Q: What time is Lovecraft? A: A Fish.

Franklin Rosemont (ed.), Surrealism & Its Popular Accomplices – Long Live the Living! City Lights Books San Francisco CA, 1980.

Quarto; paperback, with illustrated wrappers; 120pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; spine and hinges a little rubbed; previous owner’s name in ink to the first page. Very good.

Back in the pre-internet days, if you wanted to make a noise about something, you’d have to find like-minded folk and band together to pool resources and energies and find a way of making a statement. Things such as film or television content were usually way beyond anybody’s reach, and radio broadcasts either involved huge set-up costs and specialised knowledge, or contacts with local broadcasters – who usually had little sympathy for fringe points of view, like horror fiction from the 1930s, say. The way most people got around this was by creating magazines, which stressed little in the way of technical nous and were far more affordable.

The ‘zine’ has been with us for a long time; in fact, when most people these days encounter zines for the first time, they assume that they are a relatively new, quaint, pointedly Luddite, innovation. In fact, they have been with us since at least the 17^th century – where they were known as ‘chapbooks’ – and have probably existed in one form or another since people first got the idea to write words on something approximating paper. In all eras, and under whatever title, the purpose of the zine is to rapidly disseminate ideas and information about burning issues, at least those that the authors are particularly fervent about.

In the 1600s, printers took books and other material from publishers and prepared them for publication. This meant organising an appropriate amount of paper, preparing images to be engraved, setting text into movable type frames and readying the ink. After the text blocks were done, they were sent to a bindery (which may or may not have been an in-house department) and were bound between boards. In all of this there were degrees of waste: pages were often trimmed close, leaving miniscule margins in order to reclaim paper or conserve binding materials; plates might have been printed separately and reduced in number, or even left out of the finished book (possibly to be sold as standalone prints). Whatever the reason, usually there was a certain amount of leftover paper which could be re-purposed as something else.

These “something elses” were often ‘catchpenny pamphlets’, small, folded booklets that announced local political or other newsworthy events (such as eyewitness accounts of coronations or comets, or the exploits of highwaymen) or which contained recipes or medicinal cures – even magical treatments approximating the contents of grimoires – whatever the printers thought would ‘catch the pennies’ of people walking by. Horoscopes and Almanacs all had their start with these humble roots.

In the 1920s zines were huge (and the word originated around then), focussing mainly upon political movements – such as the support for Communism, and outrage against the proposed Income Tax, in England – and were usually distributed during strikes and demonstrations. Later still in the 1960s, zines were a way to connect various fan-based, mystical, political or artistic communities and were a hallmark of both the hippy movement and the occult circles of the later Crowleyites and the LaVey Satanists. The Underground Comix scene, with characters such as the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Rat Fink, arose from these beginnings.

These publications all have a handmade feel about them, with an aura of low-tech production. It’s well to remember that such material was typed out, then cut up and pasted onto graph paper, prior to being put through a pre-press photographic process and then sent off to be printed. There were little or no computer-based desktop publishing options available to home brew publishers and fan groups. Consequently, the appearance of the pages is rough and ready – there are strange, “widow” text fragments, poorly-reproduced photographic images, odd mismatches in text styles, flat photocopied pictures. There is an amateurish quality to the production but also a lot of energy. And it’s representative of this item.

The subject of this book is the idea that surrealist forces are universal and can be found within much popular content; that popular entertainment somehow ‘enables’ Surrealist dissemination. Every form of popular investigation of artistic creativity, from Shaker art to the Flying Saucer phenomenon, they argue, is redolent of Surrealist forces, whether extant in their intrinsic material or imposed through various means of transmission (like being shown on free-to-air TV, with intercut ad-breaks, for instance). The tension between generating art with surrealist intent and of the art generating further surrealistic impulses – either deliberately or accidentally – is fully discussed with many disparate examples. And one of those is Lovecraft.

The Lovecraftian material is relatively small. There are two “articles” (if such short pieces can be so termed) reprinted from a similar French publication (above), and a longer piece which examines HPL’s views on Surrealist Art as touched upon in his last unposted piece of correspondence (below). The article claims that this letter is here reproduced in full, while the text itself is presented as a series of “excerpts”, so the true state of affairs is open to debate by those creatures with greater access to the material than I. Essentially the wording here is a bit loose, but that’s kind of expected as a feature of this style of publication. There is a bit of background discussion taken from the private papers of Frank Belknap Long trying to pin down whether HPL was even aware of the Surrealist Art movement and whether he allowed it to influence his stylings. It boils down to a resounding “Maybe?”, as most of these discussions inevitably resolve, but it’s an amusing examination for those inclined to explore such stuff.

After 1980, when this book was produced by City Lights Books in San Francisco, the ability of single individuals to generate this kind of niche exploratory material for a wide audience grew exponentially. Nowadays, such material is the province of blogsites or Reddit threads and the notion of being produced in a hardcopy format like this is almost an alien concept. Still, it’s good to get hold of something like this and feel a connexion to an older style of fan discussion and to see that – in all the ways our talk has changed over the years – it’s still the same game.

Rip It & Run! Super-powered Characters II...

If you look at pulp fiction and its various tropes, you’ll see that, every now and again, there’s a character who has supernormal powers, abilities beyond the strictly normal, which help push forward the stories in which they’re involved. Characters like this aren’t a bad thing: they’re usually gateways into the extra-natural and are often value-added members of a campaign. In my career as a Call of Cthulhu Keeper, I’ve often run supernaturally augmented characters and they’ve been a boon every time. Here’s how it’s done...

