I was going to talk about Night's Black Agents again - and will, soon enough - but Ken Hite posted an article that intrigued me. It's the Center & Clarke Newsletter from UCLA, and on the 9th page it starts talking about Ye Sette of Odd Volumes. I don't propose to talk about that here - though I do recommend you read the newsletter - but about something else that cropped up as I was reading it.
At one point the article talks about Bertram Rota, Booksellers. I wondered if it still exists, and Google tells me it does, though it no longer has a London storefront and does most of its business online. However on perusing its site I noticed that it claimed among its plaudits that Anthony Rota, presumably the current owner, is a past president of the ABA. So what is the ABA, I asked myself?
Once again, Google has the answer. The Antiquarian Booksellers Association is a trade body, founded in 1906, for dealers in antiquarian and rare books. "Members are elected solely on the basis of proven experience, expertise
and integrity," says the ABA. "They are expected to observe the highest professional and
ethical standards and to foster the mutual trust and respect that
exists between the trade and the public." It currently boasts something in the region of 250 members in the UK and abroad, all experts in their trade. It doesn't have any specific bookbinding contacts, and admits it is hesitant to recommend any particular binder, "as we don't have any control over their quality, or any real knowledge of their product." Nor does it really want to recommend an auctioneer or auction house, as those are its competition. As far as the ABA's concerned, it's all about the books and nothing but.
Which means it maintains a database of lost or stolen books, and while naturally it lacks any significant information about what was going on in the 1930s, it's safe to assume the ABA was doing much the same then as it does now. That may intrigue certain player characters; if nothing else, it's a good way of checking the provenance of certain rare volumes, and can help avoid trouble. Or foment it, if the character was the one doing the stealing. It also keeps a library, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary; a .pdf of its contents can be found here. That does suggest it wouldn't have been around during the typical Bookhounds campaign, but it's likely the ABA had the beginnings of a library before the current one was founded. Its collection of links is also worth a look, if you want to learn more about the book trade. It isn't the only booksellers trade association - it isn't even the only one with the acronym ABA - but from a Bookhounds point of view, it's the only one that matters.
What does this suggest? From a fictional standpoint, of course; I accept that, from here on out, whatever is said may not reflect the actual practices of the ABA.
Well to begin with, membership of the ABA must be rather like getting into the Michelin Guide. It's all very well having a store front and shelves of books, but how does the discerning customer track you down? While it's not operating on a one to three star system - une des meilleures tables, vaut le voyage - the ABA badge is a sign a quality, one that customers trust. With that discreetly displayed in your official literature your fortune is, if not assured, at least much more likely than it otherwise would be. From a game mechanic point of view, the ABA is unlikely to be interested in any shop with less than 3 Credit Rating, and even most of the 3-point places are probably on the outside looking in.
It also suggests that someone must vet these establishments, and their proprietors. Again taking a leaf out of the pages of Michelin, the vetting process is probably anonymous. You don't know who might be judging you, or your expertise; these silent observers flit from shop to shop, evaluating its quality and the expertise of its staff and owners.
Finally - and this is purely from a Trail perspective - it also suggests the possibility of an organization within the ABA, devoted to occult studies. After all, in this universe magic is real, certain books have a power all their own, and strange, terrible things are known to have happened to those who unwarily ventured into bookselling's murkier corners. The ABA would be well aware of this. Whether or not the ABA has acknowledged occultists and cultists within its ranks, or just a few rather well-informed experts, is probably going to depend on whether your game is Pulp or Purist. In Pulp almost anything goes, but in Purist there's only going to be one or two people 'in the know' when it comes to the uncanny. "It's not the sort of thing we talk about," an ABA member might say, "but if you really want an expert opinion on that text, you should show it to Smythe. It's his bailiwick."
So after all that, an example ABA expert:
Edward Smythe
Physical: Short, thin, in his early 40s. Dark wire-brush hair, always slightly unkempt; he's forever trying to brush it into submission, and it never takes. Hands like a concert pianist, which he takes obsessive care over.
Arabesque: Smythe is an intelligent overachiever from a poor family, whose scholarships and academic prowess pushed him into the realm of books. He occasionally dreams of a large castle with hundreds of rooms, all of which he has access to save one. He knows the door of that one room as well as the door to his own home, and sometimes he wonders what might happen if he saw it in the waking world. His eyes are wide, and filled with dreams; at times, say his friends and contemporaries, he sees things which aren't there.
Technicolor: Smythe is a ghost-hunter. It's not something he likes to broadcast, as it would hurt his reputation, but he's worked with Harry Price and other famous psychic researchers. He's put down three hauntings so far, in addition to all the usual frauds and 'ghost sightings' that turn out to be faulty water pipes and the creaking of old houses. It's whispered that, in addition to the ABA, Smythe is also a member in good standing of a secret occult society, but it's not the kind of thing a chap like Smythe would ever talk about.
Sordid: Smythe, while not a forger himself, is on good terms with many who are. It helps him in his work and, its said, he has been known to let pass a questionable tome or two, at the right price. He doesn't do it often, for fear of being caught, and in Smythe's case 'the right price' isn't coin of the realm. But as for what it is, you'd have to talk to Smythe to find out, and let him touch you. Those hands of his seem to have a mind of their own, sometimes.
Tainted: A man can't do as Smythe has done and not come into contact with the Dust Things. Smythe is hag-ridden each night, and in order to survive has come to certain accommodations with his mistress. Pockets full of dust, he goes out into London, spreading he knows not what; it's the only way to stay sane.
Three Things: A very slight Liverpudlian accent, which he does his best to cover over with rich, BBC-quality tones. He has a morbid fear of cats, and can't bear to be in the same room with one. He always carries a cane; the Arabesque version uses it as a kind of divining rod, while in Technicolor it's probably a sword cane.
Credit Rating: 4
General Abilities: Athletics 4, Auction 8, Fleeing 5, Health 6, [Magic 6, if Keeper chooses], Scuffling 3, Weapons 5
Areas of Expertise: Art (Engraving), Art (Printing), Craft (Papermaking), Languages, Occult.
Alertness: +0
Stealth: -1
Saturday, 8 February 2014
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Decaying Mansions on Billionaire's Row: Night's Black Agents
Bishop's Avenue in East Finchley, London, has for many years been known as Millionaire's Row, but back in 2006 the Guardian newspaper crowned it Billionaire's Row, reflecting the changing times. Saudi oil magnates, industrial tycoons, newspaper barons and property men all wanted a spot in this most highly sought after area, in one of the most valuable cities in the world. Valuable not for its intrinsic worth, necessarily, but its perceived worth; London property prices are remarkably stable, and only ever seem to trend upwards. Even in the depths of depression, RICS had good things to say about property prices in the South, and each time it carried the caveat 'bolstered by London demand.'
Yet there's a price to be paid, and in this instance the price is neglect. Many of the buyers who acquired houses in this area back in the 1980s and1990s did so only because they knew the price would remain stable or go up, never down. This meant they needn't worry about upkeep. Why bother sinking thousands of pounds into an empty house each month when, whether you spend thousands or spend nothing, demand for that property will still go up? Buy for a million in 1980-something, sell for 50 millions a few decades later, without lifting a finger in the intervening years. London becomes like Monopoly, where each square on the board is physically indistinguishable from any other square; only the price differs. But the end result is something almost obscene; wealth at its least valuable. If ever there was a riposte to the trickle-down theory of economics, this is it. It almost makes you nostalgic for the Edwardian era. You can't imagine Carnegie doing anything like this.
What does this suggest, from a Night's Black Agents perspective?
