Hippo Gnu Deer!

...obligatory end-of-year post follows...

Thanks, everybody, for sticking with me through what was a pretty challenging year. Because of you, my friends, fans and readers, I have found new confidence with my writing and look forward to bringing you more of my vision of dark, steampunk London and the figures that people it.

I'm also eager to turn my hand to more rules-writing after the success of my ghost rules for IHMN.

Also, I'm happy to report that I have made some significant gains in my battle against my hoarding. Not as much or as quickly as I'd like, but, quite frankly, further than I expected to go.

So for 2014, beyond the writing I know I can't help but do, the goal is to PAINT! I've got steampunk and zombies and space aliens to field, so it's past time to put brush to metal and plastic.

I also hope this is the year I can make progress on something I've talked to styx about, which is setting up a way for my wife to view the gaming table while in her chair. I've got a couple of ideas, but technology progresses so quickly I need to wait until I'm ready to implement a solution to really look at what's out there.

So onward to 2014, and may it be better not only than we hope, but better than we can imagine!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

I hope everyone had/is having a wonderful Christmas celebration. My family focuses more on Christmas Eve than Christmas Day, not just because we are distantly German way back in our DNA, but also (and mostly) because it's my parents' wedding anniversary. Gary and Diane Sheets have now been married for 48 years. They set a great example for us (me and my sister, Vikki) of what a couple looks like when they attack life's challenges together. I'm very lucky to share that with my wife, Tracey.

My mom and dad (photo shamelessly stolen from my sister's Facebook.

Tracey and I exchanged gifts Monday night as we prepared for the brief drive up today to my parents' house. In addition to some Bath & Body Works products, I got her a new reaching tool (the Gopher II, for those of you who might be in the market for a grabber,) a couple of new ornate knitted headbands, a pair of gloves through which you can still operate touch-screen devices, and a couple of issues of a current Red Sonja conic with covers by one of her favorite artists, Frank Thorne. (We'll be picking up future issues of the comic as well.)

I told Tracey that I put so much into kickstarters during the year that she shouldn't get me anything else. It was a nice surprise that the new Spinespur rulebook and KS minis arrived in time for the celebration. Thanks, Bob Mervine and Comfy Chair Games! I'll post pics and a complete write-up over the next few days. Tracey did treat me to some new dice, which I, like every gamer, love. She'd heard me say I wanted to have some more d10's handy for IHMN games, so she ordered me some lovely steampunk engraved d10s made by Q Workshop. I even got a mix, some white-on-black and some black-on-white, so I could easily use them for percentile rolls too.

Word comes from the Hell Dorado kickstarter that they received their shipment of books and cards on Christmas Eve, so shipping should commence shortly. And Rovanite over at Grekwood Miniatures has given us all a gift, finally posting the free zombie rules he's been developing.

So all in all a wonderful holiday that I was privileged to spend with my wife, parents, sister and brother-in-law and two wonderful nieces.

I wish all you fine folks the best this holiday season and the coming year have to offer. You are a wonderful group of people; I am honored to know you and eager to share more gaming fun in the future.

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

Welcome aboard as I crunch the numbers

We welcome to our merry band of miscreants Ana Polanscak, author of the blogs Carrion & Hodgepodge and Gardens of Hecate. Carrion & Hodgepodge is an excellent Malifaux blog. Gardens of Hecate brings to life the monstrosities of medieval metaphysics through excellent conversion work. Just the exemplary artwork is worth the price of admission.

Ana is, as far as I now, also our first follower in Croatia. So again I say, welcome aboard!

I want you all to know the radio silence here has been because I have been hunched over books and staring at screens as I crunch numbers to bring to life the figures I have only brought you in prose so far. The stats are almost ready for the Army of the Abandoned and Miss Rossum and her Retinue. I will also shortly introduce you to the experimental engineers of Stronginthearm Industrial Machinery and Armaments, my company for the Victorian Scrunts that Bob Olley is releasing in February.

"Heroes, Villains and Fiends" arrives

I now have my grubby little mitts on the second volume published for the game "In Her Majesty's Name," the aptly titled "Heroes, Villains and Fiends."

The noise Jon Richardson makes for his "tennis gremlins" in the clip below is the same noise I keep making as I hold the volume in my hands.



Just substitute "book" for "ball" and you've pretty much got it.

While I haven't finished it yet, what I have read has been delightful. In addition to increasing the arsenal available to the companies, the book also introduces rules and stats for vehicles and beasts. There's also a campaign system with examples using companies from the original book. And for my overall impression, I don't think I can say it any better than I did earlier today in a post on the Lead Adventure Forum:

"Can't wait to dive into it more thoroughly, but I have to say that, even with the vast increase in availability of weapons, vehicles, mounts and equipment, Craig and Charles have shown the strength of sticking to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) design principles. They've taken Occam's Razor to rules and mechanics and presented a system that is flexible but not overly complicated, inclusive but not cluttered, and rich with choices without dampening the creativity of the player. Kudos, gentlemen! Another successful foray that makes me even more eager for the third volume."

