World Building Part 4 - Радио станция УВБ-37 (Radio station EOD-37)

This popped back in to my head recently after a couple of twitter posts in my feeds regarding number stations and home -brewed gaming settings.  As with previous entries about Brunnen 1795 this was a work in progress as a hack of Simon Washbourne's most excellent Barbarians of Lemuria/Everywhen system, before I got distracted and moved on to other things.  It's underdeveloped and no doubt grammatically terrible, but has some of my ideas for a weird science/horror/russian Quatermass style game. I may dust it off again at some point though.  Thanks to Old Scouser Roleplaying (@nfbenson on Twitter) for the interest.

Радио станция УВБ-37

(Radio station EOD-37)

And a good morning to you tovarisch.

As it's past noon and the factory is closed for Sunday afternoon, I'm sure you'll all join me in raising a glass to our fine leader, and Hero of the Union, Comrade Kruschev.

Of course our comrades in the electronics and radio workshops will have knocked off already (part timers).

So, for brevity, it is 1960. You live and work in the small southern Russian town of Beslan in the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Beslan has a population of approximately 15,000. Its chief industry is assembly of tractors and heavy machinery, but it also has a number of other opportunities to serve the Soviet Union, including land work, textiles, and within the chemical plant a distillery that keeps Ossetia largely self-sufficient in terms of vodka.

In many ways, being a caucasus republic, Beslan is part of the great Soviet cultural bulwark against the influence of Western decadence that seeps across borders and weakly carries on the ether, nevertheless polluting the airwaves with rock and roll, the imperialist BBC and US Armed Forces Europe, and even the revolutionary, youth driven Turkish pirate radio stations.

Turkish jazz comrades!!!

Even the muhammadans are susceptible to the morally weak Western traitors.

As it is just 15 years since the great patriotic victory, you may have served in that greatest endeavour, the defeat of Nazism.

Man or woman, you answered the call.

If younger than 32 and male, too young to be an active combatant in the Great Patriotic War, you will nevertheless have been subject to two years national service.

Women under 32 may have attended the Beslan technical college, studying electronics, engineering, textile design and manufacturing or something else useful to society.

Ossetians are also deeply spiritual, for the most part, and the high percentage of ethnic Georgians give the area an unusual concentration of Georgian Orthodox chapels and churches, particularly in the open country and the hills to the south that border the Republic of Georgia. The sepulchre in the Church of St Ekaterina has been a key focus of festivals and ceremonial formalities for generations.

This of course does not mean that Marxist-Leninist Atheism is not heavily represented in Beslan, particularly in the more political classes, but by and large the opposing belief systems just make for animated debates after a late night on the vodka.

In recent years Kruschev's great electrification programme has lit up the republics and ensured fair and equitable access to power for all. For some corners of Ossetia the light bulbs we take for granted in the towns and cities are a thing of wonder...

Even as some stubbornly resist change (as is their right, earned by hardships endured to usher in a brighter future for all comrades in our new paradise), but Babooshkas are wise in their wariness... New power and technology brings wonders, but also dangers...

 BUT WITH IT, AND WITH OUR INDOMITABLE SOCIALIST SPIRIT, WE WILL CONQUER THE AETHER!

 You are the crew and staff at Radio Station UVB-37, a combination of local radio for the Beslan area and, less openly and somewhat more secretively, a jamming station that targets western radio carrier wavelengths and fills them with a variety of materials intended to block the offending material.

You may be a radio engineer, a producer, a presenter, a janitor or any combination of the above.

The Station is overseen by Comrade Doctor Bukovsky, the head of radio and electronic studies at Beslan Technical Academy.

If you are a radio technician / electrical engineer you studied with Bukovsky and he recruited you. He's kind of... Groovy... But very serious about the business at hand.

He takes your work extremely seriously and often spends weekends at the station, surviving on rye bread, thick black tea and Petra brand cigarettes whilst intensely tuning and re-tuning the wavelengths feeding his black, war era headphones. They rarely leave his ears, even when he sprawls his long limbs and torso on the old, moth-eaten divan by the West facing window that overlooks the foundations of C-mast.

Things are looking up in Beslan. The land is yielding bumper harvests and the state has relaxed the once ubiquitous rationing in the last couple of years. Nevertheless, the memories of the ravaged land you grew up in are reinforced everywhere you go, in everything you see.

Memories...

Families vanishing from their homes, even before the Germans arrived...

