London Club Membership Rules...

“‘Come and dine with me.’

‘I am not a member of the club.’

‘We don’t care at all about that. Anybody can take in anybody.’

‘Does not that make it promiscuous?’

‘Well, no; I don’t know that it does. It seems to go on very well. I daresay there are some cads there sometimes. But I don’t know where one doesn’t meet cads. There are plenty in the House of Commons.’”

-Anthony Trollope, The Duke’s Children.

An old stand-by for newcomers to Call of Cthulhu is to play the Dilletante character. The virtue of this type of role is that it comes with money, and has a certain amount of social cachet; the downside is that Dilletantes are usually bland and unfocussed: players usually end up recreating the “upper-class twit” à la Wodehouse, or trying to emulate Jay Gatsby. These characters have cash and position, but it’s rare that they have anything else.

Their virtue is that they give inexperienced players an easy entrée to the world – kind of like coddling an egg; the problem with them is that they usually have so little to offer an investigation.

These rules provide a way around these issues. By having a Dilletante character become a member of an established Club, it gives them a focus and a reason to keep an eye on their precious Credit Rating (and, it must be said, a reason for insidious Keepers to try and mess with said Rating!). It no longer becomes a given that goes with the territory; it’s now a very real process that the character has to monitor carefully.

(Please note that the bulk of this material concerns English characters centred around London society. There were Gentleman’s Clubs in New York and Boston as well (even American versions of the British ones) so if your campaign is a trans-Atlantic one, use these guidelines as a template for establishing Clubs in those locales. But for now, back to Old Blighty:)

All Dilletante characters – including the women, but not Americans - will have attended either Oxford or Cambridge, if desired, and clear rivalries exist between the two universities. As well, most characters will have residences either in the country or in “Town” (i.e. London) and quite naturally will have Club memberships. These Clubs were established to provide networking opportunities for individuals with particular hobbies, philosophies, backgrounds, or talents in common: thus membership to these associations can augment characters’ abilities. Except where noted, in addition to information-gathering and skill-augmentation, Clubs have the practical value of being a ‘home away from home’: meals and rooms are available to members at short notice, and members often used their Club as a base when arriving back from overseas or before heading out of the country. Sometimes, after a full night of theatres and restaurants, the Club was a good place to crash rather than hauling oneself all the way home.

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General Information & Roleplaying Mechanics:

Membership

“It would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than that one terrible bore should be admitted...”

-A member of the Garrick Club, 1870

Eligible characters should divide their starting Credit Rating by 30 to determine how many Clubs that they are members of (any fractions can be used to gain “associate membership” to another Club, which allows access but does not augment skills – see below). Thus an eligible character with a 42% Credit Rating could be a full member of Brooks’s and an associate member of the Carlton.

Membership is not automatic; one must be nominated by an existing Club member and voted in by the other members. New characters may assume that they were nominated by their fathers, uncles, or guardians; existing characters must roleplay their way in – working with the Keeper to find a sponsor and endure the voting session – or resort to a simple mechanic of rolling under their Credit Rating to win the vote.

Failing to gain entry to a particular Club usually means no later attempt is possible; however, this is not hard-and-fast. Clubs keep records of failed attempts at membership and the internal rumour-mill will keep replaying the reasons why a fellow was unsuccessful. Usually, the pertinent reason for being denied entry – poor behaviour in Court, a scandalous affair, or something similar – will need to be addressed before a second attempt can be made; with some of the political Clubs a simple change in government is enough to clean the slate. Be aware though, that the one who nominates a black-balled candidate is often required to resign their own membership for bringing forward such an eminently unsuitable prospective member.

Full membership allows the character to freely access the facilities available at the Club’s headquarters. These include rooms to spend the night, with meals provided, access to the bar (including running an ongoing tab), the library (if present), the dining room, newspapers, billiards rooms, card tables, and other useful impedimenta. The full member also has access to VIP areas established at major sporting events (such as Ascot) and gains reduced entrance fees – or free entry – to various theatre and gallery events. They have the right to vote in regard to membership nominations, or changes to the Club’s rules or management. They receive regular newsletters outlining forthcoming events and are automatically invited to functions held on the Club’s grounds. They may bring guests into the Club (if this is allowed), but must observe their behaviour and keep to those areas where guests are tolerated.

Club membership is paid for by subscription. This is normally several hundred guineas per annum and is paid generally each August. Non-payment, or delayed payment, will result in sharp drops in the character’s Credit Rating skill until the situation is rectified. In extreme cases, the character may be denied access to Club facilities, or may even be asked to resign their membership!

