Okay, so what I'd like to do next is sort out just how the various player characters (or at least the initial group, since more might be showing up later) know each other. Right now, the characters we've got are a gun-slinging flapper, her German archaeologist husband, an educated sasquatch, and a feral swamp boy. My first instinct is to suggest that everybody be members of the Van Helsing Society, which I used in my last SotC game. Here's the quick summary I threw together for it probably over a year ago: - founded by the young Quincey Abraham Harker (born between 1890 and 1897, should be in mid-40s in 1937, son of Jonathan and Mina) in honor of the late Abraham Van Helsing
- studies and hunts monsters both supernatural and human (serial killers, cultists)
- Some agents may themselves be touched by the paranormal (psychics, werewolves who've learned to control their curse, practitioners of magic, Tibetan yetis, Children of Set, etc.).
- follow Van Helsing's philosophy of understanding one's enemy
- secretive, believe the supernatural should be hidden from the public
- funded by donations from those they've helped, the personal fortunes of members, and loot taken from destroyed monsters
- recruit from talented people they seek out and from ordinary people who have had brushes with the supernatural in connection with the Society's cases
- headquarters in London, but local chapters based in many nations friendly to the British Empire
Also, H.P. Lovecraft (who officially died in 1936) is working for the Society's London chapter, researching pre-human civilizations. I think all four PCs could easily belong to the VHS. On the other hand, maybe it's just Sul's married couple who are Van Helsing investigators, and they end up investigating stuff in Hieronymus and Gator Boy's neck of the woods (the Florida Everglades, right?). Or, for that matter, Dagmar and Lee might be investigating on their own, and we could leave the Society out of it completely. The nice thing about having some organization behind the party, though, is that it gives us an easy way to introduce new characters and other handy stuff. Of course, if you guys want to just make up your own organization, that is totally cool.
Spirit of the Century is a pulp game. So its protagonists are generally at that pre-superhero level of capability, where they're fantastically capable in some specialized area, maybe even to a level that's effectively superhuman. And of course all kinds of crazy-ass backgrounds are totally possible. You can be an intelligent gorilla or an Atlantean awakened from suspended animation or . . . hell, we could probably figure out a way to do a robot or vampire, even. The game really is very flexible in a loose kinda way. Anyway, the basic component of a SotC character is their skill pyramid. That is, you've got one skill you're really freaking great at (that's the top of the pyramid), two you're just plain great at, and so on down to five that you're just average at (the base of the pyramid). 15 skills in total, chosen from this list: A few clarifications: "Academics" is a huge catch-all for history, linguistics, and all manner of soft sciences. "Contacting" is generally about who you know, the contacts you've got. "Empathy" is detecting lies and intentions. "Investigation" is searching for clues and doing forensics. "Mysteries" is sort of a catch all for magical stuff, but mostly in a typically pulp-like vein, so it's largely about hypnotic effects. "Rapport" is making friends an influencing people. "Resources" is about how much money or material support you have or can get access to. "Science" covers medicine as well as various research fields. "Survival" is wilderness survival, tracking, riding, stuff like that. "Weapons" means things with a shorter range than guns and arrows, but either throwable or long enough so that they give you some range. So, you can see how picking 15 such broad skills means you can be good at a whole lot of stuff. And really crazy awesome at a narrower bunch of stuff. But where things start getting really awesome, and really coming to life, is with the heart of the Spirit of the Century system: aspects. A character's aspects are basically just a list of ten things about that character. Almost any kind of thing: physical stuff, personality stuff, background stuff, relationships with other characters, signature possessions, running plot shticks, even catch phrases. Here's a list of examples, and you can also look at characters I've posted on this blog for more (they're mostly SotC characters, if not all). Aspects make you better at doing whatever they logically suggest you ought to be good at. So if you've got a "Crusty Old Prospector" aspect, you can use that to get bonuses on rolls when you're trying to dig, look for water in the wilderness, appraise gold, and maybe even for stuff like drinking moonshine or driving strangers away from your property. The important limiting factor is that whenever you want an aspect to help you, you have to pay a "fate point". The thing that makes this really cool is where fate points come from: You get them by following your aspects when they lead you into trouble. So if your Crusty Old Prospector pisses off a friend by being cantankerous, or gets distracted by gold, you'd get fate points for your trouble. On the other hand, if you want him to overcome his natural inclinations, you've gotta pay a fate point, instead. So the game really rewards you for playing your character. And it's really important to make an interesting one, with foibles and weaknesses as well as strengths. Not only do they provide fate points, but they can really drive the game's plot. Now, the final element of a SotC character is their stunts. These are like the feats of a D&D character: they let you break the rules in little ways, give you bonuses in specific situations, allow one of your skills to do more stuff than it normally does, give you things like allies, vehicles, or weapons, etc. ...But the list of available stunts is frigging huge, and it can really bog down character creation. So, personally, I'm kind of leaning towards the idea of just skipping stunts all together, and maybe using this stuntless rule variant. It just lets aspects do stunt-like stuff, and aspects are the coolest part of the system, anyway. Anyway, here's where everybody should post ideas and questions about all their character concepts, and we'll figure out a way to get all your dudes tied together.
 Right, so I'm planning to run some kind of game via Skype and probably MapTool. Weekends definitely make the most sense, and I'm leaning towards Saturday afternoons/evenings (Chicago time, anyway). The game? Spirit of the Century, because it's a damned great game, easy to learn, and should be very playable via Skype. Best of all, the rules are available for free. ...But there's a lot of different stuff we can do with SotC. Its default pulp mode is loads of fun, but people have hacked it for space opera, martial arts, and various flavors of fantasy (low magic stuff, generally). I think it could do a hell of a cool horror or post-apocalypse game, too. So here's where I ask my prospective players just what they want to play. (And I'm doing it in public because I don't have everybody's email address.) What are you guys interested in, genre-wise? What you be interested in in doing or being in the game? I'm kind of digging the idea of some sword and sorcery (or sword and planet!) stuff, or maybe a shady-adventurers-and-smugglers-in-a-spaceship thing in the vein of Firefly. Or crazy, cartoonish post-apocalypse like Thundarr the Barbarian, maybe. Something kind of simple is probably best, at least to start with. On the other hand, SotC makes social conflicts just as interesting and complicated as physical ones, so something involving a lot of debate, persuasion, and interrogation would totally work. I'm open to some format gimmicks, too. SotC has some cool stuff for running organizations (gangs, companies, armies, countries, whatever), so if you want to be the leaders of some kind of group or community, that's no problem. Also, if you want to play multiple characters in a troupe-style thing, that's cool, too. Hell, this is getting long. Okay, interested parties, just comment here and let me know what you're interested in doing. Also, what you think of playing on Saturday afternoons/evenings (time zone issues, blah blah)?