Chasing cats and dogs through rubble... Then when they were too hard, or too few, helping your mother cut shoe leather into strips to boil with nettles and roots...

Doing your best to ignore the foetid smell of the recent dead when filling old pots and pans from the river...

Dodging patrols to loot meagre rations from dead and dying comrades, or the salty, dry biscuits and cured meats from dead Germans, although there were always far fewer of them...

Despite current lines of thinking and 'official' history that suggest the Germans died in their droves before our vengeful comrades, their always seemed to be far fewer corpses dressed in their field grey. And they were always more rigorous in policing their dead, at least in the early years.

By the end of course, all that remained after the thaw in Spring 1943 were corpses, often in various bizarre states of undress as their 'kamerads' had taken to desperately looting their dead to combat our greatest ally, the harsh winters that had blown in from the east.

Today, they are long gone, buried in pits, the stains of their presence replaced by the recovery of the things that were there before. Even managing to steadily grow around and over the wreckage of their machines... As if reclaiming them... As if they'd always been part of the land.

It took many years for the land to fully recover. Your bellies still ache from the hardships and sacrifices of post-victory. But your experiences were transformative. You, the people, the land, the war, even the vanished, all are part of the progress that will ensure a glorious future for our people. That hard won peace enables us to live, learn, grow and, most importantly, work for the common good and achieve our goal of a socialist utopia that works for the good of all.

We enter a new decade looking not to the past and dwelling on loss, but to the future. As Professor Bukovsky regularly says, technology is the key to achieving the socialist dream.

By conquering our surroundings we were able to live off the land.

By navigating the rivers and the oceans we were able to conquer even the furthest horizon.

Soon, rocket power will see us conquer not only the sky, but beyond.

But here, and now, we are conquering the very air around us... The aether...

Despite the pollution of the airwaves from the west, and increasingly from all stations of the compass, there are depths and... spaces... as yet untapped. At least by us... (Bukovsky is rather passionate, to the point of wild eyed obsession at times, particularly after vodka).

It is June 1961. The national holiday, declared by Comrade Kruschev to celebrate the heroic orbit of the Earth by Hero of the Soviet Union Yuri Gaga run, is over. This great, socialist achievement encapsulates the distance we have travelled since the yoke of the Tsars was broken and cast aside, swiftly followed by the power of the church. Spirituality is not a crime against the people, but mindless devotion to a sect is.

 Бога Нет

"There is no god"

 Hunger has been conquered by the strength of collectivity!

Brunnen 1795 - Play recap

It has become customary in our games to recap the action (or lack thereof) and post in our Facebook group, as we generally only get to play every other month at most and we are almost entirely shitfaced for the last couple of hours of every game, so recall is always poor.

I never got round to writing up the last episode, but will endeavour to do so at some point, but for now here is an example of just how unheroic and low grade my games tend to be these days, for whatever reason...

The Story so Far

1. Poetry night at the Moon and Pfennig
Manfred Krupp dodged his turn by standing on a chair and declaring poetry a third class art form, fit only for those who cannot create with light and colour. Surprisingly he won favour with his arrogance and posing, but then he does have a silver tongue. Hans the urchin stole some pennies and hid under the table. Nobody pressed him to perform. Glen Schmidt on the other hand rolled a load of old guff off his tongue, seemingly at will and gained the admiration of all for his sheer brass. Finally the ex-soldier Friedrich Grabler brought tears to the eyes of the room (although Manfred was probably faking) with his heartfelt war poem.

Unfortunately this was all too much for Udo Dirkschneider, a popular local up and coming player whom had a bright future in theatre before the Pogrom. He was somewhat in his cups all evening as it was but once he had had enough of the poetry he yelled and threw his stein at Friedrich and snorted, “AMATEURS… FOOLS… PETTY DABBLERS… YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF YOUR LACK OF WORTH… YOU ARE SNOT ON THE PAGES OF A LARGER PLAY AND YOU KNOW NOT WHAT LIES BENEATH AND BETWEEN…”

With this he pulled out a pistol and drunkenly swayed across the room. His eyes were bloodshot and weepy. After some more ranting he shot himself in the face but did not die quickly, or easily. Manfred, armed with one good handkerchief and at least an ounce of concern, checked the stricken playwright, only to have perhaps a quarter pint of blood coughed in his face as Udo pressed a small box wrapped in a crumpled handbill into the actor's hand. “Take this to my Father…” Udo croaked before shaking uncontrollably and fitting violently before one last choke, a rattle in his throat and he lay still, finally at peace. Or it would be so, had his face not contorted into a look of abject terror.

