A Book and a Play: Golf Outing

 The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, William Morrow Paperback Edition, original publication 1923.

Murder on the Links by Steven Dietz,  Directed by Karen Lund, Taproot Theatre, Extended run through 30 August.

So John, who is Sacnoth and Janice, who is the Bride of Sacnoth, invited me to join them in an expedition in the Greenwood neighborhood for this Hercule Poirot mystery in Taproot's renovated main stage. The new/old digs are well-renovated, and the seating, while still tight, has been improved. In preparation for the play, I actually tracked down a copy of the original story at Page 2 books in Burien. It was an interesting search, in that while a lot of my regular haunts had all manner of Agatha Christie novels, they did not have this one. 

Anyway, long story short, I liked the play better than I liked the book. But I'll get to that. Lemme talk about the book first.

The Murder on the Links is the second Poirot novel. Poirot (for those who never got near PBS in their upbringing) is Agatha Christie's Belgian Detective, with his fastidious nature, distinctive moustache, flashing green eyes, and little grey cells that he uses to navigate through the mysteries. I had powered through a number of Poirot short stories, collected in Poirot Investigates, and he has the talent of targeting some small fact that blows up traditional theories about the case. 

Poirot's assistant and narrator of the tales is Captain Hastings, who is Watson to the Belgian Holmes. He is note quite the dullard of Nigel Bruce in the Sherlock Holmes movies of the 40s, but missteps regularly, concludes erroneously, and is often distracted by beautiful women (Poirot is, of course, immune to all feminine wiles).

So, the novel: Poirot and Hastings are summoned to France by a wealthy Brit named Renauld, who fears for his life because of an unstated "great secret". They arrive on the scene to find Renauld has been murdered, his body found in what would become a bunker in an adjoining golf course (this is the only mention of golf in the book). What follows is a torturous route with continual twists and revelations - hidden histories, changed wills, stolen evidence, secret romances, strange coincidences, exploded alibis, multiple confessions, acrobatic twins, another body, and a rival for Poirot in the form of Surete officer (seriously underused). There is a lot going on, stuffing it all into a relatively short novel. All of this is told with the dry, mannered, clockwork style of Christie, which, for all the murder involved, feels very temperate and bloodless. Having read a lot of Christie recently, I can see why Raymond Chandler really hated her work.

So that's the book, and on reading it I saw it would be a great challenge adapting it to the stage. There are a huge number of characters involved in the novel, including all the suspects, witnesses, and detectives. There is a lot of travel, from England to France with Poirot frequently dropping away from the narrative for some secretive mission in Paris or London. The book's plot turns on itself, with blind alleyways and false leads that are later revealed to be pertinent facts. Oh, and Hastings at one point does something lumpishly stupid and obvious that is then ignored by the author for several chapters. How to handle all that?

Well, writer Dietz does a pretty good job of it, and in addition, makes it a comedy.

Now, Christie lends itself well to comedy, particularly with sometimes overblown characters like Poirot. Check out Miss Marples in the 1960s movies, where the prim, elderly villager is overtaken by Dame Margaret Rutherford's more boisterous portrayal. And Dietz and the actors lean into the implausibility of the original text heavily. The accents are heavy, the actions are frenetic, and the lines are overblown. It actually lends a strong sense of fun to proceedings, and is frankly contagious. Dietz allows Hastings to be the narrator, and to fully narrate, piercing the veil between the fictional world and recognizing it as a play. Janice pointed out a similarity with The 39 Steps, and I heard another patron afterwards make the same comment. So yes, we can put his piece in the same wheelhouse as that one, making the original story a metatextual comment on the fact that this is a play. 

More importantly, the huge cast is cut down to a mere six. Nathan Brackett as a woosterish Hastings, Richard Ngyugen Stoniker (or perhaps understudy Mark Emerson - the moustache is that mesmerizing) is a solid Poirot. Everyone else in the play is portrayed by two men (Tyler Todd Kimmel and Jeff Allen Pierce) and two women (Betsy Mugavero and Claire Marx), which leads to situations where quick changes and transformations are required (and sometimes performed comically on-stage). And the players are in on the joke - this is a performance, and as the players move all the props about on the stage and pull together to make it all make some sort of narrative sense.

And as a play, it works so much better than as a novel. The linearity of moving the action forward makes clear the various plot points and revelations. I did not lose the thread. And even Hastings' bumbling in places makes better sense on the stage than it did on the printed page. Also, the play allows Brackett's Hasting to be more of the romantic hero he sees himself as, with his heart on his sleeve and his desire to protect young (and pretty) young women. And it gives Hasting not only a happy ending, but a lead-in to another Poirot mystery as an Easter Egg. Oh, and a scene actually takes place on a golf course.

All in all, it was an enjoyable way to spend and afternoon, and highly recommended. The cast is frantic and positively acrobatic in their portrayals, and leaves the audience exhausted and delighted. Worth seeing.

More later,

The Book Backlog: Knives Out

 [Bloggers Note: So, I've been fretting over one particular entry for a while - a review of a game product that I'm spending way too much time fiddling with. I'd take it off the shelf, rewrite chunks of it, then put it aside as more immediate matters (the Political Desk, plays that have a closing date) get in the way. But as a result, I have created a backlog of books on the corner of my desk I want to talk about. So this is the Book Backlog. I will (once again) put aside the much longer piece and try to whittle it down, though  that may be a fool's errand. 

Anyway:]

Court of Daggers by Alexandre Dumas Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth, Cyrano Productions, 2022.

Provenance: It is no surprise to long-term readers (both of you) that I've been a fan of Lawrence Ellsworth's translations of the Musketeer Cycle. So I was a little disappointed when I could not find the continuance of the series on the Pegasus Books site or its distributor Simon & Schuster. But I found this volume and the next one on Amazon, continuing the story under Ellsworth's own imprint. 

Review: I'll be frank - we're in the doldrums here. It is season 5 of 7 seasons and the movie. The original Musketeers stories were written to be serialized in newspapers, and while that makes for reading them fairly neatly and compartmentalized, collecting them together lacks a bit of heft as we move further away from the original adventures. 