Once again, my brain is clogged with ideas for campaigns I'd like to run, and I've got to at least type them up here if I'm ever going to be able to think about anything else. So, today, I'd like to show off a concept that's very clearly the result too much Left 4 Dead and Fallout 3.  I'll come right out and say it: This would be a zombie game. I will shout to the goddamned hilltops that zombies are the most overused trope since pirates and ninjas, but dammit, I think cool stuff can still be done with them. And, since the focus of this game ain't really on the zombies themselves, going with something more original might actually be counterproductive. Anyway, the deal here is that it's two years or so after a plague of zombieism swept across the globe, effectively ending civilization as we know it. Governments and infrastructures fell, countless billions died, etc. You know the drill. I think my zombies will be the result of a macroscopic parasite (something that slithers into a corpse's mouth is a lot more interesting than another invisible virus, in my opinion) of either extraterrestrial, artificial, or antediluvian origins. Infested corpses would become stupid-but-vicious automatons, concerned only with feeding on the fluid contents of any vertebrate life they sense, and then vomiting a black soup of embryonic parasites all over whatever's left. When not in the presence of any acceptable prey, they'd roam for a bit, and eventually fall dormant, waiting. They wouldn't feel fear or pain, and could only be "killed" by the destruction of the parasite within the skull and upper spinal column, but would be (in most cases) somewhat more fragile than a living human, and would assiduously avoid direct sunlight. So what we've got now is a world of dead cities where every shadowy place full of ragged lumps that will immediately lurch to their feet at the slightest sound, chasing down and tearing open any living human they can. Now, as bad as all this sounds, humanity is still hanging on. Even coming back. The zombies are dangerous--and, worse, staggeringly numerous--but they're extremely limited. And once people know their limitations, it's possible to live with the dead. This game would center around a survivor community in the middle of a large city who are managing to do exactly that. While old population centers are now teeming with the undead, large buildings are an effective defense against them. So this settlement would be on the upper floors of a skyscraper, with the lower floors devoted largely to a system of barricades. The inhabitants would subsist on produce grown in rooftop gardens and canned food obtained on daytime expeditions through the perilous city below. Now, the real gimmick here is that the players would actually take on the role of the whole population of the settlement. I'd generate 40 or 50 regular people--including name, sex, age, race, occupation, Myers-Briggs personality type, and simplified Fate system stats--with this insane TableSmith application I've cobbled together, and that would be the whole community. The players would share this whole pool of PCs, playing whoever they want, even controlling multiple characters at once. They could also add to the population by rescuing and incorporating lone survivors and smaller groups. So, like I mentioned, the zombies won't really take center stage in this game. Really, it'd all be about running and improving the community itself. Managing exhaustible resources (including food, medical supplies, and the population itself), setting up things like farms and generators and plumbing, arming the populace and maintaining the settlement's defenses, dealing with other human communities that might have different ideas about how to survive the apocalypse, etc. The zombies themselves would be more of an environmental threat than actual antagonists. You'll have to fight some when you go out on scavenging runs, but it's what you gain (and potentially lose) on those runs--and what use you put it to!--that really matters. System wise, I'd use a hacked, slightly simplified Spirit of the Century. There'd be no stress tracks, so every hit a character takes in a conflict would go straight to Consequences. The skill list would be a bit truncated, and each character would start out with a randomly-generated skill pyramid of variable size (customizable by the players in order to make it fit their generated occupation better than it otherwise might). Each character would get just three Aspects, starting with their occupation and personality type, with an open slot for players to define whenever they feel like. There'd be no Stunts at all, so some Stunt effects would just be folded into skills (medicine and tracking come to mind). Characters wouldn't have Fate Points, but the players would. They'd get a refresh rate of three each. They'd be encouraged to self-compel to pick up Fate Points whenever they can, so saying out of the blue "This guy's an alcoholic, so when he's called to go on this run, he shows up drunk." is a totally legitimate move. What's more, if you voluntarily take a Consequence while attempting an action ("How about this guy twists his angle while climbing through the rubble looking for salvage?"), that'll get you a Fate Point to spend immediately on that same action. Finally, when one of the players' survivor community dies, all players get a Fate Point each. If you're getting the idea that all of this would encourage the players to play the survivors as a bunch of expendable extras who have lots of problems and get hurt a lot, you're catching on. Now, since the community itself it the real focus of the game, I'm thinking it might have stats of its own. Not too certain on this one yet. I really love Rob Donoghue's organization rules, but I don't think they're exactly right for this job. A very small post-apocalyptic community should probably be represented much more simply, after all. I'd just need players to roll for stuff like whether or not the barricades are manned properly, or how many people they can muster for a scavenging run. And I'd like to track resources like food, medical supplies, and technical materials, too. Not sure if those should be skills or stress tracks, really. Another thing I want to try would be something like long-term D&D-style skill challenges to handle big community-improvement projects. The players could assign characters to a jobs, and then make daily skill rolls for them, marking off their successes along some kind of progress track. This could be used for stuff like getting the elevators running, teaching all the able-bodied adults how to shoot, building a bridge out to a neighboring building, researching the causes of the zombie outbreak, searching the city for a specific kind of item, or even establishing a system of government. I think another big element of this game would be random generation. I'm already dedicated to randomly-generated PCs, so why not randomly-generated zombie encounters, community problems, and scavenge hauls? Maybe. Maybe. So, anyway, the whole thing is a big, sprawling, unwieldy idea that I'll probably never get to use. But I really love it.
I've been listening to Yog-Sothoth.com's excellent Horror on the Orient Express audio sessions, once again, and it's got me wondering once again about how to hack Spirit of the Century / the Fate system for Call of Cthulhu-style horror. On the face of it, the system is a very poor fit for the genre, seeing as the former is known for superhuman player characters and extended, less-than-lethal combat systems, while the latter generally expects a level of harshness that goes beyond "gritty". But I think it could work. More to the point, I think it could be awesome. There are a lot of peculiarities to the Fate system that, if calibrated appropriately, should be able to produce a meaty, flavorful kind of brutality that would fit the Call of Cthulhu mind set better than the very oldschool BRP system. Puny mortalsFirst and most obviously, the PC power level should be lower than the SotC standard. I'd go with "Good" quality PCs, meaning they'd each get a skill pyramid capped at the Good level (+3) and just 6 aspects. I think I'd also scrap stunts completely, since that would further lower the PCs' power level and save a hell of a lot of time in character generation (which, after all, needs to be quick in a high-lethality horror game), but the upcoming Dresden Files RPG might include genre-appropriate stunts that'll change my mind. Anyway, if stunts are out, then I'd use some variation on the stuntless SotC variant rules to give aspects a bit more utility. Another severe change I'm leaning towards would be to limit the fate point refresh to half the number of aspects, so PCs would start each session with only 3. Limiting players' narrative power is crucial to the genre, and it would also increase the importance of compels (and, therefore, encourage players to make more flawed characters than usual). However, I'd take some of the sting out this fate drought by letting PCs spend a "virtual" fate point if, in the course of the same action, they also take a consequence. That is, they have the option to take some physical or psychological sacrifice in order to give themselves better chances at success. After all, sacrifices (as a theme) and consequences (as a mechanic) are pure gold for horror games. More on that below. A terrible price...In fact, I'd say that consequences are so important that I'd remove stress tracks from Fate combat system all together. Yep, any shifts of damage inflicted on characters would either be converted into consequences or take them out of the fight (a variant originated, as far as I'm aware, by Colin Jessup for his Star Wars Fate hack). Now, in order to make room for all these consequences the poor, brutalized characters will be collecting, I'd let physical and psychological consequences use separate slots, and extend the spectrum of potential survival harm one more level, as below: - Minor consequence - Covers up to 2 shifts of damage. Goes away as soon as the character gets a few minutes' respite. Things like "bruised", "winded", and "shaken" would be appropriate.
- Major consequence - Covers up to 4 shifts of damage. Lasts until the character can get a serious rest--like a night's sleep--or some specific remedy is obtained. A physical major consequence like "bleeding" might be remedied by medical treatment, while an emotional one like "infuriated" or "humiliated" might require something like an apology from the party who inflicted the consequence. I think any remedy that doesn't require several hours of time ought to require some kind of skill check or story-based accomplishment.
- Severe consequence - Covers up to 6 shifts of damage. These would, by default, last until the character has a chance to get days or even weeks of downtime, but might be reducible to major consequences by some kind of skilled treatment. Broken bones and real mental trauma would fit this category. Also, I might deviate from the SotC rules a little bit by saying that a character who takes a severe consequence is taken out, just not permanently, and not on the attacker's terms. So, in that way, it would work a little like a concession.
