Tanneries- You Can Smell the Plot Hooks

Among the warehouses and breweries of south London, certain buildings emanate noxious odors, whose stench rises above even the Thames midday breeze. Work in a tannery was decent, and required skill, but was absolutely disgusting. The smells of chemicals and bodily fluids combine with the making of an everyday material to make tanneries a great location for a Victoriana adventure.

The process of Victorian tanning is something like this: 

Freshly skinned hides arrive in massive piles, although some may have been cured poorly at the slaughterhouse and starting to rot. The hides are cleaned and hit with a wooden mace to soften the skins. Next the workers lower the hides into pits dug in the tannery floor or large vats filled with a mixture of lime and water. The mixture loosens the hair on the hide causes any fat still attached to swell. After being submerged for a week and a half, the hair comes out in handfuls. Tanners place the hide on a beam (a thick plank rounded like a tree trunk), and scrape the hair off using a blade with wooden handles on both ends. Then they flip over the hide and scrape off the fat.
Now the hide isready for bating. The tanner drops the hide in a mixture of dog feces, bird feces, urine and heated water that has been sitting in a vat for weeks. The bacteria in the water soften the hide, then the skin is treated with salt in preparation for the actually tanning.
The hides are stretched on frames and again submerged, this time in acid made from tree bark (containing the chemical Tannin) and water. More and more tannin is added to the water over a few weeks to tan the hide to leather. Once complete , workers clean, stretch and dry the leather in a dark shed or warehouse.
To finish, the leather can be dyed, bleached, greased or polished with wax for whatever finish was required for its eventual use. Then the leathers are bundled up and sold to leatherworkers to be cut and shaped into the finished product.

Plot Hooks: 
Most of the hides delivered to a Tannery come from butchered cows. The butchers often left the cow’s inedible parts attached, so a pile of hooves and horns was not an uncommon sight in a tannery backroom. Perhaps these discarded symbols of power and evil would be valuable to persons practicing darker magics in large quantities.

To make a few extra pence, the poor would collect dog feces found in the street and sell it to tanneries. A batch of hides produced by a local tannery has produced very fine quality leathers. The only difference in the tanning process was the inclusion of feces from an unidentified source. If a supply of feces from this animal could be found the tannery would be very appreciative.

With the terrible stench and the piles of unclean castoffs, few people other than tradesmen enter a tannery. Men of an illegal mindset may be able to use the facilities creatively, if they need a place to hide something. Preferably something that won’t absorb odors, or has odors that need to be covered up. Chamicales could be poured into the pits to allow certain things to be dissolved, electroplated, mixed, or bottled in secret.  

Tannery as Fight Scene Location:
There are worse places to throw a fight than a tannery. The lime pits and bating vats make for great obstacles and the threat of falling in should be emphasized. Piles of finished leathers or stinking hides can cushion a nasty fall.

The specialized tools used in a tannery will work as improvised weapons in a pinch. Vat hooks are long wooden poles with a metal hook on one end used to move or pull out submerged leather. Fleshing knives are used to slice fat from the hides. They have wooden handles on both ends with a sharp blade in the center. Could be awkwardly used one handed. Even an unfinished hide could be used to ward off an attack.

If the fight goes south, the tanneries delivery cart could be commandeered for a quick getaway, (although the load of unfinished hides may make the fleeing character’s easier to find).

NPC Random Generator (2nd Edition)

Last Summer, I was asked by a player to run a Naval Victoriana Campaign. Within the tight confines of a ship, the NPCs would be limited, and frequently encountered, so I wanted the introduction of a crewman to be an event. A NPC Random Generator with the players rolling the dice fit nicely. While all of Victoriana uses D6s, I used various other types of dice for the sake of variety, simplicity, and old school atmosphere (it is a random table after all).

To start, generate the NPC’s Sub-race by picking a social class and rolling a D20. Compare the result on the desired class' table.

