Blighted Villages & Chicken Coops - Description (RPG All)

Launch Trailer via GameSpot

Like half the planet (it feels like) I too have been sucked into Baldur’s Gate 3, developed and published by Belgian game developer Larian Studios. Present to self for Christmas.

God alone knows when I’ll finish it. The damn thing’s huge. I haven’t even gone through Act One. I’m still noodling around goblin camps and wondering whether that nice Auntie who lives out in the forest really can homeopath me back to health. I shan’t tell you what I think of the game. Unless you’ve been living under an RPG rock you already know how good it is. I wouldn’t be writing about it now if I didn’t enjoy it.

That said.

There’s a bit early on that sticks out at me. Very minor spoilers ahoy.

Blighted Village. It’s within a stone’s throw of a temple, now defunct, and easy walking distance of what seems to be a grand monastery (ish) with a tomb underneath it, also defunct. Already you can get a sense of how this community used to work: priests in the temple, monks in the scriptorium, with a village in the middle producing goods to satisfy their needs. Probably there was some little gift shop selling tchotchkes to pilgrims as they wandered through.

Visually the Blighted Village reminds me of those tiny villages out in Northern Italy. You know the type; everything’s made of stone, streets very narrow, and there’s probably someone trying to sell it because nobody wants to live there anymore. Big features include a windmill, apothecary, and school. It’s abandoned, overrun by gribblies.

The more I poke around in there, the more the feeling grows. Is this a once-functioning community, or is this basically a bit of window dressing for the dungeon below? Did this village have a purpose, or is its purpose to get you down in the adventure area ASAP?

Point being if it feels as though the Blighted Village, or whatever it may be, is just set dressing, then the set starts to wobble. Immersion is threatened. Some background material is required for a place to feel lived-in. In Baldur’s Gate that seems to come most often from books and secrets you find after poking through all the crates and shelves; not so much from the things you see on the screen. Every so often you might, say, search through a schoolhouse and find a much-loved teddy bear. What happened to the child who owned that bear? How did the bear end up buried in a hole?

How much is too much, when it comes to background material? There’s no point designing things the players will never experience or care about. But if you set something in, say, an abandoned vineyard, do you want to outline how a functioning vineyard would, well, function? Or do you just want to sketch in some eye-catching details and handwave the rest?

If you’ve read my stuff, you know I prefer setting things in the real world, adding some historical data to make things flow properly and lend a bit of spice to what might otherwise be a boring narrative. Sometimes this leads to trouble, revisions. A while back when I wrote Sisters of Sorrow I realized that submarines in World War One were nothing like I imagined, and that meant rewriting the entire concept. C’est la vie.

I find it useful to poke around in old books and find out how things once worked. If nothing else it can provide plot, or at least an interesting scene.

Let’s wander over to Gutenberg, and ask the question: can I design a Chicken Coop of the Damned?

Probably the better question is why I’d want to do such a damn silly thing, but here we are.

A lot of games have, say, an abandoned farm as a setting. Something happened here in the before times and as a consequence the place is now Ripe For Adventure. Hideous things lurk in the shadows, each of them malignant and dripping with treasure.

For that to work in a scenario, how much do I need to detail about how the farm used to function?

The answer is, as much as is useful to me. However, that’s more glib than helpful. A bit fortune cookie-ish.

I start at Gutenberg because it’s useful to have a basic overlay of how things worked before The Unpleasantness. It’s also a pretty decent source of copyright-free maps and images. I could say the same about Wikipedia. I rely on neither for factual accuracy but then I’m not writing a thesis: I just want ideas.

Gutenberg reminds me that, if my adventure site includes a stable, then that stable needs somewhere to store harnesses and tack; somewhere to store grain and feed; somewhere to put the carriage (if this is that kind of stable); a source of water. Do I need to plan all this out? Probably not. But I do need to know that these things exist, because knowing this allows me to add details that can make the game fun.

It can also be a source of … other things …

From the description found at Gutenberg: The carriage room is sixteen by twenty-five feet, and the manure pit is in the basement beneath this room; to prevent the escape of ammonia from the manure pit into the carriage room a good cement floor should be laid down.

So, if I wanted to design a trap that, say, dumps the characters into, oh, a manure pit why not … I trust you can work out the rest for yourself. A whiff of ammonia might be the one warning the characters get before their moment of unhappiness.

A while back I put out a D&D scenario, For The Sound Of His Horn. In that scenario there’s a haunted mansion. Did I plan out the entire mansion from basement to rafters?

Hell no. This is what I said:

The Manse consists of the manor house, the hunting dog kennels, stables, and formal garden.

Manor House: a minor country house, first built over 400 years ago as a fortified country manor, renovated 150 years ago to be more comfortable and include a glassed sunroom. It was abandoned 100 years ago. Heavily overgrown and the roof is basically gone. In its day would have been home to four of the family and twice as many servants, or about twelve people in all. Rooms include: the great hall, the solar (private lounge for the family only), glassed sunroom now overrun by plants and mold, bedrooms, library, garderobe (latrine, single hole, discharging to outside), kitchen (including pantry and buttery, food prep and storage), attic (in almost complete ruin), wine cellar (ransacked). Most rooms have some furniture in them, but anything truly valuable has long since been stolen. Haunted Effect: footsteps heard in the next room, but nobody is there. Trigger: if anyone finds the library, if anyone is alone in the house.

Hunting Dog Kennels: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a hundred hounds, or fifty couples. Still stinks of dog even after all these years. Haunted Effect: shadows of hounds flit across the walls. Though they do not attack people, they harass the shadows of anyone in the kennels. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the kennels, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the kennels.

Stables: Stone built with slate roof, space enough for a dozen horses including tack room for their gear, and the manor house’s carriage, capable of seating four plus driver. The carriage and tack are far too rotten to be any use to anyone. Haunted Effect: the sound of stamping horses being loaded with tack for a hunt. Trigger: if anyone is alone in the stables, or if a hunter (eg. Ranger, someone dressed in hunting gear or similar) is in the stables.

