[fuser]

I approve this map.

On China :

If we want Japanese influence there, how about Nationalist China although rule the entire land but their authority is not complete. In north eastern part there are few quasi-independent ruler/warlord under Japanese influence although nominally part of the central government. This is a major issue of contention between Imperial Germany and Imperial Japan and a major reason why Japan went in alliance with Britain while Britain is obviously looking to check Germany everywhere.

Technology :

How about submarine aircraft carrier, quite a few were produced during ww2 albeit not very successfully.

Japanese submarine aircraft carrier

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Yeah, it makes sense to me that the Japanese zone of influence would be in the Manchurian region, perhaps stopping around Beijing and going no further. Kind of like a soft power Manchuquo, but instead of being an actual puppet of Japan or a conquered territory, it's just a zone of influence the Japanese have a ton of influence and financial investments in.

I like the idea of submarine aircraft carriers.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Dead Weight

Brandt’s heart was pounding against his chest as he sprinted through the forest, running faster and faster, not caring about his protesting muscles and tired bones. All he could think of getting past the next tree, the next tree after that, the next tree after that, as far away from the soldiers as possible. The moon watched as he raced under its pale light, running faster than his breath could keep up with. He slipped on a patch of grass and tumbled palms-first against the fallen wreck of an ancient tree. Ignoring the pain in his ankle and not caring if it was sprained or broken, he quickly scrambled around the log and huddled down for cover.

He gasped for air so hard he could see little flecks of white everywhere he looked, but he put his hands on his mouth to not make a sound as he couldn't help but pant. He rested there against the side of that fallen tree and a mossy pillow for what might've been half an hour or more, too tired to keep moving, and unwilling to stand up and put weight on his injured left ankle to see if it was just a sprain.

That's when he heard someone approaching. The forest was so still he could hear the sound of twigs shattering to pieces under footsteps. Brandt had never thought of how loud moving through the forest can be, but all he could think of now was the British soldier walking closer, no doubt following the direction Brandt had fled in. The sounds of leaves and twigs crunching got louder and louder. He could hear the faint sound of heavy breathing, as though the soldier had also been running, but eventually slowed down, realizing whoever he was chasing would have slowed down too, thinking time was on his side and not the side of an unarmed refugee about to be executed for jumping the border.

Arrogant bastard.

Brandt slowly crept near the edge of the fallen tree, closer to where the sounds were approaching. Keeping his head low, he kept a hand on his mouth to muffle his breathing and quietly pulled out his knife, not risking his pistol which was bound to attract attention.

In the silence of a forest that held its breath, he waited.

*****

"The fuck we gonna do?" Ziggy held his head in both hands, sitting on a battered wooden chair that was missing a leg. He had an unlit cigarette between two fingers of one hand, and a loaded gun they found in the farm house they stopped at. Outside was a torrent of rain, and inside there were leaks everywhere, and puddles of water throughout the creaking, abandoned home.

Brandt laid on his back on a pile of old blankets that smelled of dust and age, his head resting on a warped bicycle wheel. If he positioned his head just right on the spokes, it felt rather relaxing. He let out a sigh; Ziggy had been muttering to himself all afternoon saying the same thing over and over again, sitting with his head in his hands. The only problem is he kept fidgeting, and he didn't seem to notice he was fidgeting with a loaded gun next to his head and Brandt's. He was too tired to argue with him to put it away.

"We'll think of something." He wanted Ziggy to shut his mouth and let him get some sleep.

"I wasn't asking you," Ziggy snapped.

"Oh? Who were you asking, the rain?" Brandt smiled at his own joke.

"No, stupid, it's one of those things you ask but ain't really asking."

"You mean rhetorical?"

"Whatever. Just shut your mouth and let me rest."

"Oh, alright Ziggy." Brandt sighed loudly. There was just no winning with him.

"Stop calling me Ziggy."

Brandt looked up incredulously at him. "What am I supposed to call you then?"

"Bradley. That's my fucking name."

"But everyone's always called you Ziggy."

"I was too polite to tell people to stop calling me that. But now I'm telling."

Brandt didn't quite know what to say. "But everyone calls you that."

"Everyone's dead and gone. It's just you now, so stop calling me that. We ain’t cops no more. Just because you and the others had a nice desk job don’t mean you keep calling me some shit nickname you’d name your dog.”

Brandt blinked at Ziggy, who turned to look back at Brandt.

