Water babies

The kappa of The Eye of the Dragon, which eventually found their way into Dragon Warriors, owe very little apart from their watery habitat to the creatures of Japanese folklore. For one thing they live in the sea, whereas Japanese kappa haunt ponds and streams. Not to mention the unhealthy obsession with mortal posteriors, as in the illustration above where a kappa is looking at an bow trap baited with a corpse whose arse is positioned directly under the arrow tip.

The way it came about was this. I probably first came across kappa (the original variety) either in Richard A Lupoff’s Sword of the Demon or the roleplaying game Bushido. As the setting of The Eye of the Dragon is vaguely Graeco-Egyptian, at least architecturally, and kappa is a Greek letter, some circuit tripped in my brain. That combined with The Tempest’s “of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes” and gave us the DW kappa.

For our Tetsubo book (I won’t recap the story here, there are enough old posts about it) Jamie and I naturally had to include to genuine Japanese kappa, supposedly spawned from the ghosts of the Heike after the clan’s destruction at the sea battle of Dan-no-ura.

According to the Morokoshi Kinmō Zui, these creatures resemble a small child or monkey with a back entirely covered in scales, look like a tiger when resting on the sand, and have long claws that they keep hidden in the water. But folk tales, like dreams, are elusive and protean; another description claims the kappa has the body of a tortoise, the limbs of a frog, and the head of a monkey. Just to confuse things even more, the Suiko (a Bugaku theatrical mask) depicts the creature with flat ears, a pointed eagle nose, and a coxcomb covered with tiger's skin.

In the river of Kawachi Mura, a kappa was once caught in the girth of a horse. After being rendered harmless by spilling its fluid, it was forced to sign a bond promising never to attack a man, woman, child, or beast again. Another tale tells of Rokusuke of Keyamura, a retainer of Taiko, a strongman who captured a kappa. In prints he is seen surrounded by a number of these creatures.

Poems by Sugawara no Michizane were held in great esteem in Kyushu as protection against the kappa. Before departing for exile in Kyushu in 901 AD, Michizane cast a final glance at his plum trees and composed the following verses:

“Kochi fukaba Niwoi okoseyo Ume no hana Aruji nashi tote Haruna wasurezo.”

The sources translate this as:

"When the eastern breeze passes, load her with perfume O blossoms of my plum trees; even though the master is far away, never forget the spring."

According to legend, the poem was so powerful that one of the plum trees uprooted itself and miraculously flew to Chikuzen to be with him. This tree became known as Tobi Ume, or the "jumping plum tree". In exile, Michizane was crossing a river when a kappa seized his horse’s bridle and tried to drag him underwater. Michizane sliced off the creature’s hand. The mummified hand can be viewed to this day at the Kitano Tenmangū Shrine in Kurume, Fukuoka.

That’s all a long preamble to the Tetsubo entry for kappa, which (like the baku and gaki) I have converted to Dragon Warriors rules.

Kappa

Kappa are amphibious goblins that inhabit the rivers, lakes and ponds of the Ikaido islands. Honourable but vicious, they prey on the blood of land-dwelling creatures -- not just mankind, but also cattle and horses. Their favourite sustenance, however, is the blood of human children. They drink this through the rectum, so if a drowned corpse with a distended anus is found this is always blamed (on the whole justifiably) on the kappa. These creatures are ferociously proud of their martial ability. They will sometimes challenge a person to single combat, and if the kappa is bested it will undertake to teach secret skills to its opponent. It is important to be very exact about the terms of a duel, as kappa are sticklers for the letter of an agreement and if they can gain any advantage (such as by insisting the duel take place underwater) they will not hesitate to do so. Kappa are not communal. Always encountered singly, they are the Oriental equivalent of the kelpie of Elleslandic folklore: a genius loci, really a water sprite rather than a simple water-dwelling animal.

Physique: Kappa are spindly beings rather like monkeys, except that they have no fur but instead are covered with silvery-grey or yellow-green scales, like those of a fish. Their hands are webbed and, in some cases at least, a carapace like a tortoise’s shell protects the kappa’s upper body. Kappa have a bowl-shaped depression in the top of their heads. This is used to carry water when the kappa emerges on to dry land, as otherwise it would quickly lose its strength.

Behaviour: Kappa fear fire, which desiccates their bodies. A kappa faced with brandished flame must roll 6 or less on d20 or give ground. Any fire-based attack which strikes a kappa, whether or not it inflicts damage, dries its body; it loses 1 Health Point and suffers a cumulative −1 from ATTACK until it can next immerse itself.

Special Rules: Kappa breathe underwater and are excellent swimmers. Either through sorcery or stealth, they are seldom seen on their excursions to human settlements. Renowned for their fondness for cucumbers, they can be bribed or distracted by an offering of them; the kappa resists the temptation only if it rolls 17 or more on d20.

