Putting forth some token effort

One of the nice non-miniature items that came out of the Empire of the Dead Kickstarter from West Wind Productions was the sheet of laser-cut steampunk counters.

In addition to the precut sheet of card or very thin wood or whatever it is, it came with plastic tokens to which one attaches the actual counter. (One can be seen atop the sheet below in the lower left corner.) There's also a translucent, small d6 in the bag. Very cute!

So given that state of my vision and my accelerating decrepitude, once I get these goodies on the table I want to be able to see them better. They're wonderfully etched, or burned, or whatever magical process was used to inscribe them, with both a letter and a word indication the counter's meaning. But I know standing over a table, even if I have my new bifocals on, I likely won't be able to read the full word. So let's make the letter as visible as possible.

To that end, I picked up a Minwax Stain Marker at the local big-box store (for about $5) the other night. I chose "Early American," mainly because they only other marker color they had in stock was "Ebony," which was a lot darker than I wanted to go for. I still want these counters to evoke the polished wood-and-brass ethos that steampunk is so known for.

I did these fairly quickly, knowing that, as deft a hand as I am with a chisel-tipped marker, that I still wouldn't be able to totally keep the stain within the lines. I know my limitations!

So here are some progress shots. First, I've darkened only the first row, to show you the improvement in contrast.

Now, I've done all the letters once.

And here, although there's scant difference, I have gone over the letters a second time.

Next I plan to grab a can or real, honest-to-God wood stain and do the whole sheet. Probably just a "Natural" tone, to keep the contrast, maybe a "Golden Oak" or "Golden Pecan." I'll have to wait until next week to do that though, when I've reclaimed a little more space to work in.

Then I'll glue the plastic tokens to the counters and viola!, we'll have a full set of the little buggers.

Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table soon!

I need more scream in my steam

I love steampunk, as you all know by now, but Gothic horror also runs through my veins. Some of the additions to "In Her Majesty's Name" in the "Heroes, Villains and Fiends" supplement fed into that hunger, but it really did little more than whet my appetite. So now I've decided to push the envelope and write some rules for creatures I'm eager to see on the tabletop for IHMN.

So, as I push my steampunk to screampunk, I'm eager for your feedback on these house rules, either here or over on the IHMN board over at  Lead Adventure Forum.

Let us on this Friday the 13th begin by adding ... GHOSTS!

Ghosts in ‘In Her Majesty’s Name’

Some arcane practitioners have learned to summon spirits to aid them on the battlefield. The  ethereal nature of these ghosts presents quite a problem for their opponents: How do you stop something you can’t touch until it lays hands on you to kill you?

To control a spirit on the battlefield, the arcanist must possess some kind of personal token of the spirit, often a remnant of its physical body. These anchors are often the bones of the deceased, but may take other forms in the case of spirits not originating as humans. One example is the banshee, or bane sidhe, a fey spirit whose wail spells death.

While physical combat with a manifest spirit will temporarily slow or disrupt a spirit or ghost, the only way to permanently dispel it is to destroy its anchor, whatever the arcanist is using to compel the spirit to fight.

Type    Pluck FV   SV   Spd   Armor  Cost   T&P     Basic Equipment

Ghost

4+

+2

+0

+0

8

35+MP

Ethereal*, Terrifying, up 30 pts. of Mystical Powers

Claws (fighting knife)

Ghosts may exchange their weaponry for monstrous fangs (sword, +1 points) or a scythe (halberd, +3 points) .

* Unique skill (15 pts). Ghosts move up to 6”, ignoring all intervening terrain. (Ghosts may run.) Ethereal figures cannot be targeted by physical shooting attacks. They can, however, be targeted by arcane powers that operate during the shooting phase, like spitfire.

Ghosts fight normally in base-to-base contact. If a ghost is hit and fails its pluck roll, however, it is only Knocked Down. Only destroying the ghost’s anchor will see it removed from the table.