- Extreme consequence - Covers up to 8 shifts of damage. This would cover permanent harm, things like lost limbs and lasting mental afflictions. Naturally, taking an extreme consequence would definitely include being taken out of the conflict, as above. And, what's more, it might mean the permanent loss of the character--to death, madness, or what have you--if they can't get help afterwards: If all the PCs are lying around in pieces with no one functional enough to so much as provide first aid, that's a total party kill. With time and treatment, however, extreme consequences become regular permanent aspects. (Clearing that extreme consequence slot for more hurt, of course. Just because your character's already lost an arm doesn't mean he can't lose an eye once he's back in action.)
(Originally, I was going to call the 8-shift consequences "critical", but I just learned that Dresden Files is already planned to use 8-shift "extreme" consequences to describe permanent harm. So, yoink!) I'm a little bit torn as to whether or not the Endurance and Resolve skills should give characters in this system more consequence slots the way they give SotC characters more stress boxes. On one hand, I'd hate to devalue those skills, and the strategic question of whether to take a 4-shift hit as two minor consequences or one major one sounds like fun. On the other hand, I'm afraid it might make them--especially Resolve-- too important. After all, Resolve is already rolled as an active defense against emotional and psychological attacks . . . and that's something a horror game should include a lot of. Speaking of which... A fate worse than deathArguably, the defining element of the Call of Cthulhu gaming experience is the sanity check. Any system trying to emulate this genre absolutely needs to include something along those lines. And, believe it or not, I think Fate already has a system which can that kind of thing beautifully: our good friend "consequences". Just let sanity-threatening situations make a psychological "attack" on characters (which would naturally be resisted with a Resolve check). Any consequences a character suffers as a result of such an attack could be states of fear or nausea or confusion, or the kind of colorful temporary (and sometimes permanent!) insanities familiar from good old Call of Cthulhu. And, of course, because the "death spiral" effect is also important, new shocks would get to tag the consequences inflicted by previous shocks. That is, if you're already shaken by the corpse you found in the street, you're all that much more likely to lose it completely when the thing gets up and lurches towards you. I'm not entirely certain, however, if sanity threats should actually roll to attack, or if they should just have a static horror factor that characters have to roll against. I suppose it's a question of just how much randomness feels right in play (and how much dice-rolling you want to do). I'm toying with the idea of letting very successful sanity checks create temporary aspects along the lines of "keeping cool", "ready for a little blood", or "facing the darkness". Like a kind of anti-consequences, these would show that the character is hardened or inured to certain shocks, and would be invokable for a Resolve check reroll or bonus when a similar situation comes up. They could even mirror consequences in their values and time limits. That is, getting 4 shifts on a successful sanity check would create a major anti-consequence (for lack of a better term) that would last the rest of the day. I could complicate matters further by having these things actually take up psychological consequence slots--so that they'd make you more likely to break more severely once something does manage to crack your defenses--but I fear they'd become a punishment for rolling well rather than a reward. Not too sure. A desperate struggleOther than the elimination of stress boxes, I'm only envisioning rather minor changes to the combat system. Naturally, I'd have weapons grant bonus shifts of damage on a successful hit, as a whole lot of Fate mods do. I don't think I'd bother introducing any sort of armor rules (beyond the possibility for characters to invoke aspects like "bullet proof vest" or "squamous hide" on their defense rolls). I'd like to replace Fists, Weapons, and Guns with simple Melee and Ranged skills. Melee might continue to be a defense skill--but only against melee attacks--while Ranged might only be for attacking, and dodging ranged attacks might only be done with Athletics. I worry this could be a bit too harsh, though, since PCs in this variant would have far fewer skills than SotC PCs. I haven't really done any thinking about magic rules. There are a whole lot of Fate variants addressing that issue already, and even one specifically aimed at Call of Cthulhu-style magic, and I'm not sure it's really high priority to begin with. At any rate, I don't expect to have a use for any of this system-noodling any time soon, but it'll be worth looking at again when I've got a copy of Starblazer Adventures or Dresden Files in my hands.
 Oh, man, busy days. Been helping Charlie out with the prepress stuff for the second volume of Templar, Arizona, and some related t-shirt design. Also, she's doing Wizard World Chicago this weekend, and I've been playing comics roadie for her. We met colorist Corey Greene at Wizard World's preview night (Thursday), and he seems like a cool guy. On the train ride home, we got to horrify him with the contents of my iPod. Those who know me will not be surprised: Among all the Professor Brothers shorts and episodes of Cooking Master Boy, I also have some unspeakably horrible stuff. Interestingly, this attracted the enthusiastic attention of two total strangers, a young couple named Becky and Dallas. We watched a deeply terrifying video from BME together, and that was all they needed to guess that Charlie and I are Something Awful goons like them. The Internet. Still with us wherever we go. Charlie and I have both totally been neglecting Age of Conan, which is kind of tragic. Both of us basically just got off of newb island (Are we the only people who use this term for the starting region of any MMORPG?), and then immediately stopped playing. And that is dumb. We'll get back into it soon, I think. Especially if we finally her her a copy, so that we can actually play together. (Honestly, I'm not really into the "massively multiplayer" featured of MMORPGs, so unless I can play 'em with my wife or some other people I know, I get bored fast.) Anyway, as all good humans should know, the Spore Creature Creator is finally out, and that has been taking up most of my gaming time (if you'd really call it gaming). Spore is basically going to own Charlie and me when it finally comes out for real, and even the little Creature Creator is well worth my time and money. It's just a construction kit for creatures you can't really do much with, but it is hugely, hugely fun. I've really got to make a big post sharing my creatures, soon. We're also getting back into Team Fortress 2, lately. That is such an incredibly well-made game. Charlie and I tend to play as a Medic-Heavy team (respectively), although last time we found ourselves really loving the Scout and Pyro (separately, of course). Valve is one of those companies that can just have all my damn money right now. They're just insanely reliable. (Getting real interested in their upcoming co-op zombie game, Left4Dead, by the way.) On the RPG front, I'm still running my Spirit of the Century campaign-- Lost Worlds and Secret Histories--every week (well, theoretically every week) and loving the hell out of it. I'm also playing in a monthly Amber game with almost the same bunch of people as my LWaSH players. I think after I finish up with arc of LWaSH, we might give In a Wicked Age a go. I told my crew about it, and they were immediately interested. (I really love this group. They are basically up for anything. We've really been playing a good variety of stuff.) I also kinda want to do something with 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, if only to try it out. Also! Brian from my RPG group has been thinking about running a Stargate game for a while, now. I'm not generally a big supporter of licensed properties as RPG settings, but I'd totally be up for this. Stargate really strikes me as a hugely, awesomely gameable setting, and I'd just love to see what Brian does with it. Oh, and I'm still doing photography, even if I haven't been showing it anywhere. ... Ah, what the hell. I'll post one with this update.
I think I've actually found a solution to that whole customizable token thing I was musing about a while back. I got the idea from a bunch of magnets Brigid had on her refrigerator. She sent me a link to the instructions she'd used to make them, and I basically just did the same thing minus the magnet part.  Basically, I just bought a pile of these things, and all I've gotta do print out my character portraits and paste 'em on. The really remarkable bit? If I run out of glass bits, I can just scrub off the portraits and reuse them. Anyway, we've been using these things in Lost Worlds and Secret Histories to represent the PCs on my simple little hand-drawn maps. Range and positioning in Spirit of the Century is handled in a really fuzzy way, using general "zones" instead of any kind of exact measurements, so playing it fast-and-loose totally works. I think I might get a magnetic whiteboard to draw maps on, and maybe actually add magnets to the character tokens. That could be pretty convenient. Oh, one other thing: SotC frequently features hordes of minor antagonists ("minions") who really don't rate their own tokens, and would really start to crowd the map if they got 'em. So, instead of inch-and-a-half glass bits with pictures, we've been using those little " glass stones" people use to keep track of point pools in other games.
