Here are the blurbs of the two latest episodes, which took our Time Lady to 17th century France, in the time of Cardinal Mazarin…
Episode 7: The Ravens of
Despair
In
1648 France, Lady Penelope, the Count of Saint-Germain and the musketeers
Taillefer and Bellegarde find themselves investigating the mysteries of a demon-riddled
nunnery - but the devils tormenting the local sisters are of a most unusual
type: no mass hysteria, debauched orgies or spectacular possessions. Only
despair – dark, bottomless and all-engulfing…
Episode 8: The Marquis de
Carabas
Paris,
1648. Following the events of the previous episode, Lady Penelope and her
companions Saint-Germain, Taillefer and Bellegarde decide to investigate the
enigmatic, eccentric and extravagant Marquis de Carabas… Yes, it’s the same
name as the imaginary character from Puss
in Boots – a fairy tale dating from 1695 or so… But what is chronology to
an Eternal?
Episode
7 marked a long-awaited return to the era of the French Musketeers – for quite
some time now, Penelope had wanted to pay a visit to the characters of
Taillefer and Bellegarde, whom she first met in Episode 10.2. The plot was
loosely based on the infamous Loudun and Louviers cases of demonic possessions,
which occurred respectively during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV – but
the “devils” involved here were (obviously) the Ravens of Despair, which proved
a perfect fit for the atmosphere of the adventure. As I often do, I had tweaked
a few things here and there – e.g. my Ravens had not come in a “rookery”
spaceship but had been summoned through dimensional “wizardry” by a
revenge-driven would-be sorceress – thanks to the arcane secrets of the Book of
Eibon / Liber Ivonis, an eldritch tome which had already featured in the very
first season of our campaign! It worked really well, with Saint-Germain proving
a very useful companion (as a social chameleon, hypnotist and master of
imposture). Penelope managed to counter the Ravens’ soul-crushing influence by
engineering a fake (but miraculous) apparition of the Virgin Mary herself
(actually a holographic projection of her TARDIS’ persona).
The
link between episodes 7 and 8 was provided by the Book of Eibon, which had been
given to the vengeful dabbler in the dark arts by a mysterious gentleman known
as the Marquis de Carabas – a name which immediately rang an alarm bell in
Penelope’s mind. Her investigations quickly led her to a regal parisian hotel particulier,
during (of course) a masked ball. De Carabas proved to be a rogue Eternal, who
had escaped from Eternity because of the Dissonance (last season’s timey-wimey
McGuffin) and was busy playing games with Ephemerals (i.e. toying with insects), leaving
a trail of broken dreams and twisted destinies. And of course the Marquis had a
Game in mind for Penelope – a Game she (of course) refused to play, managing to
banish the creepily suave Marquis back to the nothingness of Eternity, thanks
to her particular link with the aforementioned Dissonance. Penelope’s encounter
with De Carabas also allowed me to present her with quite a few fascinating factoids
about the Eternals, the Chronovores and the (now retired) Guardians, mixing some
established elements of Whovian lore with my own personal interpretations. It
was not a gratuitous info-dump, since Penelope had a harrowing near-encounter
with the great Chronovore Kronos a few episodes ago and – sorry, SPOILERS!
See
you soon for some new episode blurbs. Bon
courage à tous!
