Still More Portraits

Due to a family vacation, I’m taking a break from London’s Dungeons. Instead, I’m posting five new Victoriana Portraits. Beastmen have been neglected far too long. The lack of usable period animal illustrations, the required blending of two pictures, and the simple lack of a vertical neck make Beastmen the most challenging portraits to make. Here are two more beastmen, a German Halfing, and a tough old Ogre for use in your games. Larger versions of these portraits and all the other portraits can be found here.

London’s Dungeons- Prison Hulks

In crowded Victorian London, where can a conspiracy get some privacy? What building has the square footage necessary for a fiendish plot? The answer floats on the river Thames.

In the 1700s, the growing population in the English prisons needed a solution. Convicts were shipped to America, until the Revolutionary War in 1776 stopped the flow of prisoners, causing a crisis. Parliament passed a temporary measure to turn decommissioned warships and merchant vessels into floating jails. The use of these “prison hulks” would last for 82 years.
A ship of the line could already house hundreds of men, making the conversions relatively simple. The masts and rudders were removed, taking away the ability to steer the ship. Below decks, iron-barred cells filled every foot of space. Passageways and ladders leading to the decks above and below divide the cells down the middle of the hulk.
Although the hulks were originally a temporary holding place for prisoners awaiting deportation, the Act creating the prison hulks was continually renewed causing many prisoners to serve their entire sentences aboard the ships.

The conditions aboard a hulk were worse than any British jail on land. The use of hammocks efficiently stacked the prisoners during sleep, which allowed more men to be crowded into the cells. The prisoners slept chained by their wrists and ankles.
Daily life on a hulk started at five in the morning when the prisoners awoke. After a meager breakfast, one deck was washed by the prisoners. The decks were washed in a rotation, so each deck was relatively clean for a few days. At seven the work parties left the hulk in boats, after having their restraints checked. a day of hard labor done (10 hours during the summer, 7 in the winter), they returned to supper and schooling or chapel in the evenings, before the prisoners were locked in their cells to sleep.
The hulks a cost cutting measure and the food served to the convicts is proof. Boiled ox-cheeks, peas and moldy bread were the entirety of their diet, unless the captain of the hulk allowed the prisoners to grow a garden on land.

The 1776 Act finally expired in 1857, putting the last of the hulks out of use. This could be ignored in a Victoriana Campaign taking place after the expiration (where better to seclude magical criminals), or embraced. All those ships are either going to be torn apart or sold. An entire ship full of prison cells could be just what some villain needs to get his plan started, and at these prices you’d be crazy not to. Here are a couple ideas of the mysteries a hulk could conceal:  

The Hulks of London 
The first of the hulks moored in the Thames near Woolwich marshes. Work crews from the hulks dug canals and built walls at the Arsenal, and labored to check the erosion of the river banks by driving posts into the muddy shores. Any job needing strong backs and little skill could be done by a work gang.
 Could the captain of the hulk be using his prisoner’s expertise to do other less mundane work? Are the prisoners just repairing the hulk’s hull or are they making more militaristic alterations? Why do so many of the new prisoner’s have sailing backgrounds?  

Disease 
Disease spread quickly to the confined crowds of the hulks. The sick were not given much medical attention and were not quarantined beyond being imprisoned on a ship. Typhus, cholera, and dysentery swept through the prisoners. A mortality rate of 30 percent was not uncommon aboard a hulk. Are the prisoners aboard the Hulk dying of a strange undiagnosed disease or is something far more foul afoot? Is it something in the water?

A Little Wood Work
The alterations transforming a ship of the Royal Navy into a hulk could hide covert activity. Are the lower decks of the ship’s hold just more cell blocks, or do they house something more sinister? Why do members of the Royal Academy of Science visits so often at night? And what’s with all the screaming?

London’s Dungeons- The Catacombs of West Norwood Cemetery

In crowded Victorian London, where can a conspiracy get some privacy? What building has the square footage necessary for a fiendish plot? The answer lies right under our feet.

The high population of London inevitably led to many corpses in need of burying, but few available graves. The cemeteries were full and to over fill them would be insanitary. Parliament accepted proposals banning burials inside the city of London and to build cemeteries outside town. These cemeteries became known as the “Magnificent Seven”.
Workmen cleared many trees of Westnorwood in Lambeth to clear land for a graveyard. Iron fences and gates surround the enclosed cemetery, discouraging resurrection men and grave robbers. Architect William Tite designed the mausoleums, memorials, and landscaping in the new Gothic style. The Cemetery opened in 1837.

In the Southeast Corner of Westnorwood Cemetery sits a small Episcopal church. A stone stairwell behind the church and another inside wind underground to a brick lined passage full of large alcoves: the central hallway of the cemeteries’ catacombs. Eights smaller passages lead out from the central hallway ending with iron grate covered air vents. Each hall is lined with fourteen alcoves, some full of shelves. The shelves hold the many coffins housed in the catacombs.
Space in the catacombs could be bought by shelf space, by shelf or by alcove. Only the rich could afford an entire shelf, and only the very rich would be able to buy an entire alcove (along with a set of iron fencing to protect the collected departed). If every shelf were filled, the catacombs would hold more than 3,000 coffins.
In 1839, Bramah and Robinson designed and installed a coffin lift (or catafalque) to help bring the departed to their final resting place. The lift is powered by two hydraulic pumps. Each stroke of the pump lifts the elevator one inch, to a maximum height of 15 feet through a covered hole in the chapel floor.

