Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Last Bear in England

Merry Christmas! Due to my travels through the hustle and bustle of the season, I'm putting up the last post for 2019 early. Enjoy!

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

As Christmas nears, ghostly growls disturb the calm winter nights in the village of Fernhurst in West Sussex. Yearly, villagers witness the ghost of the last bear in England returning to the scene of its death in Verdly Castle. The castle’s location is now a thickly wooded hollow in Verdly Wood with brush growing over the few remaining piles of masonry, but once it was a magnificent hunting tower. On a Christmas day sometime in the early 1000s AD, a bear foraging for food through Verdly Wood stumbled into a pack of hunters from the castle. The hunters attacked. Wounded and worried, the bear turned tail. The bear sought any shelter it could and ran straight into Verdly Castle. In Verdly’s great hall, the hunters cornered their quarry and slew the last bear native to England. Now, the bear returns each year and the hunters’ cries of triumph remind the nation of its loss.

Adventure Ideas

Because of their hibernation cycle, bears serve as a symbol of death and rebirth. They spend the winter in the underworld and emerge brand new each spring. The killing of the last bear gives that creature enough magical significance to make this symbol the literal truth. It’s not a ghost, it’s the magically-powerful undead last bear brought back out of hibernation once a year to feed. 

The skeletal remains of the last bear may lie near the foundations of Verdly castle lost in the ground. The ancient Celts wore bear-shaped amulets and bear teeth for protection. As a symbol of death, extinction, and loss, any part of the legendary bear makes a potent necromantic or enchanted talisman.

Unverifiable rumors claim Verdly Castle was used as a madhouse served by a handful of nuns before falling to a crumbling ruin. The growls and howls might not belong to a bear but an unquiet spirit of unsound mind pretending to be a bear. Anyone trying to put the “ghost bear” spirit to rest just strengthens its delusion. Or the bear’s specter adopted such “wild men” as her cubs. Now another charitable home opens near Verdly Wood. Certain incurable inmates vanish from their cells, although visitors sometimes hear their voices from beneath the ground. Any wardens mistreating their poor charges soon suffer a savage death.

One of the possible (if not portable ) translations of the name Arthur is “bear man”, possibly descended from the Celtic bear goddess, Artio. King Arthur legendarily lies sleeping under the ground waiting for his return and certain druidic circles celebrate King Arthur at the midwinter solstice only a few days from Christmas. When the last bear died the last link to Camelot died with it, but Merlin sends its spirit back to earth on the year’s greatest day of charity and hope. Following the ghostly clues and markers could lead to the Once and Future King.

As terrifically bonkers as the idea of a ghost bear may be, in the more fantastic world of Victoriana the monstrous possibilities stagger the mind. When the last owlbear returns, claw and talon marks mark the trees and screeches fill the air. The pale specter of a unicorn stalks the moors enchanting innocents and impaling the guilty. Gazing into the eyes of a ghostly cockatrice petrifies the soul but leaves the numb empty husk of a body alive.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Strange Facts of Old Hall and St. Mary

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

The next ghost story of the season leans back into the distant Victorian past and the less distant history of the Battle of Britain, making a haunting fit for Victoriana and Their Finest Hour. In the 1840s, nuns of the Benedictine order fled anti-Catholic sentiment in Hampshire to settle in the village of East Bergholt. They rebuilt the empty, faded chapel into the Church of St. Mary and converted the adjacent manor house, “Old Hall”, into a nunnery.

The air of both St. Mary and Old Hall crowd with legend and spirits. St. Mary lacks a bell tower, possessing instead a medieval-styled bell cage on the church grounds with over 4-ton weight of bells facing upside-down towards the ceiling and rung by dangerously shoving their massive bulk by hand. According to village folklore, workers spent 6 years attempting to build a bell tower, but the devil visited the worksite every night and undid all their labor. In Old Hall, chambers suffer sudden plummets of temperature with no obvious cause and wispy floating figures cross the corridors. 

