Books! Glorious Books.

 I arrived home poorer financially, but not poor in spirit. I brought home a cargo of books, as you can see. But what, you ask, was the result?

Well!

David Wellington, 99 Coffins and Vampire Zero. If you remember Wellington, that’s because you read his Monster Island series of zombie apocalypse novels. I think I may have mentioned him in a Bookshelf, lo, these many moons past. In Monster Island, followed by Monster Nation and Monster Planet, he started off with a great idea: dude from UN shanghaied during zombie apocalypse is sent to NYC to pick up meds for a Somali warlord afflicted by AIDs, since the UN building is the only place anyone can think of where someone can reliably get said meds. Sold. Job done. Problem being, that plot didn’t quite sustain the novel, never mind the following two books. Here we have a situation where reluctant modern-day vampire hunter is, first, sent off to deal with Civil-War era shenanigans, and then, in the next novel, has to deal with her former mentor who’s gone rogue and joined the fang gang. I admit, this was a gamble purchase. I'll have to see whether it was worth the $7 or so the Strand charged me for them. [spoiler alert: ehhhhhh ... *shrug*]

Christianna Brand, Green For Danger. Classic crime from the British Library. I’ve already seen the film so I kinda know whodunit, but that shan’t stop me enjoying this one. World War Two drama in which a mysterious person is unceremoniously offed on the operating table. The person who says she knows what happened is stabbed to death moments later …

Agatha Christie Mallowan, Come, Show Me How You Lived. Period archaeology, and yes, it is that Agatha Christie. If nothing else this will be excellent research material, but Dame Agatha is always readable so I’m expecting great things.

Arthur Machen, The Three Impostors. I’m going to delve deeper into this in a separate post. Briefly, excellent horror fiction that GUMSHOE Directors should be poaching ideas from left, right and center. A group of disparate acquaintances discover that they’ve all had close encounters with mysterious forces, apparently led, coordinated or otherwise involved by the young man with spectacles – whoever or whatever he may be …Even if you've never read the novel you have almost certainly read The Novel of the Black Seal and The Novel of the White Powder, both of which are part of the Three Impostors and both of which have been anthologized in many publications since.

William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland. Often called a classic of the genre, this is one I actually wouldn’t recommend to most people. It has a strong premise but no follow-through: two friends on a fishing expedition discover a mysterious house, and a diary written by the man who lived there. Expect much luminous and hallucinogenic imagery and almost no plot whatsoever. Worth picking up if you enjoy delving into the history of horror.

Bartholomew Gill, The Death of an Ardent Bibliophile. A policeman pays what amounts to a welfare check on a notorious bibliophile only to find him dead and naked. Or naked and dead, whichever way you’d prefer to read that sentence.

C. Daly King, Obelists at Sea. Another classic crime novel, with the added bonus that this is set on a classic cruise liner. Neatly involving two of my personal obsessions in one package. Job done.

Paul Halter, The Mask of the Vampire. A locked room mystery master tackles supernatural murder. This is a translation of the French original. Vampires and a Frenchman’s interpretation of the English countryside murder mystery? Oho!

Seishi Yokomizo, The Village of Eight Graves. I’ve mentioned his work before. Yokomizo-san struggled to find a market before the War and very nearly starved to death during it, but post-War found fame with his series of historical mystery novels. Once upon a time greedy villagers murdered eight samurai for the stolen gold the samurai were supposedly guarding. Nobody ever found the money; many died from the samurai curse. Now, it seems, the bloody work of vengeance is to begin anew as unlucky heir BLANK comes back to his birthplace, a village he has never seen in his life.

Ken Weber, Maximum Entertainment 2.0. Bought at Tannen’s Magic Shop, a place I thoroughly recommend to all visitors to NYC with even a passing interest in stage magic. I bought this for research purposes; I couldn’t card trick my way out of a rabbit’s hat. However, if you’re going to write about something – say, if you intend to write a novel with a magician as a main or major character – you need to know the business of performance. You need to know what it is to put on a show. That’s what Weber does, and he does it very well.

Lafcadio Hearn, Chita. I admit without shame that I'd buy/read anything Hearn ever wrote and I await the day when someone gathers all his newspaper columns in one anthology. This is his account of the hurricane of 1856 and, speaking as someone who lived through hurricanes: 110%, no error. Horror writers ought to at least read the first chapter, if you read nothing else. 

Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop If you want to understand how the US became what it is today, you need to read books like these. Balko charts the militarization of America's police, from its earliest days to the no-knock present. The downfall of the Castle Doctrine, one coffin nail at a time.

The Stork Club (Trail of Cthulhu)

I'm off to NYC this week so there shall be no post next Sunday.

As a nod to the excesses of the Apple I thought I'd talk about the New Yorkiest place of all, at least according to Walter Winchell - the Stork Club.