A ghost’s anchor must be destroyed in close combat, because there are often extra steps involved besides just physical damage (salting the bones, sanctifying/desecrating the site or similar). Unless otherwise specified, anchors have an armor value of 9 and a pluck of 5+. Once the anchor is destroyed, the ghost is immediately removed from play.

As long as a company has one member possessing Mystical Powers, even if from a reliquary, it may utilize ghosts. A ghost and its anchor are deployed together simultaneously. Anchors do not move once deployed. No arcane practitioner or company may utilize more than three ghosts in any one encounter. Removal of all arcane practitioners from play has no effect on ghosts.

Figure suggestions:

Horrorclix Skeletal Maiden

Reaper Ghost by Julie Guthrie

Reaper Spectre by Dennis Mize

Enigma Miniatures The Old Death

More with Miss Rossum, Our Lady of the Machines

Hello, everyone. I promised you some fiction, and I have been gratified by the news that many of you have been eagerly awaiting a further foray into my Victorian steampunk London. It is in the setting I intend to use for my games of "In Her Majesty's Name" and "Empire of the Dead."

Today we have the first of two recent pieces I've been working on. You've already met Helena Domin, known to all who pass her manufactory as Miss Rossum. After all, that's Rossum's Anthropomorphic Automatons emblazoned on the side in glowing letters.

Last time we got a tiny taste of the potential Miss Rossum sees in the world beyond her financial, mechanical empire -- her ubiquitous creations stand in every affluent home, relied up but not worthy of further regard, essential but ignored. Should the need arise, Miss Rossum has an artificial army ready to move at her whim.

Today, though, we look further inside, and see what plans Helena Domin may have with regards to herself.

I give you "Our Lady of the Machines"

Our Lady of the Machines 

Helena Domin could feel the distant thrum of her manufactory’s production line as she descended the stone stairs. This staircase, indeed even the doorway to it, would never be discovered by the thousands of automatons working above. She had created them with exactly this blind spot -- for them, the doorway simply did not exist. They could not perceive it even if they stood in front of it. 

The lighting spaced along the walls gave a warm amber glow to the spiraling stairs as she descended. Tthe vibration of the machinery aboveground retreated and soom was barely a tickle under the soles of her shoes. Finally she came to the lowest level of Rossum’s Anthropomorphic Automatons, a space only she knew existed. The dressed stone chamber was cluttered with equipment, all brass and glass, but was dominated by a giant vessel in its center. An elongated bronze canister twice the height of a man canted back between ornate, fluted brass legs. An assemblage of tubes and wires ran into the top of the vessel, and an equally complex set of pipes, handles and drains were attached to its lower surfaces. An oblong glass hatch stretched along the upper-facing side of the tank. A set of controls for operating the device stood nearby on a wooden church lectern pressed into service.

This was the one thing for which Helena Domin returned to her wartorn homeland. After establishing herself in London, she had retraced the route she first traveled as a refugee. She picked her way across the burned fields of the island, skirting the destroyed plantation houses, and any lurking dangers, until she came to her former home. Down in the subterranean levels of that building, she spent days dismantling this entire contraption, loading it onto a succession of tracked, self-propelled motorized carts; they followed behind her like obedient pack mules as she worked her way back to the coast. She loaded them aboard the craft of the smuggler she’d enlisted and returned to Britain. 

And now the machine was again secure in her domain. Reassembled, polished, ready -- dormant. Helena ran her hands over the rounded, gleaming surfaces of the central tank.

The birthing vessel.

Its codes and controls contained all the information her creators had used to bring her into being. The right conflux of crystals and chemicals, of proteins and potions, and she had emerged, fully formed, from the tank’s confines, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. With its current configuration, if fueled and filled with the right components, it would grow an exact duplicate of herself in a matter of days.  

So far, she had resisted the temptation. 

Picking her way to a place behind the system’s controls, Helena looked at her latest makeshift additions to the tank’s operations. She had crafted a failsafe, one for which her makers had not foreseen a need. Of course, they could never had imagined she would be the sole survivor, the last remnant of the Universal Robots, the biological handcrafted creations of Old Man Rossum. 

