New York, New York

I'm back!

I'm also knackered, but that's usually a sign of a good vacation. This time I did in a week what can be done in a week, as opposed to last time when I did in three days what ought to take two weeks. Fun times, but by God I was wrecked at the end of it.

No, this was a much more relaxed time away. Christmas fairs, shopping, comedy clubs, improv clubs (the PIT in midtown is a lot of fun if you enjoy that sort of thing, and their improv D&D was a blast!), the lot. I didn't see as many museums as I thought I might, but that's mainly because the Frick, which was on the list, is undergoing renovations and I got lost on the way to the Merchant's House. Boy, did I feel like a sucker. I used to know that part of town so well, too ...

Films I recommend:

Framing Agnes

A fascinating glimpse at what it meant to be trans back in the 1950s. The talk show concept kinda didn't work for me; it made the film feel static and a little slow at times. That said, the subject is engrossing and the lives of the people the doc talks about are, well, actual lives. They don't try to tell a morality tale or a good-people-triumph or any kind of mythologizing. It's just the story, neat, no ice no water.

 The Draughtsman's Contract

Mad as a box of frogs. A wealthy, bored and unhappy wife hires an artist to draw her husband's house and grounds while he is away on business. He does so, on terms that include sex. Pretty vigorous and nasty sex, by the look of it. Then the husband turns up dead. It's not a murder mystery, really, not in the Agatha Christie sense, but murder definitely has its place in the narrative.

Both seen at the Film Forum, which I heartily recommend to anyone visiting New York. In the same week I was there the Forum also showed Welles' The Trial, which I also heartily recommend and have seen many times - though not this trip.

Books!

Once again the Compleat Strategist, Argosy and Strand did me good. I shan't go through the list of Christmas books bought, but:

Joe Lansdale, Savage Season & Rumble Tumble. This is one of those nostalgia purchases. I was a big fan of Lansdale once upon a time but I never got heavily into Hap and Leonard, his two detectives; I was fonder of his horror work. I figured this was as good a moment as any to find out how much I might like the series, and I was right. Recommended to lovers of film noir and pulp action.

William Gibson, Spook Country. Bought on a whim on my last day there, I haven't read it yet but am looking forward to it. Again, a nostalgia purchase; like everyone else I read Count Zero, Johnny Mnemonic and Neuromancer back in the before times, but I haven't read any Gibson in years. Time to rectify that.

Paul Vanderwood, Satan's Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars in America's Greatest Gaming Resort. Brilliant historical romp through the twists and turns of Tijuana's dark past, it opens with a shootout over the cash from a casino group and closes with the end of Agua Caliente back in the late 20s. It's a great resource for Keepers, and a fun read for fans of true crime.

Basil Thompson, My Experiences At Scotland Yard, 1923, covers the turn of the century and Great War period. I think you can guess why I wanted this one. I haven't read it yet but am looking forward to it!

Emanuel Lavine, Secrets of the Metropolitan Police, 1937. Again, I think you can guess why I wanted this one. Good Trail of Cthulhu fodder!

Vampire: The Masquerade - the Second Inquisition. It was either going to be this or the Blood Cults book, and it was a tough choice. Maybe next time, Blood Cults! I also picked up some Vampire dice. Yes, I am a sucker. Mainly inspired by Jacob Burgess' Vampire game over at LoadingReadyRun. 

OK! That's it for this one. As mentioned, I'm going to take a break for the remainder of the year and come back raring to go in the New Year.

Question for the hive mind: I know I've talked a lot about Bookhounds and Night's Black Agents, less so other systems. Is there a particular gaming system you'd like me to explore in the New Year?

The Building 2 - Events (RPG All)

This will be the last post for a short bit, as I shall be off island. Hopefully New York won’t be too cold … 

I’ve been noodling a few campaign ideas for Wraith: the Great War. I don’t know if I’d ever get to play them; Wraith isn’t the most popular World of Darkness setting, and it wants players who a) understand the rules system and b) are willing to get put through the mincing machine, which … I mean, people like that exist, it’s getting them in the same room for several hours on consecutive weekends that’s’s the problem. 

However, expanding on a previous post about the Building, I thought I’d talk a little about RFC Conty. 

The TL/DR of the Building can be summed up as: 

The Building is that area in which you, as GM, expects plot to happen. For plot to happen, the GM needs to populate the Building, either with people or events with which the players can interact. It is player interaction, not NPC action, that makes plot. 

The last time I talked about the Building I focused on the people in it. This time I want to talk about events. But first, a bit of prologue.

RFC Conty is a Royal Flying Corps air base operating out of the village of Conty, not far from the Somme shortly before that battle is about to begin.  

The action in Wraith: The Great War is loosely supposed to take place in the 1920s shortly after the Great War’s end. It presumes that during the War, sparked by the colossal slaughter that was the Somme, a spectacular outburst of spectral armies shredded the Hierarchy, the Wraiths’ nominal form of government, and as a result of that chaos one particular faction, the Legion of the Grim who represent those who died of violence and especially murder, step into the breach and attempt a coup. That goes about as well as you might expect given all the other carnage that’s taking place, and it’s this cesspit of violence and its consequences that kicks off the main plot. 

I’ve always thought it would be interesting to have a kind of prologue event to all this, hence RFC Conty. That’s the main hub of the plot for this opening chapter. The action takes place prior to the Somme hence prior to the main spectral outburst that kicks off the main event. Think of it as a kind of backstory to the devastation to come.

RFC Conty is the base for Sparrowhawk Squadron, No. 7 Sqn RFC, which flies DH2 single-seater pushers out of Conty. The DH2, popularly known as the Spinning Incinerator, is a recent arrival intended to take on the Fokker Eindecker head-to-head and put an end to the Fokker Scourge. It’s not a bad plane but lack of experience meant that many of the early intake span down to the ground, hence ‘spinning incinerator.’ Some of the RFC’s early aces cut their teeth on the DH2, notably Lanoe Hawker (one of Richtofen’s kills) and James McCudden. 