     Okay, so in last night's session of Lost Worlds and Secret Histories (5/27/2008), we finally finished up the big fight from the previous session, and also played out that phonecall that called Myrna away from the main action back in session 4. Herr Wolf pretty much stayed preoccupied throughout this session, since his player had other commitments, and Arthur Chamberlain remained absent, since his player was sick. Also, this was Abraham Hale's last session (unless I end up NPCing him or something), since his player is moving. Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, EnglandMyrna, called away from the rest of the team's investigation by a phone call, finds herself on the receiving end of aggressive questions and legal threats from Sergeant Alphonse Pendergast of the police. He demands to know just what she and her associate ( Marko) said to Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby when they questioned him just about an hour before, and also warns her to drop her own investigation into the Swillby affair and let the police handle things. Myrna, being very socially capable, manages to defuse his anger, and gets him to admit the reason for his sudden attention: Sir Felix left his hotel quite abruptly after talking to Myrna and Marko, leaving the police no way to contact him, and little clue as to his state of mind. The Sergeant is suspicious of the Van Helsing Society's mysterious nature--it's not exactly public knowledge that they investigate the supernatural, after all--but Myrna's mildly coquettish demeanor flusters him badly, and she manages to put him off the scent. However, she, in turn, is cowed by his legal authority, and disengages from the conversation before he can extract any promises of noninterference from her, but also before she can get much information out of him. Meanwhile, back at Bad Bob's warehouse headquarters, Abraham Hale, Marko Kraljević, Robin Stormchaser, and Herr Wolf are mopping up the remains of their fight against the blackshirts and Nazi agents. Behind the warehouse, Blackshirt leader Robert "Bad Bob" Roberts flees his one-time ally, the knife-wielding Nazi madman known as Herr Zahn, through the rainy night, hoping to escape in a truck with his surviving henchmen. Robin, fearless as ever, chases after Zahn, and Marko races out of the warehouse after her. Abraham, all the way on the other side of the warehouse and suffering from a minor leg wound, decides to get back in the car and simply drive to the action. Wolf is still inside the warehouse, bandaging the grievous wounds Abe inflicted on Herr Blitz, the Nazi turncoat. Robin shoves Herr Zahn, and the berserk German slips on the wet cobblestones, falling into a puddle. Instead of picking himself up, however, he tears open his shirt, revealing a metal plate covered in arcane designs. He turns his knife on himself, hacking and sawing at the light-gague chains the hold the plate onto his body. Robin and Marko aren't occult experts on Herr Wolf's level, but they do recognize that whatever that plate is supposed to do, breaking the chains that fasten it to Zahn will stop its effects, not activate them. Happy that Herr Zahn is distracting the Van Helsing team, Bad Bob and his five remaining blokes pile into the lorry and start up the engine. It's about then that Abraham comes around the corner, turning hard so that his car fishtails on the wet street, skidding towards the blackshirts' truck sideways. Abe leans out the window, and--with typical flawless accuracy--fires a round into the lorry's gas tank. The truck explodes, blasting Bad Bob and four surviving--but somewhat concussed and scorched--blackshirts into the street. Part of the car flies off and hits another nearby truck, this one a flatbed stacked with petrol barrels. The steel drums come loose . . . falling in a heap on top of the prone Herr Zahn, crushing one of his arms completely and knocking him unconscious. The blackshirts, deprived of their escape, stand and fight, until exploding fuel barrels and sheer terror of Marko's inhuman resilience whittle their numbers down. Eventually, Bad Bob stands alone, shot in the shoulder by Abe and unable to handle his shotgun. Robin, taking advantage of his injury, simply manhandles him into the trunk of the Van Helsing Society car. Police whistles begin to sound in the distance. Abraham delivers a dire--and entirely honest--warning to the two blackshirts who surrendered during the fight, forever cementing a very healthy terror of the Van Helsing Society into the English far-right community. They run like hell when told to do so. The police whistles are getting closer, and now the bobbies can be heard running on the cobblestones. Marko dashes back into the warehouse to ransack its office and retrieve Sir Felix's stolen parcel, and also collects Herr Wolf and Herr Blitz, exiting at the front of the building. Robin and Abe--with Bad Bob still in their trunk--drive the length of the warehouse to meet them there, and see the remaining petrol cans atop Herr Zahn explode in their rear-view mirror. Marko, Wolf, and Blitz pile in, and the whole group speeds back to the Society clubhouse. There, Abraham interrogates Bad Bob, who sings like a bird after a little persuasion. Bob reveals that the Nazi party has been supplying his gang and other blackshirt groups with money and weapons for a little less than a year, now. Just days ago, these three German agents--Blitz, Zahn, and Stahl--showed up and demanded a favor in return: They were to procure a postage parcel from Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby's flat. All they were told was that the Nazis were interested in something a scientist named Bagsnip had found in Africa, and they needed information in that parcel to pinpoint his location. The blackshirts stole the package for them (not knowing they'd left behind a couple items that fell out of the box: the photo and Magnetophone recording which were later found at the scene of the crime), and Herr Blitz managed to radio the vital information to some unknown party shortly before the Van Helsing team tore into their headquarters. So now the team knows that Bagsnip has indeed found some dangerous artifact, and that the Nazis don't have it yet, but do know where to find him. With any luck, our next session will feature a trip to Africa! I was really surprised that Myrna didn't completely destroy the Sergeant in her social conflict with him. She really outclassed him in every way, but somehow the dice were just not on her side, that night. Marko had a really awesome moment when he actually got to invoke his own complication ("Full of Holes", or something like that) to improve his Intimidation role (with much success, too). Abraham was definitely the star of this session (appropriate--since it's his last--but totally unintentional), managing to do lots of great trick shots and scaring the hell out of people. He totally shut down Herr Zahn right before the Nazi bastard was about to become a real problem for the party. It was beautiful.
