tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79792598136877265422024-02-17T11:18:02.129-08:00A Journal of Impossible ThingsOlivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.comBlogger164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-12801428312558665612024-02-17T09:07:00.000-08:002024-02-17T11:17:30.748-08:00Season 18, Episodes 5-7<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 5: The Substitute</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Victoria
(Australia), 1907. What is happening at the esteemed Bainbridge College for
Young Ladies? What dark secrets does Miss Jones, the enigmatic governess, hide
behind her severe façade?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And speaking
of secrets, the new history and science teacher, Miss Ashworth, does seem to
have quite a few of her own in store… A mystery, two strange rocks and no
picnic!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 6: The Chemistry of Ghosts</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Paris,
1907. One year after the tragic death of her husband Pierre, Nobel prize
scientist Marie Curie is about to reveal her latest, extraordinary discovery to
a chosen assembly of thinkers and seekers – a discovery involving radium and
invisible, psychic presences. Luckily for history as we know it, Lady Penelope
(with her three new protégés!) is among the audience…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 7: The Beauty and the Beast</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Paris,
1768. As King Louis XV is looking for a new <i>favorite</i> and aristocrats
busy themselves with their games of intrigue, a monstrous shadow wolf is stalking
the Parisian nights, spreading death and terror in its wake. Could the dreaded Beast
of Gévaudan have returned to wreak its vengeance on the kingdom of France? The
Time Lady decides to investigate!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So, our intended mini-series having morphed
into <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2024/01/happy-new-year-and-new-season.html" target="_blank">a full-fledged season</a>, things have taken a new turn, as demonstrated by our three last
episodes!</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As
can be gathered from its blurb, episode 5 was directly inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(novel)" target="_blank">Picnic at Hanging Rock</a>, with two typically Whovian twists. The first was that the
secretive governess Miss Jones was in fact… the Master! Yes, a new incarnation of everybody’s
favorite Time Lord arch-villain (my own variation on Missy, if you will, but
with a very different personality and demeanor)… and NOT the Master of Penelope’s
own continuum (who, for all intents and purposes, is supposed to be Forever
Dead) but the Master from the alternate continuum visited by the Time Lady a
few episodes ago (in <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2023/10/mini-series-avatars-in-time-and-space.html" target="_blank">The Napoleon Stratagem</a>).</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At
the end of said episode, this alternate Master had been mortally wounded (by Time
Agent Jill Harkness – yes, Jack’s own female alternate double) and was starting
to undergo the regeneration process – but something (tied to the meta-temporal
energies of Abraxas, which he had started to “distillate” in his TARDIS) unexpected
obviously happened off-stage, resulting in this new female incarnation AND (more
importantly) in her relocation in Penelope’s own continuum… Could the two Time
Ladies (who both owe their latest regeneration to the same meta-temporal
energies) be tied in some mysterious, Beyond-Space-and-Time way? Only Time (of
course) will tell.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
second ‘twist’ tied to episode 5 is that it ended in Penelope taking three
young ladies from the Bainbridge College on board of her TARDIS as her new
travelling companions (yeah, three’s a crowd – but see the notes on episode 7
below)… removing them from recorded history and actually creating the
(imaginary) mysterious disappearances behind the (equally fictional) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(novel)" target="_blank">Picnic at Hanging Rock</a> story!</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Episode
6 was based on two ideas I’ve had in store for quite some time: re-use the gaseous
(and somewhat underused) Gelth as a story’s main villains and concoct a
scenario based on Nobel Prize winners Pierre and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie" target="_blank">Marie Curie</a>’s little-known
(but well-documented) interest in mediumship and psychic phenomena – as well as
Marie’s very moving expressions of grief (from her private journal) after
Pierre’s tragic accidental death. The result was a very enjoyable period piece,
complete with the usual DW mix of historical facts, scientific acrobatics (I invented a new, Gelth-related property for radon...) and wild imaginings – and a
top-notch performance by Penelope’s player. It was, of course, quite
reminiscent of <b>The Unquiet Dead</b>, with a dash of <b>The Girl In The
Fireplace</b> for that extra touch of emotion.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Stephen
King once defined a story as the encounter of “two previously unrelated ideas
coming together and making something new” – and that was the recipe I decided to use for episode 7. The only thing I knew was that Penelope wished to
travel to France in the late (but pre-Revolutionary) 18<sup>th</sup> century
(i.e., somewhen in the 1760s or 1770s). So I asked myself: what are the two
(preferably unrelated) things I’d readily associate with this setting? </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Answers: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses" target="_blank">Les Liaisons Dangereuses</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan" target="_blank">Beast of Gévaudan</a>.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So
I proceeded to mix these two ingredients, adding a few echoes from Penelope’s
previous trip to this historical era (<a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2010/07/campaign-notes-our-first-season.html" target="_blank">Lost In Versailles</a>, waaaay back in season one!) and her recent
discoveries about the ‘self-aware nightmares’ also known as the <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2023/03/season-17-episodes-7-8.html" target="_blank">Vishklar</a> and the
result was a very atmospheric, quite dark tale of sordid intrigues, monster
hunting and psychic possession (in powdered wigs). It ended with the departure
of one of Penelope’s three new companions, who chose to stay in 18<sup>th</sup>
century Paris with her newfound paramour, adding an extra touch of melancholy
to the story’s conclusion. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Another great time, with some excellent salon banter
by Penelope’s player.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Next
stop: London, 1967!</b></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-71339717580350325662024-01-05T09:21:00.000-08:002024-01-05T09:29:56.002-08:00Happy New Year... and a New Season!<p>Greetings everyone!</p><p>Happy new year 2024 - and for Lady Penelope, this new year starts with... a new season!</p><p>After much ruminating, I've finally decided that Penelope's recent (and somewhat unexpected) regeneration was, well, a game-changer... The basic, 6-part plotline I had in mind for the ongoing miniseries was somehow derailed / sidetracked by this dramatic development. In other words, the two remaining episodes would have felt like a rushed job.</p><p>So the four episodes we've played so far (yes, we played a fourth one a few weeks ago - see below for the blurb) have been 'retro-fitted' to become the first four episodes of a whole new season! In other words, <b>the miniseries has regenerated into season 18</b>!</p><p>Here is the blurb of the latest episode...</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 4: The Mirrie Dancers</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">November
2023. Suffering from a bout of post-regeneration melancholy, Lady Penelope (now
in her eighth incarnation) decides to take some R&R time among friends, on
the mainland of Shetland – but there can never be such a thing as <i>time off</i>
for a Time Lady! Soon, she is drawn to a
centuries-old mystery involving unexplained disappearances, ghostly apparitions,
local folklore and the majestic, eerie Northern Lights. A tale of past lives
and new beginnings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>See you soon for the next episodes!</p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-28606915243811284412023-11-05T01:24:00.003-08:002023-11-05T01:24:27.755-08:00Mini-Series: Episode 3... and REGENERATION!<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Part Three: Becoming Harry</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Weston-Super-Mare,
October 1964. How could history possibly run astray <i>here and now</i>? As
Mods and Rockers prepare for a new, supposedly epic (but potentially tragic)
beach battle, Lady Penelope once again tries to preserve the continuum, as her game
of cat-and-mouse (or is blindman’s bluff?) with the mystifying Quantum
Archangel accelerates toward its ominous end, culminating in an impossible
revelation, a fateful decision… and a regeneration!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Talk
about unexpected developments. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sometimes, the best laid plans of mice, men and
GMs will simply go awry. But as far as RPGs is concerned (and especially with games
like DW), my philosophy is to go with the flow rather than try to shoehorn or
railroad things back as they were supposed to run – or, more correctly, as you
first thought they would run. This glorious narrative uncertainty is, after
all, one of the joys of game-mastering and often leads to golden moments of inspiration
and improvisation which, in the end, make the story better, greater and, in the
best cases, deeper. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This is precisely what happened yesterday evening.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As
you may recall, the current, six-part miniseries was centered on the conundrum
of the so-called Quantum Archangel, an elusive temporal entity which seemed to
follow (or rather </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">precede</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">) Penelope and Harry in their travels, creating
divergence points in the continuum and apparently feeding off the “unfulfilled
possibilities” released by Penelope’s action to mend history back into shape.
It was not the first history-altering entity the Time Lady had encountered (far
from it!) but it was the first time that said entity did nothing to prevent her
from opposing its actions, actually </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">expecting</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> her to circumvent, repair
and defuse its attempts to stir history astray – acting more like some sort of
personal temporal parasite or ransom hacker than as an antagonist </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">per se</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This
weird cat-and-mouse / blind man’s bluff game was supposed to run throughout the
six parts of the mini-series, reaching the following conclusion in its final
episode.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
big revelation was that the Quantum Archangel was actually one of Abraxas-Harry’s
future selves – a version of him which had rejected the whole “incarnation
experience” and re-ascended to a kind of disembodied, super-Weeping Angel
status (just like when Abraxas was created as a result of Penelope’s continuum-mending
back in <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/search/label/season%20seventeen" target="_blank">season 17</a>). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Manipulating its own timeline to create temporal incidents,
potential paradoxes and divergence points, its goal was to force its
hypothetical existence into full reality – a potential future trying to gain supremacy
over all others as the only possible fate, Singularity-style.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Faced
with this vertiginous truth, Penelope would, basically, have had two possible
choices. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The first choice would be to let the Archangel have what it wanted, resulting in
the destruction of Harry’s body and awakening humanity and in the (re)birth of
a unique, possibly Kronos-like entity (probably not a good idea, then). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
second possibility was to use the TARDIS’ Chameleon Ark to fully turn Harry into a mortal
human being, complete with his own past, present and future (and no memories of
having ever been something else, of meeting Penelope or of travelling in the
TARDIS), and release him somewhere in history to live his own life, unaware of
the larger universe with its time travellers, cosmic entities and quantum
uncertainties…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So
what happened yesterday evening?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Well,
to cut a long story short, Penelope got to the truth far earlier than I had
planned. Fortunately, as the scenario was unfolding, I sensed that we would Get
to the Point before the story was finished, allowing me to GWTF (Go With The Flow)
and improvise a proper final act. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Since everything was suddenly falling into
place, there was no point in delaying the inevitable or diluting the storyline –
so the best option was to end the episode as grandly as possible. Penelope’s
realization of the impossible truth was followed by the very emotional decision
to bid Harry farewell. The scene where she put him in the Chameleon Arch to
erase all traces of his former existence and turn him into a mere (but so human!)
