Narrative

This is a narrative of the various sessions that we have had, hopefully maintained by players. Several sessions were run on a monthly basis between September 2005 and March 2006 before the game was picked up again in September 2006. This means that the first half dozen sessions or so are largely undocumented.

Early Sessions

Game: Weds 20 May 1953

Murder of Ulrike

The first session started with the discovery of the murder of one of the girls from the The Golden Gate on 20 May 1953. She had been horribly murdered. Her innards were removed and her rib cage splayed out. Not a pleasant sight and some SAN loss was caused.

03 Oct 2005 Session

Redcap Raid

About an hour after the normal closing time there is some noise outside. On opening the door the barman if shoved aside as a dozen British military police enter the The Golden Gate. They are rapidly followed by Captain Parr. The redcaps go straight up the stairs to the top floor where the girls are quartered. Two by two they each take a room and burst in through the door.

George and John are alerted by all the noise and attempt to follow the redaps up the stairs to find out what is going on. It is rapidly apparent to George that Captain Parr's redcaps are after Major Hollman and his men. Before George and John make it to the top of the stairs there are several gunshot fired and the Major comes past them down the stairs. George leads the Major to the cellars and the way out. Once the Major has departed George gets John to pistol whip him at the bottom of the stairs so that it looks like George has attempted to stop the Major.

Aftermath

Following the shooting and drama it transpires that the two trigger happy MPs are not in fact dead (although bleeding copiously on the floor). Frantic first aid ensues along with a scramble for ambulances and a blue-light pandemic in the street outside.

Inspection shows that there were seven shots fired. There are five slugs in the wall in the room behind where Major Rollo von Hollman was standing, and two in the MPs. A clear demonstration not to start a gunfight with a veteran.

Captain Parr’s boys are barely reined in from wreaking vengeance on the Major's companions who find themselves handcuffed to chairs in the bar and beaten roughly in the process of getting them down the stairs (allegedly they fell on the way down while struggling with their captors).

The Kripo turn up en masse having had the gunshots reported. Captain Parr throws his weight about and tells them to clear off, this being a matter for the occupying power. From the raised voices the Kripo weren’t entirely happy about this (having seen the ambulance crew bringing out a British MP rather than a woman).

When the Kripo finally leave Parr locks the Golden Gate and insists that no-one leave. He and his boys have some unfinished business to complete before they leave.

[there is then a gap in the narrative owing to the delay in writing this up and pausing the campaign for a bit.]

26 September 2006 Session

Game: Thurs 4 June 1953

Interrogation of Herman Wolfe

Herman Wolfe was captured by the staff of the The Golden Gate on the night of 4 June 1953 in a cellar a couple of streets away from the club. Following his capture he was brought back to the The Golden Gate and questioned by Marian, Jeb, John and Gustav. George was also present but didn't play a large part in the interrogation.

The basic gist of the interrogation was that Herman Wolfe was a nazi involved in a series of highly unethical and disturbing experiments on concentration camp victims during the second world war. He claimed to have discovered a longevity ritual which involved having to eat a freshly killed human heart. Details of the interrogation can be read here.

After the interrogation was completed Herman Wolfe was locked up in a specially constructed dungeon in the club. This room was sound proofed and had specially constructed restraints. To add insurance to the imprisonment Herman Wolfe was also drugged to rpevent him being awake and able to escape.

There was discussion about turning over Herman Wolfe to the authorities but no firm decisions were made.

Game: Fri 5 June 1953

After some sleep the group split up to take several things forward.

  • Jeb returned to base to pursue some contacts and find out about their nazi. He also had to do some of his military and private duties.
  • Gustav looked after Herman Wolfe and made sure that the room he was in was undisturbed. He also asked around a bit about Herman Wolfe in a discreet fashion.
  • John looked up some of his contacts from his army days in the area to see if he could find out if Herman Wolfe was on the wanted list or not.
  • Marian went to the university library to look for things on the Blue Gate of Babylon, although he found lots of interesting things closely related to this he didn't find out anything particularly useful.

Game: Sat 6 June 1953

10 October 2006 Session

Game: Sun 7 June 1953

The party was fairly well split up over the period covered by this session. After much discussion on the fate of the nazi Herman Wolfe it was decided that he ought to be handed over to some reliable authorities that George Ratcliffe had some contacts with. Also Jeb, newly promoted to Sepcialist, was tasked with buying a decent movie camera, some film, develping and editing equipment and a projector.

On the Sunday evening Major Hollman put in an appearance with a few officers. There was an element of watchfulness and wariness caused by the previous experience of Captain Parr's raid and the temporary detention of some of the Major's men. This was overcome by free champagne and no charge for the entertainment. Over the course of the evening Major Hollman mentioned that there was a lot of unrest on the Eastern side of the city and that he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to keep coming.

7 November 2006 Session

A fairly light session in that there were only three players present and we basically covered about a week's worth of background activities.

Game: Mon 8 June - Sun 14 June 1953

  • Marian Nevodski spent most of the week reading through some documents from those that were found in the basement. Specifically he was reading up on the Documents from basement of the Golden Gate on Gates Dossier in an attempt to find out why the Blue Gate of Babylon was in crates in the basement.
  • Jeb Washington spent a fair amount of the week on duty although he did manage to do some wheeler dealering and get some information from his range of contacts on the nazis that Herman Wolfe had been working with during the war.
  • Gustav Horst was being a barman, standing watch over the prisoner until his exchange late on the Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Like Jeb he was also using his contacts to find out about the nazis.
  • John Millen is believed to have been around for the week, although mostly he spent it reading and he also had asked some contacts about the nazis.
  • George Ratcliffe was also busy in a discreet way. What he was doing definitely had an aura of mystery; he frequently 'sent the staff away' during quiet daytime periods and was seen later looking sweaty and tired. Also, he has made several trips to unknown destinations in his Humber, away for several hours at a time and returning with muddy wheels. If asked, he says it is a 'private business' and asks for privacy and discretion.

That's where we ended. Next session is on Tuesday 5 December.

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