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..?

After a bit of brain lock on putting together the next “volume” of stories for my Hollow Earth Expedition game, I’ve got a basic plot. The first volume would be best called “Hannibal Drake and the Mellified Men”, this one would probably best be “Hannibal Drake and the Treasure of the Illuminati!” I was really stuck on a good hook, so Runeslinger gratiously kicked me a few ideas that I took, twisted, and voila! new campaign stuff!

The McGuffin is this hazily-defined “Illuminati treasure”: What is it? Where is it? The hook: a politician/gun runner and relative of one of the characters sends a mysterious journal with the research of the Earl of Inversnaid into the McGuffin that suggests the  treasure was entrusted by Baron Kigge to Benjamin Franklin in 1784, after the Illuminiati’s ruling “areopagus” collapsed. It appears to be “safe in the house of the President”…but what president?

The bad guys are the Thule Society, who want access to esoteric knowledge and think that’s what the Illuminati treasure is. They hired the mafia to recover the book, but now the mobsters think this “treasure” could be money…and they want it. Either way, it’s a historical/archeological problem that Hannibal Drake can’t let slip through his fingers!

The settings are the Phoenix Club in London (a follow up organization to the Hellfire Clubs of the 1700/1800s), City Hall and the subway tunnels and secret masonic temples under Manhattan, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the House of the Temple (Scottish Rite temple in DC), and more.

So there’s a good, mostly fleshed out adventure seed. Have at!

A belated AAR for our Thrilling Action Stories! campaign, set in 1936 China. Our heroes have been, throughout the year, exploring and fighting to gain control of a collection of mellified men. They’ve had ups and downs, we’ve had an ancient prince in the body of a 100 year old female general of the White Lotus Rebellion, we’ve had Japanese villains, we’ve had gangsters, and the introduction of Hanoi Shan.

This all came to a head as the characters discovered that in the month or so they’d been gone, the White Lotus warrior-monks had moved the last two mellified men to a monastery outside of Chungking. They were in a race with Hanoi Shan’s Silk Mountain Triad, arriving in Chunking where they linked up with the local tong/KMT powers that be to try and raid the monastery.

They were attacked in a classic martial arts set piece — multi-leveled balconied restaurant — that lead to lots of chop-socky action — from gun fu moments to the classic using the hanging lanterns to swing from one level to the next, etc.

In the end, they had a company of Chinese soldiers to fight the Silk Mountain, who were using a semi-rigid airship painted to look like a dragon, to poison gas the monks. (We had a nice green smoke from the nostrils of the dragon moment. In the end, they were able to drop the airship with a recoilless rifle and recover the mellified men and a massive archive of historical and esoteric knowledge from the monks.

There’s one more episode in China before they repair to the United States for a few episodes…then I’m hoping to take them to Indochina for an episode or two to fight Hanoi Shan before returning to China to look for other relics. The timing should put them smack in the middle of the Battle of Shanghai and Rape of Nanking.

My Hollow Earth Expedition campaign has been zipping along nicely the last few months. Set in Shanghai in late 1936, the characters have come together to find a legendary mellified man. In preparation, I did a little research on the city, some people of importance — including some of the major players in the Kuomingtang based in nearby Nanking.

Central is the Qing Bang or Green Gang — supported by the Kuomintang, the Nationalist government of China, but is itself rent by internal divisions based on politics — some are outright communists, some lean left, some are firmly in the camp of General (and president of the KMT) Chang Kai Shek. The leader of the Qing Bang is Du Yuesheng, or “Big Eared” Du. He is mainly concerned with smuggling weapons, drugs (especially opium and heroin) into China. Profits are shared with the KMT. Big Eared Du’s point of contact in the KMT leadership is the intelligence chief, Dai Li.

The Green Gang is influential throughout Shanghai, but it’s grip is weakest in Hongkew, the northeast section of the city, where the Japanese intelligence service and the Japanese squad of the Shanghai Municipal Police is strongest. They operate pretty much unopposed in the “old” Chinese City, where the native SMP officers are sympathetic. It is, in 1936, the single most-dangerous city in the world.

The Green Gang has its hooks into many of the cabarets and “singsong” houses on the northern edge of the Old City and seeding the neighborhood between the Avenue Edward VII and Nanking Road to the north, and along the Foochow Road. Off of Ave. Edward VII is the infamous “Blood Alley” a place where bodies were regularly dumped. they also acted as Nationalist intelligence agents and assassins, frequently clashing with communists (mostly along the Avenue Admiral Joffre, and the Japanese.

The most raucous night is Thursday — the day the American troops get paid.

Some of the big cabarets: Ciro’s, Paramount, Majestic (owner, Mr. Wong) and it’s neighbor Little Club (very popular with the USMC.)  Caveau Montmartre is owned by a Corsican admiral who was chief-of-staff for Wu Peifu. The second string were the Palais Cabaret, ‘Frisco, Mumms, Crystal, George’s Bar, Monk’s Brass Rail, New Ritz.