He had dirt ground under his fingernails, some were tattered and torn. The handbill was a tattered and water-stained invitation to view the debut of a ‘fresh and thrilling new play’ in Heideldorf the previous week. Inside the box was a key, ornate, the size of large thumb, and inscribed with cryptical arabesques. 

Father Otto Dirkschneider, Dirk’s father, is a priest in Uttenhoffe and tends to the spiritual needs of the locality outside Brunnen, between the western reaches and the edges of the Teutoburgerwald. After some discussion, a couple more cognacs and a brief diversion to see Hans the Fence at the Golden Kugel (where Manfred undersold the wooden box for a paltry sum) the company deigned to rest the remainder of the night before departing for Uttenhoffe to discharge their vague acquaintance's dying wish.

2. The Tower on the River

After a good night’s slumber, the artists determined that the easiest way to travel to Uttenhoffe was by skiff on the sluggish but as yet unfrozen river.  Mid-morning the gang passed by Mischer, a small village where a gypsy boat failed to sell them some lucky heather. An ill omen perhaps? Travelling onwards they spied a small jetty by a path leading into the dense fringes of the Teutoburgerwald.  A boat appeared to have been unloaded onto the jetty but the cargo not taken further, coated as it was with the ubiquitous frost. Being an aspirational group the gang determined to examine the cargo afore making off with it downriver. However some commotion in the treeline distracted Friedrich, and the three boar melee underway gave sufficient cause for salivation (wild boar making for a delicious roast). The ex-soldier handily dispatched two of the rucking beasts with shot and knife leaving the remaining combatant, a huge, scarred and one-eyed beast, to drag its prize into the trees. The detritus littering the scene, mostly tattered cloth and human organs, suggested that the three animals had been fighting over the ruin of a man.

Curiosity roused the artists to explore the path, lest the occupants of the abandoned boat (and perhaps the companions of the corpse) be in some distress and/or in a lootable state. Some yards up the steep and heavily wooded hillside trail they happened upon a guard-tower occupied only by the dead. Five men and women, deceased for some days, apparently killed at each other's hands. One was bitten around the neck and face, and another on the hands and forearms. The bodies wore well-tailored but worn leather jerkins and boots in the merchantman style. Weapons were amongst the dead, short swords and a dirk, as well as some small trinkets, tobacco and foodstuffs. Curiously there were also a couple of handbills similar to the one that Dirk had wrapped around his box. In better condition the hand-drawn imagery was clearer…

A hooded figure taking a mask away from its face to partially revel that behind it… Another mask…

And the text more fully legible...

‘Friends… Waldemar and Company invite you to witness the debut of a play in three acts, ACT 1: The Demoiselle d'Ys’

3. The Magistrate

As the light faded and the now shy sun dipped behind the canopy-draped hills deep in the Teutoburgerwald the companions heaved to at Uttenhoffe, little more than a walled village but at least an occupied and relatively safe settlement free from the banditry and worse that blights the main roads to the East and North of Brunnen.  Father Dirkschneider wasn’t at home, as his housekeeper Granny Grasser informed Manfred Krupp. He had left the previous day to conduct confessions and services at the woodlander villages of Gruuthuse and Mischer before attending the spiritual needs of the town of Dunnacht, half a day further downriver.  Granny Grasser, in between lengthy sucks of her sole remaining tooth, explained that Dunnacht’s previous pastor passed when the church roof fell in and crushed him in his pulpit some months ago.

Dunnacht was known by reputation to most occupants of these parts, being as it was the site of mass beatings and later burnings at the latter end of the pogrom.  The tales of how viciously the townsfolk turned upon the Calvinists and Lutherans that were formerly their neighbours have haunted many a fireplace since.

Retiring to the village inn, The Gelded Fox, to take in the fire and the hospitality of proprietors Karl and Wertha Tannenbaum, the gang hit the booze and evaluated their booty from the day’s adventuring.  Old compadre Didier Alencon and his travelling company regaled the patrons with his latest short play The Jester, a tale regarding an ancient god whose one power was to juggle balls to such unfeasible heights that one day they never fell back.  The punchline was that one did fall back, the star (Morrslieb) and that the other (Mannslieb) must also follow.  It wasn’t that funny.