They are able to survive short forays onto land by means of the hollow on their heads, which holds water to sustain them. If this water is spilled, the kappa quickly becomes too weak even to move. It is possible to trick a kappa into spilling its water simply by bowing: kappa are so polite that they almost invariably bow back. Roll d20 against the kappa’s Intelligence of 6; on a success it realises the danger and keeps its head level as it bows, otherwise the water spills out and the kappa can be caught. (As with most creature vulnerabilities, players should not have their characters make use of this ploy without first checking to see if they know it. Obviously anyone can read it here, but the Tetsubo rulebook is unfortunately not available in Yamato! A character must be versed in Shinto doctrine and make a successful Intelligence check at difficulty factor 13 to remember this weakness and exploit it.)

Kappa invariably know Unarmed Combat, Kawashi, Koppo, Atemi-Waza, Heal Wounds and Surgery (skills defined in the Tetsubo rules), and in most cases they are better at these skills than humans. They are also innate spellcasters, casting without gesture, incantation or ingredient — though their magic, like their strength, fails entirely while the water is spilled from their heads. Each kappa has 3d4 Magic Points and commands the following: Curse, Lesser Healing, Command, Tangleroots, Peer, and Illusion (all as the Sorcerer spells of those names, at the usual Magic Point costs); Wave Mastery (as the Water Elementalist spell; a kappa uses it to part or still the waters of its pool, 2 Magic Points); and five lesser dweomers of its own, each costing 1 Magic Point and lasting until a Spell Expiry Roll: marsh-lights (a drift of pale flames that wander where the kappa wills, luring or misleading travellers by night), the zone of cold (a clammy chill within 10m of the kappa, numbing fingers: −1 from ATTACK for all within), the zone of silence (no sound carries within 10m of the kappa), the reek (a concealing fog rises over water within 50m) and dousing (every open flame within 15m gutters out).

As Tetsubo is not going to be out before next year, anyone looking for a good RPG of the Sengoku and early Edo period is advised to check out Stray Crows from Portmortem Studios. The Kickstarter is launching soon and there's a free preview on DriveThruRPG.

A wizard prang

I never have managed to get a game of Ars Magica up and running, despite at least two concerted attempts. We even got as far as full character sheets. Why didn't it happen? Perhaps the degree of world-building needed looked too daunting -- though you wouldn't expect that to deter a group battle-hardened by Tekumel and Glorantha.

Mike and Roger were talking about it this month on their Improvised Radio Theatre With Dice podcast. I'll put money on their campaign happening before mine. (I'd even consider putting money on their campaign actually happening.) And I was reminded of one aspect of the Ars Magica rules that was certainly original but that never thrilled me. The troupe system.

I prefer to really steep myself in a character, which means one character at a time. In Ars Magica you play the magi and also their companions (non-wizardly adventuring friends) and sometimes the magi's servants ("grogs") -- the point being that the magi initiate things and formulate plans, but they don't all swan off adventuring together on a regular basis. For me, one of the line-up would feel like my real character and the other two would just be NPCs that I'd play for the sake of the campaign.

The reason for the troupe is that you typically have your group of players turning up each time, and nobody wants to sit out in the kitchen, so the magus/companion/grog arrangement ensures there's always a character for everybody to play. But hang on a tick. If you're playing online, you're no longer constrained by the need to physically assemble a limited number of players at the same time each week. Now you could have some players take the magi; they might be the ones who can't turn up regularly or who are living a long way off and couldn't travel to a physical session anyway. A different group of players could then take the companions. You can assemble a regular game around whoever can show up (usually the companions and one or two of the magi) and keep the grand planning between the magi for special sessions.

There must have been a point where somebody said, "What about if we got two different actors to play Cordelia and the Fool?" Playing over the internet is meant to shake things up. There are different and possibly better ways for your players to enjoy themselves. So I think it's worth considering, at least.

By-the-bye, I like the idea of some characters playing strategically while others get their hands dirty. You could use it for an SOE game -- any war-based campaign come to that. Or it could be a Star Trek style exploration game, with the regular weekly players comprising the away team and those who only have odd moments through the week playing the bridge crew.

Also it occurs to me Ars Magica would be a great system for a Wizards of Grand Motholam campaign. Now will I buckle down and run it? I guess we'll see.

Lost in the wildwood

Last year Gary Chalk called me up to talk about collaborating on a graphic novel. How that came about was that Gary, who lives in France, had been at the supermarket a few days before and he ran into an elderly woman he knew who said, “Why aren’t you at Saint-Malo, Monsieur Chalk? I thought every artist went? Even my grandson took his portfolio.”

Saint-Malo is the venue for one of France’s biggest comics conventions – bande dessinée, I should say –and Gary’s immediate reaction was to rush home, dump his groceries on the kitchen table, grab a few art samples, and drive to Saint-Malo that afternoon.

“Quite a few publishers said they’d take a look at anything I have to show them,” he told me. “So how about it? Do you want to write something and I’ll draw it?”

Did I? You’d have to hold me back with an electric prod. Gary is a fun guy to bounce ideas around with, his artwork is uniquely captivating and gloriously inventive, and I enjoy writing for comics more than just about any other medium.