Those arrogant academics had not foreseen any way in which their weaponsmithing would not leave them as rulers of the world, instead of smoking corpses in a grey, ruined landscape, bodies of meat and metal strewn everywhere, left as meals for the crows and the rust. 

Her failsafe utilized the same internal systems that continuously monitored her physical integrity, and it capitalized on the communication potential inherent in her structure. Layered within her biology was the ability to generate high-energy signals, either directed or omnidirectional, and she had fitted the birthing vessel with an appropriate receiver. Now, were she ever to completely shut down, to be killed as it were, as her higher functions shut down, all that energy would shift to communications, to generate a signal directed here, at the birthing vessel. The signal would do what she could not yet will herself to do: It would begin the germination process. Upon her body dying, and the high energy signal reaching the receiver here, the birthing vessel would give rise to another Helena Domin in a matter of days. 

Her ritual had now become weekly descents into the room that held the machine, where she would then touch the foot-wide metal hemisphere alongside the control panel. A bright, loud spark would jump from her hand into the ball. “The spark of life,” she thought, chuckling. But that electromagnetic charge in some way carried with it her memories, her emotions, her attitudes and preferences, her predilections and prejudices. That tiny lightning bolt meant that, should the machine fire, the body that emerged from the tank would indeed be her, with memories intact up to now, the point of transference, losing only whatever event out in the world would cost her her current existence. 

She had found a way to, in effect, make herself immortal. 

She had conquered so much in her brief existence, and now she had conquered death, or the fear of death at least. 

As she mounted the stairs to ascend the spiraling staircase back to the churning, clunking assembly lines on the manufactory’s main floor, she let out a long sigh. 

“That gives me more time,” she thought, “to conquer the crushing loneliness.”  

She emerged onto the production floor and walked head-down toward her office, past the rows of gleaming mechanical workers assembling reproductions of themselves. In row upon row of identical burnished faces, none looked up from their tasks to take notice of her passing.

OK, folks, that's it for today. Hope you enjoyed it or are, at least, intrigued. I'll have the second promised piece of prose up for you tomorrow. (I know I said the weekend, and Monday's not the weekend, but I ain't making cheese sandwiches here. Creativity takes time, you know.) Tomorrow I'll introduce you to some members of the Ladies Auxiliary and reveal what they really do.

Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table.

More regarding the Obscenarium

A letter found among the effects of Donald B. Pearson, third son of Peter Pearson, the American railroad magnate, visiting friends in London on the occasion of his 21st year. The youngest Pearson remains missing, presumed dead: 

My dearest Reginald, I scarcely know where to begin. I told you that a fortnight ago I came into possession of a gilt-edged calling card bearing the name of Synryll Voolge, the so-called Crooked Man. Those tokens are considered priceless, and gossip says they only find their way into the hands of those destined to need them, as they are required to gain entrance to Voolge's demesne, the infamous Obscenarium.  

As one would gather from its designation, the Obscenarium deigns to preserve and present all the manners in which man has found to slake his thirst for carnal delights. But it is so much more than that. There are any number of red-lit, back-alley parlors where flesh is peddled, where a man can spend his lust or dull his senses with any number of concubines or concoctions.  

Where those pursuits and depravities end, the Obscenarium begins. In demure alcoves on marble stands one will find sculptures depicting the wildest scenes of Sodom or discover paintings delineating the rape of the Sabine women. Down pristine corridors float ethereal tunes tempting one toward the most licentious releases. I found myself contemplating first the sins of the flesh, then pulled further in thought, teased into considering the many ways to violate the mind, the common sensibilities, then lured into calculating exactly what would be needed to desecrate the immortal soul. What is the ultimate taboo, Reginald? When you think of one, imagine what would be beyond it? Can you conceive of a sin contravening holy laws of gods yet undiscovered? I tell you such things are already old hat to those who tender custom to Voolge and his cadre of glittering, beautiful, brittle servants.