 Man, it's taken me forever to get around to writing this one up. This session was played Tuesday, 5/13/2008 (not 5/20/2008, because people just didn't feel up to gaming that night), and while it was probably our longest session to date, it should be simple enough to summarize as it was basically just one big fight scene. Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, EnglandFollowing directions they extracted from the blackshirts they roughed up last session, Abraham, Marko, Robin, and Herr Wolf come to a dockside warehouse where the alleged perpetrators of the Swillby burglary--another blackshirt gang run by a man called "Bad Bob"--are reputed to have their headquarters. Abe hears German and English voices inside raised in agitated debate. Robin, uninterested in making plans of attack or investigating quietly, simply knocks on the front personnel door. Abe waits for the footsteps to approach the door, and then kicks it open, knocking unconscious the blackshirt behind it. Not to be outdone, Marko grabs the giant cargo doors, and tears them open as well. Inside the cluttered, smoky warehouse, Bad Bob and his gang of blackshirts--a much tougher, more criminal, less political bunch than the ones the PCs beat so badly last session--are rushing to investigate the commotion, and all of them are armed with guns. To make matters worse, there are also three Nazi agents there, all wearing long, dark-gray coats and hats in an attempt to be inconspicuous. They are... • Herr Blitz: lightning-wielding war sorcerer! • Herr Zahn: knife-wielding bersker with unnatural speed and ferocity! • Herr Stahl: hulking, steel-reinforced, man-machine abomination! The fight that follows is long, full of awesome stunts, and increasingly complicated. Abraham fights with a tommygun in just one hand and a pistol in the other, shooting chains and pipes from the warehouse ceiling to come crashing down on his foes. Robin dashes in fearlessly, using her homespun charm to convince some blackshirts to surrender, and her mysterious connection with the thunderbird to harness Herr Blitz's own lightning against them. Marko wades into hordes of lessed men like a titan among dolls, fighting with both his fists and mace. Herr Wolf uses his arcane knowledge and sinister charisma to much greater effect than his gun. A major turning point in the conflict comes when Wolf frees the bound lightning elementals that gave Blitz his powers, causing the sorcerer's book of magic to be burned away in the process. Wolf soon manages to convince Blitz to turn his coat, but no sooner does the Nazi sorcerer defect than Abraham shoots, blinds, and nearly kills him! Wolf made his pitch in German, of course, and Abe distrusts foreign talk almost as much as he hates Nazis. Seeing the inevitable defeat of his side, Bad Bob flees the scene, taking a few of his blackshirts with him. But Herr Zahn, incensed at this betrayal, chases after him. Robin, in turn, chases both of them out into the rainy London night. Meanwhile, back in the warehouse, Marko defeats Her Stahl, and puts the self-loathing proto-cyborg out of his misery by crushing his head. The remaining blackshirts surrender. But Robin is chasing after the maniac Zahn his equally-loathesome prey all alone! We left off on that cliffhanger. Assuming we can get the right people together for tonight's session, we should be resolving it in just a few hours! And, hopefully, I won't take two whole weeks to do the writeup for it. Stuff I learned: Real fights in Spirit of the Century--as opposed to the cakewalk I handed them last time--are even more fun . . . but it's possible to go overboard. SotC PCs are tough enough that they're really tough to threaten, but it's very possible to hand them a fight that'll just take retardedly long. Also, the Fate ladder is kind of a pain in the ass. I hate being told that somebody got a result of "Fantastic" and then trying to remember if that's actually a +6 or +7 in real money. (Absurdly, I still remember the descriptiors-to-numbers conversions for the freaking Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Now that is some wasted brain space.)
Yeah, I saved the most insane character concept for last.  Herr WolfThe Man Who Used to Be Hitler(played by Jim) ASPECTS• Stoically Take the Pain • Misunderstood Artist • Pride of the Master Race • Inducted Illuminatus • Unausprechlichen Namen • Humility of the Fall • Secret Historian • I Am the True Hitler! • "Guys, We Need to Focus!" • Hitler Must Be Stopped! SKILLS+5: Resolve +4: Mysteries, Rapport +3: Academics, Art, Intimidation +2: Athletics, Awareness, Empathy, Guns +1: Contacting, Endurance, Investigation, Stealth, Weapons STUNTS• Psychic • Right Place, Right Time • Smooth Recovery • Unflappable • Voices from Beyond This version of Adolf Hitler--war veteran, failed artist, nationalist, Illuminatus, and occultist--performed a ritual to summon an angel that he hoped would grant the German people power and glory. And he succeeded. What he didn't expect, however, was that he'd call a fallen angel, or that it would fulfill its bargain by stealing his name and leading Germany to power in his place. So, yep, this character is the real Hitler, and the one running Nazi Germany is a demon. Now reduced to a state of metaphysical namelessness, he cannot convince anyone of his old identity, regardless of the evidence he might offer. Instead, he must fall back on an old nickname, "Herr Wolf". It's still not a true, metaphysically-meaningful name, however, so people find it difficult to even really think about him. This is represented by the "Unausprechlichen Namen" aspect (German for "unspeakable name"). It can be useful when he wants to avoid being tracked down, but makes it essentially impossible for him to rise in the ranks of any organization again. Naturally, his "Pride of the Master Race" aspect has already been a lot of fun. Since this is a pulp campaign set in 1937, I'm inevitably going to be setting up a lot of Nazis as antagonists . . . forcing Herr Wolf into situations of divided loyalties. He's already used such a situation to talk a Nazi agent into defecting when he found himself unable to simply shoot the man, and that was awesome. Especially when Abraham Hale (who hates Nazis and doesn't trust people who speak foreign languages around him) took disagreed violently with this decision, and decided to shoot the Nazi agent, who had just surrendered. Better yet, the Nazi survived, but lost an eye to Abe's hail of gunfire. Herr Wolf has also been making great use of his Mysteries skill and Spirit of the Century's declaration mechanics. For those unfamiliar with the game, it actually lets you use a PC's knowledge in an area to decide what the facts are in a related situation, rather than simply rolling to see if the GM has to tell you about something they've already decided. It was just such a move which, in our third session, determined the powers of Abraham Hale's monkey idol. Oh, and did you notice the slightly-Photoshopped mustache in Herr Wolf's portrait, there? I figured that, as Hitler's slightly-less-evil twin, he is absolutely required to have different facial hair from him.
 Marko KraljevićImmortal Serbian Folk Hero(played by Nesko) ASPECTS• Marko's Mace • Strength of 10 Strong Men • Living Legend • Short Fuse • Man Out of Time • Champion of Christianity • Sees the Heart • No Man Should Be Chained! • Darling of High Society • Because My Honor Demands It SKILLS+5: Might +4: Endurance, Weapons +3: Academics, Athletics, Resolve +2: Alertness, Intimidation, Mysteries, Rapport +1: Empathy, Engineering, Investigation, Stealth, Survival STUNTS• Animal Companion: horse (quality: Great, skill: Athletics) • Herculean Strength • Piledriver • Weapon of Destiny: Marko's Mace (advancement: Arcane) • Wrestler Marko Kraljević (literally, "Marko, the King's Son") is a Serbian historical figure with a huge amount of heroic folklore attached to him. Since this is Spirit of the Century, this version of the character is definitely the mythic one. He was born in the 1300s and granted superhuman might by a vila (fairy), and grew up to become a great hero, fighting against the Turks. His death was prophesied to be be only a temporary state, one which would end when the Serbian people needed his protection once again. In our campaign, Marko was awakened to fight the last gasp of the Ottoman Empire, a gigantic clockwork war machine called the Mechanical Turk. He and Abraham Hale defeated it together, in fact. Since then, the Van Helsing Society has taken him in, giving him a place in the world (and, not incidentally, making sure this supernatural superhuman isn't running around Europe unsupervised). Marko is absolutely the heavy hitter in this campaign. Between his great strength and endurance, and his titanic, magical mace, he's terrifyingly effective in combat. He's not strictly a bruiser, however: His high Academics skill and friendly, inquisitive nature have given him plenty to do when there isn't a fight available.
 MyrnaFamous Reporter and Socialite(played by Brigid) ASPECTS• Debutante • Educated at Wellesley • Gay Divorcèe • Intrepid Girl Reporter • One True Love • Another Tight Squeeze • Not in the Face • How Do I Make This Go? • Damsel in Distress • Fat Alimony Check SKILLS+5: Rapport +4: Contacting, Investigation +3: Alertness, Empathy, Resources +2: Burglary, Deceit, Gambling, Resolve +1: Art, Academics, Leadership, Sleight of Hand, Stealth STUNTS• Best Foot Forward • International • Linguist • Popular Gal • Quick Eye Myrna doesn't have a last name, as far as I'm aware. The player was having trouble coming up with one that she liked, and I think we just decided that, after her divorce, she discarded her husband's name but didn't go back to her maiden name. Also, she's a famous society pages reporter, so she might be known by just her first name. She's somewhat based on Brenda Starr, down to her melodramatic love life. It's a different kind of pulp from what Spirit of the Century is usually about, but it is most definitely pulp. Myrna is a totally non-fighty character--no combat skills whatsoever--so I'm actually really looking forward to throwing the characters fights while she's around, and seeing if she participates at all. SotC is a system that absolutely would make it possible for her to contribute, but then again, she's also got that "Not in the Face" aspect which should make her do her bes to stay out of the fray. I bet she could use her Alertness and Empathy to discover aspects about her enemies and share them with the more direct participants, though. Of course, she's an absolute ninja in social situations. She already rolled so well while attempting to charm a police officer that I decided that he's now thoroughly smitten with her. I've yet to get her into a real social conflict, though. I've really got to try that out soon.