If - Heaven forbid! – your Credit Rating drops, for every 30 points lost, you lose access to one of your Clubs. Each time you try to enter a Club, roll your Credit Rating: if you fail, the Club denies you access … and probably asks you to pay your bill!

Associate membership means that you can enter the dining room, or bar, of the Club and relax in certain of the lounges. You do not have voting rights, cannot operate a tab longer than your present attendance, and you do not have residential options. You may receive invitations to events, as well as any newsletters the Club produces, but you can be asked to vacate the premises if “secret Club business” is about to take place there. You may not bring guests. As well, entry is not free: an associate member must sign in with the porter at the front desk and tender a nominal entry fee (anywhere from £1 to £100, depending on the establishment).

Characters from mainland Europe, or America, may be able to wangle associate membership to a Club, if they gain sponsorship from four full-members and do not get “black-balled” by a secret ballot during the consideration of their membership. Such characters must have at least 75% in their Credit Rating skill and then may only join one Club. When applying to join, roll your Credit Rating: if you roll above this number, you’ve been voted out!

Honorary membership to any Club is the exclusive preserve of Royalty (usually English Royalty, but this is sometimes waived in favour of European heads of state). The only non-Royal to have been awarded this distinction is Sir Winston Churchill.

Entry Restrictions

Clubs, by their very nature, aren’t open to everyone. Generally speaking, to be a member of a Gentleman’s Club, you need to be a gentleman, in the strictest sense of the word. Female characters have few options in club-land; although, after World War One, new Clubs which allowed female membership came into being.

Added to this, many Clubs accepted members of a particular political stripe, or who had served in the military. Still others accepted members who had certain accomplishments in academic or theological circles. Others required more nebulous qualifications, such as the ability to speak engagingly at a public dinner, or to be a “good sport”. Where these limitations exist, they will be highlighted in the Club’s description.

Famous Members

Sometimes, it’s cool to stumble into a noteworthy individual while on the trail of an investigation: Clubs are natural places where this can happen. Keepers who enjoy having their players rubbing shoulders with the famous, may check the list provided with each Club’s description and, if the dates suit, can work a meeting into their story.

Conduct

“A member of White’s once said that a Club ought to have only two rules: 1) That every member should pay his subscription, 2) That he should behave like a gentleman. Inevitably, there are behavioural lapses...”

-Anthony Lejeune, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London

While at one’s Club, one is able to “let one’s hair down”; however, one should always be mindful that the older and more influential members are always on hand to assess one’s performance. No less a person than the Prince of Wales has been forced to resign from their Club for breaking the rules (smoking inside, in his case).

No-one ever wanted to attract the title of Club Bore, despite the fact that every Club has one. Worse still, was the crime of letting-in someone completely tedious to bother the rest of the members, either as a guest or as a nominated potential member. Doing so could get you barred, or ditched!

Guests are always tricky, especially if they are members of a rival Club. Most Clubs had a small room just inside the front door to which one could withdraw with one’s stockbroker, or lawyer, for a quiet conversation; this was usually the limit afforded to the guest of a member as well, although some Clubs were more lenient. Remember that if a guest is required to dine or front the bar during their visit, they or their sponsoring member must pay an entry fee.

Members may never invite guests to stay overnight at the Club. This is quite simply beyond the pale. However, one can arrange for one’s valet or some other member of one’s staff (typically a chauffeur) to lodge with other members of staff at the Club and to carry on their duties for their masters. Of course, their services while at the Club could be called-upon by the rest of the members also, owing to the fact that – while resident - they act under the aegis of the Club, as temporary staff.

During August, a Club may shut down to allow repairs, re-painting or other refurbishment to take place (and to recover from the members’ indiscretions). At these times, which happened once in every five or so years, another Club would sponsor the ousted members, allowing them full privileges at their establishment. At these times, the members of the sponsored Club could suffer a serious social bollocking if their behaviour wasn’t up to snuff.

“They were quite decent little fellows; no trouble. Buy their suits off the peg of course...”

-A Guard’s Club member after billeting the Savile Club

Skills

Each Club has a range of listed skills, which it augments. Characters with full Club membership can add +3 to one of the Club’s listed skills; +6 to another of the listed skills; +9 to another listed skill and +12 to another skill, either adding to their own existing skill, or picking up the skill if their original rank for that ability is “0”. A skill may be modified only once by this method and cannot be raised over 90%.