This is the second part of the Visconte de Bragelonne, which started in Between Two Kings. As such we get a a chance to deal with other characters than the four core musketeers. In particular, the rising star is the titular viscount, who is the son of the almost saintly Aramis. Of the others, Athos is now a clergyman. Porthos is nobility. D'Artagnan has land in France and England, and still works, off and on, for the Crown, resigning whenever the Crown displeases him.

There are three arcs within the text. The first centers the conflict between the Superintendent of Finance Fouquet, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who controls the late Cardinal Mazarin's wealth. The King sides with Colbert and signs the death warrant for two of Fouquet's underlings. Fouquet  hires mercs to capture his minions, escaping through a nearby building, and then covering their tracks by setting the building ablaze. Oh, yeah, the building is owned by D'Artagnan, who is on the scene when this goes down. D'Artagnan foils the plot, kills Fouqet's mercs, and lets Fouquet's men be properly hanged.

D'Artagnan is then hired by Colbert to investigate Fouquet's building up a fortress on the coast. D'Artagnan finds that Porthos is charge of the fortifications, and since Porthos is not the sharpest mental blade in the basket, discovers that Athos, now a bishop, is behind this particular development. Fouquet does from fancy diplomatic tapdancing to avoid the noose himself. Interestingly, Dumas (and D'Artagnan) likes Fouquet better than Colbert, even though he is working against him. 

The last act consists of the King marrying off his brother to the sister of King Charles of England (who our glad lads helped put back on the throne). A lot of young men are hot for Princess Henrietta, including the second Duke of Buckingham (which worked out SO well the last time). Bragelonne has to be the voice of reason here, even though he is himself smitten with his childhood love, who in turn has been elevated to a Lady in Waiting (and caught the eye of the King). More drama to come, but that will wait for the next volume, Devil's Dance. 

Bragelonne, the titular hero, threads his way through all this. He is D'Artagnan's Padawan in the first third. He argues with his father a bit in the second set of chapters, but then we scarcely see him until the final bit, where he comes into his own. And while the Viscount worships his father, he shares much with the bravado and cunning of D'Artagnan.

Ellsworth acquits himself well here, covering a lot of territory that most Americans and English-speakers have not heard of in the canon. He trims, edits and modernizes, without losing the plot or burying small bits. An earlier translation of the text can be found here, and it is clear that Ellsworth makes the work readable and engaging for the current readers, just as it was for serial readers in Paris itself. He smooths things out and reduces the stuffiness (to our ears) of the earlier translations. Plus he backs up with footnotes and character descriptions in the back that help clarify where everyone is standing with each other and what any asides and allusions refer to.

In short, I'm still enjoying the series, through we are now 30 years out from when D'Artagnan first entered Paris with his wobbling horse. And it gives me wonderful source material for Miseries & Misfortunes. And I'm looking forward to reading the next volume as well.

More later 

New Arrivals: The Gen Con Haul

 So, I was invited out to Gen Con back in early August as a Guest of Honor this year in Indy, and despite the Covid, it was pretty darn good.

The official house was 71,000 gamers, all of whom I suspect were on the exhibit floor at the same time as I was. The convention had spread out even more than the last time I attended, which surprised me, and worked into every nook and cranny of the surrounding hotels (and they are building more hotels in Indianapolis, which bodes well for future conventions). I had been invited to sit of several panels for the 50th anniversary of D&D (Here are some videos), and helped out with the Writer's Symposium as well. And I picked up a lot of stuff, including huge blisters on both feet from all the walking around (and Covid).

I will confess I packed a large suitcase, half-empty, just to account for all the things I was intending to bring back. I also sent a copy of Shadowdark to a colleague who asked for it, and it was a good thing, because they sold out of the last of their print run at the con itself. 

OK, so what do we have? 

Gen Con Program Booklet by Peter Adkison and many diverse and talented hands, 170-page magazine format. This bears out a call-out because of how much it shows the depth and diversity of Gen Con as it celebrated 50 years of D&D. Stuffed with ads from exhibitors but also showing the maps of all the locations, it covers the history of D&D, the guests of honor (I'm on page 91), the writer's symposium, the costume contest (one of my old D&D group from college is on page 125), and all sorts of subcons and special interest groups. An excellent memento of the convention.

Legions of Carcosa by John Harness, Kira Magrann, Sarah Saltiel and Monica Valentinelli, with Daniel Kwan, Pelgrane Press, 200-page hardbound, 2023, Gen Con, and Black Star Magic,  by Robin D. Laws, Sarah Saltiel, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, and Ruth Tillman, Pelgrane Press, 184-page digest-sized hardbound, 2023 Gen Con . Pelgrane's The Yellow King is one of the more intriguing games I have in my collection and one of the more challenging. Its system is a simplified version of their Gumshoe system, which uses condition cards as opposed to more traditional hit points and the like, yet it remains a bit of a mental climb for me. The setting itself is four settings based on the work of Robert Chambers, who in the 1890s created an alternate 1920s with a dictatorship in America with suicide booths in the major cities. The game itself has four separate time periods to it - Paris in the 1890s, during the Continental Wars, and post-war, post-dictatorship US, and a modern era. So all this is background. Legions of Carcosa is a monster book, Black Star Magic is a book of spells. Nice additions, though I know I'll have to do a bit more digging to see how they can be implemented. 

The Fifth Imperative by Robin D. Laws, Pelgrane Press, 192-page softbound digest, 2022, Gen Con  Also from the Pelgrane Press and also dealing with the alternate history of The Yellow King. This one is set in the period following the dictatorship, and involves politics and otherworldly conspiracy. I really like the lateral development and fiction books that Robin D. Laws and Pelgrane put out, and usually don't see enough of them through my standard purchasing venues. So this will likely end up as a "plane book" to be read en route to conventions.  

Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin D. Laws, Gameplaywright Press, 196-page softbound digest, 2010, 2015, Gen Con. This is the third time I have purchased this book. On the two previous occasions, I have recommended it others, loaned it out, and never saw it again. It is an interesting examination and mapping of beats and pacing within narrative stories. For Laws, such beats are instances with specific purposes, be them - Dramatic, Commentary, Anticipation, and the connective tissue of Pipe, and combine to create Hope and/or Fear in the audience. He then uses this analysis to examine Hamlet, Casablanca, and Dr. No, under this lens. It's an interesting approach, and the only thing I can ding it with is the each beat is considered as a single unit - a particularly positive beat gets the same weight as a negative beat, so that the progress of beats is downward, regardless of resolution. But that's just a quibble. I'm glad I got another copy of this. No, you can't borrow it. 

Pendragon Core Rulebook by Greg Stafford, with input from myriad others, Chaosium Inc./Moon Design Publications, 254-page hardback, 2024, Gen Con. I'm a fan of Chaosium's games - I've played a lot of Call of Cthulhu. I've played almost no Runequest (but love the lore). Pendragon falls between those two poles, where I've done a bit as both player and gamemaster. And so a goal of this trip was to pick up the new version (I would have also picked up some Miskatonic Library volumes, if they had any on-hand, just so you know). The latest version is polished and is incredibly readable. The downside is that this is primarily a Player's Guide, with a lot of good information for players. For a GM, it would more of an uphill stroll, and hopefully there is a GM resource in the works. In the mean time, I would still likely spring the Starter Set on my players.

Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, Tor Books, 266 page Trade paperback, Gen Con. So what's the deal with including all these books here? Well, they were part of the Gen Con swag I returned from Indy with. This volume was a reward for helping out the Writer's Symposium, spending part of an afternoon stuffing swag bags for the attendees. A good group activity. The book itself deals with a slacker taking on a temp job that takes him to another dimension filled with giant monsters. That's about all I know about it right now. Kate's read it on Kindle (I have a hard time concentrating on devices when I have other options to engage with) and says its pretty good. It becomes another plane-trip book. 

Miseries and Misfortunes: Roleplaying in 1648 by Luke Crane, Burning Wheel, six softbound digest volumes for 852-pages total, 2022-2023, Gen Con. This is the sort of thing I love at Gen Con - finding something I had never heard of before, something that is much tougher in this Internet Age. So I was delighted I found the six volumes of this game at the Burning Wheel booth and snapped them up. The gamer takes place in the post-Richelieu, post- Louis XIII era of the Musketeers Cycle, where you had the underaged Louis XIV, the Queen Regent, and a noble revolt known as the Fronde. While it notes its descent from Basic D&D, it has morphed from those early designs into a completely different animal with a lot of different mechanics. The books themselves are 1) a system book for game mechanics, 2) a character creation book (which should be read first so you know what they're talking about in book 1, 3) a book on magic, 4) and expansion to books 1-3, 5) an adventure set in Catalonia, and 6) a MASSIVE book on Paris itself. So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Religion in the American West: Belief, Violence, and Resilience from 1800 to Today.  Edited by Jessica Lauren Nelson, University of New Mexico Press, 196-page hardbound, 2023. So at Gen Con, my hosts put me up at the Fairfield, which was one of a collection of interconnected Marriot-branded lodgings. My room faced the Eiteljorg Museum of American Museums and Western Art. And since I had arrived a day early, I actually had the chance to see something in the city where I was. And it is an excellent museum of Native American and European Western art, and I would recommend it just on the basis of that. But the special exhibit was on Religion in the American West, and covered both the stuff most folk know about (The Mormons, the Spanish missions), as well as lot of things that tended to get pushed to the back (Presbyterians and their influence on the Erie Canal, the rivalry between Catholic priests and Protestant ministers among the Native Americans). It was a good exhibit, and I went back on Sunday to get the book (which was half-price since that was the last day of the exhibit). Look forward to reading it. 

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons, Edited by Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and Jose P. Zagal, the MIT Press, 372-page Trade paperback, 2024, Gen Con. Purchased at the MIT press booth, no less. The 50th anniversary of D&D has encouraged a spurt of commentary and analysis. This volume is a collection of essays from a number of talented individuals. I've been reading this is bits and pieces, and there are parts I find engaging, and those that I give the hairy eyeball and raised eyebrow at. The final collection probably should have had one more pass through it by a well-intentioned grognard or two to catch the nits. One obvious nit? For a document that pushes cultural accuracy in many of its essays, the cover shows two Viking-types fighting what I would guess to be a Lindwyrm. And the Vikings have wings on their helmets. Its a minor thing, but triggers that eye-roll thing. 

The Egg of the World: A Guide to Gaming in the World of Tekumel by Victor Raymond, 256 page ringbound draft, 2022. Gift of the Author. It is well known that I am a fan of Empire of the Petal Throne, but recognize that the very alienness and completeness of the world is a major stumbling block for new players. There's a lot to grok - no only all the strange names and alien creatures, but the non-Western-European concepts of rigid class and clan. The original EPT had 11 pages of backstory for the world at the start, before digging into it properly. So this volume sorts out a lot of this for the referee, hitting the important points of what makes a Tekumel campaign, as well a host of scenarios, adventures, factions and patrons that can be grist for your mill. This is a referee's source material to get your players into EPT without overloading them, and allow them to experience the world as opposed to confronting them with a big data dump. I'm looking forward to seeing this in its final form. 

Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques, TopatoCo Books, 592 page trade paperback, Gen Con. Look to the blogroll to the right, and you'll see QC listed. And I check it out on weekdays. At Gen Con, I hunted down Jacques among the teaming thousands and myriad booths. He had already sold out of Volumes 1 and 2, but I bought Vol 3 and he included a drawing of Hannalore (I have friends who are artists, but it still lifts my heart when someone does that). Anyway, Questionable Content has been around for twenty+ years, and deals with the relationships of Marten and Faye, who were a couple back at the beginning, then broke up and dated others, then broke up with those others a few more times and now are in pretty stable relationships. This is of the era when Hannalore, who grew up on a space station, shows up more, Marten still has a band, and has such things a whether Penelope, the new employee, is really the superhero Pizza Girl and the threat of the the VespAvenger and her transforming robot scooter. The writing is smart, the characters are intelligent, and the strip remains excellent. The strip has evolved as it deals more with robots and SF elements, and there are a host of characters that rotate in and out, sort of like Doonesbury. I really like the strip, and you can rabbit hole through the archives if you don't want a physical copy. So check it out. 