Each of these character types needs to grow from discussion between the Keeper and the player. The character in question ends up with an unexplained talent that would potentially give them an edge in the story to come. In each case, discussion of what benefits the character will have, along with all of the possible side-effects such ‘powers’ would entail, should take place. In every instance, the players should expect to take the rough with the smooth. Every ‘power’ should be defined in terms of its extent and capabilities – this is crucial: each side of the equation needs to know the rules in order for this to work.

In most cases, the character with super-powers will be generated at the creation phase; sometimes however, the acquisition of such capabilities can arise from encounters and accidents that take place within the unfolding narrative. The Keeper may decide that a character may well adopt the extra capabilities listed below as part of their collective storytelling and may decide not to allow such characters to be generated ‘on the fly’. Equally, shorter story arcs may invite such characters to be generated at the inception. It really depends upon the requirements of the narrative.

(Cunning readers will observe that this list is a continuation from a previous post. For other strangely-powered character templates check out that other listing.)

Character Number Seven: The Prognosticator

A common trope among Call of Cthulhu characters is the magical practitioner who sells knowledge for cash. Often these characters are simply con-people, carnies or the like, preying upon the gullible in order to fleece them of their pocket change, who stumble inadvertently into Mythos goings-on. Most of the time such characters bumble their way along using skills like Psychology or Fast Talk, but what if they actually had powers? What if they could really read the future?

Mechanics: This requires that the character choose a shtick, something around which their powers crystallise. This could be Tarot cards, a crystal ball or reading the stars. However they do their thing, have them roll their skill (this will probably be an “Art” of some sort, listed on their character sheet) and then give them some kind of cryptic insight that they can then mull over at leisure. Depending upon their level of success, the information they receive should be more-or-less solid, but it should always be somewhat nebulous. For instance, a poor roll might reveal that the party is in danger from ‘something red’; a better roll might reveal that danger is approaching from something that is coloured red; better still, there is a door that is red behind which there is danger; or even better, the door is not actually red, but the flashing light from a nearby police car makes it seem to be so. There are endless iterations… Needless to say, in this instance, the party is free to interpret things as they see fit when they stumble onto a crime scene with flashing police car lights and a suspiciously lit door nearby…

Essentially, the Keeper can use these sessions to drip feed information of greater or lesser credibility to the party in order to help them find their way forward. It requires a little forethought and some ingenuity to interpret the rolls of the player, but such detail adds a great sense of “weight” to your game.

Character Number Eight: The Old Soul

The character is the reincarnation of an ancient entity and subconsciously carries information and knowledge within their psyche to which they ordinarily would have no access. Alternatively, the character contains within themselves a second consciousness – magically imbued from a distant reality - that occasionally vies with them for control of their corpus. Whatever the reason, in the context of the relics of ancient civilisations or realities, these individuals become remarkably capable and reflect knowledge of things which they absolutely should not have.

Mechanics: This is a common trope of much Mummy fare. Movies like “The Mummy” (there are several with this name, starting in 1932) and books like The Jewel of Seven Stars and She (along with its sequel Ayesha) really dictate how this kind of story unfolds. Essentially, the character is a reborn ancient with stakes in a conspiracy which has manifested in the present. This is usually something along the lines of the re-emergence of an ancient evil in the present day. An old trope has the reincarnated character as the revived romantic interest of the ancient evil being, but this is a tricky path for a novice player to negotiate well. More dependably, the reincarnated character is a protector of some ancient knowledge or artefact that will destroy or deter the evil one and they will have insights as to where the object or knowledge currently resides, along with an innate understanding about how to use it.

To make such a character work, the referee needs to seed their campaign with events that create moments of déjà vu or create dream sequences that are sparked by events that touch upon the ancient lore with which the character is associated. Does the evil manifest behind the symbol of a crescent moon? What happens when your character is served a croissant one otherwise uneventful breakfast-time? When a photo of a long-unclimbed sacred mountain – along with the report of a mountaineer who seeks to be the first to conquer it – manifests in the morning ‘paper, how does the character react? Why is it that, when presented with a cluster of clay tablets covered in cuneiform script, there is one that the character can read as easily as a primary school text? There are many possibilities…

Character Number Nine: The Time Jumper

The character comes from the far future and has travelled bodily (or has taken over an existing body) in the current temporal location. They may be fully conversant with the experiences which led them to this pass, or they may be suffering a species of partial, or total, amnesia. Either way, certain temporal events, either impending or transpiring, fill them with trepidation or outright horror.

Mechanics: Depending upon the requirements of the Keeper’s narrative, this character might be an alien being (with the ability to shapeshift) or a human being from the far future, who has bounced backwards in time to escape some kind of impending disaster. If the former, then the character is generated according to the creature specifications listed in the rulebooks. Whenever they fall unconscious or go to sleep (or are otherwise required to do so), they must ensure that their true forms are not witnessed by their possibly unwitting associates. Races such as the Serpent People are an ideal choice for this character type, although the Keeper might insist that the character has arrived from the distant past instead of the future, for reasons of canon sense. Another useful species is the technologically advanced Nug-Soth who are able to shapeshift. Finally, the Great Race can crowd out their host’s consciousness during a time-bridging mind-swap, in order to have their way.