For settings like this which rely so heavily on real-world details I find it helpful to turn to history, and in this case An Infantry Subaltern’s Impressions of July 1st, 1916, by Edward Livening, which I nicked off of Gutenberg. He describes the area roundabout, just before the battle: 

The country in that part is high-lying chalk downland, something like the downland of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, though generally barer of trees, and less bold in its valleys. Before the war it was cultivated, hedgeless land, under corn and sugar-beet. The chalk is usually well-covered, as in Buckinghamshire, with a fat clay. As the French social tendency is all to the community, there are few lonely farms in that countryside as there would be with us. The inhabitants live in many compact villages, each with a church, a market-place, a watering-place for stock, and sometimes a château and park. Most of the villages are built of red brick, and the churches are of stone, not (as in the chalk countries with us) of dressed flint. Nearly all the villages are planted about with orchards; some have copses of timber trees. In general, from any distance, the villages stand out upon the downland as clumps of woodland. Nearly everywhere near the battlefield a clump of orchard, with an occasional dark fir in it, is the mark of some small village. In time of peace the Picardy farming community numbered some two or three hundred souls. Gommecourt and Hébuterne were of the larger kind of village. 

OK, so that gives me a bird’s-eye view of what Conty is probably like. Clay earth, used to be a corn field, a large community nearby, probably an orchard nearby (apples, why not – it’s cider country after all). A chateau, always good for plot. Anywhere that long-lived is bound to have a hidden history that the current population don’t know about or remember, and hidden histories are meat and drink in Wraith games.  

What about the Squadron? 

Total aircraft: 15, in three Flights, of which 12 are in the air at any one time and the others – the knacker’s yard – used by replacements or if one of the flight is too badly damaged to fly. 

Commander:  Major Bob Lennox 

Flight Commanders:  Captains David Lynch-Hardinge (A Flight), Robinson ‘Mule’ Fairbrother (B Flight), Eustace ‘Skipper’ Wainwright (C Flight) 

Flight: Leftenants Eric Quarry, Norman Fitzhugh, Daniel Rutledge (A Flight);  

                Andrew ‘Crasher’ Lacy, Geoffrey Vine, William ‘Billy’ Mason (B Flight);  

                Victor Crawthorpe, Harold ‘Crackers’ Parrot, Percy Warnock (C Flight) 

Also present, though No. 7 Sqn has no knowledge of this, are two relic aircraft. One is a Fokker Eindecker, and the other is a SPAD SA two-seater recon aircraft. These fly daily, keeping an eye on events on the battlefield and reporting back to Hierarchy higher-ups on the ground. 

Pilots & Observers: Otto Rall (d. 1916, Eindecker); Arthur Bonneton (d. 1915, SPAD Pilot) Sir John Fastolf (d. 1459, SPAD observer)   

Additional Hierarchy support on the ground at No. 7 Sqn is provided by the Office of Maelstrom Preparedness which has an outpost in what is now the munitions store and was a barn. This small Iron Legion outpost is led by Chevaleresse Marie Allard (d. 1804) who employs a small number of scouts, couriers and administrators kept constantly busy by the changing tide of events on the battlefield. 

Ammunition Store: Seems constantly ablaze (burnt down in a fire), has spectral horses (plasmics, always screaming), wraiths coming and going at all times of day and night. I see the Ammunition Store as having been built on the remains of some past tragedy, the burning down of a stables, hence the spectral horses. Places like that have a lot of energy humming away.  

In Conty I’ve already placed a few people but haven’t gone much further than names and nicknames, because this time around I want to talk about events. 

Events don’t have to directly affect the players. However, events happen whether the players get involved or not, and the consequences that flow from those events are also things that might affect plot.  

An event in its simplest form is a thing that happens, and the great thing about a setting that involves real world situations is that you have some events baked in. If this was about the Titanic or the Lusitania disasters, there’s a predetermined sequence of events; the iceberg or the torpedo always arrives at such-and-such time on such-and-such date. In a battlefield situation as GM you know roughly when the battle starts and stops, but beyond that there’s a whole smorgasbord of events you can pick from. 

The Somme has a defined start point: 1 July, the Battle of Albert. That’s when the Maelstrom kicks off, with massive exhalations of spectral energy. From my perspective, that’s where the Chronicle ends. 

I mentioned RMS Lusitania a moment ago. She went down in May 1915, after being torpedoed by U-20. That sounds like a good start point for the Chronicle; it provides a meaty inciting incident and is exactly the sort of thing that might kick off an uptick in Maelstrom activity. An outburst of spectral activity inspired by the sinking is exactly the sort of thing that might inspire the Iron Legion to set up its Office of Maelstrom Preparedness outpost at Conty. 

The OMP is a small organization at this point; the main book describes it as being a couple hundred field researchers. Sounds like a great group patron for the sort of miscellaneous vagabonds who make up the average Chronicle. 

The story begins with the sinking of the Lusitania, in which one (or more) wraiths are killed. They have fetters in Conty – we can thrash out the whys and wherefores in session 0 – so they snap to that location after the tragedy. That’s where they meet Chevaleresse Marie Allard, who at that point is just setting up the Office that her superiors have asked her to create.   

[For those not familiar, fetters are things that link wraiths to the living world. They can be anything from a favorite doll to a house but are usually small personal items of one kind or another. When a wraith dies, assuming they don’t disincorporate altogether, they go to a fetter. That's how these wraiths get to Conty from the murky depths of the Atlantic.]  

Right there we have events Zero and One. Zero being the sinking, One being the snap to Conty and the initial meeting with Chevaleresse Marie Allard. Those are fixed points, and they have to happen for plot to proceed. In theory they can happen in session 0 and not involve dice or any kind of ability check; it can be their introduction to the setting and the world at large. 

Broadly, a fixed point is something that has to happen. Think of it like a Core Clue in Gumshoe. The players will always be given Core Clues since without them the plot can’t proceed. The same principle applies here. Fixed points have to happen because without them the plot can’t proceed.  