“I told you to stick with me working the beat. I told you you’d regret being a housecat. But you thought you needed to make something of yourself. You didn't know you already were something." Ziggy stared at Brandt. "If I hadn't known something was up with Hamilton, how many times would you be dead? I'm counting three: one by Hamilton and the other two by the men at the boat."

Brandt broke eye contact and went back to staring up at the ceiling, chewing his cheek as Ziggy chewed him out.

"I'm thinking you'da seen it right away too if you stayed good police."

Brandt clenched his jaw angrily.

"You wanna know why I was asking what we're gonna do? Because one good cop can't keep us both alive. It's hopeless man. We can't go back, and who knows if there's anything to go back to. We've been lucky to not see a Red yet. We keep going east, hoping we can sneak through the border up north and head to Montreal or God knows where, but we probably won't be lucky." He stood up and checked the chamber of his pistol. Brandt cautiously watched him, but Ziggy started walking towards the wide-open front entrance of the house. "The world is fucked, and I'm tired of carrying dead weight."

Brandt watched as Ziggy walked out the door and sat down on the half-rotted porch steps. The outdoor roof covering the porch had long-since collapsed, and the entire porch was soaking wet in the rain, but he sat down anyway. He put the gun in his mouth and blew his head off.

*****

Brandt had headed east a little further when he left the farmhouse, figuring the further east he went the better chances he had of slipping north into Canada, but decided to take his chances soon after. With no soldiers in sight and barely any cans of food left, he kept heading north. As long as he didn't run into any Brits along the way he figured he'd be fine. They controlled the big cities in the Canadian Corridor along the highway from Vancouver to the east, but everything in between had no master. As soon as the Brits marched or drove past out here, everything was either Red or lawless once more.

Once he hit the highway, he stayed in the tree line to the north and slowly moved east. He didn't care what happened to him when he ran out into the road with the last of his energy as soon as he saw a truck heading east. As he passed out from exhaustion he felt lifted up by a number of hands, and then surrounded in the dark by a huddled group of women, children, and the elderly. Then black.

When he woke up, he found that he was among American refugees. None of them knew about the situation in the Northwest: they had all left months ago before Portland fell. They were riding in a shipping truck, packed in the back in the dark with just a soft lantern glowing and flickering.

The truck stopped frequently, usually for hours at a time. He wasn't sure how many were up front but he got the impression it might have been just one tired driver dealing with multiple military checkpoints along the highway and his own fatigue.

After what might have been one or two days of driving, the truck stopped as usual. This time something was different, and angry shouting could be heard through the walls of the truck. He listened carefully, and reached for his gun in his pack as soon as he heard footsteps nearing the back of the truck. Everyone was quiet, waiting for whatever what might happen next. Before he could pull the gun out of his bag, the door of the truck was flung open, and before the Brit who wasn't expecting a mass of desperate humans in the truck could react, a pile of people started leaping out, scattering in all directions. Brandt wasted no time and ran as hard as he could with the sound of gunfire and people screaming in terror behind him.

*****

He crouched at the end of the enormous dead tree, waiting with purpose as the British soldier slowly approached, the soldier giving himself away with his panting breath. Brandt tightened his grip on his knife and flexed his arm just as the soldier stepped on a pile of leaves that sounded no more than a meter away. As soon as Brandt caught sight of the soldier's shoes, he lunged forward and stabbed wildly.

He fell back in horror as he immediately saw he had just stabbed a woman carrying a baby and a young girl in tow. His hands were covered in blood, and the baby was now crying on the ground where it had fallen out of its mothers arms. The young girl looked on at Brandt with the seeming indifference of the dead, staring right through him like he wasn't even there. All he could hear was the sound of crying, of whimpering, and the ocean-like pulse of the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears. All he could see was the mother's face, her eyes wide open, and on her face was a look of surprise. He crawled back on his hands, dropping the knife in disgust as soon as he saw his hands covered in red. He got to his feet and stumbled drunkenly to turn around, running eastwards without looking back, the sound of ghosts haunting him the further he went.

He didn't know how long he ran, but he didn't stop until he ran out of sturdy legs. He crawled a distance to the edge of the highway and saw nothing in sight. It was then that he felt something in his pockets. He still had the German marks in the envelope, all twenty thousand. In his other pocket were some carefully folded papers someone in the group of refugees must have slipped on him while he slept. He took a close look, his head still racing and spinning from exhaustion. Canadian citizenship papers.

"Harold Montgomery," he said, weakly. He cleared his throat. "From Vancouver, British Columbia."