If the character is human and has contrived to travel back in time, it remains for the Keeper and the player to decide if they have travelled with their memories intact or not. Depending upon the needs of the narrative, the other party members may know of the character’s disposition, or it may be a surprise for them to find out. This character is one that is a good fit when trying to insert a new character into an established party, especially if it serves the unfolding story arc.

The important element that makes this character work is the establishment of crucial temporal milestones which drive and compel the character. Of intense interest to the character (whether they are consciously aware of it or not) are certain moments in time which give rise to the sequence of events that caused them to jump backward (or forward) along the timeline. The development of certain technologies; the assassination of an influential personage; the discovery of a long-hidden locale – these are all things of which the Time Jumper might be aware and which they might try to hinder or assist. The character might be drawn by dreams or forced to make Idea or Know Rolls when confronted with pertinent information, if they are overtly ignorant of their status; or, if they are cognisant of their purpose, they may seek to influence those around them to examine or investigate things which will help them to avoid the disastrous future events to come.

The canon of time traveller fiction is wide-ranging and comprehensive – most referees will have several examples at their fingertips. Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound of Thunder” is a prime example and H.G. Wells’ The Sleeper Awakes is another mine-able work from an earlier generation. “City on the Edge of Forever” by Harlan Ellison, the twenty-eighth episode of the Original Star Trek series, is a great example of a character from the future travelling into the past with pressing narrative concerns. Any or all of these could be mined to great cosmic effect for the purposes of a Call of Cthulhu game.

Character Number Ten: The Savant

Due to some kind of inborn neural incapacity or accident, the character has gained uncanny intellectual skills and capabilities; these come, however, at the expense of certain other areas of expertise.

Mechanics: We’ve all seen “Rain Man”; we know about savants and their reputed capabilities. This is the character that embodies these notions.

To begin with, there are a number of truisms about these sorts of beings that must be defined in tandem with the player and they boil down to the following: do you want to reinforce the stereotypes established by Dustin Hoffman in the movie, or do you want something that skates a little closer to the truth? If the former then there is little to do other than to select a range of skills – related or randomly selected – and double them to a maximum of 90%, while simultaneously reducing all social skills (Bargain, Fast Talk, Psychology) by 50 percentiles to a minimum of 5%.

In addressing how these characters might arise in reality, we have to look at how savants emerge in the real world. Some savants are genetically spawned; that is, due to an accident of biology, a person might arise with an array of extraordinary abilities, but with a commensurate lack in certain social areas, as outlined above. Other savants manifest as a result of extreme accidents: electrocution, suffocation, birth trauma, blows to the head. Oftentimes such individuals are found to have capabilities or knowledge that they never had previously. Such skills can range from piano playing to the speaking of foreign languages to which previously they had no exposure. It must be noted that such abilities often do not last, often tapering off after as little as a handful of months. We've all read Flowers for Algernon...

Genetic savants may simply be individuals who are on the autism spectrum and who display certain high-functioning adaptations to the condition. They might have certain skills—or areas of specialised knowledge—which they execute at superhuman levels of capability but are prone to catastrophic collapse in the face of setbacks or failures. Keepers should make such personalities roll Sanity whenever they fail in the performance of one of their enhanced skills, especially if the failure is a critical one, or one that is crucial to the advancement of the party’s narrative goals. The loss of confidence and the ability of the character to conduct themselves appropriately in society, critically affects them, rendering them catatonic or otherwise incapable as if they had failed a typical Mythos-initiated Sanity encounter.

Character Number Eleven: The Survivor

The character faced an encounter with an extraterrestrial or supernatural entity which has left them with certain sensitivities to further contact. These may be physical—such as a type of allergic reaction—or psychic, allowing the character to sense when members of the alien species loom.

Mechanics: How this effect might work depends upon the type of creature selected for its instigation. Many Mythos creatures are slimy and disgusting, comprised of unearthly elements to which an average human entity might well be allergic: mere proximity might be enough to instil a physical reaction in a person who had adversely encountered the entity in a past episode. Alternatively, if a person had once been psychically, or mystically, dominated by a member of such a paranormal race or entity, they may well be predisposed to “hear” psychic or occult resonances of the beings if they come into proximal range. Either way, the Keeper and the player need to decide what horror was the cause of the attack and how the resulting character detects the presence of these entities when – or if – they appear.

It needs to be said also, that contact with alien beings for an extended period, allows the Survivor to have insights into how these alien minds work. Whenever the character encounters strange phenomena or random clues left by their past nemeses, allow them an Idea Roll (or maybe a Cthulhu Mythos Roll) to be able to infer that their old foes might be at work once more.

Along with these sensitivities, the character might be affected by a number (1D4, say) of phobic responses that inadvertently afflict them. If their alien foes were mostly blue in colour, the character might have a phobic reaction to overwhelming occurrences of that hue. The sound of clicking knitting needles might put them in mind of alien claws, or the smell of cigarette smoke might have the same reek of alien breath – the Keeper and the player should confer on which catalysts might set the character off.

Of course, the main source for such a character is Mina Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As his psychic domination of her takes hold, her ability to win free becomes increasingly undermined. As well, she becomes privy to Dracula’s methods and activities through dreams, intuition and other manifestations of his psychic presence in her mind. While this is a good template for a supernatural form of domination, there’s no reason that such scenarios could not be rooted in the alien or other paranormal sources such as those the Mythos provides.