Whereas a floating point is something that may/may not/will happen at some point, but don’t have to happen directly to the characters. The death of Major Bob Lennox may/may not/will happen at some point and the characters may be affected by that death, but it does not have to happen to them directly. A big party in the officer’s mess, a sudden uptick in maelstrom activity, a raid by the Grim Legion, the last ride of the ghostly coach-and-four that’s been going up and down the Conty road since the 1700s, the arrival of a group of pretty Irish nurses, the card game that nets Crackers Parrot a significant sum, a bombing raid – all these things are floating events. They provide useful background to what’s happening on the main stage, or they become the main stage, depending on whether/how the players interact with them. 

As GM you don’t need to go chapter and verse on every single event. That way madness lies. However, it can be very useful to go over the calendar month by month and pencil in a few things. That way even if the players never interact directly with, say, the last ride of the coach-and-four, you at least know when it happened and can work out what affect it may have on the plot. Perhaps it deeply affected Chevaleresse Marie Allard, or robbed the OMP of a useful resource, or its end somehow brought Major Lennox’s career to a premature close. Or maybe it just provides water-cooler gossip for a few weeks.  

An event can be absolutely anything. The day the sewer backed up is an event. The day the house got painted is an event. Its significance may be anything or nothing; often the things that seem the smallest to those on the outside matter a great deal to those intimately connected with the event. 

There’s a sad moment (one of many) in Capt. J.C. Dunn’s WWI account, The War the Infantry Knew, in which a number of trees in the village of Le Nord are cut down to make gun limbers. An old woman watches it happen. ‘Soon there will be no trees in Le Nord,’ she says. A small event or a large one – who can say, except those who were there and experienced it? 

Point being, it’s worth having a few floating events to hand either to have the players bounce off them, creating plot, or at least as hints dropped for future plot. The players may not care that much about the coach-and-four, but if they care about Chevaleresse Marie Allard then they care about what happened to the coach-and-four. That means plot. It may also determine future plot.  

If this wasn’t Wraith, if this was a fantasy setting without a Gregorian calendar much less the fixed points described here, what then? 

Exactly the same. You frame it differently. You might say that this happens in Spring, this Summer, this in Autumn and this in Winter. The crops are planted in spring, the crops harvested in Autumn. Or the great storm that shatters the old oak tree happens in Summer, or the taxes go up in Winter, or the wizard turns all the children into mice in … and so on.  

The process does not change. There are still fixed points, and floating points. The difference is in the description, but not the details. 

Enjoy! 

I'll be back later in December (briefly) to talk about New York and will probably take a hiatus after that until January when we'll pick up the weekly posts.

Damnatio Memoriae (Bookhounds of London)

Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to damnatio memoriae, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. [Wikipedia]

Lawrence of Arabia trailer

This week’s post is loosely based on an old Guardian article about a missing Caravaggio, in which it is alleged that a painting by the artist may have suffered condemnation of memory after he fled Rome to avoid the consequences of fighting an illegal duel and killing an unsavory character; the record isn’t clear whether the fight was a formal duel or a more rough-and-tumble street brawl.  

There are various characters in the extended Mythos who probably suffered damnatio memoriae of one kind or another. Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh, is one such, as is Queen Nitocris, who appears in the fiction and also in the RPG campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep. 

Nitocris is loosely based on a historical figure who definitely suffered condemnation of memory - always assuming she existed at all. We know about her only because Herodotus recorded a small part of her biography in his own histories, but Herodotus is, at best, an unreliable source. Who knows what Nitocris actually got up to?

But if a memory is only partly expunged - if some small remnant remains to be discovered somewhere, in a forgotten corner of the world - then presumably someone who was condemned can be rediscovered. Potentially with catastrophic results, where the Mythos is concerned. 

Let’s suppose that memory has memetic qualities. That by evoking a memory, long buried, you risk awakening something hideous. What might happen as a result? 

The Job Lot 

Your Hounds recently bought a number of minor items at auction in a job lot. A cheap acquisition, mostly for the binding or to cut up the illustrations from some of the books and sell them as framed prints. Among the items in the box is a small collection of rubbings that some unnamed and unknown person took while they were in Egypt. At least, they look convincing enough to be the real thing. 

There’s no way of knowing where exactly the originals are; the rubbings have an Egyptian style about them, and there are some dates in pencil which suggest that whoever it may have been was in Egypt at the same time as T.E. Lawrence, ie. Lawrence of Arabia, which might inspire the shop forger to fake up a few letters of provenance. It has all the makings of a small windfall. 

If nothing else, the rubbings look rather nice in a good frame, and lend an air of mystery and antiquity to the shop. All well and good, 

If anyone bothers to find out what the hieroglyphs actually mean, they discover (1 point Archaeology or 2 points History/Occult) that they have to do with the mysterious Queen Nitocris. They are a part-description of an event that took place in her reign, something to do with a dinner party at which a tragedy occurred, but much of the narrative is missing. There is a reference to a mysterious deity whose ‘name is secret like his deeds’ (with thanks to Lord Dunsany's play on the subject for the wording) and who exacts some kind of terrible vengeance, but there’s not enough here to work out exactly what happened, or where. 

Anyone who discovers that the rubbings refer to Nitocris also know, without needing a further spend, that she is someone who suffered condemnation of memory. All reference to her and her reign was removed from the official record. The only reference to her is from Herodotus, and that meandering Greek raconteur’s histories are, at best, unreliable. An actual, provable, Egyptian reference to her would be an amazing find if there was anything that could authenticate it. 

The Awful Truth 

The rubbings were taken by a German archaeologist at a dig site in Egypt. Archaeologist Leo Eichmann discovered a tomb there filled with grave goods but was unable to retrieve any of it, or even remember where it was, after suffering a crippling fever that left him a burnt-out shell of his former self. He sent the rubbings, his notes, and some other items back to Heidelberg, and after the Great War these items were stolen from the university’s collection. Nobody knows who stole them or what happened to them after that, and of the items sent to Heidelberg by the unfortunate Eichmann only the rubbings survive. 