Shortly after England entered World War II, the Benedictine order evacuated their nuns from East Bergholt due to the village’s location on the now-threatened southern coast. For the same reason, the British Army requisitioned the former nunnery as a barracks for its men stationed in the quiet village. The soldiers in Old Hall soon grew used to their new home and its strange atmosphere. They learned to avoid the main entrance and instead travel around the back of the building to the back door to avoid seeing strange figures and feeling ghostly touches. Each night at 10:50 the door to the sergeant’s mess unlocked and opened about a foot and half as a strange cold seeped into the hall. Soldiers armed with clubs waited on both sides of the door to catch the suspected pranksters. With no culprit on hand night after night, the enlisted men pragmatically started a nightly card game outside the haunted doorway so they could sneak in for a snack after the ghost unlocked the mess. 

 One young private progressing towards sleep in his bunk saw his door suddenly burst open. A faint shadowy figure crossed towards him and laid cold dead hands on his face. At the frigid groping, the private overcame his fear and yelled for help. The specter disappeared as his compatriots entered and turned on the light. The young private’s dark hair had turned white with terror.

Adventure Ideas

St. Mary and Old Hall changed denominations a few times in its history. Both Protestant and Catholic dead decay in their architecture and grounds. Arguments in life lead to disquiet in death. Do the strange unconnected hauntings reflect a ghostly battle of deeply entrenched beliefs? How can a ghost be swayed about the metaphysical facts of eternal life?

A bunch of soldiers stationed in an ancient house with a strange history makes an ideal scenario for a haunting. The men are trained and well-armed but not prepared for the supernatural. As outsiders, they have only church records and legends told in the pub to hint at the cause of their haunting. Best of all, they can’t leave the house without risking a court-martial. 

An inconveniently locked door conveniently unlocked by a ghost could facilitate many schemes. Murderers, thieves, prisoners, and star-crossed lovers could get that much closer to their goal provided they are bold enough to use dead hands to do their dirty work.

In folklore, the glorious ringing of church bells control the weather, grow crops, and drive away devils. The cold metal of most bells has been ceremonially baptized before their installation. Perhaps, the normally sacred church bells of St. Mary sleep in a “cage” on the humble ground due to some stain of evil wrought within the bells. What tragedies occur when a bell gets loose or worse installed high above the ground in a bell tower?

Ghost Stories for Christmas- Lady Dudley’s Pond

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past,  Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

On September 8, 1560, the servants of Cumnor Hall discovered the body of Amy Robsart at the bottom of a flight of stairs, her neck broken and two deep wounds in her skull. People started theorizing about her death soon after her skin turned cold. Although the coroner pronounced the death an accident, certain suspicious facts and more suspicious rumors wiggled into public knowledge. 

On the day of her death, Amy sent all the servants out of the house. Did she empty Cumnor Hall so she could commit suicide to escape the pain of the cancer in her breast? The house, Cumnor Place, belonged to one of her husband’s servants, Anthony Forster. He was present that day and suspiciously wealthy after her death. Did Forster push Amy to her death so her husband, Robert Dudley, a court favorite of Queen Elizabeth, could marry his admiring monarch? It could also have been an accident caused and exacerbated by her illness. Had the drug Amy took to nullify the pain of her cancer caused her to lose her footing while her bones weakened by her illness shattered down the stairs?

No matter the truth, Amy Robsart’s specter remained in the house long after her death. After repeated manifestations of her ghost on the stairs of Cumnor Hall, a team of nine parsons from nearby Oxford came to lay the ghost to eternal rest. They could not banish her, but together they managed to confine her spirit to one of the fish ponds on the manor grounds. Since then, the pond never freezes even on the coldest of winter nights.

 After many untenanted years, Lord Abingdon, the current owner, demolished empty, crumbling Cumnor Hall in 1810. Laborers rebuilt several nearby churches with materials from the demolitions. The church at the clean and bright village of Wytham gained a window from the room in which Amy Robsart slept her last night. St. Michaels in the center of the village of Cumnor received a gilded stone statue of Queen Elizabeth and a sturdy rear wall. All that remains of Cumnor Hall by 1855, are piles of stone and a chimney on the south side of St. Michael’s churchyard.