Formal Garden: rolling lawns with tree groves scattered about, small lake now choked with reed and mud, artificial ‘hidden grotto’ cave, artificial ‘antique’ statues (cupids, heraldic animals, foxes). Haunted Effect: the fox statues seem to move about and there are more of them than before. Trigger: if anyone finds the hidden grotto, if anyone is alone in the garden.

Secrets

Manor House: Library. In its day this would have been an impressive collection. That was before the windows smashed and damp got in. Now most of the books are ruined and the carpet is a soggy, stinking mass. Secret: Will & Legal papers. Hidden in one of the books is the last will and testament of Gelbert’s brother Wyllin, including plans of Wyllin’s estate. The papers show Wyllin’s two children, son Bartell and daughter Allecia, were to inherit. Secret: Family Holy Book. The Huntingtower Scriptures of Ezra, annotated on the frontispiece with the family tree. Bartell and Allecia, Wyllin’s son and daughter, are both crossed out. Secret: Estate Plan. A framed copy of the estate’s total land holding hangs on the wall. If Wyllin’s share had passed to his children Gelbert would have been left with less than half; if they didn’t inherit, Gelbert got it all.

Formal Garden: Hidden Grotto. In its day this was a quiet spot with a good view of the gardens and lake, part hidden by a grove of trees. The sort of place lovers and poets might enjoy, on a pleasant summer’s day. Secret: Bartell’s Diary. This is hidden under a stone near the grotto’s bench. Written in a child’s hesitant script, the diary tells how Bartell and his sister were forced from the family home after their father died. For a brief time they hid in the garden where once they played as children, but Gelbert soon found all their childhood hiding spots. ‘But he shall never find our secret wood, and we will hide there until we can get someone to help us!’

Potential encounters

The Butler, manor house only, night only.

Twig Blights, 4-6, formal garden only.

Giant Bats, 3-6, manor house only during the day in what little is left of the attic, night only in the gardens, hunting.

Rats, 10-20, hunting dog kennels and stables only.

Potential Treasure

Bloodstone earrings, 100gp, manor house, bedroom.

Obsidian carved family seal, 50gp, manor house, library.

Book, antiquarian, local history (gives +2 to any History check concerning Mordent), 80gp, manor house, library.

Book, antiquarian, vampire lore (gives +2 to any History check concerning Barovia), 100gp, manor house, library.

3D6 GP, manor house, one time only, any room.

Potion of animal friendship, hunting dog kennels.

1D3 bottles of good wine, 50gp each, wine cellar.

1 bottle of bad wine, DC15 CON save or lose 1D6 CON, CHA, INT for 24 hours (constant retching, nausea), wine cellar.

Enough description to be helpful, not enough to be overwhelming. There’s just enough history to the place that you, as DM, can get a sense in your head of how things used to work and how things work now. That’s all you really need. It might be a little different, in a combat-heavy game, if you need combat areas. Then you want maps. But most of the time you’re not going to need detailed maps, particularly if you’re the only one who’s ever going to see them.

Going back to the Blighted Village, where this conversation began, that’s broadly what you, the player, get. A visual that paints a picture. Enough of a working design that you, the player, get a sense of how it was supposed to function when it was a functioning village. Secrets, hidden away, that you, the player, can find.

Notice I repeat those words, you, the player. That’s who all this is for. Never lose sight of the fact that there is an audience and that audience needs to be catered to. All this description, this verbiage? It has a purpose.

Put it another way. I came up with a concept I called Rome. All roads lead to it. For the campaign, Rome is an event, location or circumstance that is the end state of the game.

That’s for the game.

For you, the DM/Keeper/Director, Rome is the player. Everything you do is headed towards that Rome – player engagement.

Fun.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stick a tadpole in my eye and go smack goblins.

Scenario Structure (RPG All)

 … I'm struggling to convert them to proper scenarios. Do you have any tip to create a scenario structure using a hook? Do you create a set of clues? Do you write scenes that connect all the facts of the hook so that the bookhounds need to go one scene after other one? You improvise? Carlos Roig 

Now there’s a question. 

I had something else in mind for this week's post, but this caught my attention so I went ahead and wrote this instead.

Let’s go back to Coleshill Abbey for a moment; that destroyed library which has hidden secrets buried both in the past and the present. 

… the estate be used to run the library, open by subscription to certain scholars. Mostly friends of Vincent and fellows of Vincent’s old Oxford college, though the list included a scattering of worthies who got in on merit alone. The library was in operation from 1872 to its destruction in 1915 … 

The hook is that forger Winona Pryce, who used to work with Coleshill Abbey’s librarian, has a book stolen from the library which she now wants to sell. Before the Bookhounds can arrange the auction Pryce dies of a heart attack, and her body is found at the ruins of the old library. The book is nowhere to be found. Important customers are impatient for the auction. The Bookhounds are caught in the middle and must resolve the problem. 

Because it’s the problem that’s the issue. 

I spent some time talking about Baldur’s Gate 3 last week. In that game the problem is the Illithid tadpoles that the player is infected with right at the start. Those tadpoles will kill the player and anyone else they infect, so the player has to get rid of them. Thus begins a search for a cure. Everything else in the game, all those complicated plot tangles and quests, flows from that.  

Which is exactly what a good hook does. It poses a problem that the players have to solve. 

Coleshill Abbey poses three problems: 

What to do? 

Where’s the book? 

What was Pryce doing at Coleshill Abbey? 

Let’s tackle them and see what they lead, because that, my friend, is how you design a scenario. 

What to do? 

This is about those disappointed customers. They wanted that book. Now they won’t get it. This means problems for the store which in turn means problems for the Bookhounds. Since this is a valuable book it stands to reason that the people who wanted to buy it have money in their pockets. Since this is a Mythos book it stands to reason that the people who wanted to buy it are mad, bad and dangerous to know. Some of them more than others, no doubt. 

At this point it would be helpful to know who they are and sketch in a little of their history, the amount of detail dependent on whether we’re talking about background players or potential threats, even long-term threats. I’m not going to do that here; just be aware that it’s something you have to do. 

Now, look at the problem from a structural point of view. You have the Hook. It has the Question, which is the foundation of the scenario. Put yourself in the Bookhounds’ shoes. If it were you, and you had to deal with an irate customer, what would you do? 