 Arthur ChamberlainVatican-Trained Thief of Ancient Artifacts(played by Brian) ASPECTS• Uncommon Thief • Edinburgh Street Urchin • Lupin the Mentor • Artifact Acquisitions • Many Identities, Many Personas • Spear of Destiny • Why Is It Always Cultists? • It's the Artifacts, Stupid. • Storm Cloud Stalkers • Like Robin Hood with Style SKILLS+5: Burglary +4: Deceit, Stealth +3: Athletics, Mysteries, Sleight of Hand +2: Academics, Contacting, Investigation, Rapport +1: Alertness, Drive, Engineering, Guns, Resolve STUNTS• Clever Disguise • Human Spider • Personal Artifact: The Spear of Destiny (advances: transmutation, unnoticeable) • Quick Exit • Tripwire Sensibilities This character's name is actually Oliver McIntosh. "Arthur Chamberlain" is actually just his English persona, and the one he uses while functioning as a member of the London-based Van Helsing Society. (He's also got a host of other international identities, named James McCrimmon, Rene Girard, Helmut Schwartz, Roger Johnson, and Igor Leonov.) His deal is that he was born Scottish and poor, the son of an Edinburgh pickpocket. His father was eventually caught and hanged, and he was taken in by a Catholic-run orphanage. There, his natural talents for thieving were noticed, and the Vatican ended up grooming him as its "Artifact Acquisitions" expert. That is, training him to steal dangerous occult objects for either safekeeping or prudent destruction. One object he actually held onto was the head of the Spear of Destiny. Interestingly, he's found that is has the ability to change into any simple object of similar size. Also, it has some property which causes people to overlook it if they aren't looking for it rather specifically. These qualities make one wonder if this artifact actually has anything to do with the spear that pierced Christ's side, or if it might be something else entirely. Anyway, Arthur has so far only participated in the first bit of this adventure, and I'm sorry to say I was a really poor GM for him. We decided to stay behind any keep watch over the scene of a break-in (someone else's work, I should specify) while the rest of the party was elsewhere, and I didn't use that to hand him anything cool. I should have had some new player show up and attempt a second break-in, or at the very least compelled one of his aspects to encourage him to do something. Instead, the player just decided to infiltrate the police-controlled crime scene himself out of boredom. Anyway, notes on some of his odder aspects: "Lupin the Mentor" refers to the fact that he was very possibly trained by the son of Arsène Lupin (and the father of Lupin III). "Storm Cloud Stalkers" refers to a curse he suffers as a result of an incident with a storm-related artifact: Storms follow where he goes. I wouldn't say it's literally cartoonish dark clouds hovering over his head, but I figure that the weather is just a lot more likely to turn stormy when he's around. (This actually offers huge opportunities for synergy between him and Robin's "Thunderbird" aspect. Plus, she's got a crush on him, so she's totally likely to be tagging along with him anyway.) Anyway, I hope to do better by Arthur in the future.
 Robin StormchaserDaring Pilot of the "Blaze of Glory"(played by Sarah) ASPECTS• Tomboy Next Door • Where the Action Is • Thunderbird • Smokin' Like a Chimney • Storm Chaser • Last of the Barnstormers • "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!" • Rashness of Youth • Freedom from Religion • Dread of the Depths SKILLS+5: Pilot +4: Athletics, Engineering +3: Fists, Mysteries, Science +2: Alertness, Endurance, Rapport, Resolve +1: Art, Contacting, Deceit, Resources, Survival STUNTS• Acrobat • Barnstormer • Fly by Night • Personal Aircraft: The Blaze of Glory • Walk Away from It Robin is an extremely fun character. She's a farm girl who found herself piloting planes as part of relief operations during the dust bowl, and had a high-altitude encounter with an Indian thunderbird spirit. Despite the fact that she's very specifically built around the whole pilot concept, she's been able to take a lot of the roleplay spotlight and participate quite nicely in combat. Her "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!" aspect is one of the coolest ones in the whole campaign. It refers to the party's thief type, Arthur Chamberlain, and is driven by Robin's unconscious (but entirely obvious) crush on the dashing young man. Theoretically, she could invoke it to actually do anything she sees him doing, but mostly it's been used to compel her to tag along with him. And, since he's a stealthy guy and she has no skill in that area, this could really get both of them into trouble. Also, her "Rashness of Youth" aspect is awesome for making the whole party get up and get going. Robin is utterly fearless and pretty impatient, and every male character in the party (this is 1937!) is driven to protect her, so she can really drag them along behind her. She's proven she can take care of herself quite nicely, though. She just recently used that "Thunderbird" aspect--representing a mysterious connection to a Native American lightning spirit--to absorb electricity shed by a Nazi sorcerer's spells and use it to charge up her punches, which was exactly the kind of thing I'd hoped she'd end up doing with it. Also, I really dig her shtick of trying out exotic tobaccos and any other theoretically-smokable substance she can fit into a hand-rolled cigarette. I think the character's crowning brilliance, though, is her plane: The "Blaze of Glory" is defined as whatever plane she's currently flying, as long as the title's previous holder has been destroyed. This is going to fucking rock.
Okay, it's about time I started posting character bios for the PCs from my Lost Worlds and Secret Histories game.  Abraham HaleGun-Slinging Scourge of the Supernatural(played by Gerry) ASPECTS• Enemy of the Devil • His Own Brand of Religion • Gun Nut • Wisdom of the West • Finding the Weak Spot • Rube Goldberg Shot • The Harder They Fall • Speak American, Damnit • I Hate Nazzys! • ...Woulda Given Us Wings SKILLS+5: Guns +4: Alertness, Intimidation +3: Endurance, Fists, Survival +2: Athletics, Might, Stealth, Resolve +1: Drive, Investigation, Mysteries, Rapport, Weapons STUNTS• Danger Sense • Iron Determination • Tracker • Trick Shot • Two Gun Joe Originally conceived as sort of a 1930s gunslinger version of Solomon Kane, Abraham Hale has quickly developed into an extremely distinctive character. His background is a story about how his sister was possessed by a demon, and killed by their preacher father in his attempt to exorcise the thing, leading Abraham to conclude that the supernatural should be fought with guns rather than faith. (In fact, that "His Own Brand of Religion" aspect actually refers to the fact that he believes that God has abandoned the world, which is really interesting.) He then went on to fight cultists and other occult evils, including--just before the beginning of this campaign--a trip to Africa that involved pterodactyls. As Abraham's player says, every pulp hero has to go to Africa at some point. He also likes a drink, now and again, a trait which was used to such great humorous effect ("Hell yeah, I'm drunk!") that I wish it had made it into his aspects. His "Speak American, Damnit" and "I Hate Nazzys!" aspects have already been great for fueling intra-party conflict, as one of the other PCs actually used to be Adolf freaking Hitler. That "...Woulda Given Us Wings" aspect, representing his fear of flying, is also bound to be fun, since another PC is primarily a pilot. And the game's plot is already pointing back towards Africa... Variant rule alert!Abe's been making good use of his Trick Shot stunt in a way which might not be completely okay with the Spirit of the Century rules. The description of the stunt states that it gives a bonus to attacks against inanimate objects, and cannot be used to attack other characters. However, I'm letting him use it to attack characters indirectly by shooting down suspended objects and such. The way I'm handling it, the player has to come up with the details of the shot, set the target number himself, and make a Guns roll (with the +2 from Trick Shot). If the roll misses that target, the shot fails and nothing happens. If the roll meets or exceeds it, though, that target number (and no more, regardless of how high the player rolled) is treated as an attack roll against the hapless sucker standing under the chandelier. (Maybe shifts past that target number might let the indirect attack hit multiple opponents? Not sure.) Speaking of variant rules, I'm really looking for a chance to use Mike Olson's badass showdown rules with this character. I've just gotta come up with the right opponent for him...