NPC Sub-race (D20)
Low Class                             Middle Class                   High Class
1-2. Beastman (Agile)          1. Beastman (Agile)          1. Beastman
3-4. Beastman (Common)     2. Beastman (Common)    2-3. Dwarf
5. Beastman (Large)            3-6. Dwarf                       4-9. Eldren
6-7. Dwarf                          7-9. Eldren                       10-11. Gnome
8. Gnome                           10-13. Gnome                   12. Halfling
9-12. Halfling                     14. Halfling                       13-18. Humans
13-16. Humans                   15-18. Humans                 19. Ogres
17-18. Ogres                      19. Ogres                          20. Orcs
19-20. Orcs                        20. Orcs

Next decide if the character is specialized or generic. For a specialized character, roll 1D8 and 1D4 and for a generic, roll 2 D6s. Assign the  result of one die to the Physical Competence, and the other result to the Mental Competence.
Then modify the Competences by the Racial Modifiers on the chart below.
The calculations for Health, Mana, and Initiative can be found in the Victorian Core Rulebook.

NPC Sub-Race Competence Modifiers (1D8/1D4 or 1D6/1D6)
Race                     Physical Comp                Mental Comp
Beastman (Agile)   +1                                   0
Beastman (Com)    0                                     0
Beastman (Large)  +2                                   -1
Dwarf                    +1                                   0
Eldren                    -1                                   +1
Gnome                   -2                                   +2
Halfling                  -2                                   +1
Human                    0                                   0
Ogre                       +4                                 -3
Orc                         +2                                 -1

To give the NPC personality, skills, and motivations, roll a D100 twice on the Trait Table Below. Traits are a broad description of an NPC’s abilities that may add or subtract dice to a skill roll for an action undertaken by the NPC (much like a skill). After rolling 2 traits decide how many dice the trait adds. Pick between 2 and 4 Dice for each trait.

NPC Traits (D100) pick two; none over +4
1. Alcoholic Brawler
2. Always Hungry
3. Amateur Antiquarian
4. Ambitious
5. Antagonistic Jerk
6. Archaic Knowledge
7. Aristocrat Hating
8. Artistic Skill
9. As you wish Sir
10. Born on a Ship
11. Brutal
12. By the Book, Please
13. Can’t Be Pushed Around
14. Cheerful
15. Clumsy but Lucky
16. Collector
17. Commanding Presence
18. Country Bumpkin
19. Cowardly
20. Cryptic and Mysterious
21. Daredevil
22. Deep Thinker
23. Diplomatic
24. Disgusting Habits
25. Duelist
26. Ear for News
27. Eats anything
28. Elegant
29. Eloquent
30. Empathetic
31. Friends in Low Places
32. Foreigner
33. Foul Minded
34. Gambling Problem
35. Greedy
36. Gutter Born
37. Handsome and Debonair
38. Hardy and Strong
39. Hypochondriac
40. Idealistic Dreamer
41. Impressionable
42. Infamous Reputation
43. Inquisitive
44. Intimidating Presence
45. Iron Will
46. Joyful and Helpful
47. Knowledgeably Arrogant
48. Knows everybody
49. Knows Too Much
50. Lady Killer
51. Light fingered
52. Lives Dangerously
53. Local Expert
54. Lovable Loser
55. Low Culture Lover
56. Loyal Crewman
57. Loyal to the cause
58. Man of Action
59. Meek as a mouse
60. Meticulous
61. Mighty Hunter
62. Miracle worker
63. Mocking Know it all
64. Musically Inclined
65. Nerves of Steel
66. Not in MY house!
67. Obsessive
68. Old Hand At This
69. Professional Moocher
70. Prophet of Doom
71. Protective Father Figure
72. Pub Crawler
73. Quick Temper
74. Restless Adventurer
75. Salty and Crusty
76. Scatter Brained Genius
77. Selfish but Charming
78. Serene and Sharp Eyed
79. Skilled Craftsman
80. Sneaky Scum
81. Social Climber
82. Stubborn as a Mule
83. Studious
84. Talkative
85. Tenacious Investigator
86. Terribly Bigoted
87. Thrifty Flaw Finder
88. Tinkerer
89. True Gourmet
90. Trustworthy Guardian
91. Two-Faced Liar
92. Underdweller
93. Unusually Hobby
94. Valued Member of Crew
95. Vengeful
96. Well Connected
97. Well Groomed
98. Well Read
99. World Traveler
100. Wheeler Dealer

This generator was created for a 2nd Edition Campaign. If you want to use it with 3rd Edition rules, roll three dice for Competencies by adding a D6. The third number is for Social Competence.
Even though 3rd Edition does not include traits in the NPC Stats, I suggest rolling for traits anyway. The traits give color and variety to NPCs and helps the GM play the character with a minimum of stats and text.

