Tales from the Archives: The Original Adventure Entertainment - Chapter Seven.

Sadly, once more, the notes remaining in the Archive for this Chapter are very limited but my research has unearthed a surviving daguerreotype.

 Chapter seven.

A fine night in gay Paris!

In which a House Warming Party includes Games of, Squeak Piggy Squeak, The Emperor’s Cat and Hunt the Boggart!

Dramatis Personae:

 

 From Left to Right:

Inspector Jurgen Scheuringer - A Detective from Homburg

Leutnant Maximilian von Ström, of the Austro-Hungarian Lancers

Madame Coffin-Chevalier - A French Lady

Frau Elsa Berg - An Nursing Austrian Sister of the Order of Cassandra

Baron Friedrich von Dunkelheim - A Viennese Art Historian & Famed Mountaineer

Katerina, Grafin (Countess) von Ulmfeld from Bavaria

Ruprecht , Ritter von Schlan, of the Austro-Hungarian Diplomatic Corps

Lady Louisa Fitzgerald - A British Widow & Traveller

Louis LeBrun - A French Inventor

Madame Marie-Louise LeBrun -  A French Seamstress & Louis's Cousin

Also present but not pictured in the daguerreotype were

:

Captain Alan Horatio Montgomery - A British Steamship Captain

Captain Kenneth Campbell, of the British Black Watch regiment

Lady Power O’Donahue - An Anglo-Irish Adventuress

October 31^st 1871

The Countess shocked many of her acquaintances by selling off the remainder of her Deceased Husband’s estates. This gave her enough available assets to purchase a more suitable, and hopefully safer, new home for herself and Erich. After examining Many Properties, she settled on a large, well-appointed town house on the newly re-furbished Boulevard St. Mjchel in Gay Paris.

 

Many friends attended the elegant House Warming dinner party held by the Countess. Throughout the evening, there were intermittent loud clatterings and shouts from the kitchen. Finally, the somewhat volatile French cook ran out of the kitchen screaming and vowing never to return. Sadly, this meant that the evening’s sumptuous meal was left without a dessert!

Other strange goings-on occurred, such as the walls suddenly started dripping with damp and the candles kept blowing out when there was no draught.

Eventually, the source of these and the kitchen mishaps were traced to a boggart who had moved into the premises whilst they were vacant.

Despite all of this commotion, the Countess and her guests pluckily continued with rounds of party games. ‘Squeak Piggy, Squeak’ proved most popular, largely as it involved several of the Ladies sitting on the laps of the Gentleman. Of course, a strategically placed cushion prevented any social embarrassment, as the Countess pointed out, “We may be in Gay Paris, but some standards must be kept!”.

The following day, after a night disturbed by bangings, creakings, water-filled pans above doorways, flying crockery and broken chamberpots, the guests set about removing the Boggart from the premises. They dressed with their clothes inside out, and when one of the maid’s returned from the Ironmongers, they scattered Iron Filings in many nooks and cranny throughout the house. All of this was enough to send the Boggart fleeing out into the street muttering dark words about Mistreatment and Revenge.

Host’s notes:

This Chapter ran in Autumn 1997 as an In-Character Dinner Party and was expanded with a single follow-up tabletop session expanding themes that had been brought up at the party.

Worthy of High Merit:  Me, for surviving the verbal onslaught of the assembled company when it was discovered that due to an administrational cock-up (or the interference of a Boggart), I had brought another savoury dish when I was delegated to bring the dessert!

Tales from the Archives: The Original Adventure Entertainment - Chapter Six.

Chapter six.

a swift sojourn to Belgium.

In which Our Merry Band are Hounded when they assist in the Liberation of a Kidnapped French Scientist from a Castle of Clockwork Servants!

Dramatis Personae:

Katerina, Grafin (Countess) von Ulmfeld from Bavaria

Leutnant Maximilian von Ström, of the Austro-Hungarian Lancers

Louis LeBrun - A French Inventor

Frau Elsa Berg - An Austrian Nursing Sister of the Order of Cassandra

  

After a little alcoholic and retail therapy, Our Protagonists were ready to return home but were interrupted when the Ritter asked them if they would stop off  in Belgium on their return route to Bavaria. He had been contacted by an old friend who was concerned about the fate of a missing scientific colleague, Dr. Kristof Lambrechts. Who was last seen in the region of Saint-Léger.

Our Adventurers, arrived at Saint-Léger where they showed the locals a dagaurotype of the Mislaid Scientist. They are told that this man had been seen several times at the castle on a crag above the town. Posing as lost and weary travellers, they gained admission into to castle to stay the night.

Sneaking out of their rooms later that night, the Countess and Frau Berg head to one part of the castle whilst Von Ström and LeBrun investigated another. As they searched the area for the missing doctor, the Gentlemencame across the owner of the Castle, Margalise. LeBrun managed to quickly hide whilst Von Ström  made up a story about insomnia and getting some air. The lady said she could cure his insomnia and after talking to her for a few minutes, he was utterly (and quite literally) bewitched and went off  hand-in-hand to spend the night with the Lady in question.