Other Language refers to a language that is pertinent to the Club’s origin – Greek for the Athenaeum, for example (see your referee if in doubt). Generally speaking the range of languages will be confined to French, German, Latin or Greek: Akkadian or Farsi will have to be heavily justified!

Drive or Ride skills must be pertinent to the Club in question, in order to obtain the benefit (e.g. Ride: Elephant is not a skill that can be gained from attendance to most London Clubs). Unless specified or qualified, Drive refers to Automobiles or Carriages, and Ride to Horses.

Note that Credit Rating is also a skill that can be augmented by membership at certain Clubs, reflecting the prestige that such membership can confer. In these cases, a character’s skill can only be augmented after they have made all of the rolls required to gain admission.

Information gathering

Your Club can be a source of vital information in the course of an Investigation! Generally, the kind of information that one obtains from a Club is of the social type, sometimes referred to as “gossip”. Nevertheless, if one needs to find out about someone’s background - their political leanings, ability to handle finances, general trustworthiness – these things are easily ascertained by an afternoon’s conversation in the Club lounge. Generally each Club has areas of speciality about which information is readily available; more incendiary, or valuable, information can be found depending upon the sort of roll a character comes up with in the course of play. Club members may have heard things about people critical to an ongoing investigation, or Club staff may have revealing “dirt” to dish on fellow members. Occasionally, a waiter may be tempted by a few sovereigns to eavesdrop upon another member’s conversation while pouring the brandy...

Characters seeking such information should make a Luck Roll or a Library Use Roll (whichever is the greater) to determine a result. This roll is modified by and shortfall between the character’s current Credit Rating and their normal score; that is, if for some reason their Credit Rating is suffering a -20% penalty, their competency at sussing out Club information suffers the same penalty.

The range of Club specialities in terms of skills allows other information to be discovered too. If the party’s investigation has unearthed a strange-looking dagger, a day at the Oriental Club might locate someone who had not only seen such a weapon before, but might even know the particular tribe for which it is a feature. Determining a question of Parliamentary procedure, identifying the top-scoring batter during the cricket season in ’03, knowing what sort of engines drive a Sopwith Camel: these are the kinds of knowledge-based answers that a Club’s coterie of experts and aficionados can reveal. Spending a day at the Club and nosing around, allows a character to make a 20% roll against any skill for which the Club is famous, in order to answer a single question.

Embassies

For foreign characters, the Embassy of your nation acts in a similar fashion to a private Club. While membership does not augment your starting skill set, it allows you to sniff out information at a flat 20% for any question, after spending a day there in conversation. Most embassies have bars, lounges and libraries, dining rooms and accommodation for short periods, if needed; at worst, your character might be billeted with a member of the diplomatic staff.

However, if your Credit Rating drops for any reason, the Embassy will bar you - as a poor exemplar, or security risk - in the same manner that a Club does.

“Foreign” Clubs

Many countries on the European mainland had Clubs structured along the same lines as the British ones. In most respects, these are identical to the London premises, although for the most part, they will be older and may espouse certain mystical or quasi-religious activities as part of their traditions. Many university towns have fraternities dedicated to the advancement of learning...or at least of varsity extra-curricular activities. Some of those Heidelberg fencing schools were pretty wild affairs!

 

Clubs in the US were a feature, predicated upon the model demonstrated by the London Society; in fact, many London Clubs opened branch establishments in places like New York, Boston or Washington. Across the Empire, from Johannesburg, to Rangoon, to Melbourne, to Shanghai, Clubs took root and prospered: the defining trait of these establishments is that they were often more luxurious and, if anything, more exclusive than their London archetypes.

Keepers are urged to use one of the London Clubs as a basis for designing these organisations.

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White’s

Established: 1693

“...the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies...the bane of half the English Nobility.”

-Jonathan Swift

Address(es)

1693 - 1697: 4 Chesterfield Street, W1

1697 - 1753: 5 Chesterfield Street, W1

1753 – Present: 37 St. James’s Street, SW1

Entry Restrictions

Men only; there is a six-year waiting list. Between the years 1783 and 1832, only Tory party members or affiliates could join.