Equipment Skills Rolls- An optional rule to avoid excessive shopping trips

For the past couple of week my summer Starwars Campaign has taken a good chunk of my free time away from this blog, but today it’s giving back.
Starwars  adventures are full of world exploration, political intrigue, and high action, but that pace can break down when players need to gear up or spend a bit too much time planning. Shopping trips can be flavorful and interesting, but they aren’t the focus of this game. To combat this I am trying something new to make the game move at a more Starwarsy pace.

The idea is simple. An expert with a particular area of expertise is likely to have an item pertaining to that skill. A gunslinger will likely have a gun, an acrobat: climbing gear, a mechanic: tools, etc. During play, whenever a player wants to have a piece of gear at hand that they could reasonably carry on their person they roll the skill that would accompany the use that item.
For example in the Victoriana rules, if a character needs a knife to defend themselves, the character rolls his Swordplay skill (he would still have to draw it of course). Or if a thief needed a pick he would roll Lock Picking. If a scientist needed a microscope he could roll Science, or Medicine.
Once an item is obtained by a successful roll, the player can add them item to the equipment list on their character sheet to be used again later. If the item is used up or lost in play the GM decides if they need to buy a replacement or if they can roll again.
The skill roll to acquire a piece of equipment needs two successes and may suffer black dice according to circumstance. On a successful roll the character acquires the desired piece of equipment. On a failure the item is not present on their person.
It is up to the GM whether the character needs to go to a different town to roll, go to the character’s home to roll, wait a day to roll again, or just buy the item after a failed roll.

Equipment Rolls:                                                    Black Dice
Object comes with ammo                                          +1
Object is hard to find                                                +1
Object is Very Rare and/or illegal                              +1
Object is Expensive                                                  +1
Object was obviously not with the character               +1
Object is urgently needed right now                           +2
Object is bulky and would have drawn attention          +2
or affected character performance

Object is small or commonly seen locally                     -1
Object originates in or is common with character’s     -1
race or nationality

Edge Cases
Obviously, this rule is not for every game. In a setting where gear is equivalent to leveling it would absolutely ruin game play. This rule is also not for every circumstance. Something small and reasonable like a candle or some matches can just be given to characters if they ask, and I don’t think the sudden appearance of an air ship, mechanical man, or trained elephant can be justified with a roll.

This rule is not about acquiring new items, it represents that skilled characters may already have what they need. When a character needs a useful piece of equipment to accompany a skill or to move forward in play this rule could help.

I look forward to seeing how this system works out this summer. My players will find a few ways to break it, so I’m sure I'll post some errata and situation reports later.

William Mumler- The Spirit Photographer

In the Victorian world, technology and spiritualism worked hand in hand. Spiritualist enthusiasts looked to new discoveries to shed light on the unknown, or fool the gullible. Typifying both sides of this phenomenon is Willliam H. Mumler, the spirit photographer. Mumler is the sort of historic character that cries out to be made into a Victoriana NPC.

In the 1860’s Mumler produced portraits of his subjects accompanied by the spirits of deceased loved ones. Originally a jeweler, he became a full-time photographer after developing a self-portrait with what appeared to be the spirit of his dead cousin in the picture. He soon became famous as a “Spirit Photographer”, and took numerous commissions from the grieving relatives of Civil War casualties.

In 1869 he was brought to court for fraud. He was acquitted but enough evidence was brought forth to ruin his reputation.

Nothing needs to be changed to bring Mumler into a Victoriana campaign. If Mumler is a conman there are some interesting stories to tell. The player character’s may need to discredit him, or something is accidentally caught in one of Mumler’s photos and he needs the player’s help to save his neck, but the stories really start flowing if Mumler is a genuine spirit photographer.

Mumler’s Methods
The method Mumler uses to photograph the dead will change the way he is used as an NPC.

If he is a genuine medium he has some Magnetic ability. He could simply able to use a variation of the ability “See the Supernatural”, with a +3 difficulty to be able to capture the spirits he sees in a photo.

Perhaps he has to add special ingredients to his developing process. The collodion mixture he uses to make photographic plates, may have an entheogen (a drug used in religious rituals) mixed in. The fumes of the collodion and the extracts of an Amazonian vine may put Mumler in a trance like state when he takes his spirit photographs.

Since Undead Creatures do not show up in mirrors backed with silver or photographs, the silver nitrate the photo plate is dipped in may have some other additive to make it usable for living and unliving subjects.