Speaking of vehicles, Bob Olley has done a bit of redesigning on the steampunk vehicle stretch goals for his Victorian Scrunts kickstarter. I look forward to the flood of company concepts that are going to appear once these gorgeous figures are released. But take a look at this tank/tankette!

OK, back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table soon.

The Women of the Ladies Auxiliary

Here's the second piece of fiction I promised you, an introduction to the women of the Ladies Auxiliary and their manifold mission.

Thanks to everyone who's stopped by and read the earlier Miss Rossum piece. If you enjoyed it and would like to keep up with developments, please consider joining the page as a public follower.

I'd also love to hear your feedback. Constructive criticism would be wonderful, but whatever you're comfortable saying is welcome.

So, without further ado, I present, "At Cross Purposes."

At Cross Purposes

Seated at the large oak desk of her study, Letitia Kensington accepted the sheaf of correspondence from her secretary-cum-librarian. Like many of the women in the Ladies Auxiliary, her secretary availed herself of a sobriquet, having left her old name, and her old life, behind. And since she now lived in the world of books and letters, her secretary had chosen the nom-de-plume Lora Ipsum.

Letitia, as the public face of the organisation, did not enjoy that freedom. She was well known as the head of a public service organisation of ladies who used their husbands’ or fathers’ money to improve the lot of the less fortunate.

And while public improvement was indeed part of the organization’s mission, it was not the subject of the reports she received today.

These were field reports from her many agents and operatives, and they covered issues and concerns as varied as the flowers outside Letitia’s study window.

“Anarchist activity in the communes,” one read. “Theft of Egyptian artifacts at British Museum,” read another.

We seem to get that one every other week, she thought.

“Tongs extending reach beyond Cheapside and East End.” “Miss Violet Rossum again rejects overtures to join Ladies Alliance.” “Metropolitan Police seeking to add agents versed in demonology.”

Sweet merciful Lord, she thought. What sort of trouble are those well-meaning idiots about to unleash upon us?

“Submersible vessel sighted in Thames estuary. Contact lost.” “Fell walkers missing. Suspected human remains show evidence of canine bites.” “Lady Tolmache requests quiet assistance.”

That bastard’s beating her again, Letitia thought. It may be time to bring her into the fold.

The secondary mission of the Ladies Auxiliary was surreptitious aid to women, and sometimes their children, who were being abused or exploited. It was a mission some suspected and whispered about.

“Large walking alligators rumored to be in sewers. Laughable, but may bear further investigation to determine what is actually transpiring there.” “Corpses seen walking through graveyard; some seem to have machinery added postmortem.”

There are things man was not meant to know, she considered. Women do not have that luxury.

For the true mission of the Ladies Auxiliary, the original surreptitious reason for their founding, was to hunt and destroy monsters. The creatures of ancient myth and fable and the abominations of modern scientific inquiry walked abroad in the land, and it was the ladies’ duty to stop them, to protect hearth and home when no other could.

Letitia hefted the last bundle of documents, which included a hand-written report, witness interviews, even diagrams of the lay of the land.

“Armed priests observed battling nocturnal humanoid creatures near Carfax Abbey. Suspect vampire involvement. Presence of civilians noted. Hunters outside provenance of church involved?”

“No,” burst from Letitia’s lips. “No, no, no, no.” Not vampires. Not again.

The first thought through her mind was “threepenny opera.” It was her own private name for an operation that required the attention of her three best covert agents -- the elite fighter going by the name Penny Wise, the driver/pilot Penny Lane, and the occultist known only as Penny Dreadful. Together, there had been no challenge yet they could not overcome.

But she alone among her agents had faced the lords of the night before. She looked at the nearby hatrack where hung her long red scarf. It was what marked her among her colleagues in the Ladies Auxiliary as a vampire slayer. It was her badge of office as leader of the London chapter. And it was worn in imitation of the woman who had presented it to her, the very founder of the Auxiliary.

Letitia opened a drawer and removed her freshly oiled sidearm.

“Lora,” she called. “Have the carriage readied. I’m going out.”

Miss Ipsum leaned into the room, her eyebrows raised. “Ma’am?”

“And send word to the central office. Tell Mina Murray I believe her old acquaintance is back in town.”

Here's one of the minis I have in mind for Letitia Kensington, the Dark Sword Miniatures Jen Haley figure.

Of course, given that I've adopted the red scarf that features so prominently in Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," I'm also considering the Ironclad Miniatures Mina Harker.

One thing I'm certain of is the figure for Lora Ipsum, the Anima Tactics Sophia Ilmora miniature.

Of course, that's just until the Wyrd Malifaux "Through the Breach" kickstarter arrives. The concept art for its archivist miniature is fantastic.

And here's the render:

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.