I've wanted to run a Victorian-era horror campaign for some time, and I will finally have the opportunity to do so. (I am drawing to a close my 2- year long Lord of the Rings campaign.) I wanted to run a game using Masque of the Red Death, but at this point I am unable to afford it. Instead of MotRD, I will be using D20 Modern/Past and cherrypicking the best elements of Call of Cthulhu d20 and OGL Horror by Mongoose Publishing.
The best way to describe my campaign idea is to imagine X-Files set in the 1890’s instead of the modern day. I will have Victorian snobbery, hideous supernatural creatures, whacky Jules Verne/H. G. Welles style inventions wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting world, and all sorts of other fun.
The only thing I haven’t really decided yet is where to have the campaign set. I was angling in on using Philadelphia, because it’s a good hub – within a short ride by rail you have Boston, New York, Washington, etc. But while exploring a map site on line I found a map of my own home town of Staunton, VA, from 1891. Now I am in a quandary … I think it would be fun for my players to go monster-hunting 115 years ago on our own turf.
The location has yet to be decided, but here are the main points of the “campaign setting”:
Players’ Information:
Bringing the characters together: Each of the characters has had an encounter with something supernatural that has had a profound affect on them. Each will be contacted by the owner and proprietor of The Elysian House, a boarding house that is an old English manor house that the owner had dismantled and shipped to the US. For nostalgia’s sake, the floor plan of the Elysian House will be none other than that of the haunted house from the old D&D module The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
The core NPCs: The owner of the Elysian House, one Mister Sergeus Smith, is fascinated by the world of the arcane and supernatural, and has *somehow* heard of the characters’ experiences. He invites them all to a mummy-unraveling party and, during the festivities, will ask them to enter his employ as investigators of the bizarre. Mister Sergeus Smith will provide them room and board (rather, his wife Minerva will, as she is the one who runs the boarding house) and a suitable stipend, and they will look into tales of mystery and imagination to see what truth can be found of phenomena both mundane and arcane.
Dramatis Personae:I have already received character ideas from eager players. For your amusement they were:
A scientist and inventor who once saw a man transform into a wolf. (Can’t wait to show this player the Pulp Scientist advanced class!)
A crewman from a whaling ship who saw an adult sperm whate *eaten* by something that dwarfed the ship he was on. He swore off whaling and the sea and moved inland. He is currently addicted to opium – it helps him forget that … monstrous thing … he saw out on the rolling sea.
A former government man of some kind. He was talking about modeling the character after James West from the Wild Wild West tv show. (Actually … probably from the movie, since he is so young I doubt very seriously that he knew there was a tv show … )
GM’s Information:
The truth about the core NPCs: “Mister Sergeus Smith” is an anagram of Hermes Trismegistus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trismegistus). In this incarnation he is “just” a human … but he is also somehow more than human, and has a greater motive for sending these hapless folks into their outré adventures. He wants to awaken the world to the existence of the supernatural, since he fears that the increasing dependence on science and technology is a detriment to the old beliefs. In the closing days of the 19th century, staring the 20th century in the face, he feels that the world needs its magic, good or bad, and he wants people to know that it’s really out there … sometimes WAYYYY out there …
I might eventually have them find out who “Mister Sergeus Smith” really is. As for my players understanding the significance of the name Hermes Trismegistus, they might notice that every member of his family is named after a Greek god, but other than that, the deeper meanings will be lost to them
The staff of the Elysian house itself will be good background characters as well. There is something … unusual .. about each one of them. So far I have thought up:
1. Minerva, the portly wife of Trismegistus who runs the place.
2. Their daughter Eris, who is shockingly and improperly flirtatious (for the Victorian era, that is)
3. And Mister Sergeus Smith’s personal manservant the eerie and cadaverous Mr. Charles Ronald Ferriman. (Note that the first three letters of his first and second name spell CHARON).
Magic: For magic, I will not be using the magic advanced classes in D20 Modern. I will instead be using the spell system from Call of Cthulhu d20 – converting SAN Loss for spell casting to my homebrewed Fear save system and OGL Horror Shock points. I will also be using the ritual magic rules from OGL Horror.
Wonky Victorian Science Fantsy: D20 Past has an interesting Advanced Class called the Pulp Scientist. They get a certain number of “discoveries” per level, which is similar to the spell slot system. Rather than spells, of course, the Pulp Scientist picks a spell and is able to design a device that duplicates that spells effect. I.e. If you pick the daze spell, that could be a gun that fires a beanbag round, or even a very primitive form of taser. A device that duplicates burning hands? Congratulations, your inventor just created the world’s first flame thrower … I like that class and even though it is “meant” for the pulp era of the 30s and 40s will allow my Victorian-era characters access to it. It seems like a rules-light, “quick and dirty” way to bring in those wild inventions everyone wants in Victorian science fantasy.
What is “Shadow”?: In the D20 Modern “Shadow Chasers” campaign model there is a mysterious demiplane called only “Shadow,” which for whatever reason is sending monsters into the world. The characters, i.e. the Shadow Chasers, are the only ones who can see them clearly. Almost everyone else in the world is oblivious. For the purposes of my campaign, the Realm of Shadow is actually the goddess Gaia, mother of the Titans who birthed horrid monsters into the world at the dawn of time. Not really a goddess, per se, but the Greeks thought of “her” as such, and certainly not the benevolent mother earth we think of today. (That role was filled by Demeter for the ancient Greeks anyway, rather that Gaia, which we think of today as “Mother Earth”.)
Shadow is a ghastly demiplane that spontaneously generates and consumes creatures of nightmare and fantasy.
“She” is part Gaia, part Shub-Niggurath, and part nightmare (for you Masque of the Red Death fans, she could just as easily be the Red Death.) “She” has always been around, sending monsters into the Material Plane, but throughout time there have always been people who knew of her and stood against her spawn. These are the Shadow Chasers.
Of course, it’s likely that none of the PCs will ever get to know any of what I revealed in the GM’s Information – that is just for my own edification to explain how and why all the monsters are spilling into the world. This is all stuff that exists only behind the GM’s screen. I’m not sure the players would ever figure out the whole story without me leading them around by the nose. Mister Sergeus Smith and his relatives, staff, and other guests that come and go at the Elysian Boarding House will be sort of like good-guy versions of the “Smoking Man” in the X-Files. There is a greater plot going on, but the main characters will likely never know what it is.
