Just toying with ideas...
Having re-read
Anno Dracula I became curious about the
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and was thrilled to discover it already existed in the 18th C. -my favorite period- as the
Gulliver Fellowship.
Since I prefer the time of the War of Austrian Succession I have no qualm to modify some birth dates to have it already active by 1745 -'alternate histories' in the Multiverse (not even a Moorcockian one) are not exactly 'superimposable' for deaths, so why they would be for birth? And following the example of Kim Newman, whose recurring characters are not exactly the same from a 'time-line' to another.
The
Gulliver Fellowship fits directly in the period, but what about the
Diogenes Club and, 'worse',
Torchwood officially created in 1879 -and which may pose problems of ©®™ IP? Answer: *
to merge them*!
I suggest that by the time of the Lace Wars
'Torchwood' was already the self-given nickname of the informal group formed by
Francis Bacon, yet still (semi-)officially known by the British Crown only as
Bookworm, the 'innocuous' name initially given by Bacon to his secret gathering of scholars specially knowledgeable in the esoteric and the occult (because of the time they spent perusing '
many a quaint and curious volume of a forgotten lore'). 'Torchwood' -a counter-reference to
Wormwood - is to become its official name only when the group receives more official support with the creation of the
Torchwood Institute; for it, or at least its secret HQ, Mycroft Holmes is to found the
Diogenes Club as a cover, and it will copied far later in America by '
The Threshold'.
Since the mid-17th C. those (very few) outsiders suspecting its existence often referred to it -or at least to its 'directorial board'- as the '
Invisible College': a
confusion? Probably
not entirely.
Currently the apparent Chairman of 'Bookworm' is
M(other), a portly more than middle-aged man with an old-fashioned wig, always in a
wheelchair generally pushed by a statuesque, if a little manly, blonde.
Back to the
Gulliver Fellowship, since it is already active in 1745 Lady Blakeney is obviously
not the
Marguerite of the French Revolution: several
hints point to Venetian
Clarimonde later to be known as 'Venus' (and in fact none else than
Amber St. Clare). Here the Blakeney will part in the late 1780, and while he becomes the
Scarlet Pimpernel in Paris she reappears in Venice as
La Bianca Paloma; currently she goes very, very well with Fanny 'Mana Peel' Hill. According to their centuries old tradition England and France are at war, yet
Orlando currently serves the French Crown in London as the
Chevalier d'Eon (would require 2 figurines!): but patriotic loyalties are irrelevant when facing dreadful supernatural threats.
Of course other secret private organizations and State services would exist, cooperating or competing with the Gulliver Fellowship and its sometimes employer Wormbook:
Freemasons, the Prieuré de Sion, the Templars successors, the Jesuits, perhaps already
Iscariota, the 'Assassination' branch of the Pope's secret services
Section XIII... and obviously various Evil Cults.
As other possible 'factions' what about
La Fraternité de Jean le Presbytre, the
Sons of the Martyrs, a kind of
18th C. Bene Gesserit and the
Bennet Circle?
Note that according to their ethos these diverse companies / factions will vary in their attitude toward
'modern' / 'futuristic' weapons: 'traditionalists' such as the Priory of Sion and the Templars are likely to shun them, 'modernists' such as the Free Masons, and pre-Torchwood of instrinsic '
Lacepunk' nature, will probably favor them, for instance using
'galvanic' weapons, throwing Leyden jars rather than holy water at 'supernatural' creatures.
Various characters can be added to the cast such as a young
Baron Münchhausen, the
Comte de Saint Germain,
Cagliostro if born some 20 years earlier in this time-line,
Edmund Blackadder with
Baldrick... as well as
Geneviève d'Isle Dieudonné (Geneviève Sylvie, in this time and place; probably in Bookworm / Torchwood service) and some incarnation of
Jeremy Cornelius (aka 'Dr Who'),
Una Persson von Bek and Catherine Cornelius de Barra.
Miniatures, specially in and around the 28mm size, abound.
As for
rules, there is a cornucopia of choice: those specially
written for the period or for the
'Pike & Shot' times or for witch finding / hunting; but popular sets intended for 'Victorian times' or even later can certainly be adapted.
Strange Aeons was successfully
'transposed' to the 18th C.,
Chaos in Carpathia can be played with figurines in tricornes; but the recent
Empire of the Dead would probably be
specially adequate for a 'Diogenes Club / Torchwood' setting -mainly give to '
lacepunk' weapons the stats of the 'steampunk' original ones. Vampires appeared in Western European literature in
1748 at the latest and at least one great EOTD
'fan' faction *has* to
already exist in the 18th C..
Given that in EOTD a faction has at most 2 'characters' the
Gulliver Fellowship can provide several such.
'Wormwood' is more likely to stay in the background as a NPC 'employer', though it can provide a team (as in 'Anno Dracula') or a
single top-level
field investigator. For the
Gulliver Fellows the 'muscle' filling the ranks of the faction could be recruited among
highwaymen ('highwaypersons', more generally, think the '
Wicked Lady') and robbers. An agent of
Wormwood would probably have a more official support: Privateer Press
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages look adequate to depict an
'initiated' SWAT section of the
Bow Street Runners.
I'm retired *also* as a wargamer, and in addition isolated and such 'campaign' does not look propitious to solo play. So I just hope someone younger and more 'active' will pick up the general idea -and then will post his/her achievements somewhere on the web.
You know, we elderlies enjoy to watch younger people doing what we can no longer do ourselves
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April 26, 2024, 07:29:53 AM
June 26, 2010, 03:40:40 AM