The conspyramid would probably rate this a level 1 or 2 node. Any conspiracy needs funds, and property is a good way of keeping cash at hand. As an asset, a mansion in a wealthy area of a stable and prosperous city is a very reasonable proposition. It's probably slightly more liquid an asset than property would normally be, inasmuch as demand is always high and therefore it's easier to dispose of than a house might otherwise be. But a mansion could also provide a very useful bolt-hole, either a temporary safe house or a more permanent address. Bear in mind, these places are like icebergs. There's more going on underneath them than appears on the surface. Ballrooms, swimming pools, hot tubs, sauna and massage rooms, as well as any number of bedrooms, bathrooms and toilets; anything you can think of, and more besides. If you're the kind of person who really doesn't like going outside in the sunlight, you don't have to.
But who's the public face of these decaying showplaces? From an outsider's perspective there are at least three layers. There's the obvious layer, the security firm that maintains all those locks and bars, and perhaps keeps dogs or even a man or two on site. There's the secondary layer, the estate agent that fields all questions about the property and which deals with the local authorities. Then there's the final layer, the actual owner, almost certainly some kind of corporate body or holding company that, on paper at least, has ownership of the property.
With that in mind, let's talk about Balela Holdings.
Balela is a shell company, created in 1931 and incorporated in Bermuda. Balela is the parent, and has as its subsidiaries Caledon Inc, Darkley Inc, and Edenaveys Inc. Each of those three companies owns property in various parts of the world, and Caledon is the one that owns property in London, and the UK.
Among its other assets Caledon owns two properties in Bishop's Avenue, East Finchley. One was bought in 1989 from an Indian magazine magnate famous for, among other things, adult publications, while the other was purchased in 1991 from a bankrupt stockbroker. Both had planning permission for basement extensions, and for several years after purchase building work could be seen to be going on. By about 1995 all work had, apparently, stopped, though there were rumors of specialist work taking place as late as 1998. One of the neighbors went so far as to complain to the council about unauthorized development, but that claim lapsed when the neighbor, a Russian, died of polonium poisoning in 1999. The authorized work was carried out by McAlpine's, project manager William Quinn (deceased), and designed by architect Norah Foster of Foster and Kennilworth. Foster was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and died in 1995.
The Bishop's Avenue properties, and all of Caledon's UK assets, are managed by Sherwood Estates, a property development firm that, through one remove, is wholly owned by Caledon. Sherwood's surveyors and real estate agents are, for the most part, completely ignorant of their owners' interests. Only the head of the firm, Richard W. Stevanage, known to his friends as Ducky, has any clue, and that's largely because he sometimes has direct dealings with Caledon's security people. Ducky may, or may not, be a Renfield.
Caledon's security is handled by Miles Security, which - through a company incorporated in Jersey - is itself a wholly owned asset of Caledon. Most of Miles' people are normals, keyholders and dog handlers, who know very little about the properties they look after. Their job is to make sure the gates stay shut, and they do that reasonably well. There have been a few breaches over the years, and in the worst case these situations are handled by Miles' special operatives. These Renfields and ghouls show no mercy, but are discreet enough to handle their kills out of sight of the media and public. Anything inside the property is fair game, but outside of it they tend not to use firearms or overt powers. Their job is to keep the property safe, after all, not blow up half the city. That kind of thing they leave to the conspyramid's other nodes.
Inside, the mansions are in a shocking state. Nothing has been done to them in twenty years or more, and it shows. However the garages are in excellent condition and always have a vehicle or two in them, in case of emergencies. Moreover if an intruder were somehow to find his or her way to the secret stair or lift, they could get to the basement levels. Those are in excellent condition, but anyone who gets down there has a short life expectancy, unless they can cope with the horrors than the conspyramid's hiding down in the depths.
Yet there's a price to be paid, and in this instance the price is neglect. Many of the buyers who acquired houses in this area back in the 1980s and1990s did so only because they knew the price would remain stable or go up, never down. This meant they needn't worry about upkeep. Why bother sinking thousands of pounds into an empty house each month when, whether you spend thousands or spend nothing, demand for that property will still go up? Buy for a million in 1980-something, sell for 50 millions a few decades later, without lifting a finger in the intervening years. London becomes like Monopoly, where each square on the board is physically indistinguishable from any other square; only the price differs. But the end result is something almost obscene; wealth at its least valuable. If ever there was a riposte to the trickle-down theory of economics, this is it. It almost makes you nostalgic for the Edwardian era. You can't imagine Carnegie doing anything like this.
What does this suggest, from a Night's Black Agents perspective?
The conspyramid would probably rate this a level 1 or 2 node. Any conspiracy needs funds, and property is a good way of keeping cash at hand. As an asset, a mansion in a wealthy area of a stable and prosperous city is a very reasonable proposition. It's probably slightly more liquid an asset than property would normally be, inasmuch as demand is always high and therefore it's easier to dispose of than a house might otherwise be. But a mansion could also provide a very useful bolt-hole, either a temporary safe house or a more permanent address. Bear in mind, these places are like icebergs. There's more going on underneath them than appears on the surface. Ballrooms, swimming pools, hot tubs, sauna and massage rooms, as well as any number of bedrooms, bathrooms and toilets; anything you can think of, and more besides. If you're the kind of person who really doesn't like going outside in the sunlight, you don't have to.
But who's the public face of these decaying showplaces? From an outsider's perspective there are at least three layers. There's the obvious layer, the security firm that maintains all those locks and bars, and perhaps keeps dogs or even a man or two on site. There's the secondary layer, the estate agent that fields all questions about the property and which deals with the local authorities. Then there's the final layer, the actual owner, almost certainly some kind of corporate body or holding company that, on paper at least, has ownership of the property.
With that in mind, let's talk about Balela Holdings.
Balela is a shell company, created in 1931 and incorporated in Bermuda. Balela is the parent, and has as its subsidiaries Caledon Inc, Darkley Inc, and Edenaveys Inc. Each of those three companies owns property in various parts of the world, and Caledon is the one that owns property in London, and the UK.
Among its other assets Caledon owns two properties in Bishop's Avenue, East Finchley. One was bought in 1989 from an Indian magazine magnate famous for, among other things, adult publications, while the other was purchased in 1991 from a bankrupt stockbroker. Both had planning permission for basement extensions, and for several years after purchase building work could be seen to be going on. By about 1995 all work had, apparently, stopped, though there were rumors of specialist work taking place as late as 1998. One of the neighbors went so far as to complain to the council about unauthorized development, but that claim lapsed when the neighbor, a Russian, died of polonium poisoning in 1999. The authorized work was carried out by McAlpine's, project manager William Quinn (deceased), and designed by architect Norah Foster of Foster and Kennilworth. Foster was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and died in 1995.
The Bishop's Avenue properties, and all of Caledon's UK assets, are managed by Sherwood Estates, a property development firm that, through one remove, is wholly owned by Caledon. Sherwood's surveyors and real estate agents are, for the most part, completely ignorant of their owners' interests. Only the head of the firm, Richard W. Stevanage, known to his friends as Ducky, has any clue, and that's largely because he sometimes has direct dealings with Caledon's security people. Ducky may, or may not, be a Renfield.
Caledon's security is handled by Miles Security, which - through a company incorporated in Jersey - is itself a wholly owned asset of Caledon. Most of Miles' people are normals, keyholders and dog handlers, who know very little about the properties they look after. Their job is to make sure the gates stay shut, and they do that reasonably well. There have been a few breaches over the years, and in the worst case these situations are handled by Miles' special operatives. These Renfields and ghouls show no mercy, but are discreet enough to handle their kills out of sight of the media and public. Anything inside the property is fair game, but outside of it they tend not to use firearms or overt powers. Their job is to keep the property safe, after all, not blow up half the city. That kind of thing they leave to the conspyramid's other nodes.
