Andrew D. Gable
First Post
Note I've taken some liberties with things, though, and the Queen and Jewel in the book aren't *exactly* as they are here.
Resurrection City
- Thread starter Andrew D. Gable
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Old Fezziwig
Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
Certainly. And I won't be reading it anytime soon, so there shan't be any overlap on my end.
Nick
Nick
Andrew D. Gable
First Post
Just don't read Bram Stoker's last book, The Lair of the White Worm. It's pretty...incoherent. Really weird. If you already have, well, I pity you. Some say the movie adapted from The Jewel of Seven Stars (Hammer's Blood from the Mummy's Tomb) sucks, but I enjoyed it when I saw it a few days before Halloween. It changes things fairly drastically from the story and makes the setting a modern one rather than the nifty Victorian era, but it's good in its own right.
I'll also suggest that if you pick up the book, you get the edition with the cover below. Sure, the cover's pretty "mass market", but I think it has the original ending from the 1903 edition (the publishers changed it in 1913 or so and the changed one was all that was available for the longest time).
Another note on the fact in the story. Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches are real. Most are in the East End, and some people have already noticed that at least two are EXTREMELY near the spots of brutal murders - Christchurch is very, very near Mary Kelly's room (the facade of the church can be seen several times in the movie From Hell) and the original plans for St. George's in the East had it being built on the site of the Radcliffe Highway Murders. St. George's now is directly south of the crossroads where Williams' staked and beheaded body was buried. As a secondary bit, Christchurch is also built on top of a huge mass grave used during the outbreak of the plague which immediately preceded the Great Fire of London.
As for the mysterious obelisks and pyramids, I don't know if they're actually at all of the sites. I know Christchurch, St. George's in the East, and St. Anne's Limehouse have them. They usually bear some sort of inscription, the one at St. George's being about Solomon. But even if they aren't there, Hawksmoor seemed rather fixated on the obelisk/spire.
I'll also suggest that if you pick up the book, you get the edition with the cover below. Sure, the cover's pretty "mass market", but I think it has the original ending from the 1903 edition (the publishers changed it in 1913 or so and the changed one was all that was available for the longest time).
Another note on the fact in the story. Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches are real. Most are in the East End, and some people have already noticed that at least two are EXTREMELY near the spots of brutal murders - Christchurch is very, very near Mary Kelly's room (the facade of the church can be seen several times in the movie From Hell) and the original plans for St. George's in the East had it being built on the site of the Radcliffe Highway Murders. St. George's now is directly south of the crossroads where Williams' staked and beheaded body was buried. As a secondary bit, Christchurch is also built on top of a huge mass grave used during the outbreak of the plague which immediately preceded the Great Fire of London.
As for the mysterious obelisks and pyramids, I don't know if they're actually at all of the sites. I know Christchurch, St. George's in the East, and St. Anne's Limehouse have them. They usually bear some sort of inscription, the one at St. George's being about Solomon. But even if they aren't there, Hawksmoor seemed rather fixated on the obelisk/spire.
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Old Fezziwig
Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
That's some pretty freaky stuff (the Hawksmoor stuff, not the Stoker, although Stoker can be downright creepy). I'll have to check out the Hammer film, which'll be fun, as I've never seen any of his stuff. Are you having as much fun running this game as you seem to be? 
I'm having a damn good time myself.
Nick
I'm having a damn good time myself.Nick
Andrew D. Gable
First Post
You bet I am. 
I'm running more or less published Cthulhu adventures (from the Gaslight stuff) and then modifying them a heck of a lot. I see opportunities to throw in bits of my own storyline, and do so whenever I can. Sometimes this leads to tangents (like where we are currently; the actual published adventure wouldn't pick up until you're at Avebury, so this is all free-form), but that's ok.
The whole thing in the last chapter about Mary Kelly and brain surgery came from Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan". In the first chapter of that story it had about a doctor who did some sort of brain operation on a servant, said servant becoming pregnant shortly thereafter. I figured since (at least to me) the story's events seem to be a thinly-disguised version of the Ripper anyway, I may as well finish the job.
Langan's stone with the Latin inscription also came from the same story word-for-word: in the story, it's a stone pillar at Lydney.
The last chapter was based on a Chaosium adventure, and the woman at the end was originally one of the serpent people. Initially, I was going to have Queen Tera appear as Mary Kelly (in fact, at one time I was thinking of playing off of the theory that Mary Kelly was not, in fact, murdered and making her a part of EIECET's group), but later I decided on Madame Sosostris. As far as I know, Sosostris was not real, although she does appear in "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot and later in several Cthulhu stories.