Mumler may have no magical abilities or processes. Maybe his camera lens is a scrying glass, a seer stone, or a material that give his camera the ability to photograph beyond the physical plane. He may not understand how it works, or even what is going on.

If a near overdose of irony is acceptable, maybe his photographs are faked. They are simply double exposures, but Mumler is a necromancer and he uses the reanimated corpses of the departed to make his fakes.
This is a bit overcomplicated, but he may need money badly or he learned a flawed raising spell so the process of photographing the dead may be how he gains control over them. Maybe the act of taking a picture of their corpse really is stealing the departed’s soul. This could make the undead portrait sessions very dangerous.

Stats:
William H. Mumler (Spirit Photographer)
Physical: 6 Initiative: 7
Mental: 9 Health: 8
Social: 8 Quintessence: 17
Complications: Bad Reputation
Damage: Punch (3),

Possible Special Traits:
Entropy 3
Clairvoyant or Spiritualist (See the Supernatural and one other ability)
Necromancy (Raise Lesser Undead, Requietum, and Séance)
Huckster+2, Photography Enthusiast +2

Adventure Idea- Mrs. Feldmans Tea and Automatic Handwriting Club

Originally, I was fooling around with today’s scenario idea for a different setting (1950’s alien conspiracy), but after a little research I discovered a similar occurrence was reported in the late 1800s. Naturally, if it’s good enough for Hélène Smith it’s good enough for Victoriana.

A visiting circle of upper middleclass wives all experience strange fits, with spasms in their off hands. When given a pencil and paper the motions write strange otherworldly symbols. None of the wives can understand the symbols beyond a few confusing mental pictures. 

Worried for  their reputations, the ladies repress their fits all week until they meet on Tuesday afternoons to experience their “spiritual telegraphy” together and to try and make sense of their messages.

What is going on really:
1. During a trip to the British Museum, the ladies were  present for a mummy unwrapping ceremony. In life the mummy was a half alien priest with tremendous powers of Magnetism. During the unwrapping, the mummies eyes flashed open for a moment, forming a connection between the ancient priest and the women.
The automatic writing is a symptom of the mummies influence. It is trying to control the women like psychic puppets to make them collect the alien artifacts from his burial site, now strew through the British museum and private collections. Using the items he can be revitalized and regain his unearthly powers.

Mesmerized, the housewives sneak out at night and commit burglaries imbued with alien energy giving them superhuman abilities and hypnotic powers.

Player Hooks:
A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife
If a player character has a medical background, the wife may consult him about her somnambulism.
Player characters may be interested in a string of Egyptian art thefts or a player may own a piece of mysterious Egyptian art, and will soon experience a burglary.

2. The ladies all live on the same street. Throughout history, the street has a reputation as the birthplace of witches.

Deep beneath their houses is a long forgotten prehistoric asteroid. Residual spiritual radiation from the object spread to their subconscious, and is now released through their fits. Their writing is the language of an alien presence in the asteroid, in a nonrandom pattern describing hidden truths of the cosmos.
Over time the ladies subconscious will be altered by the intruding alien presence, and strange abilities and reactions could manifest leading to the opening of a portal to whatever part of space the asteroid came from.

Player Hooks:

A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife.
Rumors of many strange occurrences and appearance on  a single London street will pull players in.

One of ladies asked an expert of linguistics to look at her writing, but she would not tell him where it came from. The expert  asks the player character’s to investigate for him.

3. The housewives are all being physically abused by their husbands. During a lecture on spiritualism and a séance demonstration, an archon, known as Diana to the ancient Greeks was summoned, and came into contact with the women.

She planted the knowledge of a ritual in their minds. The automatic handwriting sessions are letting the ritual come to light, and if the ladies ever translate the writing, their abusive marriages could be taken care of very quickly.
During each automatic writing session, latent magical energy floods the area around their houses causing mysterious brutal attacks on local men.

Player Hooks:

A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife.
Terrified locals call the player character’s in to investigate the attacks that occur every Tuesday afternoon.

An expert at the inciting lecture noticed something odd during the séance and would like help looking into it.

This adventure is of an admittedly weird scifi/spiritualism bent, but if that fits your campaign, feel free to use it. I still want to use this in my original 1950s’ Alien conspiracy game, but for now the trappings of Victorian Mysticism fit it well.