Queen Victoria Goes to War with the Fae

Narrative inevitablilty

I havbe a plan

Im not so sure about your plan and I dont know abouty that letter

Its not so much a new plan as another stage in the The Plan

Your father didn't give you a bnday part y like that

thanks goodness

did your father give you a party at all?

If I do this to him is it out of period?

Oh father, we've found you a friend

Right, better clothes. And date. WE CAQN do this

you are so lucky im hleping S help alice help vaness cuz otherwise id be help[ing you

It's about time for him to be a little more out

Intereting choice of words

I'm sorry Ive been ouyted as a decent man. Whill you still have me?

Id have you even if you were ACTUALLY A DECENT MAN

You dontenjoy invading faerie to take down an evil king whos possesing a friend of outs?

I do. I wd just rather party than plan it.

Op-er-a-tin-aql se-cur-i-tyt, all caps periods

Who caresw? I'm curious.

Do you know victor thats a little outside my skill set

Victor wd you like me to get you a thousand feet of spider silik

Do you know father, not everyone with ytour talents has your good sense as well.

It's cvomplicated

theres a war on i understand that

I buess its not that comlictaed

I wish top know nothing about it

you wont be coming?

I think you r foamnce at the wedding woudl be far too0 appropriate

Perhaps campiooon will show up

havbe a nive time dear

Even campion not showing up as it is more scandalous if alice remains elatively pure

Morgan Ellis's Ratbite, from his email to me

Now as for Ratbite I don't really have a full write up for him, he's really more of a concept, image, and a bunch of aspects rather than actual stats. But here are the aspects I like to think of him having. He also doesn't really have a trouble aspect, though I suppose it would be his vanity as a king of the pixies and his desire to be treated seriously I just haven't come up with a well worded aspect for that since it hasn't really been necessary.

His Grace Ratbite, Duke of Washington Square Park, Castellan of the Hangman's Elm, Lord of the Chess Piece Throne, Marquis of The West 4th Street Courts, Count of NYU, Earl of Cooper Square, Baron of Gold Swan Garden, Laird of Astor Place, Bleeker Street, 8th street, 9th Street, and West 4th Street Stations, and Knight Protector of McSorley's Old Ale House and Strangers Bar.

Aspects:

• A Number One, Duke Of Washington Square Park
• The Biggest Fucking Pixie You’ve Ever Seen
• By This Straight Razor I Rule
• Can You Count Suckers
• You Here Busk At My Pleasure
• Sits Upon The Chess Piece Throne
• Made Duke By His Own Hand
• The Park Is Mine
• Battle Ravaged Wing/Battle Scarred Veteran
• Cold Iron To Rule Them All
• I Have Earned My Many Names (Ratbite, Cat Killer, Hawk Slayer, Dog Foe, and

now after the events in Cities on Flame; Hand Taker ;D)

Here's a few that came from directly from Cyrus in the Warriors:

• Magic, Big Magic
• He’s The One And Only
• Can you dig it? Caaan you dig it? Caaan yoouuuuu diiiigg ittt?

And one that I've been considering for when the Pixie horde is unleashed. “Now is the feasting of swords”

The Court of the Pixie King also has the following aspects: The Hangman's Elm The Chess Piece Throne Can You Count Suckers?

So pretty much add these aspects to the Pixie Template/Toot-Toot's write up and raise his Weapons, Presence, and Intimidation skills up to the 3-5 range, and arm him an straight razor blade (Weapon 1, though I have considered making it a minor Item of Power)

As for his description, he is the biggest fucking Pixie they've probably ever seen, though maybe Changes Toot-Toot might be taller. He is well over a foot tall, and all of his armor and accouterments make him look even bigger. His clothes and long jacket are sewn together rat skins, he wears necklaces and bracelets made from the teeth of his trophies (rat teeth, cat teeth, and bird beaks predominate) and other bits of urban detritus, the mantel of his coat is made from the iridescent neck feathers of pigeons, and two pauldrons fashioned from bottle caps protect his shoulders. He also wears a wide kidney belt that is decorated/armored with old NYC subway tokens of various eras. He has a large mane dusty grey green hair that is done up in various top knots and braids, and again decorated with trophies. His face bears the scars of his long years of battle and one of his eyes has been rendered a milky white by scar that cuts down from his forehead to his cheek. The end of one of his long powerful dragonfly wings has been ravaged and it has a jagged cut short tip, however the sound of his wings still roars like a tiny furious buzzsaw when he's flying at speed.