Lawrence did know who Eichmann was and has referred to him in some of his letters to (and still held by) the British Museum; for that matter at the time of the average Bookhounds game Lawrence is probably still alive and can be used as a resource. Given the nature of the average game, even if he's dead he can still be used as a resource ...  

The rubbings have a peculiar property. They recreate themselves, over time. 

At first, it’s like a shadow on your consciousness. The symbols float before your eyes. Then they physically recreate themselves on the walls, and as they do so the missing parts begin to be filled in. The hideous nature of Nitocris’ vengeance becomes plain, and the identity of that deity whose name is secret like his deeds becomes all too apparent: Nyarlathotep. 

In fact, one or more people who study the hieroglyphs become obsessed by them. These might be shop employees or customers, or both. They want to recreate them again and again, adding to them, extending them. This manifests first as the aforementioned shadow, but over time they become obsessed with the idea of drawing more hieroglyphs, on the walls, bookshelves, anywhere they can. 

This has two effects. 

First, the psychic trauma attracts the attention of the Cult of the Black Pharaoh. Their obsession with that terrible monarch and the God he represents might benefit the shop, inasmuch as they’ll want to acquire the rubbings at any cost. No matter what exorbitant price the Hounds demand, they’ll pay it. This will take the rubbings out of the shop, which the Hounds may see as a good thing. Of course, they won’t know what the Cult will do with them … 

Second, the Nile comes to London. 

That was Nitocris’ murder scheme. She invited her enemies to a grand feast in a vast underground chamber. There, according to Herodotus, ‘Suddenly as they were feasting, she let the river in upon them by means of a large, secret duct …’ This drowned them all, and the Queen killed herself soon after.  

In this instance the Nile is centered on the Bookshop. It seems a small thing, at first. A dampness. A puddle or two. If the Hounds ignore this, the problem gets worse until one day, when the Nile bursts its banks. If it gets that bad then the entire shop is flooded, drowning everyone inside and washing their bodies away, down the course of the river and gone, never to be seen again. All that’s left behind is a muddy ruin and a useless mass of soaked, destroyed books. 

Not so much a Windfall as a catastrophic Reverse … 

That’s it for this week. Enjoy!  

Dreams of the Drowned (Trail of Cthulhu)

 

Sourced from The Great War

Silent propaganda film 1918, sourced from Spreading Oak Tree

This is a Trail of Cthulhu scenario seed set in New England and loosely based on the deaths of Stewart Mason and his wife, Leslie. From: The Last Voyage of the Lusitania, 1957, A.A. and Mary Hoehling, published by Longmans of Toronto:

On board also were, inevitably, newlyweds. The Stewart Masons had been married in Boston on April 21. He'd come from Ipswich to wed his brunette Yankee bride, Leslie, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Lindsey. Her father was a man of many talents: writer, actor, patron of drama, and millionaire, whose huge stone mansion brooded over the Charles River in baronial splendor ...

Soon, he was sure, he must encounter Bill Lindsey's little girl, Leslie, or her husband, Stewart Mason. He never did. Yet Leslie was there. [American] Consul Wesley Frost found her, on an embalmer's slab in an improvised operating room in the rear of the Cunard office. "She lay like a statue typifying assassinated innocence." Stewart was washed ashore further up the [Irish] coast. The news was cabled to Lindsey in Boston. It 'hung' forever after like a cerement over the big stone house next to the Charles River. It made the great hall, and the oaken staircase flaring upward on either side, from which Leslie had thrown her bride's bouquet days before, seem to Lindsey like a mausoleum ... 

The seed is nominally set in Kingsport but can be relocated.

Hook

In 1915 the daughter of millionaire widower Charles F. Kinshaw died with her husband in the wreck of the Lusitania. That tragedy blighted his life, and all but ended his career as an early entrepreneur in silent cinema. From being a widely travelled angel investor he turned into a recluse, spending all his time at his Kingsport mansion by the sea. This former captain's mansion, built in the mid-1800s, was where young Sarah and her husband were married; ever since that day, it has had a funereal pall.

This hasn't changed, but recent activity at the mansion has Kinshaw's friends and family intrigued. Kinshaw, his artistic expertise undimmed, recently added a small film editing studio to the building. Nobody's sure what it means, exactly, and nobody knows what film he's been shooting if he's been shooting any film at all. However, some wealthy and influential people would pay good money to find out.

Enter the investigators.

Awful Truth

Kinshaw is under the influence of Deep Ones who have promised to return his daughter to him if he does as they ask.

They contacted him through dreams, pretending to be Sarah's husband William. William's body had never been recovered after the sinking, and the Deep Ones pretended that William was trapped in time and only able to communicate, imperfectly, though dreams. However, if Kinshaw were to build a special film camera to William's specifications he could improve the connection, and possibly establish a bridge between himself and his daughter strong enough to allow her to cross back over and rejoin the living.

Though nobody realizes it, Kinshaw has spent the last few months filming the sinking of the Lusitania from every possible angle, again and again. He now has enough film in the can to show every moment of the tragedy, from the perspective of every single person who died - 1,193 souls.

Though Kinshaw doesn't realize this, the Deep Ones are using subliminal stimuli. Each frame of his picture is underscored with Ry'leh and Cthulhu imagery; the Lusitania footage provides the impetus, the Mythos undertones are the punch. The overall intent is to create a kind of gate, using Kinshaw's emotional energy and the energy of anyone who happens to be in the room when he shows off his film footage, that directly connects that spot with Ry'leh. Not only will this cause a physical reaction (mostly involving several tons of transported icy ocean water) it will also spike a huge rush in hideous dream energy which in turn will blanket the East Coast with Cthulhu's message.

After putting the film together, Kinshaw intends to have a preliminary screening at a Kingsport cinema before taking it to New York. The Kingsport screening will be invited audience only. Some of the biggest names in American cinema will be there, as well as local dignitaries.

It's going to be one hell of a show, unless the investigators intervene.  

