A Fantastic Xmas Special!

And I'm not talking about this year's Doctor Who Xmas special (which, incidentally, was really fantastic too), but about last evening's episode of Lady Penelope's Odyssey: "The Masque of Winter", aka "The 2014 Xmas special" aka "Season 8 / Episode 7" aka "the first part of the mid-season 2014 Xmas trilogy" (which will culminate in Season 8 / Episode 9, aka... Episode 100!). We really had a great time playing this - and since it was a special episode, the blurb is slightly longer than usual.

Episode 7: The Masque of Winter

December 1607. The Thames is frozen and William Shakespeare is facing the winter of his discontent. As Lady Penelope gets reunited with the illustrious playwright, they soon discover that something wicked this way cometh. Can the Time Lady and the Bard of Albion prevent the Master of the Masque from bringing the madness of Carcosa into our reality? All the world is a stage – and it’s time for the Tempest to rise!  Also featuring Ben Jonson, the Children of Blackfriars, the first Jago, various dramatis personae and, of course, a bear.

Next stop: New Year's Eve... and after this, Episode 100, here we come!

PS: Oh, and I've finally found a suitable title for the current season - Past & Future.

Season 8, Episodes 5-6

The eighth season of Lady Penelope's Odyssey has come to a small mid-season break. Since the ending of episode 6 really felt, in actual play, like a conclusion of sorts, I've decided to change some of my plans for the second half of the season, following some new ideas and consequences from actual play (it's one of the advantages of RPGs over TV series: you can arrange, modify and "fine-tune" things as you go along, and you don't HAVE to keep some season-long, overarching plot device in store). For these reasons, I've abandoned the proposed season title of "Paradigm Shift" - I'll go for a retroactive title, once we've played the season finale, or perhaps no season title at all (after all, Doctor Who does not have season titles).

 Next episode will most probably be an Xmas special of some sort, acting as the perfect mid-season break between two six-episodes arcs (Ah! Symmetry!  I knew you hadn't abandoned me!). See you in December!

Episode 5: From Russia, With Diamonds

Saint-Petersburg, 1763. Lady Penelope and Edward Wilberforce, now a Timewatch operative, investigate the mysterious disappearance of their friend countess Katarina “Kitty” Kazakovna at the court of Catherine the Great. A tale of deceit and power, featuring clockwork droids, psychic jewels and the Ascended Master himself, the Count of Saint-Germain.

Episode 6: The Question

Who was the mysterious Gallifreyan personage only remembered as “the Other”?  What role did he play in the grand discoveries of Rassilon and the founding of Time Lord society?  Who unleashed the Moment that ended it all ? Can a Destroyer also be a Creator?  WHO IS THE DOCTOR? Tonight, Lady Penelope gets ALL the answers (as well as some new questions).

Season 8, Episodes 1-4

Synchronicity!  This was, of course, completely unplanned, but Sylvie and I began our 8th season of Lady Penelope's Odyssey roughly at the same date as the 8th season of you-know-who - and we've even played our fourth episode tonight...  Here are the blurbs for episodes 1-4.

Season 8

Episode 1: The Lost Woman

How could a chance meeting with Lady Penelope turn Christina Rossetti, poetess, sister of the great Dante Gabriel and living enigma into a prophesying time-sensitive?  Who are the Goblin Men?  Who is the little girl in the labyrinthine House of Time?  And, of course, who is the Doctor? A Pre-Raphaelite story of visions, secrets and redemption.

Episode 2: The Book of Time

While doing some temporal tourism in 240 BC Alexandria, Lady Penelope visits the fabled Great Library – and soon discovers the existence of a book that should not be there. Or anywhere else, for that matter. A tale of secret passages, treasured dreams and  false gods. Knowledge is power - and time is of the essence.

Episode 3: Brother’s Keeper

Having been hijacked by the mysterious Book of Time, Lady Penelope’s TARDIS takes her to a labyrinthine, majestic and utterly lonely place known as the Braxiatel Collection, full of lost treasures, forgotten memories and relics of times past. But who is the master of this house of secrets?  Questions, answers – and more questions.

Episode 4: Pandora’s Box

Penelope and Mortimus return to the Braxiatel Collection – but the Time Lady soon finds out that Something Is Not Quite Right. Who is the real ghost in the machine? Can a piece of forgotten history come back to haunt and possess the last heirs of Gallifrey?  And how exactly do you put Pandora back into her box?

Season 7, Episodes 11-13

Last night we played the thirteenth and final episode of Lady Penelope's Oddysey's seventh season, concluding "The Fenric Cycle", a quite dark and harrowing series of adventures. 

Here are the blurbs of the last three episodes:

Episode 11: Into the Maelstrom 
As the devouring darkness of the Shadow Dimension threaten the whole of time and space, Lady Penelope and Gale plunge into the heart of the maelstrom to confront Fenric on its own territory, a realm of darkness and deceit. The Children of Time to the Dark Tower came…

Episode 12: Aftermath

Fenric is no more. The nightmare is over – or is it?  As Penelope and Gale are about to discover, the final act of spite of the mad god could have greater consequences than its destruction – unless the Time Lady, carrier of the blue flame of balance, can set things right. 