He stood up slowly, walking into the middle of the empty road. To his east, Montreal and Europe. He turned around, looking one final time westwards. He stared for a moment, trying to remember the details of his life as he stood on that empty road staring out into endless forest and the distant loom of slate gray Northwest skies. He turned his back on the western stretch of the road and started walking east in the direction of Montreal.

[Frollein]

Ok, we should brainstorm a bit about the plot. Since I haven't had much sleep today, I'll just throw out a few questions for you. Basically, each of us is not only playing our own character, but is also implicitly representing our nation. So, think a bit about these questions not only from the personal perspective of your character, but also from the political interests of your country (not that the two have to be in harmony...).

1. What does your character want to achieve? Or what problem does he/she want to resolve.? It should also be a goal/problem that involves or affects most, if not all the other characters in the story.

2. What disaster will happen if the goal is not achieved? What is your character afraid will happen if he/she doesn't achieve the goal or solve the problem?

3. What must be accomplished in order to achieve the goal? You can think of this as a checklist of one or more events.

4. What could possibly go wrong? What event would make a failure to achieve the goal more possible?

5. What is your character willing to suffer or sacrifice to achieve his/her goal? Protagonists can be asked to give up their pride, self-respect, money, security, an attitude, an idealized memory, the life of a friend, or anything else they hold dear.

6. What rewards cold your character receive along the journey? These are not necessary for the goal to be achieved. They may be unrelated to the goal entirely. But they are something that would never have occurred if the characters hadn't made the effort to achieve the goal.

7. What concrete steps must the character take to get started towards his/her goal?

8. Which challenges impede these first tentative steps and are they indicative of greater forces that are already constellating around your character?

Ideas for these questions from here: http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/plot-outline.html

Remember: the object of desire for the countries (resp. their governments) is the top secret Tesla superweapon. Everyone wants it, because it would give them immense leverage over all their competitors. It will profoundly change the balance of power. They will try to use each of our characters to that end.

But what are the characters' motives to let themselves used in this race? Do they even know they are pawns in this game? Do they participate willingly, are they being dragged into it kicking and screaming, or at gunpoint? Do they secretly play a double (or triple or...) game, planning to betray their allies and sell the Tesla weapon to the highest bidder? Or force the powers that be to do their bidding? Do they even know that they are searching for a weapon, or have they been fed some bullshit and need to put the pieces of the puzzle together themselves? Etc., etc.

[The Sabbaticus]

*squibble squibble*

[Ornate Placebo]

Dammit, alternate histories always get me.




Something about the rain was liberating and crushing in equal measure. Some uncomfortable inertia developed and left me standing out there on the cobble, paralysed and exuberantly depressed. I don’t know. The dim fluorescents emanating from the few working lampposts laid bare each droplet as it landed, leaving a gold-speckled carpet along the street that made it look as if the sky had fallen. Everything above those apathetic sentries was at best a dark grey. There was nothing up there, due I guess to some combination of cloud cover and the smokestack's blanket of smog. Those tall chimneys polluting my view of the immediate skyline left no room for perspective.

Was this such a crime? The curfews were still strict. They were broadcasting just this evening the likelihood of another bombing. Insurrectionists meddling with the hard-fought peace. They still haven’t located the last of those responsible for levelling the substations and refineries in Sheffield. Right around the corner they say, interrogations are showing “results”. Yet I still couldn’t stand outside my fucking house absent the sun.

The downpour triggered some poorly-organised rebellion on my part - one which would accomplish zero. Standing idle, a grim monolith of some weakling pacifist (pacifist only insofar as I don’t want to have the shit beaten out of me).

Had she not pulled me inside when she had I would have been in the panopticon. A reminder and spectacle for Britons during the solidarity broadcasts. Some spatial awareness returned to me as she closed the heavy door behind her with a gentle touch, so as not to create the thud of an escapee. “The rain wouldn’t have killed me,” I informed her, overlooking the obvious noose from which I had been saved. She ignored me and silently peered back through the clearest of the stain-glass fragments lining the dark timber frame.

With film-scene timing, a dark silhouette moved like a spotlight along the door. A slow rumble could faintly be heard. The unmistakable compressions and dull rattling of an almost idle junker. Trucks full of the Guard. Those true patriots, checking that we’re safe. This stunted, frozen moment hung in the air. I looked at Helen’s face. In her usual, stoic way, it remained blank but pursed. Her eyes could never lie though; she was worried.

