Day 14: Irma, Detective in Ythill

 Day 14
A quickly-made character for the system Dicks & Dames. The Chambers stuff is my addition. 


“If only Queen Cassilda knew how we suffer”

It was all Irma could do not to roll her eyes at the tiny woman in the purple shawl. Instead she looked out the window. A new fog was gathering, and another iron ship was disgorging its human cargo. 
Every day new people seemed to arrive, each with their drawn faces and their precious nonsense. Some talk of the Imperial family of America, others of a sign which seduces the sensitive and artistic to madness. Still others talk of nights lost to absinthe and débauche. All talk of the King, the Mask and the Phantom. Symbolist bullshit, but bullshit which seemed to be at the center of all things. The dead center. 
And so many of them ended up in Irma’s dusty office, exhorting her to find  the fiance that was sent to the penal colonies, or the comrade who was lost in a clandestine war in the streets of old New York. Irma felt more like a father confessor or a charlatan than a private detective. Of course she found some of them. Shell-shocked, obsessive, or seized by a mortal ennui. It was never the joyous reunion of which the clients dreamed. 

“If only” she answered the woman with a smile she hoped looked better than it felt. “Tell me about your son”. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Days of Kranium Kastle

Image
This is a hack of TROIKA! (and Fighting Fantasy in general). You play the part of a creature serving an evil overlord. The war against the Forces of good isn’t going as planned, and it may be time for some hard decisions. Do you stay and fight or desert? Do you try to switch sides (as if the Forces of Good would ever trust or shelter you)? Or do you maybe have some crazy scheme which might turn the tide in your favor, and visit doom upon the armies of elves, dwarves, humans and warrior angels. This hack is inspired by Fighting Fantasy books (particularly The Warlock of Firetop Mountain , Citadel of Chaos , Phantoms of Fear and Creature of Havoc ). Thanks to Eric Nieudan for letting me borrow his crowblins! It's all literal with these guys CREATING A CHARACTER Roll for SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK as described in TROIKA! Roll d3+3 to determine Skill Roll 2d6+12 to determine Stamina Roll d6+6 to determine Luck Roll d66 on the Background Table and record th
Read more

Day 03: Arlene Ramsey (Hard City)

Image
Detroit, 1946. When people think of a woman assassin, they think of some Rita Hayworth-looking glamorpuss. That’s not Arlene. She has that kind of reassuring face you’d like to see in a doctor’s office or behind a lunch counter. Arlene is an assassin though, and has eleven confirmed kills to her name. Don’t hesitate, don’t stand out. That’s words to live by for a contract killer. Arlene made her first kill in the jailhouse. She was inside for knocking her (ex)husband down with a bottle, and stealing his wallet and car. While inside, she strangled an officious trustee who tried to blackmail her. Arlene got away with it, and the only other witness, Astrid Felton, knew to keep quiet, up to a point. When they got out, Astrid admitted that she’d told her boyfriend Eugene Farrugia, “a big man in the COMMISSION”. This turned out to be a half-truth at best. Gene was a go-between, and quite squeamish for a made man. Still, Arlene found that they could do business. She’d do the hits and Gene wou
Read more

Oh B.R.O.T.H.E.R.

Image
  The Agents from B.R.O.T.H.E.R.  B.R.O.T.H.E.R. (Bureau for Research on Occult Threats Harming or Endangering Reality) is a secret international institution with offices all over the world. Their purview is to investigate and understand all that is unearthly, esoteric and dismissed by the mainstream of science. Should a phenomenon prove dangerous, it is to be neutralized. Even its agents are unclear on who exactly it is they work for. Three main theories exist B.R.O.T.H.E.R. is an agency under the aegis of the United Nations. Due to the extremely sensitive nature of its purview, it is kept secret even from the member nations.  B.R.O.T.H.E.R. is the modern incarnation of the Brotherhood of Thoth-Hermes, a Hermetic society dedicated to breaking down any opposition between science and esoteric philosophy. According to this narrative, everybody and their mother was secretly an initiate (Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, Hildegard of Bingen, Abramelin the Mage etc. etc.) B.R.O.T.H.E.R.
Read more