The Old School Tie (Bookhounds of London)

After fooling around with modern spycraft for so long, let’s take a step back to an old favorite, Bookhounds of London.

I’ve been re-reading Graves’ Goodbye to All That and am currently going over his years at Charterhouse, one of the preeminent public schools of England. For those not familiar, a public school is a fee-charging endowed school and are "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession. So long as you can pay and (in some cases at least) maintain a certain academic standard, you can attend.

The English are obsessed with public school. It encompasses a certain kind of Englishness that many aspire to, and all recognize. In much the same sense fox hunting, cosy murder mysteries in the Christie style, and bloated, feckless upper classes all represent a kind of Englishness recognized the world over. Other nations hunt foxes, but it’s the English people think of when they see pictures of fox hunting. Other nations murder, but somehow it’s just not the same if the corpse isn’t found in some English country squire’s locked library or splattered across the scones at the church fete.  

So too with public schools. Hogwarts, let’s not forget, is a public school; for all his talents Harry couldn’t attend if someone hadn’t thoughtfully left him a small fortune held by the gnomes of Gringotts. Rudyard Kipling’s most recognizable characters, Stalky and his pals, are public schoolboys. P.G. Wodehouse, the girls of St. Trinian’s, Enid Blyton – the school story is practically a cobwebbed, crumbling English institution.

That being so, it’s likely that at least one of the Bookhounds either attended public school or pretends to have attended. It’s the sort of thing that lends social cache, which can help make a sale. At least the veneer of sophistication that comes with the old school tie might impress a customer.

Things you might see at a public school:

• Cricket
• Rugby.
• The Officer’s Training Corps on parade.
• Ivy-covered buildings
• Masters in their black gowns.
• Corporal punishment.
• School newspapers.
• School societies, eg. Poetry.
• Impressive portraits and donated artworks.
• Small museums dedicated either to the school or some local monument of some kind.
• Impressive modernity, eg. a flying school.
• Crumbling history, eg. the chapel.

All of which brings me to today’s subject: The Old School Tie. 

The Hounds are likely to know a lot of people who want favors or can grant favors. This scratch-my-back economy can make the difference between a Windfall and an ordinary month, or snatch a failing store from the brink of economic crisis.  

What do they do when someone wearing that old school tie wants something, and can offer something valuable in exchange?

The Old Dumbletonian

[Source for Dumbleton school: Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers]

Everything that can go wrong has been going wrong. The council’s pressing the shop for unpaid rates (taxes). The drains are rotten. One of the shop’s most important customers has defected to another shop. The police are buzzing around like flies, certain that the shop is a front for a pornography ring. Things are looking bleak, so when a fellow you barely recognize from days gone by says he has a peculiar commission for you which will save your financial bacon, you’re all ears.

This gent, Augustus Kendall, says he attended the same school as you, Dumbleton, near Gloucester. You were several years above him, assuming he’s telling the truth. He went from the schoolroom to the trenches, caught a bad one in the right leg which left him with a limp, and spent the rest of the war in  Offizierslager Toruń on the Vistula River. Since then he’s bumbled from job to job, but he has grand prospects. His aunt, a remarkably wealthy old cat, is about to stumble off this mortal coil and he’s her only living relative.

Which would be fine, were it not for some inconvenient letters.

While at Dumbleton he fell in love with one of the younger boys, Douglas Parry. Indiscreet letters were written. Poetry. Other stuff, all of which Parry kept. Parry is now a master at Dumbleton (Greek and Latin). Parry is blackmailing Kendall, bleeding him of every cent he earns, knowing that if Aunt Belima ever sees those letters he can kiss the fortune goodbye. 

Kendall remembers the Hound as being a bit of a sharp character, an impression that is only strengthened by some of the stories Kendall has heard about the way the Hound does business. Surely for someone as resourceful as that, the retrieval of a few letters from old Dumbleton would be no great task?

As it happens Gaudy night is coming up, which means the Hound can probably wangle an invitation to Dumbleton for the festivities on the strength of the old school tie. There’s a fair amount of money on offer, and Kendall is likely to be worth a bob or two when Aunt Belima leaves us …

The Awful Truth

Kendall is a would-be member of the Keirecheires (cults, main book p65). He’s been on the fringes of the cult for some time, but never managed to secure an invitation to join that hedonistic group. He knows Parry is a member and guesses, correctly, that Parry keeps some very indiscreet literature at his rooms at Dumbleton. Kendall reasons that, if he gets hold of those letters and poems, he can use them to blackmail Parry into letting him into Keirecheires.

The problem is, Parry’s been working on a particularly complicated ritual which he intended to present to his fellow enthusiasts at the next orgy. It was to be a summoning, something suitably vile and entertaining for their group activities. However, in creating (and writing down) this hideous ritual, Parry has managed to summon up something particularly ruthless that he’s having some trouble dealing with. Hounds with Mythos might notice some of the precautions he’s been taking, signs of which can be seen at his rooms as well as in his behavior. The chapel at Dumbleton is particularly tainted by Parry’s researches. 

All of which would be fine – up to a point – were it not for some meddlesome Hounds stealing his notes and researches along with the grab-bag of letters and poems.

Once up to their neck in it the Hounds will have to dodge vengeful Keirecheires as well as the whatever-it-is Parry has summoned up.

Good luck with that. The old school tie won’t help the Hounds now …

A Twist?

Augustus Kendall is dead and has been for years. 

He died during the War and over time became a Crawling One, an undead nightmare that lives half in the Dreamlands and half in the waking world, a thing of maggots and decay that can disguise itself as a living man through dubious sorceries. It was he, not Parry, who was a member of Keirecheires, albeit a very junior member at the time of his death. Parry obtained Kendall’s letters and poems through dubious means and is trying to use them to ease his way into Keirecheires. Kendall is furious at the very idea, but Parry’s been able to block him so far. Kendall’s decided to use the Hounds as catspaws, hoping that their efforts will dislodge Parry’s defenses and give Kendall a chance to strike.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy!