The engines, like so much white noise after maintaining their low tempo, gradually dissipated as they continued to move down the street. They hadn’t seen me. Some tension left Helen’s slim features and she turned to face me.

“You should be more careful, John.” Understated, as always.

“If I had been arrested I wouldn’t have to waste my time with this Kirchhoff fellow. I could have my time wasted in the comfort of our own Solidarity Centre.”

“I’m not sure what comfort you’re envisioning.”

“The comfort, my dear, of not having to travel on some goose-chase and then end up being arrested for treason instead of just being a reprobate that refused to stay indoors.”

“You can’t be tried for meeting a stranger to receive some mystery information on work organised by a superior.”

I feigned a laugh. “Ignorance is no bliss, darling.”

~

A spectre is haunting Britain, or however it goes. Except there are barely any reds left anymore. We were looking the wrong direction and the menace snuck up behind us.

I’m crossing the channel in the morning. First airship out. Editor’s had it arranged, insists it’s big but won’t give me details. He’s a closet red for sure; or wants to see me in front of the Blackshirts, pleading. I just don’t get it. I’m sure I’m being led down some wretched path to my damnation. The beauty though, is that if I refuse to go I’m opposing the orders of a man appointed by Curzon himself, our glorious Propaganda Minister. Plus the paper is likely the only place left in Britain that would employ me. I’m useful to them; I know many interesting people. They won’t be around for much longer, though, and who knows what they’ll tell the Commission when that time comes? I’m a staunch public supporter and member of the Party, so I avoid most suspicions now, despite my divisive associations. I’m not fool enough, though, to not know that there is only so much rope afforded to one.

So what choice is there, and what’s the difference? So it is, I am to meet with some obscure waste-of-time physicist with his stupid Kraut name. He’s an uppity little fucker too, don’t know where he’s staying, won’t tell me anything. Says he’ll call my hotel when I arrive and give me the location. Likely some seedy bar.

Christ. I fucking hate Paris.

[fuser]

Ok, we should brainstorm a bit about the plot. Since I haven't had much sleep today, I'll just throw out a few questions for you. Basically, each of us is not only playing our own character, but is also implicitly representing our nation. So, think a bit about these questions not only from the personal perspective of your character, but also from the political interests of your country (not that the two have to be in harmony...).

I think I have basically covered these questions for my characters and this is why I also think that everyone needs to create some sort of "character sheet" for their characters and some sort of commentary on the character itself after they write something at least in the beginning, once the interactions begin, we wont need these commentaries.

[Frollein]

Yep, that was the idea, and I'd also suggest that we do NOT post these character sheets here. Our caracters are strangers to each other so I think it would be much more interesting if we didn't know the other players' agendas.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I agree. I would rather not see a laundry list of "what to know and expect" from someone's character. I'd rather figure things out based on vignettes (or at this point with some of us writing longer pieces, "scenes" I suppose).

[fuser]

Btw, nice piece, Ornate.

So finally a British character. We still need some sort of ummmm villain. *Looks at Potemkin*

Also, if Varax is still here, he can be a good addition.

[Lexington]

Yeah, especially with the noir setting it makes more sense to keep characters' motivations and actual histories private (although the GMs maybe should be aware in order for the storylines to line up together).

In addition to the Battle of Newport News scene I want to write...I had another idea that he might have tortured someone to get the information that leads him to Paris. I feel like it could make for a good vignette but 1) I don't know how graphic we can be here, and 2) Although Franklin's become more cynical because of the war, I don't know if I want to turn him into a revenge-bent psychopath.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

1) I don't know how graphic we can be here

I think you should feel free to be as graphic as you want. It's your story, and it matters whether you like it and you think it jives with everything. I've posted two scenes that contain several moments of violence, but it was just stuff part of my character's story and I didn't feel the need to get too detailed with the descriptions of violence. If you want to be detailed, particularly as you are wanting to write something about a battle, you should definitely feel free to write whatever you want. If someone doesn't like it, that's their prerogative and we'll get the drop on them in our next story pieces, see. /flicks his cigarette and tips his fedora to Franklin

2) Although Franklin's become more cynical because of the war, I don't know if I want to turn him into a revenge-bent psychopath.

Just sit on it. If it occurs to you that there's benefits to that kind of arc (regardless of how far it actually goes), it could make things interesting. I'm sure you could still make things interesting even if you abandon that idea.

[mikema63]

2) Although Franklin's become more cynical because of the war, I don't know if I want to turn him into a revenge-bent psychopath.