mortal was a grand moment of drama – and I’m ever so grateful for having such a
talented player!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But
there was, of course, the problem of dealing with the extracted part of Abraxas’
being – the timey-wimey, cosmic part that made him a quantum hazard (and a
potential successor to Kronos) in the first place. Its power was such that
Penelope’s trusty Time Lord fob watch could not be expected to hold it for more
than a few minutes. With the help of Nim (her TARDIS’ resident spirit /
ghost-in-the-machine), Penelope managed to use the Zero Room as a
possibility-void environment where the chaotic energy of the entity could
dissolve and fade away without affecting the continuum or the rest of the
TARDIS…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It
was this delicate operation that resulted in Penelope’s regeneration. This
event was more or less in the cards, as a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">possible</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (but by no means
predestined) consequence of the mini-series’ climax – but the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">moment</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> had
clearly come. The heart-wrenching farewell to Harry (who started his new life
on the beach of Weston-Super-Mare, in October 1964…) felt like a necessary but
abrupt end – and the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">feel</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> of the unfolding story demanded that this end gave
way to a new beginning.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Enter
Lady Penelope’s eighth incarnation:</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6pFovZyIQMH6uMk8w-DLO7I5ALW9XBTGIG5YsSBXO1705M4piMc6PwfnCw0uibbwE4uoqY8WZjRDsefPnoLjOxE_viawrXl7EYxxKL_-XOI7tZwGTDdfTVA8Q_Jmu-kaVqBMYIcYXPuURghHhnSvuZaSD1jDO-gkFJAP-1id6eYKiMg4ryCmU8odZe80/s2048/MV5BMTg0NTg1NjkwOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjg2Mzg1Ng@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1362" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6pFovZyIQMH6uMk8w-DLO7I5ALW9XBTGIG5YsSBXO1705M4piMc6PwfnCw0uibbwE4uoqY8WZjRDsefPnoLjOxE_viawrXl7EYxxKL_-XOI7tZwGTDdfTVA8Q_Jmu-kaVqBMYIcYXPuURghHhnSvuZaSD1jDO-gkFJAP-1id6eYKiMg4ryCmU8odZe80/s320/MV5BMTg0NTg1NjkwOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjg2Mzg1Ng@@._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">(Yes, this is Rebecca Hall in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Awakening</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
remaining three episodes will obviously focus on the aftermath of Lady Penelope’s
regeneration and her new incarnation’s first adventures in time and space. During
our post-game debrief, Sylvie decided that her newly-regenerated character felt
quite melancholic (as opposed to bouncy and buoyant) and needed a pause, a
short break among friends in a quiet place – so the only thing I currently know
about our next episode is that it will be set in contemporary Shetland, where
Penelope made some good friends during her seventh incarnation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And
we also decided that the mini-series needed a new title. Initially, I had planned
to call “<b>Avatars in Time and Space</b>” (since it was all about two different
avatars of the same entity – Harry and the Quantum Archangel) but it is now – far
more aptly – titled “<b>Changing Times</b>”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I
hope I’ll be able to cook up episode 4 for next Saturday… <b>Countdown started!</b></span><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Stay tuned!</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-64599995917595877982023-10-30T03:21:00.001-07:002023-10-30T03:21:08.602-07:00Mini-Series: Avatars in Time and Space, Parts 1 & 2<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">Welcome to our new, six-part miniseries - a direct sequel to Season 17!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">So,
as you might recall, Lady Penelope ended the seventeenth season of her
adventures with the cosmic entity known as Abraxas as her, well, ward / protégé
/ causality child – a new being whom she decided to awaken to the wonders and
beauties of human creativity and its achievements (especially in the fine
arts), starting with (of course) Italian Renaissance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But
of course, this “grand tour” required a human (or at least human-looking) body
for the fledgling entity – a body that was promptly bio-engineered in
Lungbarrow by the Doctor himself, who has been experimenting on regenerations
and, well, body-making for several seasons now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Now
looking like a male human teenager, Abraxas was ready to travel with Penelope
for a series of travels through Earth’s rich history. Before they left Avalon
to re-embark on board of the TARDIS, the Time Lady decided to name this
human-looking avatar “Harry”, since “Abraxas” might attract undue attention and
ring some unwanted bells in some learned circles and has always been a bit of a
mouthful anyway…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And
now without further ado, the blurbs of the first two episodes…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Part One: The Borgia Divergence</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">1506.
Eight years after his execution, the despotic monk Savonarola is still ruling
Florence, crushing the city’s spirit under a fanatical theocratic régime. Where
did History go wrong? What unseen cosmic hand is manipulating events in the
shadows of Time – and to what ends?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After a daring escape from the gaols of San Marco abbey, Penelope starts
looking for answers. Her quest soon takes her to 1497 Rome, at the heart of the
Borgia Pope’s palace…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Part Two: The Napoleon Stratagem</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Following
her first brush with the mysterious Quantum Archangel, Penelope decides to lure
it into the open so that she can learn more about the elusive entity. To keep
her own time continuum safe from any interferences, she takes her protégé Harry
to an alternate 1840, where Napoleon II and Queen Victoria are about to marry.
Unexpected consequences ensue, in the form of alternate versions of Captain
Harkness, the Doctor and (of course) the Ma<i>ster.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So…
what’s next?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Well, it all depends on the
Time Lady’s next move! Stay tuned!</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-65472111944506520212023-08-29T13:05:00.000-07:002023-08-29T13:05:02.851-07:00Change of Plans & Coming Soon!<p> In my latest post, I mentioned that we still had three episodes to run before ending Season 17... but after discussing the situation with Sylvie (Lady Penelope's player), we quickly came to the following two conclusions:</p><p>- Three episodes seemed a bit short to explore the consequences of Penelope's decision to take an incarnated Abraxas on some "grand tour of self-discovery" through time and space.</p><p>- The final scene of episode 12 (involving the aforementioned decision) really felt like a season-concluding arc.</p><p>So we decided that Season 17 would actually end here, with its <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2023/06/season-17-episodes-11-12.html" target="_blank">twelfth episode</a> as its final story and that we would devote a complete six-episodes miniseries to Penelope's adventures with Abraxas, using a similar format to <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/search/label/miniseries" target="_blank">our previous experiment with the miniseries format</a> - but, obviously with a very different theme and story arc. </p><p>See you soon for more details on our "Travels with Abraxas" sequence! </p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-71580229012883464522023-06-04T03:42:00.005-07:002023-06-04T03:42:47.433-07:00Season 17, Episodes 11-12<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 11: Sic Semper Tyrannis</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Paris, 1794. The Reign of
Terror has turned the idealistic dream of the French Revolution into a
totalitarian nightmare where Madame Guillotine always has the last word. As a
triumphant Robespierre prepares the grand celebration of the Supreme Being,
fifty days before his own downfall and execution, unseen forces are conspiring
in the shadows… Enter the Time Lady!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 12: Synchronicity</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">From Carl Jung’s house in 1916
Switzerland to the gnostic theologians of Roman Alexandria, Penelope gathers
the last pieces of the Abraxas puzzle, before receiving the final (and quite
surprising) Revelation in a place beyond space-time. A decidedly metaphysical adventure,
in which the very fate of the continuum depends on the outcome of a
philosophical debate…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p><b>Episode 11</b> finally gave me the perfect excuse to take Penelope to Paris during the Reign of Terror - not the kind of destination a reasonable time-traveller-whose-TARDIS-operates-perfectly-well-thank you-very-much would be likely to visit without a very good reason. The story itself was centered around Robespierre's tragic downfall, taking inspiration from a variety of sources, including Neil Gaiman's superb Sandman episode <i>Thermidor</i> and a nifty French historical mystery novel, <i>La Sibylle de la Révolution </i>by Nicolas Bouchard.</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>Episode 12</b> concluded (well, more or less - see below) the “Abraxas arch”, in which Penelope
chased the eponymous entity (an elusive Discordian Chronovore) across a
series of pseudo-historical adventures always involving notable or obscure
historical personages suddenly gifted (by the mysterious Abraxas) with the
power of temporal sensitivity – Nostradamus, the mad prophetess Catherine Théos
in the Robespierre adventure, the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (whom the Time
Lady had <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2011/07/campaign-notes-our-third-season-first.html" target="_blank">already met</a> a few years – and quite a few incarnations – earlier, back
in season 3…) and the gnostic theologian Basilides of Alexandria. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Each of these characters
was used by the (always unseen) Abraxas entity as an interface / agent / entry
point into the historical continuum, apparently trying to twist history
according to some mysterious agenda… Nothing Penelope hadn’t seen and handled
before – except that, this time, the puppeteer entity always remained
off-stage, unreachable and frustratingly unknowable, evidently taking note of Penelope’s
interferences in its inscrutable agenda… but never appearing to take direct
counter-measures against the interloping Time Lady herself, to her own growing
astonishment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But of course, the Truth
was ultimately revealed when Penelope finally got to meet Abraxas itself
(themselves?) in an impossible place outside space and time. The look on
Penelope’s player’s face when the entity welcomed her (“<i>Greetings, mother…</i>”) was
priceless. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">To cut a long story short:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">- The entity had (unwittingly)
been created by Penelope’s restoration of the continuum after the historical
havoc wreaked by <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2023/04/season-17-episodes-9-10.html" target="_blank">Father Ernetti’s machine</a>. Thus, Abraxas considered Penelope to
be its </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">mother</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> – and was looking forward to her giving it advice and
guidance on its course of action as a newly awakened demiurge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">- Abraxas had not been
created ex nihilo but was actually the coalesced and uplifted version of a trio
of Weeping Angels (who had been lurking in the secret Vatican tunnels,
attracted by the echoes of Ernetti’s time-warping machine) – a fascinating fact
which was made even more ominous and vertiginous by Penelope’s <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2020/05/season-14-episodes-14-15.html" target="_blank">previous discoveries</a> about the link between the Weeping Angels and the eldritch Kronos…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">- Because of the particular
circumstances of its creation, Adraxas’ omnipotence was actually limited to the
period of human history comprised between the Crucifixion and 1958 AD – but within
these limits, the entity potentially had the power to reshape history as it
wished.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">- Abraxas took his
demiurgic role very seriously – it wanted to Do the Right Thing for Humanity, mending
its world and healing its suffering once and for all, even at the price of every
human being’s free will (a concept which was somewhat alien to this
quasi-divine being).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">- Because of its special connection
to Penelope’s timeline, Abraxas had been able to absorb many of her memories
and experiences – especially those involving Humanity and the aforementioned
historical period (c. 33-1958 AD). And since Penelope always seemed to save
lives, help those in need and protect mankind from all kinds of perils, her
semi-divine progeny wanted to do the same thing – but, of course, on a much
grander and cosmic scale, revealing itself as the “new real god” of humanity
and heralding a new era of pure cosmic bliss, without any form of suffering (as
well as emotions, since they seem to be the cause for so much pain in the
world).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So, what Penelope had
anticipated as a climactic psychic battle against an all-powerful entity quickly
took a very different turn – that of a fascinating debate about what made human
beings what they were, power and responsibility, the meaning of existence and,
of course, that pesky concept of free will…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I knew that Sylvie (who is
no slouch when it comes to philosophical culture) would be able to give
Penelope some pretty solid argumentative power on such subjects but, well, she (once
again) amazed me, with a masterful yet improvised discourse which was simply
spot on.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The strange metaphysical conversation
between the Time Lady and her unlikely “time-child” was the perfect climactic
scene to the entire Abraxas arc – and culminated in a very interesting (and
quite wonderful, since I had NOT specifically anticipated this beforehand – but
hey, going with the flow is one of the joys of GMing in general and Doctor Who
GMing in particular) decision by Penelope: since the entity </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">wanted to learn</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">,
she simply invited Abraxas to travel with her, as a way to complete its
education into “the meaning of life” and “the needs of mankind”. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At the end of the episode,