Neoclassical Geek Revival Second Edition Acidic Rulebook (it is acidic instead of basic, get it?), by Zzarchov Kowolski, Neoclassical Games, 170 page hardback digest, Gen Con.  I'd seen mentions of this product elsewhere, and was delighted to see it with a booth (low-tech and high pressure), so I picked up the core book and a couple support products. I expected another OSR-clone hewing close to the original little booklets, but instead discovered that they took the core concepts and headed for the exits, changing them over time to produce something completely unique. The tone of the books are that same jaunty in-your-face attitude of the guy across the gaming table explaining his house rules, but everything has changed dramatically, such that you're learning a completely new game. The part that is most like original D&D is the presence of a GM (mentioned briefly) and the 1st edition tendency to create a new system whenever confronted with a new challenge. It's really impressive. I also picked up Havenvale (16 pages), a tidy little starting area in a mountain valley, and The Price of Evil (32 pages), a way to create haunted houses with a deck of cards. 

Whew! And that's the lot. And more have shown up, but we'll deal with them later. So, more. Later.

New Arrivals: Lull Before the Storm

 I picked up a lot of stuff at Gen Con (including Covid) back in August, but I want to deal with the stuff that came into the household before that. Because there's just so much stuff from Gen Con (including Covid).

There are a lot of independent RPGs in this collection, and one big chunk of D&D history. Let's take the tour:

Troika! Numinous Edition, by Daniel Sell, Melsonian Arts Council, 2023, 138-page Digest-sized softbound, Purchases from Mox Boarding House in Bellevue. I've seen some references to Troika and Troika-related projects elsewhere, but never has a clear line to purchase. So when I saw it a the Mox, I picked it up. And even by Roleplaying Game terms, Its a bit ... strange. Sort of two parts Jack Vance and two parts Doug Adams. Character creations is flavorful, and ranges from giants from a lost empire to trepanned Zoathrops that have abandoned sentience. The rules themselves are relatively straightforward, with a 2d6 to resolve most tasks. The provided adventure is to reach the top floor of a hotel. It is a delightfully weird little oddity that is a shining example of an independent RPG. I'm going to keep my eye out for related projects.

Mork Borg by Pelle Nilsson, Ockult Oktmastare Games/Stockholm Kartell/Free League, 90-page digest hardbound book, 2024, Purchased at The Game Shelf in Kent. Mork Bog (Swedish for Dark Fort, and pronounced Murk Boriy, like that helps) was one of those games that took the indy RPG field by storm a few years ago, winning a host of awards, and spinning off secondarty games right left and center. I had picked up Pirate Borg, and on Steve Winter's recommendation, went after the source. And Wow. The yellows. The horrible, pulsating yellows. Mork Borg is an art game where the presentation attempts to overwhelm that is presented (and sometimes succeeds). The rules are solid, with a very 3E sensibility (4 attributes, 3d6 rolls, but then convert to a table for the ability modifier). The world is serious heavy metal grimdark, and probably one of the most heroic versions of it I've seen.  That part is excellent. Good game, but oh god, the yellows.

Knave Second Edition by Ben Milton, published by Jacob Hurst and Swordfish Ilse, 2024,.80-page digest hardbound book, Kickstarter. This is a nifty little alt-OSR, which put original D&D in the blender, sieved out the crunchy bits, and then simplified those bits. A lot of old rules with altered effects (like Wisdom being used for ranged weapons, or Charisma Bonuses used for initiative checks) and a really nice way to bring encumbrance back on-line (which I'm seeing elsewhere). Milton pulls his inspiration from a lot of previous OSR material, and then credits accordingly. And in doing so, his alterations create an entirely new game system within an established set of expectations. That's nice. Worth checking out.

Deadpool Role-Plays the Marvel Universe, Cullen Bunn and Michael Shelier (Comic), Cullen Bunn and Matt Forbeck (Game adventure and stats). 48-page comic book, 2024, Purchased at Midgard Comics. This was a bit of surprise treat, spotted on the shelves of my Friendly Local Comic Store, And I think this sort of thing is important to get out there. My early Marvel Super Heroes carpet-bombed the hobby market with a lot of short, diverse modules that captured shelf-space and told the players that there was a big world out there to play in. In addition, DRAGON magazine regularly did The Marvel-Phile, which gave the stats for a slew of esoteric characters (Howard the Duck's Iron Man armor, for example). The comic-book format used here has the potential to do the same for the latest iteration of the license. The first 8 pages is a story is where Deadpool puts together a band of lesser-known mercenaries for a job, while the remaining pages is a starter adventure that sets the recruits into action. They need to find out what happened to the other mercenaries and henchmen being kidnapped. Told through Deadpool's voice and mannerisms, it is a light, fun adventure, and a good intro to the system. Marvel would be well-rewarded to do more of this, or even to put game stats in the back of their regular books, instead of a gimmicky QR-Code. Just sayin'.

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu by M. Bill Heron, Nightfall Games Ltd. 112-page Digest hardback 2020, Kickstarter. This is an amusing set of adventures (for 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu) based on a short story by actor Claudia Christian and Chris McAuley, who co-created the Stokerverse, which had its own RPG mentioned here. Set in the time of Louis XIII, the adventures are very sandboxy and setting based, but do not have to follow linearly from one another. The Court of Chaos, ultimately backed by Nyarlathotep, plans the overthrow of the King. Your job? Stop it from happening. The setting includes most of the characters from the first book, as well as such things as deep ones and werewolves. The Kickstarter had a collection of extremely useful maps. Plus the four musketeers as potential PCs. A tidy little package that I could throw my regular CoC crew into.