Now his antique straight razor sword/axe think of one the size of the ones used in Sweeney Todd and you're about the right size. It's something far too big to be used practically for shaving, but when it comes to being a deadly, vicious, scary weapon it's hard to beat. It has been removed from it's handle long ago and Ratbite wrapped the lower unsharpened bit in leather and plastic so he can hold onto the steel. In battle he'll also wear more armor made spiky with brass thumbtacks and a Merlin Falcon's skull war helmet to complete his look. Basically Ratbite should look like he belongs on a heavy metal album cover or Frank Frazetta fantasy painting except everything is done in miniature with found materials.

Also consider the fact that in single combat against most things his size or maybe a little bit bigger he is going to just flat out win, hell if he plays it smart most Humans don't stand a chance. Maybe General Toot-Toot of the Za Guard from Changes could give him a run for his money but it would be a hell of a battle. Then if he has his swarming army of Pixies to back him up combined with Cold Iron and Steel weapons, well Death by 1000 Cuts only describes it if you're lucky.

Ratbite in Kerberos Fate, aka the email I sent Morgan Ellis

It happened, more or less, like this.

Some months ago, while I was running the Martian arc (potentially leading up to a Martian invasion by New Martians, as one of the PCs is a reincarnated Old Martian princess), Kristen, who plays Sophronia, the 9-inch brass clockwork faerie, said that she'd be moving to the West Coast in August, LA, for grad school. Josh has referred to Kristen as our Special Sauce, and it's not inaccurate. She is quiet -- but not shy, and she just breathes More Awesome into the game.

So, I shifted plans midstream, as I want to wrap up her arc before she goes. Such Martian plans as I'd plotted out were thwarted, and it was Understood that, even if I'm not running Adventures about this, the PCs are Using All Available Resources to track down information on the leads they have so that, if and when we return to the Mars Arc, they've not been wasting time, but gathering information that just happens to lead to the next adventure. As their leads are in the middle of Africa and Somewhere in China (and the Opium War is currently going on), it's not unreasonable that they're working through local agents for the information gathering stage.

Sophronia is engaged to Gregory, aka Lord Sage, aka the Pennsington Heir. Actually, Sophronia is engaged to Reginald, Gregory's valet / butler / manservant, who switched identities so that his master could marry the daughter of an African chieftain without having to explain things to his family. Both men are shapechangers, and even without that, they look alike enough to fool people.

Sophronia knows all of this (as do the other PCs -- Reginald told them, and his player, Alden, wrote a rap which he performed in character, even if that's out of period, confessing to the truth), and Reginald finally let Gregory's family and his own in on the secret.

Sophronia then had a terrible fear. She was built by a man, but endowed with the ability to fly by the fae. In return for this, her creator / father agreed to stay with the fae, leaving Sophronia with a Conviction (even if it's not on her sheet) of We Do NOT Give People to the Fae! Her father has since been ransomed, but as he rather likes it in faerie and thinks his little girl is all grown up, what with being engaged and all, he's planning to return. This adds angst, but Sophronia decided she could accept that.

What troubled her was that she could see no way in which the fae would not take an interest in any children she and Reginald might have, and not being able to protect them from the fae would make her as terrible a parent as her father!

Have I mentioned that we agreed several months in that one of the World Aspects is that Family Can Be Terribly Complicated?