The self-possessed and achingly beautiful docents walk coolly among the visiting nobles, dandies and common folk like the Muses, clad only in whispers of sheerest cloth that somehow make them appear both wanton and remote, simultaneously imperious and seductive. I know I found myself poleaxed by desire again and again, knowing that I would never see a woman more comely or a man so Apollonian when I would turn and there would pass another of these guides to the intricacies of delight and degradation on offer, with looks both angelic and diabolical all at once. 

People believe the Obscenarium traffics in depravity, that Voolge is somehow set to conduct souls to hell by the traincar-full. I tell you that to enter through its massive teak doors is to have already descended to depravity and abandoned it. Mere depravity would seem like a welcome harbor on the sea of the soul after seeing what the inner chambers of that complex have to offer.

I would offer you more words on what goes on within those chambers, but some fell restriction stays my pen, bids my lips stay sealed on what I have seen, felt, understood within those rooms. They are at once like the half-remembered contents of a fever dream and yet possessed of an earthshaking reality that I feel to the depths of my guts, in the marrow of each bone in my body. I feel like a new person, as if I was somehow stripped down to my essential elements and reassembled, yet more myself than ever. Whatever I went through in those rooms, it has changed me irrevocably. 

I still possess the calling card. I found it tucked neatly in the top pocket of my jacket when I awoke this morning, back in the rooms I've hired for this trip. I have no memory of returning from last night's excursion. Ha! I must have, as I am here. 

I await only nightfall, to see if that card will get me back in. I must return, if only to see ... I cannot recall what. It is as if I am desperate to find a passage in a book that has yet to be written, to recall an indescribable and fleeting taste from my youth, to see the face of someone who was never born, but with a visage I know as intimately as I know my own reflection in the mirror. 

I must return. Until then, dear Reginald, I will see if I can shake this feeling that clouds my memory and stills my tongue, that I might tell you more of what I saw inside the Obscenarium. I would swear, Reginald, that the hallways, they MOVE ...

No more of the letter remains. Pearson never returned to his rooms, and the letter went unsent, only to be picked up by constables investigating the disappearance before making into the hands of Scotland Yard's Hell Branch.

My Dark London: Meet the Mistress of the Mechanical, Miss Rossum

Hi everybody. Not much going on gamewise here, but I have continued to develop the fictional London that will undergird my games of In Her Majesty's Name and Empire of the Dead. 

Thank you, everyone who has given me such positive feedback on the previous offerings in this series of character sketches. Today I'd like to introduce you to the force behind the labor revolution sweeping the shops and farms and workhouses of my version of steampunk London: Miss Rossum, owner, proprietor and chief engineer of Rossum's Anthropomorphic Automatons.

Mistress of the Mechanical

They call her Miss Rossum, and she allows it. It is, after all, the name displayed in glowing red letters on the side of her manufactory. 

It is not the name she was given, nor how she thinks of herself. 

They also call her beautiful, and she, in weaker moments, concedes they are right.

They call her brilliant, those who can fathom the scope of her endeavors. They call her coarser names, those whose own handiworks gather dust, driven from the market by her superior offerings.

Few who purchase or hire her creations know of the island nation from whence she comes. They have not heard of the uprising and violence that laid waste to her home and drove her here, to London. Some may have heard the name Rossum in the past, likely in connection with the first of the mechanical men, and their recollections are likely positive, with associations of durability, stability and innovation.

The public may see her in upper-class attire and debating shipping duties with a wharfinger or some local elected functionary, or they may see her outside the walls of her massive smoke-belching, ear-splitting manufactory clad in her working leathers and goggles, taking a brief respite, her arm enveloped by the massive steam-fist she uses when manning her production line.

But they do not know her, three generations removed from the original Rossum. London thinks of her only as the Mistress of the Mechanical, purveyor of a broad range of machines designed to perform work humans find too dangerous, too complicated or too tedious.

