Recently my wife Alison took over my Victorian Monster Hunting campaign, in a game in London in the late spring of 1894, where Dr Green was away at a conference in Edinburgh leaving his wife Charlotte and Mr Ryan their ‘very odd job man’ to deal with a case of child disappearances around Regents Park.

The missing children were homeless ‘street arabs’ who camped out around the churchyard of St Mary’s – the priest was a kindly man who looked out for the gang of street children and even let them into the church to sleep on cold nights. The missing children had been killed at night while going to break into London Zoo. The Zoo and its animals held a fascination for the children and as they couldn’t afford the entrance fee (and wouldn’t have been welcome anyway) they often broke in at night to view the beasts.

The victims never made the Zoo on the nights they died, being picked off in the park on the way to the Zoo by a psychopathic archer, the membership secretary of the Royal Toxophilite Society - the oldest and most influential archery club in England - which had its archery centre in the park. Bored with shooting targets he started hunting on clear nights in the park, starting with foxes and graduating to homeless abandoned children.

After clues leading to the society, Charlotte presented herself as a noblewoman and prospective member, with Mr Ryan in tow as her bodyguard. Sneaking around the groundsman’s lodge uncovered a bonfire heap in which they found a burnt child’s belt buckle. Getting the groundsman drunk (easy as he was an alcoholic) they got him to confess that the membership secretary was hunting vermin (foxes and street kids) and that the children’s bodies were taken to the Zoo for disposal by the zookeeper in charge of the lion house.

Thanking him for the information Mr Ryan used his trusty garotte to kill the groundsman. Charlotte lured over the membership secretary to the lodge and Mr Ryan dealt with him the same way. (That Dicey Tales garotte is a formidable weapon with Mr Ryan’s strength of 3!) The bodies were tied up in gardening sacks for someone to find later.

Yes, Charlotte Green and Alfred Ryan are rather cold blooded in pursuit of justice.

The zookeeper had been stealing Egyptian artifacts from various museums and collections around London (this had appeared in the London newspapers earlier in the game, but I thought this was Alison foreshadowing a second game). The zookeeper was totally insane and had stolen the artifacts to use his favourite lioness as a vessel for the summoning of the Egyptian goddess Sekmet.

At midnight they bluffed their way into the zookeeper’s lion house. He was expecting the groundkeeper and Mr Ryan adopted a posh accent (rather than his normal East End voice) and introduced himself as the membership secretary – who the zookeeper had never met. In an aside to the madman, Ryan whispered that the young woman was a live sacrifice. Enthused by this idea the zookeeper began to chant the spell to call Sekmet.

Charlotte stood there looking stupid and vacant while Mr Ryan slowly moved to get behind the zookeeper. When Ryan struck however, the zookeeper moved first – he had not been taken in by their story! Evading the garotte, and still chanting, the zookeeper slashed out with his (sharp) ceremonial knife. He missed. Ryan dropped the garotte and punched the nutter in the face. He staggered back giving Charlotte a clear shot. She pulled her .380 and .320 Bulldogs from the concealed leather-lined pockets in her dress and fired.Nothing happened aside from the clicking of hammers. The new ammo for both revolvers was faulty!

Mr Ryan had now pulled his .455 Enfield Army revolver, and he unloaded it into the still chanting zookeeper, who was now advancing on Alfred. Six large calibre slugs into the chest did the business. The lions in their cages went crazy, roaring in fright. And for a brief split second both Charlotte Green and Alfred Ryan saw a lion-headed woman standing where the favoured lioness was crouched.

Time to leave.

[I've been run a couple of WW2 games set in Italy in 1944 - the last featured a chaotic fight in the lobby of a posh seaside hotel that was very exciting. The previous game behind German lines was far less bloody!]

Last edited by Gruntfuttock (11/25/2024 11:21 am)