Character Number Twelve: The Promised One

The existence of the character has been pre-ordained and their presence in the world has unexpected meaning for members of a certain race, group, or species. Whether the character is happy about this state of affairs depends upon the exact circumstances of the condition, however some unexpected benefits of the role may be discovered.

Mechanics: For the purposes of this character type, the Keeper and player should consult the specifics of such people as the Dalai Lama or the Mahdi, either according to factual record or by narrative means (by watching the 1986 Eddie Murphy movie “The Golden Child” for example). Other instances from pulp literature are also useful to mine – Barbara Hambly’s Bride of the Rat God is an excellent source. The defining trait of such a character is that a certain section of human society perceives them to be an object of some cosmic significance, either a herald of the End Times or an Agent of Change. Even if they aren’t.

One way of instigating this trope is by having the character bear some outward sign of their inherited destiny, such as a birthmark or other odd pigmentation. This means that the character is obvious to the Faithful wherever they go. A more subtle manifestation might be an astrological significance of their birth, coupled with a peculiarity of birth location – over water during an eclipse, or such. If the Mark of Destiny is not immediately obvious, then it will lurk like a time bomb in the character’s back story, awaiting the right moment to detonate.

This trope can also be manifested in a random fashion too. Have the party of characters go about their adventuring, foiling cultist plots and garnering mystical and occult spoils until one of them picks up an object of seemingly benign supernatural consequence. If the character meets a specific requirement (high POW; high APP; whatever) the object becomes spiritually bonded to them, marking them as significant to a particular Mythos crowd. And it might not mark them out as a new high priestess; it might simply identify them as a worthy sacrifice. The object won’t be literally glued to them either; it will just follow them serendipitously wherever they go, blithely defying all their attempts to lose or dispose of it (the Keeper can have a lot of fun with this…).

However the Mark of the Promised One manifests, it comes with some useful side-effects. Firstly, the cultists excited by the Mark will have plans for the Promised One and will not allow harm to come to them (at least, harm not of their own devising); secondly, the Promised One – within certain strictures – has a degree of control over their followers, demanding – if not freedom of movement outside of cultish oversight – a certain degree of luxury and gilt within their cage; and thirdly, a possible ability to command the cultists to perform certain duties or to leave certain associates unharmed.

It’s possible as well that assumption of the mantle might come with a few magical abilities of a low-level consequence, such as a random psychometric skill, allowing the Chosen One to understand the general intent of a touched individual, or a low-grade healing ability of some kind – the Keeper is free to decide.

*****

Some might say that having such characters in your game will unbalance the gameplay. That’s indeed a possibility, but only if the Keeper allows that to happen. There are two mitigating factors. One, characters in Call of Cthulhu don’t last very long: if a super-powered character seems to be distorting the action unnecessarily, rest assured they won’t be doing it for long (or you’re doing something very strange as Ref.!). Second, it may not be immediately apparent, but almost all of these “powers” are narrative-based and only work because the Referee allows them to. For the most part, these players are only going to be responding to the cues that the Keeper gives their characters; it’s not as if they’re actively facilitating their role in the transpiring events (in most instances). In essence, no matter how outré these “abilities” are, they’re no more or less damaging to your story than lobbing a copy of The Book of Eibon at your assembled party members would be. The characters will react as their players see fit.

So, if you want to walk on the spooky-side for awhile, let your players take on some super-powers and see how it shakes up your game!

Announcing: “Shadows of Razorhurst”

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

Well, it’s taken awhile, but this is finally finished.

About ten years ago I started writing this series of short stories based around the idea that, if supernatural investigators existed in Sydney during the 1920s, what would that look like? The result is this noir-ish, gumshoe-y, collection of occult detective fiction. These are the tales of Private Investigator Patrick Dolan and his partner Anton Vadász, taken from their crime files, as they pursue the other things that go bump in the night – the supernatural things.

Raised in Catholic poverty, Patrick Dolan is a hard-as-nails private investigator. Six feet and eight inches tall, weighing over 300 pounds, he trained as a boxer and wields a savage right hook. He works the mean streets in which he grew up and walks both sides of the Law, looking for Justice wherever he can find it.

Anton Vadász hails from Hungary and is the last surviving member of an ancient lineage. After the undead destroyed his family, he devoted his life and his considerable fortune to hunting down and destroying supernatural evil wherever it may be found. Even under the hot, antipodean sun.

Together, they form an unlikely but highly effective team, along with their friends, associates and various experts in strange and mystical fields of esoteric endeavour. They battle sorcerers, Hell-hounds, vampires, ghosts and many other spooky entities, in their quest to rid the Silver City of its paranormal menace.

*****

Copies are available through Amazon – ebook versions are also available – and most other online outlets. Or go to the publisher’s website – www.oceaniacom.com – to get a copy straight from the source. You can always ask your local bookseller to whistle up a copy for you too. Don’t forget to leave a review after reading! Enjoy!

*****

“Things shed their skins in the dark; they split out of their husks; they crawl up from beneath the earth and they shift their bones to become things that shouldn’t ought to exist.

It ain’t the dark I’m scared of; I’m afraid of what’s in it.”