Let's Uncover and Trace a Secret (Night's Black Agents)

Trace. The agents must find something, possibly something that went missing long ago.

Uncover. The agents must uncover a mystery.

Briefly: the Bankhaus is an investment bank with a murky past and has offices in several major cities, of which the Conspiracy has control over the Paris and Zürich branches thanks to its control over Lisle Klingemann, daughter of the boss and a senior partner in her own right, and Albert Ahrens, controller of the Zürich branch and Lisle's devoted slave. The Bankhaus is mainly interested in software development companies, particularly in jurisdictions within Europe, though it has a significant sideline in mining, especially in East Asia, a holdover from its former interests.

It has swanky offices, lawyers, a ton of assets on the book and off, and when it makes calls they get answered by senior politicians and members of the financial elite. It almost doesn't matter whether this is a Supernatural, Damned, Alien or Mutant game; all factions are going to want a piece of the Bankhaus whether to get access to its bottomless bank vaults or for more esoteric reasons.

Clue 

Much like Hunt and Rescue, Trace and Uncover share similar structure and, ultimately, have the same goal. 

In both cases you, you lucky little blighter, are chasing after a McGuffin. The only real difference is whether that McGuffin has physicality or is more metaphorical in nature.

Let’s say you’re trying to Trace something in the present day. There are all kinds of ways that can happen. You can talk to people, you can use electronic tracking methods, you can consult timetables, shipping manifests, shippers, government bureaucrats – any possible source of information, really. Beware common mistakes. Is that number the right one, or was there a transposition? Do you have the right address?

All of this depends on a central premise: that there was a Thing to trace in the first place. Whether that Thing was a person, an object, or something else, it had physical presence and left a trail of information in its wake. Much like the Maltese Falcon it has a history and through that history you can find its current location – in theory, anyway.

Uncovering a mystery has basically the same principle, only this time the McGuffin you’re looking for may or may not be a Thing. It’s as likely to be a Fact. Who killed Colonel Bruce ‘Buff’ Orpington in the locked library of his Yorkshire manor house? Who stole the Muffinchops Diamond? What really happened at that secret meeting? Who betrayed Edom to Dracula back in the 1970s?

The key point being no matter whether you’re Tracing or Uncovering, you’re using the same base skill set to do it and finding the same kind of clues in the process. 

It can be a very thinky adventure. Where a Hit or a Hunt implies some kind of action sequence, there’s no such implication here. You could do exactly as Holmes’ brother Mycroft and solve the entire thing from the comfort of your sitting room. You could do as Poirot does and carry out a little investigative fieldwork while allowing your grey cells to do the heavy lifting. Either method assumes that the investigator does most of the work with their mind, not their fists. I can’t think of a single Poirot, for example, where the detective actually engages in fisticuffs, never mind a gunfight. The TV show was a bit different in that it had to have an action scene, but it was nearly always a Chase of some kind that didn't involve Poirot directly. Even Holmes, for all his legendary baritsu, very rarely stoops to a physical altercation with his villains. 

Which is great, if you’re into that kind of thing. It plays very well with Dust, and Mirrors. However, even die-hard Dust fanatics want someone to march into the room with a gun in their hand every once in a while.

Get Carter 

Get Carter fits very well with this kind of paradigm. In a sense, it’s both an Uncover and a Trace. It starts as an Uncover and starts becoming more of a Trace once Carter realizes the true nature of the mystery he’s trying to Uncover. Plus, while there’s a fair amount of violence it’s more along the lines of a film noir than a James Bond.

One interesting variant on the theme could be Uncovering the mystery of what happened to the agents when they blacked out/were under the influence of hypnosis gas/were Renfielded. This uses basically the same premise as a Trace, except this time the agents are Tracing their own movements. What are those peculiar entries on my credit card statement? Did I really call Pizza Hut 20 times in 30 minutes? What the hell was I drinking?

Potentially this could cover years. If the agents were tools of the Conspiracy from, say, 2000 through to 2010, they’re going to want to know what they were up to in that period. There’s no reason why the Director should let them know everything after one scenario. There could be a mystery element, something that keeps popping up in the long-term narrative the same way Anthony Price uses Debreczen, the alleged school for spies in East Germany, in his 1970s/80s spy novels. 

Incidentally I note that Anthony Price left us in 2019; when I wrote Dusting Off Price in 2013, I wasn’t sure what had happened to him. He was living in Blackheath and for a while there I was in Greenwich and knew Blackheath well. For all I know, I walked past him in the street.

Point being this could become long-term backstory for the agents, and the players. The Uncover, the Trace, don’t have to be single-shots. They can be something you return to again and again as the agents get closer to the source of the mystery.

Then, of course, there’s the bleedin’ obvious. Which is, that the search for Dracula in the Dracula Dossier is as much an Uncover and a Trace mission as it is anything. You’re trying to Trace an individual who leaves a trail – all those coffins and corpses – while at the same time Uncovering the mystery of who he really is, what his weaknesses are, and whether or not he can be killed with garlic pizza.

Even the novel has elements of Uncover and Trace. The heroes Trace Dracula's coffins and Trace his escape downriver to his castle; they Uncover his relationship with Renfield. However, the novel isn't entirely about Uncovering secrets and Tracing things, and there's a strong argument for saying your scenario shouldn't be, either.

Ultimately it will come down to you and your players as to which side of the fence you fall on, but this is one time you should think of scenario building in the same way you'd think of, say, cooking or chemistry: so many parts of this to so many parts of that. Two parts Trace to one part Uncover, that sort of thing. 

Start with the solution and work backwards, says the Resource Guide, building a trail of clues that connects the initial hook to the final scene. Sound advice for both types of scenario.

All that said, let’s go to the Bankhaus.

Let's use Uncle Albert. When I first described the Bankhaus I said:

Albert wants to keep Lisle happy, but it's possible that her continued mental domination has awakened certain desires in him that, until now, he's been able to suppress. He may have a collection of Lisle-a-likes kept at private apartments, or be a familiar figure at local BDSM establishments.