Well, there are two obvious solutions that spring to mind.  

One is to dodge the confrontation altogether. Whenever so-and-so calls, I’m out. To Lunch. To Dinner. Sick. Whatever. From the Keeper’s perspective, you want to sketch in a scene that deals with this possibility. Potential spends. Will this result in, say, a chase scene? Will this result in a fight? What might the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice? 

The other is to meet the confrontation head-on. Negotiate. Bluff. Pretend they have the book after all and the auction will go ahead. Again, you want to sketch in a scene that deals with this possibility. Will this result in a Maltese Falcon series of confrontations with strange and dangerous characters?

Maltese Falcon

What will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice? 

Going back to Carlos Roig’s original question these are the scenes that connect the facts of the hook. That’s part of scenario design. However, that’s not the whole of scenario design, because in any given scenario you have to have one scene constantly available, which is: 

Whatever the players want to do to solve the problem. 

There’s no accounting for taste. Players get all sorts of ideas in their heads. You can’t anticipate them. They might decide to forge their own copy of the book, or steal a copy from somewhere else, or murder all those disappointed customers. Anything’s possible.  

This is where improv comes in. I’m sure I don’t need to describe improv to you. The basic point is this: you need to have just enough random facts at your disposal that you can deploy them as necessary in a yes, and situation. If this becomes a crime scene, you need to have some stats for cops. If this becomes a fight, you need some stats for mooks, monsters, what have you. If this becomes a criminal conspiracy, you need some criminals, and so on. 

The great thing about these improv stats is, you don’t need them for one scenario. You need them for all scenarios. Which means you can re-use them as needed. If Constable Grigson doesn’t end up being used in the Coleshill Abbey scenario you can use him in Vathek and the Burning Tower.  Or you can use him in both scenarios. The cheap-john Morris Farraday and his partner ‘Ribs’ Macavoy can turn up in as many scenarios as you like.  

The same applies to any other yes-and contingency you devise, whether it’s an NPC, an event, or something similar. Think of these things as guest stars. Or recurring characters. TV Tropes. 

Moving on. 

Where’s the book? 

This question gives you a little flexibility, because you, as Keeper, know where it is. You designed the scenario, after all. From that point, you need to put together one or more scenes that guide the Bookhounds from the hook to the end goal.  

Let’s say that Winona left the book with a friend of hers for safe keeping, Howard and Thripps, a pawnbroker with a reliable safe. 

Again, put yourself in the Bookhounds’ shoes. You have to find out where the book is. How would you do that? Well, you’d look around. You’d search places where you think it might be or have been – Winona’s apartment is the obvious choice there. You’d talk to Winona’s friends, her neighbors, her business contacts.  

All these scenes or mini-scenes give clues, which will eventually lead to Howard and Thripps. Exactly how many of these scenes you need is up to you. If it helps, think of it as a police procedural. At the beginning the cops interview everyone they can, search the crime scene, probably talk to the forensic examiner to see if any scientific evidence is available. That’s pretty much what your Bookhounds are doing. 

Always remember that extra scene: whatever the players want to do to solve the problem. The improv moment. The Bookhounds may decide that the best way to find the book is to hold a séance to contact Winona and ask her. Or use their own magical abilities, whatever they may be. Summon up a Rat-Thing and get it to sniff out the book. Hire a private investigator to do the legwork for them.  

The solution to this is the same as before. Have just enough random facts at your disposal that you can deploy them as necessary in a yes, and situation.  

Going further, whether this is an improv moment or a designed scene there’s still that final question which needs an answer: what will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice? 

OK, let’s take a look at the overall scenario. We’ve got the hook. We’ve got questions that flow from that hook. As a result of those questions we’ve anticipated scenes which answer those questions, and we have some improv hooks in our pocket for those moments when the Bookhounds decide to use their initiative, precious little angels that they are. 

What happens when the questions which flow from the hook are answered? What happens when the characters have dealt with What To Do, Where’s The Book and What Was Pryce Doing At Coleshill Abbey? 

When that happens, you’ve reached scenario midpoint.  

In game terms, this is a Core scene. The Bookhounds will always get to Core scenes; the interesting thing is how they get there. But it fulfils the same function as the Hook, which is: it proposes problems which the players have to solve.  

Exactly what those problems are depends on the kind of scenario you want to write.  

In the example last time I gave three Options and today I’m going to use one: 

The Library Eternal. Sykes died in 1915 and the Abbey burned to the ground, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. Sykes used his occult skills, and his Megapolisomantic ability, to turn the Abbey into an eternal institution just as the flames consumed it. 

By the midpoint all the questions asked by the Hook have been answered and the Bookhounds should be aware, as a result of those answers, of the Eternal Library, that it has the book, and that Winona’s there now along with Sykes and possibly others. The Bookhounds will also know by this point that the Library has a peculiar clientele that can include almost anyone or anything.  

Incidentally if you’re wondering why the Bookhounds are aware of this, remember that bit I kept repeating about ‘what will the Bookhounds learn about the book, or Pryce, or the Library, as a result of this plot choice’? That’s why. This is what they were learning. This was Rome, for this scenario. 

This plot choice also means that the book, if it was ever being kept in a safe at Howard and Thripps, is no longer where the Bookhounds thought it would be. Maybe it dissolved into dust or dream-stuff the minute they tried to pick it up. Maybe it just wasn’t there. However that gets resolved, the book is now on the shelves of Coleshill Abbey Library. 

So what questions are being asked by the midpoint? 

Probably something along the lines of ‘how do we get that book’ and ‘how do we satisfy our unhappy customers,’ both of which have the same solution: get into the Library Eternal and swipe it, so the Bookhounds can sell it. 

Exactly how that is done could involve a variety of scenes. The Bookhounds might approach an existing Library member – one of those peculiar cultists, say – and steal their library card, so they can get in. They may attempt a mystic ritual, preferably one that you’ve hinted at in one of the clues the Bookhounds gathered in a previous scene. They may try to enlist Winona’s help. Each of those three options involve at least one scene each, so three scenes in all.  

Plus, of course, that inevitable fourth option: whatever the players want to do to solve the problem. 