PBS

Winchell gave the Stork that tagline thanks to a boost from nightclub hostess Texas Guinan, who suggested to the columnist and newsman that her buddy Sherman Billingsley's new joint could do with a boost. This was 1929 and Billingsley, a bootlegger from Oklahoma, had just set up his place on West 58th Street, with financial backing from mysterious sources. It wasn't the Stork's final home; it would move a few times in its career, before finally settling on 3 East 53rd Street.

This last move coincided with the end of Prohibition, which brought about some odd changes for the liquor business. Yes, you could sell alcohol, at table. Not at some smoky, sin-filled bar. Billingsley's solution was to remove his old bar, which had been in the middle of the room, and rebuild it along one wall. He then added lots of tables, each at the same height as the bar. So technically he was serving at table - it was just that the tables were bar height.

This lasted until he had to move to 3 East 53rd, after a police raid. Then Billingsley settled in for the long haul. 

By now he was successful enough he didn't need mysterious financial backers, certainly not backers mysterious enough to attract unwelcome comment. However, he never quite escaped the reputation of being a mobbed-up guy. Partly this was due to his bootlegging background, and partly to his relationships with people like Owney Madden and Frenchy DeMange. For a long time Billingsley had to fight off union incursions backed by Dutch Shultz, until Shultz was shot to death in October 1935.

The Stork was known as a bastion of cafe society, a place for the well-heeled and socially privileged to gather. It helped that the likes of Winchell stuck around the place, along with theatrical star Ethel Merman, Billingsley's girl, who had a waiter stand by her side constantly just to light her cigarettes. According to the guy on the front door Merman wore no underwear, and frequently flashed him in lieu of a cash tip. "I can't put food on the table with that," he complained. 

The Stork was famous for its promotions and iconic chotchkes like its signature ashtrays, its always-on-call photographers, and its balloon nights. On balloon nights a host of balloons would fall from the ceiling each of which contained a prize, often a hundred-dollar bill. The sudden descent of these balloons set off a popping frenzy as guests and staff competed to collect as many prizes as possible. 

The Stork was also famous for sex. Billingsley's relationship with Merman was well-known. Despite being married he and Merman were about as public as it was possible to get. Once, Merman turned up at the Stork glowering, injured, and upset. It turned out she and Billingsley had been enjoying themselves in his car. One of them dropped a lit cigarette and Merman found it by sitting on it, bare-arsed. 

Even without Shultz's intervention Billingsley would have union troubles. He believed in being boss of his empire, and no union, whether straight or crooked, would ever tell him what to do. When he fired a raft of union waiters and they took him to court Billingsley fought tooth and nail, finally taking it to appeals court. The court ruled he had to take the waiters back on staff and pay back wages. He and the waiters reached a quiet compromise; he'd take them on, pay the wages, so long as they didn't squawk when he discreetly fired them again. Billingsley resisted unions till the bitter end; by the time the Stork imploded his union problems cost him his friendship with Winchell. By that point the Stork was losing money hand over fist.

Trail is a 1930s game and as luck would have it the 1930s are the Stork's glory years. Soon the jet age would come and with it would go New York's cafe society, and Billingsley's business model. That, and Billingsley's notorious and ill-fated clash with Josephine Baker in 1956 sealed the Stork Club's fate. 

Borrowing from Night's Black Agents Resource Guide: Locations:

The Stork Club

New York's high-and-mighty mix with the lesser folk, so long as the lesser folk are theatrical, literati, or otherwise famous. It's not unusual to see Broadway stars and Hollywood celebrities mingling with the children of the rich. In some cases literal children; Billingsley lets under-age rich kids play in his playground, so long as they don't drink. You might see almost anyone at the Stork; they say madame Polly Adler came here once and, when she and her escort refused to leave, Billingsley took away all the other tables near them so they sat on their own, completely exposed. Until they slunk away.  Disgraced mayor Jimmy Walker came here after his return from self-imposed European exile and Billingsley threw out the boat for his good friend Walker, only to discover - when the next day's papers made no mention of Walker's return - that the King of New York had been permanently dethroned. 

Extras

Mobsters, rich folk, folk on the make, detectives, theatrical stars, writers, newsmen, photographers - anyone who has an interest in fame and riches. Or who wants to be seen with the famous and wealthy. Or who actually is famous and wealthy. 

Clues

Bargain can get you almost anything from this crowd, but it's even better used on the waiters and staff who can get you special privileges, or a table next to the people you really want to talk to. Flattery is practically currency in a place where the brightest stars and rich kids mingle. Cop Talk works well on unionized staff in bed with mobsters, as well as Sherman himself, who knows very well which side his bread is buttered.  Evidence Collection might notice that peculiar little item so-and-so dropped on the floor. They might be too toasted to notice you took it.  

