1940s Sessions 1-3

Important Details of 1940 as of the end of the 3rd session

• Edom has decided to recruit Dracula to fight Nazis. No doubt there was a brilliant tactically detailed plan, but this was kept in the head of the team leader, who died.

• The team consists of:

• • Quimby Pocket: Edom agent, handpicked by Sebastian for his skepticism, occasionally possessed by Sir John Dee
  • Isabella Hildescheim: Granddaughter of Immanuel Hildescheim, person on the ground
  • Joyce Summers: Horror suvivalist, ace pilot
  • Vito De Genarra: Made man, willing to kill the supernatural as well as the natural
  • Dexter Raymond: Inherited Iulia Hasdeu Castle in Romania, recruited by Isabella
  • Hedy Lamar: Actress, ace engineer, discovered the mission and recruited herself

• Iulia Hasdeu did not die in 1888 of tuberculosis, as history records. She was turned into a vampire by Carmilla, being exactly Carmilla's type

• Iulia and Carmilla have connections with Romania's Iron Guard, and they had some kind of ritual in Dexter's castle.

• Carmilla bit Dexter. Also, both Iulia and Carmilla have been Invited In, so the castle isn't safe from either of them.

• Dracula's castle is in some kind of interdimensional hyperspace location. Contacting him involved a Chinese urn and some kind of odd device, and this apparently involved causing the 1940 Vrancea earthquake of 10 November.

• Hedy, aided by Joyce, created a beacon that they left behind in Dracula's castle.

• Dracula was originally affected by holy symbols, a sort of psychosomatic reaction, as Liesl realized, because of his religious beliefs. However, he had several sessions with Sigismund Freud (likely hypnotizing the man to forget all about them, and definitely stealing his notes) and is now only affected by holy symbols of his religion from the time when he was human (1493-1568) or earlier.

• Dracula says that Edom stole a black rock from him. Sir John Dee says that Dracula hypnotized the Munshi to steal it from Queen Victoria and give it to him, and that he doesn't know where it is. Apparently, Gertrude Bell, who was an Edom Agent, was sent to track it down.

• Joyce and Isabella have made an exit plan. This involves a plane in the Carpathians. Note, though, that this is some distance away and that, while Americans are still neutral, Romania has now joined the Tripartite Pact, making the British, like Quimby, enemy nationals.

• Roma and Jews and other folks who generally aren't missed by the majority of Romanians have been vanishing.

• That is of interest to Dracula, who apparently does have ties to at least some of the Roma, as well as to Vito, who was rescued from his downed plane by them; Quimby, who thinks that helping Dracula will make Dracula more likely to help them; and Isabella, who is Jewish.

• The missing folks include both children and adults.

• Dexter reports that a priest showed up with a bunch of children he claimed to have rescued. One or two of them may be Jewish, but the rest are Roma.

• Two years ago, the charismatic Romanian who started the Iron Guard, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was killed, along with 13 of the Iron Guard, strangled from behind while they were "trying to escape". Their bodies were thrown in a pit, drenched in acid, and buried under 7 tons of concrete.

• The bodies were exhumed for a planned reburial. That night, the Iron Guard killed over 70 people at Fort Jilava. One Communist prisoner reports that, after killing all associated with the killing of their leaders, the Iron Guards turned their guns on everyone, as if maddened and as if they had to keep killing until they could get it out of their system.

• The Iron Guard are also known as "Echipa Moritii", which is usually translated as "death squads", but a more accurate translation would be "squads of the dead". They believe (or at least, believed, when Codreanu was alive) in death as the path of spiritual rebirth for Romania.

• 30 November 1940 is the two year anniversary of the deaths of Codreanu and the others. There will be a ceremonial reburial. Folks may or may not want to go. But, considering the assumed identities, that might be a reason to go and gawk.

• Oh yes, Covers:

• • Joyce is Joshua Lincoln, American guide (5 points)
  • Hedy is Ada, Joshua's arm candy (2 points)
  • Quimby is Franz Mueller, German engineer, planning to extract and discover oil and minerals by the train tracks and in the Carpathians (5 points)
  • Vito is Professor Wilhelm Wunst, Austrian specialist in "Orientalism", especially Rumi, determined not to let that Crowley fellow crow about his mountaineering (4 points)
  • Isabella is Elsa von Hildenbrandt, German woman keeping an eye on this "ill-fated expedition of my uncle's, as he is unable to do so" (5 points)

• Possible courses of action include trying to leave Romania, going to the reburial of Codreanu et alia, trying to rescue the missing people, talking to the priest and children at Dexter's castle, or some combination of these.