Adventure Ideas

The best part of this legend is the ghost transplanted to a different location. While they can’t get rid of a ghost permanently, some clergy can shift the unwanted haunting to a tree, an unused room, or an unlucky cow. Perhaps for a contribution to the poor box, the specter could be persuaded to migrate to the house of a disliked neighbor. Of course, if someone frees the ghost, the descendants of the parsons/ghost-trappers fall prey to a very angry ghost.

If Queen Elizabeth played a part in her death, Amy Robsart’s ghost might be persuaded by certain interested parties to unleash her vengeance on a currently living female monarch. 

Murder victims come back as ghosts, suicide victims come back as ghosts, and accident victims come back as ghosts. Is this ghost vengeful, regretful, or unlucky? That ambiguity makes research before an exorcism very difficult. Conspiracy and opinions handed down for generations hamper local inquires. 

The haunted pond could turn Amy Robsart into a Jenny Greenteeth sort of nightmare hag, ascending from the muck smelling of fish to pull down children unwary enough to fish in her pond.

The church of St. Michaels not only has bits of Cumnor Hall stitched into its architecture but the house’s inhabitants as well. The tomb of Anthony Forster, the man rumored to have killed Amy, sits in a place of veneration next to its altar. Perhaps two ghosts stalk through the church: one seeking to expose the truth and one to obfuscate it.

Perhaps the ghost in the pond is not Amy Robsart’s but her murderer. The ghost descendant’s hired the parsons to quarantine the specter to a quiet pond. If anyone recognized the shadowy figure at the top of the stairs, the scandal would ruin their family line.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Starving Children of Bramber Castle

Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

In 1210, Bramber Castle in Sussex was the happy home of William de Braose, the 4rth Lord of Bramber. Through war, murder, and the patronage of King John, de Braose rose in power in the ranks of Norman nobles. After the de Braose’s capture of Arthur I (a threat to King John’s claim to the throne) and the subsequent suspicious disappearance of Arthur I, his fortunes should have risen even further. Unfortunately for him and his family, King John turned against de Braose, claiming his family owed taxes from the estates given him by the crown. The king took all their land, invaded their holdings in Wales, and captured de Braose’s four children. According to legend, King John had them starved to death.

The few remaining ruins of the Bramber castle sits on the western edge of the village of Bramber. Only the gatehouse tower and a few crumbled fragments of walls stick up out of the hill. The land now belongs to the Duke of Norfolk, but aside from stones for local civic improvements, the ruins provide little more than a pleasant place for picnics. In 1855, the village of Bramber numbers about 150 inhabitants. Most visitors come for an idyllic rest in the country. Tea rooms, tea gardens, and hotels stand next to mills and sheep pens.

At Christmas time, mysterious and emaciated children pleadingly hold out their hands and follow pedestrians through the streets of Bramber. They voicelessly cry for food, but if anyone tries to talk to them, the children vanish. Witnesses claim the apparitions beg around the ruins of the castle as well. Local rumor murmurs the children are the spirits of de Broase’s children, doomed by the death in their bellies to beg for eternity.

Adventure Ideas

Between 1844 and 1855, rail companies tried and failed three times to build a railway north of Bramber with a train station near the castle. While the marshy ground slowed the work, the creepy silent children stalking the worksite didn’t help either.

Given Bramber’s reliance on tourism, local leaders might pay good money to prevent dirty, ghost children from bothering guests to the village.

A peculiar number of children and teenagers in Willaim de Braose’s life died tragic deaths. Aside from this own children, Arthur I vanished in de Braose’s care at age 16. While committing atrocities against the Welsh, de Braose personally tracked down and killed the 7-year-old son of an enemy leader, earning de Braose the nickname "Ogre of Abergavenny". Perhaps the ghostly begging children are the embodiment of de Braose’s crimes for the crown, a cosmic stain looking for charity and justice at Christmas. Does the Ogre still seek out children during the winter?

In reality, King John captured de Braose’s family, but only de Braose’s wife Maud, and eldest son, William, died while imprisoned at Windsor castle or Corfe castle. Their cause of death escaped record. The rest of the children were released in 1218 although other accounts claim two of de Braose’s sons died. There are similar inconsistencies with the number of ghostly children and their genders. Are the children even connected to de Braose? The Victorian age was no stranger to tragic deaths. Is someone covering up their crimes and blaming their ghosts on the story of de Braose?