Once in, they have to get out again. This could be a clever heist, a smash-and-grab, a chase. Again, you want to account for those contingencies and again, that’s a scene each.  

There will almost certainly be an antagonist reaction of some kind in which Sykes, his allies and his library members rally to protect the Library against intrusion, and you want a scene for that. 

Finally, there will be a Resolution. At some point the Bookhounds either get away with it or not. They get the book, or don’t. However it goes, by the time they get to this point they have answered all the questions posed by the Core midpoint scene.  

What happens when there are no more questions to answer? 

The End. 

Cabaret

In summary: yes, you want a series of scenes that connect up to reach certain Core moments which, in turn, lead to a resolution. There will be a certain amount of improvisation but improv doesn’t solve all your problems. Improv is a support for your existing structure, not a replacement for that structure. 

Crucially, you need to bear in mind that your structure isn’t some magical castle in the clouds that can only be reached by imagination wizards. Your structure is very simple. It starts with this:  

You put yourself in the characters’ shoes and ask yourself, if I had to answer this question, what would I do? 

My Buddy The Library (Bookhounds)

Product endorsement incoming. 

For a long time I’ve been noodling with the idea of creating a library record for my collections, movies and books. I resisted because all the apps I looked at wanted a subscription and I couldn’t see the value in that for me. Even if it’s a couple bucks a month … why? If I’m not going to pay 20-odd bucks a month for Netflix why the hell am I shelling out for something to keep my library organized? 

Then I discovered Kimico’s Buddy apps. $5 one-time, and I get to curate everything I own with a quick scan of a barcode. They do a version for films as well, and while I don’t have as many barcodes for those (the boxes go in the bin pretty quick) I can search by film title and that works, for the most part. When it doesn’t there’s usually an understandable issue; I love the 1931 Peter Lorre film M, but if you put in M as a search term … hoo brother. 

Also, it can be a bit fuzzy on ISBN. Not the modern stuff; they're great on that. I've noticed that the old numbers - the ones on the flyleaf in books from 1970-ish - just don't compute. The Brain Says No. However, minor quibble.

Yes, I did just spend several minutes of my valuable time (and yours, for that matter) gibbering about an app. Well, sometimes I gibber. These things happen. 

I mention it because, first, there may be some of you out there who want some Kimico love. Second, because it got me thinking about libraries in general, and how they’re portrayed in games. 

Religious libraries are probably the most interesting, from a gaming POV. I expect you all know that monasteries in Europe preserved the history of [Rome/architecture/theatre/civilization in general]. Then there’s institutions like Baghdad’s House of Wisdom, lost, as so many wonders are; the Mouseion of Alexandria, ditto; Saint Catherine’s at Mount Sinai; institutions created by preservers of knowledge like the Kanazawa Library (Bunko) which became a Buddhist temple. 

What makes them interesting from a gaming perspective is, first, their collections are eclectic, unusual, and often penned in a dead language which adds a layer of mystery and exoticism to a document that might just be about ungumming a blocked toilet. Still, it looks more elegant in Latin.  

The Matrix

Second, their collections are often private or secured in some way, like the chained libraries once so popular in Europe. Or there might be curses laid on the book to discourage theft which, in a fantasy setting, might have more substance than the would-be thief expects. 

Point being, if you put barriers up that encourages players to find clever ways to break those barriers. It’s the same for every other rule or system; the minute you put one in place someone tries to find a way to break it. This is a low-key form of conflict, and conflict breeds plot. 

Destroyed libraries are also handy for gaming. It’s the Maltese Falcon in book form; the more exotic the backstory, the more interesting the McGuffin.  

The Maltese Falcon

It’s even better if you can still get to the destroyed library somehow, perhaps in dreams or through magic. That’s the main story arc of The Long Con; there’s a repository of destroyed tomes out there and the Devil holds an auction every so often, ransoming those dead books back from a burnt past.  

Academic or antiquarian collections have a similar charm to religious libraries, in that their books are often eclectic, unusual and penned in a dead language. Pride of place here goes to Miskatonic U (rah rah sis boom bah) with its infamous Necronomicon; all manner of gaming fun times have been wrung from that peculiar grimoire and its academic keepers. The Bodleian at Oxford is a similar institution, with all sorts of strange and forgotten tomes hidden away in the stacks.  

Then, of course, there is the Librarian. The one in charge of the books. Sometimes not fit for office, sometimes less than diligent or appointed purely to grub up the stipend and neglect the collection. Or a true scholar, their head in the clouds, incapable of dealing with their fellows. Or hard-headed soul with their feet on the ground and their mind on the job. Or a mixture of all types. 

Finally, there are the Thieves. For there are always thieves, sneaky-minded, light-fingered weasels who connive their way into the stacks and make off with the most valuable tomes. The Three Blind Mice are always on the lookout for new treasures … 

With all that in mind: 

Coleshill Abbey 

This is, or was, a manor house on the outskirts of London, in Kilburn. Its library is supposed to have contained a number of medieval manuscripts including a copy of [insert Mythos tome here], which – along with the rest of the library – is supposed to have been destroyed in 1915 when bombs dropped in a Zeppelin raid set fire to the Abbey. 

In the late 1700s, Josiah Goll made the money. His son Newman spent it. His grandson Vincent, being a more tight-fisted soul, kept what was left and used the books his father Newman collected as the basis for an antiquarian library held at the family manor. Vincent was a scholar, not a moneymaker, and when he died without heirs he left a stipulation in his will that the estate be used to run the library, open by subscription to certain scholars. Mostly friends of Vincent and fellows of Vincent’s old Oxford college, though the list included a scattering of worthies who got in on merit alone. The library was in operation from 1872 to its destruction in 1915. 

It’s long been rumored that the Abbey’s last librarian, an eccentric would-be occultist named Edwin Sykes, had a profitable sideline in stolen books. He’d get one of his forger pals – Winona Pryce was one of his favored contacts – to copy the book in question and use that to replace the stolen tome. After a suitable grace period the book would be recorded as lost and the forgery destroyed, to prevent anyone discovering the truth. Since the Trustees of the library were grey-haired academics who cared more about nice lunches than academic rigor, the scheme went unnoticed. 

