The Black Campbell

The game prep did indeed lead to a fantastic session last night. The characters — Jack McMahon and Hannibal Drake have been tracking a lost Illuminati “treasure” they got a lead on through a journal sent by Jack’s uncle, now deceased, in London. They had been working with a Special Brank officer that was murdered by an Ariel Smythe — the lover of dead Uncle Mike, who claimed he was a British Union of Fascist agent. They were able to decipher some of the notes from teh journal and ascertain that the treasure was “safe in the house of the President.” Indicators led to Stratford Hall, the former seat of the Lee family. Violence and adventure ensued — see the older game report posts for more — but Ariel is kidnapped by German agents.

In the end of the previous session, the amateur historian and secretary of the society preserving the house pointed out that while Richard Hall was president of the Congressional Congress at the time, the president in the 1784 note that led them there, penned by Benjamin Franklin, held another hint to the location…Ben Franklin, following his stint as ambassador to France, was President of Pennsylvania!

With this information in hand, they raced back to Washington to link up with their private detective ally, Tom Steele, who was questioning other masonic brothers about the situation…until their tire blew out (was shot out) and their Chevy truck spun off the road, upside down, into a frozen pond!

The game started crisply: they both had 4N from the cold water, and within a few turns, Jack was in trouble with a series of bad rolls we interpreted as shock and Jack’s muscles seizing from the cold. They surface to a hail of gunfire from the shoreline, and returning fire is difficult from swimming in heavy clothing, darkness, the cold, and ammo going faulty from the water. Jack’s borrowed Luger is particularly having trouble, but Hannibal’s new S&W M1917 in .455 Webley is having a few failures, too.

They barely get to shore, to find Ariel has knocked out one of her captors — she looks to have been roughed up — and they escape in the Nazi’s Packard 120 (which had a heater!) In Washington, they find out the masons have explored the Franklin option — his house in Franklin Court is gone and there’s nothing in Independence Hall. Ariel slips off to help Jack recover by getting him a warm bath and is not there, once the Secret service turn up.

The characters are taken to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a meeting with the president (a 32 Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay) and Joe Kennedy, among others. The president will make sure the charges in Manhattan and the ones in Maryland from their fight on the train go away…but they are now on Uncle Sam’s dime: find the treasure before the Nazis. While going over their evidence with the Brain Trust, they realize there is one house of Franklin’s still standing: 36 Craven Street in London, right in the shadow of Charing Cross Station! They also find out the Special Branch cop was on the up and up…but not Ariel. She is working with the Germans.

Ariel knows it, too. When they get back to the hotel, she drugs Jack to find out what he knows, but a judicious use of style points meant jack simply passes out under questioning. Ariel and the Nazis abscond. There’s not a moment to loose. While Steele heads to Philadelphia to check out the leads there (the player is going to absent for a while), Jack and Drake get hold of a Lockheed Electra and an army major pilot and do something only a dozen or so people have: a transatlantic flight from Nova Scotia to Ireland, then on to London. Lucky tests get them there with little effort.

In London, they find out 36 Craven is now an apartment…they can’t gain access easily. they hit the record office and ascertain that there is one spot, centered in a pentagram-like area of sewers, access tunnels, and flood water sluices, located between the Black and Red Lines of the Underground, that has been untouched by the continuous improvements of the area since the Embankment…

That night, they get in through an access door in the Charing Cross station and find a massive “well cap” — part of the flood drainage system that was built in 1775, if the bricks are to be believed. After some work, they get a secret door to open into the interior, which sounds like it had lower pressur than outside.

And that’s when a bunch of East-Ender sounding men led by a gent with a posh accent turn up.

Overall, play was fast, a little less action heavy, and the presidential cameo went over very well. I’m looking forward to the final episode of the adventure next week.

Last night saw another episode of our Hollow Earth Expedition campaign. The characters have been searching for the lost Illuminati treasure that they have previously discovered had been entrusted to American Freemasons by members of the Areopagus, the governing body of the Illuminati prior to their disbanding by the various German countries in 1776. In a letter dated 1784 between Benjamin Franklin, then the outgoing ambassador to France, and Baron Krigge, Franklin confides that the treasure is “safe in the house of the President.”

Having done their research, they concluded this was the President of the Congressional Congress, Richard Lee of Virginia. They were interrupted by German agents — the first we’d seen them as they’d been using mobsters to do their dirty work in the other sessions — and in the fray they kidnaped a woman that had claimed to be the “friend” of character Jack MacMahon’s now-dead uncle (and man that sent them the journal that started the adventure).

Last night saw the crew skip Manhattan, despite having a grand jury appearance for “assault with a deadly weapon” and “attempted murder” hanging over their head (meaning they are now fugitives who have absconded across state lines…if they don’t get home in time.) They took the Pennsy Railroad’s Afternoon Congressional to Washington DC, and from there were driving a car they’d bought to Stratford Hall, home of Richard Lee and later Robert E Lee. However, more mooks boarded the train in Philadelphia and began surveilling them. The characters decided on a confrontation that led to a fight on the platforms between the train cars and the accidental breech of the hydraulic lines controlling the brakes.

They manage to find that the mooks were reporting to the Nazi agents already on the train (meaning the girl has talked, either willingly or under duress.) The fight that ensued involved a chase and fight on the top of the icy, wildly racing train, and a firefight in the baggage car of the train, before the bad guys cut the connection between the engine and the rest of the train. Now the characters have to flee before there’s any chance they are connected to two new dead bodies on the train.

Following this, they managed to gain transport from Baltimore, where the train had stopped to Washington in a cab. they then had to buy a car, cash, so they could get out to Stratford Hall. They were able to make contact with the Robert E Lee Memorial Society that owns the place and set a meeting with the president of the group. there they find out that no treasure was present, but one of the amateur historians of the group points out that there were more than one “president” in the United States at the time. One of those was Benjamin Franklin…in 1785, the president of Pennsylvania!

They left to pursue this lead, only to be intercepted by the Nazis, who caused them to crash their car into an icy pond… Cliffhanger!

The adventure ran quickly and smoothly, and I was glad that the red herring of the Lee home was followed. Next, they will have to race to Philadelphia and try to find the treasure. There’s a few problems that they will be running into…not the least being the Franklin home no longer exists.

Here’s a great article from FoxNews on the “Hump Airmen” — the guys that flew the “Skyway to Hell”  or “The Hump” — the route from Burma to Western China over the Himalayas to supply the Nationalists with supplies against the Japanese prior to and during World War II. These are the guys the Flying Tigers were often trying to protect.

It’s great pulp material that I was thinking of using for my China-oriented Hollow Earth Expedition…who knows? Maybe some of those planes found themselves somewhere else entirely…Shangri-la? The Inner World..?