Penelope took Abraxas’ pure energy essence in her trusty Time Lord fob watch,
parted ways with Indira (who had decided it was time for her to get back to her
own time) and headed the TARDIS back to Avalon, to discuss the “What Next” with
the Doctor (and see if perhaps he could rustle up a proper physical body for Abraxas)…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">See you in a few weeks for the three final episodes of the season!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-30300877940308837192023-04-09T05:03:00.006-07:002023-04-09T05:03:55.051-07:00Season 17, Episodes 9-10<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 9: Deus Ex Machina</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">Rome, 1958. It’s not all </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">vespas</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">,
</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">cinecitta</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">dolce vita</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">… On the trail of a mysterious temporal
anomaly, Lady Penelope and Indira uncover the Vatican’s greatest secret (forget
about the Code, the Grail, the Tomb, the Shroud or the Spear): Father Ernetti’s
chronovisor, a miracle machine that </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">sees into the past</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"> – and is also
about to shatter History as we know it…</span></p><p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 10: Foretold</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Having rebooted 2000 years
of History to save the continuum from the ravages of Father Ernetti’s machine, Penelope
must now track down the dissonances and divergences resulting from the temporal
shockwave – starting with the French Royal Court in 1555, at the time of Queen Catherine
de Medici, the poet Ronsard and the prophet Nostradamus. Intrigue ensues. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This season (season 17!) is
divided into two main arcs or half-seasons. <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2023/03/season-17-episodes-7-8.html" target="_blank">Episode 8</a>, with its climactic
confrontation in Carcosa, marked the conclusion of the first sequence, which
focused on Penelope’s old enemies the Porphyrs, their fearsome Three Mothers
and the use of opium as a gateway to their nightmarish city…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Episode 9</b> kickstarted the
second sequence, which will take Penelope and her current traveling companion
Indira at various “weak points” in History as-we-know-it, in the wake of a wave
of temporal chaos created by Father Ernetti’s time-viewing machine – and yes,
this is actually based on real, historical events (or, to put it more
correctly, on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends" target="_blank">a real, historical hoax</a>). I had never heard of Ernetti’s
chronovisor before reading about it in Kenneth Hite’s excellent </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/suppressed2/" target="_blank">Suppressed Transmission 2</a></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> sourcebook – and my reaction, as you can imagine, was: </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Oh
no, it’s too good to be true”</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">After having absorbed as much background
data as possible on Father Ernetti’s story (including <a href="https://www.amazon.fr/Machine-Ernetti-1-Roland-Portiche/dp/2253103977/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=1PGVXAIMOA5V&keywords=machine+ernetti&qid=1681041239&sprefix=machine+ernetti%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-3" target="_blank">a very readable French novel</a>, from which I pilfered quite a few ideas), I decided that this stuff would
not only make a great episode but would provide me with the perfect
“continuum-impacting event” to build a series of interconnected
pseudo-historical episodes!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Episode 10</b> involved Queen
Catherine of Medici, the illustrious French poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Ronsard" target="_blank">Pierre de Ronsard</a> and the
‘prophet’ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus" target="_blank">Michel de Nostredame</a>, better known as <b>Nostradamus</b>. I tried to depict
this famous (but quite mysterious) personage as a complex character, borrowing
some weird concepts from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerio_Evangelisti" target="_blank">Valerio Evangelisti</a>’s trilogy of novels </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://booknode.com/serie/le-roman-de-nostradamus" target="_blank">Le Roman de Nostradamus</a></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> and giving them a Whovian spin – the basic idea was that
Nostradamus had no real precognitive power… but suddenly found himself assailed
by real, powerful and terrifying visions of what the Future had in store for
France!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Penelope’s objective was to
unravel the mystery of these unprecedented premonitions and keep History on the
right track, while navigating Queen Catherine de Medici’s intrigue-laden
entourage… </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Precognitive stuff aside, the scenario played out like a pure historical episode, focusing on psychology, interactions and cultural savvy. In the end, the "1555 weak point" was fixed, leaving Penelope with some unanswered questions about a mysterious entity (or place?) called Abraxas... and more "weak points" scattered throughout the continuum to investigate BIITL (Before It Is Too Late). To be continued!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-27817694346220484122023-03-05T03:11:00.002-08:002023-03-05T03:11:06.868-08:00Season 17, Episodes 7-8<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 7: Trail of the Vishklar</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">What better place to rest,
recover and have a jolly good time than West End London in 1928? But when
Penelope and Indira meet the mysterious master of mysticism known as Dr. Khan,
their jazzy holidays take a decidedly darker turn, bringing the Time Lady on
the psychic trail of the elusive Vishklar, nightmare entities which were once
battled by a dear, long-lost friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 8: Carcosa</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">For the first time in her
seven lives, Lady Penelope takes the fight against her old enemies, the
Porphyrs, on their own territory, the dimension-locked, entropic city of
Carcosa, in the hope of freeing its prisoner, her old friend Everett Blake,
from everlasting torment. At the heart of the temple of the Nameless God, the sinister
Three Mothers await. So does the Phantom of Truth…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This diptych concludes the
first half of our seventeenth season (we’ll take a short break and return to </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Lady
Penelope’s Odyssey</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> in a few weeks) as well as our Time Lady’s long-running
struggle against her old arch-enemies, the <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/12/season-17-episodes-3-4-plus-some.html" target="_blank">Porphyrs</a>… or does it?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sure, Penelope’s actions
and decisions did bring an apocalyptic Judgment Day (by none other than the
mysterious <a href="https://kinginyellow.fandom.com/wiki/The_Phantom_of_Truth" target="_blank">Phantom of Truth</a>…) on the sinister City of Carcosa, its population
of emotional vampires and their ruling Three Mothers – but she already knows
that some of them have managed to escape the probable destruction of the
accursed, trans-dimensional megapolis, like rats fleeing a sinking ship… </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Where and <i>when</i> did those survivors flee to?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And how
will they adapt to their new conditions?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Will the scattered, homeless Porphyrs evolve into some new horrors?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Try to rebuild Carcosa?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Attempt to ally themselves with other dark
powers? That remains to be seen…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The episode itself allowed
me to indulge in some pretty wild imaginary crossovering, my Porphyrian lore
being a mix of three different fictional mythoi: <b>Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow / Carcosa</b> tales (for Carcosa, the Phantom of Truth and other fascinating concepts), <b>Thomas
de Quincey’s Three Mothers</b> (also present in Dario Argento’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Mothers" target="_blank">famous trilogy</a> of
horror movies – although I didn’t use this source - at least not directly) and, of course, our beloved
<b>Whoniverse </b>(with the Vishklar revealed as the original ‘psychic ancestors’ of
the Porphyrs).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It was a very satisfying, tension-packed
episode, with a lot of weight on Penelope’s shoulders. It started with her decision to drop her current travelling companion Indira back in 2024 London - for she did not want to expose her to the horrors and dangers of what was coming. Penelope's deliberation and the temporary farewell with Indira contributed to build up the dramatic tension - and when the Time Lady finally entered Carcosa, Sylvie really felt like </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">her character was stepping into the mouth of hell / maw of madness / crack of doom...</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It was a very important episode, at the scale of the series itself. Penelope's discovery of the nightmarish city felt like the climactic culmination of a long-escalating theme (the
Porphyrs have been around since season one!).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As the GM, I unashamedly
played the dark baroque horror card, using Christopher Young’s excellent
musical score for <i>Hellraiser</i> as the main background soundtrack and some pretty
nifty images created with Midjourney and ImgCreator – I’ve just posted them <a href="http://storygame.free.fr/CARCOSA.pdf" target="_blank">HERE</a> if you wish to risk a glimpse...</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The downfall of Carcosa felt like the end of an era - but I also wanted it to be a real <i>game-changer</i>, hence</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> the last-minute escape of some of its inhabitants, which will allow me to re-invent / re-imagine the Porphyrs the next time Penelope encounters them (yes, I did pretty much the same with her other arch-enemies, the Lloigor <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/05/season-16-finale-episodes-14-15.html" target="_blank">at the end of our previous season</a>: vanquished, beaten at their own game, deprived of their main source of power... but NOT completely erased from the universe and probably re-inventing themselves as we speak).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">At the end of the episode,
Penelope came back to Avalon with the psychic remains of her friend <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/search?q=everett+blake" target="_blank">Everett Blake</a>
stored in her Gallifreyan fob watch – it was all that she could save from the
unfortunate Edwardian psychic investigator - but Professor Chronotis (who has himself
lived perfectly happily as a disembodied psyche encapsulated in a small hovering
sphere since his body’s terminal demise) will help the poor soul recover from
his terrible psychic trauma… and the Doctor (who has been working on
regenerations for several seasons now) might well be able to build him a new body
(just like he once did for <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2015/09/season-9-episode-8.html" target="_blank">Zoe</a>). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">One sure is certain: if Everett Blake ever
returns as a guest player-character in <i>Lady Penelope’s Odyssey</i>, it will most
probably make a fascinating story!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-28933186359964934122023-01-29T01:42:00.004-08:002023-01-29T01:42:22.944-08:00Season 17, Episode 6<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 6: The Rakshasas of Ranjapur</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">A mysterious psychic
distress call brings Penelope and Indira to 1856 India, just one year before
the Sepoy Mutiny and the fall of the almighty East India Company. Soon the tide
of history will turn. But first, the Time Lady and her allies must liberate the
small princely state of Ranjapur from a family of demons in disguise… A tale of
colonial greed, hope and destiny.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I’d been thinking about
doing an episode set in 19<sup>th</sup> century British India for quite some
time now </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">– something with shades of Fritz Lang's two-part 'Indian epic' and John Huston's </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Man Who
Would be King </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (of course) some suitably Whovian villains… And then, of course, came Beecham House - I only watched one episode but it was enough to unearth and resurrect that old idea. Yes, I definitely had to cook up a story featuring a Rajah's court as its main setting and the East India Company as a major plot or background element.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But I
needed to find a good reason for Penelope to get there: since her TARDIS is far
more reliable than the Doctor’s blue box, I try to use the old, time-honored
“the-TARDIS-just-brings-you-here” excuse as little as possible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In this particular
instance, the character of Indira Kapoor, Penelope’s current travelling
companion, provided me with the ideal story hook, being a psychic and temporal
sensitive: the “mysterious psychic distress call” mentioned in the blurb above
actually originated from one of her own ancestors (who, much to Indira’s
surprise, happened to be a princely concubine and who also had some latent
psychic ability), bringing Indira face to face with a chapter of her own family
history she knew nothing about… This added a very interesting psychological dimension
to our story, allowing me to portray the usually cool and collected character
of Indira under a far more personal (and somewhat vulnerable) light.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At first, I considered
setting my story in the state of Jhansi, so that I could include <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_of_Jhansi" target="_blank">its illustrious warrior-queen</a> in the cast – but after giving the matter some serious thought, I
decided to use a small fictional princely state (‘Ranjapur’) to free my story
(and the ultimate fates of its prominent NPCs!) from the constraints of
History.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As for the “demons in
disguise”, they were (of course?)… Slitheens – or, more properly, <b>Rackateens</b>!