Her customers come to her, the woman behind Rossum’s Anthropomorphic Automatons, for their miners, their fieldhands, their domestic staff. Corpulent government agents negotiate the shadows to meet her on the sly, to feel her out about purchasing soldiers, a topic that provokes a curt refusal and a dangerous flashing of her steely eyes.

They have no idea, her customers, that her name is actually Helena Domin. They have no idea of the fundamental differences between her and them. Though biological, she is not human. She is a survivor, a sole survivor. None left alive know of the true advances made in the final production run of Rossum’s Universal Robots. So advanced they cannot be told from human, unless they reveal themselves by being faster, stronger, smarter, more durable.

By being better.

And if Helena Domin has her way, no one will ever know. She will be the last, and her mechanical men and women will be shiny brass and chrome, gearwork and rivets exposed and reassuring to her human customers, their stick-men frames almost comical. They will be obviously made, not grown, as she was.

Her manufactory whistles and rumbles day and night, steam plumes rising ‘round the clock from its stacks, its assembly lines cranking out the workers her customers so desperately desire. Mechanical workers build copies of themselves every day of the week, ready to occupy the niches humans are eager to abandon.

So the Mistress of the Mechanical keeps track of each of her children, in the mines, in the fields, in every home of means, in every office in every firm, so common now that people do not even notice them. And they would be alarmed, these customers, if they knew the true number of these vast uncounted Anthropomorphic Automatons, some tiny and childlike, some towering and silent, but all aware.

All waiting.

And all fiercely loyal to their creator.

So obvious inspiration, in part, from the Cybermen and the Cylons, but the biggest fictional link I'm playing with is of course Karel Capek's 1920 play "Rossum's Universal Robots," or "R.U.R." which was the original source of the word "robot." I believe it derives from the word "rabota" which, in Old Church Slavonic, meant a drudge, one who worked at forced labor. (Cobbled together from things I heard on Q.I. and NPR, so I could be slightly off here, folks.)

Here are some pics of minis that I'm considering for Miss Rossum and some of her mechanical creations.

I'm considering this Reaper Savage Worlds/Deadlands female
 Mad Scientist for Miss Rossum. Needs a bigger power fist, though.

Here's a powerfist/hand I may extract/lop off for Miss Rossum.

Here's another one, Crooked Dice's Dr. Ulysses Argo for 7TV.
This has the advantage of having either arm as an option.

Reaper's Jeeves the Clockwork Robot has just the look I want for her Automatons.

These Reaper Savage Worlds/Deadlands Automatons are a little TOO human-seeming.
Maybe a head swap with some Robot Legionnaires would do the trick.

The Robot Legionnaires of which I spoke in the earlier caption.

These Wolsung mirror golems also capture a feel I really like.

Here they are repurposed with more usual
technical tasks, so they're known as Clockwork Servants.

That's it for now, o my brothers and sisters. Maybe if I get some time this coming week I can come up with some game stats for these occupants of my imagination.

Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the tables!

Kickstarter rewards start rolling in, and oh, by the way, thanks everybody

First off, thank you everyone for your continued positive thoughts, prayers, and/or ritual interactions with the divinities of your choice on behalf of Tracey and me during and following her recent surgery. It was her third spinal surgery in 13 months, but she has regained her strength more quickly than ever before. What happens with her balance, sensation and pain levels remains to be seen as she continues to recover. Impatient person that she is, she wants to be all better NOW, and of course who could blame her. I have to keep reminding her, "Sweetheart, you still have your stitches in. It's early days." Her nervous system needs time to un-jangle itself. 

Next, Kickstarter rewards continue to come in from projects pledged oh so long ago ...

Effigy Miniatures' Havoc Protocol line sent me the set of The Founders I pledged for. These are two ultra-upper class sci-fi civilians in their fancy duds, as well as a hovering servicebot. 