Sykes went up in the fire. If there was any truth to that old rumor, it went up with him. 

Or so everyone thought at the time. 

Winona Pryce, now an old woman, says she has the [insert Mythos tome here]. She was tasked with copying it but hadn’t finished the job before the bombing. Sykes was the only one who knew who the customer was and since she couldn’t find a way to make an immediate profit she squirrelled away [insert Mythos tome] as a kind of pension. She knew there was a market for it; she didn’t know how to reach that market.  

She contracts the Bookhounds to sell it for her, in a special auction. One item’s up for sale and one only. It’s a valuable piece; the Bookhounds stand to get a nice little sum in commission, and Pryce will walk away with a lot of money. 

If only she didn’t suffer an inconvenient heart attack. Her body was found at what’s left of Coleshill Abbey; nobody knows why.  

Nobody knows where the book is either. The one she left with the Bookhounds turns out to be a forgery. 

Now there’s a lot of well-heeled annoyed customers at the Bookhounds’ doors. What to do? Where’s the book? What was Pryce doing at Coleshill Abbey? 

• Option One: The Library Eternal. Sykes died in 1915 and the Abbey burned to the ground, but that didn’t mean it was gone forever. Sykes used his occult skills, and his Megapolisomantic ability, to turn the Abbey into an eternal institution just as the flames consumed it. It still operates to this day as an antiquarian library for … peculiar … customers. However, when Sykes heard that Winona was trying to auction off one of the library’s better pieces he sent an agent to make sure the book was returned and Winona brought to the library so she could be dealt with. Now she’s a very junior member of the library staff for all eternity and the library has [insert Mythos tome] back; if the Bookhounds want it for themselves, they’ll have to break in to get it. 

• Option Two: An Unhappy Customer. When Sykes died before he was able to hand over [insert Mythos tome] to its buyer, the disappointed purchaser assumed that it went up in flames. Now, to their chagrin, they learn that the book survived. It’s not as if they can enforce the contract; but they could use Sykes’ ghost and the spectral memory of Coleshill Abbey to take revenge on Winona. However, they’d hoped to get the book as well. That didn’t happen. Looks like Winona pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. The question is, where is it now? 

• Option Three: Grand Albert. The book is more self-aware than anyone gave it credit for, possibly due to a direct connection with an Old One. It wants to be cherished, honored, given the proper respect. That was what happened at Coleshill Abbey. Then Sykes tried to sell it on to some parvenu, a middling occultist with no intention of putting it on a grand shelf or displaying it at its best. That would never do. So Sykes went up in flames and the book went to live with Winona for a while as a stopgap. This wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing and certainly better than the middling occultist. Then Winona tried to sell it and the risk, once again, was that some bungler bought it, not the powerful sorcerer it was looking for. So Winona had to go, but now the book has a problem: how best to ensure it gets the owner it deserves. Enter the Bookhounds …  

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Notices - Color Coded For Your Convenience (Night's Black Agents)

We had an exercise at work that involved INTERPOL which meant I had to look up their Notice system. It's the kind of thing that spices up your day job, and I thought the Directors out there might find it interesting:

• Red Notice: To seek the location and arrest of persons wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence.
• Yellow Notice: To help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify persons who are unable to identify themselves.
• Blue Notice: To collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.               
• Black Notice: To seek information on unidentified bodies.
• Green Notice: To provide warning about a person’s criminal activities, where the person is considered to be a possible threat to public safety.
• Orange Notice: To warn of an event, a person, an object or a process representing a serious and imminent threat to public safety.
• Purple Notice: To seek or provide information on modus operandi, objects, devices and concealment methods used by criminals.

The Red Notice stands out, obviously. Eye-catching. Very Bill Browder. But a Director may get more juice out of the Blue, Black and Yellow ones.

Blue Notices are the ones most likely to apply to player characters. All that Heat has to go somewhere. A Solace might reasonably become the subject of a Yellow Notice. Black Notices, though, that has potential. You might find almost anything hiding under that rock. 

Operation Identify Me is an example of a series of Black Notices and I wouldn't go clicking that link if murder upsets you as it's a sad, long list of dead women. Cold cases going back 40-odd years, for the most part. However, if you want to invent a Black Notice of your own it gives a pretty comprehensive means of doing so.

Case name: The woman with the artificial nails

Case code: 2023-BEL06

Very simple case name. The code is year of entry on the system, location (BEL - Belgium) and number in the case file. In this instance she's the sixth in the Belgium list.

I find myself drawn to that case name. It's almost poetic. It looks like the kind of thing you might find on the cover of an old detective novel. Not an Agatha Christie, but perhaps a Dashiell Hammett or a Raymond Chandler. Even a Steig Larsson 

There follows some facial reconstruction and pictures of items found with the body, then a series of relevant points:

Date of death (estimated): 

Date of discovery: 

Location: 

Sex: 

Estimated year of birth: 

Estimated age: 

Height: 

Skin tone: 

Hair colour: 

Eye colour: 

Clothing: 

Tattoos, birth marks, scars: 

Jewellery: 

This is followed by a brief description of the case itself, the circumstances under which the body was found, likely point of origin and so on.

Yellow Notices work in a broadly similar way, except without the colorful case name as the names of the missing are usually known. The notice would include a picture of the missing person and some relevant information:

Family name

Forename

Gender

Date of birth

Place of birth

Nationality

Place of disappearance

Date of disappearance

Countries likely visited

Issuing country

Details

Father's family name and forename

Mother's family name and forename

Language(s) spoken

The police would have a more detailed version of each Notice so agents may find Cop Talk or Law useful, but in practical game terms if you wanted to use these in a session this is likely all you'd need to give the agents. 

All that said, let’s gamify. 

Black Notice: The Burned Body of the Mauerpark 

The agents come across this Black Notice through Tradecraft, Law or similar, probably as part of a general sweep for information in Berlin. 

The burned body is an adult female approximately 20-30 years old, found on 28th April 1992. The body was found in the Mauerpark, a public park on the site of the old Berlin Wall where the heavily guarded Death Strip used to be. The Wall crumbled in 1989 and the spot was designated a green space; these days it’s a popular spot, with a Wall memorial, Karaoke amphitheater and flea market as well as the green space where the East German defenses used to be. 