Rules Effects

Spending a night at the Stork and being seen to do so gives temporary boosts to Credit Rating. Oral History spends at the Stork gives you temporary Intimidation against a well-heeled target of your choice; nobody wants those stories spread. Being there on Balloon Night can earn you unusual allies or enemies, depending on how successful you were collecting prizes. You need to be careful who you go about with or you might catch something nasty - just ask Tallulah Bankhead, a Broadway star and Stork habitue famous for her varied sex life.  

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Where Do We Go From Here? GUMSHOE Open World

 

Alan Parson Project

I always did have a soft spot for Alan Parsons.

GUMSHOE has a habit of producing large open-world style games where you can wander around, like free-range bunnies waiting for Lennie to come home. Dracula Dossier is probably the best example. Armitage Files another. While GUMSHOE isn't the only system that does this, I thought it might be useful to deconstruct the style, and I say this because games like these can be very intimidating for the novice Director.

This is what I said last time:

It's not that it isn't great. It so very much is, but there's so much going on here that, if you haven't got a few years under your belt, you may find it intimidating. Its improvisational nature means that it lacks the structure a new Director may need to get going.

Let me compare it, for a moment, to Horror on the Orient Express, and say why I'd recommend the latest edition of Horror to new Keepers.

Horror is huge. There's tons of things to do, a mountain of stuff to read, and at first glance it seems intimidating. However it has solid internal structure; the Keeper always knows where the campaign is, in the narrative, and can easily determine what's going to happen next. The latest edition in particular is very newbie-friendly, and while there's a lot to absorb, it's not impossible to digest. It would definitely be a challenge for a new Keeper, but it would be a challenge that could be overcome.

I'm not sure the same could be said for the Dossier. Its improvisational nature - which I endorse and enjoy very much - and the metric ton of stuff in it, means that it's very easy to get lost in its labyrinthine innards. For a Director who's had a few years of gaming, this will not be a problem. However as someone who indulges in improv theater from time to time, I can tell you that confidence is key. As an actor, even if you're playing a weak character, you need to be utterly confident in yourself and your ability to play a weak character. That's the only way to convince, and entertain, your audience.

So let's talk about the Armitage Files.

Mystery takes on written form when pages from a disturbing manuscript fall into the investigators’ hands. Can your mind correlate the awful beauty of 10 stunningly distressed handouts realized by acclaimed illustrator Sarah Wroot?

The central concept is simple and strong. Odd pages from a previous investigation - if it is a previous investigation - fall into the characters' hands by way of Dr. Armitage, Miskatonic U, sis boom ba, Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny rah rah rah. What do they do about it? Where do they go? It's entirely up to them. 

Mechanically speaking, this is the shorter version of something like City of Mist, where the entire city is created by the players on the fly. In Armitage Files the players create what amount to Nodes, places where they go to do stuff. What that stuff is and what they do there is up to them. 

Which is right about the spot where novice Directors tear their hair out. Some prepwork is needed, surely? How do you react to something that might or might not happen? Is this Shrodinger's RPG?

Some prepwork is needed, yes. But not the work you might think.

First, know where you are going.

In the Armitage Files there are several possible options given in the supplement and there are as many other options as you can think of. Probably more than you can ever dream up. 

 

Which is part of the reason why this list exists but it's not the only reason.

Yes, these are all places that the investigators might end up. There's enough information in the text to help you improv an entire scene or two on the fly. But is that what I meant when I said know where you are going?

No. 

What I meant was, know what the end goal is. Know who the Great And Powerful Oz is. That way, as the investigators creep closer and closer to the curtain that they've been warned not to pull, you already know the kind of thing they'll find behind that curtain.

That way every scene you use, every important turning point, leads to that end goal. The Sleazy Nightclub is a waypoint on that journey as is the Sanatorium, the Farm, the Curio Shop. That means they all have to have markers that clearly indicate what they are, and where they might lead.

In the Armitage Files a disparate group of Mythos forces are all stumbling about trying to do A Thing, and the investigators don't know what that thing is. Fine. But you do know what that thing is. 

So, every chance you get, hammer that home. The cultist, the innocent victim, the peculiar item - all those roads lead to one Rome. Make sure that is forefront in everyone's mind.

Second, the enemy has a plan and the means by which to make it happen. 

Dracula Dossier does this very well. The Conspiracy is always up to something. Whether Satanists are working to destroy the Sacred Covenant or Mutants are trying to engineer a nuclear Armageddon so they can pen the remnants of humanity in breeding and feeding pens, they all have a plan. They work towards that plan.

So too do the OPFOR in your campaign. 

This means two things.

First, it means the enemy is always gathering material, putting schemes into motion, launching initiatives. It is always active. 

Second, it means that if they are not interrupted then they will do something. What that something is, and whether it works, can be very interesting. 