Using a family of creepy, greedy and nasty <b>Raxacoricofallapatorians</b> was also something
I had wanted to do for years now – but I hadn’t found the proper setting to do
them justice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The idea to link them with
colonial India was actually suggested by two different connections: the
superficial resemblance of their names (Raxacoricofallapatorius, Rackateen…)
with that of the Rakshasas from Indian legends and (perhaps more importantly)
the unmissable echoes between the Slitheens’ mix of blood pride, gluttonous
profiteering and callous disregard for other species’ lives (as shown in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Aliens
of London</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">World War Three</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">) and the so-called ‘entrepreneur
adventurers’ and ‘empire builders’ of the East India Company.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>And now for some after-play
notes…</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Colonial India is a
fascinating setting – but one with which French people (yours truly included)
are obviously less familiar than British or Indian ones (as opposed to, say,
the reign of Louis XIV or the Belle Epoque). Of course, the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Doctor Who</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
universe often plays fast and loose with history but I wanted to get things as
right as possible in terms of atmosphere and, well, ‘feel’, so I did a fair
amount of background reading on the East India Company, the Sepoy Mutiny and
related subjects.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">My main objective was to
balance the unavoidably exotic / romantic feel of such a setting with the
grittier aspects of imperialism and colonialism, focusing on the theme of
destiny – historical as well as individual. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In a way (and I only realized that
afterwards), my approach was somewhat similar to the treatment of Picts and
Romans in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Eaters of Light</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (albeit with a far more politically
complex backdrop), with the Rackateen as the classic monstrous menace against
which humans should stand united, regardless of their own differences or
conflicts. In the end, though, Penelope and Indira only found a handful of
allies (some Indian, some British – as well as one heroic elephant) brave
enough to stand against the Rackateen, making the consequences of the climactic
battle even more poignant.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As for the Rackateen
themselves, their goal was to seize control of Ranjapur, which happened to have
extremely rich underground deposits of uranium – the precious commodity on
which our trio of ‘adventurous entrepreneurs’ were planning to plunder, before
(of course) taking control of the East India Company and, in the long run, of
the entire British Empire itself. Just another typical Raxacoricofallapatorian
business venture…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As usual, Sylvie gave us a
wonderful, very nuanced performance, playing on Penelope’s usual empathy and
making her acutely aware of Indira’s unusual uncertainty and insecurity… as
well as of her own somewhat hazy knowledge of that particular chapter of British-Indian
history.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And we had a suitably half-epic,
half-chaotic final battle, as Penelope and her allies stood against a dozen of
enraged Rackateens – complete with a sword-wielding, horse-riding Indian
princess, a gallant but somewhat out-of-his-depth British captain, a heroic,
self-sacrificing Sepoy sergeant, stalwart Indian guards firing vinegar-coated
arrows and, of course, a fearless charging elephant.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The farewell scene acquired a deeper resonance because</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Penelope and Indira knew what the future
had in store for India: the Sepoy Mutiny, aka the First War of Independence, which
brought the end of the East India Company’s rule and the birth of its colonial
successor, the British Raj </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">per se</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> – an unprecedented of political turmoil,
in which the small princely state of Ranjapur and its associated fictional NPCs
would eventually disappear, lost in the winds of change and the mists of history.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>Next stop: who knows?</i></span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-61781355059742209002023-01-08T02:40:00.001-08:002023-01-08T02:40:10.092-08:00Season 17, Episode 5 (New Year Special!)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 5: Miracle Day</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">New Earth, in the
impossibly distant future. The good people of New New York are ready to
celebrate a New Year’s Day unlike any other – for this year, the Face of Boe
will return to life, as announced by Mother Hame and Cassandra Unlimited<sup>®</sup>.
Will this Second Coming herald a new era of faith and hope for the galaxy? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A skeptical Lady Penelope decides to investigate…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This
was our (slightly delayed) New Year Special. I had planned to run this last
week but could not be ready in time because of various health problems which pretty
much ruined my Xmas holidays… But I’m on the mend now and I intend to resume <i>Lady
Penelope’s Odyssey</i>’s usual weekly play schedule (fingers crossed and all that).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This
episode finally brought forth an event which I had planned for quite some time –
namely the resurrection of the Face of Boe, whose disembodied consciousness had
been hazily perceived by Penelope herself during her previous stay in New New
York during season 16 (see Episode 16.11, <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/04/season-16-episode-11.html">Lady of the Future</a>). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>Miracle Day</i> reused much of the background information and many NPCs from this
previous episode – including the faithful Mother Hame and the coldly egomaniacal
Lady Cassie. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And yes, the Face of Boe
truly has returned and will undoubtedly feature in some forthcoming episodes, putting New New York in the list of Penelope’s regular
destinations, along with New Camelot, Marlowe’s alternate 17</span><sup style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
century and a few other privileged times and places.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In
actual play, the episode proved to be a very moving story, with some nifty philosophical
overtones – necessity vs. free will and all that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Its
most memorable moment was, I think, the great ‘psychic communion’ scene between
Penelope and the disembodied psyche (Ghost? Soul? Spirit?) of the Face of Boe.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">To
cut a long story short, the whole Second Coming story was actually a sham
engineered by Lady Cassie: having successfully cloned the Face of Boe’s
physical body (so to speak) from samples preserved in the archives of the now
defunct Order of Plenitude, the corporate über-queen secretly intended to use
the resurrected Face as her own puppet god, with her own mind in control of
what would have essentially been a living but mindless being.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But
since the very spirit (Ghost? Soul? Psyche?) of the true Face of Boe was still
hovering around, she first had to imprison it in a psychic cage to prevent any
unwanted interference…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Fortunately,
Penelope (with the help of her psychic-and-time sensitive companion Indira)
managed to establish communication with the true disembodied Face and to free
it from its psychic imprisonment, enabling it to incarnate itself in the
manufactured clone, thereby beating Lady Cassie at her own game. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In the end,
the Miracle did occur and the carefully constructed deception was turned into a
history-defining moment of truth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Happy
new year, everyone! 😀</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-21490208868261415372022-12-19T04:06:00.002-08:002022-12-19T04:06:24.970-08:00Season 17: Episodes 3-4 (plus some copious design notes...)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 3: The Dark Interpreter</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Edinburgh, 1845. A
blood-drinking killer is stalking the streets of the Old Town. The aging Thomas
de Quincey, visionary writer and opium addict, has seen him in his dark
reveries… Enter Lady Penelope, who wants to ask him everything he knows about
the enigmatic Three Mothers. Can she help him stop the Nocturnal Stalker before
he (or it?) strikes again?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 4: Black Tulip</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Amsterdam, 1669, the end of
the Dutch Golden Age. Thirty years after the great Tulip Mania crisis, a
unique, impossible flower is threatening to spread a deeper, darker brand of
madness on the City of Canals… Will Penelope and her friends manage to uncover
the truth behind the mystery of the Black Tulip before it is too late?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tale of revenge, obsession and desire… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><b>Design Notes</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Together
with <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/11/season-17-episodes-1-2.html" target="_blank">Episode 17.02 (<i>Roma Mater</i>)</a>, these two episodes formed an informal “opium trilogy”,
where the aforementioned drug played a discreet but persistent role, as a substance
who could allow certain psychically-gifted dreamers to access a region of the
collective mindscape tied to the terrors of <b>the interdimensional city of
Carcosa</b>…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">While
our heroine has never visited it (but who knows?), Carcosa has been a
foreboding and elusive presence in</span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> Lady Penelope’s Odyssey</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
since its very first season – in fact, it played an important role in her first
true time travel adventure using the TARDIS: </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2010/07/campaign-notes-our-first-season.html" target="_blank">City of Chimeras</a></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">,
set in 1925 Paris, where she encountered a fearsome member of the cursed
Porphyr race, the self-styled Master of Chimeras…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Let’s
start with Carcosa</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">. You all know, of course, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" target="_blank">where the name comes from</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">… but
when I recycled it for my campaign, I did pretty much the same thing as I did
with the Lloigor and other ‘reappropriations’ from various fictional sources: I
kept some elements, removed what didn’t feel very Whovian and add my own ideas
to the mix.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In
<i>Lady Penelope’s Odyssey</i>, Carcosa became a sinister interdimensional city
populated by a race of psychic vampires known as <b>the Porphyrs</b>; the trans-dimensional nature of the place enabled it to invade (or rather “overlap”?)
any other big city where decadence, apocalyptic angst or fin de siècle
melancholy had become high enough to attune it to the psychic frequencies of
Carcosa, opening a gate between the two cities and allowing the Porphyrs to
feast upon the terror, sorrow and despair of a whole metropolis…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Along with the Lloigor, the Porphyrs were to become one of Penelope’s recurring arch-enemies – at least until season 11 (see below for more details), in which they seemed to have been utterly defeated. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I’ve already written about the Porphyrs </span><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2018/05/season-12-episode-11.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" target="_blank">elsewhere on this blog</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">– but here is a short summary / reminder of what they are, along with some notes on their connection to Carcosa, their history within</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Lady Penelope’s Odyssey</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">and a few new facts thrown in for good measure.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">(Incidentally,
the Porphyrs look like <a href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/esstarwars/images/f/fe/Lampay_Fay.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100512185922" target="_blank">Pau’ans</a> from the Star Wars universe and whose name actually
come from an old White Dwarf article on Runequest Demons, later reincarnated as
a Dragon Warriors supplement – yes, I’m a merciless cannibalizer…) </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Luckily
for everyone, the Time Lords put an end to Carcosa’s interdimensional invasions
by banishing the city (and all its inhabitants!) in an impregnable prison
dimension known as Sheol – an event which occurred a long time before the start
of Lady Penelope’s adventures.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But
the Time War changed all this. While Carcosa was still held captive, cracks
began to appear in the dimensional barriers that separated it from the rest of
the multiverse, allowing some Porphyrs to pass through these interstices into
our reality – usually in a great city which would have made a perfect prey for
Carcosa before its imprisonment. Once there, those Porphyr escapees usually
tried to increase the local level of existential angst, melancholy or fear. The
plan always had the same objectives: by raising collective fear or despair, the
Porphyrs sought to attune the local population’s mindscape to the frequencies
of Carcosa and force its release by gatecrashing its dimensional prison walls…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This
pattern formed the basis of most of Lady Penelope’s encounters with the
sinister Porphyrs: the aforementioned Parisian story, as well as the following
episodes: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2011/04/campaign-notes-our-second-season-last.html" target="_blank">Phantasmagoria</a></b>
(Season 2, Episode 11) – the very memorable episode where Lady Penelope met
Lord Byron, who had fallen prey to the psychic vampires of Carcosa…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2013/09/season-6-epsiodes-1-3.html" target="_blank">Or Not to Be</a></b> (Season 6, Episode 3) – where the Porphyrs had targeted William
Shakespeare himself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-fantastic-xmas-special.html" target="_blank">Masque of Winter</a></b> (Season 8, 7) – in which Penelope once again joined forces with Shakespeare
against the lords of Carcosa, this time scoring a major victory against them.