What you're not seeing in the dronebot photo is the inch-long clear acrylic rod that serves as its flight stand, because as I arranged these pieces for the photo, it made a break for freedom and plunged headlong off my desk. The carpet at work seems to have swallowed it, and of course the cleaners vacuumed later that night. So I'm going to explore alternatives there, obviously. 

There are too few civilian minis about, especially for sci fi, so I pounced on these when I saw the concept art. I love them, and the execution is just as fantastic. Although I will likely be a tad more conservative, I expect to see versions of these showing up online painted like the flamboyant capital-dwellers from "The Hunger Games."

The minis seem a little taller than I expected, but they are gorgeously cast and have minimal mold lines and zero flash. (I also got a Havoc Protocol supporter's badge as part of my pledge.)

Yesterday I received my minis from Impact's Chibi Dungeon Adventurers campaign. This is one I really wish I could've gone for in a much bigger way, but the campaign closed in early November, which was during Tracey's previous hospitalization, so I had to be spare with my support. The line includes chibi (also called SD or super-deformed) versions of all the high-fantasy dungeon-crawling or -dwelling characters and critters we know and love. I started out planning to get just the classes from the old D&D cartoon -- thief, ranger, barbarian, cavalier, magician and acrobat. Then versions of Venger, Dungeon Master and the shadow demon were added, then the campaign just exploded. If there's a character type you love, or a denizen of the Monster Manual you just adore, chances are it is replicated in this line. The art style makes even menacing characters cute, and if you like the figures for Super Dungeon Explore, you owe it to yourself to check these out. 

In the end, I ordered just two figures, Warrior Red -- a dual-wielding female fighter in a scale-mail bikini with wild, flowing hair -- and, of course, Cthulhu. I found when paring down, going with my and Tracey's favorite characters was likely the best bet. 

The figures are made of the remarkable Trollcast material, and they have exceptional fine detail and seem significantly stronger than one would expect given the thinness of some of the weapons. They're both multipart, so all I can show you for now is them arranged all nicely together. There is some flash and only moderate mold lines. It'll be interesting to see how cleanup goes compared to previous non-metal figures I've worked on. 

These aren't the first Trollcast figures I've acquired. That honor goes to Judge Minty, the figure from the most recent 4th Semi Annual Frothers Charity Thingy. I got him a few weeks ago (thanks Dags!) but I had neglected to post a photo. So here's two, an overexposed one against a dark background, and an insufficiently lit one against a neutral background. Maybe if you split the difference you can see enough detail to get how nifty this mini is.

If you haven't seen the short film on YouTube, click the embedded video below and watch it. You'll thank me. 

OK, that's it for today. I thought I had more but my energy seems to have fled. I'll be back in a few days to introduce you to another character who'll be populating my Victorian London for In Her Majesty's Name and Empire of the Dead. This time it will be the Mistress of Machines, Miss Rossum (I think her first name's Emmy, but I could be confusing her for the actress).


Back to the boards, everybody, and I'll see you across the tables shortly.

Oasis in times of crisis

Hello everyone. In case you hadn't heard, my better half Tracey is back in the hospital. Her numbness and pain levels increased significantly between Saturday and Sunday, and after a disastrous visit to the ER, we finally got her transferred back up to Wellstar Kennestone into the care of her neurosurgeon Dr. Franklin Lin. 

After three days of steroids and observation, it's been determined that she needs another spinal surgery, a decompression of the vertebrae at T10, T11 or T12, or possibly all three. (This is right below the site of her previous decompression, which was just over a year ago.)

So that will be Friday. We don't yet know what time. Prayers and positive energy are appreciated.

In the meantime, today I took take a little time for myself away from the demense of the hospital to visit THE GREATEST GAMING STORE IN THE UNIVERSE. 

Giga-Bites Cafe in Marietta, Ga., is all that and a piña colada smoothie (which is on the menu, y'all.) The store stocks a wide selection of the latest tabletop wargames, board games and card games, as well as having a diverse menu selection at its grill.