LeBrun entered the Chapel and eventually felt a draught which on examination seemed to be coming from near the pulpit. There he located a Secret Passage! The Countess and Frau Berg returned after a fruitless search of  their part of the building and met LeBrun who showed them what he had unearthed. The Brave Trio ventured down the darkened staircase and in the dimness of  a Vast Underground Chamber glimpsed row upon row of  Automaton Soldiers. 

They found a locked workshop and, after picking the lock, came across Dr. Lambrechts exhausted on a small bed there. They ascertained that he had become enamoured of the Faerie shape-shifter, Margalise, from the French Province of Alsace, who was aligned with the Unseelie Court. She had brought him here.

The doctor was a great engineer working in the field of Automatonic Sciences. He had been designing and making Clockwork Servants with the aim of Removing Drudgery from the lives of the Lower Classes. In his Utopian Dream, this would Free Them to follow lives of Education and Creativity!

Unknown to Lambrechts, in caverns below the Faerie’s castle, his clockwork Servants were being converted to a Clockwork Army of Destruction!

When they returned to tell Von Ström what they had discovered, they had to break down his bedroom door. As they entered the room, a large German Shepherd dog ran out through their legs and off into the distance.

They felt that they could not deal with this number of Mechanical Opponents themselves and hastily returned to Brussels with Lambrechts and informed the Belgian Government that there were over Five Hundred of the Armed Clockwork Soldiers in the Subterranean ‘Barracks’ beneath the castle.

Two days later the French and Belgian Armies held a joint Military Exercise in the area and, apparently accidently, ignited an ancient, forgotten gunpowder store in the Castle. This sealed the passages under the building which Military Engineers then flooded in order to ‘make sure the fire caused by the explosion had been completely extinguished’.

Host’s Notes:

This Chapter ran in Autumn 1997.

Worthy of High Merit: Richard (Lt. Maximilian von Ström), just for the look on his face as it dawned on him that he had gone to bed with an Alsatian and woken up to find her  lying on the bed and licking his face and wagging her tail!.

House Rules - Three new Abilities & some notes on Languages

'House RULES' 

Three NEW abilities.

In our campaign, we have added these three new abilities to the list of those available when creating Dramatic Characters. They cover areas that we felt none of the existing abilities included.

ANTIQUITIES - The study of history, archaeology and ancient cultures. This skill also allows the possessor to understand one appropriate ancient language per level above Average.

FAERIE LORE - The study of the attributes, repulsions and habits of the various Faerie Folk and Faerie Creatures. This information is heavily mixed with common folklore and so may not always be accurate.

Military/Naval Knowledge - These are the skills a Professional Military Officer needs to know, for example, how to blow things up, fire a cannon, organise a unit, use & decipher codes etc. A Naval Officer will have Naval Knowledge covering similar specialised skills.

Military officers in the ‘Technical’ branches (Artillery and Engineering), as opposed to the ‘Fashionable’ regiments, actually have to learn the theory and practice of their craft. In some countries, such as Prussia, even the Upper Class cadets are required to attend Military Academy as it is no longer thought that ‘Character and Breeding’ are enough and that the skills of an Officer can entirely be learnt ‘on the playing fields of Eton’ (or other appropriate schools). The revolutionary idea that Military Officers should actually know something about their job is slowly spreading across New Europa.

Some Navies are starting to apply this, in the British Royal Navy, for example, all Cadets and Officers receive technical training.

LANGUAGES IN Castle Falkenstein.

My studies of the Victorian period indicate that educated people often spoke a far greater range of languages than our (allegedly) Anglophilic present.

For Diplomats and other International Officials, French is the common tongue, especially in New Europa and to a degree, worldwide. The languages of the other Great Powers, are German, Russian and Turkish (the Ottoman Empire may be ‘the sick man of New Europa’ but still has some international standing left). Some non-native speakers may choose to learn English which does not become the ‘Lingua Franca’ until the 1900s. 

Classical studies still form a major part of education so Latin and Ancient Greek are not uncommonly known. Any Dramatic Character who is Well-Educated or Upper Class is very likely to have French and/or Latin at a basic level at least. 

Those with a ‘Technical’ (i.e. Engineering) education or occupation would be reading articles in English and German. Natural Sciences lean towards Latin and German with some English. Medicine uses a lot of Latin as well as English, German and French. 

Travellers pick up the local languages as they visit places but Italian and possibly Modern Greek were spoken as the ‘Grand Tour’ of Classical Sites was a still popular, though diminishing, part of the life of the Wealthy. 

Therefore in my Falkenstein world I use the following house rules on languages:

Each character starts with their own Native Tongue.

If their Education ability is Average then they can speak one other language fluently or two languages at a basic level.

For each Level of Education ability above Average then he or she can speak a further language fluently or two more languages at a basic level.