News #7: Happy 2009!

Happy 2009! The year 2010 was a prosperous year for the citizens of Nirdday and Htrae, and we hope the same will be true for this year. Since the fortysecond black september of 2012, and the subprime Doomstone crisis that preceded it during 2015-2013, and the twin towers of Brugghes attacks by the Movement, our world has thankfully survived, and we are still at peace with Eurasia.

For those of characters and players among you who are from worlds where the calendars do not count down,

HAPPY 2011!

And now for a commercial break:

*static*
This is the year ***static***
You will not be saved by ***static***
In fact you will not be ***static***

*ZZZAP!* (change channel to something silly)

Avignon #3: The Napolis Connection

If you are new to this series, read this first. Play date: October 23 2010.

Lito looks at the graves in the crypt once more. Three virtually empty chests. Robbed quite recently by someone with a taste for holy bones. And a fourth chest with the body of St. Agneta. Agneta whose spirit is speaking to him. Lito decides to take the bones, and keep them safe. He collects them in his robe and leaves. Before someone else takes them.

Meanwhile Hieronimus and Colonel Eline hear how Peters from the secret service appear in the church above. They call down, to ask what they're doing there. “Will you come up, or do we go down to arrest you?” they shout. “Er, I was just helping out my client. He has kinky wishes, you see!” The Peters seem at a loss for words for a moment, but then they come down anyway. So, our three grave robbing heroes Lito, Eline and Hieronimus flee into the maze of catacombs for another way out. The Peters follow closely.

Not far from there, Schwartzburg and the Pope have another secret conversation. They talk about the problem of compound interest, and how compound interest now grows much faster than the real economy can grow. Which means that more and more people will drown in debt. Which may lead to war. The Pope actually listens. But also explains that the former Pope has borrowed a huge sum of money to build the Cathedral St.Peter, and that he cannot escape the interest on that loan without risking war with the Bishop of Mecklenburg and friends, who lent him the money. A tough situation.

You may find it strange that I run adventures with such diplomatic, economic talks. Sometimes my players wonder too. But the talks actually work. At least some of the players enjoy playing them – and are as intrigued as I am. Intrigued, because these are – simplified – real world situations. Real world now, and historic real world. The real life pope that built the Saint Peter actually did borrow money at interest, and he tried to raise it back by levying indulgences. Worse, he let real banker Fugger do the levying, at a 100% interest rate. While at the same time it was forbidden for Christians to ask interest. That's what real Martin Luther got so angry about.

Hieronimus falls down a shaft, and lands in the mud. And a dead body. It looks like a nun, with quite some money, and a ring of the Order of the Silver Dragon. Wasn't this order killed by the Witchmasters many years ago? This nun looks like she was alive a few days ago. The Peters close in and Hieronimus, Eline annd Lito have to leave. But they'll come back. Eventually they find a way out of the catacombs. Through the same church of Saint Mark where they freed Aster hours ago [see last episode].

So it looks like some Peters of Nicolas' secret service robbed the tomb of Saint Agneta and her friends – and killed a Silver Dragon nun in the process. The question is, whether Nicolas ordered this, or whether the Peters work for someone else on the side.

Our heroes hide from the Peters all night – and finally meet up the next day with a new contact. Notary Fritz Leiter. Right under the unsuspecting noses of the Peters, Schwartzburg, Eline, Hieronimus and Lito try to figure out with Leiter who is the real enemy. They decide to do three things.

The first is to try and smoke out the enemy. Hieronimus former contact James mysteriously died, so they'll have a look who is going to contact Hieronimus now. That might be the wrongdoer. A short comedy of errors follows, and Hieronimus is told he should contact agent Peter XIII. Suspect number one...

The second is that Schwartzburg is going for a long prayer. His patron saint Anthony may provide some knowledge. Schwartzburg has a vision of two candles leaning against eachother. The big candle is Nicolas, who is told things by the smaller one, who has something to do with Saint Francis. [As a game master you have to give visions a bit of colour, and a bit of mysticism.]

And the third – and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the courage of Hieronimus' player – is that they would contact and confront Nicolas directly. They'd go and tell exactly what happened. How Hieronimus accidentally killed a fellow secret agent (a Peter), how they freed Aster, and that the Peters seemed to be robbing holy bones from a hidden tomb under the city. Holy bones one can use against Doomstone infections. Holy bones that are being stolen a whole campaign long.

So what has Nicolas to say for himself? Or for his Peters? Naturally I made it slightly hard on the players too, playing an annoyed Nicolas with a letter opener shaped as a dagger – for effect. But the players did very well. They actually made a case to Nicolas that his secret service was compromised, and that Cardinal Francisco Montecci – from Napolis – and Peter XIII might be running a private operation within the service. Nicolas will help them, for the time being, and run an internal affairs investigation on his own men.

To me, this kind of play is a quantum leap from the typical game. In a typical party the players would have run away by now, hiding from both the secret police and the criminals. Shooting both orcs and police on sight. Admittedly, in a typical game up to a few years ago, I wouldn't have done my best to embed the player characters in the society. Now I do. Hieronimus is a Papal secret agent – Nicolas is his ultimate chief. Lito is a Paladyn, so the Order of Paladyns would help him. Schwartzburg is the special envoy of the Bishop of Lorrach. Eline owns one of the few Doomstone mines. All players have their social stakes in the game, not just physical hit points or gold pieces to look out for. That makes a difference.

But I'm still very pleasantly surprised. Thanks Hieronimus!