Moria: Through the Doors of Durin, By Gareth Hanrahan, Free League, 228-page Hardbound book + full-sized map, 2024, Kickstarter. Free League produces some wondrous-looking books, and this one is no exception. Tolkien himself never drew up maps of Moria, so all of this is "lateral development" and non-canonical, but it is so cool-looking. Set in the era of the One Ring RPG between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it provides a variety of locations within (and nearby) the dwarven mines as the original dungeon delve.

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1979, Jason Tondo (Project Lead), Wizards of the Coast, 578 Page hardbound book, 2024, Gift from a colleague at Wizards. This is a massive tome that is a wondrous stroll through the original material of D&D. It is an upsized reprint of the first six small booklets of D&D, along with other material. I still have the (worn, coverless) originals downstairs, but these up-sized versions give folk fifty-years-later the idea of what we had as our original Burgess Shale of gaming. More importantly, there are reproductions from gaming 'zines of the pre-D&D 70s, internal correspondence, and most importantly the early drafts and notes on the game before production. All in all, and excellent dive of primary sources for the gaming historian.  

The Wildsea Expansion: Storm and Root, Felix Isaacs and others, Mythworks/Quillworks Studio, 304-page Landscape formatted  hardbound book, 2023, Kickstarter.  The Kickstarter included the scenario One-Armed Scissor,(30 pages) the expansion Ship-Gardens (38 pages), and the scenario Red Right Hand (46 pages), along with sent of six 6-sided "Cthonic Dice" (not shown, arrived at the house after the picture was taken - ah, the vagaries of  Kickstarters). I find Wildsea both interesting and challenging. It is set in a world where toxic vegetation has run wild, and players pilot chainsaw ships through the upper canopy of trees. As such, the world has some similarities to my ancient Storm Front proposal. But it is a complex, alien world, and uses a descendent of the Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse systems, which makes it even more of a challenge to this venerable grognard. These expansions push the boundaries back, with both flying craft and submarines (sub-arboreals?), adding a lot more depth (sorry) to the world. In addition, it further helps with adventures and more detailed working. I don't know if I will get a chance to play Wildsea, but I find it fascinating in its creativity.

OK, that's it. Have to delve into the GenCon collection next. Stay tuned. More later. 

Book: Back in the Saddle

 Between Two Kings by Alexandre Dumas, Translated and Edited by Lawrence Ellsworth, Pegasus Books, 2021

Provenance: Amazon. Birthday present from the Lovely Bride. 

Review: Everyone knows The Three Musketeers. Most people know The Man in the Iron Mask. But between these two posts were a slew of other tales, first those within Twenty Years Later (talked about here and here) and now those within Ten Years After, also known as the Vicomte of Bragalonne. This particular volume is the first 50 chapters of the latter book, which culminated in aforementioned The Man in the Iron Mask.

So were this a simple trilogy, this would be the "saddle" book, the one between the declaration of the problem in the first book, and the resolution in the third. But these stories of the Three Musketeers were not built as such - they were written for publication in weekly journals starting in 1847, so they are a long as they need to be. The volumes of collected work are after-market sales. And it shows - it takes its time getting places, characters can be delayed or engage in chapter-long discussions, and the pacing rolls from action-packed to leisurely. It does pose a challenge for people collecting up the stories into something less than a single massive tome. Yet every chapter holds its own as a unit and encourages the reader to follow along. Translator Ellsworth captures the flavor, flair, and completeness of the original French manuscript.

This first volume concerns itself primarily with the Return of the King, in this case King Charles II of England. Yes, we're back in England, again. We presided over the death of Charles I in Blood Royal, as the heroes were unable to completely contravene history, and now Dumas plays a bit fast and loose with the facts, making his heroes key to restoration of the monarchy. D'Artagnan, still a lieutenant in the Musketeers, has had enough of the young French King, a particularly emo Louis XIV, and strikes out on his own with a scheme to restore Charles to the throne and make a tidy profit for himself. Athos, who was the recipient of Charles I's last words, encounters the son and pledges himself to help restore the young man to the throne, powered by the sense of noble duty. Porthos and Aramis are missing from this text, except for chapters where D'Artagnan goes looking for them and finds out they just left.  Even Athos' son, the Viscomte named in the original title, is mostly absent for the first fifty installments.

Athos, who was a bit of a wet mop in the previous volume, shines here through his own nobility, honesty, and generosity. The same attributes that worked against him in Blood Royal (trust, respect, duty) now prove to be indispensable. He is respected by his potential enemies and taken at his noble word continually. D'Artagnan is more comic than usual, still very much the farmer from Gascony after all these years, and talks himself into (and out of) various messes. Ultimately, each man has his own screwball plan, and together, the plans work. But this is really Athos' book,

The Royals in these tales are generally useless. Louis XIV is kept inert while his Prime Minister, Mazarin, backed up by Louis's mother, Queen Anne, pretty much run things. Charles of England is impoverished and depressed, lacking both cash and manpower to retake his throne. Anne herself, whose diamonds drove the plot of the first book, forgets old allies and servants with alarming precision. Henrietta of Stuart, Charles II's younger sister, was horribly impoverished in the previous book, but after restoration she becomes a coquettish tease. All the rest are pretty unsympathetic, courtiers just waiting for the chop a hundred years later. 

Of more interest to Dumas are the powers behind the throne - Cardinal Mazarin for Louis, and General Monck for Charles. They are the ones that our heroes mostly contend with. Mazarin is effective but venal and greedy. Monck is honorable, such that he takes Athos at his word, and throws in with Chalres when the young King impresses him. Throughout the books Dumas was a fan of Richleau and his ilk, not so much Louis XIII, and it reflects in his treatment of the true managers of state here.