I don’t need to tell you what to do with a creepy Gothic catacomb full of recently buried bodies in your Victoriana campaign. It’s a fantastic location with atmosphere and a great layout for a fight. Here are some ideas that could affect the dungeon’s use:  

The Great North Wood
Before the town of West Norword, the area was known as the “Great North Wood”. Certain very old trees were left alone when the cemetery was built. Their roots may entangle something secret in the ground or they could have been left alone at the orders of someone higher up.
 Are the catacombs an access point for an ancient power of nature, or are the trees protecting something?  

Lead Lined Coffins
By law all burials not actually interred in the ground must be lined with lead for the sake of public health. In the damp, musty catacombs some of the older coffins have rotted, exposing the protective metal casing. Lead has a history of use in defensive magic. Does the lead protect the outside from what’s inside, or what’s inside from the outside?  

Hidden Marvels
The coffin lift is an interesting, if mundane, piece of engineering. Did Bramah and Robinson install more fantastic clockwork marvels? Does the elevator go down below the catacombs, through the solid seeming flagstone floor?  

Little Storage Rooms 
Bodies in the catacombs are quite secure from grave robbers. The outside fence, the locked church, the catacomb entrance, and the locked gate of the full alcoves all work to keep grabbing hands out. It’s not a bad place to hide a human sized secret, or a bunch of smaller secrets in a lead lined coffin.

London’s Dungeons- Chislehurst Caves

In crowded Victorian London, where can a conspiracy get some privacy? What building has the square footage necessary for a fiendish plot? The answer lies right under our feet.
In the London borough of Bromley, twenty-two miles of tunnels crisscross the ground under the town of Chislehurst. The long interconnecting passages are actually three old mines, dug by miners searching for veins of chalk and flint. The cave’s depths range from 40 feet below the ground (near the entrance of what is known as the “Saxon” area) to 150 feet (in the deepest of the “Roman” area).

Although dubious legends of Druids and Romans using the mine date its start around 400 AD, a record from the 1200s is the first reference to the mine. After The Great Fire of London in 1666, new fireproof buildings needed lots of chalk for their mortar. The demand for chalk kept the mine lucrative and busy. In the 1830’s mining stopped and lime kilns were installed to make quicklime. Thirty years later, mushroom growers took over and turned the caves into a subterranean farm.

Interesting uses of the caves continues to this day (air raid shelter during the Blitz, a rock concert venue in the 60’s, LARPs), but any period of use could have been cover for an evil activity ready to be stuck in a Victoriana game.
The Chislehurst Caves are a ready made dungeon for an evil plot, a forgotten evil, or a monster’s lair. If you want an old school dungeon crawl to break up days of solving London society’s ills, this mine is a gold mine.
Here is some of the crazier lore of the Chislehurst Caves that could add texture to a dungeon crawl:

Druids 
In 1903, an archeologist, named William Nichols, claimed Chislehurst Caves was used by the Druids as a temple. Supposedly, there is a stone alter with the outline of a child imprinted on it. The alter was used for blood sacrifices in their ceremonies. Most historians dismiss Nichol’s claims (and this description of Druidism in general), but what’s better than an ancient temple so close to London?
The presence of a past druidic ceremony could have catastrophic effects on mushrooms grown there. Or was it intentional? 

Romans 
Nichols also believed the deepest shafts and wells of the mines were dug by Roman slaves. The Romans would have used the chalk in the mine to build roads and walls.
 Were all the lime kilns installed in 1830s real or was one a secret passage to a lower unexplored part of the tunnels? What did the Romans leave behind or what were they looking for?  

Ghosts 
Strange noises, footsteps, and shrieks have been heard deep in the caves. Most of these noises may be caused by the echoes and amplifications of the irregular cave walls, but it doesn’t have to be. Even if the spirits of druidic sacrifice or Roman slaves don’t wander the tunnels, cave-ins claimed the lives of many miners. Their ghosts may still haunt the passages that caused their deaths.

In the “Roman” section there is a reportedly haunted chamber, where a woman was killed in the early 1800s. She was pushed into pool of water and drowned. Supposedly, that chamber is the only place in the caves with no echoes following every sound.  

Special Rule- Echoes 
Down in the Chislehurst caves, sounds echo for miles and can last 30 seconds or more. This effect makes stealthy approaches unlikely, but it also makes searching by sound more difficult.
Any Hide and Sneak rolls while in the Chislehurst tunnels suffer a 3 black dice penalty. Attempts to find hidden persons using their echoes have a 5 black die penalty.

50th Post! – Self Congratulations and a Celebratory Scenario

We made it everyone! This is the 50^th post of Skullduggery in the Smoke! It’s been fantastic writing for this blog. I am very pleased with the number of views each week. Thanks so much to everyone who has looked, is looking, or is going to have looked-ing in the future at this blog.

In that same celebratory nature, I have added a new page to the blog for Victoriana Scenarios. On this page, you will find a scenario called “A Man of His Word”. It was the first adventure I ran for Victoriana and now you can read it and run it too. Session reports of my run through can be found here. 

A Man of His Word is designed for new adventurers needing to get their hands dirty in the criminal underworld of London. Most of the characters in the adventure can be used to introduce later criminal plot hooks (provided they survive contact with the players). 

I plan to write more adventures in the future, but in the meantime if you have any questions, comments, or criticisms I’d be happy hear them in the page’s comments section. I learned a lot writing it, but there is always room to improve.