Throughout the evening Didier’s capering was punctuated by the snoring of a tall and gaunt old man slumped at the bar, his long fingers still wrapped firmly around a stein.  Fellow patrons, in between rounds of banter and swearing, tipped off the companions that the elderly gentleman at the bar was in fact Manfred Haarwitt, seasoned magistrate and, latterly, burner of heretics and witches. Judging that her day had not yet seen enough excitement, young Hans decided to steal his purse.  Perhaps overcome by the heady contents of her several cups, or maybe simply too unrefined in her method, the young urchin’s attempt was interrupted by the realisation that the old man’s long fingers were no longer on his stein.  Instead they were detaining her wrist in a painful iron grip and a pair of rheumy grey eyes were regarding her with dawning awareness and curiosity.  Sensing that his young semi-ward had encountered difficulties Glen leapt to her defence with a holler, only to be knocked backwards by the impact of Hans on his chest as the magistrate, defying his apparent age and swinging the urchin like a weapon in a wide arc.  Friedrich, rising to his feet, was knocked down again by the bulk of the back-pedalling operator of heavy machinery, who was simultaneously roaring in protest at the failure of his great strength to offer any useful advantage.  Now fully alert and still holding a dazed Hans like a bruised ragdoll, Haarwitt interrupted the progress of a charging Krupp with the thunder of a discharged shot from a foot-long flintlock cavalry pistol and the actor took the impact high on his shoulder.  This may explain the dramatic pirouette that described a glorious arc across the salon, scattering cups, ale and patrons in its wake.  Glen, now simply furious, swung his blade with vigour (if not panache) and re-tailored the old man’s battered leather coat and drew some blood to boot.  Now fully awake and focussed upon his surroundings Haarwitt reared to an impressive height for 1795 and drew his side-sword… notched, well-used and thirsty looking it was.  Krupp, his palm stemming the weeping of claret from his wound, called forth across the inn and made a call for rationality and peace with great depth, timbre and impeccable enunciation.  Glen and the magistrate lowered their weapons and stood a moment, winded as they were by the sheer force of the actor’s projection, and the whole inn took a grateful breath.  Everyone was very… very… drunk.

4. The Dunnacht Horror

Following an alcohol and blood infused sleep the friends woke, famished, and broke their fast on black pudding and turnips.  Manfred Krupp was patched up by the ex-soldier Friedrich in field dressing style.  Manfred, looking for revenge upon his elderly namesake expressed sorrow and frustration upon learning that the patrician murderer of men, women and children had left at dawn.  The river, and Dunnacht, beckoned.

At noon the skiff was steered through the crumbling arch of the south wall of Dunnacht, a small town of modest means now sparsely populated thanks to the flames of the pogrom.  A heavy, granular rain battered the cobbles, forming insistent rivulets in the cracked and scorched paving in the square.  Blackened, almost glass-like in places, the site of the burnings was immediately before the ruined church, the Dunnacht Epiphanienkirche, roof collapsed and masonry walls collapsed inward on two sides.

Before the companions determined what action was to follow, a vigorous tremor shook the town causing dogs to bark and windows to shatter. Gathering themselves and regaining their feet they heard a clamour of panicked voices up the street from the square.  Down Böttcherstraße they found a group of locals, hysterically shouting, “The Aachen house… the Aachen house… oh the horror etc.”  Still being largely drunk from the previous evening the gang entered the house, finding little amiss in a spartan but lived in family home that looked to be the domain of a family of five.

Venturing behind the house however young Hans found the old oak doors to the cellar ajar and ventured down the stone steps into a dimly lit chamber.  The tang of iron, whale-oil and shit in his nostrils, he could make out a body strewn at the foot of the steps and, beyond two more, one atop the other. The latter two were children it appeared, barely discernible in the gloom from the two flickering oil lanterns hooked upon the walls.  A fourth body slumped, sitting, against a timber support, gasping fast but broken, excruciating breaths. A woman Hans saw as he pressed forth into the murk, the air close and clinging.  Before she expired she snatched words from the scant breaths she could muster against the clods of part-congealed blood that sucked and blew from her broken lips…

“Oh my life… My love… You’ve come!” 

By now Manfred, Friedrich and Glenn were surveying the scene and attempting to comprehend the meaning.

All felt a pressure in their ears, a squeezing against their temples and a chittering in their heads, like the chirruping of insects en masse.