What strikes me most as I move through this book is how in politics people switch sides with frightening regularity. Enemies from the Frondeur are now respected members of the court, and old alliances and services rendered are conveniently forgotten (yes, I'm looking at YOU, Queen Anne). It is very much a case that you need a scorecard to figure out who is currently plotting against who, which Ellsworth kindly provides in extensive footnotes and historical bios. 

This volume is just the first 50 chapters of a 268-chapter story, and while it tells a coherent story, it is all warm-up for the main acts to follow, wrapping up some of looser ends from the Twenty Years After and introducing some of the new cast going forward. It breaks at a correct moment, and sets us up for the what follows. And yeah, I'm here for the ride. 

More later,

Plague Book: In the Blood

Blood Royal, or, The Son of Milady by Alexandre Dumas, Edited and Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth, Pegasus Books, 2020

Provenance: Christmas book, 2020

Review: These books have quickly become mental comfort food. I had read an excellent translation of the Three Musketeers long ago and far away, but fell into the Ellsworth translations with the Red Sphinx and kept coming back. Ellsworth is better known in gaming circles as Lawrence Schick (D&D module S2 - White Plume Mountain, among other things), and his spirit of adventure carries through here in his translation.

This volume is the back half of the original publication of Twenty Years After, which originally appeared as a serialized novel. In it, Dumas deals with two different civil wars - one in France called the Fronde, and the English Civil War. In the first half, the four inseparables are separated through loyalties and responsibilities, Mordaunt, the son of Milady plots his revenge, and two of the group (Aramis and Athos) debark for England to help King Charles, on the ropes from Cromwell's revolution.

We pick up this volume with D'Artagnan and Porthos also heading for England, with instructions to help Cromwell and assigned to aid  Mordaunt, who plots all of their demises. They soon switch sides and work to save King Charles (noble but doomed), who had been betrayed to Cromwell's forces. 

And here's the thing: they have to fail (spoilers). Historically, Charles was beheaded (real spoilers), and while Dumas will be kinda fast and loose with the facts and timelines to suit his fiction, he cannot keep the King of England alive. So we have a long section where the crafty Gascon (D'Artagnan is given that sobriquet a number of time) comes up with a plan that just ALMOST works, before time or fate or the presence of the Son of Milady foils it at the last moment. Mordaunt pops in a number of times,and the crew also fails to dispatch him, and ultimately the group has to flee England in a boat rigged with explosives.

Back in France, the four split up, and D'Artagnan and Porthos are imprisoned by the current evil cardinal (Mazarin, not the ruthless but effective Richelieu) for trying to save the English King. Athos and Aramis witness the machinations to overturn the revolutionary Frondeurs by splitting off its various factions, but rescue D'Artagnan and Porthos, and get enough leverage to get what they themselves ultimately want (which is not what the revolutionaries were after). It all ends in a riot, much as it began in the previous volume.

D'Artagnan is no longer an innocent, but is crafty and the man with the plan throughout this book. Porthos lusts after his peerage and respect, and is the most broadly-fashioned of the group. Aramis is the Sexy Priest, only moreso. Athos has in my brain changed over the passing of 20 years - the fact that he has a son (who will be more important later) has made him more of a worrier and fretter, both on behalf of his son and in general. That son in turn sort of vanishes in this volume, after a good start in the previous volume.

The swashbuckling is hard and heavy, ranging from battlefield maneuvers to very D&Dish duels, and in one section, a dungeon exploration. Dumas reserves his sharpest tongue for the politicians of all shapes and factions. Queen Anne of France is sleeping with Cardinal Maturan, who is more comic and less capable than his predecessor Richleau. The upper class leaders of the Frondeur are easily bought off by the Monarchy. The former valets of the Musketeers have established themselves with the greater society, to a variety of effects. All have their moments, but the center of the action are on the four musketeers.

Yeah, I'm bought in on that. There are three more volumes to come, which make up the Vicomte of Braelonne series, which ends in The Man in the Iron Mask. Yeah, I'm going to be there for them.

More later,

 

Book: Four of the Three Musketeers

Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, Edited and Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth, Pegasus Books, 2019

Provenance: Christmas present from the Lovely Bride. I had read the predecessor book, The Red Sphinx (written later, but inserted into its proper place in the timeline canon - Hey, if you can sort out all the Star Wars films, you can handle that). It is part of taking The Three Musketeers and turning it into its own Expanded Universe.

Review: Let me give you the bad news first - this is not the complete novel of Twenty Years Later. It is about half of it, setting up all the pieces and sending its characters all over the place and setting up (hopefully) threads that will resolve themselves later. The publisher does not do a very good job indicating this, other than a mention in the Editor/Translator's intro and the sudden announcement at the last chapter that "The Story Continues in Book Four - The Son of Milady").

And you know what, that's OK. Dumas originally serialized these stories in Parisian Newspaper, Le Siecle - The Age), So the initial assemblage was of a thing of pieces. And, given its serialized origin, the final work is sprawling and over-sized - this first half of the story runs about 450 pages, including front and back matter, and a complete version might be larger than the doorstop that was the Red Sphinx.

The original Three Musketeers was a smash hit, yet when the sequel showed up, it was a bit puzzling. Instead of picking up with our heroes immediately, Dumas went, well ... 20 years after. That's a easy thing to do when you're doing historical fiction, since you have the general gist of things, though Dumas played fast and loose with the timing of historical events and the ages of the characters through-out (His audience did not have a Wikipedia to check things, and an Internet upon which to complain about them).

So. twenty years after the events in the first book.The band of Inseparables has separated. D'Artagnan is still with the King's Musketeers, but Aramis has become a priest, Porthos married into the landed gentry, and Athos is a Count as well. King Louis XIII is dead, and the Prince, to be Louis XIV (The Sun King) has not yet attained his majority. Cardinal Richelieu is no more, and his replacement is Cardinal Mazarin, more of a greedy bumbler who makes the previous Cardinal look more godlike (as noted elsewhere, Dumas really liked Richelieu, though most American versions present him as a bad guy).