On offer are coffees and cappuccinos, smoothies, paninis and desserts. I had the ham and Swiss panini, which includes sautéed onions and Thousand Island dressing. Very savory. I also had a homemade brownie, because stress makes me crave chocolate, but damn if the lemon blueberry scones weren't tempting.

My second favorite thing about the store is the breadth if its selection. They have minis from the largest manufacturers and from smaller boutique studios. Whether you're into sci fi, fantasy, post apocalyptic, weird war or anything in between, they've got you covered. 

Today there was a lot if 40K going on, and some of the many tables showed evidence of their active Magic the Gathering community. They also have a full library of terrain for the gaming tables, representing many different landscapes. 

My favorite thing about the store, though, is its staff. Owner David Finn is a superstar. Now get this: I live three hours away and visit the store once every three to sixth months, but when I walk in, he recognizes me and greets me by name. And I know the store's regulars also benefit from his warmth and generosity of spirit. All the staff shares that openness and attention to the clientele, and that are also detail- and service-oriented. 

Today I was restricting myself to things that would go well with my steampunk warbands for In Her Majesty's Name and Empire of the Dead, so I only bought a couple of Micro Art Studios resin bases. Oh, I forgot to mention the swathes of goodies they have for painting, basing and terrain-making. So, they have swathes of goodies for painting, basing and terrain-making. There. 

And though I was being financially disciplined, given the expenditures endemic to a prolonged hospital stay, I was severely tempted by the Killer Croc figure for Arkham City. If they'd had Harley Quinn in stock, I know I'd have broken protocol and bought her. 

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, but I was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible as people played. Also, my camera is my iPhone 4. I also apologize that they're all infodumped here at the end. Often I'll start a post in my phone and then finish it up on the laptop before publishing, but yesterday a medtech knocked over a glass of water that infiltrated our laptop's touchpad. Now the thing won't turn on at all. 

The hospital is being very in touch about the situation,and I'm going to drop it off at Best Buy for an estimate tomorrow when I run home to get some fresh clothes and check on our kitty. 

So back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the tables soon!

Dramatis Personae for my steampunk dreams

Today I'm going to introduce you to someone very special to me. He's a character who's been banging around in my head for several years now, and I've finally given him some form and function, and he's going to be prominent in my steampunk London, the setting for the battles I shall fight using Empire of the Dead and In Her Majesty's Name rules.

Because I came to wargaming after years of being a roleplayer, I'm very much a story/fluff player. It's doubtful you'd ever see me build a beardy/killy/WAAC* list. What matters to me is the narrative. As such, I haven't written out rules/stats for this gentleman yet, as I don't really see him as a combatant, at least not at first. And if it comes to that, he has access to powers and abilities that would put a very strange spin on things, so maybe he could be drawn in as a campaign-ending big bad (or maybe a medium-sized bad).

Those of you who've been with the blog a bit over this past year have already been introduced to the Army of the Abandoned, my Moreau-inspired gatorman army I plan to run as  a werewolf list under the EOTD rules. I've also talked a little about and shown some figures I've acquired for the Ladies Auxiliary, my EOTD Gentlemen's Club analogue. Well, all these and the gentleman you're about to meet inhabit the same steampunk setting in my head, along with others to whom I hope to introduce you as we enter our second year together here at "Dispatches from the Rim." (The blog's one-year anniversary is coming up on July 8th. The forty-fifth anniversary of my birth is coming up July 15th. Huzzah to both of us!)

As is my custom, I'll introduce you to this fellow in a little piece of fiction. I call it, "The Crooked Man."

His fellow pedestrians did not look at Synryll Voolge as he walked by, though they yearned to stare at him, at the oddness of his shape, at the curious way he moved. 

They did not dare, though, for it was better to burn with curiosity than be caught in Voolge's singular gaze, to be transfixed by those phosphorescent orbs staring out of a head hung too low on his chest.

It almost looked as if Voolge's head sprung from the center of his sternum, like a strange fruit dangling from the high, rigid arc of his twisted spine.