Friedrich yelled out a warning and struck at Glenn.  Hans shook her head free of the distractions and leapt to her ward’s defence, to little avail.  The wiry soldier, with steely determination, cast the urchin aside and beat the shocked and confused Glenn to the stone floor of the cellar, amongst the blood and bodies of the Aachen family.  Manfred called across the cellar, his words of power and reason piercing the fug of the cellar, and Friedrich froze, midswing, legs astraddle above the prone nobleman beefcake, and regained his wits.

The three, their resolve temporarily broken by the scene, bolted for the steps, desperate for egress and the outside air.  As they panted and gathered their wits, spitting the bitter taste of bile and the dense miasma of that terrible chamber they considered events.  Shaken they were, and near broken by the experience.  Except Friedrich.  He wasn’t overly bothered to be fair.

Taking some control of the situation Manfred choked back the rising stomach acid and ventured back below to drag Glenn by his substantial ankles back to daylight.

The rain and some attention from the now rational Friedrich roused Glenn and the four gingerly made their way back to the square, only to find a small mob gathered by the churchyard howling and spitting.

“He’s there!” they cried, “There he his… murderer…!”

At a far corner of the churchyard, in the patch used for infants, a teenage boy barely older than 17 knelt by a plot of clawed up earth. Between the ragged, soil-encrusted fingernails of his hands he clasped a bundle of rags.  As the friends approached they could see it was the corpse of an infant he was rocking back and forth and speaking to in soothing tones.  Despite his rain-soaked clothes he was spattered with blood.  As he rocked the child, part of the shroud fell away to reveal legs like that of a small dog, only naked of hair and pallid skinned.

Hans saw the child reaching for him, mouthing words. Moving closer he heard the child speak…

“I am a dying god… coming into human flesh…”

All of this was rather unsettling, so they all went to the Golden Tap to regroup.  The boy was identified by the locals as Henry Aachen, the eldest of the Aachen children and a black sheep according to the rumours, as well as father to his sister’s child.  Now, parted from the corpse that was hastily reburied, he languished in a locked room in the cellar of the Tap whilst the companions sought victuals.

NEXT EPISODE:

• More pubs
• More cellars
• Glen has an encounter with a knitting needle
• Even less heroics
• Some other things I can't remember...

Brunnen 1795 Appendix - The Characters

As a GM I always love the character creation part of the RPG process, despite the fact that I, as a player, am rather lazy in this respect.  Over the last 25 years or so (I've resurrected one character from back in the day at least twice and another multiple times, including appearances in the background as an NPC (see Das Englander).  This has never posed a problem as Loz (our other regular GM) and I are Moorcock nerds so we both embrace the lazy concept of our characters essentially being avatars of The Eternal Buffoon.

This trait has, rather adorably, rubbed off on one of our younger players whom has taken to playing variants of the same character in everything, whatever the genre, the mighty (or otherwise) Glen Smith.

On this occasion the players really rose to the occasion and provided detailed and well reasoned backgrounds, even finding ace pics from t'interwebs that then led me to have to explain why photographs existed in 1795. Read on to find out...

Characters

Magda Jurgenstein, artist, previously of the underground nihilist group Düsternkinder, who painted solely in shades of grey and brown. Upon completion of each work, it was set on fire and destroyed, without ceremony. As this was done by the artist themselves, some doubted any paintings ever existed. Magda copes with the lack of artistic expression, and the horror of the mundane, with a raging laudanum habit. She is currently employed in a meat processing factory - initially denied employment due to her sexuality (and penchant for wearing skulls on her head), she was granted leave to work in the filleting section after her knife skills were described by the manager as 'sublime, like a razor edged spider weaving a delicate web of muscle destruction.' She works alone, at night.

The manager, one Viktor Unstahl, was reported for uttering such prose - he is currently languishing in a Schloss dungeon, awaiting trial for possession of undeclared poetic tomes.

Kapitän Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, aka Das Kapitän

German painter, sculptor, alchemist and chef. Between 1775 and 1776 he travelled in France and Italy, making numerous drawings of courtesans, which provided the subjects for many paintings finished on his return to Brunnen. Archenkolz fell into disrepute in Venice, when commissioned by Doge Alvise Giovanni Mocenigo for a religious sculpture. Archenkolz delivered a controversial interpretation of the martyrdom of St Jermome and was imprisoned on charges of blasphemy and witchcraft. He escaped, albeit after losing an eye during a duel, and fled across Europe.


