Started a new Gorilla Ace! adventure this evening:  Murder on the R.100.  I wanted to do something different after a swath of superscience pulp advnetures, followed by the Chthulu-y one shot for the minor players on Wednesday.  I decided on something period and pulp-appropriate:  a murder mystery.

It started out simply enough as a teaser for an upcoming adventure, but I liked the setting — and found enough info on it — that I wanted to use it.  What to do on an airship..?  R.100, for those not into all things dirigible, was one of the last rigid-hull airships constructed by the British in 1929/1930.  She was constructed by the Vickers Company and the Airship Guarantee Company — designed by Neville Shute of On the Beach fame.  While Vickers was building her, the Air Ministry constructed R.101 — the goal was to prove that government could exploit air travel better than the private sector.

R.100 ran multiple seasons to Canada and back with a flawless service record.  R.101 suffered massive cost overruns, design flaws, construction snafus, and n her maiden flight to India went into the Normandy soil like a flaming lawn dart.  In response to being proven wrong, the Air Ministry canned the whole lighter-than-air project.

But that doesn’t work for my pulp game set in 1936!  In our universe, Vickers convinced the Air Ministry to continue the Imperial Ariship Scheme, but they are the sole operators.  R.101 did burn, but R.102 has been a success, and R.103 is soon to launch and replace the aging R.100.

(The US Navy program saw the loss of USS Akron under mysterious circumstances [it will turn up eventually], and USS Macon didn’t suffer her catastrophic failure.  USS Miami just launched.)

Some Hollow Earth Expedition stats:

Length: 719′   Diameter (largest): 133′  Gas Volume: 5.2 million cubic ft.  Usable Lift: 54 tons   Range: 4500 miles.   Ceiling: 15,000′ (usually flew at 2-5000′)

Size: 16   Def: 2   Struc: 18   Speed: 85   Handling: -2   Crew: 37   Passengers: 50   Cost: $2.5 million or so…

Traits:  Gas Bag — it’s bloody big and bullets go right through it without doing much.  First 2L are simply swallowed to empty space.

(In our version, R.100 has flown for seven years and her engines were upgraded form Rolls-Royce Condor IIIBs to Kestrals — lighter and more powerful for a top speed of 90 and 56 tons of usable lift.)

We set up the environment — the strange tramp steamer-like quality of the passenger area (nowhere as luxurious as Hindenburg), the open, airy quality of the ship, the poker games and communal dining lounge, and the relaxed, romantic atmosphere of the promenade decks with their large windows looking down on the Atlantic.  It’s roughly a 3 day trip from Cardington sheds in England to Montreal’s docking tower.   Most of the passengers are Canadian government and British business types.

Then one of the crewmen goes missing, and the search is on through the cramped catwalks, girders, exposed equipment of the interior of the hull, and even had a walk along the top of the hull during one sequence on a guide wire and harnesses for the riggers (for fixing damage to the canvas.) Eventually the missing man found bludgeoned to death and hidden in the button-up passenger compartment of a Canadian MPs SS100 Jaguar!  Who killed him, and why?

I haven’t finished the adventure and players read the blog so I’ll not spoiler it, but it’s a decent set up for a game…

Here’s more on R.100 and her sister ships.