After some brainstorming over Skype, I went back to Gary with a proposal for Jewelspider – a series of bande dessinée books set in Legend, the Dragon Warriors universe, some five hundred years after DW. Think Down Among the Dead Men’s Tudor world of magic and faerie and you’re not far off. I figured that the combination of flintlocks, faerie woods, rude mechanicals, half-timbered cottages and horror would suit Gary’s style to a T. Here's the overview:

A country a little like Elizabethan England. OK, a lot like. Only there is real magic and there are faerie folk. The heartless sort of faerie folk whose whims make a cat seem compassionate.

Twenty-five years ago at the village of Crossgate, a peasant woman called Mary Barley finds a child lying in the snow near the edge of Jewelspider Forest.

At the same time, the stillborn baby of Sir Roger and Lady Olivia Keppel, whose body was lying in Crossgate Church, is found to have been taken. The locals suspect the “ladies and gentlemen” of the woods, but the priest doesn’t want to hear that. When Mary shows up carrying a baby, he claims that it’s the Keppels’ child, who was only mistaken for dead. “A fox must have dragged him off, and the shock brought him round,” he says. “A miracle! Praise be!”

So the baby is raised as Lady Olivia’s second son, Pelagius. But the rumours of faerie origin persist and the child is undeniably strange. Soon Lady Olivia wants him gone from the manor. He’s given to Mary, who discards the name Pelagius and raises him as plain John Barley.

The years pass. “Gentleman” John Barley is an up-and-coming playwright with the Publican’s Players. As New Year approaches, the Players set out to perform a special play for the Earl of Netherford which they hope will earn them patronage. “We’ll soon be the Earl’s Players,” reckons the company’s manager, Francis Barnsbury.

On the way to Netherford, Francis has seen the opportunity to put on a Christmas play in Crossgate, not realizing that it’s John’s home village. John is not keen to go back. They arrive to find the village troubled by the disappearance of John’s one-time stepbrother Peregrine Keppel.

Before long, and very much against his will, John is investigating what happened to Peregrine and uncovering a macabre tale involving “Mad Dan” Duluth, the squire of the manor a hundred years before. Mad Dan and his henchmen, known as his three knaves, so terrorized the county that they are used to this day as bugbears to scare children. But John begins to suspect that, though dead and buried, Mad Dan and his knaves don’t rest as quietly as they should.

Before the curse can be lifted and the ghosts laid to rest, John will have visited the court of Faerie where he finally learns who his real parents were.

No doubt you will have spotted that the plot borrows from the scenario “Silent Night” which I ran on this blog one Christmas and which I later intended to use as the basis for an interactive story app. Only, this being fiction rather than a game or gamebook, that wasn’t what the story was really about. What interested me most was the Shakespearean career of John Barley, and how being a changeling gave him a special relationship with the world of the imaginary. Some deconstruction of the storytelling process itself seemed likely to feature.

Just as Will Shakespeare liked to mix comedy and high drama – the Joss Whedon of his day – I set out to create a similar blend. Horror on its own bores me; it’s too one-note. Humour helps to add the human dimension that makes the horrific elements more disturbing. And in regard to storytelling I always use disturbing in a good sense, of course.

That’s where Gary and I didn’t see eye to eye. So don’t get excited, because (as I maybe should have said at the start) this collaboration is never going to come to pass. Gary hates that whole Joss Whedon vibe, you see, and he felt the comedy elements I’d included, particularly with my Will Kemp like character Pip Cabbage, destroyed the suspension of disbelief.

Well, not every project comes off and that’s a hard truth you just have to get used to as a writer. Because the writing happens before everything else, you end up with an awful lot of abandoned fragments of development work. Jamie and I have got whole TV scripts and samples of novels that fell on stony ground and now languish in the attic or the far unvisited corners of our hard drives. I briefly toyed with finding another artist to work with, but it’s already a struggle finding the funds to pay Leo and Nikos to work on Mirabilis. I don’t really need another comic book to finance!

So here is that unfinished script. Too jokey? Or a fine blend of the humorous and the macabre? I leave it to you to decide…

Jewelspider Wood book one

PAGE 1

PANEL 1a:

A big panel, this, maybe top two-thirds of the page. Nice establishing shot.

Caption:  Then.

A snow-covered landscape, late afternoon. In the left foreground we see thickly clustered trees – the edge of Jewelspider Wood. From there the land slopes down to a valley where the village of Crossgate stands in the middle distance beside a river: cottages, church and manor house. Smoke rising from the chimneys. Beyond, the hills sweep up again into the distance.

A peasant woman, MARY, is trudging up the hill in the foreground carrying a basket. Mary is in early middle age, which for the times and given her social class might mean her mid-30s. It’s bitterly cold – see her breath steam out on the wind.

Behind her, further down the slope, three peasant lads are chucking snowballs at each other.

PANEL 1b:

Reverse previous shot, so we’re looking up the slope with the three lads in the foreground. Mary is a tiny figure approaching the edge of the forest.

Lad #1: Bet a farthing you won’t go twenty paces into Jewelspider.

Lad #2: Nearly suppertime. I would else.

PANEL 1c:

Mary looking down sadly at her basket, which contains just a few twigs. She needs more firewood.

PANEL 1d:

View from behind Mary as she faces the immense, dark and forbidding wall of trees that marks the edge of the woods. We can sense that she feels daunted by it.

