Oh Look, More Portraits

While looking over recent additions to the British Library and Internet Archive Flickr pages, I found a slew of great illustrations from 19^th century books, particularly portraits of adventurous looking women, ethnicities I haven’t covered yet, and faces screaming to be turned into gnomes. 
Recently, I felt like I kept seeing the same faces over and over again when I looked for new illustrations, which was a bit of a stumbling block when trying to add diversity to the Portrait Gallery late last year. It takes diligence to find suitable illustrations of anything but white men in evening dress or military uniforms. Pictures for any other demographic are either too racist or of too poor quality to use.

Thankful, both the British Library and Internet Archive Flickr pages are a never ending supply of design, art, and inspiration for my Victoriana Games.

As always these portraits (and other like them) can all be found on the Portrait Gallery page, ready to be used in your Victoriana Adventures.

Tangrams- Peculiar Pieces

Ordinarily when I blog about some weird Victorian nugget, I write about its history, folklore  and occult connections. While we have some of that today; I thought it would be more fun and helpful to come up with excuses to make players solve tangrams puzzles. Last week, I introduced tangrams and why they make such a great handout for a role-playing game. Here are a bunch of adventure ideas ready for the Gamemaster to hand out the tans (the seven pieces of a tangram).

Adventure ideas

A secret club uses tangrams to keep out the uninitiated. Anyone entering must arrange a tangram into the shape known only to the clubs members. If they finish on the first try the doorman welcomes them in, otherwise the he bars the door.

A magician enchants stationary to hide messages. He writes his letter and cuts the paper into the seven tans. The pieces appear blank except for a number corresponding with a puzzle from a tangram book. The recipient receives their letter and looks up the puzzle. Once they arrange the pieces in the right formation the message appears.

A tangram puzzle could be the lock on a specially made safe. Arrange the tan’s into the right combination and the safe opens. If the safe is enchanted, different shapes could open on different contents.

Tangrams are not the only kind of dissection puzzle. An old manuscript credited to Archimedes lays out the Ostomachio, which roughly translates as “Bone Fight”. The Ostomachio is a square made of 14 pieces, similar to tangrams. Instead of paper, the Greeks made their puzzles of bone. So the ancient Greeks had a geometric puzzle called “Bone Fight” with pieces made from real bones. Do whatever you want with that.

In Victoriana, Heaven and Hell clash in a war of Chaos and Order. In this war the straight lines and geometric shapes of dissection puzzles could have a much greater significance than mortal amusements.

Tangrams quickly spread  across the globe from China in five short years. The hobby flared up like a plague in France, England, Germany and Denmark. Do tangram enthusiasts suffer from a viral compulsion to shuffle the tans around into new shapes? Does obsessive knowledge wait just under all those right angles dying to get out?

The plethora of possible shapes makes tangrams a possible source of coded communication. A woman sits in the park working on a tangram puzzle every afternoon. Some people walk by without a glance, but if you know what to look for, her tans code out secret messages for a covert group.

While most enthusiasts cut their tangrams out of paper, some could afford more polished products for their hobby. Tangram sets were made of glass, wood, silk, or ivory. The wealthy bought more expensive tangram kitsch, such as dishware and even furniture. In the 1840s, Chinese carpenters made a set of interlocking tables shaped like tans. They could be arranged like any tangram puzzle.

For the sake of making up adventures and building mysteries, anything can be a tangram set: floorboards, bricks, stained glass, children’s blocks, decorative panels, floor tiles, roof shingles, a cracked sidewalk, etc. etc.

A mysterious publisher sells books of tangram puzzles sinisterly designed to open the reader’s perception to new geometrical ideas. As they solve harder and harder puzzles, the solver’s mind learns new ways to combine everyday shapes and to find the gaps in reality.

Tangrams- Period Puzzles for Your Players

As a Gamemaster, I love to move story forward through handouts. From thank you notes and invitations to city maps and spellbooks, physically handing props to players adds an extra layer of immersion to the game. Whenever I can, I make paper props so players and their player characters can examine clues together. The props move story and challenge players to look deeper. Today and next Friday, I’m looking at a terrific period puzzle ready to be solved by perceptive players.

In the early1800s, a simple yet challenging style of Chinese puzzle, called the Tangram, fascinated European minds. Requiring little translation, and only seven pieces of paper cut into specific geometric shapes, anyone could try it.  Tangram enthusiasts bought books full of puzzles ready to be solved. 

The seven tangram pieces arranged in a square

Most Tangrams use the same basic puzzle pieces, usually cut out of paper: five right triangles (two large, one medium, and two small), one square and one parallelogram. These seven pieces can be arranged into thousands of combinations. A tangram puzzle shows the outline of a shape made from a specific arrangement of the seven pieces. To solve, replicate the silhouette in the puzzle using every piece, without overlapping.

Tangram Puzzles…

… and Their Answers

The simplicity of a tangram puzzle makes a great handout. If the PC’s need to solve a tangram in game, why not give the players a shot at it out of game? A google search provides the template for the pieces ready to print, and more puzzles than you will ever need. Give the players the seven pieces and the silhouette they need to make, and watch them work it out.

Not all players enjoying solving puzzles and some Tangram are harder than other, so PC’s attempting to solve a Tangram can try a skill or attribute test at the GM’s discretion. The GM should be very lenient in letting the player pick a skill to use on the puzzle. We’re having fun here, not trying to get it right.

Accounting, Ad-hoc Repair, Conceal, Concentration, Craft, Engineer, Inscription, Perception, Science, and Tactics, are all acceptable, but a Wits or Resolve roll works too. Talents indicating their ability to think outside the box (Such Deduction, Eurkea!, Mathematical Mind, and They Thought You Were Mad!) give 1 automatic success each. For each net success on the test the GM places one piece of the puzzle in its correct position, (preferably an important piece revealing the solution).

This week we looked at solving Tangrams physically at the table, next week we’ll look at their history, and using Tangrams in Victoriana adventures.