Images from the City

The Mundy Guides are a series works detailing locations in the New World.  One of the most famous is The Mundy Guide to the City: A Comphrensive Guide to the Five Baronies of the Metropolis.  The guide is illustrated with photos, artistic reproductions, and comissioned artwork.  Below are some images from the original edition of the work and their captions:

Workmen atop the Baldanders Building, doing repairs.  This eagle-gargoyle was briefly the perch for nightgaunts (thought to originate on the moon) until powerful thaumaturgic wards were installed.

The poster advertising the infamous last performance of Evard Kellar.  Panic at the performance resulted in the deaths of three, the hospitalization (including psychiatric) of at least ten.

Artist's sketch of the famous Cathedral of St. Bernward, designed by so-called "mad architect" Jostan Geoffry (also designer of the Church of Our Ladies of Sorrows in the City).  The largest of the three bell towers was once haunted by a malign spirit that manifest as a hunchbacked dwarf with the head of a crow and eyes that glowed like lanterns.

Posterity Plaza, bneath the "Colossi of Industry."  The site of the yearly "Champion of Innovation" competition, which draws inventors of a both technological and thaumaturgical bent--and spies of foreign nations.

Infiltration Beyond the Wall of Sleep

I saw Inception this weekend and really enjoyed it. Without revealing any spoilers beyond what appears in the trailer and reviews, it’s about specialists that engage in industrial espionage by entering people’s dreams and extracting secrets. Beyond it being a good film, its interesting for the game fodder it could provide.

The film helpfully divides the characters up into “niches”, specialties--or even, one might say “classes”--for us. There’s “the architect” who’s responsible for building the dream environments the mark is to inhabit, “the chemist” who concocts specialty sedatives or the like, tailored to the requirement of the particular job, the “operations specialist” who makes sure things run on schedule, and the real players, who are either good at the con in the traditional way, or by disguise (the "forger").

One could run a “dream operatives” espionage game as presented. It wouldn’t have to be limited by the movie's modern setting--it could be“multi-genre”: the player’s entering wild west style dreams, horror film style dreams, superhero dreams, or whatever.

The another option is suggested by the film's frequent references to the dreams, and dream architecture, as “mazes” or “labyrinths.” The team leader tries out his new architect candidate by having her draw mazes on graph paper...

Maybe, there’s a deep, collective unconscious substrata of dreaming that’s like the “mythic underworld?” Perhaps the the dream-thieves are going into dungeons, killing the monsters of the dreamer’s subconscious and stealing his treasure that's symbolized by gold and jewels, but comes out secrets? Of course, then one could gleeful (or more gleefully) throw in everything but the kitchen sink from movies, TV, comics and literatures--it would all be grist for the collective unconscious mill, right?  I don’t know what that overlay would necessarily add to dungeon crawling other than to allow an “in game” rational for anachronistic jokes, disparte pop culture borrowings, and metagame strategizing, but I’m sure there most be something cool that could be done with it, if those things weren't enough.

Hobo-goblins

Hobogoblins are small, ugly humanoids of somewhat apish proportion, who live as itinerant vagrants or tramps, on the fringes of human society in the New World. They occasionally claim to be seeking work, but most often beg, scavenge, and steal to make a living, hopping freight trains to move from place to place. Mostly they’re considered pests, but they can be dangerous when the situation is to their advantage, so the prudent tend to avoid places where they congregate.

Where hobogoblins came from is a matter of debate. The most widely held theory is that they have always been on the margins of civilization in the New World, but documentary evidence of their existence is scant before the modern era, except for some Native legends of malicious, subterranean folk. Some have suggested they stowed away on ships from Ealderde like rats, but this ignores the considerable evidence that the Old World goblin was long ago driven to extinction. A third idea, not widely held, is that hobogoblins were spontaneously generated by the human mind, and that this is the reason for the belief they’ve always been here, because, in a sense, they have.

Whatever their origins, hobogoblins are now common in the New World landscape. They may be be found skulking around rail-yards, squatting in abandoned buildings, or camping in ramshackle, “jungles”--shantytowns--on the edges of cities, or sometimes in poorly kept city parks. Other the occasional knife, they are seldom armed with more than improvised weapons---pipes or boards for clubs, and thrown rocks as missiles. They also bite.

Hobogoblins can be helpful, particularly to those who can speak their cant. They gather a great deal of information, living on societies fringe, and watching, and their shamans know rituals for warding off vicious dogs, finding shelter from the elements, and calling up freight-trains. No one should ever mistake them for trustworthy, however, and one should deal with them only with caution.

Random Hobogoblin Names (1d100):
01-02 Violets M'Gurk 03-04 Burlap 05-06 Whiskey Bazoo 07-08 Coffin Nell 09-10 Hang-dog Legee 11-12 Fleabitis 13-14 Nimble Jek 15-16 Greenyteeth 17-18 Rotpizzle 19-20 Smolderblunt 21-22 Old Kid Slaug 23-24 Grimey Low 25-26 Dry Gulch 27-28 The Right Reverend Sinister 29-30 Grinless 31-32 One-Eye Elrood 33-34 Jabber Obscuro 35-36 Crooknose 37-38 Silent Zed 39-40 Gentleman Distemper 41-42 Spectacles 43-44 Mad Heck 45-46 Tusker Duke 47-48 Mumbles 49-50 Chauncey Throttlebottom 51-52 Goofus 53-54 Young Hairback 55-56 Ol' Rheumy 57-58 Lack Thumb Hari 59-60 Quicklip 61-62 The Grumbler 63-64 Handsome Bloat 65-66 Furious 67-68 Flash Bastard 69-70 Seldom Gently 71-72 Tobacco Sweetback 73-74 Unreasonable the Lesser 75-76 Bullneck 77-78 Wormy Ned  79-80 Boneyard Meech 81-82 Blundercuss 83-84 Ruckus Quietus 85-86 Thar'n'back 87-88 Brazen Dingus 89-90 Jenkin Miserable 91-92 Little Lord Flapjack 93-94 Bleeding-Gums 95-96  H. Hiram Horribilis  97-98 Simple 99-00 Lonelyhearts Ginny Finn.


Art by Chris Huth.