With the help of the TARDIS’ psychic circuits, the Time Lady and the Bard
managed to create an imaginary entity called Ariel (who else?), a positive,
protective psychic construct whose mission was to guard our reality from any renewed
incursion attempt by Carcosa.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This
should have an end to the Porphyrs’ interventions in Lady Penelope’s world –
and it did, to some extent. But of course it was only a matter of time before
the Porphyrs tried to find ways to circumvent these renewed psychic barriers
and its guardian spirit…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">They
did so in <b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2015/08/season-9-episodes-1-4.html" target="_blank">City of Sighs</a></b> (season 9, episode 1), in <b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2016/01/season-9-episode-9-10.html" target="_blank">The Banquet of Ashes </a></b>(season
9, episode 10) and in <b><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2018/05/season-12-episode-11.html" target="_blank">City of Dreams</a></b> (season 12, episode 11)… before
disappearing from Lady Penelope’s Odyssey for FIVE whole seasons!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It
was high time I brought them back… but I didn’t want things to work as if Penelope’s
past victories had achieved nothing. I had to re-invent the Porphyrs one way or
another – to restore some of their mystery and fear factor, to create new
possibilities for stories and to explain how they could once again threaten our
reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I first decided to put more emphasis on Carcosa itself, its dark secrets and
weird history (introducing new cryptic names and other creatures associated
with the sinister world – as the “Byakhee from Hastur” which appeared in this
season’s Roman episode).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I also decided to change the psychic vampires' <i>modus operandi</i>.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Previously, the Porphyrs had always tried to manipulate poets, artists or mass
culture (Byron, Shakespeare, silent movies, etc.) as a privileged way to create
a psychic bridgehead in the collective psyche of humanity, using art as the
main interface or conduit to spread Carcosa’s decaying influence (in keeping
with the original Robert W. Chambers’ stories about the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">King in Yellow</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">). Since this strategy had been (more or less) permanently thwarted by the creation of the
Ariel entity, they had to find new (and, so far, more mysterious) ways to
exercise their influence on their chosen pawns… And from what Penelope has
discovered so far, the consumption of opium seems to act as a “psychic gate
opener” between the human mind and the imprisoned mindscape of Carcosa.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Lastly, I decided to place this ‘new era’ of Carcosan activity under the sign of </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">the enigmatic figures of
the </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Three Mothers</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> – three female Porphyrs who apparently act as the matriarchs
(or goddesses?) of their vampiric race: the </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mother of Tears</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (Mater
Lachrymarum), the </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mother of Sighs</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (Mater Suspiriorum) and the </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mother of
Darkness</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> (Mater Tenebrarum). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">These names will of course be familiar to readers
of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspiria_de_Profundis" target="_blank">Thomas de Quincey</a> (hence his pivotal role in <i>The Dark Interpreter</i>) and to connoisseurs
of horror movies, as they form the basis of Dario Argento’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Mothers" target="_blank">Three Mothers trilogy</a>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Taking a cue from Argento's approach, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I unashamedly re-invented De Quincey’s Three
Mothers, keeping some elements and dumping others (the idea being that the
version of the Three Mothers mentioned in the author’s Suspiria de Profundis are
actually poetic re-imaginations of half-remembered, half-repressed opium-induced
nightmares).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So
far, Penelope has yet to encounter any of the Mothers – but she has felt their gaze
upon her and even had a quick psychic brush with Mater Lachrymarum in <i>Black
Tulip</i>… a taste, probably, of more serious confrontations to come. The Time Lady
has also discovered the raison d’être of the Three Mothers, each of which is
directly connected to one of the three negative emotions the Porphyrs feed on:
<b>fear</b> (Mother of Darkness), <b>sorrow</b> (Mother of Tears) and <b>despair</b> (Mother of
Sighs).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At this point in our season, I think I’ve managed a nice, slow-build crescendo effect foreshadowing what Penelope
herself is now viewing as an unavoidable confrontation with the Three Mothers
themselves – and she intends to be ready for it!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-44601158033035370232022-11-06T01:21:00.001-07:002022-11-06T01:21:21.791-07:00Season 17, Episodes 1-2<p> H<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">ello fellow space-and-time travellers!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">After the Baroque mini-series
</span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-key-to-space-33.html" target="_blank">The Key to Space</a></i></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">, it’s now time for a new regular season of </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Lady
Penelope’s Odyssey</i></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 1: Blackout</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Penelope’s
TARDIS receives a psychic distress call from Torchwood’s time sensitive Indira
Kapoor – but the signal comes from 1940, half-a-century before Indira’s birth
and right in the middle of the London Blitz! As Britain is living its darkest
hour, the Time Lady braves the blackout and the bombs to rescue the
time-displaced young woman from a web of shadows…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 2: Roma Mater</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">We
all know the story of Romulus and Remus, the she-wolf, the fratricide… but how
was the City of Rome <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>founded? Lady
Penelope and her new travelling companions, 17<sup>th</sup> century dilettante scholar
John Wycliffe and 21<sup>st</sup> century time sensitive Indira Kapoor, decide
to find out!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the differences between
myth and history can sometimes be quite surprising…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Quite
unusually, our Time Lady is now travelling with TWO companions – who were both
introduced in earlier scenarios: she met John Wycliffe during the
aforementioned mini-series and Indira Kapoor, who first appeared <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2015/08/season-9-episodes-1-4.html" target="_blank">quite a few seasons ago</a>, has long been a regular NPC in her dealings with present-day
Torchwood. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>Blackout</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b> </b>was a very tense season
opener, set against the dark backdrop of the London Blitz, with some very moving
“darkest hour / finest hour” moments – including a scene built around Vera Lynn’s
iconic song <i>We’ll Meet Again</i> to great
effect. I’ve wanted to do a Blitz story
for ages but could never find the right way to bring Penelope to this time and
place – it’s not the kind of destination a time traveler is likely to choose
and, unlike the Doctor’s blue box, Penelope’s TARDIS is a very reliable
machine, so I needed a Really Good Reason to bring her there: to rescue the
time-displaced Indira. What was she doing in 1940 London? Well, as you’ve might have guessed it, she had
been waylaid by a Weeping Angel! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When
Penelope finally brought her safe and sound in the TARDIS, rescued from the
clutches of the 1940s Forge, Indira decided that she wanted to join Penelope
for a few adventures in space and time before getting back to her day-to-day work
as a 21</span><sup style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> century Torchwood operative. Penelope also discovered that
the young woman’s time sensitive powers had been almost drained dry by her
chance (?) encounter with the Weeping Angel – a temporary side-effect, from
which she should normally recover in time, thanks to the TARDIS’ connection
with the vortex.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><i>Roma Mater</i></b> was what we could call an “imaginary historical” or, perhaps, a “mythical”:
in a similar vein to the lost TV Trojan War story, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Myth Makers</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, it exploring the “real story” behind a well-known
half-historical, half-legendary story – in this specific case the founding of
Rome and the tale of Romulus and Remus.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
episode started in 84 AD, with Penelope and her friend spending a nice Roman
holiday under the reign of Emperor Domitian (a destination the Time Lady had
already visited <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2018/11/season-13-episodes-1-3.html" target="_blank">back in season 13</a>) – no alien invasion to prevent, weird
mystery to unravel or sinister menace to counter, just three weeks of temporal
tourism in the Eternal City. And then, as they were preparing to leave for a
new destination, the scholarly (and insatiably curious) John Wycliffe wondered
about the possibilities of witnessing the true events behind the mythical birth
of Rome back in 753 BC – and the rest, as they say, is (more or less) History.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Of
course, they discovered that the truth was quite different from the well-known
tale, with the mythical Romulus & Remus twins being in fact a single
individual, young prince </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Romus</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, fated
with the difficult task of uniting the Latin and Sabine peoples against their
common enemy, the mighty Etruscans. It was a very psychological, motive-driven
story, with a single (but quite surprising) fantastic element thrown in –
something on which I will come back in a future post, for it will (most probably)
have some repercussions in one of our next episodes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Back
to the story of Romus. The scenario itself took a very interesting turn in
actual play, thanks to Sylvie’s inspired interpretation of her character: right
from the start, she decided that Penelope would be very reluctant to meddle
with these half-mythical events, as a direct lesson from her harrowing
adventure in <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2020/03/season-14-episodes-5-6.html" target="_blank">Atlantis</a>, back in season 14. But once she was involved in the grand
wheel of historical fate, she played her cards masterfully, setting Romus on
the path of his grand destiny, while ensuring that her own role in the story would
never be recorded – an impressive demonstration on how her character has grown as
a Time Lady and learned from her past experiences.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
climactic scene, a dramatic (but purely dialogue-based) facedown between
Penelope and the Etruscan king who was Romus’ main enemy, gave Sylvie the
opportunity to give an inspired, impressive performance of the “Hell hath no
fury like that of a pissed off Time Lady” variety – and the wrap-up, aftermath
scenes were also highlighted by some great roleplaying, including Penelope’s
interactions with a young, eccentric Etruscan prince who embodied the possible
future of his people as part of Romus’ dream of a great city…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">See
you soon for episode 3 and beyond!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-39579163892455540212022-08-07T04:37:00.000-07:002022-08-07T04:37:04.562-07:00The Key to Space (3/3)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Third Fragment: The
Twilight City</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I. The Shadow Theatre</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Penelope’s
quest for the final fragment of the Key takes her to Paris. While Louis XIV is busy
building Versailles castle and becoming the Sun King, a sinister Harlequin is treading
a secret stage before an entranced audience. But what is the true purpose of
the Laughing Mask’s comedy of madness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together
with her old friend Bellegarde, the Time Lady investigates…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">II. The Final Masque</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The
Shadow Theatre has given its last performance - but the Laughing Mask is on the
run, plotting a terrible vengeance against Louis XIV and his court of
sycophants. Penelope and Bellegarde must stop the mad Harlequin before his
actions derail History. But first, the Time Lady must face the three faceless rulers
of Twilight, also known as the Gods of Ragnarok…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And thus ends </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Key to Space</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, our
six-part </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">baroque cycle</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, set in the
cities and courts of 1668, from Charles II’s London and Oxford to
legend-haunted Prague and Louis XIV’s Versailles…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">To
be fair, it was more of a trilogy or triptych, with each of its three segments
being divided in two parts for convenience and ease of play.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So
how did our final two-parter go down in actual play?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Well, wonderfully!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But before we get to Penelope’s final
decisions, a few words about the historical context, references and personages of
the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">City of Twilight</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