Let's take a step back and look at one of the elements of the Files.  

The Carnival.

Children cry out their delight as they charge down the main muddy drag of a traveling carnival. Astride the horses and mythical creatures of a churning merry-go-round, they giggle gleefully ...

Now, let's say that within this Carnival there is a Mythos sect trying to do something. It doesn't matter what that is. It takes time, needs materials, and has a desired end result. That's what counts.

You, as Director, have already decided what that sect is and what it wants to achieve. Fine. However, there are other leads. Other places. The investigators may be tempted.

What if the players don't go to the Carnival right away?

Well, you have two options. One is that the enemy doesn't put its plans into motion until they get there, for whatever reason. The stars weren't right before. They are now.

The other option is to set up a calendar. In January the plot starts. By March it's well under way. In June the big event happens. July/August are fallout times and by the time September and later rolls around the background radiation is ticking away but whatever it was that the sect intended to have happened has happened. The investigators might find the remains and the victims, or the damned, but they didn't get there in time to stop the plot.

Andromeda Strain

There can be a lot of entertainment exploring a town of the dead.

Does this mean the sect always wins? God, no. Experiments fail all the time. When your average deranged necromancer starts fooling around with peculiar substances and occult texts, the result of a failed experiment can be spectacular. And interesting, from a plot POV.

Third, always have a backup plan.

Let's say that you thought the players picked up on Clues X & Y last session and were planning a visit to Kingsport to visit the Yacht Club. Except they didn't. They decide instead to head off to Boston to deal with the Marcuzzos. 

What do you do?

Engage one of your failsafe scenes. It's always useful to have a few moments set aside for times like these, a sleazy nightclub or two, a peculiar curio shop, anything that might grab the investigators' attention for a while. That at least gives you time to work out how your failsafe scene is linked to the Marcuzzos. 

Let's say that the investigators went to that curio shop because they think it's a Marcuzzo front. Fine. It can be a Marcuzzo front. You didn't write it that way; needs must when the devil drives. But it can also have Clues X & Y in there, leading back to the Yacht Club. Now the investigators have two possible ways to go. They can follow up on the Marcuzzo connection, using clues found at the Curio Shop that allow them to do so. Or they can take the lead that brings them back to the Yacht Club. What connection does the Yacht Club have to the Marcuzzos? Time to find out!

Ideally, you'll have at least three or four moments like these which you can sneak into any session, regardless of location. That sleazy nightclub can as easily be in Ohio as Boston. Then, once you've used that backup plan, don't forget that you'll need a new one for the next time the players go off the rails.

Fourth, and finally, always reward, never punish.

This is yes, and.

Not that you want to make it easy for those pesky players, mind you. But if they do go off the rails, that isn't a moment for you to lash out. That's a moment for you to shower them with new clues. Letters that lead to that Ohio social organization, or flyers from the Carnival in New York State. If you want to have a couple mooks walk in the door with guns as well, why not? A little gunshot wound never hurt anyone. But never have the mooks as the be all and end all. The mooks are just the chocolate sprinkles on the whipped cream that is the clue bonanza. 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Things To Steal From D&D (GUMSHOE)

Honor Among Thieves trailer

D&D was my first system but it's not my favorite for a number of reasons, probably the biggest of which is that no matter the iteration the system still drags around the carcass of its first incarnation - the skirmish combat wargame. Everything goes back to that 10x10 room with an Orc and a chest. Or an Orc with a chest. In a chest. Juggling two chests and a gnome. However you care to word it.

Its more recent incarnation as 5.0 has a lot to recommend it (and I'm glad it brought back Ravenloft) but it occurred to me that there are two things a GUMSHOE game could steal from D&D:

• Background
• Treasure

Backgrounds are detailed in the PHB and can be summed up as Personality, Ideals, Bonds, Flaws. Treasure is detailed in the DMG and in particular the Other Rewards section from p.227 on.

I'm not suggesting the players use Backgrounds, though they can. You as Director have more use for them, and you also have more use for Treasure.

As Director you often have to come up with NPCs more or less on the fly, which is why Cameos (p92, Double Tap) are so useful. Still, it's nice to have some NPCs in your pocket for those moments when, say, having a Nemesis walk into the room with a gun fits the narrative, or at least gets the action flowing. Each Cameo has an In Play section which does sketch out a thin personality but it is useful, for those NPCs who might have more plot function, to have something more than the In Play. 

This is where the Background section comes in handy. A Nemesis who's a former cop is going to be different from one who's a former special forces vet, and so on. How to make them feel different, though, is where the Background shines.

When I first read that section it reminded me of the Tarot, specifically the Celtic spread, which in its most basic form can be read as:

1. The Present
2. The Challenge/Problem
3. The Past 
4. The Future 

It's not an exact match but it performs the same function. It tells you where you are, where you have been, where you are going, and where you might end up. Backgrounds does this with a series of "I" statements, as in "I have been an acolyte, I idolize a particular hero or saint, I believe in tradition, I seek to preserve an ancient text, I am suspicious of strangers."