Inside, the mansions are in a shocking state. Nothing has been done to them in twenty years or more, and it shows. However the garages are in excellent condition and always have a vehicle or two in them, in case of emergencies. Moreover if an intruder were somehow to find his or her way to the secret stair or lift, they could get to the basement levels. Those are in excellent condition, but anyone who gets down there has a short life expectancy, unless they can cope with the horrors than the conspyramid's hiding down in the depths.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Rats, Glorious Rats, and Derelicts: Trail of Cthulhu
If you've been paying attention to the internet this week, you probably came across this story about a ghost cruise liner crewed by cannibal rats that allegedly is about to disgorge its cargo on the coast of England. Alas for lovers of good stories, that version of events is slightly overblown. David Cameron's spokesman laughed off the idea, which means, if the PM's usual luck is in, it'll be crashing into Liverpool any day now.
With all that in mind, let's talk derelicts, and Trail of Cthulhu.
Derelicts used to be more 'in the news' than they are in the modern era. When the world's trade and transport depended entirely on shipping, people paid attention to shipping issues. Even now, the bulk of the planet's trade depends on ships, but when we want to travel from London to Australia, or wherever it may be, we don't hop aboard the next Orient Line packet and spend several weeks sailing the ocean blue. We fly, probably economy, and spend many hours regretting the lack of legroom.
But derelicts haven't gone away. The problem is, we don't know how many of them are out there, and indeed never did. We only know them when we see them - that's exactly the problem with the Lyubov Orlova - and if we don't see them, we tend to assume they're not there. Of course, that isn't so. If nobody's seen the Lyubov Orlova, that doesn't mean it sank. It merely means nobody's seen it. With nobody at the helm, it's at the disposal of the winds and tide, and often derelicts pursue a very erratic course, traveling thousands of miles through shipping lanes, with no-one the wiser.
One study showed that, in 1887-93 a total of 1,628 derelict sightings were made, of which 200 ships were identified by name. These wrecks posed a significant hazard to navigation, and their predations became so severe that, in 1908, the United States commissioned a warship, the Seneca, whose purpose was to seek out and destroy these vessels. Unfortunately war intervened, and the Seneca was seconded to escort duty, never again to hunt a derelict.
The biggest worry with a derelict isn't that it won't be found. It is that, by the time someone sees it, it's probably too late. Even an iceberg gives some kind of warning, but a derelict carries no lights, and its course is unpredictable. At night, often the only warning you're ever going to get of a derelict is when it smacks into your hull. Imagine you're in a small craft, and something the size of the Lyubov Orlova comes out of the dark, veering across your bows. Maybe you'll get a chance to send off a distress signal, maybe not. Perhaps the last thing anyone will ever hear of you is a brief GPS signal when you sink; after that, nothing.
And of course, that's just the ships. I haven't even started talking about the other flotsam and jetsam, like the tens of thousands of containers that fall from cargo ships every year. Nor do I intend to, but if you want an interesting read, look up rubber ducks.
You see, the danger of a derelict is that you can't count on it sinking. There are plenty of examples of a crew abandoning ship, convinced it's about to go down, perhaps even seeing it 'sink' before their very eyes, only to discover later that it didn't founder at all. Perhaps it rolled over, perhaps enough air was trapped in the hull to keep it just at the surface of the water, floating almost unobserved. Not unlike an iceberg, in fact, where the vast majority of the thing is beneath the surface. Then it drifts, and drifts, perhaps for months.
In the age of sail, when ships were made of wood, sometimes a derelict would drift for years. In October 1913, according to Robert de la Croix, a sailing vessel off the coast of Tierra del Fuego encountered a three-master, apparently abandoned, with some of its sail still set. The three-master's sails were green, her rigging was green, her deck and superstructure were green. It was as though, by some miraculous transformation, she had taken on the color of the sea ... The whole vessel had turned green because she was covered with mould ... [The captain] boarded her. The deck-planks were rotted, yielding to the tread. Skeletons, still clothed, were found everywhere. One lay at the wheel, another near the hatchway to the hold, three more reclined on the poop, and there were another ten in the fo'c'sle and six in the wardroom. The ship was the Marlborough, of Glasgow. Her papers were missing, probably rotted away, so the cause of the mystery remained unknown. She had been missing since 1890, and had spent nearly a quarter-century at sea. When she left New Zealand for England she carried a number of sheep and several passengers, of whom one was a woman. The skipper, Hird, was a first-rate officer, and his crew were real sailors, not the riff-raff of the crimps. She was last seen off the Straits of Magellan, which means that an unmanned ship managed to spend twenty four years afloat in one of the most notoriously difficult and dangerous passages on Earth.
For those of you wondering, yes, it is perfectly possible for people to survive aboard a wrecked ship. It's been done many times, but of course, the problem isn't surviving the wreck, it's getting rescued afterward. More often than not, the first impulse on finding a derelict isn't to search it, but to avoid or sink it. Even though, under maritime law, a derelict vessel can be salvaged for a substantial sum, many ships don't bother. They carry cargoes of their own, and are under a strict schedule. It's very difficult to bring a derelict vessel to port, and requires resources that most ships won't have to spare.
With all that in mind, consider the derelict from a Trail of Cthulhu perspective. Let's give it a Great War twist:
City of Bradford, Grimsby registration, cargo steamer, 4,200 tons. Captain: H.A. Dawes
In early 1915 the City of Bradford was challenged off the coast of Scotland by U-17, Kapitanleutnant Hans Walther commanding. Captain Dawes, mindful of Admiralty orders, tried to run down U-17, but Walther, wary of this tactic, put a torpedo into the City of Bradford. Walther watched as the crew abandoned ship, then left the scene, recording the City of Bradford as sunk.
That didn't happen, nor did all the crew leave. Dawes, enraged at the loss of his livelihood - and his pension, as he had all of his money wrapped up in the City of Bradford - remained aboard, determined to go down with his ship. Yet she didn't sink, though she did settle, listing heavily to port. The crew were never rescued; nobody but Walther knew what had happened to the City of Bradford, and he thought she'd sunk. She drifted for several weeks.
At first Dawes survived on what was left of the ship's supplies. He couldn't understand how he hadn't been spotted by someone; he was in the shipping lanes, and ought to be within sight of land. Yet the City of Bradford continued to drift, and after a time Dawes, deprived of human contact and half-mad with hunger and thirst, began to hallucinate. In his visions he was offered a new captaincy: bring my cargo to land, said his employer, and you will be handsomely rewarded.
Thus Mordiggian gained a new hell ship. The City of Bradford has been touched by the Charnel God, and drifts through the North Sea. Dawes is occupied with catching the ship's rats and tying their tails together, all to make a new rat king. His new crew crawled over the side the same day Dawes made his promise, and their waterlogged corpses will defend the rat king so long as the City of Bradford remains afloat. Ultimately the City of Bradford will make its way down the coast to a population center, perhaps encountering - and sinking - several ships along the way. It will beach itself close to a port, and let the rat king loose. After that, Mordiggian's plague will spread, first among the people at the harbor, then the ships that visit, then the harbors that those ships visit ...
Dawes
Athletics 4, Firearms 4, Health 6, Scuffling 5
Hit Threshold 3
Alertness Modifier +1
Stealth Modifier 0
Weapon: -2 (fist) +0 (handgun)
Stability Loss: 0
Special: Dawes is the still-living heart of the Hell Ship. Should Dawes be killed, the City of Bradford will sink, taking everything on board - including the Rat King - with it. This has no effect if the City of Bradford has already made landfall.
