Victoriana: Gathering Storms

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Game Schedule

See Main Page calendar for other games.

Currently we are playing Victoriana on a bi-weekly schedule.

  • 20 Apr 2013 - Game 01
  • 27 Apr 2013 - Game 02 (Scheduling adjustment. Games to be bi-weekly afterward.)
  • 11 May 2013 - Game 03
  • 08 Jun 2013 - Game 04
  • 23 Jun 2013 - Game 05
  • 04 Jul 2013 - Postponed.
  • 20 Jul 2013 - Postponed.
  • 03 Aug 2013 - Game 06
  • 17 Aug 2013 - Game 07
  • 31 Aug 2013 - Game 08





Dramatis Personae

Pieter Finch: Watchmaker and Gadgeteer, both Arcane and Mundane. Husband of Ariadne.
Ariadne Finch nee Kendall: Scientist Arcane and Mundane. Wife of Pieter. Fervent believer that Magic can be manipulated through application of scientific measures and apparatus.
Nicholas Varney: Celebrated Spiritualist and con man.
Samuel Thackery Oxford Don of Literature and Ancient Languages and inveterate gambler.
Isabelle Pickering: Young Debutante and haunted woman.



The Story Thus Far

  • Denotes an RP/Journal entry

1870

Campaign Canon Calendar

Prologue


London, March 1870

07 Mar 1870: A Fine March Madness - Game 01

21 Mar 1870: Varney the Vampire ... Hunter - Game 02

23 Mar 1870: A Kentish Holiday - Game 03

02 Apr 1870: Changing Times - Game 04
03 Apr 1870: Of Beasts and Burdens - Game 05
05 Apr 1870: A Real Possession - Game 06
05 Apr 1870: Machinations - Game 07
06 Apr 1870: Stolen Hearts and Souls - Game 08
07 Apr 1870: - Game 09 - In which Thackery succeeds in reuniting the lost lovers but not without cost. Our adventurers gain a respite from the rough and tumble at game's end.


Adventures Abroad, Late Spring/Early Summer 1870

14 Apr 1870: - Game 10

17 Apr 1870 - 20 June 1870: - Jaguars and Time Several games in which we travel to America and Central America to retrieve the Time Stone in the Yucatan, thwart a renegade General's political revolt, rescue Christopher Ashmore from Hell, and return to England where we make plans to retrieve Rebecca's Black Rune before Vars can find it. The Colonel sends Rebecca to meet Vars with an alleged fake Time Stone; alleged because unknown to all but the Colonel and Josephine, the Colonel sent Rebecca off with the real Time Stone. Unfortunately for the party, Vars manages to capture the Time Stone and using its magic, he throws our adventurers back in time.

Day One, June 1869: Worlds Without End - Josephine wakes to her idyllic marriage to Ezekiel Drake with the strange sensation that something is terribly wrong with her world. Her daily rounds of working with the indigent charity she's set up with an Indian woman named Sadif, her visitation schedule and her correspondence, along with managing the household fills her days.

Ezekiel Drake is a man of some wealth and means. He is hale and whole; no disease racks his body, nor do visions strike him. He hasn't a quest involving the manifestation of Excalibur. Instead he is living the comfortable wealthy middle/lower upper class life.

Katherine chafes intolerably in her marriage to Lt. Gordon, heir to the Black Soap fortune, and is a virtual prisoner of her house, held by the fears and expectations born of her eldritch Eldren geneology. She is constantly watched and brow-beaten into good behavior and also regularly drugged with Laudanum to keep her tractable. Her father, The Colonel, has never forgiven his daughter for causing her mother's death in childbirth and when Katherine exhibited the ability to speak with the dead, he instituted measures to keep her contained. Marrying her off to the strong hand of Gordon was one such measure.

Kit Ashmore is a destitute drunk on the streets of London, broken and searching for his wife, Rebecca. Pavel is his out-of-work Russian mercenary who can be countd on to spot him for a pint. Kit has a Hand of Glory with him and by it, Kit hopes to find his Rebecca. He runs to a nearby park to catch pigeons for a magic summoning using the Hand.

Also running the streets is Liz, who wakes in time to avoid being killed in her bed for a bauble she's reputed to have stolen from a rival. She gains the upper hand and steals an expensive pearl and gemstone ring before escaping to the streets. In due course, she joins up with Pavel and Kit as they snare pigeons in the park.

Rebecca wakes to find herself under her brother's thumb as a recovering patient of a complete nervous breakdown over the death of her military husband in the Crimea. For the past two years she's regained her sanity and her stability ... and today she wakes with the utmost conviction that she must get out, that there is something not quite right with the world. She convinces her brother that she is stable enough to go for a walk in the park. She's granted the freedom to go, but only if accompanied by a Nurse-Ratchett caretaker. Rebecca agrees and manages to elude the woman once she gains the park.

Pieter and Ariadne Finch are suffering the effects of the time shift as well. Ariadne, a brilliant but unrecognized bio-chemist, has lost her unborn child due to an accidental exposure to toxic lab chemicals. The miscarriage caused her to go mad. Pieter's love for his wife convinced him to refuse committing her, instead taking care of her himself and giving up all hope of gaining entrance to the Royal Society. The resulting two years have been hellish but Ariadne has finally shown signs of improvement.

Josephine visits Katherine in her normal round of visiting and when Katherine fastens her glittering gaze on her friend and asks if she can feel the wrongness, Josephine agrees and finds a way to sneak them outside to a nearby park. Once there, Katherine catches sight of a tall dark-skinned man in North African dress and turban hiding behind a tree. Katherine knows him, however impossible it might be, and goes to him. Josephine follows.

The tree and the park and the African is the point at which Rebecca's path crosses Katherine and Josephine's ... and from there Rebecca and Katherine divine the nature of the wrongness. Rebecca joins hands with the women, works her magic, and restores their memories of their former selves. It's not long afterward that they find Kit and Pavel in the park and plans are made to have everyone in the party meet in the private back room of a nearby pub. Rebecca and Katherine spend their magic to restore the memories of everyone still caught in the illusion: Ezekiel and Pieter and Ariadne Finch.

An Abbreviated Almanac

Being a list of people, places, and interesting things seen in our campaign.


Helpful links
The Victorian Web. Fascinating and seemingly endless. You might fall in and never climb back out.


Return to Victoriana Campaign Index Page
Return to Dr. Penguin's Iceberg







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