In Night's Black Agents much is said about Bad Guys (Resource Guide, p23 on) but it's mostly mechanical. Trail doesn't really cover this at all, except to say that to change up the OPFOR you can change up their appearance or stats, so a Deep One, say, might have a hammerhead as opposed to an ordinary fish head. 

Suppose instead you tackle it this way:

Connor Rowe is a Deep One hybrid proselytizer who has left his coastal area to spread the word. He:

1. Is an acolyte of Cthulhu who believes in the critical mass theory (p 91, ToC)
2. Believes he is a predestined agent of change.
3. Thinks his mission is to spread the seed of Cthulhu wherever he goes so that more join the critical mass.
4. Is prone to obsessive behavior and will not change his plans once they are set.

You don't have to change the stats to make this work. You're changing the personality instead. 

Here you have a roaming preacher who moves from place to place spreading the word. This week he might be in a flophouse in San Francisco. Next week, Chicago. Wherever he goes he spreads the word, starts cults, so that flophouse in Chicago might become an epicenter of Cthulhu worship spreading the word, increasing the critical mass. It might just be preaching, or he may have other means - narcotics, shared dreams, amulets and crystals, whatever best fits. Given that Deep Ones live long lives, as a hybrid he might last longer than the usual human lifespan permits, meaning he could first be encountered as a young firebrand in 1890s San Francisco and still be around as an aged grand master in the 1960s.

The players might not even encounter Connor, at first. They can encounter the cults he leaves behind him instead. That only builds up his reputation, so that when they finally encounter Connor himself the players have an expectation, even a dread, of what this preacher might do.

That's Backgrounds. What about Treasure?

The DMG has this to say:  As much as adventurers desire treasure, they often appreciate other forms of reward. 

Why? Because in D&D, treasure usually boils down to X number of gold pieces plus a scattering of magic items. Rarely is it something interesting, or memorable.

What if it were?

Let's say this is Bookhounds of London. The obvious reward for player success in that game is a mythos grimoire, or possibly even a Windfall for the shop. It's what the central concept is about, after all. 

But let's take a step back. Those are the gold pieces of the campaign. What other rewards can there be?

D&D explains it in terms of 

• supernatural gifts (a special reward granted by a being or force of great magical power).
• prestige (fame & power, medals, favors).
• epic boons (special gifts given to high-level characters).

Let's say this is a Lovejoy or John Constantine situation, two archetypes that work very well in a Bookhounds universe. Lovejoy is a near-supernaturally gifted antiques dealer. Constantine is an occultist who gathers favors; in his original incarnation he acts as a kind of middleman to the heroes and villains of the DC universe, and everyone owes him for one reason or other. His best mate, Chas Chandler, becomes his go-to taxi driver for exactly this reason: Chas owes John big time.

In a Bookhounds world, what kind of supernatural gifts are there?

Straight-up Magic, of course, and Mythos pools, but there are other options. For the cost of 1 point Stability:

• Healing Hands: once per session you have the ability to heal as if you had 2 pool First Aid, by the power of touch alone.
• The Lovejoy Touch: you can tell the difference between a genuine Mythos artefact and a fake, and if you don't know where in the room the Mythos artefact is, you can find it by this sense alone.
• Bane: you create an artefact from whatever happens to be lying around that, for one combat scene only, can prevent a Mythos combatant from attacking you for 2 rounds.
• Ghost Talker: you can communicate with the recently deceased, once per session.
• Card Shark: you can win the equivalent of 2 points Credit Rating, once per session only. Any Credit Rating not spent by the end of the session is lost. Easy come, easy go.

How did they get these abilities? That's up to you as Keeper, but they probably had to sweat blood for them.

Prestige is a bit different and usually translates into better opportunities and increased Auction pools. Because your character is an influential person the auctioneer will let them look at the merchandise in a private session before the auction. Because your character is a member of the local Ring they get 2 points Intimidation free, to use during this auction only. That sort of thing. Again, it's up to you as Keeper how they got that prestige, but it probably involves a Windfall of some kind, or a very successful adventure.

Epic boons are a little out-of-scope and may not fit your playstyle, particularly if you go Purist. However, it could be very interesting to have a Mythos entity take an interest in your Bookhound. Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that a group of Ghouls take a liking to one of the Bookhounds. They may even consider the Hound for membership of their little supper club. As a token of their affection they give the Hound a silver ring. That ring has no power in and of itself, but all the other cults currently active in London know what that ring stands for and who gave it to the Hound. It's a kind of bargaining chip for future negotiations: I can't hurt you, but you know who my friends are ...  