Drowned Crew
Athletics 6, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Hit Threshold: 2 (very slow)
Alertness Modifier: +0
Stealth Modifier: +0
Weapon: -1 (fist)
Armor: -2 (sodden flesh)
Stability Loss: +1
Rat King
Athletics 3, Health 5, Scuffling 3
Hit Threshold: 3
Weapon: none
Armor: none
Special: with each rat added, the King gains 1 Health. While the King has no attack, it can spread disease. Athletics difficulty 6, or lose 2 Health per day, with a new test every 3 days. Those sick with this plague who make an appeal to Mordiggian may transform into Ghouls. Symptoms: buboes in the groin and armpits that bleed pus when opened, fever and vomiting of blood.
With all that in mind, let's talk derelicts, and Trail of Cthulhu.
Derelicts used to be more 'in the news' than they are in the modern era. When the world's trade and transport depended entirely on shipping, people paid attention to shipping issues. Even now, the bulk of the planet's trade depends on ships, but when we want to travel from London to Australia, or wherever it may be, we don't hop aboard the next Orient Line packet and spend several weeks sailing the ocean blue. We fly, probably economy, and spend many hours regretting the lack of legroom.
But derelicts haven't gone away. The problem is, we don't know how many of them are out there, and indeed never did. We only know them when we see them - that's exactly the problem with the Lyubov Orlova - and if we don't see them, we tend to assume they're not there. Of course, that isn't so. If nobody's seen the Lyubov Orlova, that doesn't mean it sank. It merely means nobody's seen it. With nobody at the helm, it's at the disposal of the winds and tide, and often derelicts pursue a very erratic course, traveling thousands of miles through shipping lanes, with no-one the wiser.
One study showed that, in 1887-93 a total of 1,628 derelict sightings were made, of which 200 ships were identified by name. These wrecks posed a significant hazard to navigation, and their predations became so severe that, in 1908, the United States commissioned a warship, the Seneca, whose purpose was to seek out and destroy these vessels. Unfortunately war intervened, and the Seneca was seconded to escort duty, never again to hunt a derelict.
The biggest worry with a derelict isn't that it won't be found. It is that, by the time someone sees it, it's probably too late. Even an iceberg gives some kind of warning, but a derelict carries no lights, and its course is unpredictable. At night, often the only warning you're ever going to get of a derelict is when it smacks into your hull. Imagine you're in a small craft, and something the size of the Lyubov Orlova comes out of the dark, veering across your bows. Maybe you'll get a chance to send off a distress signal, maybe not. Perhaps the last thing anyone will ever hear of you is a brief GPS signal when you sink; after that, nothing.
And of course, that's just the ships. I haven't even started talking about the other flotsam and jetsam, like the tens of thousands of containers that fall from cargo ships every year. Nor do I intend to, but if you want an interesting read, look up rubber ducks.
You see, the danger of a derelict is that you can't count on it sinking. There are plenty of examples of a crew abandoning ship, convinced it's about to go down, perhaps even seeing it 'sink' before their very eyes, only to discover later that it didn't founder at all. Perhaps it rolled over, perhaps enough air was trapped in the hull to keep it just at the surface of the water, floating almost unobserved. Not unlike an iceberg, in fact, where the vast majority of the thing is beneath the surface. Then it drifts, and drifts, perhaps for months.
In the age of sail, when ships were made of wood, sometimes a derelict would drift for years. In October 1913, according to Robert de la Croix, a sailing vessel off the coast of Tierra del Fuego encountered a three-master, apparently abandoned, with some of its sail still set. The three-master's sails were green, her rigging was green, her deck and superstructure were green. It was as though, by some miraculous transformation, she had taken on the color of the sea ... The whole vessel had turned green because she was covered with mould ... [The captain] boarded her. The deck-planks were rotted, yielding to the tread. Skeletons, still clothed, were found everywhere. One lay at the wheel, another near the hatchway to the hold, three more reclined on the poop, and there were another ten in the fo'c'sle and six in the wardroom. The ship was the Marlborough, of Glasgow. Her papers were missing, probably rotted away, so the cause of the mystery remained unknown. She had been missing since 1890, and had spent nearly a quarter-century at sea. When she left New Zealand for England she carried a number of sheep and several passengers, of whom one was a woman. The skipper, Hird, was a first-rate officer, and his crew were real sailors, not the riff-raff of the crimps. She was last seen off the Straits of Magellan, which means that an unmanned ship managed to spend twenty four years afloat in one of the most notoriously difficult and dangerous passages on Earth.
For those of you wondering, yes, it is perfectly possible for people to survive aboard a wrecked ship. It's been done many times, but of course, the problem isn't surviving the wreck, it's getting rescued afterward. More often than not, the first impulse on finding a derelict isn't to search it, but to avoid or sink it. Even though, under maritime law, a derelict vessel can be salvaged for a substantial sum, many ships don't bother. They carry cargoes of their own, and are under a strict schedule. It's very difficult to bring a derelict vessel to port, and requires resources that most ships won't have to spare.
With all that in mind, consider the derelict from a Trail of Cthulhu perspective. Let's give it a Great War twist:
City of Bradford, Grimsby registration, cargo steamer, 4,200 tons. Captain: H.A. Dawes
In early 1915 the City of Bradford was challenged off the coast of Scotland by U-17, Kapitanleutnant Hans Walther commanding. Captain Dawes, mindful of Admiralty orders, tried to run down U-17, but Walther, wary of this tactic, put a torpedo into the City of Bradford. Walther watched as the crew abandoned ship, then left the scene, recording the City of Bradford as sunk.
That didn't happen, nor did all the crew leave. Dawes, enraged at the loss of his livelihood - and his pension, as he had all of his money wrapped up in the City of Bradford - remained aboard, determined to go down with his ship. Yet she didn't sink, though she did settle, listing heavily to port. The crew were never rescued; nobody but Walther knew what had happened to the City of Bradford, and he thought she'd sunk. She drifted for several weeks.
At first Dawes survived on what was left of the ship's supplies. He couldn't understand how he hadn't been spotted by someone; he was in the shipping lanes, and ought to be within sight of land. Yet the City of Bradford continued to drift, and after a time Dawes, deprived of human contact and half-mad with hunger and thirst, began to hallucinate. In his visions he was offered a new captaincy: bring my cargo to land, said his employer, and you will be handsomely rewarded.
Thus Mordiggian gained a new hell ship. The City of Bradford has been touched by the Charnel God, and drifts through the North Sea. Dawes is occupied with catching the ship's rats and tying their tails together, all to make a new rat king. His new crew crawled over the side the same day Dawes made his promise, and their waterlogged corpses will defend the rat king so long as the City of Bradford remains afloat. Ultimately the City of Bradford will make its way down the coast to a population center, perhaps encountering - and sinking - several ships along the way. It will beach itself close to a port, and let the rat king loose. After that, Mordiggian's plague will spread, first among the people at the harbor, then the ships that visit, then the harbors that those ships visit ...
Dawes
Athletics 4, Firearms 4, Health 6, Scuffling 5
Hit Threshold 3
Alertness Modifier +1
Stealth Modifier 0
Weapon: -2 (fist) +0 (handgun)
Stability Loss: 0
Special: Dawes is the still-living heart of the Hell Ship. Should Dawes be killed, the City of Bradford will sink, taking everything on board - including the Rat King - with it. This has no effect if the City of Bradford has already made landfall.