That was all in the future, in 1992. 

The body was discovered in the early hours of 28th April, by garbage collectors who noticed a peculiar smell and alerted police. She was short, probably between 20-30 years old, red dyed hair (original color light brown) no clothing when found. It was believed by investigators at the time that she was killed in another spot and then dumped here. No sign of sexual molestation. Fingerprint analysis came up empty. 

This case is as cold as it gets.  

Or it would be, if someone in the British secret services wasn’t making enquiries. Discreet ones, but not discreet enough. There’s just enough Heat on this one to attract notice, particularly if the PC agent in question has Berlin as one of their Favored Cities. It doesn’t help that [the Investigative Journalist / Human Rights Activist / Mysterious Monseigneur] is also poking around, and not being that subtle about it. 

Who was the dead woman, and why is she attracting attention now? 

• Option One: One Of Ours. The British connection is the Boffin, and he’s looking for a former associate. Way, way back he sent one of his assistants, Dani Forester, on what ought to have been a milk run to collect some important material on the German Vampire Program, and she never came back. The Prince of the day assured the Boffin that everything had been done that could have been done, but the Boffin never believed that for a minute. Now he’s retired he feels the need to kick over his traces and find out what really happened to Dani. The Americans, who have a vampire program of their own, would rather he didn’t find out that Dani was the victim of one of their botched operations, disposed of to cover up their own vampire’s misdeeds. The Prince of the day, eager to cooperate with his American cousins, collaborated in their cover-up. Chickens are about to come home to roost. 

• Option Two: One of Theirs. The British connection is the current Hound and she’s after what she thinks is evidence of the Alraune, aka Dani Forester. Back in the day Edom was closing in on her, and Hound thinks the fiery death scene was a fake-out. The [Investigative Journalist / Human Rights Activist / Mysterious Monseigneur] isn’t after the dead woman; they’re after the Hound and think that linking them with an old scandal may be the perfect way to drag Edom into the spotlight. What none of them appreciate is that it really was Alraune back in 1992, who faked a death to cover their escape. Now they have a life in Berlin, but wouldn’t you know it, they never bothered to change their appearance all that much. Someone showing an interest in a woman with her face, whether burnt in 1992 or not, isn’t helping her Cover one bit. 

• Option Three: One of the Enemy. The British connection is Cushing, who’s memory isn't as confused as he pretends. He's pushing old contacts to find out whether there was any evidence of a people-trafficking Node operating out of Berlin. He believed at the time that his superiors were covering up a nasty little scandal because there were important members of Thatcher’s government who might have been caught with their hands in the till. The [Investigative Journalist / Human Rights Activist / Mysterious Monseigneur] is after a modern version of that same Node, and isn’t aware that it goes all the way back to 1992. If they only knew, it actually goes all the way back to 1942; the Conspiracy’s ‘man’ in Berlin has been busy all that while, and there are more than a dozen bodies disposed of with roughly the same MO throughout the 20th Century. It’s still involved in human trafficking, but it’s gotten cleverer about disposing of the unfortunate accidents. 

That’s it for this week! Enjoy. 

Happy New Year!

Lest old acquaintances be eaten by gruesome gribblies, and all that.

According to Funk & Wagnalls the New Year, as in 1st January, is a relatively recent innovation adopted at various times by various nations. You wouldn't see general acceptance in the West until (roughly) the mid-1700s. 

There's a school of thought that says the drunkenness, debauchery and let-the-good-times-roll atmosphere is a hangover from the Roman Saturnalia, but this probably isn't so. When Julius Caesar made January the first month, way back in the before times, that meant the first month fell directly after the Saturnalia, and nearly every Christian of the day (and later) deplored this as irreligious. You just don't celebrate a new year after getting bladdered in the last days of the old one, was their point. It verged on Satanism. The Council of Tours, to name but one, insisted that the New Year begin with fasts, expiation, the banning of dances and frivolity, and so on. Most Christian communities of the day had similar views: you might get toasted at Christmas (grrr, how very Satanic) but God help you if you tried the same at New Year.

Funk & Wagnalls goes on to point out that many cultures celebrate the New Year with parties and jollity, not just the West, which suggests that the celebration's joie de vivre isn't based on one cultures' idea of what is proper. Everyone thinks the new year should begin with celebration, so it does. The form that celebration takes is determined by the culture. It can be as relatively benign as first-footing (being the first to walk over the threshold of the house in the new year) or as robust as flinging balls of fire about the place.

Sourced from Steve Marsh's feed

Let's gamify this.

The NBA Resource Guide has this to say about markets:

A crowded market on the streets of an old city. Is the market themed – a Christmas fair, stalls full of antiques and old books, local crafts, or mass-produced plastic junk? Is it a seasonal event or a fixture of the city? Old European cities often have warrens of narrow streets and alleyways full of small shops; North African cities have a similar medina quarter. Push through the crowds, grab a snack from a food cart, and follow your target as they browse the bazaar. A street market’s a good place to meet a contact or pick up rumors and intel from the streets – and that fishmonger deals in black-market weapons if you know the right passwords ...

We've already established that this particular 'market' is in fact a New Year's event. You won't see that many stalls; plenty of food & drink stalls, mind, less so the antiques and plasticky tourist crap. Nobody will be selling fresh fish. While there will be stores, they'll be shut and shuttered. There will be an increased Police presence, which in game terms means Heat goes up by an extra point for any dodgy dealings, and up by two extra points for anything involving overt violence. So, punching out that mook out in the open earns you 2 extra Heat on top of the usual 1 point you'd get for what amounts to a mugging. On the other hand if you lure that mook down a dark, deserted alley before you give him a thumping that only earns you 1 extra point. Better for you, really, to find some other means of dealing with the pesky little fellow. 

I'd argue that one of the better 'quiet violence' options is to wait until there's a suitable distraction. A bunch of bagpipers and some firey balls ought to do it. Then you could bounce the little weasel's head down a dark alley without gaining extra Heat. Time it right and you could get away with no Heat at all. Say, if you dinged him and then covered it with 1 point Reassurance, Cop Talk or similar. 