Alternatively, let's say a Hound has a nasty experience with a Cthulhu cult, and as a consequence gains heightened Dreaming powers. Not only can they lucidly dream, they gain the ability to invade other people's dreams and interact with them. That may seem great, but there's a problem. Every person whose dream they invade loses 1 Sanity because the Hound isn't just invading their dream, they're spreading the critical mass of Cthulhu believers needed to make the Old One return. That is cumulative Sanity damage; it's possible to drive an ordinary person permanently insane. Which some Hounds might embrace as a tactic against their enemies ... 

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten Paris - the Lapin Agile (Dreamhounds)

 My own memories of Montmartre concentrate in the Lapin Agile. It is a broken-down shanty. Once it was called the Caberet des Assassines. One may roughly translate its current name as the Skittish Rabbit. But in reality it should be called the Lapin a Gill - in reference to the rabbit which Gill, the caricaturist, who was once the owner of the little maison de campagne, before the builder had made modern Montmartre, painted on the door ... Famous as this tiny place has grown, it is not altogether spoilt. Its habitues are still the true Montmartrois, who are just amusing themselves. They drink beer and munch plums soaked in eau-de-vie, and listen to each other's poems and songs. A dog sleeps in the middle of the floor, only wakening at the end of each contribution to bark loudly by way of applause. Within the decaying walls of the Lapin Agile the conspirators, sat on bottomless stools and boxes which served as chairs, planned all the farces at which Paris used to chuckle.    

It's a bit cheeky to call forgotten something that still stands today but I thought it would be interesting to talk about Dreamhounds. The text is from Sisley Huddleston's 1926 work Bohemian Literary and Social Life In Paris, which isn't a bad resource for Dreamhounds assuming that you can find it in a second-hand store somewhere. I got mine for a buck at a house clearance sale. Worth paying attention to, those sales.

Image sourced from Wikipedia

The Lapin was formerly known as the Caberet des Assassines because it had portraits of famous murderers sketched on the wall, some of which probably still existed (faintly) in 1930. Gill's caricature wasn't the only famous art showing the Lapin. Picasso also created a painting of a night at the Caberet, At the Lapin Agile, in 1905. He created it after his friend the Spanish artist Carles Casagemas killed himself during a drinking bout at the Hippodrome, when his lover once again refused to marry him. The painting hung on the wall of the cabaret for many years and is now held by the New York Met. Both Picasso and Casagemas were very young men at the time and Casegemas' lover Germaine Pichot is pictured in the Lapin Agile. She and Picasso would go on to have an affair. 

Steve Martin would later write a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, featuring the artist, Albert Einstein and several others, including a time traveler with blue suede shoes.   

Long Wharf Theatre production

With all that in mind:

Strange Rabbits

A new talent, unaffiliated with the surrealists, has captured Breton's attention. This minor painter and photographer, Jacob Burri, has appeared at the Lapin regularly and verbally sparred with Picasso there. Breton wants to know more about this mercurial Swiss and gets the Hounds to check him out.

It's difficult to trace Burri's whereabouts. He must have rooms in Montmartre but nobody knows where they are. The only thing definitely known about him is that he always visits the Lapin from about midday till at least 3pm, sometimes later. He seems to know a great deal about the present and hints at knowing even more about the future. How does he know these things?

Why is he only ever seen at the Lapin?

• Burri is a hollow shell, piloted by a Bulbhead who has learned the trick of navigating from Dreams to Paris as the Surrealists do. The Bulbhead is using this shell to explore the waking world and determine why it is that dreamers have such influence over the dreamlands. It's a bit like using a diving bell to explore the depths, and just as hazardous for the Bulbhead. However, the Bulbead lacks nuance, and its erratic behavior is bound to attract attention.
• Burri is a future dreamer from the 1980s who has found his way to 1930s Paris in an attempt to get to the Lapin of 1904. He gets to that place the same way a blind man plays darts; he makes his shot and hopes for the best. Somehow he keeps ending up in the 1930s which for him is hell, since he's trying to get to the Dreamlands that exists before the Surrealists muck it up and he's having no luck getting past the oneiric walls that the Dreamhounds have built.
• Burri is a would-be cultist, a novitiate of the occult group CS who has gone about as far as they can go, in their current field of study. Burri wants to progress but is being held back by the cult's higher-ups, so Burri is looking for a short cut. Burri thinks that the shortest cut of all would be to infiltrate the surrealists and learn their secrets but is conscious that, if CS were to find out about the risks they are taking, it would all be over. Variant - Burri is actually Liserl Einstein.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten London - Rag & Bone Shops

 'It's a poor part of our business, but the books and paper takes up little room, and then it's clean and can be stowed anywhere, and is a sure sale. Well, the people as sells waste to me is not such as can read, I think; I don't know what they is; perhaps they're such as obtains possession of the books and whatnot after the death of old folks, and gets them out of the way as quick as they can. I know nothing about what they are. Last week, a man in black - he didn't look rich - came into my shop and looked at some old books, and said 'have you any black lead?' He didn't speak plain, and I could hardly catch him. I said 'no, sir, I don't sell black lead, but you'll get it at No. 27.' 'Not black lead, but black letter,' speaking very pointed. I said 'No,' and I haven't a notion what he meant.  