Drowned Crew
Athletics 6, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Hit Threshold: 2 (very slow)
Alertness Modifier: +0
Stealth Modifier: +0
Weapon: -1 (fist)
Armor: -2 (sodden flesh)
Stability Loss: +1
Rat King
Athletics 3, Health 5, Scuffling 3
Hit Threshold: 3
Weapon: none
Armor: none
Special: with each rat added, the King gains 1 Health. While the King has no attack, it can spread disease. Athletics difficulty 6, or lose 2 Health per day, with a new test every 3 days. Those sick with this plague who make an appeal to Mordiggian may transform into Ghouls. Symptoms: buboes in the groin and armpits that bleed pus when opened, fever and vomiting of blood.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Bookhounds of London: Buried Under The Floorboards
This shall be the last post of the year, so let's make it a ghostly one!
One of the tales in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book concerns an apparition that made its presence felt by planting ice-cold kisses on the lips of the unwary. This only occurred in a specific part of the house, and when the owner decided to renovate and turn the ghost room into a staircase, thus hopefully getting rid of the problem, he told the Clerk of Works to let him know if the work crew discovered anything unusual.
"[Having been told that the workmen have found something] Mr Thomas went down and learned that they had discovered a coffin between the joists of the floor in the room where Miss Tait had slept. From its appearance and from the fact that it had no screws but only nails, the coffin appeared to date from the 17th Century. It was firmly fastened to the joists by iron cramps, but owing to the shallowness of the space between the joists and the floor, there was no lid, the floor boards serving this purpose. There was no trace of any bones within the coffin, but it carried certain marks which suggested that it had once contained a body."
In a house close to where I live now, a former owner is interred underneath the front step. A little further distant is another house, one I worked on as a student, where bodies were found within touching distance of the wall's foundation. It's a tradition now long forgotten, but it wasn't that long ago that a family might choose to be buried on the family land, or within the house itself. Moreover, in a house with floorboards and cellars, there are plenty of ways of hiding things you'd rather not be found again.
Or there could be things living up there, down there, under there. I can hear rats running in the roof void as I type this. Of course, they might not be rats. I can't see them; I can't be sure. But they sound like rats ...
This crops up again and again, in ghost stories. In M.R. James' short story Number 13, for example, the floor boards have to be taken up in order to solve the mystery, and even then, much is left untold. Or take the J-Horror Dark Water; there, the mundane hiding place of the body is a significant part of the plot. Sometimes in fiction this hiding place is represented by whole secret passages and rooms, not unlike Clue, but the best kind of secret is one hidden right under the occupier's nose.
From a Keeper's perspective, the body under the floorboards is a handy McGuffin to have. It doesn't have to be a dusty manor house either; in a Bookhounds game, almost every house the characters will ever inhabit or investigate has wooden floorboards, a coal cellar, space up in the attic. Sometimes this space is truly abandoned. Think about all those houses in the UK, 1930s build or prior. That's at least a third, probably more, of all the housing in the country. Every one of them would have had a coal cellar, yet how often now do you find a house with its original cellar? They weren't magicked away; previous owners filled them in, but imagine what could be down there now.
A place like this could provide benefits, for those willing to seek them out. The Rough Magick sourcebook gives us the Magic ability, and says that some spots are powerful enough that a would-be magus, visiting it and studying carefully, might gain 1 point of Magic. This gain usually only happens once, on the first visit, but some Places of Power offer more; a potential gain of 1 point per year. Not all haunted spots would offer this benefit, but if anywhere is likely to, it will be that quiet, shunned room with the ghastly secret under the floorboards.
Now consider a Bookhounds era game, before the Blitz remodeled London. All those old houses, the near-Dickensian warrens, the churches and the estates, the pubs and the shops, centuries old some of them. Imagine what could so easily be hidden away, down in the dark.
As an example:
Thomas Drugg and Sons, Bakery
This family business, established 1872, is a thriving concern. The current Drugg, Albert, is a hard-working man in his late 30s, and his two brothers work with him in the shop while their married sister, Mrs Fuller, keeps the books. All of them grew up here, in the rooms above the bakery, but none of them live on the property now. Albert is the closest, at two streets away, while the rest are further on. Mrs Fuller is the furthest, living out in Metroland.
Some of the empty rooms are used as shop office space, but most of them are disused. Once, for a month or so about a decade back, the Druggs tried renting the space to a medical student, but that didn't last. Nobody's lived on the premises since then, and the few staff the Druggs bring in don't arrive before four in the morning. Nobody talks about what goes on inside, just before midnight. The Druggs don't like gossip.
Tucked away under the floorboards of one of the upper rooms is a dream diary, a small wooden box, and the skull of what might be a very large rat. The diary belonged to Alice, the Druggs' youngest sister, who went missing in 1902. The skull, knowledgable occultists will realize, belongs to a Rat Thing. The box contains soil, which analysis will confirm has certain characteristics that mark it out as not of Earthly origin.
At night, if anyone's foolish enough to stay, doors do not keep closed, and a mysterious white cat pads noiselessly from room to room. Stability 4 test (supernatural creature up close) to witness this phenomenon.
Magicians crave items like that dream diary, and the soil; they can help increase a sorcerer's power. Drugg and Sons grants 1 potential Magic on the first visit, provided that the visitor stays overnight. But some say that places like Drugg and Sons are linked to other parts of London, in a great web that connects one psychic pool to another. Claim one, and you might be able to work out where some of the others are, as you trace the great psychic web across London.
One of the tales in Lord Halifax's Ghost Book concerns an apparition that made its presence felt by planting ice-cold kisses on the lips of the unwary. This only occurred in a specific part of the house, and when the owner decided to renovate and turn the ghost room into a staircase, thus hopefully getting rid of the problem, he told the Clerk of Works to let him know if the work crew discovered anything unusual.
"[Having been told that the workmen have found something] Mr Thomas went down and learned that they had discovered a coffin between the joists of the floor in the room where Miss Tait had slept. From its appearance and from the fact that it had no screws but only nails, the coffin appeared to date from the 17th Century. It was firmly fastened to the joists by iron cramps, but owing to the shallowness of the space between the joists and the floor, there was no lid, the floor boards serving this purpose. There was no trace of any bones within the coffin, but it carried certain marks which suggested that it had once contained a body."
In a house close to where I live now, a former owner is interred underneath the front step. A little further distant is another house, one I worked on as a student, where bodies were found within touching distance of the wall's foundation. It's a tradition now long forgotten, but it wasn't that long ago that a family might choose to be buried on the family land, or within the house itself. Moreover, in a house with floorboards and cellars, there are plenty of ways of hiding things you'd rather not be found again.
Or there could be things living up there, down there, under there. I can hear rats running in the roof void as I type this. Of course, they might not be rats. I can't see them; I can't be sure. But they sound like rats ...
This crops up again and again, in ghost stories. In M.R. James' short story Number 13, for example, the floor boards have to be taken up in order to solve the mystery, and even then, much is left untold. Or take the J-Horror Dark Water; there, the mundane hiding place of the body is a significant part of the plot. Sometimes in fiction this hiding place is represented by whole secret passages and rooms, not unlike Clue, but the best kind of secret is one hidden right under the occupier's nose.
From a Keeper's perspective, the body under the floorboards is a handy McGuffin to have. It doesn't have to be a dusty manor house either; in a Bookhounds game, almost every house the characters will ever inhabit or investigate has wooden floorboards, a coal cellar, space up in the attic. Sometimes this space is truly abandoned. Think about all those houses in the UK, 1930s build or prior. That's at least a third, probably more, of all the housing in the country. Every one of them would have had a coal cellar, yet how often now do you find a house with its original cellar? They weren't magicked away; previous owners filled them in, but imagine what could be down there now.