So, looking at the board and at the Kerberos Default Timeline, I decided to bump up the Irish Potato Famine by half a decade and Queen Victoria's invasion of faerieland by a bit more than that, so it's happening around 1841, 1842 or so. Obviously, this must be caused by the PCs!

So... I read Dark Streets, a Cthulhu RPG set in Fielding's time, and it has a scenario where Nyarlathotep masterminds the spread of the Dreamlands through the St. Giles neighborhood.

Swap in fae for mythos creatures.

Swap in the villain Prince from the manga The Earl and the Faerie for Nyarlathotep. Outer God, Unseelie Prince -- much the same storywise. Prince is either the one who killed Sleigh Mulligan, the Regent in Kerberos, or the one who masterminded it. He took over the body of Titania's part human descendant, and matters proceeded from there.

Swap in Whitechapel for St. Giles, and The Lip (originally from 2nd ed Victoriana) for the gang leader asking for help.

Add in a few other elements, but you get the idea. The PCs thwarted the plot to take over London by spreading faerieland, and the brusque Truth Before Tact aspected detective, Victor Knight, managed an audience with Queen Victoria to update her.

We agreed that the fae war should be Queen Victoria and her troops fighting offstage while the PCs go in and neutralize Prince, and rescue his possessed victim, as well as a couple of ensorcelled captives.

I've had weeks to prep for this, but naturally, found myself making a couple of notes the day before the game, and with an hour of prep time the day of. So, I cheated.

Josh: You're using dopplegangers again?

Me: No, it's not the two-dimensional Daguerrotype Fleople who are one tier down from you. It's, uh, Completely Different. Sort of.

So, yes, I decided that the new king, Prince, had four elite guards, each modeled on one of the PCs. And then, I did some thinking.

For Alice, the telekinetic, I wrote "Earth Giant", but... well, if it hurled things with mental powers, that would be like one particular recurring not-quite-villain that the PCs knew Could Never Have Survived That, but the players knew would be returning, so... why not here? Having been used as a Martian pawn, he went to the fae for help, and they tossed tons of illusion at him so that his Martian Masters have no idea what's going on. This kept him barely on the right side of sympathetic, and allowed for a nod to Mars, and let Josh shunt damage onto an environmental consequence Portal to Mars. In the middle of Ireland's faerie realm. Which did get closed before the battle ended, but worked with Josh's PC's new Major Consequence to give me a plot for the next episode. But, I digress.

For Reginald, faerie has shapeshifters. I recycled one NPC that had fallen to her death, but survived, as per her source material, and the PCs came on to the scene well after all of the falling to her death had happened and totally never saw the body.

For Victor, the speedster, I started with the idea of the North Wind, and then changed my mind and used Atalanta, who "could run as fast as the wind" and who died in childbirth, a transitional stage that, as per the rules I was using for the fae, left her vulnerable to being taken by the fae.

For Sophronia... well, a small fae is kind of obvious, yes, but kind of... anticlimatic, even though the PCs would totally how much damage one can wreak. Well, unless one has an army of them. Led by someone like Ratbite. Someone who... well, there was absolutely no good reason not to make that someone Ratbite.

So, what is a fae Duke doing fighting for an Unseelie King in Ireland?

Well... this gets back to the source material, The Earl and the Fairy. The Earl, aka Edgar, in the title may or may not be an imposter, but in my world, he isn't. As per the source material, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in America, to Prince, who had or perhaps still has a plantation. Edgar escaped, and the PCs first met him in France, and helped him claim his inheritance in Scotland.

I figured Edgar had maybe helped out Ratbite, details to be decided whenever they get decided. Ratbite owed him some kind of favor, and that transferred to Prince, now in Edgar's body, which allowed for the possibility that Ratbite could become an ally.

So, when the PCs planned their stealth mission, they had Sophronia, who, being fae herself, can see through fae illusions, look for sally ports for flyers. I said there were two sized for Sophronia, and one regular one. Reginald shapeshifted to Sophronia size, which isn't an illusion and not see through-able, and the two got appropriate garb and gear from downed pixies.