Agnes Kohl (Stage name: Dove Drinkwater)

Scared of the dark and plagued by nightmares of an eternal night since childhood, Agnes was kept hidden away from society by her frightened, well-meaning but inept parents. Her only companions were her sister Irma, cousin Ruben and the family maid, Griselda, a great teller of tales. Though often kept inside, with Griselda's help Agnes was able to see the world through stories.

Her parents and Irma were two weeks into a three week journey to visit distant family the night that the star fell. Agnes was reading a book about witchcraft by Eloisa Di Pietro when she found herself seized by an overwhelming sense of dread. She ran to Griselda's room only to find her old friend dead, having passed quietly in her sleep. Agnes ran to her cousin's house nearby but he was not home. Hopeless, she tried to decide what to do next; then she made the mistake of looking to the sky.

She ran aimlessly, the story of The Order of the Silent Sisters of St Ekaterina in her mind, the last tale that Griselda had shared with her. She decided she would run to them, throw herself at their feet, rip the tongue from her mouth, do whatever it would take to hide with them. Agnes was too frantic to consider the fact that she had no idea how to find them.

After a few minutes of running she came across a well-lit building. She crept to a window almost entirely hidden by branches and looked inside. It was, she would soon discover, the Moon and Pfennig. She watched the second half of the 'The Boatman and the King' and listened to a lot of poetry (some of quite questionable quality) from her hiding spot. The world inside that room, a room of warm laughter and candles and fire, carried on indiscriminately as the world outside raged.

When the music started she entered, and it was not long until she taken under a thespian's wing.  Though she has lost her fear of darkness since the star fell (having realised that it was not the night that haunted her, but the dread of its inevitable approach), she rents a room at the highest point of the Moon and Pfennig, as Agnes has discovered she is happiest living in a place that is unrelentingly busy and bustling. She longs to forever be surrounded by people, noise and artificial light.

Glën Schmitt

Born 1750. His mother (Lilliana) married well but died in child birth. His father (Mutschek) was a successful playwright who penned such classics as ‘The Moon Under Oakfell’, ‘Silent Wood’ and ‘Joseph Ullage: A Tale of Sorrow’. His father also wrote propaganda pieces for the Holy Roman Empire. The combination of his father’s wealth, social status and crushing depression (due to Lilliana’s untimely death) made for a strange upbringing for Glën. His father would invite illustrious people of great fame over for banquets and Glën would spend many evenings watching through door cracks as his father engaged in wild sex parties with prostitutes from the brothel of Rosenstrasse.

Though a broken man, Mutschek treat Glën well. The finest silk clothing and the best food one could eat, meant that he soon became fattened and perpetually sick. By his late teens, he spent most of his time in a permanent state of drunkenness (ale and absinthe are his favoured tipples) and did little more than sleep with prostitutes and eat, ‘forcibly fattened goose pie’. One day Mutschek came home in a particularly drunken stupor after a fight with group of local peasants who were angered by his most recent play, ‘Holy Roman Order’, which depicted poor people as being a sort of pond-scum underclass. Upon arriving home, a scuffle broke out and he struck Glën down with his longsword cutting off his left ear and leaving a 4-inch-long scar across his face that stretches from his left eyebrow to the top right corner of his upper lip. Glën fought his father off and put him to bed.

The debacle shook Glën. He realised he had never been a fight before and that he was fat, weak and now also permanently disfigured. So, he spent his early 20’s training hard to lose weight & bulk up, learn to fight and even got a job at the local engineers learning to operate heavy machinery. Along with his physical training he also set out on a quest to improve his emotional and spiritual self. As part of this journey, he joined his father’s local parish in central Brunnen and quickly became one of their largest donators and service attendees. It was during this time that he became friends with the youngest and newest Bishop, Josef Furcht.

Living in the shadow of his father, Glën always felt small and insignificant. So, in his mid-30’s he decided to pursue a career as a playwright. After all, his father had paid so much for his education it would seem wasted to not use it in a productive way. It also provided ample opportunity to prove to his father that he was worthy of the family fortune when the time came.

Sadly, when time came to put on his first play for public performance, it was met with great protest as the locals had become aware of Glën‘s heritage. Instead of arguing with the peasants, he took to organising a meeting in the local parish to calm the local’s anger and stitch the tear in the figurative fabric that held the community and the church together. The event did not go well. A great fight broke out almost immediately after Glën began his opening speech. To this day, the fight is known as ‘The Brawl of Brunnen’ and is arguably considered to be the event that kick-started the 1787 uprising.