Let's say Uncle Albert is keeping a Lisle-a-like at a luxury apartment in Aarburg, a quiet little Swiss town with a lot of history. Picturesque. Touristy. Small. 

 

Luxury Aarburg Apartment image sourced from Luxuryestate.com

The first order of business is to Trace the Lisle-a-like, presumably because she has well-connected friends who know how to reach out to people like the agents for help. Or, because agents of another vampire-related agency - Edom, say - are using the Lisle-a-like as an excuse to hire the agents, pretending to be concerned parents when in fact they're using the agents as disposable stalking horses. 

The next question you want to ask yourself is how much Uncover, how much Trace? The agents will be Uncovering the mystery of why Albert wants to keep Lisle-a-likes, while at the same time Tracing the Lisle-a-like. I'd guesstimate about two parts Trace to one part Uncover, but it's up to you.

Ideally at the end of the scenario the agents know, or think they know, why Albert wants a Lisle-a-like - the Uncover - and they know where this Lisle-a-like is. Moreover, from this point they should have enough information to know where to look for the next bit of cheese in the maze. They should know about Albert's connection to Lisle, for example. They should know what kind of techniques Albert is using to create Lisle-a-likes, but not where he learned them, or (if specialist equipment is needed) where he's getting his toys.

Unless the agents have been particularly sneaky they also ought to have incurred at least one conspiracy reaction. Are the vampires tracing them? Attacking their allies, menacing their Solaces? That's because they dared Uncover the mystery, interfered with the proper workings of a Node, and brought the wrath of the undead on their vulnerable little Solaces. 

What about the Reverse? Well, in this instance the agents aren't trying to find anything. They're pretending that they already have something, and they're daring the enemy to come get it.

Lovejoy TV show titles, starring Ian McShane

It's a grift, a big store or a short con, where the agents are Henry Gondorff and the conspiracy's people are Robert Shaw's Doyle Lonnegan. 

Using the above as an example, if the agents were to abduct the current Lisle-a-like from her luxury apartment in Aarburg and then dangle her like a carrot in front of Uncle Albert, driving him to distraction and forcing him to chase after her, that would be a reversal of the Uncover/Trace. Now Albert's doing all the work and the agents are playing keep-away. 

This runs the risk of being unplayable for the same reason that a reverse Sneak is unplayable; it's mechanically possible, but the NPCs are doing all the fun plot stuff. That's never a good position for the Director to be in. 

However, a reverse Uncover/Sneak has one undeniable benefit: the agents are taking an active role, because they're the ones pretending either to be something they're not or to have something they don't have. They're the ones selling the big store, roping in the sucker and feeding him the convincer. Those are all active roles.

Let's say this pretense revolves around the Lisle-a-like's ex-lover sneaking back into her life as if she was Rapunzel and he (she?) the roguish prince come to rescue her from dolor. Then the reunited lovers rush off to, well, anywhere really, but let's keep it in Europe and say Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, for a skiing holiday. They might even have stolen some of Uncle Albert's cash to make that happen. It's actually all a ruse to lure Albert out of his place in the Node so the agents can do something nefarious, but if it works ... the payoff will be sweet indeed!

That's it for this week, and this series. Enjoy!  

  

Let's Sneak (Night's Black Agents)

Sneak. The agents must infiltrate a secure location. 

Briefly: the Bankhaus is an investment bank with a murky past and has offices in several major cities, of which the Conspiracy has control over the Paris and Zürich branches thanks to its control over Lisle Klingemann, daughter of the boss and a senior partner in her own right, and Albert Ahrens, controller of the Zürich branch and Lisle's devoted slave. The Bankhaus is mainly interested in software development companies, particularly in jurisdictions within Europe, though it has a significant sideline in mining, especially in East Asia, a holdover from its former interests.  

It has swanky offices, lawyers, a ton of assets on the book and off, and when it makes calls they get answered by senior politicians and members of the financial elite. It almost doesn't matter whether this is a Supernatural, Damned, Alien or Mutant game; all factions are going to want a piece of the Bankhaus whether to get access to its bottomless bank vaults or for more esoteric reasons. 

Sourced from Themes and Titles

Unless your players are dead inside, this is the mission they dreamt of when they signed up.  

Maybe they saw themselves as James Bond, Jimmy Ocean or Jason Bourne. Maybe they imagined using cunning disguises and trickery, or perhaps, as Bond memorably did in the Goldfinger opening sequence, they pictured themselves swimming past enemy defenses with a fake seagull on their heads.   

Regardless of the icon they pick for themselves, this is the iconic spy moment. The agents’ time to shine. 

Or the moment where it all goes a bit Pete Tong and the agents have to run for their lives.  

Either way, it’s Thrilling. 

Perhaps the best thing about a Sneak is that it involves a number of skill sets which in turn means that everyone will have a chance to shine. The Digital Intrusion specialist, the driver, the con artist, the B&E sneak machine, they all have potential spotlight moments. 

Perhaps the worst thing about a Sneak is that involves more work on the Director’s end than most other operations. Think about it: you have to prep a number of different options to get in, set varying Difficulty numbers depending on how and where the agents try to infiltrate the system, and have different options available for that inevitable moment when the agents exfiltrate, under fire or cool as ice, depending. This is the one time the players will want to see, if not detailed maps and sketches, at least some imagery of the target. This is the one time the Director will need detailed OPFOR on hand for the agents to bounce off of.  It’s tactical. It’s strategic. It’s sneaky. 

Sneakers, sourced from Rotten Tomatoes

There aren’t many films that rely on infiltration and sneaking as the main meat of the narrative. Part of, yes. I can’t think of a single Bond film that didn’t involve a Sneak scene of some kind. However, it’s usually only a fraction of the whole story.  Sneakers is the exception, and well worth seeking out if you haven't already seen it.