They flew into the sally port and successfully avoided notice while watching Ratbite give orders. Reginald shifted into the form of a lieutenant of a squad of 20 that had been dispatched, and Alden handed me a Fate point to declare that Prince had spread descriptions of the PCs. That I took, but I didn't let him declare that Prince ordered such PCs brought to him immediately, as a) that made bad tactical sense and b) made things waaaay too easy.

(NB: Ratbite was coordinating, rather than leading troops against offstage NPCs, as someone good had to do the coordination, and because he was also in position to lead troops directly to Prince's aid on an instant's notice. Also, obviously, on the meta level, I wanted him in position to interact with PCs.)

So, they pulled the old Prisoner Trick, with the Reginald Lieutenant claiming to have captured Sophronia, although at the cost of the rest of his squad. Alden rolled very well on his Guile (whichever skill it was attached to), and, as Ratbite was directing troops in the middle of a war, he snapped out an order to have Sophronia escorted to an appropriate room to serve as a prison, telling his lieutenant to take a fresh 20 troops, and then, reconsidering.

Ratbite: Unless you need more.

Reginald Lieutenant: Mmmm... better make it 30.

So, Sophronia plus 30 troops set off. Reginald tried to convince the troops that Ratbite REALLY said to bring Sophronia to Prince. Or, at least, that Ratbite really meant that. As the debate continued, he ordered that one man go back to Ratbite and ask for 30 _more_ troops.

By now, even though I am sure it was totally out of period, Alden and I were using our best Brooklyn accents and hamming it up to eleven.

This let me leak the bit about why Ratbite was helping Prince. You know how when you get on a roll, you say stuff that makes sense at the time, and then the other players just run with it? So, I had the guy Reginald was talking to say that the reason the Prince owned Edgar (hence, the transference of debt thing) was the slavery business, which applied south of the Mason-Dixon line, whadever that was.

Reginald pretended his lieutenant was confused, because, being in Ireland and all, weren't they north of it? Well, yeah, but it still applies, and no, the other guy didn't quite get why. But, you know, rules.

By now, the other 30 guys arrived, and I told Alden that, by now, Reginald had successfully confused the matter that, if he wished, he could get the 60 pixies to bring him and Sophronia (and Sophronia's cat who has the Can Keep Up ability, but we all agreed that, under the circumstances, the cat should perhaps avoid the pixie army) to the throne room. But, we all agreed, it made more sense to just lock Sophronia up, then go off to "check something" with Ratbite, then return _as_ Ratbite, and order the troops to follow him, with Sophronia, to the throne room.

So, everyone arrived at the throne room more or less simultaneously. Sophronia was "a prisoner". Reginald was "Ratbite." (The GM is used to writing down who all of the PCs are pretending to be in any given scene.) Alice was Princess Asoula of Mars, her major consequence being that she was now her past self, red, more muscled, and with a lot less clothing. ("Still played by the same actress, but with different makeup. Alice's clothing was clearly covering up the musculature.") Victor was himself, trying to be stealthy, which he's usually good at, but Prince spotted him. (The de facto King of Faerieland gets to be Godlike at a lot in his home.)

There was the king with his ensorcelled lady. There was his bodyguard, Raven, formerly Prince's slave, but rescued by Edgar when Edgar escaped, and regardless of whose orders, Edgar's or Prince's, took priority, given the current orders were to protect Edgar's body and Leanne (the ensorcelled lady), Raven was certainly going to do that. But, hey, he hadn't been ordered to attack, just to defend against threats.

"Ratbite" led 60 troops with "captive" Sophronia into the room. The main doors burst open as Princess Asoula strode in, spear in hand, utterly unamused to have heard from her new / old friend Victor about this barbaric Prince who barbarically enslaved people. Victor tried to hide, but, when spotted by Prince, shrugged and lounged in the doorway.