  

Review: Two Shark Flicks - "Bait" & "Mako"

 

Kimble Rendall (Dir.), “Bait”, Bait Productions/Media Development Authority/Pictures in Paradise/Blackmagic Design Films, 2012.

There is little worse in this world than a bad stab at an accent, especially when the accent is trying to be an Australian one. It’s a tricky manoeuvre. What’s worse is listening to a bunch of Australians trying to replicate any other accent: it’s just awful. Before seeing this flick, therefore, be warned that, since this was a joint Australian/Singaporean production with an eye towards selling on to the US, this is a hodge-podge of Asian and Australian speakers all trying desperately to be understood by people of other nationalities - and failing miserably.

At one point, after the situation has been set up and all of our cast are taking stock, one of the actors declares that, after the tsunami, there will most likely be “effter sharks”. At this point I stopped the film and looked over to my fellow viewer: we, both of us, are fairly clued-in to the many varieties of sharks that populate the world’s oceans but neither of us was aware of this particular species. After some pointless Googling and discussion, we rewound the film and listened to it again: “there’s bound to be effter sharks”. We suddenly realised she was trying to say “aftershocks” – from the depths of her Cronulla twang – in a way that she thought the average Yank would understand. And that’s a fail, folks. Sheesh!

So it went: the cast of this movie are all alumni from “Neighbours”, “Water Rats”, or “Home and Away” with Julian McMahon – he of “Fant4stic” and “Charmed” – thrown in to grab some serious actor cachet. All of them drop the ball when it comes to putting on a cod-Yank accent. In fact, the Singaporean cast members managed to do better at a semi-Aussie twang than the Aussies did at their Stateside drawl. It’s just awful and distracting.

Then there’s the plot. I imagine at the pitch meeting for this someone just said, “you know Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”, yeah? Well, like that, but it’s sharks, not zombies!” And that’s about it. A tsunami hits a supermarket in the Gold Coast of Australia just as two goons are holding the place up and they all get trapped inside the ruined building while ENORMOUS SHARKS patrol the half-sunken aisles looking for snacks. Various attempts at escape/signalling for help are tried and fail until a last desperate push sees everyone – almost – win free. Applause.

Of course, some folks don’t live to see the credits and their fates are determined by the Hollywood Morality Playbook. The hold-up crook who regretted his actions (and is played by the best-known actor) survives; his bad-to-the-bone buddy gets chomped. The new boyfriend of the girl who used to live in the town but moved away after her brother got eaten by another shark, dies while valiantly attempting rescue, but – hey! – her old boyfriend gets to win her back and survive. The vapid boyfriend of the airhead girl with the little dog gets eaten, just because he was forced to choose between saving himself or the animal: in an increasingly common trope with these films, “the dog survives” is becoming a mainstay. And of course, the rules-conscious manager of the supermarket gets horribly devoured too, because – authority figure.

I remember when this film was first released, there was a lot of promotional pushing with critics saying it was “not bad” and “pretty good”. I thought at the time that this might have been an example of the Aussie propensity for understatement, but it turns out that they were just damning the whole enterprise with faint praise.

*****

Mohammed Hesham el-Rashidy (Dir.), “Mako”, Netflix/JL Vision Film, 2021.

This one was perplexing. This movie is an Arabic Netflix piece, made with finance from China, and destined, I’m guessing for an Egyptian audience. I was interested going in, because I thought that this would be one instance where the damned Hollywood Morality Playbook wouldn’t be running things and that this absence would bring something fresh to the brand. I was right… but also, I was completely wrong.

My assumptions about watching a shark flick are generally along the lines of the following: people will gather together to get into the water for some particular purpose that has relevance for them as a group; once there, mayhem ensues, either as a direct result of unanticipated shark activity, or from a non-shark vector that is compounded infinitely by the unanticipated presence of sharks. In this case, the presence of the sharks is almost completely incidental.

The fact that this is called “Mako” started my imagination running. Makos are quick sharks that are known for their ability to jump (this was crucial to their presence in the first “Deep Blue Sea”). Since this thing is set in the Red Sea, I did a check of the local species – Tiger Sharks, Bull Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks… There are Shortfin Mako Sharks but they’re in the minority. I asked myself “why these particular sharks?” It turns out that there’s no real reason. Perhaps it was felt that more people have heard of Makos and that Bull Sharks have been done to death. Whatever – obviously, a shark is a shark is a shark. They could have gone for the standard Great White – if you can stick one of these in the Seine in the middle of Paris, then I guess they can go anywhere – but maybe they just thought the word sounded cool. Anyway: makos it is.

The premise is this: a documentary producer is announced as the winner of a prestigious award and she steps up to accept it before a huge audience. Turns out, it was her husband who won the gong and she gets humiliated on the world stage, even falling off the stage at the awards ceremony. Eager to save face, she demands from her production crew that they come up with a concept that will erase her shame and win them accolades in future. A newcomer to the team informs them of a sunken cruise ship in the Red Sea – now picked over by SCUBA pirates in the year since the tragedy – and says that “an aura of sadness” hangs over the wreck. Next thing you know, the team is hotfooting it down to the beach to catch this “aura” on film.

