The Other Side blog: In Search of

Showing posts with label In Search of. Show all posts

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In Search Of...TSR's R.I.P.

Spend any time in horror RPG communities or the classic TSR communities; sooner or later, the topic of R.I.P. will come up. But what is/was R.I.P., and why was it never published?

These are the questions I will try to answer on this special Halloween edition of In Search Of...

In Search Of...TSR's R.I.P.

So, what do we know about this game? Very little to be honest.

It is modern-day horror.
Slated to be published in 1991
Trademark was applied for in 1990.
Written by Scott Herring [sic], Jim Ward, and Paul A. Linberg [sic]
At least one accessory, Lost Souls, was planned and another, a set of cards, were mentioned.

And that is really about it. From the TSRArchive, we learned that it was going to be a boxed set with 32, 64, and 96-page rule books. Dice, cards and fold out maps. I am speculating here that the books were some combination of a fast-play Basic set of rules, complete rules, and possibly an adventure. But that is only a guess. There could have been Game Master's books and a creature book. IF we are to follow the clues from Top Secret, it would have been a Player's book (96), a Game Master's book (64), and maybe an equipment book or world guide.

This is only a guess. Afterall they misspelled two of the three authors on the cover.

Scott Haring is known for his contributions to GURPS, Dragonlance, Mystara, and the Forgotten Realms. His contributions to Top Secret S.I., Agent 13 and Ghostbusters might interest us more here today though.

Jim Ward was the creator of Metamorphosis Alpha; he also wrote a lot of material for D&D and then would later move on to various publishers, including Troll Lord Games. In particular to this conversation Ward designed the "Tainted Lands" horror setting for Castles & Crusades. James died earlier this year on March 18, 2024.

Paul Arden Lidberg was one of the founders of Crunchy Frog Enterprises/Team Frog Studios. He also worked on many games and was part of the TSR West group with Flint Dille for a brief time. He went on to create the games Critter Commandos and Duel. Paul died on June 13, 2022.

Now we do know there is a history of TSR padding their product schedules. David "Zeb" Cook recently stated at Gamehole Con that he would come up with names of products and other writers developers would have to figure out what that meant. This seems slightly more than that, but not by much. You can't even trust the art. TSR catalogs often had concept or placeholder art in place of a product. That is not an uncommon thing really. The "blue" Rules Cyclopedia cover is a good example.

In the early 1990s we know TSR was feeling the heat from the new kid on the block, Vampire the Masquerade. I have been talking about the effects of that game and White Wolf all month long in my Ravenloft retrospective. 1987's "Lost Boys" and "Near Dark" showed that vampire movies were still popular and there were certainly rumors about the upcoming Francis Ford Coppola Bram Stoker's Dracula scheduled for 1992. Even Chill saw new 2nd Edition from long time thorn in TSR's side, Mayfair Games. The time was ripe for a supernatural game.

We do know from many sources, notably Steve Winter, that next to nothing was produced for the game, beyond this cover mock-up. There are no files siting on a 5.25" floppy somewhere and no dot-matrix print out of chapter 1 or anything like that. I do think we have seen everything about this game, save for maybe some TSR inter-office notes or emails that likely no longer exist.

There are two product codes that appeared in the TSR catalogs for this.

TSR07404: R.I.P. Horror RPG
TSR07405: R.I.P. Horror Card Game
TSR07406: Lost Souls

Here is the text featured, along with the art from the cover.

"Nobody's safe. The undead disregard today's best high-tech security and surveillance systems. These demons attack helpless victims as they sleep - their electronic fences and computers buzz through the night. This horror and much, much more fill the R.I.P. role-playing game. This all-new game awaits horror fans with three rules booklets, full-color cards, dice and maps that spin a tale in modern-day terror."

This is our best clue to what the game was going to be about. But it is not the only one.

The R.I.P. Comics

Our best guesses at the tone and tenor of the game come from the R.I.P. Comics produced by TSR a couple of years before. Two four-issue series were released. And because I care about you, my faithful readers, I scored 3/4ths of them.

What can we say about the comics?

There were two series of four for a total of 8 comics.
Described as "Comics Modules."
Published around the same time TSR had a comics deal with DC.
Each had some game related content, sometimes Top Secret/S.I. related, sometimes standalone.
Flint Dille, brother of Lorraine Williams, was the creative director.

Flint Dille also wrote the Agent 13, Top Secret/S.I. tie-in media, Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger.

Now I am being honest here, the comics are not very good. But that is fine, because I am not interested in that. Why I bought these was for the last section of the comics, the game materials. The comic themselves feel a bit like Tales From the Crypt.

In Issue #1 (I will just number these 1 to 8 for ease), has notes for adapting the Top Secret/S.I. part 1 by Scott Haring. This first section details the type of horror game you might want to run. There is nothing particular to the TS/SI rules here, just campaign modes.