You don't have to go that far with it either, you could make revenge a driver of his personality but not a primary one. He'll take revenge when the opportunity arrives but he won't go out of his way.

Bulaba's right though, Franklin is yours, so do whatever you think works for that character as you envision him. If it seems like something he would do, do it.

[Frollein]

Ok, let's talk about Tesla.

According to the source of all wisdom of the internet (aka Wikipedia), Tesla was born in 1856 in Serbia and died in 1943 in America, at the age of 86 (presumably of a heart attack). He became an American citizen in 1891, at the age of 35. What I find interesting is that he sought overseas investors before WWI. This could our pod for Tesla - instead of living in abject poverty in America, he could have found investors in Britain and moved there. Even though his research produced no tangible results during the war, the developments were promising enough to continue funding him, in the hopes to correct the outcomes of the war at a later time.

Oh, and did you know that J.P. Morgan (hi Lex) was financing Tesla for a time, before cutting him off financially? That's a nice irony for your character, don't you think? Perhaps that made him find greener pastures in good old England.

Some things I found in the wikipedia article could serve as jumping-off points for the Tesla weapon:

In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat—which he dubbed "teleautomaton"—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden.[46] The crowd that witnessed the demonstration made outrageous claims about the workings of the boat, such as magic, telepathy, and being piloted by a trained monkey hidden inside.[96] Tesla tried to sell his idea to the U.S. military as a type of radio-controlled torpedo, but they showed little interest.[97] Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward, when a number of countries used it in military programs.[98] Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate "Teleautomatics" in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago, while he was travelling to Colorado Springs, on 13 May 1899.

On 15 June 1899, Tesla performed his first experiments at his Colorado Springs lab; he recorded his initial spark length at five inches long, but very thick and noisy.[24]

Tesla investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. He stated that he observed stationary waves during this time.[105] The great distances and the nature of what Tesla was detecting from lightning storms confirmed his belief that the earth had a resonant frequency.[106][107]

He produced artificial lightning, with discharges consisting of millions of volts and up to 135 feet long.[108] Thunder from the released energy was heard 15 miles away in Cripple Creek, Colorado. People walking along the street observed sparks jumping between their feet and the ground. Sparks sprang from water line taps when touched. Light bulbs within 100 feet of the lab glowed even when turned off. Horses in a livery stable bolted from their stalls after receiving shocks through their metal shoes. Butterflies were electrified, swirling in circles with blue halos of St. Elmo's fire around their wings.[109]

While experimenting, Tesla inadvertently faulted a power station generator, causing a power outage. In August 1917, Tesla explained what had happened in The Electrical Experimenter: "As an example of what has been done with several hundred kilowatts of high frequency energy liberated, it was found that the dynamos in a power house six miles away were repeatedly burned out, due to the powerful high frequency currents set up in them, and which caused heavy sparks to jump through the windings and destroy the insulation!"[110]

Tesla invented a steam-powered mechanical oscillator—Tesla's oscillator. While experimenting with mechanical oscillators at his Houston Street lab, Tesla allegedly generated a resonance of several buildings. As the speed grew, it is said that the machine oscillated at the resonance frequency of his own building and, belatedly realizing the danger, he was forced to use a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment, just as the police arrived.[16]:162–164 In February 1912, an article—"Nikola Tesla, Dreamer" by Allan L. Benson—was published in World Today, in which an artist's illustration appears showing the entire earth cracking in half with the caption, "Tesla claims that in a few weeks he could set the earth's crust into such a state of vibration that it would rise and fall hundreds of feet and practically destroy civilization. A continuation of this process would, he says, eventually split the earth in two."[91]

There are a number of websites that claim Tesla's more esoteric or parascientific projects could work or are currently developed in secret. (Like the Super Secret Soviet Scalar weapon - yeah, I couldn't find another word beginning with s - perhaps a "Scalar Sword" or something). Let's assume that they really do work for our dieselpunk universe. Artificial earthquakes, weather control, free energy - or what about the Tesla Howitzer?



Or the Particle Beam Weapon?

Here I found the connection between Tesla's weather control, artificial earthquakes and the HAARP...

For a suitable antagonist to Tesla tech, how about the oil industry:

Groups most often implicated in such activity are the oil industry, petroleum, national governments and, additionally, automakers. The most common perceived motive is preservation of the economic status quo and sustained increase of fuel prices. Dependence upon expensive energy is perpetuated by governments in order to control the populace by means of hydraulic despotism.