Ermine, the shapeshifter, rose from the fountain. Atalanta targeted Asoula. "Ratbite" moved to engage Victor, and the two "fought", moving outside the room in the meantime.

Reginald quickly explained what he wanted to Victor. If they could bring the American ambassador to the castle --

GM: There's just one problem with the American ambassador. As you'll recall, he's Southern.

Well, no problem, bring his new assistant, Quentin Simons, who had been invited to a small dinner party by Alice, and who was a Quaker. Simons could then declare the place an embassy, and it'd be north of the Mason-Dixon line, right?

Victor: I don't think that works.

We agreed that it didn't, and folks were skeptical of Alden's other idea of somehow teleporting people to the American embassy in London.

But, said Victor, protesting all the while, with uncharacteristic lack of arrogance, that this was a diplomat thing and he wasn't a diplomat, just a detective, there was actually a useful point of law that _could_ be used. From the moment Edgar was recognized formally by Queen Victoria -- as he had indeed been -- as an Earl, and, more importantly, as a British subject, he could not be enslaved, as America had a treaty with Britain covering points like that. (I have no idea whether Nunzio was remembering history or inventing on the fly, and I don't particularly care, except out of academic interest.)

Reginald shapeshifted back to the lieutenant's form and flew to Ratbite, explaining this loophole and returning with the cavalry. Essentially, Ratbite and the pixie army dealt with Prince's fae mooks, while the PCs dealt with Atalanta and Ermine, rescued Leanne --

Raven's thought balloon: Still not an attack. They want to keep her safe. And that's not an attack on Edgar's body either.

--kept Leanne's suitor, Emile, from stabbing Prince with a poison dagger (as Emile didn't really mind Edgar dying, as Leanne was in love with Edgar -- Emile is complicated and is Victor's kid brother. We'll skip the whole backstory business for now, and I'd told the players that I'd insert him into the fight at a dramatically appropriate moment, which they were cool with), and then piled up a ton of aspects created via maneuver to allow Princess Asoula to separate Prince's soul from Edgar's and put it into a gem which was a nigh-exact duplicate of the one he usually stored his soul in between bodies. Asoula does intend that Prince be given a new body, as he never had a chance to live a normal life and Josh had put the "there is some good in you" Aspect on him.

So, as the fight wound down, the lieutenant whose form Reginald had taken flew in, with about half his squad. Once Ratbite was assured that, no, he had NOT been tricked into breaking his word, and all the stuff about the treaty and Edgar not being a slave was true, he reckoned that half the squad he'd thought lost surviving probably made up for Reginald tricking him.

And, by now, Queen Victoria arrived and sat on the throne to dispense judgment. Ratbite was perfectly willing to follow Victoria's rules so long as she could please show him what they were, in writing.

I figure Edgar may have helped Ratbite out of a tight spot and / or helped him to consolidate or begin to consolidate his power. Edgar's a ruthless man who wants to be good, but isn't sure he's capable of it, and basically follows a "help my own with my life, be good to those who are good to me, crush my enemies" code, which should be compatible with Ratbite's code.

Meanwhile, Queen Victoria ennobled Victor, so Victor can finish winning Society's approval of his marriage to a woman of minor noble rank who's as brusque and eccentric as he is. Society has a stress track of 25, we decided, and a skill of Ascendant +5. Currently, 18 of the 25 boxes are filled in, and we decided that, for every five filled in, Society takes another Consequence in the form of deciding Victor's not such a bad match. (So far, we have At Least He's Trying, And We Know He's Discreet, and Mr. Knight Has Friends in High Places. This builds nicely on that.)

The Queen also made it clear that unwanted fae interference with Sophronia's family would NOT be tolerated. Reginald wanted a magical passage from Pennsington lands through faeries to the African lands where the real Gregory lives. I think we're still pondering that one, as a) unless Reginald is retiring and taking the Pennsingtons out of play, I'm not sure I want the Faerie Express to Africa, and b) possibly more to the point, the real Gregory would be horrified. He doesn't _want_ his tribe and its lands to be easily reached by Britain!