The Crooked Man, they called him, when they were sure he could not hear them.

He heard, though. 

As striking as they found his appearance, they found his movements even stranger. Voolge's steps were feather-light, his pace assured, though his deformity allowed him to look neither left nor right as he walked. 

When he reached a corner, it was not as if he turned -- more like he stopped midstride and the world rotated around him. The effect was known to induce vertigo in those nearby as he angled, or was angled, to his new direction. Then, his cat-soft steps would resume, as if there had been neither change nor interruption. 

Voolge made steady progress across the rain-wet cobbles towards his place of business. Its grandiloquent exterior lacked any indication of its nature, no explanatory sign indicating what goods or services one might procure within. 

Had anyone had the temerity to stare as Voolge approached his customary destination, they would have witnessed the massive teak door swing open as if weightless, welcoming the master back to his mysterious domain. And they would have seen Voolge swept quickly inside, as if boosted by a sudden gust of wind, though the clockwork regularity of his footsteps never altered.

The massive black door. The fluted columns along the colonnade. The gargoyles and grotesques atop the roofline. Many paused and wondered what secrets or riches might be hid within. Only those who received the personal invitation of the Crooked Man knew for sure. 

At night they could be seen, some coming boldly, others furtively, but always eagerly, to the sumptuous façade in Pangborn Lane. Each visitor, whether clad in the finest bespoke fashions or wrapped in crudest rags, presented the gilt-edged calling card pressed into his or her hand by the Crooked Man.

"Synryll Voolge," it read, in flowing script. "Curator."

And below, centered in heavy Roman letters, the hidden name, the secret name, the mystery to be plumbed:

"THE OBSCENARIUM"

That, my friends, is Synryll Voolge, the Crooked Man, master and curator of The Obscenarium. What bacchanalian delights await within his demesne? What depraved pursuits are there conducted? And how does a man so crippled by nature move in a way at odds with all of physics and physicians?

These questions and more will be answered as I reveal, person by person, group by group, perhaps building by building and street by street that which makes up this area I intend my tiny painted minions to fight and die over. Let me drop a few more phrases that are scratching at the inside of my skull: The Stitcher Cult. The Scarlet Sisterhood. The Shattered Saint. The War for the Sewers. Cuthbert, Dibble & Grubb, Solicitors. "The halls! They move!" And The Strange Case of the Basement of the Palladium.

For those who are curious, or who suspect as much, Synryll Voolge is in part based on/inspired by Leonard Trask, who was called "the Wonderful Invalid." His spinal curvature is much more severe than I imagine Synryll's to be, but of course Trask's was exacerbated by physical accidents such as falling from a horse. Here's the first paragraph from the Wikipedia entry I just linked to:

Leonard Trask (June 30, 1805 – April 13, 1861)^[1][2] was an American who suffered from a "contortion of neck and spine" during his late 20s after an accident while horse riding, which led to Trask becoming a medical curiosity. After numerous attempts at a cure, several further accidents resulting from his condition, and a loss of employment and mobility, Trask (by then earning small amounts of money as a curiosity) published an account of his condition which further increased his renown. His condition remained unsolved upon his death, but he was subsequently diagnosed post mortem with ankylosing spondylitis (AS).^[1][3]

I discovered him while researching ankylosing spondylitis, the genetic disorder from which my wife suffers. And suffers is definitely the right word. And the distress this causes the spine brings on a host of other problems, including spinal stenosis. In some ways, Synryll is an acknowledgement of her condition, and his pursuits are an acknowledgement that, if my wife were not slowed by her condition, she would've taken over the world already like the evil mastermind she is. (Tracey, you know it's true. And I will always be your most loyal minon!) That Voolge can move and do all the things he does are an indication that he has access to resources beyond the ken of good, decent folk.

Well, thanks everyone, and I promise more to come soon. These people (and creatures, and places, and things) are crowding my brain and I've got to get them out. And you're all in the line of fire!

Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table.

* WAAC = Win At All Costs