PAGE 2

PANEL 2a:

Mary has ventured a little way into the wood. Here under the trees there’s less snow – just what the wind has blown in, edging the dead leaves.

She’s stooping to pick up a bit of firewood, but looking all around nervously as she does so.

PANEL 2b:

CU on Mary, startled as she turns towards the sound.

Sound effect: SNAP!

PANEL 2c:

Mary looks down to see some broken twigs laid on the ground in the shape of a pointing arrow. It points back out of the woods.

PANEL 2d:

Mary reacting to the sound of a baby crying out-of-shot (sound effect cutting off at edge of frame?) in the direction the arrow points to. Her hand to her mouth. Fear forgotten now – she’s only concerned for that lost baby.

Sound effect: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Right behind her in the dark undergrowth – she’s not aware of them - are dozens of cat-like eyes and grinning fanged mouths. The faerie folk.

PANEL 2e:

A faerie POV shot – we’re looking out from between the trees as Mary runs down the slope away from Jewelspider Wood.

Sound effect: WAAAAAAA

PANEL 2f:

In a hollow in the snow, Mary comes across a baby (in right f.g.) lying on a blanket. She drops her basket in shock.

Mary: Oh, Heaven and all the saints!

Baby: Waaaaaaaa!

PAGE 3

PANEL 3a:

New scene -- Outside the small village church in Crossgate. FATHER GULES (Patrick Magee; about 30 yrs old in this flashback) is berating the SEXTON. By the way this is the equivalent of roughly 1565 AD.

The church door is open and there’s an infant’s coffin lying on the path between them, on its side, lid off.

A small group of less than a dozen peasants has gathered to see what all the fuss is about.

Father Gules (gesturing at the door): Obviously you left it open. A wild animal --

Sexton (deferential but aggrieved): Wild animal? In Crossgate, Father? And I double-bolted it, I swear to that.

PANEL 3b:

At the back of the crowd of onlookers, ROD arrives. He’s a 12-year-old with a shock of unruly red hair (which we will recognize immediately when we return here in 25 years’ time). He tugs the sleeve of a woman, who looks round.

Rod: What is it, Ma?

Rod’s Mum: The lady’s stillborn infant. Laid out in the church, poor mite, and something stole the body.

PANEL 3c:

Back to the argument by the church door. Now Father Gules and the sexton have both rounded on OLD ABE, the gravedigger.

Sexton: The child should’ve been buried by now, anyway.

Old Abe: You take a pickaxe to this ground if you want. Like iron it is.

PANEL 3d:

Father Gules turns to the small crowd of onlookers, one of whom is pointing up towards the woods.

Peasant: You know what’s took it. No wolf.

Father Gules: Enough of that talk! And none of you breathe a word of this up at the hall. If the lady –

Father Gules pauses in surprise at the sound of a baby crying from the back of the crowd.

Sound effect: Waaaa

PANEL 3e:

The crowd parts to reveal Mary standing at the back. In her basket she’s cradling the child she found.

Baby: Waaaaa!

Father Gules: Mary Barley. Where did you get that child?

Mary: Found him, Father. Up by Jewelspider Wood.

PANEL 3f:

Father Gules lifts the blanket to look at the baby.

Father Gules: It is a miracle. You have found Lady Olivia’s baby son – and he lives! Give thanks to God.

PANEL 3g:

On Mary’s horrified expression as the basket with the baby is taken from her.

Mary: No. He’s not hers. Hers was dead. I found him!

(new bubble): No! NO!

PAGE 4

PANEL 4a:

Close-up on the exasperated face of “GENTLEMAN” JOHN BARLEY, mid-20s.

John: No no no no NO!

(new bubble): Feeling! Give it some FEELING!

PANEL 4b:

A large function room over a pub, where the Publican’s Players are rehearsing. This is the equivalent of ~1590 AD. John and Francis have copies of the script.

It’s not a dress rehearsal – they’re in regular clothes, though DOUGAL GRATE (late-50s, old thesp, wild-haired Michael Gambon type), who is playing King Solomon, wears a crown and carries a sword. He ought to wear spectacles but he’s too vain, so he makes do with a squint.

FRANCIS BARNSBURY (late-30s, George Sanders type) is the company’s manager and pitches in playing bit parts as needed.

RICHIE BIGG (late-20s, Randy Quaid type) is a lumbering, easy-going hulk of a man who ought to be a bouncer rather than playing one of the women whose case has been brought to King Solomon. He’s the object of John’s ire.

PIP CABBAGE (mid-20s, a young Jeremy Piven) is playing the other woman. He’s the company’s clown, one of those guys who can’t go one minute without turning everything into a joke.

Caption: Now.

Richie: Sorry, John.

Francis (looking at the script): Can’t we simplify it a bit, love? All this “my son” and “thy son”... You’re going to lose the groundlings.

PANEL 4c:

Pip pours himself a flagon of ale.

Pip: “Whoreson”, now that’d get a laugh.

John is impatient – he wants to get on with rehearsal. It’s not a play he’s especially keen to do, either, so Pip’s insouciance is doubly annoying.

John: Not everything has to be about getting a frigging laugh, Pip!