Bond, Thunderball

All that said:

Rescue/Hunt the software expert, aka Candles Go Out.

Erika Donnadieu, Kube Group's star, has broken from her dubious employers and tried to alert France's Direction générale de la Sécurité intérieure (DSGI) but, due to Conspiracy influence within that organization, her alert only brought more Heat on her. Now she needs to get out of the country but the Conspiracy is hot on her trail. She's made it as far as Lille, on New Year's; she just needs to get out of France. In this scene the action takes place at the Grand Place, at the height of the celebration.

The Grand Place is where the Christmas Market traditionally sets up, complete with Ferris Wheel and other carnival rides. During the New Year's celebration it will be absolutely packed with locals and tourists. 

sourced from Wikipedia

Personally, I enjoyed going to Lille over Christmas while I was in the UK, which is why I picked it. Plus, thanks to the Eurostar you can get pretty much anywhere from Lille, which is a bonus from Erika's perspective. 

Erika's booked a room at Couvent de Minimes, a former convent turned four-star hotel, under an assumed name (effective 2 points Cover) and has disguised herself as a postgraduate arts student. Little does she know, her cover has been blown and the Conspiracy knows where (and who) she is. A snatch team made up of a half-dozen mooks, a Renfield team leader and local supernatural talent, a Strix left over from the 1630s witch hysteria outbreak, are in place to grab her. Their plan is to do it while disguised as an ambulance team; Erika will just be another poor unfortunate who got a little too merry and had to be taken to hospital during the celebrations.

It's the agents' job to get to her and get her out before the Conspiracy spirit her away.

The agents are acting as third parties; their employer is an anti-vampire organization (or individual, eg. the Mysterious Monseigneur) who knows about Erika and wants to get her out of harm's way, probably for their own nefarious reasons. 

Possible variations:

• In a Satanic campaign the Couvent is a natural Bane to vampires as it maintains an air of sanctity despite its modernization.
• The Stryx is all that's left of headmistress Antoinette Bourignon who started the witch hysteria. She still runs a school of sorts: a school of cultists. Thank heaven for little girls, as they say ...
• Perhaps Erika takes refuge in the Ferris Wheel, which mysteriously breaks down at the perfect moment. Time for an aerial rescue?
• There is a famous Lille ghost story set at Place du Lion d’Or, not far from the Cathedral, in which a small boy is said to have been tortured to death by his schoolmaster. He haunts the room where he died, trapped in an iron cage. Dickens used it for his A Christmas Tree collection, in which he transposed the legend to England and made the boy's tomb a wardrobe rather that Lille's iron cage. In real life Place du Lion d’Or is some distance from the Couvent, but why rely on real life? A ghostly child emerging from a wardrobe (iron cages are so last century) whether at someone's command or by pure accident (to add to the chaos) has to be worth your time. In a Supernatural game perhaps Erika knows the story and uses the ghostly wardrobe as part of her getaway plan ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

NYC Book Loot

Still a bit on the stuffy side but I have returned with spoils, so it's only fitting I talk about those spoils. I'm not going to discuss anything bought as a present; this is just for me. 

Head-Hunting in the Solomon Islands Caroline Mytinger, 1942, McMillan. Bought at the Argosy.

... we were unencumbered by the usual equipment of expeditions: by endowments funds, by precedents, doubts, supplies, an expedition yacht or airplane, by even the blessings or belief of our friends and families, who said we couldn't do it. We especially lacked that 'body of persons' listed for expeditions by the dictionary. We were a staff of two rather young women: myself, the portrait painter, and Margaret Warner, the bedeviled handyman, who was expected to cope with situations like God - if machinery was lacking, then by levitation. Her expedition equipment was a ukelele.

If that opening sentence does not tell you why I bought this book you have no soul. 

I'll only add that, once upon a time I was part of a team that worked on Pelgrane's Expeditions book. We spent such a lot of time calculating what an expedition might need, how best to simulate that in play.

Two middle class white kids and a ukelele. Jaysus H. 

They'd stop in a place for a while, earn a crust by painting portraits, and when they had enough in their pocket they set out for the next stop. Eventually they reached their destination, which they only knew about from books. It's pretty Trail-friendly; it covers an interesting part of the world in the right time period. But seriously, how could I pass this up?

The Pyrates George MacDonald Fraser, 1983, Knopf. Bought at the Argosy.

MacDonald Fraser is best known for his Flashman series, and those never seem to go out of print. His other books have vanished into the ether, for the most part. I got a copy of Black Ajax and Mr. American while I was in the UK, and I strongly suspect that those two remain in print only because Flashman or his antecedents appear briefly in them. His MacAuslan wartime comedy stories are still in print, but his own war memoir is more difficult to find. Pyrates, and his Hollywood memoirs, have eluded me. Now I have Pyrates. Can the memoirs be far behind?

Murder at the Manor, Final Acts: Theatrical Mysteries, Death on the Down Beat, all British Library Crime Classics, bought at the Mysterious Book Shop. 

Again, how could I not? Death on the Down Beat has a particularly interesting premise: a conductor is shot dead, and the shot can only have come from the orchestra. But which player could it have been? This one's a bit gimmicky but it's saved by brilliant writing, and the location - fictional UK town Maningpool - is worth stealing for your campaign, if only for its eponymous Lumps. 

Scandinavian Ghost Stories, edited by Joanne Asala, 1995 Penfield Press, bought at the Strand.

The Strand's mythology section isn't up to much but occasionally you find gold. Bought and read in the same day, which should tell you how much fun I found it. 

Dictionary of City of London Street Names Al Smith, 1970 Arco Publishing, bought at the Argosy

Well, that's the budget blown, I thought. I honestly wanted to only spend about a hundred at the Argosy. Silly me and my haughty airs. It is literally what you think it is: the title does not lie. Every so often there's a gem, and even if there isn't one on every page it's packed with information about Baghdad-on-the-Thames.

The Mafia is not an Equal Opportunity Employer, Nicholas Gage, 1971 McGraw-Hill, bought at the Argosy.