Bramber is also home to William Potter’s whimsical and naively creepy taxidermy tableaus on display in his families’ pub, the White Lion. Each diorama incorporates scenes of everyday life reimagined with stuffed small animals such as hamsters, birds, rats, kittens, and squirrels. If Potter’s art is as popular with dead Norman children as it is with living Victorian children, all sorts of macabre poltergeist activity could occur. Spectral hunger may manifest as stuffed animal bites.

A Bit of Confusion Facilitated by Over-Preparation

During the flurry of holiday festivities, I try to write a few blog posts ahead of schedule. While I've succeeded in staying ahead, I did mess up the order for the past two weeks. Sorry about any confusion. Hopefully, you've also gotten caught int he joyful crunch of love and activity making my mistake a mere footnote of your otherwise festive day. The mistake is now fixed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Dogfights- Luftwaffe Aircraft

And now to finish up, the aircraft of the opposition. The posts of this series and the whole bunch of new material will be compiled into a Dogfights PDf available to download from our Resources page in the next year.

Bf 109 E3 (Luftwaffe Fighter)

Length: 28 ft

Wingspan: 32 ft

Crew: 1 (Pilot/Bombardier)

Movement: 345 Mph (555 km/h)

Handling: +5

Health: 12

Armor Value: 2

Armament:

Pilot- 2x MG 17 machine guns above the engine (10)

Pilot- 2x MG FF cannon in wings (9 AP4)

Optional Ordinance:

1x 551 bomb (-2 Handling)

Bf 110C (Luftwaffe Fighter)

Length: 39 ft

Wingspan: 53 ft

Crew: 2 (Pilot, Navigator/Rear Gunner)

Speed: 295 mph (475 km/h)

Handling: +1

Health: 18

Armor: 4

Armament:

Pilot- 2x MG FF cannon in wings forward (9 AP4)

Pilot- 4x MG 17 machine guns in nose forward (14)

Rear Gunner- 1x MG 15 machine gun cockpit rear (5)

Do 17 Z (Luftwaffe Light Bomber)

Length: 51 ft

Wingspan: 59 ft

Crew: 4 (Pilot, Navigator/Rear Gunner, Bombardier/Nose Gunner, Ventral Gunner,

Movement: 255 mph (410 km/h)

Handling: +1

Health: 24

Armor Value: 5

Armament:

Nose Gunner- 1x MG 15 machine gun forward (5)

Rear Gunner- 1x MG 15 machine gun cockpit rear (5)

Rear Gunner- 2x MG 15 machine gun cockpit side (7)

Ventral Gunner- 1x MG 15 machine gun rear (5)

Ordinance:

4 x 551 lb bombs

He 111 (Luftwaffe Bomber)

Length: 53 ft

Wingspan: 74 ft

Crew: 5 (Pilot, Bombardier/Nose Gunner/Navigator, Side Gunner, Dorsal Gunner/Wireless Operator, Ventral Gunner)

Movement: 270 Mph (435 km/h)

Handling: +2 black dice

Health: 42

Armor Value: 6

Armament:

Nose Gunner- 1x MG FF cannon forward (7 AP4)

Nose Gunner- 1x MG 81 machine gun forward (9) 
Dorsal Gunner- 1 x MG 131 machine gun rear (11)

Dorsal Gunner- 1 x MG 131 machine gun forward (11) 
Ventral Gunner- 2x MG 15 machine guns rear (7)

Side Gunner- 2x MG 15 machine guns port (7)

Side Gunner- 2x MG 15 machine guns starboard (7)

Ordinance:

1x 4,409 lb bomb 
8x 551lb bombs

Ju 87 (Luftwaffe Dive-Bomber)

Length: 36 ft

Wingspan: 45 ft 

Crew: 2 (Pilot/Bombardier, Rear Gunner)

Movement: 211mph (339 km/h)

Handling: +1

Health: 30

Armor Value: 5

Armament:

Pilot- 2x MG 17 machine guns mounted in wings forward (10)

Rear Gunner- 1x MG 15 machine guns rear (5)

Ordinance:

1x 550 lb (carried externally)

4x 110 lb (carried externally)

Ju 88 A (Luftwaffe Bomber)