In 1790, 3 years following ‘The Brawl’ (as it is un-affectionately known), Glën met a peasant lady named Mongsida and fell in love. He became quickly fond of her family and, during many a drunken evening with her brothers and father, heard the peasant’s side of the argument regarding the church and wealthy families like his own. In July of 1790 Glën proposed marriage to Mongsida and took her to meet his father for the first time.

Mutschek however, took a strong and loud dislike to the idea that Glën was to marry a peasant and that evening, whilst Glën and her were sleeping, he took the same longsword he used to disfigure Glën with and drove it through the heart of Mongsida. He awoke to the scene of his dead fiancé and broke out into such an extravagant rage that he murdered 3 guards whilst in pursuit of his father who had fled.

Since the falling of the star in 1792, Glën has become a prominent face of the uprising. He is famous for his plays which are set in spring and (mostly) tell tales of the poor rising to defeat the rich and powerful. Oft times his works are performed live with accompaniment from Klaus Engel's Progressive Oompah Collective. Examples of his work include ‘The Unholy Roman Empire’, ‘Mongsida and I’ and ‘The Second Children’s Crusade’ (based on a painting found in the Moon and Pfennig).

He found additional underground fame when he masterminded the smuggling of 260 peasants out of central Brunnen during a Holy Roman Empire led mass execution in 1796. He can often be found in the Moon and Pfennig meeting with other artists and playwrights developing new pro-uprising propaganda. He is still yet to seek out his coward father and holds a burning rage for anybody associated with the church or the Holy Roman Empire. He will not rest until Mongsida is avenged.



Frederick von Gabler

Name - Gabler:

Meaning & History: Occupational name for someone who made or sold forks, from German gabel "fork".

Born in 1774 in the city of Eisenach, north of Frankfurt, Freddie has wondered around aimlessly since finishing his education. He played instruments since a young age and left home to join a travelling band. They parted ways after a year, due to artistic differences (and Hans wanting to roger him, frequently).

He moved from village to village, acquainting with the local frauleins, busking for money for food, drink, and a roof over my head. Often the "ladies" would put him up, but he moved on when he got bored, when they stopped giving him money or when he was frequently run out of town by angry fathers and/or husbands, often with his skin barely intact.

In 1792, he joined the Prussian army as they offered more money than he was making. As the French Revolution sparked a new war between France and several of its neighbours, including Prussia and Austria, he marched on Paris with the Duke of Brunswick, an army that was smashed by the French at the battle of Valmy. On the eve of the battle the star fell in the east, and the following day the blood of the dead and the dying turned black as it mingled with the blood, churned by boots and the black rain that fell throughout the day.

It was a bloody affair but Freddie fled the field with his life, disillusioned and sickened. He tried to pick up where he left off but life had changed, he had changed. He started writing poetry, and added it to his repertoire, busking and performing, whether on stage or on the street. However, the ongoing censure of the arts ensured it became tougher than before to make enough marks for beer and food.

Manfred Krupp

A romantic artist, known for his watercolours that direct "the viewer's gaze towards metaphysical dimensions". He was in the Pomeranian town of Greifswald at the Baltic Sea, where he began his studies in art as a young man. He studied in Copenhagen until 1777, before settling in Brunnen. He reflects in his works the growing disillusionment with materialistic society that is giving rise to a new appreciation of spirituality.

As the ideals of early Romanticism passes from fashion, he comes to be viewed as an eccentric and melancholy character, out of touch with the times. His patrons have fallen away living in relative poverty and now increasingly dependent on the charity of friends. He often spends long periods of the day and night walking alone through the woods and fields, often beginning his strolls before sunrise...


Minna/ Hans

Minna was born in 1780 in the brothel on Rosenstrasse. She had no last name that she knew of. Her mother Else was a famed beauty and a favourite among those that frequent the red light district in Brunnen. Else adored her daughter and tried to be a good mother. She frequently resolved to leave the brothel and take work somewhere as a domestic.

Shunned by decent society she had no choice but to stay at the brothel. Unaware of the cruelties of the outside world Minna’s childhood was one of relative luxury. Else was showered with gifts by her wealthy patrons and they never wanted for anything. The most generous of which were the clergy members she often ‘entertained’ of an evening. Minna was loved by the women in the brothel and was at her happiest watching them at their toilette, laughing and joking with each other.