Dr. Bond's suicide did happen, though I played with the timeline a little bit. The real one happened in 1903, I think.
BTW, I'm going to run another Victorian-era game on another forum, and although I can't exactly follow the plot since one of the players knows things about this game through conversations with me, I think I'll at the very least have EIECET, Langan, Harrington, and your characters pop up.
Hawksmoor is very weird - I intially heard of him during Jack's "tour" chapter in Alan Moore's From Hell (my favorite section, surprisingly for me) and later picked up some Iain Sinclair stuff in which he alludes to the possibility that maybe the churches had something to do with the fact that these murders happened where they did.
I'm running more or less published Cthulhu adventures (from the Gaslight stuff) and then modifying them a heck of a lot. I see opportunities to throw in bits of my own storyline, and do so whenever I can. Sometimes this leads to tangents (like where we are currently; the actual published adventure wouldn't pick up until you're at Avebury, so this is all free-form), but that's ok.
The whole thing in the last chapter about Mary Kelly and brain surgery came from Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan". In the first chapter of that story it had about a doctor who did some sort of brain operation on a servant, said servant becoming pregnant shortly thereafter. I figured since (at least to me) the story's events seem to be a thinly-disguised version of the Ripper anyway, I may as well finish the job.
Langan's stone with the Latin inscription also came from the same story word-for-word: in the story, it's a stone pillar at Lydney.
The last chapter was based on a Chaosium adventure, and the woman at the end was originally one of the serpent people. Initially, I was going to have Queen Tera appear as Mary Kelly (in fact, at one time I was thinking of playing off of the theory that Mary Kelly was not, in fact, murdered and making her a part of EIECET's group), but later I decided on Madame Sosostris. As far as I know, Sosostris was not real, although she does appear in "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot and later in several Cthulhu stories.
Dr. Bond's suicide did happen, though I played with the timeline a little bit. The real one happened in 1903, I think.
BTW, I'm going to run another Victorian-era game on another forum, and although I can't exactly follow the plot since one of the players knows things about this game through conversations with me, I think I'll at the very least have EIECET, Langan, Harrington, and your characters pop up.
Hawksmoor is very weird - I intially heard of him during Jack's "tour" chapter in Alan Moore's From Hell (my favorite section, surprisingly for me) and later picked up some Iain Sinclair stuff in which he alludes to the possibility that maybe the churches had something to do with the fact that these murders happened where they did.
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Old Fezziwig
Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
I really do need to read From Hell. I think you're right about Madame Sosostris — I can't recall ever seeing anything that indicated she was real in my studies, and Norton (and most other publishers, too, actually) loves to footnote that sort of thing. Of course, Norton's also famous for footnotes like this:
Nick
Text said:
Footnote said:
Nick
Andrew D. Gable
First Post
Old Fezziwig
Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin.
You're right. I did enjoy that. 
I love the Times and old newspapers in general. If all I had to do to be a grad student was read old copies of the Times, I'd probably still be in grad school today. Good stuff.
Nick
I love the Times and old newspapers in general. If all I had to do to be a grad student was read old copies of the Times, I'd probably still be in grad school today. Good stuff.Nick
Andrew D. Gable
First Post
We're not really too close to the resolution of the EIECET/Ripper storyline, but just so I know for future reference, how would you like to handle it after that? Stop with the conclusion of this plot, or continue on with a few one-shots?
JimAde
First Post
It's hard to say. You're doing a great job but we seem to be pretty short of players. Is anybody in besides me and Kajamba?
I purposely made my character clueless about all this mysticism stuff since I don't know that much about it myself, but I'm feeling a bit useless at the moment. To be honest I'm a little lost with all the funky names and abbreviations and stuff. I think Trevor might be willing to put all this behind him if he gets the chance.
At the moment he's motivated to get to the bottom of Edward's involvement since he actually took a liking to the little git. After that, I'm not sure.
I purposely made my character clueless about all this mysticism stuff since I don't know that much about it myself, but I'm feeling a bit useless at the moment.
To be honest I'm a little lost with all the funky names and abbreviations and stuff. I think Trevor might be willing to put all this behind him if he gets the chance.At the moment he's motivated to get to the bottom of Edward's involvement since he actually took a liking to the little git. After that, I'm not sure.
