Venice - The Abandoned City - The AAR

I do apologise for the long and winding back story to this game, which even for me was verbose and I’d like to say the AAR is more succinct but that would be a lie..........sorry.

Would today’s Venetians favour an overcrowded city with too many people or a city containing none at all?

A deserted city is a pretty spooky place, but I’m posting a few pictures of it to show off the Mad Lord Snapcases terrain, he put a tremendous amount of effort into the building of….well the buildings, contracting Tenosynovitis stippling the quays in the process.

This injury has a more common name where I grew up but maybe best not to repeat it here.

The silence is broken by a low rumbling sound of an ancient Perkins diesel engine, the silence returns when the launch docks on the deserted quay and Snapcase cuts the engine.

“Well chaps, we can’t stay here” Johnny Vagabond stated with some degree of reluctance in his voice, “let’s get a move on”. “OK” Dougers replied with a similar amount of reluctance, “We stick to the plan”?

It was a question rather than a statement, they had discussed possible options but none of them was sure what they would find when they landed or what they’d finally agreed.

“Of course we stick to the plan” Snappers cut in “but don’t forget what Thingummy Bob said about contact and enemies and plans not surviving, his voice trailed off in the silence, “you know what I mean.”

“Too right old boy” Dougers replied, “Was that the same chap who blathered on about too much wine, bullets and women”.

“I think it was” Vaggers joined in “but I’m not sure about the women” and then looking at Nurse Schultz, Veronica Permahorn and Lettice Crisply-Dunne he realised his mistake and continued quickly “but the more the merrier”

The Marie Ann rocked gently in her own wash as the company gazed in wonder as Dougers demonstrating his canine control on the foredeck. Reba, his pooch woofed quietly, waiting for him to throw the tennis ball so she could chase after it and then refuse to give it up when she returned.

Snappers was the first to set foot on the Quay, he’d chewed on Dougers Red Man chewing tobacco but was smoking with some satisfaction a fine Cuban cigar and hoping it would remove the foul taste of the Red Man. His constant companion Scrotum, as always, accompanied the Mad Lord, how he managed to avoid spilling the cut glass decanter of Port no one knows, “custom and practice, custom and practice” Snappers stated but there was much more to it than that. I personally believe that he had it superglued to the tray, perhaps just another urban myth.

As C.I.C. of the Mobile Bath Unit through the dark days of the Great War Snapcase had his pick of the British Army’s finest volunteers and without hesitation had chosen Diggory Venn, Uriah Heep and Nicodemus ‘Noddy’ Boffin to accompany him on this perilous adventure.

Next onto the Quay was Sir Douglas d’Emfore, of Scot’s ancestry, Sir Douglas had shone both at Eton, Cambridge and finally in the Diplomatic Service where, during the war, he’d run a very successful network of spies in Central Europe.

His shining star was Lettice Crisply-Dunne, an ex student of Roedean, the girls school where they turn out the finest sort of gal, fit to run an Empire don’t you know. To her right was one of Sir Douglas’s ten sisters, Veronica Permahorn, all the sisters were older than young Dougie which had given him a bit of a complex, one that he never discussed in public. You will appreciate that Sir Douglas’s father was a Laird of the old school, no not Roedean but the school that enjoys the long dark cold Scottish winters and makes the most of them. It was eleven long winters before young Douglas was conceived and the Laird had enjoyed every one.

Finally there was Mad Wullie McSpaniel as devoted to Sir Douglas as his dog Reba, another Spaniel, together they managed one brain cell and had to share it carefully.

As I think I mentioned Johnny Vagabond had a difficult time settling into civilian life after the war, he’d gone rather rogue, sporting a bushy beard, sloppy clothes and a large slouch hat. Similarly his friend Ichiro ‘Taki’ Takahashi had reverted to wearing Samurai clothing around the more fashionable parts of London, when asked if it was his fathers ancestral influence he grinned and replied, “No, but it doesn’t half attract the young ladies”

Nurse Schultz was still the same old enigmatic character and Vagabond was surprised when she arrived wearing a Nuns outfit but he knew better than to ask why this might be. Finally, Jack Cowan was dressed as an Indian Raja, knowing his propensity for drama as well as his propensity for adventure and the fact that he couldn’t keep a secret, Vagabond knew he would discover the reason for the costume soon enough.

They were all taken rather by surprise when a large shark breached in the lagoon, shattering the silence as it splashed back down on the limpid water.

Was this an omen…………….or could it be that, sometimes, a shark is just a shark.

The expedition started off quietly for Vagabonds group, In the distance they have traversed the green bridge and are going to investigate the boat building workshop and then the Ice cream parlour.