I had everyone make willpower rolls against the Queen's aura, basically. Victor is totally in her service. He knows all about the effect she's having and why, but obviously, this is for the best. Reginald isn't quite as transformed as Victor by this, but that's because he's used to this situation. Indeed, as Alden said, Reginald's first instinct was to say, "Hello, Mama," as if dealing with Lady Sage, but he managed to suppress it. Sophronia was also deeply affected, and it didn't hurt that the Queen agreed with her on a lot of things, or that, while Her Majesty had no objection to Sophronia's father living in Her Majesty's new fae realms, she made it clear that he still had an obligation to be a good father to his daughter.

Sophronia: She can stay.

Asoula was less affected, being a foreign princess, but she recognized Victoria's greatness and respected it. Queen Victoria offered to recognize her formally either as Princess Asoula or as Lady Alice Beauchamp. She went with the latter, explaining that that was who she was now.

Lady Alice's fiance, Lord George Mace, wasn't entirely sure, and the two were a bit awkwardly formal with each other. But, Josh got to use a line he wanted. I forget how the lead in came about.

Asoula: ...Do I _have_ a tail?

Lord Mace: No, you don't have a tail. You also don't have horns or cloven hooves. (beat, as Asoula looks at him, then, dryly) I checked.

Asoula (looking him over): You'll do.

That said, we don't want the Sophronia arc to end without a) her wedding or b) her best friend, Alice, not being quite home. So, we agreed, next session's outline is:

1. Deal with a couple of loose ends, such as Victor's courtship of Society's good opinion. (He has already successfully courted Angelina.) There's also the matter of Randolph Beauchamp, who was thought dead, but was in the faerielands for years. The current head of the Beauchamp family is Alice's cousin, Winston (Aspect: I will not let the family down -- and neither will anyone else!). But, Winston is Randolph's _younger_ brother.

2. Josh said that, while Alice was gone for only seconds on Earth, he assumed she'd had a Grand Martian Adventure, during which she'd had to become Princess Asoula. She then somehow realized she was needed o Earth; so, she had returned.

Clearly, then, perhaps after Mace approaches Sophronia and the two agreed they needed to get Alice all the way back, the PCs have to go to Mars, meeting Alice after she comes through the portal, and somehow setting up a way to have the Alice and Asoula personae merge after Alice / Asoula goes back.

3. At least a triple wedding (Sophronia-Reginald, Victor-Angelina, Alice-George).

All I need is to come up with a totally cool over the top Martian adventure by Monday, when:

Today, I have a party to go to for social reasons. I expect it'll be fun as well.

Today through Friday afternoon, I have to prep a Call of Cthulhu scenario that I agreed to playtest -- for a group that is NOT my usual local group. (This is a dry run for Necronomicon next month, as far as my gming skills are concerned, as well as a playtest to see if the scenario breaks.) Friday evening, I run it.

Saturday is a friend's birthday party, running into the wee hours of Sunday.

Sunday is a housefilk which I can't miss because it's followed by a concom meeting -- Josh is chairing a filking convention next year, at the Double Exposure hotel (thanks to Vinnie and Avonelle), and we generally have meetings after housefilks.

Regardless, I run 29 July. I may get one more session in after that. Then, Kristin's in Los Angeles, and Josh and I are out of town for most of August (Nelco, GenCon, WorldCon, and, for me, Necronomicon).

We may well put the game on hold for a bit. Folks like the game, and like their PCs, and may well want to return to it, possibly with new PCs, possibly not. And, we may decide to swap out Kerberos Fate for Fate Core or Fate Accelerated.

Anyway, I hope I did Ratbite proud. I had a blast reading the description and reading off all of his titles in an appropriate heraldic voice.