PANEL 4d:

John grabs the tatty rag doll that they’re using as a prop and holds it up to Richie. He points to Pip, who is playing the other mother.

John: Look, Richie, the King – he’s going to cut the little perisher in half. Pip says it’s his kid. But it’s really YOURS.

Richie: I’m the father?

John: You’re the mother!

PANEL 4e:

Pip: Ha ha!

Richie (looking at Pip): I can do feminine, thank you! I’m very in touch with my lady side. I just need direction.

PAGE 5

PANEL 5a:

Richie leans close to John for a confidential chat, but Dougal is right behind them.

Richie: John, the thing is... I’ll fling myself in there, mate. Take one for the nipper, God love ‘im. But couldn’t we get Dougal a wooden sword?

Dougal: I heard that!

PANEL 5b:

Dougal draws his (real) sword and strikes a majestic pose. We see a glimpse of the sizzling brilliant actor he was ten or twenty years ago.

Dougal: What need have I of props? Gewgaws and fakery! Fifteen years I’ve trod these boards.

PANEL 5c:

Dougal swings his sword in a wild sweeping arc. He’s very short-sighted. John and Richie duck just in time to avoid having their heads cut off.

Sound fx: SWOOSH

Dougal: Precision! Focus! Control! And you propose I brandish a whittled stick? Have you no appreciation of the thespic arts?

John: What about a pair of glasses?

PANEL 5d:

Francis leads John aside, gesturing towards TIM and TAM, in the foreground, the company’s two midgets..

Francis: Glasses? John, love, next you’ll want a real gold crown.

(new bubble): If I showed you the accounts book it’d give you a bigger scare than the Welsh Play. We can’t even afford wires for the fairies to fly in on.

PANEL 5e:

Seeing themselves talked about Tim and Tam come over with their copies of the script.

Tim: It’s not like we don’t appreciate the lines, John, but we don’t always have to play elves and goblins and that. 

Tam: Yeah. We could be – you know, just little people.

PANEL 5f:

John is always considerate of everyone’s feelings:

John: Well, I –-

But Francis dives in with a frothy pep talk aimed at giving Tim and Tam the brush-off.

Francis: And you are. You are DEAR little people. But audiences today demand a faerie touch, a whiff of otherworldliness. It’s bums on benches, loves.

PAGE 6

PANEL 6a:

John looks back over his shoulder as he and Francis go out of the door.

John: Haven’t the heart to tell them they’re going to be playing cherubs.

Francis: Cherubs? In this weather? Brrr.

(new bubble): John, I’m sorry, I know the Old Testament isn’t really your thing. No scope in it for all your usual laughs and mayhem. But it’s what the Earl of Netherford expects.

PANEL 6b:

Outside. They’re going down the steps into the pub garden. It’s a cold day in early December. Not snowing. The pub is in a town but it’s morning, and whatever clientele there is hasn’t spilled out to the garden yet.

Francis is warming to his theme, arms waving. John catches the eye of a SERVING WENCH who’s putting out trestle tables.

Francis: And if we get the Earl’s patronage, the sky’s the limit.

(new bubble): Terribly nice touch getting a baby into the story, by the way. Should go down well. The Earl’s wife is broody, so I’m told.

PANEL 6c:

John helps the serving wench with a table. She smiles saucily at him. Francis doesn’t even notice as he goes to sit at another table.

John: Just as long as it wasn’t Moses being found among the rushes. That would’ve been too close to home for me.

Francis: Ah, yes. Your mysterious orphan past. I know better than to pry.

(new bubble): Not too scary with that Solomon scene, though, eh? Don’t want the ladies fainting, do we. Unless it’s for love.

PANEL 6e:

Francis, still not noticing the flirting going on, is pouring a beer from the pitcher on the table.

Winking, John leans over the table to steal a kiss. The serving wench looks like she’s going to respond. No doubt John is thinking of her as he says:

John: Wait till you see the Queen of Sheba’s dance. Should be a real show-stopper.

(new bubble): Mind you, it’ll be Richie in a dress, so that’ll take the edge off.

Francis: Oh, I meant to say, you will get a chance to stage one of your gutsier plays after all. I’ve booked us a performance on the way to Netherford. Just a manor house gig to earn a few crowns.

PANEL 6f:

John jerks his head round to look at Francis, who is holding out a flagon for him. The serving wench is left kissing empty air, lips still puckered but eyes wide in surprise.

John (pensive): Netherford..?

Wench: !

Francis: Yes. Rural folk, you know. They’ll appreciate the Gentleman John Barley touch. I thought “The Death of Pompey”. We’ll use the wax head from “King Herod”.

PANEL 6g:

Extreme close up on John’s expression of shock and dismay.

Francis (out of shot): Crossgate Manor, it’s called.

(new bubble): Ever heard of it?

"The Right Duke" (a Shakespearean World War 2 scenario)

Even by the standards of my group’s seasonal specials, this scenario is an odd one. The specials, held four times a year, are used for epic events in our regular campaigns. At least, that was the original idea. But one of our campaigns involves a group of immortal Spartans, and as that campaign plays out slowly over the centuries, we decided it would be fun from time to time to have non-canonical specials that would allow us to fast-forward in the characters’ lives. So, while the campaign is actually now up to the eighth century AD and the characters recently met Alfred the Great, in various specials we've played them in Victorian times, 1930s New York, a ‘60s spy adventure, and even policing the mean streets of Mega-City One.