From Henry Mayhew, Mayhew's London, edited Peter Quennell, originally 1851, reprinted Spring Books, London.

Steptoe and Son theme

A rag & bone man is someone who collects and sells pretty much every kind of waste product. It all has its uses, and thus its buyers and sellers. The smallest fish in the trade have just their cart; larger rag & bone merchants have yards or shops of their own. 

The version Mayhew describes is, at best, appalling. 'The stench in these shops is positively sickening. Here in a small apartment may be a pile of rags, a sackful of bones, the many varieties of grease and kitchen-stuff, corrupting an atmosphere which, even without such accompaniments, would be too close. The windows are often crowded with bottles, which exclude the light; while the floor and shelves are thick with grease and dirt The inmates seem unconscious of this foulness - and one comparatively wealthy man, who showed me his horses, the stable being like a drawing-room compared to his shop, in speaking of the many deaths of his children, could not conjecture as to what cause it could be owing.' 

There might have been fewer of these in the 1930s than the 1850s, but even so the examples that remain can't have been significantly better. Moreover they last for a remarkably long time, all things considered; people recognized the archetype in Steptoe and Son, and that was a 1970s show.

You could find literally anything in a rag-and-bone, and as the anecdote from Mayhew points out, anything includes books. The seller will have no idea what they have, whether it's worth anything, where it came from.

In broadest terms what we now think of as a charity shop is what a rag-and-bone used to be. They sell anything to anyone. They make no enquiry as to how you got the things you're selling and they don't care who buys what they have. They exist to be a mercantile middleman.

Examples of this can fit into any setting. They'd do well in Cyberpunk, for example; one man's trash is another man's treasure in any setting where resources are scarce and you have to make do. However, from a Keeper's perspective they'd do best in Bookhounds, Trail, Night's Black Agents - any early modern or semi-modern setting where the characters are assumed to be working behind the scenes, in the shadows, to get things done. 

A rag-and-bone is exactly the kind of place the Hounds might pick up some unconsidered trifle. Lord knows where it came from; certainly the rag-and-bone man doesn't know. Nor did he enquire. 

As for locations a rag-and-bone might be in any part of London but is most likely to be found in the poorer parts, so the East End, Isle of Dogs and similar.

All that said:

A Drunkard's Memory

One of the shop's less reliable Scouts turns up with an interesting piece: a broadsheet chapbook of ballads, early 19th century. It's not in perfect shape but, nestled between its sheets, there's a translation of a letter about the Würzburg witch trials of the early 1600s, from a burgher of Würzburg to an unnamed cousin. They describe the trials in great detail. 

If there is a translation it follows there must be an original out there somewhere, and anything to do with the witchcraft persecutions in Würzburg will find a buyer. Question is, where did the Scout pick up their chapbook?

All the drunken sot can remember is they got it from a rag-and-bone shop in North London. They can'r remember which rag-and-bone, but they do think there's more stuff to be had. The rag-and-bone man said he'd picked up the chapbook and a number of other oddments from 'a fellow.' Not that the Scout can remember who.

Some 1-point spends realize that the translation is printed on cheap paper sold in job lots to medical men; it was torn from a prescription book. Most likely it came from someone in the Royal Free Hospital, if whoever had it was based in North London.

A 0-point spend eventually finds the rag-and-bone, though a 1-point spend finds it in time to stop some of the best bits being sold to other buyers.

The rag-and-bone is an unprepossessing little corner shop, Berrycloth & Sons, that's been at that location since the 1870s and looks every bit of its age. According to the owner, Balthazar Berrycloth, (B.B. to his friends), he got it all from the landlady of a medical student who was clearing out the flat after the student's unexpected death.

Options:

• The student isn't dead and will never die. Not unless someone cuts off their head and burns the body to ash. However, the landlady didn't realize this and unloaded all their prize possessions while the body was still at the coroner's awaiting dissection. Now that student wants their stuff back, and B.B. is first on their list of 'people to take vengeance on.' Shortly to be followed by the Hounds.
• The student was a junior member of one of London's cults and was in possession of some very incriminating documents when they died. All those ended up at B.B.'s shop and are now scattered across London - though if the Hounds spent a point then they have the most valuable items. The cult wants its papers back and will stop at nothing to get them.
• Old B.B. knows more than he's telling. The whole thing, from the Scout onwards, is a confidence scam designed specifically to take in the Hounds with some glorious fakes. The Scout is in on the deal. Why do this? Because B.B. is about to make a transition from rag-and-bone to antiquarian dealer and he wants a bit of capital. If the Hounds go out of business due to a Reverse and B.B. gets to buy their stock for a song to open his own store, so much the better ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten London - Whittington's House of Ease

Yes, I know, I missed last week - Charlie was kind enough to give us a three-day weekend and I used it wisely but too well. 