Famous Members

King George II (1683-1760)

Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745)

Spencer Compton, 1^st Earl of Wilmington (1673-1743)

Henry Pelham (1694-1754)

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1^st Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768)

William Cavendish, 4^th Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764)

John Stuart, 3^rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792)

George Grenville (1712-1770)

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2^nd Marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782)

William Pitt the Elder, 1^st Earl of Chatham (1708-1778)

Augustus FitzRoy, 3^rd Duke of Grafton (1735-1811)

Frederick, Lord North (1732-1792)

William Petty-FitzMaurice, 2^nd Earl of Shelburne (1737-1805)

William Cavendish Bentinck, 3^rd Duke of Portland (1738-1809)

William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806)

Henry Addington (1757-1844)

William Wyndham Grenville, 1^st Lord Grenville (1759-1834)

Spencer Perceval (1762-1812)

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2^nd Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828)

George Canning (1770-1827)

Frederick John Robinson, 1^st Viscount Goderich (1782-1859)

Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)

Charles Grey, 2^nd Earl Grey (1764-1845)

William Lamb, 2^nd Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)

Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850)

Beau Brummell (1778-1840)

Randolph Churchill (1911-1968)

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1909-2000)

Peter Quenell (1905-1993)

David Niven (1910-1983)

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)

Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967)

David Cameron (1966-) (Resigned)

Skills Augmented:

Accounting; Bargain; Bicycling; Credit Rating; Drive: Aeroplane; Gambling; Law

Areas of Speciality:

The Tory Party; Business & Finance; Current Political Trends; Avionics; the Tour de France

History

White’s is the oldest and perhaps the most prestigious of the London Clubs. It was first established as “Mrs White’s Chocolate House” in 1693 and was one of a rash of coffee houses which proliferated throughout London at that time. Charles II, alarmed by the number of clandestine, dissenting organisations which grew up around these houses, banned coffee (and chocolate) throughout England, but was forced to rescind the ban eleven days later when real threats of rioting in the streets became an issue.

Mrs White’s Chocolate House was established by an Italian immigrant named Francesco Bianco, but generally known as “Francis White”. In 1697, the coffee house moved across the street where it developed a sort of schizophrenic nature: within White’s was established an ‘Old Club’, an inner circle of operators that were the embryonic form of the later gentlemen’s Club. A ‘Young Club’ was established as well, formed from the group of individuals awaiting entry to the inner circle.

A fire destroyed the premises despite the exertions of member King George II, who urged the bucket lines onto heroic efforts in order to save the building. New premises were obtained at the top end of St. James’s Street and opened for business in 1753, incorporating the Old and the Young Clubs as one entity. The Club – “White’s” - has been at this location ever since.

Initially, the Club was organised along apolitical lines; however, after Prime Minister Pitt resigned his membership of Brooks’s Club down the street for being “too Whiggish” and settled in at White’s, White’s became the unofficial Tory headquarters from about 1783. Once the Carlton Club became established – whose entry demanded Tory party membership – White’s began to blur the political distinction of its membership once more.

The morning room of White’s contains a huge bow window which overlooks the street. Beau Brummell was known to occupy a seat at this viewpoint so that he could comment upon the sartorial quality of the passers-by. It was also at this window that Lord Alvanley won £3,000 betting with a friend as to which of two raindrops would get to the bottom of the window pane first. In later years Sir Winston Churchill, an honorary member of the Club, had a seat reserved for him in this spot.

White’s is known as a gambling establishment and was severely criticised for this fact, as the quote above from Jonathan Swift testifies. There is a “Betting Book” in the Club which details some of the more extravagant wagers that have been conducted on the premises, including a bet that a man couldn’t survive twelve hours underwater; many bets on the outcome of engagements during the Penisular Wars; and a bet by a man with his brother that he would never bet more than a guinea on anything ever again (the amount was for more than a guinea).

 

Within White’s at the start of the Twentieth Century a group of the members developed a fad for bicycling and the Club is known for its interest in cycling events. Indeed, it holds several races during the year along with many bicycle excursions where staff are sent out ahead with picnic hampers to greet the cyclists as they arrive at their destination. During the two World Wars, White’s also supplied its own wings of pilots to the war effort, made up from the aircraft enthusiasts which populated its ranks.

White’s has a close association with the King’s Theatre and the Royal Drury Lane Theatre in the West End and the porter sells reduced-price tickets to productions showing at those venues to Club members.

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“‘I live at the Albany,’ said Endymion.

‘You live at the Albany!’ repeated St. Barbe, with an amazed and perturbed expression.

‘I knew I could not be a knight of the garter, or member of White’s – the only two things an Englishman cannot command; but I did think I might some day live at the Albany.’”

-Benjamin Disraeli, Endymion