Episode 13: Last of the Eternals

Penelope and Gale decide to take some time off in the cosmopolitan mega-city of New Byzantium – but someone is waiting for them here, someone who wishes to make the Time Lady an offer she can’t refuse. It’s time to meet the Last of the Eternals - and make a choice.

This seventh season has also been given a retroactive title: Forged in Flame, a direct reference to Lady Penelope's third regeneration (yes, she's now the Fourth Time Lady) and her (temporary and now expired) special link to the Blue Flame of Balance, which acted as a major dramatic force throughout the Fenric Cycle... but all this is over and Lady Penelope will soon reembark on a new season (next saturday, in fact) - the eighth one. Damn, our space-time Odyssey has just reached the same point as the new-Who TV series... It also means I'll have to prepare something a bit special for episode 9, since it will be Lady Penelope's 100th adventure... so we too will have our special big anniversary thingy. Vortex, here we come!  

 

Season 7, Episodes 8-10

Continuing the Fenric Cycle...

Episode 8: Darkness Ex Machina 

Maiden’s Point, 1993. Fifty years after the Ultima incident, dark forces from the Shadow Dimension are once again encroaching on reality. What is really going on at Project AESIR? Lady Penelope has (almost) all the answers, the will to fight – and very little time left… 

Episode 9: Entity 

4114. A lost planetoid shrouded in unnatural darkness. An ominous octahedron towering over the ruins of a mysterious necropolis. A lonely, dying dome of light. Buried horrors and forgotten secrets. Enter a team of Torchwood Archive archaeologists – and a Time Lady! 

Episode 10: The Mark of Fenric 

January 1945. The tide of history has turned and the Reich has already lost the war – unless a little man in a black uniform signs a single piece of paper, unleashing Ragnarok and plunging the world into final chaos. Will Reichsführer Himmler authorize Operation Fenric?

Season 7, Episodes 4-7

Season 7 of Lady Penelope's Odyssey has taken quite a turn with a new regeneration (welcome to the Fourth Lady Penelope!), a change of companion and the beginning of a yet-to-be-concluded new cycle of episodes focusing on the return of the Evil Entity known as Fenric...

Episode 4: The Great Escape

New York, 1925. Lady Penelope joins forces with Henry Gordon Jago (inimitable investigator of infernal incidents) and Harry Houdini (master magician, escapologist extraordinaire and dashing debunker of spurious séances) against invisible invaders from Yith.

THE FENRIC CYCLE (to be continued)

Episode 5: Shadow of the Wolf

Constantinople 1041 AD. The glorious Byzantine empire has begun its slow descent into decadence – unless chaos and darkness swallow it first. Will Lady Penelope manage to free Harald Hardrada from the clutches of Fenric – and save history from the Empire of the Wolf?

Episode 6: Homecoming

Fenric has awakened. After a quick stop on Avalon, the newly regenerated Lady Penelope embarks on a new race against time, with a new companion at her side – the freshly revived time traveller and ex-Wolf of Fenric formerly known as Ace. A tale of new beginnings.

Episode 7: Ghosts of Elseneur

Following the temporal trail of the Wolves of Fenric, Lady Penelope and her new companion arrive at Kronborg castle (better known as Hamlet’s Elseneur) in 1658, in a fortress besieged by the armies of Sweden. A tale of ancient evil, desperate battles and forgotten secrets.

Season 7, The Ganymedian Trilogy (Story 1)

So, Lady Penelope's Odyssey has entered its seventh season... but Sylvie and I have decided to take a (slight) break from the standard, 13-episodes-by-season format inspired by the revived Doctor Who series - in order to experiment with a looser approach, closer to the structure used in the classic series: multipart stories - which, in game terms, will translate as diptychs, trilogies or even (who knows?) four-parters united by a common plotline or theme (or even, in some cases, a single setting). So here are the blurbs for the first of these new episodes.

THE GANYMEDIAN TRILOGY

Episode 1: The Forsaken

Lady Penelope decides to spend some time with the reformed temporal meddler Mortimus on the Eden-like world of Atala, among her dear Ganymedian friends. It’s time to uncover ancient secrets, heal old wounds and welcome a new companion on board of the TARDIS!

Episode 2: The Sontar Stratagem

The Ganymedians are doomed, destined to be slaughtered and enslaved by the brutish Sontarans - unless Penelope decides to alter the course of history. With the fates of millions in her hands, the Time Lady will have to make a choice – and live with the consequences.

Episode 3: Choices

History has been altered, the destruction of Atala has been averted – but what of the new, unwritten future?  In search of the ultimate weapon of mass protection for her Ganymedian friends, Lady Penelope must find a way to preserve their safety as well as their serenity.