Sketchy is as sketchy does: as soon as they hit the surf, the team is sprayed with mutiny and division. The filmmaker and her husband fight about the award ceremony and who should have done what for whom; one of the team is high on drugs and turns psychotic; his brother is a coward and panics; another team member has diabetes and has forgotten to take his meds; there’s a murderous rapist on board the support boat up on the surface; and finally, the newbie to the crew has engineered the whole situation in order to return to the place where her family perished so that she can die alongside them. Given the size and range of this mess, the sharks are simply there to clean up the splatter. The makos are simply the punchline to every story arc.

Maybe all of this – the superabundance of impossibly-groomed fashion-plate actors; the agonising, the weeping, the wringing of hands and the pointing of accusing fingers – is par for the course for Egyptian action films. I don’t know. I was just impressed that the water didn’t turn bubbly during the event due to all of the soap. What I do know is that it wasn’t for me.

One-and-a-half tentacled horrors.

A Knight in with Pendragon...

I’m a big fan of genre roleplaying, but I’m not so keen on rules. Let me qualify: I think you do need rules to play a roleplaying game, but I don’t think that each new game which rolls off the production line needs its own rule set. Every time a new game comes out, it has a set of rules of its own and mostly, these are iterations of established older rule sets or are simple variations of a minimalist view of how games are run. The reason that new games have their own ‘new’ rules is that they seem to think they need this to justify copyright regulations – a world or thematic premise is apparently not enough. Drill down hard enough and you’ll find the ‘ur-rules’ that dictate how every game is played, and you’ll find that it looks a lot like the ‘let’s pretend’ games that we all played as children – those are pretty hard to copyright.

I play “Call of Cthulhu” because it uses BRP (or variations thereof) to conduct business. I’ve travelled across the Storyteller system of White Wolf and the Palladium mess; I’ve scrabbled around for extra dice for “Shadowrun”; I’ve checked difficulty levels for “Cyberpunk” and “Feng Shui”: they are all clunky and weird and I find myself coming back to three simple systems:

“AD&D”. BRP. “Pendragon”.

The first two of these are extreme white bread systems: they sit so far in the background as to be mostly innocuous, either because they’re so light or they’re so familiar. They are largely intuitive and simple and built such that, if something occurs that isn’t listed, it’s fairly clear how to use the system to construct something that will do as a workaround or a house rule. “CoC” does this: it’s a genre workaround bolted onto the BRP rules. With “AD&D”, there might be a stack of rule books involved if you need them, but they’re mainly filled with colour material – you only really need about 10 of the pages, tops. “Pendragon” is a different beast.

The only time I use another rule system is when that system is specifically designed to support the genre which it uses. “Pendragon” is a beautiful Swiss-watch of game design wherein every rule that exists, specifically reinforces the concepts and ideals of the game’s setting. This is a game of knights and damsels in the Age of King Arthur; everything that happens in the game concerns and is about the people who live under Arthur’s rule and how they live their lives. The goal is to become a well-known champion of the Court of Camelot: you pursue the Grail; you rescue damsels; you resolve issues of law and morality on behalf of the King; you try to avoid giants (because, in this game, giants are really bad news!). Combat duties and resolution are equally shared by the referee and the players – the decisions that the players make for their characters dramatically impact the results, and there is little room for error. A bad call can get you slain. Oftentimes, gamers decry systems and games because they feel that too much power lies in the hand of the ref.; there’s no such issue here. Character design is involved and intensive: the amount of time required for this is often cited as a game flaw, in a setting where death is only a bad die-roll away. But this is part of the genre as well. Who remembers a character that took ten minutes to compile and half-an-hour to kill off? “Pendragon” characters – lovingly hand crafted and agonised over in play - go down in history.

(Long time readers will remember that I also play “Legend of the Five Rings” and are wondering where that game fits in all of this. Easy: I take the “L5R” world and use it as a skin over the “Pendragon” game system: it works beautifully.)

Consequently, I read a lot of Arthurian material. I’m also a stickler for canon so I like my gaming material to slot nicely between the tentpoles of the genre lore. I’m prepping some stuff to play in the next few months and so I’ve been running through the canon once again: Sir Thomas Malory; T.H. White; Mary Stewart; Chrétien de Troyes; Rudolf Steiner; Wolfram von Eschenbach; the Mabinogion; the Chansons de Geste (you’ll notice I steer well clear of Richard Wagner and Marion Zimmer Bradley, for obvious reasons). “Pendragon” is a game where a shared reality is at play between the referee and the players: everyone needs to have a grip on the genre – and a fairly comprehensive one – in order for a bunch of stuff to make sense. If “Pendragon” has a real flaw, it’s this: that the genre is never really discussed; it’s assumed knowledge, and most modern world players have very little real understanding – at best just a surface gloss – of how this stuff works.

First is the language. Malory turned the whole shebang into Norman French inflected early English and it’s tricky to get your head around. For instance, the French-derived word ‘chirurgeon’ is often the first hurdle that players bumble into. It’s pronounced ‘surgeon’ and to act as a ‘chirurgeon’ is to perform ‘chirurgery’, or ‘surgery’. Once you know how to pronounce it, the mystery falls away, but trying to read passages of this stuff can be a headache until you get used to it. Take this as an example:

“Than within a lytyll whyle they come to sir Marhaus place [which] was in a lytyll pryory, and there they alyght, and ladyes and damesels unarmed them and hastely loked to their hurtes, for they were all three hurte. And so they had good lodgyng with sir Marhaus and good chere, for wan he wyste that they were kynge Arthurs syster-sonnes he made them all the chere that lay in his power. And so they sojourned there a sevennyght and were well eased of their woundis, and at the laste departed.”