A place like this could provide benefits, for those willing to seek them out. The Rough Magick sourcebook gives us the Magic ability, and says that some spots are powerful enough that a would-be magus, visiting it and studying carefully, might gain 1 point of Magic. This gain usually only happens once, on the first visit, but some Places of Power offer more; a potential gain of 1 point per year. Not all haunted spots would offer this benefit, but if anywhere is likely to, it will be that quiet, shunned room with the ghastly secret under the floorboards.
Now consider a Bookhounds era game, before the Blitz remodeled London. All those old houses, the near-Dickensian warrens, the churches and the estates, the pubs and the shops, centuries old some of them. Imagine what could so easily be hidden away, down in the dark.
As an example:
Thomas Drugg and Sons, Bakery
This family business, established 1872, is a thriving concern. The current Drugg, Albert, is a hard-working man in his late 30s, and his two brothers work with him in the shop while their married sister, Mrs Fuller, keeps the books. All of them grew up here, in the rooms above the bakery, but none of them live on the property now. Albert is the closest, at two streets away, while the rest are further on. Mrs Fuller is the furthest, living out in Metroland.
Some of the empty rooms are used as shop office space, but most of them are disused. Once, for a month or so about a decade back, the Druggs tried renting the space to a medical student, but that didn't last. Nobody's lived on the premises since then, and the few staff the Druggs bring in don't arrive before four in the morning. Nobody talks about what goes on inside, just before midnight. The Druggs don't like gossip.
Tucked away under the floorboards of one of the upper rooms is a dream diary, a small wooden box, and the skull of what might be a very large rat. The diary belonged to Alice, the Druggs' youngest sister, who went missing in 1902. The skull, knowledgable occultists will realize, belongs to a Rat Thing. The box contains soil, which analysis will confirm has certain characteristics that mark it out as not of Earthly origin.
At night, if anyone's foolish enough to stay, doors do not keep closed, and a mysterious white cat pads noiselessly from room to room. Stability 4 test (supernatural creature up close) to witness this phenomenon.
Magicians crave items like that dream diary, and the soil; they can help increase a sorcerer's power. Drugg and Sons grants 1 potential Magic on the first visit, provided that the visitor stays overnight. But some say that places like Drugg and Sons are linked to other parts of London, in a great web that connects one psychic pool to another. Claim one, and you might be able to work out where some of the others are, as you trace the great psychic web across London.
Thursday, 26 December 2013
Not Quite Review Corner: Telltale's Walking Dead, Season 2
This is going to be as spoiler free as I can make it. This title has been released on PC, console and iTunes; I played the iTunes version.
Telltale Games' point-and-click Walking Dead series came out of nowhere a few years back and stole gamers' hearts, the world over. A large part of that is thanks to series mainstay Clementine, the young girl that main character Lee adopts and tries to protect, in a journey across the zombie-infested South. After the first series ended, Telltale released 400 Days, a not-quite-standalone adventure with different characters, but what everyone wanted was a return to the main story. Now, in the second series, we get our wish, and Clementine is in the starring role. The opening episode of this five part series is All That Remains.
To get the boring bits out of the way first, let's talk mechanics. Anyone who played the first season will have little problem here. There have been some minor improvements but, broadly speaking, the game's QTE sequences and puzzle solving are unchanged. Swipe the screen thus to avoid a zombie, click and swipe to complete an event, combine the right puzzle objects in the right order, and so on. Most of the time it works, and when it doesn't it's easy to go back a step and try again. I did notice an annoying crash bug early on, and it took over half a dozen log-on attempts to start the game. I attribute this to wireless internet signal strength; if I went into a room where the strength was 3 bar, no problem. If it was 2 bar, it crashed on start up. However once the game began, it could cope with a 2 bar signal.
Story is where this series shines. Again, I shall try my best to avoid spoilers here. You start the game a few months after the conclusion of the previous series, and Clementine seems to be in safe hands. This brief moment of comfort soon vanishes, and Clem has to struggle through without a safety net. In fact, one of the two highlight moments of the first episode happens in the first few minutes; I don't even think the credits had finished rolling.
The second highlight moment, at least for me, takes place about half-way through. I shall say no more than that.
Story structure branches off at several pre-determined points in the narrative, and this is Telltale's big selling point: choices matter. All the decisions you made up to now, in Season 1 and 400 Days, factor into Season 2, for instance; though if you haven't played those games, Telltale can invent a backstory for you. All future decisions count, shaping the story towards whatever nebulous conclusion awaits in the final episode, No Going Back. While intriguing, one of the chief complaints aimed at the series so far is that decisions don't seem to matter as much as Telltale would have you believe.The opening episode of Season 2 does little to allay those suspicions. If anything, from a story structure perspective the Telltale team played it very safe; there's little to differentiate it from Season 1's opening episode, A New Day.
That might be for the best. Series veterans may prefer a little change, but an opening episode is as much for the new players as it is the old lags. Newbies need a little tender loving care, if they're to keep on playing. Here's hoping things will get more complex, as the series develops.
I'd recommend this entire series to anyone who likes horror, and good storytelling. I find the iPad version ($4.99 on iTunes) particularly handy, despite some of the annoying start-up quirks. The QTEs are much less tedious to deal with; somehow the process makes more sense with a touchscreen.
Enjoy!
Telltale Games' point-and-click Walking Dead series came out of nowhere a few years back and stole gamers' hearts, the world over. A large part of that is thanks to series mainstay Clementine, the young girl that main character Lee adopts and tries to protect, in a journey across the zombie-infested South. After the first series ended, Telltale released 400 Days, a not-quite-standalone adventure with different characters, but what everyone wanted was a return to the main story. Now, in the second series, we get our wish, and Clementine is in the starring role. The opening episode of this five part series is All That Remains.
To get the boring bits out of the way first, let's talk mechanics. Anyone who played the first season will have little problem here. There have been some minor improvements but, broadly speaking, the game's QTE sequences and puzzle solving are unchanged. Swipe the screen thus to avoid a zombie, click and swipe to complete an event, combine the right puzzle objects in the right order, and so on. Most of the time it works, and when it doesn't it's easy to go back a step and try again. I did notice an annoying crash bug early on, and it took over half a dozen log-on attempts to start the game. I attribute this to wireless internet signal strength; if I went into a room where the strength was 3 bar, no problem. If it was 2 bar, it crashed on start up. However once the game began, it could cope with a 2 bar signal.
Story is where this series shines. Again, I shall try my best to avoid spoilers here. You start the game a few months after the conclusion of the previous series, and Clementine seems to be in safe hands. This brief moment of comfort soon vanishes, and Clem has to struggle through without a safety net. In fact, one of the two highlight moments of the first episode happens in the first few minutes; I don't even think the credits had finished rolling.
The second highlight moment, at least for me, takes place about half-way through. I shall say no more than that.
Story structure branches off at several pre-determined points in the narrative, and this is Telltale's big selling point: choices matter. All the decisions you made up to now, in Season 1 and 400 Days, factor into Season 2, for instance; though if you haven't played those games, Telltale can invent a backstory for you. All future decisions count, shaping the story towards whatever nebulous conclusion awaits in the final episode, No Going Back. While intriguing, one of the chief complaints aimed at the series so far is that decisions don't seem to matter as much as Telltale would have you believe.The opening episode of Season 2 does little to allay those suspicions. If anything, from a story structure perspective the Telltale team played it very safe; there's little to differentiate it from Season 1's opening episode, A New Day.