As you can see from that list, not only are the Spartan specials non-canonical, they’re usually an excuse to play around with tone and genre in a way we don’t tend to do in our regular campaigns. The adventures don’t even have to make strictly logical sense. You know Moonlighting? The Taming of the Shrew episode? Like that.

Before I go on, there are spoilers ahead. If you’re going to be playing in this scenario, better look away now. Still here? Okay then…

There’s a reason I mentioned Shakespeare. This scenario was set in World War Two and followed on from events in the Immortal Spartans campaign that happened two millennia earlier. Back then, Julius Caesar had heard of a ruined city across the Atlantic where there was a marvellous device (alien technology, naturally) that could make him immortal just like the player characters. He and Cleopatra tried to use it to raise themselves up to be gods over mankind, but the characters thwarted that plan and Caesar seemed to be dissolved in the heart of the machine.

Fast forward to the 1940s. My idea was that on a mission to kidnap Mussolini, the characters would stray through a “tempest” created by an experimental atomic device, arriving not in Milan but in a parallel pocket universe where Caesar, exploiting the consonance between his shadow existence and Mussolini’s isolation as a puppet ruler, now imposed a different reality in which he was the exiled duke seeking a return to power. The characters are sucked into this pocket universe where “Il Duce” = “the Right Duke of Milan” and unless they can stop Caesar from completing the final ceremony, his reality will overwrite our timeline. All the centuries in which he was trapped as a shadow, his “gold complexion dimm’d”, will never have happened and he will become the immortal ruler of all as his original plan decreed.

As for tone – exiled dukes, mistaken identities, storms that warp reality, a magical unity of place and time. It had to be Shakespeare. Try and do some of the NPC dialogue in Elizabethan style. It doesn’t have to be the Bard, but just a few touches will add a lot of flavour. Of course, to use this scenario at all you’re going to need to do a lot of rejigging, even if you run it for one-off characters. Your best bet is probably just to read through it for ideas and then remake it in a form that suits your group. Let us know in the comments how it plays out. 

PLAYER BRIEFING 

[This is how my players came in, but you may decide to ditch the immortal Spartans thing entirely.]

It is the summer of 1943, and you have lived for nearly two and a half thousand years. You are healthy but, having seen so much, inevitably some experiences are hazier than others. Sometimes you wake dazzled by the blazing light on the brass walls of Athena’s temple, or with the taste of a fresh fig plucked from the groves beside the Eurotas. Early memories are always sharp. Others may come into focus for a while, uncertainly poised between recollection and dream, as each successive era sees you in new clothes, speaking a new tongue. Who knows how many loves and friends and foes you have forgotten, how many once-cherished experiences are lost forever in the unstopping torrent of your lives?

And now mankind, whom you have lived among like gods, is on the verge of harnessing the power of Apollo. What wonders the rest of the 20th century may bring, if the world survives the dark abyss of conflict into which it has lately fallen.

You have 480 points to spend. We are using only the two core GURPS 4e books: Characters and Campaigns, both to keep things simple and on the basis that some of the later books break more than they fix. So if it isn’t in those two core books, it isn’t in the special.

Also, no cinematic or paranormal abilities. Exotic abilities are probably okay, but we’ll look at those on a case by case basis rather than list them here.

Stats: IQ should not exceed 14. Other stats can go up to 20, and you can buy Lifting ST and Striking ST up to +5.

Skills in excess of 16 are capped by your IQ. For example, with IQ 12 you can have two skills at 22, or three at 20, etc. Your attitude to modern skills is up to you. Spartans despised long-range missile weapons such as bows as cowardly, but twenty-five centuries is a long time in which to moderate your views.

You have no disadvantages or quirks – at least, not that earn you any points.

Your pooled wealth is already assumed, so you don’t need to allocate points for that.

You don’t have to bother with allies and contacts; as the setting of a special is so limited it makes little sense for you to pay for them. I will automatically assign you contacts if appropriate. However, if you want to specify contacts, in full knowledge that they may not be accessible, feel free to do so.

You should decide if you have sympathy with the Axis or Allies, or are neutral. For the sake of this scenario, it’s assumed that in June 1943 you are at least purporting to be on the side of the Allies and so taking status or rank in the Allied forces may make sense. (If you choose to be a double agent, pay only for your status/rank on the Axis side; their intelligence resources will have arranged equivalent rank for you among the enemy at no cost to you.)

Languages: you have Greek, Latin, English and one other modern language free. You probably will need more. Area Knowledge could also come in handy. (The adventure will take place largely in the European theatre.)

Equipment is mostly going to be standard WW2 kit. Assume that you can have one weapon or other piece of gear of fine quality (adds +2 to skill) and the rest at good quality (+1 to skill). Rationale: this is a time of constant missions, so there’s a lot of churn on the gear you’re using, and not always time to resupply with the top-quality stuff between operations.