scenario featured many historical NPCs from the world of French classic
theatre, including cameos by the famous playwrights <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moli%C3%A8re" target="_blank">Molière</a> (whom Penelope had
already briefly met 20 years before, in her previous incarnation) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Racine" target="_blank">Racine</a>,
as well as some slightly more substantial parts for the doomed actress <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquise-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_de_Gorla" target="_blank">Thérèse“Marquise” du Parc</a> and the actor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grange_(actor)" target="_blank">La Grange</a>, Molière’s most talented and trusted
disciple in his later years.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But
the historical figure who dominated the whole show was, of course, the King of France <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV" target="_blank">LouisXIV</a>, then aged 29 and in the process of becoming the glorious, so-called
Sun-King. The monumental construction site of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles" target="_blank">Versailles</a> castle and the
<a href="https://eternamenta.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/midsummer-night-under-a-veil-of-grand-divertissement-royal-1668/" target="_blank">extravagant royal feast</a> that took place there on the 18</span><sup style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> of July
1668 played a major role in the plot, embodying the heady mix of splendor,
vanity, domination and extravagance that would define Louis XIV’s reign in
history… While he hardly appeared in the scenario itself (he didn’t even have a
single line of dialogue!), Louis XIV’s presence loomed over the story from its
beginning to its end.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This
story gave me the opportunity to create my own imaginary solution to one of
France’s most fascinating and enduring historical mysteries – that of the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Iron_Mask" target="_blank">Manin the Iron Mask</a></b>!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But instead of
presenting it as a riddle to be solved, I orchestrated things to make the whole
Iron Mask business the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">consequence</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> of
Penelope’s adventure.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">To
cut a long story short, I made Eustache Danger (the purported, enigmatic
identity of the Man in the Mask) a young, revenge-mad architect who had been
socially destroyed by his association with Superintendent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Fouquet" target="_blank">Nicolas Fouquet</a>,
whose fall from grace and imprisonment were one of Louis XIV’s most dramatic demonstrations of power – and have, incidentally, often been associated with
the Iron Mask mystery.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Armed
with the second Fragment of Morrolan’s Key (which allowed its user to open
passages to other dimensions…), the driven architect had come into contact with
the Gods of Ragnarok, who had transformed him into a sinister Harlequin, not
only able to drive his audience mad with his sarcasms and antics but with the
powers of masking himself to other people’s perceptions and of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">changing his face at will</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> – think of him
as a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Vampire – The Masquerade</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
Malkavian adept at Obfuscate and Dementation and you won’t be far off. His
powers could have given him the possibility of precipitating the King into
utter madness – and even to steal his face and rule in his place…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Luckily
for history as we know it, the Laughing Mask was stopped in extremis by
Penelope and her friend Bellegarde (acting as His Majesty’s most special agent).
Naturally, the only way to prevent Harlequin-Danger from using his sinister
powers to escape and wreak havoc once again was to trap his ever-changing face
in a cage of its own… And thus the Laughing Mask became the Iron Mask…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As
for the <a href="https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Gods_of_Ragnarok?so=search" target="_blank">Gods of Ragnarok</a> (whom Penelope had already encountered with her
long-lost friend Everett Blake in this special episode), they played the
proverbial role of the “unseen hand”, the “power-behind-the-scene” (quite literally,
in this case) that had observed and, sometimes, manipulated events before
revealing themselves in the final act.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And
yes, Penelope did manage to outwit them and send them back to their
out-of-reality place of exile… a feat which she achieved by destroying the
three Fragments of the Key to Space, her father’s flawed artefact of power – a
dramatic gesture which was the perfect way to close this story.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In
a very touching epilogue, the Time Lady decided to go back to Prague to reunite
with the English student of alchemy and seeker of arcane knowledge John
Wycliffe, who had helped her during the <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-key-to-space-23.html" target="_blank">Secret City</a> segment and whom she had to leave
without a word of explanation to pursue her quest. And yes, you guessed it,
their reunion ended up with Penelope welcoming the 17</span><sup style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> century
dilettante scholar as a new travelling companion in the TARDIS… </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">See
you in a couple of months (give or take) – for season 17 of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Lady Penelope’s
Odyssey</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> and more adventures in time and space!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-44265181669643807182022-07-20T07:43:00.005-07:002022-07-21T03:52:20.818-07:00Character Archetypes or: what is your D&D doing in my DWAITAS?<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While I definitely don’t intend to convert from my own
heavily house-ruled brand of 1<sup>st</sup> edition DWAITAS to any other
system, I must say that several features of the new <b><a href="https://cubicle7games.com/doctors-and-daleks-available-to-order-now/" target="_blank">DOCTORS & DALEKS</a></b>
rulebook published by Cubicle 7 have struck me as particularly well
thought-out, with a very strong accent on genre emulation. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of these features
is the list of six basic character classes – reminiscent of the old D20 Modern
ones (IIRC) but re-designed DW-style. The idea is simple: each of the six basic
D&D attributes (Strength, Wisdom, etc.) is tied to a specific character
class, which is clearly defined more as a heroic archetype than as, say, a
profession or career, which is, IMHO, the perfect way to go. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The six classes
are: the Charmer (Charisma), the Thinker (Intelligence), the Empath (Wisdom),
the Trickster (Dexterity), the Protector (Strength) and the Stalwart
(Constitution). The names are self-explanatory and if you want more details on
these classes, well, I direct you to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doctors
& Daleks</i> players book. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Each class provides a wide array of special
talents and other signature abilities which (this being, basically, D&D)
are acquired as the character gains levels (and which, incidentally, take this
iteration of DW in RPG form in a completely opposite direction to the one
followed by DW 2<sup>nd</sup> Edition, which took all our beloved traits out of
the equation but I won’t elaborate on this).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">As I was thinking about these six classes (let’s call
them ‘archetypes’), I realized that they could be readily translated into Doctor
Who RPG 1</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">st</sup><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> edition terms, since the six attributes of the Vortex
system are almost identical to the classic D&D six (with a few variations –
Wisdom being replaced with Awareness and Constitution with Resolve… but these
actually make things even more logical, e.g. Stalwarts being defined by their
high Resolve). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">These six archetypes could simply be used as simple and elegant
templates for beginning player-characters (especially with new players, I’d
say), with their associated special abilities and talents being represented by
(wait for it…) a list of possible good traits – YES!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">So here is the result of my little conversion work –
and I must say I find it quite interesting. (BTW, for simplicity’s sake, I’ve limited
the listed possible good traits to the ones listed in the 12</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">th</sup><span face="Arial, sans-serif">
Doctor rulebook, leaving special traits out).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Let’s start with the ‘prime requisite’ attribute – the
one which should be at least equal to 4:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Charmer
= Presence</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Empath
= Awareness</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Protector
= Strength</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stalwart
= Resolve</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thinker
= Ingenuity</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Trickster
= Coordination</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">And now, on to the typical/recommended good traits:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Charmer:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">
Attractive, Charming, Friends, Lucky, Noble, Owed Favour, Voice of Authority</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Empath:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US"> Animal
Friendship, Charming, Empathic, Friends, Hypnosis, Psychic Training, Sense of
Direction</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Protector:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US"> Brave,
Indomitable, Military Rank, Noble, Quick Reflexes, Tough, Voice of Authority</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stalwart:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">
Brave, Face in the Crowd, Fast Healing, Indomitable, Military Rank, Sense of
Direction, Tough</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thinker:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">
Biochemical Genius, Boffin, Percussive Maintenance, Photographic Memory,
Resourceful Pockets, Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow, Technically
Adept</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Trickster:</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US"> Face
in the Crowd, Keen Senses, Lucky, Owed Favour, Quick Reflexes, Resourceful
Pockets, Technically Adept</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Yes, by some quirk of fate, each list has the same
number of typical traits (seven). </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">These lists are not exclusive lists; they simply show
which good traits would go well with each archetype; if you really want to make
a rule about this, you could say that the character must purchase at least 2
points worth of these recommended traits.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">I was amazed by how easy this little conversion work
was – and, if anything, it shows that the underlying idea behind the six
<i>Doctors & Daleks</i> classes is a very sound and apt one in terms of genre
emulation, since it translates so nicely and easily to TOSTIL (That Other
System That I Love </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-US">).</span></p><br /><p></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-17826655678058823472022-07-17T13:29:00.000-07:002022-07-17T13:29:02.362-07:00The Key to Space (2/3)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Second Fragment: The Secret
City</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I. The Cursed House</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Lady
Penelope’s search for the second fragment of the Key to Space takes her to
Prague, a city full of stories and secrets, memories and mysteries. Her steps
soon lead her to the Jewish Ghetto, where the shadows of the past and the
threats of the future lurk at the threshold of a troubled present. There, in a
forsaken house, a dying man of wisdom is waiting for her…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">II. The Hidden Legend</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Now
in possession of the second fragment of the Key, Penelope must confront a man
who should have been dead for 75 years – former charlatan Edward Kelley, now
known as Doctor K, hidden master of the Imperial Secret Cabinet. Meanwhile, a religious
pogrom is brewing and a well-kept secret is about to step out of the shadows,
into the streets of the Ghetto…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Of course, the Golem of Prague made a spectacular appearance - but it was a reinterpreted golem, made of the very stones of the Ghetto and given life by the combined powers of telluric energy (the 'signature shtick' of Penelope 7 - see our last season) and the collective unconscious of an entire community. Part two was extremely moving, with some very emotional scenes dealing with the trail left in Prague by Morrolan, Penelope's long-dead Time Lord father... Also, that scoundrel Edward Kelley finally met a fitting end - yes, it was the Third Defenestration of Prague!</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Next
stop: Paris!</b></span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-35807201139949040792022-07-02T21:58:00.004-07:002022-07-16T02:58:46.532-07:00The Key to Space (1/3)<p><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">In
this six-chapter mini-series, Lady Penelope goes on a quest all around 1668 Europe to retrieve the three fragments of
the Key to Space, a prodigious (and quite hazardous) device crafted by her late
father, the Time Lord Morrolan, also known as the Architect… Who knows what hidden perils, mysteries and revelations await her?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">First Fragment: The Shining
City</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I. The Hollow Court</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lady Penelope’s quest for
