note on sources: much of this material is based on information obtained from an Annual Soane Lecture publication, Country Houses and Secret Agents, by Marcus Binney.

Sykes, Fairbairn and the Wilds of Scotland: Post Bookhounds

There is a book in my collection I've been searching for without result. I say book; it's more of a pamphlet really, but one of those pamphlets you pick up knowing it will be of great use to you for a long time. I picked it up at the Soane Museum in London, which museum I highly recommend to anyone with an hour or two to spare; the pamphlet was from one of the architectural societies, and talked about the stately homes in Scotland that the security services used to train its agents, often with the enthusiastic assistance of two very skilled roughnecks, Eric Sykes and William Fairbairn.

Sykes and Fairbairn are the sort of people you need in a time of crisis. Sykes was a sniper and pistol expert, a veteran of the Great War as well as big game hunter, who went out to Shanghai in 1917 and for a time served, first as an unpaid volunteer and later as an inspector, in the police. That was where he met Fairbairn, a career copper, soldier, and close combat expert who developed his own martial arts system, which he taught to his fellow Shanghai policemen. Soon after the Second World War broke out, the pair of them shipped themselves home with a boatload of somewhat illegal firearms, and put themselves at the service of their country.

The intelligence services took them on board and set them up as instructors in sunny Scotland, teaching special agents, commandos and rangers how to fight, and live. Shooting to Live is in fact the title of their most famous instruction manual.  

The average shooting affray is a matter of split seconds, they warn. If you take much longer than a third of a second to fire your first shot, you will not be the one to tell the newspapers about it. It is literally a matter of the quick and the dead. Take your choice.

The bit that always sticks with me is, they used wax rounds and a slightly reduced powder charge to make their point, a practice which apparently is borrowed from duelists of the preceding centuries. In order to perfect your dueling technique, without actually getting your head blown off, you used these erzatz rounds in much the same way a paintballer would today. Sykes and Fairbairn used broadly the same method, putting trainees in a live fire range safe in the knowledge that, though they'd get bruised, they wouldn't actually die. At least, so says the Architectural Pamphlet, which I now cannot find. If you read Shooting to Live I highly recommend the Mystery Shoots section in chapter 6, which describes something like this scenario, but doesn't mention wax rounds.

Now, let's consider how this can be put in a Bookhounds context.

Bookhounds the campaign is set in the 1930s, with the War coming just around the corner. Nazi agents are specifically mentioned several times in the text as possible adversaries, or potential customers. When I discussed Technicolor London, way back in 2012, I touched briefly on the idea of a technologically advanced Nazi base complete with electric eyes and security cameras; that's the sort of campaign I'm thinking of here.

The question is, how to end it? If the game's been progressing well, no matter what your particular Final Adversary is, by the time war actually kicks off a Bookhounds game is effectively over. There's a certain charm in trying to keep the shop active while the Blitz is on - you could have some very effective scenarios set in the Undergound during air raids - but the whole grubby aesthetic of a books-and-auctions game is lost when everything's overshadowed by the threat of imminent, total destruction. You can't take the bickering over the price of a medieval missal seriously when your family was blown up yesterday.

Now is the time for a complete change of pace, and probably also an effective conclusion to the careers of these presumably established occultists. Now may also be the time for the security services to step in, recruit them, and send them off to Scotland. After all, if the protagonists have been involved in any way, shape or form with the Nazis before this, then one of Aunty Dora's children is bound to have taken note. Your country needs you. Time to step up and be counted.

Imagine what it would be like in one of those stately homes, miles from anywhere, set in God alone knows how many acres of carefully managed wilderness. Forgotten Gothic grandeur mixed with hasty wartime bodge jobs, as the military move in to make improvements of their own. Eager young recruits, polite but disbelieving, line up to be taught Idiosyncratic Magic or Megapolisomancy, and to be warned about the nature of some of the threats they will face. Meanwhile Sykes and Fairbairn are teaching them - and probably the Bookhounds too - how to shoot, stab, and throttle their opponents.

Then comes the inescapable warning: Trouble is on its way. Whatever the Great Adversary you might have been using in your game is, it is about to reach its destined conclusion. You could have this take place in London, for a Bookhounds game; whenever Dreamhounds comes out, you could have an interesting mix of the two campaign styles, as the surviving Bookhounds are sent in on a daring mission in wartime Paris. Odds on survival ought to be very low indeed.

The point ultimately being that this is an endgame moment. It takes on everything that has come before, and acknowledges that - thanks to the War - circumstances have changed such that things cannot proceed as they have done. There is a transition point - the stately home in Scotland - where the final encounter is defined, allowing the protagonists to plan for that moment when, whether on the rain-slick streets of London or the boulevards of Paris, they finally take action against the foe they've been crossing swords with all this time.

Then comes that moment when, after all those adventures, all that special training, they meet with the enemy one last time.