 Length: 47 ft

Wingspan: 65 ft

Crew: 4 (Pilot, Bombardier/Nose Gunner, Wireless Operator/Rear Gunner, Navigator/Ventral Gunner)

Movement: 280 mph (450 km/h)

Handling: 2 black dice

Health: 42

Armor Value:  5

Armament:

Nose Gunner- 1x MG 81 machine gun cockpit nose (9)

Rear Gunner- 1x MG 131 machine gun cockpit rear (11)

Rear Gunner- 1x MG 131 machine gun cockpit rear (11)

Ventral Gunner- 2x MG 81 machine guns rear (11)

Ventral Gunner- 2x MG 81 machine guns front (11)

Ordinance:

6 x 1,102 lb bombs

10 x 110 lb bombs

That wraps up the previews from Dogfights. The complete PDF will be up on the Resources page in early January. Next week, we start our annual holiday tradition: Ghost Stories for Christmas!

Dogfights- RAF Aircraft

The following attributes break down an Aircraft’s abilities into game statistic useful for dogfights:

-Length and Wingspan are simply self-explanatory descriptors of an Aircraft’s size.

-Crew describes how many persons the Aircraft requires to function at peak efficiency. Any crew position listing two different jobs divided by a slash (such as Bombardier/Rear Gunner) designates the position performs two vital jobs both of which are performed at their assigned station within the aircraft.

-Movement, given as both miles and kilometers per hour, is the absolute top speed of the aircraft. If movement needs to be represented by a dice pool for a chase between aircraft, simply divide the Movement by 10 and round down to generate the dice pool.

-Handling measures an aircraft’s performance in speed, maneuverability, and ease of piloting. The Handling attribute contributes to most actions undertaken by an aircraft’s pilot, and black dice pools of enemy gunners targeting the aircraft.

-Health represents how much punishment an aircraft can take before it loses its ability to remain in the sky or dissolves into a fireball of metal. Its Armor Value declares the aircraft’s ability to shrug off incoming enemy fire, whether from thick armor, redundant systems, or self-sealing fuel tanks.

-Armament lists the weaponry available for fending off or attacking enemy aircraft. Each weapon’s descriptions starts with the crew position operating it, followed by the number of identical weapons linked to fire during a single attack, the weapons’ name, the weapon’s location, and finally, the damage dice for all the linked weapons combined. A successful attack with a spitfire’s 8x .303 Browning machine guns (20) does not roll 20 dice 8 times for damage. The damage dice already factor the linked weapons in their total.

The explosive shells fired by cannons devastate even the hardiest of aircraft armors. The “AP” following the number of a cannon’s damage dice stands for Armor Piercing. For every point of Armor Piercing a Weapon possesses, it bypasses a point of an aircraft’s Armor Value.

For the sake of clarity and simplicity, limits of range and ammunition have been ignored in Aircraft’s Armaments due to the tremendous speeds, distances, and constant repositioning inherent to aerial combat. The Gamemaster may rule an aircraft runs out of ammunition or flies beyond their range at their discretion.

-Ordinance numbers the payloads carried by bombers. Obviously, each bomb may be dropped only once. 

For each 500lbs worth of bomb weight (rounded down) dropped during a Drop Bomb action, the bombardier adds 2 dice to their pool.  For large or particularly well-entrenched targets, the Gamemaster may require multiple successful hits for complete destruction. Some fighters may be fitted with bombs at a penalty to their Handling. These fighters have an Optional Ordinance listed followed by their Handling penalty.

Boulton Paul Defiant

Length: 35 ft

Wingspan: 39 ft

Crew: 2 (Pilot, Rear Gunner)

Movement: 304 mph (489 km/h)

Handling: +1

Health: 18

Armor Value: 3

Armament:

Rear Gunner- 4x .303 Browning machine guns in dorsal turret (12)

Bristol Blenheim (RAF fighter/ light bomber)

Length: 42 ft

Wingspan: 56 ft

Crew: 3 (Pilot, Wireless Operator, Navigator/Bombardier)

Speed: 265 mph (428 km/h)

Handling: +1

Health: 24

Armor: 4

Armament:

Pilot- 1x .303 Browning machine gun in Port Wing (6)

Bombardier- 2x .303 Browning machine guns rear (8)

Wireless Operator- 2x .303 in Browning machine guns in dorsal turret (8)

Ordinance:

4x 250 lb bombs

Hurricane Mk II (RAF Fighter)

Length: 32 ft

Wingspan: 40 ft

Crew: 1 (Pilot/Bombardier)

Movement: 330 Mph (531 km/h)

Handling: +3

Health: 18

Armor Value: 3

Armament:

Pilot- 4 x Hispano Mk II cannon (15 AP5)

Optional Ordinance:

2x 500 lb bombs (-2 Handling)

Spitfire Mk I (RAF Fighter)

Length: 29 ft

Wingspan: 36 ft

Crew:  1 (Pilot)

Movement: 360 Mph (579 km/h)

Handling: +5

Health: 12

Armor Value: 1

Armament:

Pilot- 8x .303 Browning machine guns in wings (20)

That’s the RAF sorted. Next week, it's the opposition

Dogfights- Optional Rules

Optional Rule: Emergency Landings and Bailing Out

When an aircraft’s health reaches zero, it and all its occupants turn into a bullet hole-riddled fireball plummeting to the ground. Crew members must take desperate steps to avoid this ugly end before their craft’s health depletes.

Ordinarily, a pilot lucky or skilled enough to safely reach his airfield after a sortie lands his aircraft without needing to roll but normalcy dries out very quickly in war. Whether because of damage to their aircraft or their person, sometimes a pilot must land in terrible conditions. To attempt an emergency landing, the pilot makes an Aviation + Handling test with a black dice pool based on the landing environment. On landing, the aircraft takes damage equal to the Environment Damage minus the successes of the Aviation + Handling roll.

Environment                     Black Dice           Damage

Roads or fields                    0                              4

Lakes and thickets              3                              6

Open sea or villages           6                              8

Forests                                  9                              10

Cities                                      12                           12

At any time, the occupants of a plane may Bail Out and open their parachute with no roll necessary at the Gamemaster’s discretion. Once out of the plane, the evacuee no longer contributes to the Dogfight, but they may take potshots at other parachutists or make use of other opportunities as they crop up. They reach the ground in 1D6 Dogfight turns and suffer 8 pips of damage from the sudden impact. They may attempt an Athletics test (0 black dice). Each success negates a point of damage.  Those without a parachute need not roll the test; they simply start a new character.

Optional Rule: Crew Damage

The bullets tearing through an aircraft also tear through the aircraft’s crew. If an aircraft looses more health pips than its Armor Value x 2 in a single attack, someone’s been hit! The Gamemaster rolls a die to determine the casualty of a damage (5) hit.

Roll        Result

1-2          The pilot

3-5          A random crew member

6              Vital components (all actions undertaken by the aircraft during the combat phase suffer 3 black dice until the damage gets repaired)

Optional Rule: Weather and Night Fighting

While in the thick of it, pilots worry about wind, rain, and lightning almost as much as enemy bullets. On clear sunny days, Dogfighting actions suffer no penalties for the weather, but flying through a fog, blizzards, hail, or thunderclouds gets messy fast.

Weather Conditions        Black Dice penalty

Cloudy/Raining                   3

Thick fog/Storm                  6

Additionally during dark nights bereft of spotlights or a full moon, all Dogfighting Actions suffer +3 black dice.

Optional Rule: Skip the Squadron Phase

Obviously, the Squadron Phase is meant for massive air sorties with more than 10 aircraft battling through the skies. For smaller more mechanically nuanced fights, remove the Squadron Phase and move directly into the combat phase every round with a few adjustments. Instead of basing their initiative on the Squadron Roll, every pilot rolls their Aviation plus their aircraft’s Handling to determine their aircraft’s initiative. The crew then takes turns performing their actions as they see fit. In case of a disagreement, the aircraft’s pilot decides the order of crew actions.  Instead of the Tactical Action, pilots gain the Spot Action.

I’m very proud of the Dogfighting rules. With a little tweaking and some new Actions for the Combat Phase they could work very well for all sorts of Victoriana mass combats. Now that we have the rules, we just need some planes.