You need to give it a few goes before it starts to sound reasonable. Try this one (taken from an easier 1917 translation):

“…Sir Launcelot rode forth with King Bagdemagus unto his castle, and there he had passing good cheer both with the king and his daughter, and they proffered him great gifts. And on the morn he took his leave…

This is a pretty vanilla example, but it opens up a can of worms for the uninitiated newcomer to the “Pendragon” world. What exactly is “good cheer”? And what is the expectation when arriving at the home of an NPC in this milieu?

*****

The big issue here is the custom of Hospitality. It boils down to the idea that being able to treat strangers well reflects well on those so doing; in return, making a great display of enjoying the treatment one receives shows that the treatment is appreciated and is worthy of one’s time and energy. It’s a two-sided exchange, although from a modern perspective, it might not be immediately obvious. Here’s a run-down of what might happen when a wandering knight approaches a moderately sized manor for the evening:

Firstly, the knight rides into the estate. This might be a small gate in a fence or wall; it might be a courtyard or an open area enclosed by the wings of the building where most deliveries and arrivals happen. If the entrance is barred, he may have to knock and declare himself – this is often the case if the place is besieged in some way. While on the road outside, he might pass members of the local peasantry who will note his passing and spread word that there is a Knight in the vicinity.

Next the knight’s horse is taken in care: this will be the duty of a groom or stable-boy; in some cases, it might be a squire or a smith, depending upon the status of the dwelling. This person will help the knight to dismount and will take the horse away to be fed and watered (along with any other maintenance that it or its equipment might require). Think of it as ‘valet parking’.

The seneschal of the estate or a head functionary of the household - possibly a noble of junior status, a child of the manor’s lord perhaps, or their wife - will then greet the knight and welcome them to stay. While this is happening, other members of staff or the household will scope out the heraldic devices or badges that the knight is displaying and relay this information to whomsoever is in charge of the armorial scrolls, usually a herald, if the place is sufficiently important. If the knight is not recorded (or there are no such records in the establishment), the seneschal or herald will ask the knight their name and reason for arriving.

If all this is above board and no ill-intent is detected from either party, then the knight is taken inside and “unarmed”. Simply put, this means that his armour and weapons are removed, he is given the option of bathing and medical services are provided, if needed. He is then given new clothes, while his own gear is taken away to be cleaned and repaired. This includes mending any tears and rents, patching holes and polishing plates, sharpening swords and re-weaving torn mail. At this point, the knight might be invited to attend prayers and be “shriven”, or blessed after confession, by a local holy person attached to the place.

Finally, the knight is brought to the main dining hall of the residence and introduced to the lord and/or lady in charge. They will be shown to a position of eminence – usually a spot at the “high table” – and greeted warmly by all present. Music will begin and food will be served.

During the feast, the knight will be asked to speak of what they’ve seen in recent times and will hear, in return, of any marvels that have taken place locally. Issues of law and any problems that should concern an Agent of the Crown - such as the presence of bandits, say, or a border dispute – will be presented, and the knight will be expected to talk about ways to resolve these, especially if it lies within his power to do so.

Entertainments will be provided and the knight will be expected to involve himself in these or to respond with performances of his own. This includes dancing and singing, telling stories (especially his own ongoing narrative), displaying feats of prowess or skill, and encouraging debate. All the while he should be flirting with the local damosels and listening to the local gossip.

At all times, the knight should be feeling the ‘vibe’ of the gathering and helping to promote an easy, fun-filled event. He should be mindful of discord and should be quick to smooth over any undiplomatic shows or instances of unpleasantness. His goal is to “be of good cheer” and facilitate the good times which these people are trying to provide.

Occasionally, the lord of the manor will provide gifts to the knight especially if they’ve been particularly delightful as dining companions. Gifts are never expected – after all, the knight’s equipage is being given a lengthy and expensive overhaul while he is in residence – but their receipt either in front of everyone else at the revels or as the knight departs the next day, should be in a spirit of graciousness and humility (and, technically, such gifts are for the King, not the knight himself).

The provision of Hospitality, therefore, can be seen as a two-way street. It must be offered and given in good faith and received with grace and a spirit of duty. It’s a mark of respect for the King’s representative and that representative must always be aware of their role as a symbol of Regal authority.

*****

At its most basic, I see this process as a kind of Roomba recharge. The Knight is an appliance wandering across the land and working for the King; periodically, they need to be recharged and mended or given some form of maintenance. Then they are set loose to go about their business once more. When the process works, it’s mostly unremarkable; when it breaks down, then there are problems.

If there is a malaise over the region – famine or oppression from neighbouring bullies or a monster – this will be instantly spotted by the knight. Perhaps the entertainment is lacklustre, or the food is less than copious, or fresh, then the knight may tune in to the fact that there’s something wrong. This naturally prompts them to ask – diplomatically – if there’s anything that they can do to help. Of course, if the place is poor and the food being served is all that there is, the knight will find ways to minimise any embarrassment that their presence might cause, as a drain on available resources. If the lord or ruler of the manor is a Bad Hat, then the poor reception might simply be an extension of their evil nature – servants and minions always take a lead from their masters. This will be the way that the knight discovers that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark…

Of course, bad behaviour might come from the knight as well. They might pursue the local women too lustfully, or recklessly try to drain the cellar of its wine stores. They might poke fun at attendees of the feast or pour scorn upon the food being offered. They might also, like some bad penny distant relative, show up unannounced and overstay their welcome. This indulgent behaviour can seriously drain the capabilities of any small community, especially if the knight does nothing to justify or aid the work being undertaken to maintain him. Remember that the power and capability of a king is often measured by the number of knights he can maintain and that kind of maintenance ain’t cheap.