Going back to the Planning, Execution and Aftermath formula the Sneak scenario is unusual in that, for once, you’ll be spending most of your time in the Execution phase. The whole reason why a Sneak scenario is Thrilling is because you get to Sneak in. It’s the visceral moment when you’re standing somewhere you know you shouldn’t be, doing things you know you shouldn’t be doing. Everyone everywhere has had that moment in their lives, at least once. Yes, the Planning is important, and yes, the Aftermath probably has a Chase of some kind because really, why not? Baby Driver was almost entirely a Chase scene from the opening sequence, and it was brilliant.   

But the meat here is that sensation of bliss when you have crossed the Rubicon and are ankle-deep in potential shit, and whether or not that shit remains potential or becomes as literal as Shrodinger’s Cat will depend on whether or not you raise the alarm. 

Broadly speaking there are three kinds of Sneak scenarios. 

• Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. You are attempting to sneak into a heavily guarded facility which will react with lethal force should you screw this up. You’ve seen that film a thousand thousand times. 
• Climbing the Matterhorn. You are attempting to sneak into an area in which most of the obstacles are environmental. General Wolfe scaling the cliffs of Abraham, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn & David Niven crossing ocean and climbing cliff faces to blow up the Guns of Navarone, that sort of thing. 
• Danny Ocean’s Dream Job. There may or may not be lethal force at the site; that’s not the challenge. The challenge is to get in, and out, without anybody knowing you were there. They might find out later. That’s fine. By the time later rolls around you’ll be on a beach in the Maldives. Any number of con games play out this way, and there’s often a switcharoo scene or possibly a cackle bladder. This is the version that will almost certainly call for a Preparedness test at some point. 

There’s one additional wrinkle to bear in mind that I’m going to call the Money Heist twist. In that narrative, the problem isn’t Sneaking in. You get in however you like. No, the problem in this scenario is Sneaking out again, without anyone realizing what you’re doing until it’s far too late. This twist will almost always be a Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, but it’s worth bearing in mind that you, as Director, can make Sneaking out, rather than Sneaking in, the meat of the scenario. 

Money Heist Bella Ciao, sourced from Ένας αγέρας

All that said, let’s go to the Bankhaus. 

Let’s say this time out that the target is one of the Bankhaus’ East Asia holdings, a mining operation in South Korea close to the North Korean DMZ. The agents have reason to believe that the Conspiracy is using it for nefarious purposes, though what those purposes are remain unclear. 

This means that the Preparation part of the scenario will involve a fair amount of scout work, both to see what kind of operation the Conspiracy is running and what kind of OPFOR the agents can expect. 

Given that the Conspiracy’s operation is probably pretending to be something it isn’t, the first layer of this onion will involve working out what it actually is. That means the agents will be keeping tabs on who goes in and out, what appears to be going on down there, and whether there are any unusual defenses or outbuildings. Are they using a lot of electricity and therefore throwing off a lot of heat? Do high ranking government officials turn up at unusual times? Is that mysterious visitor the renowned physicist Benjamin Sun-Kee, and if it is then what is he doing here? Why are all those trucks coming and going – refrigerated trucks, not your standard cargo hauler? 

Then comes the actual Sneak. 

If it’s Kiss Kiss, then the operation plays out much as any one of a dozen different thrillers. The agents get in and get out under the noses of any number of heavily armed guards. Combat is possible, perhaps even likely, so as Director you need to prep some armed OPFOR.  This sequence is very likely to end in a Chase of some kind, so as Director you need to be prepared for that as well. 

If it’s Environmental, then the agents are trying to get in via a route that seems impossible which is why it’s not as heavily guarded as the other ways in. The cliffs at the Plains of Abraham were so steep it was thought impossible for an entire army to scale them, therefore the French didn’t pay as close attention to them, which is why Wolfe and his men took the French by surprise. So you’re looking at some kind of environmental hazard significant enough to pose a challenge. Fording a raging river, climbing a steep cliff, or walking through the DMZ all qualify as environmental challenges – some more than others.  

If it’s Danny Ocean’s Dream Job then the agents are going to be relying on infiltration, disguise, bluff and meticulous timing to get in and out without anybody knowing what they’re up to. Exactly how they do this is up to them. Perhaps they do as Danny Ocean did and hide one of the team in a special delivery so that they can open the way for the rest. Perhaps they pretend to be delegates from another Node conducting a surprise inspection. They could even pretend to be vampires, to cow the gullible human guards into submission. Whatever works, but the key here is that the burden is very much on the players who will, by their actions, be deciding how difficult this becomes. Don’t worry too much about that. In this, as with all things, the players are usually their own worst enemy. 

Then, of course, they have to get out again … 

OK, so what about the Reversal?

Well, this is the one time I'm not sure there is a Reversal. 

Technically there is: the agents can defend a location against someone else's Sneak attempt. Which ... I mean, it's doable, but it does mean that the NPCs will be doing most of the Thrilling stuff while the agents are on the sidelines playing keep-away. You could look at it as a kind of Dead By Daylight scenario where the agents are the Killer trying to keep the survivors from turning on the generators, and that kinda works, but if the NPCs get the spotlight moments while the agents get hosed, not by their own actions or even enemy actions but by the situation itself, you have to wonder whether that's a game you want to play.  

Also, I can't help but think this is bound to become a very talky session as the players pore over maps and schematics arguing about the best way to defend against an attack, all the while ignoring their Preparedness pools. Or, at the other extreme, it becomes a game entirely about Preparedness pools while the Director reverses the improv principles and turns it into a 'yes, but' scenario. Lots of dice rolls, not much action. Either way, dull and frustrating for all concerned.

No, it may be better in this instance to have this as a classic Whodunnit mystery. In this situation the agents come on the scene after the Sneak attempt has already successfully taken place. The NPCs got away with the McGuffin. The question is, who were they? Followed closely by, where are they now? Do they still have the stuff and, if not, who does?

The obvious plotline here is the theft of the legendary Dracula Dossier, but really it could be any kind of McGuffin so long as the agents and NPCs all agree that it's valuable stuff.

That’s it for this week! Enjoy.