So, what do you think, which shall it be? I'm for the Howitzer, for the boom factor alone, but I'm open to suggestions. Besides, it doesn't have to be a weapon in the conventional military sense. Tesla's Free Energy towers would be an economic weapon of equally destructive force. Could our characters be fooled to think they are hunting for a military weapon, only to discover that it's something else completely?

[mikema63]

I like that twist, but we could also paint it as something that can produce energy and be a weapon (paralleling nuclear power).

Tesla perhaps was working to produce energy but the UK saw the weapon potential and started working on that.

Tesla might even be opposing the effort and we could work that into the story.

[Frollein]

Yes, Tesla was very much anti-war. But at our time of play he was already an old man, so perhaps r&d was already no longer in his hands...

If you look at that link about the Tesla Howitzer, there are also plans for a Tesla shield, which would be a variation of that technology for defensive purposes. Could be that he was working on the shield and the military researchers he's working with are busy twisting it into a weapon.

[Zamuel]

I like that twist, but we could also paint it as something that can produce energy and be a weapon (paralleling nuclear power).
Tesla perhaps was working to produce energy but the UK saw the weapon potential and started working on that.

That's a workable notion, Tesla turned down several opportunities to work for the war dept. in the USA and pretty much refused to "weaponized" his concepts. His real interest was in harnessing natural energy that manifests itself openly. Aside from inventing multi phase alternating current. He envisioned the "Heat Pump" decades before one became operational and was responsible for innovations that promoted the commercial development of turbines. His dream was to synchronize natural currents in the earth so that they could be accessed freely. Here is a brief example of his philosophy in his own words.

"Though we may never be able to comprehend human life, we know certainly that it is a movement, of whatever nature it be. The existence of movement unavoidably implies a body which is being moved and a force which is moving it. Hence, wherever there is life, there is a mass moved by a force. All mass possesses inertia, all force tends to persist. Owing to this universal property and condition, a body, be it at rest or in motion, tends to remain in the same state, and a force, manifesting itself anywhere and through whatever cause, produces an equivalent opposing force, and as an absolute necessity of this it follows that every movement in nature must be rhythmical. Long ago this simple truth was clearly pointed out by Herbert Spencer, who arrived at it through a somewhat different process of reasoning. It is borne out in everything we perceive—in the movement of a planet, in the surging and ebbing of the tide, in the reverberations of the air, the swinging of a pendulum, the oscillations of an electric current, and in the infinitely varied phenomena of organic life. Does not the whole of human life attest to it? Birth, growth, old age, and death of an individual, family, race, or nation, what is it all but a rhythm? All life-manifestation, then, even in its most intricate form, as exemplified in man, however involved and inscrutable, is only a movement, to which the same general laws of movement which govern throughout the physical universe must be applicable."

There's quite a bit available on the web ... I'd suggest trying to keep his character "Real" as that would allow everyone access to the many facets that could be worked into the story lines. He loved Paris and Prague, seemed to avoid all things British, (possibly due to experiences with Edison and his backers) But did at one time have a contract with an English company. He saw patterns in everything and suffered from a manic-compulsive condition at times. Personal details regarding this are questionable, but it's rumored he was obsessed with the number 3 and often had to repeat actions 3 times.

Zam

[Potemkin]

Personal details regarding this are questionable, but it's rumored he was obsessed with the number 3 and often had to repeat actions 3 times.

Actually, Tesla was probably on to something there. The American philosopher C.S. Peirce was also obsessed with 'threeness', and made it the basis of many of his philosophical speculations (fun fact: in my PhD thesis, I made extensive use of Peirce's Third Trichotomy of Signs).

[Frollein]

So, Pot, will you be our evil Brit? You said you would play, and I'm going to post a list of players and their characters here later. I just need to know yes or no, if you want to keep your character hidden for greater effect until we start the actual game, that's fine.

[Potemkin]

So, Pot, will you be our evil Brit? You said you would play, and I'm going to post a list of players and their characters here later. I just need to know yes or no, if you want to keep your character hidden for greater effect until we start the actual game, that's fine.

I've been rather busy recently, Frollein, but I'm still willing to play. I'm thinking of making my character a rather shadowy figure, perhaps working for British Intelligence, who tends to react to what the other characters are doing to striving to achieve - a sort of antagonist figure whose true loyalties only become apparent during the course of the plot. After all, do we really need yet another troubled refugee washing up in that Paris bar?