Attempting to keep the peace is the Shanghai Municipal Police — 4756 men, 457 in Foreign Branch, 558 in Sikh Branch, 258 in Japanese. These officers live an existence that is close to ’70s TV cops show violent…shoot-outs, fist fights, riots, spies, and other dangers lurking around every corner.  They are often at odds with the Nationalist-run City of Shanghai government, and corruption in the force, particularly the native contingent, is endemic.  SMP is supposed to concentrate on the International Settlement.

Leading the force is Commissioner Frederick Wernham Gerrard (until 1938).  Already (in)famous is William E Fairbairn, the 55 year-old assistant commissioner of the Reserve Unit — a first-rate squad that is the model for later SWAT teams. He is the creation of defendu, a martial art that is one part karate, one part aikido, and one part dirty tricks. (He would later train British special forces in WWII and invent the Sykes-Fairbarin knife.) By this time, he had been in over 500 reported gun, knife, and fist fights. He’s still here, and most of the city knows you don’t go directly against him. His top sniper is Eric A Sykes (also designed the knife), who is a part-time member of the “Specials”, but his day job is as a manager at SJ David & Co. Last of the big names in the SMP is the huge and dangerous Dermot “Pat” O’Neil, who would later aid in training American OSS officers.

The ranks of the SMP in order of hierarchy from the bootom: Constable, Sergeant, Sub-Inspector, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Superintendent, Ass. Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, and Commissioner.  The stations:  Central on Foochow Road, Kouza on Nanking Road, Bubbling Well Road Station, Gordon Road, Chungdu Road, Pootoo Road, Hongkew and West Hongkew, Yangtszepoo, Wayside, Arnold Road, Yulin Road, and Dixwell Road.

A few of the major figures in the Nationalist government: Chiang Kai-Shek, the “Generalisimo” is head of the KMT in the 1920s. He only speaks Chinese. Also very influential, especially with the American government, is Soong Mai-Ling, his third wife — a charming and intelligent woman who other members of the Cabinet attempt to exclude when they can. William Henry Donald is an Australian newspaperman who is sometime friend, sometime interpreter, and sometime agent for Chang and his wife. Other members of her family circle the leadership, like Kung Hsiang-Hsi — sometime finance minister and prime minister, who is married to Soong Ailing (Chiang’s sister in law.) Soong Ailing is the oldest Soong girl.  Greedy and corrupt, she used her husband’s position to get rich. Soong Qingling is the middle Soong girl who was married to Sun Yat-Sen, the original head of the Nationalists.

General Chen Cheng is Chang’s chosen successor, although he has compeition for the favors of the generalisimo from the “Christian General” Feng Yuxiang (who has good relations with the European diplomats in Shanghai) and General Fu Zuoyi, who is usually in the north fighting the communists.

Very active and militant is the influential Minister of War He Yingqin, who makes power grabs whenever he can, but usually gets slapped down. He wants to hit the rebels that kidnap Chang Kai Shek for a few months in December 1936, and who Lady Chang jockeys to stop from getting Chang killed in foolish retaliation.

Zhang Xueling (The Young Marshal) — Controlled Manchuria until 1931 when the Japanese took it. Has been working his way back into power & will kidnap Chiang at Xi’an in December 1936.

Hu Hanmin chairs the legislative Yuan in Nanking and is often looking for a way to ingratiate himself to the generalisimo…or whoever looks to be getting the upper hand.

Mao Zedong — Leader of the communists in Jiangxi.

Wang Jingwei — KMT politician and potential heir to Sun Yat-Sen.  Also a Japanese collaborator.

Zhang Jongjiang  (Curio Chang) — Shanghai businessman who buys curios.

A good place to look for more, including maps of the city is the website Tales of Old Shanghai.

Started my new Hollow Earth Expedition series “Thrilling Action Stories” last week with the new characters involved in tomb robbing and espionage in “the Pearl of the Orient”, Shanghai.  (I found some fantastic resources online, like Tales of Old Shanghai.)

The characters are a Steve mcQueen-esque tomb raiding scoundrel archeologist, a handsome, action oriented brick…with about that much in the brain trust adventurer, an 11 year old street urchin (think a female Short Round), and a half-Chinese Kuomintang-connected member of the Green Gang and nightclub owner.

The first issue of the series brought Dr. Hannibal Drake and Jack McMahon to Shanghai by way of Hong Kong.  Drake has discovered the body of the famed admiral Zheng He — not buried at sea, but instead on the Malabar coast.  He and Jack link up in Hong Kong, where a deal to sell the cadaver and his casket goes badly, so they take it to Shanghai to try and get the nationalist government to buy it.

Meanwhile, Roland Kessik — half-Chinese son of a Jardine, Matheson & Co. lawyer — has found a mole in the KMT structure that was getting his gun shipments intercepted by the Japanese squad of the Shanghai Municipal Police. Through the street urchin Shanghai Sally, Kessik stops Wen Wo — an archivist in the KMT offices in Nanjing — from selling more secrets, and an ancient book and court papers, to Japanese agents.