Well, it's taken me forever to write this up, but I didn't have any trouble remember what happened last Tuesday, since Jim was good enough to provide me with a remarkably high-quality recording of the session. And wow does my voice sound terrible. My own wife couldn't even recognize it. But it's all extremely clear, and totally got the job done. It also did a great job of showing me exactly how much time we spend chatting on various tangents, so that's something we clearly still need to work on. However, everybody gets the system, now, so things are going a lot quicker than the previous session. Also, we finally got some properly pulpy elements into the mix, including our first fight scene! Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, EnglandIt's the day after the events of the previous session, and PCs are at the London headquarters of the Van Helsing Society, discussing the burglary at Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby's apartment and the leads they currently have on the case. Arthur Chamberlain isn't present, as he was called away on Vatican business in the early morning.   Marko Kraljevic--who has lately been hitting the books in an attempt to catch up with a world six hundred years ahead of his own time--manages to recognize the landscape in the photograph recovered from the crime scene as possibly being somewhere in north-eastern Africa (although not quite as far north as Egypt). The metal canister discovered along with the photo is finally opened, and is revealed to contain a Magnetophon tape. Only Robin--the most technically-minded of the bunch--is able to recognize the cutting-edge audio recording technology.  It's about then that they are approached, somewhat abruptly, by a fellow Society member who they've seen around the clubhouse but never really spoken with. He introduces himself as Howard Lovecraft, one of the Society's experts on pre- Holocene civilizations. (He is, in fact, H.P. Lovecraft. Sadly, his work and name aren't famous enough in 1937 for any of the PCs to know that was publicly believed to have died a few months before this meeting.) He expresses great concern over the possibility that any artifacts in the possession of Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby might have been stolen, as the man is known to be in correspondence with a number of rogue academics who have been prying into dangerous secrets of forgotten epochs. Chief among these is Professor Horace Bagsnip, an archaeologist who is searching for evidence of Lemurian influence on the early peoples of India and eastern Africa. As Bagsnip has resisted all proposals of cooperation from the Society, and the Lemurians are believed to have created terrible living weapons, Bagsnip--and, by extension, Sir Felix--could be dealing in some very dangerous things. While Marko discusses what little is known--or suspected, anyway--about the Lemurian people with Howard, Myrna begins looking into contacting Sir Felix. Robin, knowing a Magnetophon player would be difficult to find and expensive to purchase in England, gets to work building one herself. Myrna manages to get ahold of John Hastings, the same police constable she charmed at the scene of the burglary the day before. Very eager to help the glamorous girl reporter, he provides her not only with the name of the hotel Sir Felix is now staying at--the Hotel McGuffin--but his specific room number. Myrna Heads out with Marko to speak to Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby about the break-in.  Sir Felix turns out to be quite cooperative, and explains that he was robbed by, of all people, a gang of blackshirts! They battered down his front door with a fasces, and demanded to know where "the package" was. The only package he could think of was the most recent shipment of notes and such sent to him for safe-keeping by his good friend Professor Horace Bagsnip. Sir Felix had only just had a chance to unpack the contents of the box and lock it in his roll-top desk, and never got to see exactly what the professor sent him before the fascist thugs knocked him out (or, more accurately, pushed him into a wall, jarring loose an authentic Zulu spear mounted there, which fell on Sir Felix's skull, rendering him unconscious). Sure enough, Sir Felix later heard from the police that the roll-top desk (along with his cash box) had been broken into and looted. He's not very confident that the police will retrieve Professor Bagsnip's stolen materials, however, as he suspects their own far-right tendencies prevent them from leaning very hard on the blackshirts. Meanwhile, back at Society headquarters, Robin has completed her jury-rigged Magnetophon player. Wolf and Abraham enter the workshop just as she starts the mysterious recording. At first, only static is distinguishable, but the sound of chanting soon becomes apparent. In fact, it's a style of chanting that Abraham recognizes: It's the Nubian Snake People, an eerie and possibly inhuman race he has encountered in the past (although only briefly). The next sound, however, is something wholly new to all present: A monstrous, piercing wail rises over the chanting, sounding something like an air raid siren, but perhaps a living one. The sound is literally mind-numbing, and both Robin and Abraham are stunned and stupefied by it. Herr Wolf, however, manages to maintain his focus and observe how his comrades simply blank out and stand mute throughout the remainder of the sound. Then they tape ends, and the two regain their faculties. At that moment, Myrna and Marko return, and the five all share what they have learned. Myrna is called away by a phone call, but Robin, Abraham, Wolf, and Marko begin to make plans to follow up the blackshirt lead. Robin, having spent more time exploring the streets of London than the others, knows the part of town where blackshirts are likely to be found, and immediately resolves to head out looking for them. The rest, naturally, realize they must follow for the sake of her safety.  Abraham borrows a car from the Society motor pool, and takes the other three out into the foggy London evening. Guided by Robin's directions, they eventually find a group of five blackshirts loitering on a street corner. Robin immediately approaches their leader--a man named Nigel--who promptly tells her to go back to America. Abraham pulls a gun and threatens to start shooting kneecaps if he isn't given information about the burglary of Sir Felix's flat. Nigel and company are duly frightened, but claim to know nothing of the crime. It's obvious to all present that they're lying. Alerted by the commotion, another 12 blackshirts begin to approach quietly, hidden by the fog. Abraham hears them, however, and fires into the mist at leg height, managing to kneecap one man without even seeing him. This makes his point to Nigel very clear, and the terrorized blackshirt wails that the break-in was done by "Bad Bob and his blokes!" The remaining 11 ambushers immediately rush out of the fog at Abraham, but he neatly fires off five rounds in quick succession, shooting a kneecap with each one. Wolf shouts something to the effect of "This is what happens to those who oppose the Führer!", trying to give the impression that this incident is the work of German agents (and Adolf Hitler himself!). Marko then picks up two of the attackers, and propels them into the remaining four, knocking all six unconscious. Robin kicks one of the prone blackshirts. Abraham rifles the pockets of the downed men, checks the ID cards for names and addresses, and warns them "We were never here." Now completely terrified of Abraham and Marko, they agree wholeheartedly. With no remaining opposition, the group gets the details of Bad Bob from the now-eagerly-helpful Nigel. They're told that he's the head of a different, more dangerous blackshirt splinter group, less political party and more organized criminal gang. Also, they've got ties to the fascist governments of other nations. Nigel supplies information on where they can be found. So, lessons learned: Fights in Spirit of the Century are fun as all hell, and we need more of them. However, the PCs are seriously badass, so they need much better opposition than a bunch of lame Nazi-wannabes. Furthermore, conflicts can be really, really quick, so I should be less hesitant about resolving social interactions as full-fledged social conflicts. Finally, while we've gotten much better at just getting down to play instead of chatting for a half hour first, I do need to keep a tighter rein on our focus throughout the session. I need to herd these fucking cats. Should be easier tomorrow night, actually, since most of this bunch just saw each other on Saturday at our monthly Amber game.
