Their Finest Hour: The Subspecies at War

Like any fantasy world, Victoriana has fantasy races. Unlike most fantasy worlds, the fantasy races are considered distinct subspecies of humanity. Instead of rewriting all the subspecies entries in the Victoriana Rulebook, here are a few pieces of history mixed with the fantasy races in the setting of Their Finest Hour:

The British Army lost a great deal of vitally important equipment and supplies during the evacuation at Dunkirk. Tanks, artillery, antiaircraft guns, weapons, food, and ammunition etc, all lost on the European continent. In 1940, dwaven captains of industry united their efforts under the London Aircraft Production Group to coordinate their factories output for the good of the war effort. Under the leadership of Albert Stanley the Lord Ashfield, the LAPG cranked out ammunition, armored trucks, automotive parts and aircraft with incredible dwarf efficiency, managing to build an airplane an hour.

At the start of the war, the 601 Squadron RAF consisted almost entirely of Eldren aviators, many of which fought in the Great War. The squadron earned its nickname “The Millionaires Squadron” for selecting only pilots of good breeding and better means. Deaths and transfers inevitably pulled a more diverse selection of replacement pilots into the unit during the Battle of Britain.

The newly emerging technologies of the war provided gnome boffins ample opportunities to put their keen minds and hearty resolve to patriotic use. Gnome technicians kept nightly watch on England’s southern coast maintaining and manning radar stations. Gnome cryptographers and codebreakers at top secret Bletchley Park covertly deciphered the Enigma Machine encrypted messages of the Axis forces. Their efforts provided invaluable intelligence to the Allied War effort, first distributed under the codename BONIFACE, and later ULTRA. This research eventually led to the Conundrum Calculator (which calculated formulas essential to complicated thaumatergical equations) putting the British Army on a more even footing with German magic.

With their imposing muscular physiques, tough hides, and childlike loyalty, Ogres make terrific soldiers. After England declared war in 1939, so many patriotic male Ogres volunteered and were happily accepted into the British Army, it’s rare to see any of their kind in London. Female Ogres remain, able and ready for the work traditionally done by the men of their kind, such as loading and unloading cargo, construction, manufacturing, and security.

Beastfolk remain the backbone of the Communist Party of Great Britain, however the Party’s current antiwar stance after the German-Russian nonaggression pact of 1939, bothers patriotic members. The Party returns to antifascist ideology following the invasion of the Soviet Union in ’41. Beastfolk agitators and protesters fill out the ranks at the Party’s strikes and demonstrations, both to represent the common man and to put their claws to work if things get rough.

Despite their impressive trench fighting service record in the Great War, the British Army conscripted no halflings until Parliament amended the National Service (Armed Forces) Act. Originally, their short height disqualified all but the most unusually tall, and their short lifespans played havoc with military requirements.

Seeing England’s need of soldiers great and small, the Viscount Gort reformed the Bantam Battalions, units of halflings, short dwarves, beastfolk and gnomes, given a chance to fight for their country. A logistical nightmare for war production, the men of the Bantam Battalions have guns, uniforms, specialized equipment, even tanks, all produced for the efficient tactical use of soldiers less than four ft. three in. high.

The ubiquity of the internal combustion engine caught many Englishmen off guard. While some old cavalrymen argue the need for horses, the orcs of Great Britain quickly became experts on anything powered by fuel. Army truck drivers, tank crews, ambulances, fighter planes, if it has engine there is an orc ready to tinker or take off. Despite their aptitude, pilots in the RAF often blame orc mechanics for crashes due to old prejudices. Some mean spiritedly equate them with the gremlins which supposedly sabotage planes midflight.

So, the plan was to combine this week’s post with some ideas about magic. Oddly enough, there was too much history to cram in magic too. So next week, we’ll look at the Magical Battle of Britain.