A useful little bridge between Prohibition and the 1960s, which means it's Noir Country. Based on investigative reporting by the author, who I presume is the same Nicholas Gage who was involved in Watergate's reporting though this book isn't listed among his published works. Which may mean Wikipedia got it wrong. 

Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century, Jack Finney, 1983, Doubleday, bought at the Argosy.

An investigation - more of a histori-fiction retelling, really - into the 1857 murder of Harvey Burdell in New York, and a half-dozen other 1800s-era misdeeds. Finney, the mind behind the Bodysnatchers, has a talent for this kind of work. 

The World And The 20s: The Best From New York's Legendary Newspaper, edited by James Boylan, published Dial Books 1973, bought at the Argosy. 

I mentioned this last week, but it's worth repeating: if you want to write historical fiction it is useful to know what they thought, said and worried about. You can't do better than by reading their news.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

2022

I have returned from New York and, while my journey was trouble free, not long after returning home some doorknob-licker passed on their head cold. I'm not dead but I'm a little stuffy so, rather than do a whole post on the loot - that will be a later post - I want to talk about one purchase:

The World And The 20s: The Best From New York's Legendary Newspaper, edited by James Boylan, published Dial Books 1973, bought at the Argosy. 

I trust you can work out why I bought this one. For a CoC & ToC enthusiast this is a no-brainer. History as talked about by the folks who were there to witness it, and to publish same in the New York World, Joe Pulitzer's paper. At this point in its run Joseph's sons Ralph, Joseph and Herbert run the show, with famed Herbert Bayard Swope as its editor. 

I shan't do a potted history - again, head cold - but at one point the boys in the print room decided to pontificate. What would life be like, they wondered, a hundred years hence? What would the United States be like in the year of our Lord 2022?

Well.

Shame to pass that up, really.

To begin: 

David Wark Griffith (yes, the fella who directed The Birth of a Nation) thinks we'll do our reading on the screen. Talking pictures will have been perfected (remember, this is published early 1923) and perhaps have been forgotten again. For the world will have become picture-trained, so that words are not as important as they are now. All pictures will be in natural colors, the theatres will have special audiences, that is, there will be specialty theatres. 

Absolutely spot on so far as it goes. However, he goes on to say that I do not foresee the possibility of instantaneous transmission of living action to the screen within 100 years. There must be a medium upon which the dramatic coherence can be worked out and the perfected result set firmly ...

He didn't anticipate reality TV, streaming or news broadcasts, and he has a writer's eye for content. Writers aren't always the best judge of what makes a good performance. Otherwise, very perspicacious.

Henry L. Mencken thinks the United States will become a British colony. Its chief function will be to supply imbeciles to read the current British novels and docile cannon fodder for the British army. Mind you, he also thinks that Woodrow Wilson will be a talking point in 2022. Sarcasm detected.

William H. Anderson thinks that Prohibition will still be in place. The beverage use of [alcohol] will be utterly unknown except among the abnormal, subnormal, vicious and depraved, which classes will largely have been bred out of the race in America.

Oops. 

Mind, this is the fella who did two years in Sing Sing for fraud, over the Anti Saloon League's bogus financials. That would happen about two years after this article was published.

Cordell Hull thinks that The principles of democracy being eternal, they will necessarily exist a hundred years from now, and the achievements of government through the application of those principles to changing conditions will logically be greater than they have been in the last 100 years. That there will be two political parties then as now seems almost inevitable ...

He's not wrong, exactly, but recent events seem about to make him a liar.  

Margaret Sanger thinks that Birth control will have become part of education in health and hygiene. Women especially will be keen in demanding it. They will realize that it is a foundation of freedom and intellectual development for them. Women cannot make real progress today so long as they are haunted by the fear of undesired pregnancy. The results, in much shorter time than four or five generations, will be happier homes, greater mutual respect between husband and wife, honeymoons lasting two to three years before children arrive, with husband and wife thoroughly equilibriated to each other, because there has been time for mutual understanding ...

Another one with their finger on the pulse. Ms. Sanger is a bit more optimistic about the end result than perhaps she ought to have been, but she nailed the details.

Mary Garrett Hay thinks that Women's drudgery in the household will be eliminated, her care of the family will be lessened, as new inventions come in and new methods of work. Broadly true. Keeping house is certainly easier than it would have been in 1922. Politically, women will be powerful. They will share with men the real constructive work of government. Many will hold office. If there is not a woman President, the thought of one will shock no-one. That last bit isn't 100% accurate but it's getting closer to 90%. Co-operation will be the magic word in 2022.  Oh dear. The thought bubble burst. Still, it was a good run.

John S. Sumner thinks there will be no censorship. I do not foresee a censorship over books in this country, nor any official censorship of the stage. Um. I mean, compared to the censorship that existed in 1922 he's not wrong, but ...

James Weldon Johnson thinks there will be no lynching or racial antagonism. The Negro problem will probably be reduced to a thin and wavering line of opposition to social recognition and intercourse. Long before 2022 such a primitive manifestation of racial antagonism as lynching will be unknown, for the reason that the Negro will be in a position not to tolerate it and the country will be sufficiently civilized not to want to indulge in it.

Again, compared to the situation as it existed in 1922 he's not wrong. He's a bit starry-eyed and optimistic, but he's not wrong.

What strikes me about all of these articles is how optimistic they are. Admittedly, the World wouldn't have printed doom & gloom. The bits here are only a selection of what was actually printed in 1923 but I suspect, for example, that anything which predicted a second world war or some kind of jeremiad against the future would have been toned down or cut.

The only exception is Mencken, and I wish he'd taken the assignment seriously. It would have been more interesting, even if he was flat wrong, to read his actual thoughts, not his scattershot attempt at humor. 

That said, consider: these are people who just came out of a catastrophic military conflict. Who just survived a global pandemic. Economic conditions aren't exactly rosy, not in 1923 at least (it would get better). Yet they are full of optimism about the future a hundred years hence. Not one of them predicts disaster, yet it won't be long before a global depression seems to threaten global anarchy, and fascism at home and abroad threatens the roots of democratic government. 

They think they can survive. Thrive.

It would be interesting to see a similar article written today. I wonder what thought leaders would say about the United States, and the future, a hundred years from now?