Body armour just wasn’t practical for field use in the early 1940s. You might put a bulletproof jacket under an overcoat if you were expecting an assassin to take a potshot at you, or don a flak jacket while aboard a bomber (they are effective at stopping slow-moving shrapnel, not high-velocity bullets), but you’d be lumbering about like Iron Man with his power switched off. The only armour usable on active duty is a helmet (DR4, weight 3lbs).

Your airship, the Apollo, is 250m long with a duralumin hull and seventeen helium gasbags. It is powered by four 1250 hp engines with swivel mounts allowing them to be angled in almost any direction. It has a top speed of 85 mph and a range of 7000 miles.

The bridge and radio room are in the control gondola located at the fore of the hull, with a secondary main crew/passenger area molded into the lower deck area further back. The main quarters include kitchen, dining room, sixteen two-person passenger cabins, further cabins for forty crew behind a bulkhead, and an observation lounge. Access between the control gondola and living quarters is via the interior deck.

The control gondola can be detached from the hull in extreme emergency, deploying chutes that allow a controlled descent to the sea.

Observation nacelles are located fore and aft on the upper curve of the hull. An observation pod called the Eyrie can be lowered from the midpoint of the vessel to keep lookout when hovering in cloud.

An internal hangar holds five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes: Phobos, Deimos, Thanatos, Aidos and Aite. These can be lowered for launch by means of a trapeze mechanism, onto which they can hook to return to the ship.

Act I:

TESTING THE DEMON CORE

Summer 1943. We open over the North Pole, aboard the characters’ airship Apollo, where they are helping Dr Otto Frisch and his assistant Auberon Farley conduct tests using the Lady Godiva Device. The aurora borealis is like being inside a glowing curtain. When Dr Frisch turns on the device, the aurora intensifies and bends in towards the ship. Realizing that the Demon Core of the device is going critical, Farley reaches in and pulls out a component, deactivating it just as the glowing plasma flows through the ship.

They receive a message to proceed to Dounreay Castle on the northern coast of Scotland. The message is tagged “Blenheim”, indicating highest urgency.

THE BANNERBOYS

En route to Scotland, the airship is attacked by a squad of Bannerboys (Blutfahnejugend). These are young (16-18 year old) Aryan super-soldiers created by a process (“Der Agoge”) developed by Nazi scientists of the Thulë Society in the early 1930s. Bannerboys refer to the Spartans as “Die Golemen” (to distinguish them from so-called Übermenschen).

The control gondola loses contact with the observation nacelles on the upper part of the hull. (Snipers in the Nazi glider took out both spotters.)

The Nazis are attacking in two waves. Inside the hull, commandos are planting bombs while a machine gunner covers them from by the Sparrowhawks. The LMG takes a few rounds to set up, so if characters move fast they will only have three covering snipers to worry about.

The second wave attacks the passenger gondola with the aim of stealing or destroying the Lady Godiva Device. They abseil down the hull, blow the windows with concussion grenades (HT-5 to avoid stun) and move in.

During the attack, the Lady Godiva Device begins to activate. Physics roll at -2 to deactivate it.

BRIEFING AT DOUNREAY

The characters get their initial mission briefing from Winston Churchill. The Allied invasion of Sicily has been brought forward and will begin imminently. They are to abduct Mussolini to prevent Hitler from continuing to use him to legitimize Axis control of northern Italy.

ARRIVING AT MALTA

Upon arriving in Malta they are greeted by Rear-Admiral Gareth “Bay” Bayswater and his staff.

In Bay’s office they meet an operative called Rasenna who gives them a plan of the Italian coastal defences, and tells them that “Il Duce” is in Milan. They will need to grab him there before he returns to Salo, where the German fortifications will make the job all but impossible.

They need to decide how to equip for the mission. The plan is to parachute near to the city. Bay’s people advise that mostly they should be in civilian gear, as military patrols are more likely to be questioned or even co-opted by superiors.

Two of the party could go in as an Oberstleutnant (Wing Commander”) and Feldwebel (Sergeant) of the First Fallschirm-Jäger Division (“the Green Devils”). As Luftwaffe special ops, they are not subordinate to the SS officers they may run into. They can be supplied with forged papers that confirm they are under orders from General Kurt Student.

The civilians will have to make do with concealable weapons. The two German officers can carry SMGs or FG42 automatic rifles, but need to be careful not to attract undue attention (no actual machine guns!). They can also wear steel Fallschirmhelms (DR 5 on skull).

Incidentally, we use GURPS 4e for the Immortals Spartan campaign. Why? Here’s why.

There is an Italian agent whom they should attempt to contact at a nightclub called Il Fungo a Mezzanotte on the Via del Fieno. They are to ask for the head waiter and say (in Italian) “There is no chance of a mint julep, presumably?” (“Non vi è alcuna possibilità di un Julep di menta, presumibilmente?”) and the agent will contact them.

The agent will know Mussolini’s whereabouts and can provide them with whatever clothing and papers are needed to get access to him. Failing that, they should return to their radio set (wherever they leave it) and request new orders.

Act II:

THE TEMPEST

As per orders: take the Apollo over Milan to parachute in, seize Mussolini, and bring him back alive across the Swiss border 50 miles away. It’s midsummer night.