Meanwhile Sir Douglas has forged on ahead of Snapcase and will be the first to cross the grey bridge in the foreground. Snapcase elected to take an easy route through the red and yellow palace.

This proved to be a poor decision and as his party arrived on the balcony they tripped over a serpents nest. The serpents were not pleased at having their nest disturbed and slithered closer to strike the intruders with fang and poison.

The adventurers were armed with an odd assortment of weapons, Snapcase had opened up the family armoury to the men of the Mobile Bath Unit and strangely they had all taken a sharp bladed weapon as well as a more modern silenced automatic pistol.

In spite of the fact that the stingy games master had only allowed them 9 bullets each, the party blazed away with gay abandon. Using ammunition as though they had plenty in reserve they shot one or two of the larger snakes before one of their party was bitten and Uria Heap started to succumb to its venom.

As the desperate fight took place inside the Palace a swarm of giant mosquitoes started to……..well, swarm at the exit to the building.

Victorious but weary from their fight with the snakes Snapcase and his men stepped out into the daylight to be met by the mosquitoes.

Bullets flew but even though they were giant mosquitoes they were pretty hard to hit with a 9mm bullet, even harder to slice with one of the exotic bladed weapons that Snapcase had provided but eventually they were dispersed. The respite was then used by Diggory Venn to administer rudimentary first aid to Uria Heap who had been bitten by one of the venomous snakes.

The conversation went something like this. Diggory, “I’ll cut across the wound and you suck out the venom” Bugger that for a game of cowboys was the general response and so Uria had to suck his own venom out.

Sir Douglas was having his own problems when his party ran into a rat pack….a giant rat pack. A few years without human interference was having a remarkable impact on the local fauna.

Anyway it turned out that rats were easier to shoot than mosquitoes and there were less of them as well

Lettice had taken to the gentle art of stick fighting during her final year at Roedean and pursued this sport with alacrity at her finishing school in Switzerland. Well anything was better than deportment classes or the gentle art of table laying for a diplomatic dinner.

It’s strange what a young gal learns at school that stands her in good stead in later years, certainly that would have gone through the minds of the rats if they had such cognitive thinking processes.

Johnny Vagabond and his band of ne’er do wells had been having an easy time of it, they had not encountered any mutant or none mutant creatures but had discovered the map that leads to the hidden chamber of the Ten, as well as the key that would unlock the Portal of the Columns, although they weren’t quite sure what that was yet.

Walks and Parks went through my mind and if it wasn’t for the constant barracking from Snappers and Dougers as well as the occasional sotto voce comment of “Fix” I would have considered my scenario was working extremely well, but they’re a hard audience to please.

Having disposed of the mosquitoes and rats, rats as big as cats as Sir Douglas was wont to say at fairly regular intervals, both parties walked boldly across St Marks Square in front of the Doges Palace.

They seemed a little disconcerted when asked to roll a dice as they passes the Venice Lion, fortunately or unfortunately the cat remained a statue. I have to say I was a little disappointed at this turn of events, but I suppose is saved me from a little more barracking.

You will have realised by now that the pictures don’t necessarily correspond with the storyline, but they do show off the Mad Lords terrain to good effect.

In the distance Snappers is entering another building, it is named something like the Toure de Vagabondia and is the largest erection in Venice, something I’m quite proud of, but I might have used that line in last years game write up, so just ignore it now.....sorry.

Team Vagabond continued their serene progress along the north side of the Grand Canal but the innocent blue building on their right was to end that progress and prove their undoing.

Leading the way over the bridge into the final quarter of Venice, Snapcase was feeling jubilant, there were only 3 buildings still to be searched and we had the map and 2 of the 3 keys. His Bath Boys had performed well. Ok that might be an overstatement, adequate might be better but even so they were all still alive and mostly in one piece so cause for jubilation.

Sir Douglas was impatient, come on old chap he encouraged, Sir Douglas had an important appointment with a G and T and he didn’t want to be late.

Good grief, this is going to slow us up was his first thoughts when some fishy looking Deep Ones moved menacingly towards his party.

The ice will be melting was his second thought when the initial round of combat didn’t go well and Sir Douglas doesn’t like watery G and T, not at all.

Most, if not all of his party suffered injury, nothing critical but worrying, if he couldn’t counter the Fishy chaps attacks he might be in a spot of bother.

Snappers had entered the next to last building and discovered a Vampire, we were using the Frostgrave rules and I’d adopted the creatures, spells etc into the 1920’s.

I’d taken the Frostgrave descriptions, and for a Vampire it said “can only be killed by magical weapons” I’d intended thinking about this and converting it into something to fit in my game but I forgot. I’d also send the files to Snappers and Dougers so they had some idea of what was going on and what they might be up against. Over the internet connection I heard Dougers say “can only be killed by magical weapons”. Bugger I thought, I can’t tell them I’ve not worked this out yet or my credibility will be lower that a snakes belly.