Issue #2 shares the same art as the proposed TSR07406: Lost Souls book. This includes the Zombie Hunt game, with rules in the center and a play board on the inside covers, and tokens. Part 2 of our TS/SI aka Role-Play in Peace, section covers some new advantages and disadvantages. Mostly for dealing with the supernatural. They promise more are coming, just write to TSR West.

Issue #3 adds to the Zombie Hunt game with Zombie Rampage. For TS/SI we get some new skills and some Powers as described in the Agent 13 book. This game takes the Chill 2nd edition approach and has the Powers limited to "the bad guys." You know it would not stay that way for long. Powers here are treated like Skills.

Issue #4 gives us some monsters. Or at least I would like to say it does. The trouble is the text is small and printed on a color background that is almost impossible to read. I tried a lot of different filters and skill could barely read it. We get Vampires, Werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster and a Mad Slasher.

The Zombie Nation game, a continuation of the zombie games from Issue #1 is written by Paul A. Lidberg.

Issue #5 (or 1 of the second series) features more Role-Play in Peace with some Monster powers by Scott Haring AND a R.I.P. collector card game by Paul Lidberg, which could be the same as TSR07405: R.I.P. Horror Card Game listed above.

Issue #7 (I do not own Issues #6 or #8) includes a solitaire game called The Crypt by Paul Lidberg and a page of a new power (Cause Madness) for Top Secret/S.I.

Now, this certainly begs the question. Was the only material written for the R.I.P. RPG sitting before me right now?

The R.I.P. RPG

It would be folly to try and guess what the completed R.I.P. RPG would have been like, AND would we have called "Rip" or "Are Eye Pea?" But that doesn't mean I can't make some guesses. Especially given some of the Vampire:TM "catch-up" TSR was doing at the time with Ravenloft. For the record, "Are Eye Pea."

Obviously, the biggest, and maybe the most error-prone guess, is that the system used would have been some version of TSR's Top Secret/S.I. RPG. I mean there is no reason to assume it would have been this, comics examples aside, especially since TSR had a history of using a different system for each and every game. BUT maybe with the new Top Secret/S.I. TSR saw a way into modern games. The comics certainly give at least some lip service to this.

My other "evidence" is the product codes. R.I.P. had the 74xx line and Top Secret/S.I. covered the 76xx numbers. Not that this is solid evidence save for the fact they were all "in production" at the same time.

I think a safer guess is that Vampires would have played a bigger role in this than what little evidence we have. I have stated in the my reviews of Van Richten's Guide to Vampires and Children of the Night Vampires that TSR was well aware of the growing popularity of Vampires and Vampire RPGs. While we know the the production teams were often siloed and unaware of what the others were doing, who knows what would have become of Ravenloft if R.I.P. had been a hit? Would Ravenloft still have been produced? Would we have seen Gothic Earth for R.I.P. instead?

What can I speculate about this game?

Well, there are certainly tie-ins to the Agent 13 sourcebook. In fact, a 1990s update to that is not just a safe bet but likely the only safe bet.

The Agent 13 novels are throwbacks to the pulps of the 30s, save without the charm of being from the 30s. I mean, they were throwbacks in the late 80s, but I am not sure they would have fared much better in the 90s. So, the new R.I.P., even if it builds on the mythos of that brand, would need to be thoughtfully updated. The Lemuria origins of the Brotherhood would still be fine. Even the evil takeover of the Brotherhood. Given the 90s, I expect to see more about the Freemasons, the Templars, and plenty of other secret groups. Agent 13 portrayed heroes and villains in terms of black and white. R.I.P. would likely do something similar. While other horror games of this time (Chill 2nd Ed, Vampire, Kult, SLA, CoC) were embracing shades of gray, they were all fairly dark. No one was "pure good," but I do see TSR, especially TSR of the early 90s, trying to push a "PCs are good guys" narrative.

For monsters, I am sure there will be vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster(s), zombies, and very likely succubi. I would also expect to see all sorts of "high tech" monsters too, like brains kept alive via advanced machinery, "Borg"-like monsters, and maybe even monsters caused by modern problems like global warming and pollution. Would the monsters be well known to normal humans? I can see different campaign modes that allow this or keep them secret. I think our best evidence of this is to look toward Ravenloft for AD&D 2nd Ed.

One thing that is very easy to guess is that I am sure there will be more skills regarding Occult sciences and powers that "agents" can take. These would be limited, but more skills than the ones seen in the Agent 13 book. Again, I think the model here would be what Chill or SLA Industries were doing in the 90s.

I would also expect to see a re-print and expansion of all the different types of campaign settings mentioned in the comic. From humor to slasher flicks, to monster hunters to cosmic horror. It is the 1990s, but the X-Files are still a couple of years off (1993), so I am not expecting Governmental and Alien conspiracies just yet. I would expect a group of some sort the PCs could work with. Like ORION from Top Secret/S.I. or even SAVE from Chill.