the Key to Space first takes her to Whitehall Palace in London, the seat of
King Charles II’s decadent and intrigue-riddled court. Her search soon brings
her to join forces with England’s rising star architect, Christopher Wren, to
whom her father had entrusted the first fragment of the Key – which has just
been stolen by an unknown party… </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">II. The Invisible College</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US">Penelope’s search for the stolen
fragment of the Key takes her to Oxford, where she quickly draws the attention
of the Invisible College, an ancient secret institution fallen under the
influence of the mysterious Twilight People. But what is the true agenda of
these elusive entities? And why are they
so interested in Christopher Wren’s dream of a new London?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><br /></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Aside
from Christopher Wren himself, this first two-parter featured quite a few
historical guest stars and cameos, including Charles II, his various mistresses
(well, as far as 1668 was concerned: Barbara Palmer née Villiers, Moll Davis
and Nell Gwynn), his wife and his brother James, the inevitable Samuel Pepys,
John Denham (reinvented here as a truly tragic figure), the polymath genius
Robert Boyle and Lady Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle and author of
that strangest of utopias, </span><span>The Blazing
World</span><span>…</span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Next stop: Prague!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-58774404935073577872022-06-19T13:37:00.002-07:002022-06-19T13:37:39.606-07:00Lady Penelope Rides Again!<p> Our sixteenth season was great - but clearly left us wanting for more, probably because its two halves had been separated by a longer time gap than usual, because of the <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-other-not-so-great-hiatus.html" target="_blank">Not So Great Hiatus</a>. Sylvie and I were supposed to start the first season of a new campaign for another, completely different game... but in the end neither of us felt ready for this. So we decided to bring our Time Lady back far sooner than was planned - not for a seventeenth season but for a limited 'mini-series' of six heavily connected episodes (or, if you will, a trilogy of two-parters). Yes, that's right, we're going a bit FLUX here - but this mini-series will have a very different feel. I'm not divulging anything yet (SPOILERS!) but the basic premises we agreed on was to use a single historical setting, for a longer immersion than is usually the case...</p><p>I started working on the storyline one week ago or so and the ideas have been flooding in... We'll play the first episode next Saturday... A bientôt ! </p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-85803014587929597002022-05-29T00:40:00.005-07:002022-05-29T00:40:46.738-07:00Season 16 Finale (Episodes 14-15)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 14: Trail of the
Lloigor</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Channeling
their eldritch energies through a trans-temporal nexus, the Lloigor are trying
to use the Cardiff Rift to break the quantum barrier that imprisons them in a
single continuum. Racing against Time itself, Penelope must reach 2024 to prevent
the realization of the sinister entities’ master plan – but her old enemies are
determined to throw her off-course…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 15: Cwlwm</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Having
(at last!) arrived in 2024 Cardiff, Lady Penelope must deal with the traitor at
the Torchwood Hub, before facing the primal might of the Timeless Lloigor as
they prepare to wreak havoc on our reality (not to mention solving the
mysteries of the National Eisteddfod). A climactic conclusion to the Power of
the Earth story arc – and the end of another season… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Aside from a dramatic
dimensional showdown with the Lloigor, this definitely Welsh episode also
featured the historical character <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolo_Morganwg" target="_blank">Iolo Morganwg</a> and the pseudo-historical
character <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolo_Morganwg" target="_blank">Geraint the Blue Bard</a>. If you’ve never heard about them, check them
out on Wikipedia – their story is just fascinating!</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">And so concludes the
sixteenth season of <b>Lady Penelope’s
Odyssey</b> – a season which was split in two because of the aforementioned <a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-other-not-so-great-hiatus.html" target="_blank">Not So Great Hiatus</a>. And perhaps because of all this, it will definitely fill a
special niche in my memory as a veteran (nah, grizzled) GM. Aside from all
this, the interruption actually allowed me to steer the direction of the season
finale in a completely different direction than what I initially had in mind
(and hadn’t quite managed to foreshadow yet, so all this reshuffling happened
off-stage, unbeknownst to my dear player and compagne).</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">When I immersed myself back in
my old notes and re-read the blurbs of episodes 1-8, I had something of a brainwave
(no, it was not another stroke…): the whole “Power of the Earth” theme, which
had been running like an underground river in the background since Penelope’s
latest regeneration in season 15, was definitely the way to go and gave me a
perfect opportunity to bring back Penelope’s arch-enemies, the Lloigor, with
some unexpected revelations about their origins and answers to some very old
questions about Penelope’s father, the Time Lord Morrolan… old and new, past
and present, the perfect way to end up the seventh Penelope’s second season!</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">So what about the other
idea, the one that I dumped for this Big Lloigor finale? Well I’m not telling (since Sylvie is reading
this blog) and I’ll keep in store… perhaps for season 17? </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">See you in a few
months – and thanks to those who sent me words of support and kindness. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">La vie
continue…</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-36560930114141938072022-05-08T12:14:00.004-07:002022-05-08T12:14:47.176-07:00Season 16: Episode 13<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 13: Last of the
Wampanoags</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">New
England, 1774. Answering a call for help from an old friend, Penelope discovers
two communities in turmoil. As tensions flare between colonial settlers and Native
Americans, dark forces from a forgotten past are awakening in the depths of the
Earth. With the help of allies from each side, the Time Lady must once again face
her old arch-enemies… the Lloigor!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As implied from the title and
the blurb above, this scenario mixed a somewhat Lovecraftian vision of colonial
America with a strong ‘Last of the Mohicans’ vibe and some elements from
Algonquin folklore. It also involved several key ingredients from our own
continuity about the Lloigor, different time continuums and the telluric Power
of the Earth. The “old friend” mentioned above was Alicia McLaren née Maddox, a
psychic / time sensitive first introduced in “Stolen Pasts” (season 9, episode 7)
and later seen in “Hellfire” (season 10, episode 7) and “Cry of the Banshee”
(season 12, episode 1).</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As is often the case, actual play
brought its fair share of unexpected turns and twists – including a very
amusing ‘oops’ moment by Penelope herself during the initial reunion with
Alicia ; the NPC had just mentioned the Boston Tea Party – a reference which
was not understood by either of Penelope’s companions, so the Time Lady
explained that this event was “the first step leading to the birth of the
United States of America”, which caused Alicia (whose husband Sean had joined
the ranks of the American rebels) to shed tears of hope and joy: “So we ARE
going to win! This changes everything!” What made this especially funny is that
Penelope had, mere minutes before, sternly warned her companions about the
dangers of meddling with history and judging the past with the benefits of
historical hindsight…</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">We had a GREAT time. The
episode marked a high point in the current season; it was quite epic, with a
constantly rising dramatic tension, some very moving moments and quit a few
memorable scenes. “Fantastique!” said Sylvie, right after the end…</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As the antepenultimate (I
love that word…) episode of our current season, “Last of the Wampanoags” also
opened the doors to the final diptych, in which the Lloigor will, of course,
play a prominent part… See you soon for the penultimate episode!</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-48121631969523644122022-04-24T01:35:00.006-07:002022-04-24T01:35:41.128-07:00Season 16: Episode 12<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 12: Time and the
Land</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Penelope
is back in the alternate 22<sup>nd</sup> century of New Camelot, in the court
of King Arthur the Second – but her true destination is the Hidden Kingdom of
the Tanu, where her former lover King Fenn is about to face his ultimate
destiny. There, she will discover the answer to the Riddle of the Two Dragons
and the last secrets of Excalibur, her father’s masterwork.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As usual, a few notes about
this episode:</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">It was a very
character-driven episode, centered on Penelope’s decisions and with no real
antagonist or conflict – but it was certainly not a “time-off” story. Indeed,
it marked a pivotal milestone (so to speak) in our Time Lady’s personal
evolution, as well as in the whole King Arthur / Tanu plotline that has been
around since our first two seasons.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Penelope’s seventh
incarnation seems to be clearly marked by the pursuit of wisdom and the
“great-power-great-responsibility” theme.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The story itself revolved
around her interactions with various key NPCs, including the Tanu King Fenn,
who played a major role in several previous stories – his last appearances were
in the first episode of season 14 (where he was at the very heart of the story)
and, less prominently, in the third episode of season 15 (Penelope’s latest
regeneration, which gave her an even greater link than before to the Power of
the Earth, the telluric energy which has played such an important role in our
various New Camelot / Tanu / Lloigor stories). There were still some loose ends
to tie regarding this character and his ties to Penelope and NOW seemed the
perfect time to do so.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Having recently realized
that her old arch-enemies the Lloigor seemed to be entirely absent of the main
future continuum (as opposed to the alternate timeline New Camelot) and that
her father Morrolan’s own discoveries about the Power of the Earth hadn’t yet revealed
all their secrets and mysteries, Penelope had decided, at the end of our
previous episode, to seek some answers from the Tanu – particularly from Queen
Alba (wife of King Arthur II) and her half-human, prescient daughter Princess
Dana.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">So I decided to wrap up my
various New Camelot / Tanu loose ends into a coherent storyline, adding two new
narrative elements: the aforementioned Riddle of the Two Dragons (my own
interpretation of the well-known tale about the boy Merlin discovering two
fighting dragons beneath King Vortigern’s tower) and the first clear indication
of a “new deal” regarding the Lloigor, Penelope’s most enduring arch-enemies… who
have apparently completely vanished from this continuum too. Could this have
something to do with the incoming season finale? We’ll know soon enough!</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">An important aspect of this
episode was how it brought Penelope back to the very first elements of her
unique heritage and odyssey: the sword Excalibur, the very existence of the New
Camelot future, her father Morrolan’s secret experiments and his connections to
Arthurian legend… and even the mysteries of her own TARDIS…</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Last but not least, New
Camelot also provided the perfect new home for Just Penny (Penelope’s
single-lived clone – see last episode). We’ll take a short break next weekend –
see you in a fortnight or so for the antepenultimate episode of our season!</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-34306912921752233722022-04-17T02:19:00.008-07:002022-04-17T02:19:47.602-07:00Season 16: Episode 11<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 11: Lady of the
Future</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Cheem
has been saved – but the battle has just begun!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On New Earth, Penelope and her allies have decided to strike back at
Lady Cassie… but how do you fight a quasi-immortal, über-rich, mega-famous galactic
icon? In the New New York Senate? At the Galactic Stock Exchange?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the dark streets of the Undercity?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what will be Lady Cassie’s next move? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As usual, a few notes about
this episode:</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">A direct follow-up to last
week’s episode, this story had an even stronger RTD-vibe, with a serious dose
of political satire and social commentary. Set in New New York, a hundred years
or so after the Bliss disaster (and several decades after the Renaissance of
New Earth), this episode also gave me the opportunity to play former Novice
Hame (yes, I’ve decided she was still alive after all this time – this is the
far, far, far future, OK?), now Mother Hame, founder of the Sanctuary (the new,
post-Plenitude galactic hospital) and leader of the Church of Boe (waiting, of
course, for the Face’s Second Coming).</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">As an extra nod to the RTD
era, the story also featured a clone of Lady Penelope (à la Metacrisis Doctor),
nicknamed Just Penny, created by none other than Lady Cassie herself (who
else?) and whose very existence proved to be the pivotal element of the story.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">In the end, Penelope
resisted her urge to go all “Time Lord victorious” on Lady Cassie, wisely
illustrating the proverbial saying about great power and great responsibility.