When she turned twelve everything started to go wrong.
Gossip was that Fraulein Wilhemine, the madam of the brothel, had decided that Minna was nearly ready for her debut. It was clear to see that Minna had nothing of Else’s beauty or charm. The child was awkward, clumsy and altogether too scrawny. Wilhemine was undeterred and intended to make a return on her investment. The women would take it in turns dressing her up and applying liberal amounts of powder and rouge. Minna enjoyed this newfound attention and the opportunity to play dress up until she came upon her mother weeping one day. When she asked her what was wrong she simply said ‘I couldn’t save you’ and elaborated no further. Alarmed, Minna demanded that Ingrid, one of the younger working girls, tell her exactly what her ‘debut’ would entail. Pitying her, Ingrid tried to explain what was to come as gently as possible. From this moment on, Minna resolved to run away from home.

One night Minna was playing in the kitchen when she heard shrieks from upstairs. Fearing it to be her mother’s voice she hastened to her chambers. She stumbled upon a scene far beyond her comprehension. Her mother crying and tearing at a great beast of a man bearing down on her. She grabbed the nearest object (his latest gift- a heavy gilt hand mirror) and clubbed him over the head. The man died instantly. Else scrambled out from underneath him and held Minna for a long moment. Through tears, Else explained that this man was a very important man in the church- one of the highest ranking bishops. Minna would have to leave the brothel and never come back. Else enlisted Ingrid’s help to find an assortment of leftover men’s clothing and cut off Minna’s long brown hair. Else reasoned she would be safer as a boy in the dark streets of Brunnen, safe from Fraulein Wilhemine and hopefully, safe from the wrath of the church.

Since that fateful day Minna has been masquerading as Hans the street urchin, eventually falling in with the patrons of the Moon and Pfennig. Hans has since been known to tread the boards as of late, rather confusingly as a girl pretending to be a boy who is playing a girl. He has a usefully high voice, ideal for portraying Shakespearean heroines, unusual in a boy of fifteen.

Other People of Brunnen

Ruben Kohl

His first night working for the city guard, Ruben attended the scene of the murder of Tamás Németh and held the man as he died. Though usually unwaveringly diligent and loyal to his employers, Kohl finds he cannot resist keeping any works by Tamás that he confiscates. When he finds a new piece he hears the man's last breath in his ear again, as clearly as he would if he were truly in Kohl's arms once more.

Kohl dreams of Tamás often. His favourite work is 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'.





Connelly (Das Englander)

Connelly is a drunk and, most probably, a liar. His artistic efforts are desultory, his poetry and spoken word juvenile at best. He does show some dilettante talent with watercolours but, as he is paradoxically fond of saying, “Watercolours? Pah… wankercolours!” He is prone to fits of weeping and abject self-pity. 

Connelly's one contribution to the community at the Moon and Pfennig is the box-like contraption he calls the Talbotype, depite his never having used it to any useful effect. Even then it only came to the attention of landlord Adelfried Wurfel when Das Englander had exhausted his resources with which to pay for his room and vittels (he boarded there at the time). Adelfried, unsure of the value of his latest payment but generally impressed by the evident workmanship of the contraption, stood it in the corner by the big fire and it was some months before Connelly, once again in his cups, explained the purpose more clearly to Kapitän Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz. Das Kapitän became obsessed with the baffling image on heavy paper that Connelly presented to him that night (see below) and he bought the contraption from Adelfried and spirited it away to his lodgings. Some weeks later he made a triumphant return to the Moon and Pfennig and delighted the patronage with his bizarre claims that he could capture any likeness with the one-eyed, heavy timber box that he now dubbed the Heliobscura. Sotted on liebfraumilch and terrible cognac the revellers enjoyed the show, particularly the WHUMPHS of the flashed gunpowder that accompanied every pose and pout before the box. Days later however they were astounded to see the results and ever since the vain and artful have clamoured for further exposures, particularly the ever demonstrative Manfred Krupp with his penchant for mock-violent drama and spectacle. The results of the marvellous Heliobscura adorn the walls of Adelfried's upper salon where the artful and the pretentious hold court and admire their own images. And get really pissed.

Occasionally the provenance of the device, and the picture that fascinates Das Kapitän. become the subject of conversation amongst the patrons. It never lasts for long though, as Connelly and his works are poorly regarded and not considered in any way meritous or mysterious, and their attention and focus generally turn back to themselves in short order.