Second, a quick heads-up: I've been working on some Ravenloft stuff that will go up on DTRPG (DMG) fairly soon. Brief one-shot horror adventures with one simple rule: no more than four pages.

Now, on with the show.

Whittington's Longhouse and Almshouse was built in Cheapside, London, in 1421 and lasted, in one form or another, till at least the 19th Century and possibly the 20th. That may or may not make it the longest-lived public toilet in human history; nobody keeps records of that kind of thing.

Sir Richard Whittington, to give him his proper title, was thrice Mayor of London and a very rich man, but died childless and spent his fortune on charitable works, the Longhouse among them. It could seat 64 women and 64 men and was distinct for having a division between the sexes. One long house, with a dividing privacy wall between the 64 men and 64 women. 

The Almshouse was directly above. If you were desperate and had nowhere else to go, you could go there. Records are a little spotty on this one, and it may well be that the almshouse was used for storage at some point in the Longhouse’s career.

The 128-hole original burnt in the Great Fire but was replaced soon thereafter by a much smaller public toilet that lasted till at least 1851, and probably longer than that. 

‘In 1660,’ says Liza Picard, ‘The usual practice was to nip into an inn, or a friend’s house. But there was always a convenient corner or accepted ‘pissing place.’’ 

Whittington was famous in his day for his charitable works. He must have been a clever gent to think outside the usual church-and-benevolent-fund malarkey and build something that everyone would have found useful regardless of status. Of course, in his day while there would have been division between the sexes there was no division between neighbors; your hole was next to the other’s, which was next to the other’s after that. Given that there were 64 holes per, that suggests a remarkable coming and going in the busy periods.

Whittington is probably better known for his famous, fictitious cat which earned him his fortune – at least so goes the story. There’s nothing to suggest the real-life Whittington had a cat, but stories seldom match. The cat as helper has a very long folkloric tradition, though Whittington’s version has very little in common with its more famous adaptation, as Puss In Boots.

But! Baghdad-By-The-Thames has a long memory, and if Whittington’s Longhouse survived in one form or other until at least the 20th century – which seems possible – then it would be of interest to Bookhounds and Megapolisomancers alike.  

Incidentally there’s all kinds of stories about death on the toilet, from peculiar spiders crawling up the dunny to the legendary (and all too hideous) Erfurt Latrine Disaster. Birth on the toilet too; as Liza Picard notes, there are several instances of babies being found abandoned in toilets and brought up by the Church.

All of which leads to:

The House That Is (And Isn’t) There

Freddy ‘Inkwell’ Rummage, a notoriously sticky-fingered book scout, has lost a commission. Or at least that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

According to Inkwell he picked up a rather choice copy of [insert interesting text] and was on his way to the Hounds’ shop to negotiate a price when he was accosted by some Rough Lads who wanted a word with him about unpaid gambling debts. 

Inkwell was about to give himself up for lost when he saw a public convenience. Thinking to outwit, or at least outlast, the Rough Lads, Inkwell nipped in and found himself in a very peculiar hiding place. 

It was, says Inkwell, a very long and remarkably smelly convenience, with holes rather than the more comfortable compartments he’s used to. He had the feeling there was someone else in there with him but saw no one. 

After waiting what seemed like a short enough time Inkwell risked an escape, only to discover that it was midmorning of the next day! Moreover he no longer had the valuable package; Inkwell thinks he must have put it down for a moment and never picked it up again.

Preliminary investigation suggests that wherever this place is it’s somewhere in Cheapside, but exactly where is anyone’s guess.

Options:

• The grimoire is protected by [something] and it was that [something] that opened a temporary hole in space & time. However, the grimoire is now stuck in that alternate dimension until someone comes to collect it. A Hound roaming Cheapside at the same hour of night that Inkwell got himself into trouble might find their way into the Longhouse.
• Inkwell stumbled onto a long-forgotten secret Fane, protected by Isis and her servants, the cats of London. The real prize is upstairs, in the Almshouse, where Isis keeps a kind of temple – or at least her cats do. Some megapolisomancers know about this secret haven.
• Inkwell stumbled into a Haunting and while he was able to get away with his life others might not be so lucky. By leaving that book behind Inkwell inadvertently created a kind of link that allows the Haunting greater power/longevity than usual. So long as that book is there, the link to the Longhouse is open …

That's it for this week. Enjoy!