Avignon #2: Pres du Pont d'Avignon

If you are new to this series, read this first. Play date: October 16 2010.

Colonel Eline de Boullion woke only slowly. She was in a hospital bed. Pope Gregorius was there the last time she woke, and asked her what happened. She was confused then, because the Pope was there when they were attacked by a swarm of vampyres, right in the crypt of St. Peter, in the Basilica of the Holy See. The holiest of the holiest, contaminated by vampyres! That alone was disturbing enough. But now the Pope did not remember – not even the doomstone bomb that paladyn Aster used to blow a hole into the vampyre ranks.

But now she woke again the speckled Peter said that the Pope had never been there. And that there never were any vampyres in St. Peter's crypt. How could there be? Maybe she was suffering from a Doomstone infection? Delirium was one of the first symptoms. She protested. Why did her fellow emissaries rember the same things as she then? All of them? Hieronimus the Papal agent returning home, Lito the Paladyn to be reinstated, and Schwartzburg the diplomat for world debt relief. [If this sounds a bit real world to you, it very much is, because the Nirdday world has a similar problem with bank debts as our own.] And where is Aster, their companion [npc]? The secret agent Peter explains they probably all have delirium. And Aster tried to use a Doomstone bomb, not against non-existent vampyres he says, but against the Pope. That is why she was arrested.

Talking to the Pope will become difficult this way. Eline is frustrated. And so is her player. One player who happens to be there, but isn't playing – my wife – makes a remark: “Convenient, isn't it? As if someone tries to keep you away from discussing matters with the Pope.” I tell Eline's player that she really hears this comment, as a voice in her head. And the voice starts to tell them more and more to think about. Not just to Eline, but later to Lito and Hieronimus too. Its some sort of spirit, a female spirit, but who was she when she was alive?

Naturally my wife and I planned that she would play this disembodied guiding NPC spirit. She was stranded at home because of a changed appointment, and her normal character was bound up elsewhere. But she wanted to help out to make the party more coherent again, and pesker her fellow players at the same time. It worked like a charm. They were surprised, and grinning too.

Sylvia, their guide in Avignon also remembers the vampyres and thinks they were real. No delirium. And even if some of the heroes may be infected with doomstone, it seems to much that the secret service is trying to thwart the peace talks between heroes and Pope. She helps arange an appointment with Nicolas, the head of the secret service. Lito meanwhile tries to contact Aster and the Paladyn headquarters. But his courier takes a long while to return, and tells he was stopped short by a Peter. A secret agent of Nicolas again.

I couldn't resist the pun. Nicolas and his Peters. In the Netherlands we have a childrens feast every year on St. Nicolas eve. As a prototypical Santa Claus he comes with his Peters on a Spanish steamboat and brings lots of presents. As long as you were sweet during the year. Because the Peters know everything you have done. Obviously they are very efficient spies, these Peters, crawling through chimneys and hiding in the dark as blacker than black negro henchmen. I ditched the steamboat so far, but the Peters – all named Peter – are the secret agents and Nicolas the Cardinal is their boss – in red robes like our Saint.

However, Cardinal Nicolas is also an elf – a very old elf with huge ears – and is used to work from a disposition of distrust. That's his business. Like any powerful secret service or intelligence agent. Being distrustful. The heroes have a very hard time to talk sense with him. He says he is there to defend the Pope, and if Aster starts swinging bombs in his holyness' vicinity, he has to take tough measures. But with help of the female spirit they eventually find an edge. Nicolas also wants to avoid war, and also hates the poisonous doomstone used as a basis for the economy. He will let them talk with the Pope as long as his agents are near enough.

First though, while outside, the spirit talks again to Eline, and to Lito and Hieronimus too. She guides them to a church of St. Mark near Avignon bridge, where she says Aster is held prisoner. That appears to be correct, when our heroes break in and find she is guarded by Peters. Black Peters officially working for Nicolas' secret service. In the fight that ensues one of the Peters is killed, but Aster and two unnamed men are freed.

But the voice is not done. While Aster is helped by Schwartzburg to find shelter at the Paladyn HQ, the spirit leads the others to a huge church of St. Michael. Below this church, under the crypt, is another older church, and under this other church, protected by gratings, is yet another temple. It is into this temple that they need to go. And so they do. There they discover a recently blown up wall. And behind it is an altar with an intimate image of a dragon and an elf, and four graves. Three are recently plundered. But the fourth, of Saint Agneta still contains the bones of a woman, and a perfect golden ring. This was once the spirit lady. And the spirit is shocked.

Avignon Minicampaign: Read First

I've game mastered for about thirty years now, and every once in a while I try to seek out new ways of storytelling, new ways of constructing stories, new story arcs, new worlds, new ways of letting players interact, new ways of cooperating with other game masters. And telling about what I'm doing now is a way to share what I learned – and still am learning.

The Avignon series is another spin-off of the main Nirdday campaign, which revolves around Doomstone, and a failing economy. And a special thing in this campaign is, that the players are actually playing political confrontations and diplomatic talks – in between slug outs, assassination attempts, and some mystical grave robbing. All while trying to figure out what happened long ago before the date of “Arrival” and why it is so important now.

And now the heroes will have to talk with the pope. About quiting mining doomstone and at the same time changing the economic system. Because world debts grow so large that the economy can no longer bear the compound interest. Because everyone will have to help clearing this mess. Including the Crosstians who forbade asking interest in the first place - and then asked it under another name, such as indulgences.

Writing on this miniseries starts at session #2, also to be up to date as I start. The first episode will appear some other day. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!