A great episode, which proved quite personal and emotional in actual play.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Next week: Penelope take
Dorian, Xara and Just Penny to her beloved alternate New Camelot timeline,
where she intends to delve further into the mysteries of Earth Power…</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-45306619066249663132022-04-10T02:25:00.008-07:002022-04-10T02:44:34.265-07:00Season 16: Episode 10<p> <b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 10: Evergreen</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">In the impossibly distant future, Penelope and her companions visit the lush, beautiful green world of Cheem, home of the noble Tree People, humanoid descendants of Old Earth’s primordial forests. Unbeknownst to the travellers, their arrival will set into motion the cogs of a long-prepared plan threatening the freedom and the very life of the Forest of Cheem…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">A usual, a few notes about this episode:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This story was long overdue, since Penelope and Dorian had been invited to Cheem by the Tree Lady Twane (cousin and lookalike of the beloved Jabe) back in episode 5 of season 13 (yes, that was </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">three</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> seasons ago…), during a brief but memorable encounter in New New York’s hospital. At the time, my intention had been to run a Cheem-based episode before the end of the season but this was not to be, mainly because I couldn’t find a suitable slot in the ongoing season arch and by the end of season 13, Penelope and Dorian had had their own (and quite moving) </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">parting of the ways</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But I kept the “Cheem rendez-vous” idea in store, should Penelope and Dorian get reunited, which they did in our last episode. The presence of Penelope’s other current companion, the young Xara Anderson, a would-be ethnologist-planetologist, made the green world of Cheem an even more relevant choice of destination for their reunion trip…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The episode obviously made heavy use of RTD-era lore – the Forest of Cheem, New Earth (which Penelope and her friends will visit next episode!) as well as the main villain of the story, who was none other than a certain Lady Cassie, clone-child of the original Lady Cassandra and heiress to her fabulous fortune (and an interplanetary corporate empire known as Cassandra Unlimited), still looking like a beautiful woman in her twenties, since she was only in her eighties… </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And unlike her progenitor who found redemption at the moment of her death, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">this</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Lady Cassandra was as callous, greedy and narcissistic as the original when she first appeared in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The End of the World</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Due to the structure of the story (and to her role as the hidden mastermind of a very ugly corporate conspiracy), Lady Cassie remained mainly off-stage, appearing only in a single scene (and as a hologram!) but she’ll definitely play a prominent role in our next episode, which will see an angry Lady Penelope take the fight against Cassandra Unlimited to New New York (more on that below* and next week).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The plot dealt (quite predictably) with ecology, as well as with politics (we could sum up the main themes as political independence and ecological integrity), allowing me to develop my own version of the Forest of Cheem’s society, which I divided into two opposite political factions: the Anthropophiles (eager to preserve and even strengthen their ancestral ties to Humanity) and the Primordians (in favor of an isolationist </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">return to roots</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">). In the end, the two factions had to unite in order to save their beloved world from either ecological destruction or corporate enslavement, heralding a new age for the Forest of Cheem… </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And of course, this particular Gordian Knot could only be cut by the Lady Penelope, using her current incarnation’s unique connection to the power of primal Earth. This special link, which owes to the circumstances of her last regeneration (see episode 3 of our last season), already played a significant part in some of our latest episodes… Wait, could this be the hidden theme-meme-McGuffin of the current season?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Well, only Time will tell.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">* POST SCRIPT: NEXT EPISODE</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Originally, our next episode was supposed to be a New Earth-based futuristic yet retro mobster story, somewhere between “Dick Tracy” and “Judge Dredd”, called (you’ve guessed it) “Gangs of New New York” (too hard to resist, eh?) but since Penelope’s player has decided that foiling Lady Cassie’s Evergreen scheme was not enough and that she deserved a swift, devastating and fully-fledged riposte (yes, episode 10 ended up on a somewhat Time Lady Victorious vibe), I’ve decided to throw away “Gangs of New New York” to the scrap heap to cook up a direct follow-up story to “Evergreen”, set in New New York and centered on the clash of these two very special Ladies. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">This will give me the opportunity to fully play Lady Cassie (whom I already planned to keep in store for a future comeback, since she makes such a perfect ‘reverse image’ foe for our Time Lady), while making Penelope’s own decisions the “prime mover” of the story – something that does not happen that often in an ‘adventures-in-time-and-space’ type campaign, where things tend to follow a ‘destination of the week’ pattern. As a GM, I always try to favor players’ ideas and decisions over preplanned possibilities and Sylvie’s choice to initiate a “round two” against Lady Cassie (which really flowed logically and made perfect sense in actual play) gives me the perfect opportunity to do so.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">So it’s adios “Gangs of New New York” (hey, I even have my own Lost Stories now!) and hello “Untitled Episode” – see you next week for the actual title, the blurb and some after-play notes.</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-42361890563898659022022-04-02T21:59:00.002-07:002022-04-02T22:01:19.981-07:00Season 16: Episode 9 (yes!)<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 9: Under the Loch</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">After
some R&R time on Avalon, Penelope decides to pay a visit to her former
companion Dorian, now living in the “M.I.7.” alternate reality, working with
its own earthbound Doctor and a young Kate Lethbridge-Stewart for Her Majesty’s
most secret service – just when the team is investigating some weird happenings
in the depths of Loch Ness. Sea Devils, anyone? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>A
few notes about this episode:</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It took place in an alternate 1980, with its own alternate (and
earthbound) Doctor acting as a super-agent for the M.I.7. (think of UNIT,
Torchwood and UNCLE all rolled into one). Both had featured prominently in </span><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2018/06/season-12-episodes-13-15.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">the
two final episodes of season 12</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> and this alternate reality was the one
where Penelope had dropped her former companion after their own, bittersweet </span><a href="http://dwaitas.blogspot.com/2019/08/season-13-finale.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">parting of the
ways</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> at the end of season 13.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The
overall story bore deliberate similarities to that of </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Doctor Who and the Silurians</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">, but with a much shorter and simpler plot.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>Of
course, my use of the Sea Devils was not entirely unrelated to their imminent TV
return but it also allowed me to explicitly introduce in play a notion which
had only been implicit so far – the fact that Silurians and Sea Devils are NOT
native to Lady Penelope’s own continuum. So far, these two species had never
been featured (or even mentioned) in our past fifteen seasons – and for a good
reason. In Penelope’s home reality (which also differs from the continuum of
the TV show in other, more obvious ways), Silurians and Sea Devils simply do
not exist - so the so-called “M.I.7.” reality, with its strong Third Doctor
vibe, was the ideal setting to introduce these creatures in play.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>Aside
from the emotional aspect of Penelope’s and Dorian’s reunion, one of the
strongest moments of this episode was a very tense (albeit purely verbal) confrontation
between Penelope and the new incarnation of the alternate, earthbound Doctor,
who now insists on being called “the Major” – think of the Third Doctor, but
with a personality resembling a particularly unpleasant caricature of the
Brigadier (who, incidentally, was prematurely killed off in this specific
alternate reality). I had anticipated some tension between this character and
the usually more pacifist Penelope – but it actually went beyond my
expectations, making the entire episode even more focused and emotionally
charged.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So,
Dorian is back in the TARDIS – at least for a few adventures. Both he and
Penelope have changed since their last encounter but they instantly “clicked
back” as soon as they got reunited. The presence of Penelope’s new travelling
companion, the very reasonable and responsible Xara, will undoubtedly add an interesting element to the mix!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i>Next stop: the forests of Cheem, in a very,
very far future, to honor a promise made a few seasons ago between Dorian and
one of Jabe’s cousins…</i></span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-46934643399816307532022-03-25T04:19:00.003-07:002022-03-25T04:19:52.933-07:00The Other (Not So) Great Hiatus<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">Hello
everyone!</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">Season 16 of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;">Lady Penelope’s Odyssey</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify;"> is finally back,
after an unforeseen and unprecedented mid-season hiatus of SIX months… Yes, the
last time we played was back in September 2021 – which now seems like another
era entirely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So
why such a long break?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In early
December, I suffered a vascular stroke, which led me to six weeks of
hospitalization (with restricted visits because of the COVID situation) and
left me with a half-paralyzed right arm and right leg. I was very lucky,
though, since I suffered no cognitive, memory or linguistic damage. The old
brain is still here and fully working. As for the body, well, I’m on the mend.
I can walk and type again but other fine-motor activities and things like long
walks are still very difficult – but I’ll spare you the ugly details.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As
far as our DW campaign was concerned, this unfortunate incident robbed us of
our 2021 Xmas Special, on which I had just begun to work when the stroke hit. Needless
to say, playing a Xmas Special six months after Christmas would have been
slightly silly – and perhaps a bit too emotional for Sylvie and I, considering the
way last Christmas turned out (or should I say did NOT turn out). So I’ve
scrapped the intended story and cooked up something new to re-launch our
interrupted season. We’ll play it in a week or so. See you then!</span></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7979259813687726542.post-81183120303173956992021-09-05T03:46:00.005-07:002021-09-05T07:57:54.999-07:00Season 16: Episode 8<p><b style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Episode 8: Heritage</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">January
2022. Penelope and Xara are back in Shetland for a short winter vacation,
enjoying the hospitality of their friends at Ravenscroft – just in time for the
Up Helly Aa fire festival! But the celebration of the past sometimes uncovers
questions which can only be answered by time travellers. Or can they?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tale of identity and uncertainty… with
Vikings and Picts!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 85.4pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">This was a nice episode –
the perfect “back to Earth” story before our mid-season break. It started
with a somewhat cosy, familiar atmosphere, re-using the main NPCs and locations
introduced in our first Shetland story (season 15, episode 11) – folk music,
local color, majestic landscapes and all that… and led quite logically (and, I
must say, quite beautifully) to a short temporal expedition to 850 AD, just to witness
HOW the first Viking settlers interacted with the local natives – which is
actually a hotly debated topic among historians and archaeologists, with two
main opposite hypotheses (the “peace school” and the “war school”). The result was a very tense, psychology-oriented episode of the “pure
historical” variety (no monsters, aliens or weird occurrences aside from the time travellers' own interventions), leading to a nicely
open-ended conclusion… Next stop: Avalon!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 85.4pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 85.4pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">See you in November
(or so) for the second half of our sixteenth season!</span></i></p>Olivier Legrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02199905638515843374noreply@blogger.com1