That’s right I responded quickly, think of the Hammer House of Horror films.

If you’re not old enough to have viewed these works of art or come from some foreign land and never had that opportunity Vampires could usually be killed by a wooden stake through the heart, or beheading. That should do it I thought, Snappers crew have more cutlery than the city of Sheffield ever produced, he’ll think of beheading.

After a short pause Snappers triumphantly announced, we’ll run outside. He’s a canny one, there’s a third thing that killed Vampires in these films and that was sunlight, I’d forgotten about that but it worked perfectly. The Vampire followed and crumbled to dust. Scratch one Vampire.

Having had a fairly easy run so far, Vagabond and company entered the last house and encountered a party of Ghouls. The Ghouls might have been having a party, but it wasn’t one Vaggers wanted to attend, however the Ghouls seemed fairly insistent on having the first dance although I expect they would have liked it to be the last waltz as well.

My chaps were pretty tooled up for a close quarters fight so I wasn’t unduly worried. Taki had his ancestral Katana, Cowan an army issue BC41 Knuckleduster/knife, Nurse Schultz produced a flick knife from her cowl and I had a short pickaxe handle, lead infill at one end and the other sharpened to a wicked point. I’d read the list of likely encounters and was ready for the Vampire even if the other two weren’t.

Ghouls apparently laugh at a sharp wooden stake so Vaggers hit his opponent with the weighted end.

Apparently they laugh at the weighted end as well and after the first round of fighting we were all on the ropes. Vaggers had done reasonably well, only loosing 20% of his health but the other 3 lost about 50% each. The dice ran against us and they’re D20’s so it can get nasty, quickly.

It was Dougers who came up with a carefully considered strategy that might turn the tide.

We’ll conduct a rapid advance in a retrograde manner away from those Fish creatures, then turn and shoot. It was a risk because he had the canal behind him even though he had the advantage of being able to move slightly faster than the Fishmen.

Bullets flew and they proved more effective than hand to fish finger combat.

I decided not to look at how far a Ghoul could run before I made my move and so just ran, which was a good job because it turned out they could move as fast as my normal move and would have caught me if I’d turned to shoot. As it was, having opened up a gap I could execute Dougers plan. Fire, retire, fire retire, and if that didn’t work I could always try retiring and firing before just running.

Snappers in the mean time had gone back into the building that the Vampire came out of and found nothing.

That meant the final key was either in the house I was running away from, or the building Sir Douglas was retiring in good order from.

While we wait patiently for the Ghouls to mount the steps onto the bridge so we can shoot them, and Sir Douglas holds off the Fishmen below, Snapcase nips in to the building behind them and finds the last key.

That was a great relief to the scenario writer, because the opposition was proving too tough to fight hand to hand once the bullets ran out.

We all fire a final volley at the weird creatures and run, fortunately this killed the last of them and we didn’t need to fight a continual rearguard action all the way across the city.

So; we have a map to show us where the secret tunnel entrance is but there’s a puzzle we need to solve before we can open the entrance.

Legends abound in Venice, there’s the one about The Ghost of the tall Bell-Ringer who sold his skeleton to science, he is said to haunt the area around St. Mark's. Legend says he still leaves the Natural History Museum at night to ring the bells before begging for alms to buy his skeleton back.

There are the Lions of St. Mark: The symbol of St. Mark is central to Venice's identity. One legend speaks of the lions protecting the city from the threat of the sea or in my case Dougers, Snappers and Vaggers.

Also the Columns of St. Mark and St. Todaro in Piazza San Marco are associated with various myths, including one about a mysterious third column that has never been installed.

I’d stolen all three of these legends to use in the game. Well actually Dougers came up with the details so I guess I stole them from him.

As all the members of the expedition are examining St Marks Square carefully Vaggers was the first to try and find the third column and with it the tunnel entrance. This involved an element of risk, the same as spell casting in Frostgrave but with a heroic effort, or maybe just a lucky dice roll……

Four sandstone columns rose out of the Piazza, the fountain stopped running and a doorway opened.

This photo was taken just before the door opened in the fountain.

When I suggested to Snappers that we should pull out the centre of his fountain to represent the open doorway he seemed strangely reluctant, so you will just have to use your imaginations, sorry.

That was the final act, probably a bit of an anti-climax but we gained entry to the Chamber of the Ten, opened the safe and escaped with the information.

There is just the small matter of getting it back to London safely through a hostile Europe. Mussolini’s supporters will not want to let this happen easily and will almost certainly call on their allies to help recover the stolen documents.

Who knows it might even lead to another game.