 I'm finally putting the finishing touches on the custom character sheet for my Spirit of the Century campaign, "Lost Worlds and Secret Histories". The deal is, all the PCs are supposed to members of this 1930s monster-fighting organization, the Van Helsing Society. So I tried to build the character sheet to looks sort of like an actual personnel file from that organization, completely with smudged stamps, paper clips, and vintage fonts. It's very much inspired by coyotegrey's extremely awesome NEMESIS character sheet. Anyway, click the thumbnail to see it at a halfway reasonable size. This sheet is for Abraham Hale, Gerry's character. He's supposed to be kind of a Solomon Kane / Charlton Heston / cult-fighting gunslinger character. And, yes, that's Lance Henriksen we used for the portrait.
 Okay, as of last Tuesday, we are finally playing Spirit of the Century at last! We finished up character creation (man, the process of choosing stunts is fraught with dilemmas), and then had a good couple hours of actual play. We didn't really get a lot story progress done--really, I'd just call that session a prologue--but we're all getting acquainted with the mechanics of the game, and there was some really fun roleplay and aspect use going on. Anyway, I'm going to type up the events of the session here. This is primarily for reference purposes, so I can't promise it'll be entertaining. Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, EnglandMyrna--international socialite, intrepid reporter, and member in good standing of the monster-fighting Van Helsing Society--gets a phone call from her friend and sometime informant Agatha Worbley, a rich old widow with a passion for gossip and a scatterbrained manner that may or may not be a facade. Agatha reports that Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby--a minor baronet and amateur anthropologist of their mutual acquaintance--was robbed the night before. Myrna, knowing that Sir Felix is a person of some minor interest to the Van Helsing Society, contacts a couple other Society members: Marko Kraljevic, the giant Serbian folk hero, and Arthur Chamberlain, the Vatican-trained artifact thief. Together, they drop by Sir Felix's burglarized apartment, and discover that the crime scene is still secured by the police, and that Sir Felix himself is now giving his statement at the police station after a short hospital stay. Myrna charms the police officer guarding the door--leaving him seriously smitten with her--and gives him a calling card to deliver to Sir Felix. Myrna returns to her London residence to make some calls and chase down more information on Sir Felix, Arthur stays behind to watch the crime scene, and Marko returns to the Van Helsing Society's London headquarters. There he finds the cultist-fighting gunslinger Abraham Hale, recently returned from Africa, thoroughly enjoying a whiskey, and very much looking forward to returning to his home in Arizona. Herr Wolf--the mysterious mystic who was once Adolf Hitler--is just returning to the London clubhouse after a trip to the Louvre, and seethes with jealousy towards the French artists because of his own failure in art. The brilliant young pilot Robin Stormchaser is also at the clubhouse, having a smoke atop the observatory as usual. Hale has brought back an obscene--and apparently indestructible--monkey idol from his trip to Africa, and is asking Marko about a way to dispose of the thing. Wolf, still in a foul mood, interrupts and informs them that the idol obviously has the power to summon the great apes of Africa to fulfill a single request of the wielder, and denigrates both the workmanship of the idol and Marko's intelligence. This, in turn, provokes Marko's anger, but Abraham defuses the situation. Marko then seeks out Robin to deliver a gift from Myrna--a package of French cigarettes--and also tells her about the situation with Sir Felix. Robin, certain that Arthur can't possibly manage his surveillance assignment alone, decides to head over to the flat to help him out (or show him up). When she comes downstairs, however, Wolf recognizes the national origin of Robin's cigarettes, and--in a fury of anti-French sentiment--shouts at her and tries to take them away. She's far too quick for him, however. Unswayed in her resolve to go help Arthur out, Robin continues on her way to the crime scene, allowing Abraham--rather drunk, by now--to escort her through the London night. Meanwhile, Arthur has decided to disguise himself as a police officer and infiltrate Sir Felix's flat. He manages to trick the officer at the door, and has a look around inside, finding that the front door was battered in, both a cashbox and a roll-top desk were broken into, and Sir Felix's many exotic souvenirs seem to be untouched. Just then, Robin and Abraham show up. Abraham, too intoxicated to fully understand the situation, is simply starts shouting for Arthur. This immediately draws the attention of the cops inside the flat, and forces Arthur to hide to avoid scrutiny. One police officer tells Abraham to go home, and might be on the verge of trying to take him in, when Marko and Wolf show up. Wolf shakes hands with the officer, and discovers that he's a Freemason. Wolf, himself an Inducted Illuminatus, uses this to manipulate the cop into allowing him a look inside the flat, while Marko babysits Abraham and Robin.  Inside, Arthur approaches Wolf, and points out his findings. Wolf has a closer look at the desk, and discovers two interesting things: a small, disk-shaped metal canister, and a photograph of a great stone in a desert, encircled by lightning. Taking these objects--entirely with the consent of the Freemason police officer--the Society members headed back to their headquarters. ...And that's where we left it! Typed up, it really looks like a hell of a lot of stuff happened, but really, things were going pretty slowly. I had to stop and check the game book more often than I'd like, and there was much looking for places to roll dice or store poker chips (our "fate point" tokens). Next time, we'll hopefully have our shit a little more sorted out. Also, I hope to get to use SotC's conflict rules, whether it's for physical combat or some social conflict. Also, now that everyone's finally got their character sorted out, I can enter them into the custom character sheets I made! I'll probably show those off here soon.
The Tuesday Night crew continued--but didn't quite complete--development of their Van Helsing Society operatives last night, and it was loads of fun. The players finally got to do the "guest star" phases of character-building, meaning that they all picked names out of a hat and then had to figure out ways to work their characters into guest roles into each others' pulp novels. This lead to some weird and difficult chronology questions, and one character only got a single guest star in his book, since it took place too early in history for most of the group to logically participate in it (which, of course, lead to another book getting three guest stars instead of two). I think if I had to do it all over again, I'd hack the standard SotC character generation so that Phase Three was the character's solo novel (and, probably, canonical first adventure), while Phases Four and Five are for team-up novels with only two stars each. I think that'd be a lot easier to manage. Anyway, we didn't quite complete everybody's guest star roles, but we did manage to get a whole lot of skills-and-stunts stuff done. I'm hoping to help people finish up via email. Highlights of the session include: - One player deciding that the aspect she got out of a guest-starring role was a competitive, anything-he-can-do-I-can-do-better relationship with the main character . . . which is the character's way of expressing a crush that's obvious to everyone but her
- That same player deciding that her plane, "Blaze of Glory", is less a specific aircraft than a title and role that's bestowed upon any plane she flies . . . as long as the previous Blaze has been destroyed (That is so freaking brilliant!)
- Much discussion--and even a drawing!--of Marko Kraljevic's arch enemy, a steam-powered war robot built by the Ottoman Empire called The Mechanical Turk
- Lots of moments where people's various novel plots and the specialties of their guest stars clicked together perfectly
- Cool decisions about where to get photos to illustrate the character sheets: Marko the Slavic folk hero is likely to be played by Rade Serbedzija, Arthur the gentleman thief will be David Tennant, and Abraham the cultist-fighting gunslinger will be Lance freaking Henriksen.
- The Hitler character's "Unausprechlichen Namen" aspect, describing his state of metaphysical namelessness after his identity was stolen by the demon who went on to become der Fuhrer (people have trouble even remembering him, and could never possibly believe he's actually Adolf Hitler, even in the face of evidence)
- Outside of the game, the near-unanimity of our Chinese orders, leading several of us to become General Tso's Army
So, all in all, a lot of good fun, and we're not even playing, yet. The hypothetical pulp novels this session produced are so cool I wish I could commission an artist to do a nice color piece for each, which I could then Photoshop into a set of book covers.
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