That might be for the best. Series veterans may prefer a little change, but an opening episode is as much for the new players as it is the old lags. Newbies need a little tender loving care, if they're to keep on playing. Here's hoping things will get more complex, as the series develops.
I'd recommend this entire series to anyone who likes horror, and good storytelling. I find the iPad version ($4.99 on iTunes) particularly handy, despite some of the annoying start-up quirks. The QTEs are much less tedious to deal with; somehow the process makes more sense with a touchscreen.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
Bookhounds of London: The Christmas Tradition
I used to play with a group that insisted on a Christmas adventure, each and every year. There's a lot of pleasure to be had in the bad jokes, and crazy plotlines, that come with trying to stuff Santa, presents, decorated trees and Lord alone knows what else into an ostensibly horrific situation. That said, there's as much to dislike as like, particularly if you're the sort that prefers to treat the game seriously. Shoggoths with their nose so bright guiding something's sleigh tonight might not be your thing, and if so, that's fine.
But there's still some fun to be had with the idea. Christmas is also the season for ghost stories, as M.R. James and his friends knew full well. If ever you've wanted to torment your players with something inexplicable and elemental, now's the time to do it. There are also entities, like Krampus - the Christmas Devil - which really only have power at this time of year, and wouldn't suit any other kind of story. Or if you prefer a more pagan tale, there are any number of winter solstice stories to be told, whether inspired by religion or some more obscure, local festival. Besides, who is Father Christmas really? Is the whole idea of a festival devoted to indulgence and good cheer contemptible, as the Puritans believed? Is there something sinister hiding in those red robes?
With that in mind, I propose a Tale of Terror that starts with a narrative auction.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
You are at a house sale, where the contents of the library are being picked over by one or two knowledgeable rivals and the usual gaggle of nosy neighbors. Most of the collection is second-rate stuff, fit only for the shop's lending library or bargain bin, but there are one or two items that would fetch a decent price, or make a useful squiz. It's a chilly December day, and while it's not snowing yet, you don't like the look of those clouds. If it does start to come down, your car (or van) may not be able to handle the roads. The sooner you get on your way, the better. But there's a rumor going round of a special candle auction about to be held upstairs, and you notice that your knowledgeable rivals are headed up to participate. What's this all about? And why is this special auction being held in the Blue Room, the manor house's allegedly haunted bedroom?
1. Snow starts tumbling past the window as the auction begins. The candle is the only light in the room, and as it slowly flickers to its death the auctioneer brings out all kinds of odd rarities. With each new addition to the pile, the bids go up. But there is something outside, a large horned beast clutching a coal-black sack in its hands. It can barely be seen as the snow thickens, and the candlelight fades. Nobody believes you if you tell them what you saw; but if it gets into this darkening room, what will it do next?
2. The 'auctioneer' is a man of straw, dressed as Father Christmas, of all things. The candle flickers in the gloom, as your rivals start pawing the merchandise. A hat is placed at Christmas' feet, for bids to be placed, on an honor system. A side table is piled high with mince pies and ham, as well as some quite decent wine. But woe betide the bidder who takes, and leaves behind only a pittance in the hat, or nothing at all. Father Christmas is watching, and anyone who tries to cheat him will be tracked down and punished.
3. The goods up here are marginally better than the stuff downstairs, but not by much. The auction is presided over by one of the family who does his best to inject some enthusiasm into the proceedings, but it's a losing proposition. Funny thing, though; that mirror on the wall reflects an image of a room quite different from this. This room has a blazing fire, and Christmas cards and greenery hung all over, but the other is bare, almost austere. The same people are in the room, doing the same things, but there's one extra. As you watch, this extra man - or thing - drags one of the participants out of view. When it returns, there's a nasty red smear round its mouth. It seems to be eying other reflections.
But there's still some fun to be had with the idea. Christmas is also the season for ghost stories, as M.R. James and his friends knew full well. If ever you've wanted to torment your players with something inexplicable and elemental, now's the time to do it. There are also entities, like Krampus - the Christmas Devil - which really only have power at this time of year, and wouldn't suit any other kind of story. Or if you prefer a more pagan tale, there are any number of winter solstice stories to be told, whether inspired by religion or some more obscure, local festival. Besides, who is Father Christmas really? Is the whole idea of a festival devoted to indulgence and good cheer contemptible, as the Puritans believed? Is there something sinister hiding in those red robes?
With that in mind, I propose a Tale of Terror that starts with a narrative auction.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
You are at a house sale, where the contents of the library are being picked over by one or two knowledgeable rivals and the usual gaggle of nosy neighbors. Most of the collection is second-rate stuff, fit only for the shop's lending library or bargain bin, but there are one or two items that would fetch a decent price, or make a useful squiz. It's a chilly December day, and while it's not snowing yet, you don't like the look of those clouds. If it does start to come down, your car (or van) may not be able to handle the roads. The sooner you get on your way, the better. But there's a rumor going round of a special candle auction about to be held upstairs, and you notice that your knowledgeable rivals are headed up to participate. What's this all about? And why is this special auction being held in the Blue Room, the manor house's allegedly haunted bedroom?
1. Snow starts tumbling past the window as the auction begins. The candle is the only light in the room, and as it slowly flickers to its death the auctioneer brings out all kinds of odd rarities. With each new addition to the pile, the bids go up. But there is something outside, a large horned beast clutching a coal-black sack in its hands. It can barely be seen as the snow thickens, and the candlelight fades. Nobody believes you if you tell them what you saw; but if it gets into this darkening room, what will it do next?
2. The 'auctioneer' is a man of straw, dressed as Father Christmas, of all things. The candle flickers in the gloom, as your rivals start pawing the merchandise. A hat is placed at Christmas' feet, for bids to be placed, on an honor system. A side table is piled high with mince pies and ham, as well as some quite decent wine. But woe betide the bidder who takes, and leaves behind only a pittance in the hat, or nothing at all. Father Christmas is watching, and anyone who tries to cheat him will be tracked down and punished.
3. The goods up here are marginally better than the stuff downstairs, but not by much. The auction is presided over by one of the family who does his best to inject some enthusiasm into the proceedings, but it's a losing proposition. Funny thing, though; that mirror on the wall reflects an image of a room quite different from this. This room has a blazing fire, and Christmas cards and greenery hung all over, but the other is bare, almost austere. The same people are in the room, doing the same things, but there's one extra. As you watch, this extra man - or thing - drags one of the participants out of view. When it returns, there's a nasty red smear round its mouth. It seems to be eying other reflections.
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Not Qute Book Review Corner: Patient Zero, Jonathan Maberry
Before I begin, I'm going to say up front that I liked Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero. I'm saying that now, to balance out what's to come. I picked this up on the free shelf of my local store, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys pulp horror with a modern twist. Night's Black Agents gamers may find it especially useful, particularly since it demonstrates exactly the kind of Vampyramid - and its collapse, as per Double Tap - that they'll be fighting against.
Maberry is a relatively new author. He's been a professional writer since 1978, but it wasn't until his 2006 Pine Deep series - the first of which earned him a Stoker (Best First Novel) Award - that his fiction really started to get noticed. He's also written a string of non fiction and comics stuff, but the book I'm concentrating on here is the first in his fantasy bioterrorism series. There are five in print so far, with two more known to be on the way in 2014 and 2015, and he's been publishing one of these a year since 2009's Patient Zero.
Patient Zero kicks off with an action-packed armed raid on a terror cell operating within the United States. In a pitched gun battle, series hero Joe Ledger puts two .45 calibre rounds into a suspicious crazy who tries to bite him. All seems well, and the corpses are taken off to the hospital for autopsy. Except all isn't well; that dead fella Ledger shot gets up again and starts eating people, causing an incident that eventually results in the death of everyone in the hospital, up to and including a substantial number of the Department of Military Intelligence's best agents. The DMI, anxious to get on top of this ASAP, starts recruiting new blood, and Ledger's top of its list of potential candidates.