A fierce storm is raging over northern Italy. This is where they discover a saboteur (Frisch’s assistant) has planted the Godiva Device in the upper rigging of the Apollo and set it to go critical. As they jump, a vortex of glowing light surrounds the city and they leave a “vapour trail” of sparks as they descend.

If they try to get away from the city, they’ll find a force field now surrounds it at a distance of a couple of miles.
(This list of some of the major Milan landmarks may be useful to provide colour.)

AT THE NIGHTCLUB

The nightclub is called Il Fungo a Mezzanotte – the Midnight Mushroom. The agent they have to meet is Mira. She unrolls from a carpet and does a slinky Egyptian-style number. (Eidetic memory identifies her as Cleopatra, but not right away – say “she reminds you of someone”, then later give them an IQ roll.)

Mira tells them “Il Duce” will be at the castle tomorrow morning for a state proclamation, but that he will be heavily guarded by SS troopers then. She will try to find out his whereabouts tonight, when it will be easier to kidnap him, but her informer hasn’t got in touch yet.

“They say his agents are out searching for something called the Proserpine Key. I don’t know where that is, but if you find it then you may find him. I was given this ring, which is supposed to be a clue of some kind.”

As they talk, there’s a raid on club by the police, whom Mira calls the Calibanieri (sic). They might try to fight it out, but Mira hurries them to the back door. “They’ll call for Pineborn and Il Brute. Go to the Love-in-Idleness café near the cemetery. I’ll join you there.”

If they demur, have Il Brute and Mr Pineborn arrive. (See later for stats.)

THE RING

Mira’s ring is a large diamond on a silver setting. Scrutinizing it closely reveals a tiny imperfection inside the gem. A Vision roll at -10 allows them to see the “imperfection” is in flux.

To view the image, they either need a magnifying glass (could break into a jeweller’s) or hold it up to a bright light like the lamp on the side of the Cathedral plaza. The image shows Cleopatra and Caesar as glowing figures. (This is a good point for someone to realize that Cleopatra is Mira.)

The ring itself is not the Proserpine Key. Mira herself is the Key.

THE CATHEDRAL and THE INFORMANT

It’s likely that on the way through from the Via del Fieno to the Love-in-Idleness, they will pass by the Cathedral plaza.

The image of Mussolini is projected onto the side of the Cathedral at night, hundreds of feet high. Except… it’s not Mussolini’s face, it’s Caesar’s. 

The informant in a guy in a trenchcoat who they need to spot (Vision at -5 for the darkness) across the plaza. As they see him (100 yards away) he ducks into a telephone kiosk.

The informant’s phone call summons the Calibanieri – unless they shoot him, in which case the shot brings a patrolling SS jeep.

BARON GLAUER

They’re fleeing from police cars (why? maybe they pursued and killed the informant) and are cornered, until Baron Glauer pops up from a manhole cover and leads them to safety.

Baron Glauer is a psionic of the Thule Society. He tells them that he can see both worlds, theirs and Caesar’s, having the ability to send out his astral form between realities and even teleport by Tibetan meditation. He promises to help the characters, warning that they must find the Proserpine Key or Caesar will use it to replace their time line with his own. He says that as long as they stay within five yards of him, he can cloud the minds of ordinary patrolmen not to notice them.

In fact Glauer just wants the Proserpine Key in order to have a bargaining chip with Caesar.

THE CAFÉ / CEMETERY

Mira sends word to them at the café to meet her at the cemetery nearby. Her note says, “I will wait at the  grave of Signor Einstein,” which refers to Hermann Einstein, Albert Einstein’s father.

At the grave they do indeed find Mira waiting for them. She tells them Caesar is at the Cathedral. “He is getting ready for some kind of ceremony at dawn.”

However, Baron Glauer recognizes Mira as the Proserpine Key and teleports her away with him just as Mr Pineborn and Il Brute arrive for a big fight.

ENCOUNTERING IL BRUTE AND MR PINEBORN

Some special effects for if/when this happens:

◦         Lights flicker – that’s the “they’re here” warning.

◦         Pineborn may put lights out altogether (both he and Il Brute can see in the dark).

◦         Il Brute can rip out tables and use them as shields or to throw.

◦         Il Brute can throw Mr Pineborn at someone -- a highball special.

As the characters race to the Cathedral, they’ll see that parties of workers in many streets are decking out Il Duce’s statues with purple robes and laurel wreaths, as for a Roman triumph.

 

Act III:

STOPPING THE RITUAL

Caesar is conducting a marriage ritual that will transform him and Mira into full immortals and replace our reality with his. The characters have to disrupt the ceremony.

They face Caesar and his bodyguard – not as tough a fight as the one earlier, unless the bodyguard were alerted to use gold bullets. [The Spartans can regenerate most damage, but gold weapons disrupt this ability so that they heal from such injuries only as fast as normal men.]

If the characters successfully disrupt the ritual, this pocket universe reverts to real-world Milan, Caesar becomes Mussolini (alive) and they will need to reach the Swiss border. Baron Glauer could help if they haven’t killed him, though he can only teleport so large a group a few miles.