Mazarin summons D'Artagnan to put the band back together to deal with a would-be rebellion from the nobles and bourgeois. This rebellion, known as the Fronde because of the slings used by the rebels, was centered on the bourgeois and bureaucracy, but supported by the more powerful nobles and the usual suspects of other potential heirs to the throne. D'Artagnan accepts, but discovers that not all is well with his former comrades. Aramis, now a priest, is on the side of the Frondeurs, and is sleeping with one of the ring-leaders. Porthos has land but no respect from the other gentry, and wishes to become a Baron. Athos, previously known as a drinker and a cynic, has cleaned up his act and dotes on his young protege, who is not-so-secretly (because everyone except the young man realizes it) is Athos' illegitimate son (through a turn of events which is pretty damned wacky).

And that son, Raoul, quickly takes over the book. D'Artagnan disappears for about 100 pages towards the end of this installment, and his absence is not noticed, as the pages are filled with other characters. The former servants are back, now in different ranks and lives since 20 years ago. Raoul gets a traveling companion of similar status in the Comte de Guiche. And the son of Milady, Mordaunt, comes into play as the chief bad guy, in the service of Oliver Cromwell (England is having a Civil War as well at this time, though bloodier). This half of the book ends with Athos and Aramis heading for England with Lord Winter (brother of Milady's second husband) to help Charles II while Mordaunt taunts them from the jetty.

What I find interesting is that, with age, the Inseparables are plagued by their doubts. They have been on the wrong side of history before, aiding the Queen and opposed to the King in the matter of the Queen's Necklace, and now they must admit that Richelieu was a great man (even if they opposed him years before). And their trial and execution of Milady at the end of The Three Musketeers is coming back to haunt them in the form of her child, who is evil, but evil-with-a-justification.

The text is lively and engaging and captures the swashbuckling nature.  Ellsworth de-bowdlerizes earlier translations of the Dumas text, and restores a "lost chapter", which features none of the main characters, but rather a member of the Frondeurs that is almost ridden down in the streets by D'Artagnan. Said mild-mannered revolutionary goes home, but the result of his encounter brings a mob of supporters and more and more powerful visitors (with their attendent doctors) to his house, resulting in an aristo version of the stateroom scene from A Night A The Opera. And it is the little bits like this - the dinners and the conversations and the small scenes, that really move the plot along nicely.

So, yeah, half an oeuvre is better than none, and I look forward to the resolution of this translation. Yeah, I can get it in more complete(ish) form elsewhere, but I will wait for this one.

More later,

Theatre: Olden Girls

The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson, Directed by Kelly Kitchens, Arts West, through 9 February

Olympe de Gouges is a playwright in Revolutionary Paris of 1793. She is visited by Marianne Anglie is a free black woman woman from the San Domingo. She wants Olympe to write pamphlets to help the revolution there. Charolette Corday arrives, an assassin in waiting. She wants Olympe to give her some final words to say after she kills the Jacobin revolutionary Murat. Then Marie-Antoinette shows up looking for a rewrite on her role in history. But Olympe has writer's block.

And there is a fifth woman here, and she is Madame Guillotine. The Terror is in full swing, reaching that tipping point to where anyone, anywhere, could feel her cold sharp kiss. And for women the danger is particularly high.

So, its a comedy. Kind of. The women argue. They joke. They try to help Olympe. They make demands. And for the bulk of the play, it all feels pretty off-balance. The characters feel like they are talking through each other as opposed to each other. the language is modern and so is the cursing. They talk like they know they are characters in a play. And I can't really pin down what this is - Historical? Alt-historical? Meta-theatre? Are these characters or ideals in conflict? Am I entirely inside someone's head? If so, who?

The actors are good. Sunam Ellis  is Olympe de Gouges, a bit too flighty and vain for my tastes, but that's how I feel about writers in plays. Jonelle Jordan is Charolette Corday, the emotional one, and her emotion is murder (She was in Bo-Nita, at the Rep, and can carry herself well on stage).. Hannah Mootz is Marie-Antoinette, the ditsy one that can come up with inadvertent truths. Dedra D. Woods is Marianne Anglie,. who of the four is the voice of reason. Yes, they could have stepped out of a mid-eighties sitcom, and the oddball relationship kinda work most of the time.

But joking about experimental theatre doesn't quite work, even ironically, when it feels like you're doing experimental theatre. Ditto complaining about plays about playwrights when you have a play about playwright. I had a hard time engaging, and as it all muddled in the middle, caught between gears. There were couples dodging out the back door at the intermission. Which was really a pity.

Because in the last 15 minutes, all became clear. All the chatter before is set-up, as they pay off all the odd quartet and characters and resolve everything in something that is really moving and aspiring. When you get it, you get it, and understand why everything feels so disjointed. And you feel sorry for those people who bailed early. Still, it is a bit of chug for a while.I found it ultimately OK, but the journey took a while.

Now, the Honesty In Relationships Act of 1962 demands that I note that this point that the Lovely Bride disagrees with me on this. She thought it was great. She liked the actors, the plot and how it all fit together. She laughed, she cried, she internalized. So this one comes with a healthy and hearty "Your mileage may vary". I gave it a good, solid B. She gave it an A. Go find out for yourself. Don't leave at intermission.

More later,

Adventure: Hard Reign Gonna Fall

Reign of Terror by Mark Morrison with Penelope Love, James Coquillat, and Darren Watson; Call of Cthulhu RPG; Chaosium, 2017


Here's my deal on reviews: I have to play the game in order to review it properly. Reviewing a game or game adventure without playing it is akin to reviewing a play simply from its script. Now. uou can review a script as a script, analyzing why it works and how, and guess how it will all play out, but you really aren't reviewing a performance. For that reason, I read a lot of RPGs and adventures but don't review them. I'm more than willing to promote stuff I haven't played, particularly by friends and colleagues, but reviewing? Not so much.

Oh, and there will be spoilerish things here, so if you want to run this, or never will run this, proceed, but if you want the thrill of playing in it (and its a bit of thrill ride), you can bail now.