Ledger - all together now, in the key of E - is a smart-mouthed maverick loose cannon who gets results. Before he's been on the job ten minutes he's offered a chance to become leader of DMI's new Echo Team - Bravo and Charlie being somewhat dead - so he promptly marches into the room, kicks seven shades out of all the other candidates, and promotes himself commander by virtue of being biggest kung-fu badass. From there, it's a crazy romp through a world of mad science, as the team tries to find out how terrorists got hold of the zombie virus, and to stop whatever mad scheme the terrorists have in mind.
It's pulp in the Sax Rohmer tradition, with the Fu Manchu role taken by super terrorist El Mujahid, and the sexpot Fah lo Suee played by his devious wife, Amirah, who devises the zombie virus. They have the help of self-made pharmaceutical billionaire Gault, who thinks he can use their cause to make a fortune for himself by selling anti-zombie meds to the US after the outbreak. Gault provides the technological expertise and capital, while the husband-and-wife team supplies the genius and the muscle. Will Gault and Amirah hoodwink her cuckolded husband, or is this all part of some greater scheme?
It all hangs together fairly well. It's a little too jingoistic for my taste, and while I'm not going to quarrel with the science, I do have to wonder why on earth Maberry thought it necessary to have a female SAS front-line combat officer as a major secondary character when the SAS famously doesn't accept female recruits. Well, I know why, I suppose; the SAS is the one British regiment American readers will recognize as being reliably badass, and therefore worthy to fight alongside Joe Ledger. It just seems so silly.
I did enjoy this book, but I'm not sure I'd rush to pick up the rest of the series. If I did, it would have to be on sale; I'd hate to pay full price. In part that's because of the unpleasant itch at the back of my head, that maybe this really is just the Yellow Peril reskinned with a more acceptable - if that's the right word - enemy. But it's also because my heart sank when I realized that Maberry's been publishing one a year of these ever since Patient Zero.
Maybe he does write that fast. Some authors do; I can't remember if it was Raymond Chandler or his contemporary Hammett who said that a writer who doesn't publish a book a year isn't really trying, but whichever it was, the dictum stands. But I can't help feeling that this output is less Maberry's speed than it is the publisher's diktat, much as fantasy authors now seem always to have to write a trilogy rather than just one very good book. Trilogies sell, but more importantly they ensure an author's name is kept fresh, and the revenue stream keeps flowing. Liked Attack of the Killer Cliches? Then be sure to look out for Attack of the Cliche Killers, coming out next May!
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it does seem as if that's the only song the publishers know by heart. It means the story never ends, and anything like structure is thrown out the window. After all, if the story actually had a satisfactory conclusion then there'd be no reason to tune in next week and see how Doc Shadow managed to evade the clutches of Sinister Claw. It also means that plot points get reused, since there really isn't time to work out a new McGuffin or plan out a different style. Villains will come and never really go. 'How did you escape the exploding volcano, Doctor Devastation? Seems like your goose was cooked when the bombs went off.' 'Ah, thereby hangs a tale!'
No. There's precisely where the tale doesn't hang. It sags. It lies there, limp and deformed, bereft of purpose. It might have some superficial appeal, but who's going to remember it a month or so after they finish reading it?
Maberry is a relatively new author. He's been a professional writer since 1978, but it wasn't until his 2006 Pine Deep series - the first of which earned him a Stoker (Best First Novel) Award - that his fiction really started to get noticed. He's also written a string of non fiction and comics stuff, but the book I'm concentrating on here is the first in his fantasy bioterrorism series. There are five in print so far, with two more known to be on the way in 2014 and 2015, and he's been publishing one of these a year since 2009's Patient Zero.
Patient Zero kicks off with an action-packed armed raid on a terror cell operating within the United States. In a pitched gun battle, series hero Joe Ledger puts two .45 calibre rounds into a suspicious crazy who tries to bite him. All seems well, and the corpses are taken off to the hospital for autopsy. Except all isn't well; that dead fella Ledger shot gets up again and starts eating people, causing an incident that eventually results in the death of everyone in the hospital, up to and including a substantial number of the Department of Military Intelligence's best agents. The DMI, anxious to get on top of this ASAP, starts recruiting new blood, and Ledger's top of its list of potential candidates.
Ledger - all together now, in the key of E - is a smart-mouthed maverick loose cannon who gets results. Before he's been on the job ten minutes he's offered a chance to become leader of DMI's new Echo Team - Bravo and Charlie being somewhat dead - so he promptly marches into the room, kicks seven shades out of all the other candidates, and promotes himself commander by virtue of being biggest kung-fu badass. From there, it's a crazy romp through a world of mad science, as the team tries to find out how terrorists got hold of the zombie virus, and to stop whatever mad scheme the terrorists have in mind.
It's pulp in the Sax Rohmer tradition, with the Fu Manchu role taken by super terrorist El Mujahid, and the sexpot Fah lo Suee played by his devious wife, Amirah, who devises the zombie virus. They have the help of self-made pharmaceutical billionaire Gault, who thinks he can use their cause to make a fortune for himself by selling anti-zombie meds to the US after the outbreak. Gault provides the technological expertise and capital, while the husband-and-wife team supplies the genius and the muscle. Will Gault and Amirah hoodwink her cuckolded husband, or is this all part of some greater scheme?
It all hangs together fairly well. It's a little too jingoistic for my taste, and while I'm not going to quarrel with the science, I do have to wonder why on earth Maberry thought it necessary to have a female SAS front-line combat officer as a major secondary character when the SAS famously doesn't accept female recruits. Well, I know why, I suppose; the SAS is the one British regiment American readers will recognize as being reliably badass, and therefore worthy to fight alongside Joe Ledger. It just seems so silly.
I did enjoy this book, but I'm not sure I'd rush to pick up the rest of the series. If I did, it would have to be on sale; I'd hate to pay full price. In part that's because of the unpleasant itch at the back of my head, that maybe this really is just the Yellow Peril reskinned with a more acceptable - if that's the right word - enemy. But it's also because my heart sank when I realized that Maberry's been publishing one a year of these ever since Patient Zero.
Maybe he does write that fast. Some authors do; I can't remember if it was Raymond Chandler or his contemporary Hammett who said that a writer who doesn't publish a book a year isn't really trying, but whichever it was, the dictum stands. But I can't help feeling that this output is less Maberry's speed than it is the publisher's diktat, much as fantasy authors now seem always to have to write a trilogy rather than just one very good book. Trilogies sell, but more importantly they ensure an author's name is kept fresh, and the revenue stream keeps flowing. Liked Attack of the Killer Cliches? Then be sure to look out for Attack of the Cliche Killers, coming out next May!
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it does seem as if that's the only song the publishers know by heart. It means the story never ends, and anything like structure is thrown out the window. After all, if the story actually had a satisfactory conclusion then there'd be no reason to tune in next week and see how Doc Shadow managed to evade the clutches of Sinister Claw. It also means that plot points get reused, since there really isn't time to work out a new McGuffin or plan out a different style. Villains will come and never really go. 'How did you escape the exploding volcano, Doctor Devastation? Seems like your goose was cooked when the bombs went off.' 'Ah, thereby hangs a tale!'
No. There's precisely where the tale doesn't hang. It sags. It lies there, limp and deformed, bereft of purpose. It might have some superficial appeal, but who's going to remember it a month or so after they finish reading it?
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