*****

You can see that this type of interaction between character and NPCs only works if all the parties involved expect the same situation. So often, when dealing with newcomers to the game, the players all treat the situation as a free party turned on for them with no expectation that they have to do anything in return. In fact, this is the best time for roleplaying to commence. So many players bitch and whine about having to spend points on skills like Dance or Play Instrument or Intrigue, but this is exactly when investment in those skills starts to pay off.

It's an instance where the rulebook doesn’t cover what is essential to the world in which the game takes place. None of this material is explicitly covered in the “Pendragon” rules set; it’s just a given that those playing will know how the medieval world works. On the one hand, as it so often happens in the canon literature, it can be dispensed with in a single sentence – “that night they came upon a pleasant castle and made good cheer”; on the other, it can be turned into the start of a great adventure. Below are some house rules for running this sort of interaction:

Encounter Description:	Mechanics & Result:
The Arrival. The Knight enters into the territory controlled by a local authority, either a Manse or Mansion; an Abbey, Priory or some other religious outpost; or a Castle.	Roll Awareness, based upon the skill of the local ruler or using a base 15 value. Success means that the knight has been spotted and preparations for their arrival will be underway; Failure means that the knight arrives unexpectedly, and their presence causes confusion.
The Unhorsing. This is usually executed by stablehands: a Squire of the local lord, one of their competent Grooms, a Smith (if present) or, at worst, a Page.	Roll Horsemanship: Squire 16; Groomsman 15; Smith 17; Page10 Success means that this is a smooth event; Failure indicates that the Horse is uneasy and recalcitrant – further Rolls or intervention by the knight are needed to calm things down.
Identifying the Knight. This is undertaken by Heralds (if present), Squires, Stablehands, Ladies-in-Waiting or Smiths	NB: the knight may wish – for various reasons – to travel incognito; have them roll Disguise and make sure that they are wearing a cloak. A Knight reserves the right not to identify themselves if they want. Roll Heraldry, using the Lord’s skill or a base standard of 10. This Roll is a contested one if the Knight is Disguised.
The Welcome. This is by the head functionary of the establishment or by its Lord or Lady.	Use the Lord or Lady’s Courtesy skill; otherwise, a base of 16; if the locale has special requirements for entry – attending Mass; eating no meat; removing shoes – these should be discussed now. If the Knight has chosen not to identify themselves, this should be taken into account. It is permitted that the Hosts ask the Knight if there are any special reasons for their arrival.
The Unarming. If there are no hiccups, the Knight is taken indoors and his armour and clothing are removed; they will be offered a bath, their wounds will be seen to, and they will be given new clothes.	Roll either First Aid or Chirurgery, depending upon the severity of the wounds; the skill is equal to the Lord or Lady of the locale or a base score of 15. Run Successes or Failures as per normal.
The Shriving. The Knight will be asked to attend a Mass or other Blessing ritual. This might be private (one-on-one with the Priest) or a regular session.	This depends upon the religious persuasion of the Knight, and maybe be deflected or embraced as needed. Run Blessings and any other religious effects as per normal.
The Feast. The Knight is led into the space where the evening’s festivities will take place; they will be shown to a place of prominence and will be served a generous portion of wine and some food. The Lord or Lady will welcome them, in person or via their head functionary or Herald.	This is a space wherein the Knight can exercise whatever skills they feel are appropriate. They will need to roll their Courtesy at least three times to pass muster. As well they can choose to roll any of the following skills in order to join in with the festivities: Compose; Dancing; Gaming; Orate; Play Instrument; Singing; Tourney Any Failures can be smoothed over by Courtesy roll from either the Knight or the Hosts (as the Lord or Lady’s skill, or base 15).
The Gossip. As the evening progresses, the Knight will hear many interesting things concerning the locality.	The Knight can roll any of the following: Flirting; Heraldry; Hunting; Identify; Industry; Intrigue; Recognise; Religion; Stewardship; Tourney If there are things to be learned, the Knight will hear about them in this fashion and may act upon this information as they see fit. Failures should be managed as seems best, but most Failures can be smoothed over by a Courtesy roll from either the Knight or the Hosts (as the Lord or Lady’s skill, or base 15).
The Giving of Gifts.	This is based upon whether or not the Knight has had any Critical Successes during the evening. If affirmative, the Knight will be given something splendid or highly useful (but not so much as to unbalance the story) as they take their leave. This might be a Faery Steed, or a Sword with a magical property, or simply a nice new suit of Armour. Match the gift with the amount and quality of the successes.

While it’s possible to organise all this activity into a timetable as shown above, it remains the goal of the Referee to provide an elegant and easily-flowing story. Treat the above information as a guideline for the event and never let it get in the way of your purpose and your story’s intent. In fact, if staying overnight at a Castle, Priory, or Manse seems likely to slow things down too much, just say this:

“They had good lodgyng and good chere, and at the laste departed.”