My regular Saturday night group has of late been more anime and kaiju movies of late, particularly since we wrapped up the massive Horror on the Orient Express (which I COULD review under my rules, because I was a player,but not a GM/Keeper). I came across this at The Dreaming, up in Seattle's U-District (good comic and game store - my choice for the Lovecraftian stuff), and since we HAD wrapped up Horror, thought this a good tie-in.

Now Horror was set in the 1920s and ranged between London and Constantinople and back again, but the latest incarnation also had a number of vignettes for the past that helped fill in bits and pieces of the story. These vignettes had pregens and gave the players a break from playing their normal characters. Cool idea, particularly since Call of Cthulhu can have a rather lethal body count.

Reign of Terror is really two adventures. The first takes place in Paris in 1789, at the dawn of the revolution, and the second five years later at the height of the Terror, when the guillotine made messy work of those who were out of favor.

And the first adventure works really, really well. The pregen characters are soldiers in Paris, assigned to guard the catacombs as bones are moved from the overflowing cemeteries to new homes underground. They have an encounter with Count Fenalik (who for opur group was a recurring foe in Horror), which gets them involved with revolutionary pamphleteers, palace politics and several decadent dinner parties. The adventure ends with some interesting footnotes tying the characters into the Tennis Court Agreement and the Storming of the Bastille.All of this is really solid.l

The second part happens five years later, after the revolution and the Terror that followed. This is the age of the guillotine, where informers are rampant and the ambitious use false accusation to clear out political and personal opponents. A minor character from the first adventure gets hold of unspeakable knowledge and plans to sacrifice all of Paris to an Elder God (I did mention spoilers, right?).

This part didn't work nearly as smoothly, for several reasons. One is that in the first section, the players are all effectively on the same team - they are soldiers, one of them in the sergeant, so there is chain of command. Also they have specific orders and are expected to obey. And they can expect some sort of support from their superiors. In the wake of the revolution, though, that command is broken down. Not all the characters are still in the army (our romantic young soldier is the group became disillusioned, quit the army, and became a busker on the streets), and some of them may have actually fired on each other at the Bastille. They don';t have superiors who are giving them direct orders, and have a lot more leeway in their actions.

In fact, the adventure turns on the characters, who previously have been expected to obey orders, disobeying those orders for the plot to proceed. In our case, they chose to not disobey orders, forcing the Keeper into quickly coming up with how to proceed the story further. Often, keeping the story moving forward has the whiff of railroading, but this was a case where the game leaves you a bit high and dry as how to proceed (we managed, but it required some impromptu rewiring).

A second challenge is that both big bads are very similar. Singular, aggressive, elite, and powerful (both in physical abilities and in social position). Both are unkillable until a certain set of circumstances come together. Their goals are very different, but how the players interact with them is similar. In the case of the second adventure, the second big bad taunted the characters with a very Fenalik sort of grin, and AT THAT MOMENT the group decided that, whatever he was up to, they were going to take him down. They skipped the next two sections of investigation and went directly to judicious application of kegs of gunpowder in a closed space to defeat him.

Third, and this is one of the biggest challenges of the second half, the shadow of the guillotine hangs over them, but the process of how one gets there is unclear. How is the arrest made? How long do you sit in jail before the kangaroo court sets down a decision? The book does talk about such things as how condemnations functions, but not once the process is rolling There's a definite gap between The Second Big Bad decides to send the Committee for Public Safety against the players and the tumbril rolling up to the guillotine, and one that the keeper had to play by ear..

Production values are extremely high in the final product. The art is wonderful, and the page layour both clear and sumptuous. One challenge as games move to full-color production is the handouts - Older CoC games benefited from easily photocopied handouts. Chaosium has the handouts on their site, but while that works for players with electronic media or color printers, the old fashioned among us with B/W printers and photocopiers have to deal with it.

Liberty Leading the People, by Eugene Delacroix, a classic image
of the Revolution painted forty years later.

The presentation also has some padding. Two-page spreads of famous art. No less than 6 maps of Paris. A full-page reproduction of the Rights of Man (in French). Good stuff, but there it is occupying space we can for other things.

What other things? A short bit to be read to players of what happens between part one and part two would be good (and don't lecture me on boxed text - there is a BIG section at the start of the adventure). There is a lot of data in the book on the French Revolution, much of which is aimed from a historical end and less from the viewpoint of those on the ground (short version - it sucked). For all the  information provided for the characters, I had to wing it on whether the soldiers had a barracks or what (I went with yes, but the commander lived with his family nearby).

Also, a pronunciation guide would help. Yes, we know what French sounds like, but I come from a part of the country where Versailles is pronounced Ver-SAILS and Dubois as DUE-boyz, so I am working through my high school French to manage pronunciation in places. None of my players have been to France (Quelle horreur!), so in general we went with "Hollywood French", either ignoring pronunciation challenges or, sadly, rolling out a Ree-DEEK-you-louse Frange AcCENT. So, a guide would be useful tools for the Keeper.

And the volume does suffer from the "Curse of Cthulhu" as far as map/text agreement. The dwarf violinist lives the garret of a three-story building, which has five floors on the map. The description of Fenelick's grounds don't quite line up with the text. And, while the Pregenned PCs have useful info, one of them is lacking a vital part as to his political alliances. (in the book. They did make the correction to the pdfs, so go there for the characters.).

So in general? Not an adventure for a first-time keeper. First half is solid, and definitely good if you're playing/have played/would want to play Horror on the Orient Express. Second half requires more work from the Keeper and can potentially go off the rails. Keep the wikipedia handy so you know more about the Herbertists and Dantonists and why it would be important to a bunch of soldiers.

But is also great for putting the players in two very different dystopic realms where life in cheap and justice cannot be found. From the golden halls of Versailles with its wealthy elites to its revolutionary remade France stalked by the Terror, the players are forced to deal with challenges to their characters beyond the traditional 1920's milieu. It is an excellent doorway into the past for playing the game. Check it out, but be prepared to work for it.

More later,