After Kessik has turned over the Japanese archeologist they nabbed and Wo to Du Yeushang, the Green Gang head and a KMT general, Kessik is back in the nationalist good graces.  But he keeps the book and papers, intrigued by what the Japs wanted.

Enter Drake and McMahon — they have Kessik’s name as a contact to try and move the admiral’s remains to the KMT.  He agrees to broker it, but aks Drake to have a look at the book.  It is an original copy of the Bencao Gangmu — a famed medical treatise from the 1500s.  More importantly, the court papers reveal that the Kangxi Emperor had used the techniques in the BG to punish a court official (or so they currently think) guilty of treason to the “Arabic process in the Bencao Gangmu“.  Drake realizes that this is the holy grail for his gradute advisor back at Columbia, for this can only mean that the Kangxi Emperor made this felon into a mellified man!

With the completion of this “issue” of Gorilla Ace! here’s an adventure seed for GMs:

The characters are on their way to Canada from the UK, and are traveling by airship, R.100.  The trick is to set up the environment well — the cargo they can’t take into their room is winched up into the cargo bay, including a beautiful sporty car (I used a red SS100 Jaguar.)  Going up the mooring mast elevator and the wee gangway into the ship, the interior with the bulging gas bags in their secured netting, the guy wires, the aluminum girders, wires, water and fuel tanks — all exposed around the crew catwalk that runs the length of the ship; the tight tramp-steamer like interior with the promenades on either side, and the carpeted, drawing room like main lounge.  No flames, no guns, no lighters, cigarettes or flammable stuff.  It’s a three day trip to Canada, with part of the first day over England and Ireland, the whole of the second over the North Atlantic, and the last day is mostly over Canada.

Over dinner, introduce a few of the characters — Captain Booth, who has commanded the ship for x-number of seasons (she started running in 1930, and in our campaign, she was still flying in 1936); the stewards Howdett and Savage, there’s James Gaddes — an MP of the Canadian government ( a snobby man); Claude Rennie, a banker with the new central bank (Bank of Canada established in 1934) and his traveling companion — a gold-digging Irish actress named Irene Tennant; John Forster, an insurance guy for Quebec Assurance Associates.

In the middle of the second day, a crewman goes missing for his shift.  They search the ship and find the man crammed into the boot or interior of the car.  He’s been bludgeoned to death with a claw hammer from a nearby common tool kit.  At some point you should describe the collection of baggage, all tarped and tied down, and a large safe welded to one of the support girders.  (This is where weaponry, valuables, flammables are kept.)

The investigation should give a doctor or cop a chance to assess the forensic evidence — he was hit from behind, most likely by a claw hammer.  When they find it, it will have some blood and tissue on it.  they can’t run fingerprints, but can hold it for the RCMP when they get into Montreal.  Invertviewing the crew and passengers should present a few red herrings, and there is a time constraint.  They will arrive in Montreal in 28 hours.  They can interview people during the evening — most of the crew were solidly neutral about the crewman, some didn’t like him, some did, but not with any strength…certainly not enough to kill him.

The passengers didn’t even know him, and the GM should try to lead the players astray a bit, to think that maybe it was some kind of attempt to hurt Gaddes?  Embarrass him?  Something?  If they are successful, they should twig there’s something not right about Forster, but they can’t put their finger on it.  At some point, hopefully, they’ll think to investigate the cargo manifest.  The list is fairly accurate for weight (important on a flying vessel), and basic descriptions of stuff and who it belongs to.  There’s a cryptic note next to a 20 lbs cargo for Mr. Rennie in the safe…the captain will have to be called about it and Mr. Rennie summoned to observe if they succeed in getting the captain to check the safe (a big and modern one — of course, uncrackable!)

Two satchels of 10 lbs. each…and inside, just paper.  Which makes Rennie lose his mind!  He’s in trouble — inside the satchels were $1 million Canadian in treasury-issued bearer bonds, borrowed from the UK to shore up the Canadian economy!  The bonds have been replaced with blank paper!

They will have to search for the money, but will not find it (it’s hidden between the top of the passenger decks and the gas bag above.)  If they search Forster’s two stored steamer trunks, they’ll find fake passports, money, a pistol, and other items to identify himself as eight different people.  The other has a parachute…

They will be searching through most of the night.  In the early morning, they’ve passed over Newfoundland, and Forster will get ready to make his big escape with his cohort in crime, a wireless man in the crew (the actual murderer who killed the crewman after he found Forster cracking the safe.)  A chase through the rigging inside the ship ensues (or did in our game) and a good denouement is a fight on the top of the airship (the safest place to jump from the ship is the tail section, behind the engines.)  There is a guide wire along the top with d-clipped safety lines and harnesses.  Go for broke.