Given what we saw in Top Secret/S.I., Agent 13, and later in AD&D 2nd Ed Ravenloft, I fully suspect that there was going to be some secretive shadowy organization bent on World Domination^TM, that is, if they didn't already control everything, whom the characters will have to fight the agents of. Whether this takes the shape of The Brotherhood or something more akin to the Dark Powers is difficult to guess. It is likely would be skewed more to the Brotherhood side.

In truth, we will never know. With 2/3rds of the writing team gone, the company gone, and the persistent suspicion that nothing was ever really produced for it there is not enough to go on.

But I think I will see if the idea has any legs all the same. Check back tomorrow.

Links

R.I.P. Modern Day Horror, TSR Archive

R.I.P. Comics

Horror RPGs Historical review: Age of Ravens

Authors

RPG Blog Carnival

This post is my last entry for my October RPG Blog Carnival: Horror and Fantasy.. I hoped you enjoyed. I'll post a wrap-up for it tomorrow as well.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Thursday, October 10, 2024

In Search of Barovia (Ravenloft)

I have been talking about the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign setting Ravenloft. Every domain in the Land of Mists / Domain of Dread is a copy of some land from one of the other campaign worlds. Darkon and Tovag are copies of old Oerth. Hazlan and I'Cath are from the Forgotten Realms; Thay and Kara-Tur specifically. Sithicus and Falkovnia are from Dragonlance. Lamordia seems to be from an Earth-like world given it has the same months we do. Even Eberron creator Keith Baker has a Domain in Ravenloft from his world.

But there are two notable exceptions.

First, there are no core domains from Mystara.
Secondly, the black heart of the Core Domains, Barovia, does not have a "home world."

Why? Because Barovia is from Mystara!

Now, please keep this in mind. None of this is supported by real-world evidence at all. There was no secret cabal of ur-Developers at TSR deciding this was true and leaving breadcrumbs for me to find. This is less than circumstantial evidence. This is full-on Conspiracy Theory, tin foil hat territory. No, this makes conspiracy theories look like rational arguments. This is conclusion shopping at its lowest.

But at least it makes more sense than some conspiracy theories. So adjust your tin foil hat, make sure your webcams are turned off, and your phone is nowhere near because we are going down a rabbit hole.

Evidence From the Novels

The Ravenloft novels...were a wild bunch. But we can at least assume they were canon. In the first one, "Vampire of the Mists," Strahd does not know about Faerûn when he meets Jander Sunstar. Jander also does not know about Barovia. Likewise, in "Knight of the Black Rose," Strahd has never heard of Krynn or Lord Soth, not something that would been true for someone of Strahd's age and position. Everyone knew about Lord Soth. The best evidence comes from "I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire," where Strahd describes his lands and also mentions he has never heard of Azalin (Azalin Rex) or Oerth.

These are all strikes against Oerth, Krynn, and Abeir-Toril.

Most of the novels in the Ravenloft line are self-contained, so no mention either way of what worlds they might be from originally.

Evidence from the Campaign Worlds

Going the other direction, we know that the Gods of Krynn keep a pretty tight hold on their world. So much so that Spelljamming and Outer Plane travel to and from Krynn is very difficult. One more strike against Krynn.

The Forgotten Realms have nearly ever square inch of their world map accounted for. If it had been the Realms, we would have heard about it by now. One more strike against Abeir-Toril. OR at least the Toril part, "Forgotten Abeir" might be a different story.

Dark Sun's Athas is a desert wasteland filled with Psionic-enhanced creatures. So there is no way it is from there.

The World of Greyhawk's Oerth has a LOT of land that is unaccounted for. So, we need to find a way to rule it out based on the campaign setting.

Eberon was not created yet, so that one is out as well.

None of this tells us where Barovia and Strahd are from. It just tells us where they are not from.

So, what does Mystara have to offer us? Well, a lot really.

Mystara

While Tracy Hickman is best known for Dragonlance, that is also one-half Margaret Weiss. So, I am not ready to say Ravenloft is from Krynn based on the Hickman connection alone. But there is another Hickman publication, and it is from Tracy AND Laura Hickman, just like Ravenloft. That is Rahasia.

Rahasia was written by the Hickmans and features body-snatching undead witches, a strong horror trope. Even in the 5e era, The Curse of Strahd adventure, lists Rahasia as an influence. Plus, there are some other solid connections, like finding the same wines in Rahasia's Wizard Tower and in Ravenloft Curse of Strahd. Rahasia is a solid Mystara, or at least a BECMI adventure.

There is also Castle Amber. This Expert Set adventure is explicitly Mystara with the inclusion of Glantri. It also reads like a "Proto-Ravenloft." I have discussed the Castle Amber/Ravenloft connections before.

Averoigne was later added to Glantri and the Amber family is said to have come from Old Earth. In many ways the Earth of the Ambers is very, very similar to the Earth of Ravenloft's Gothic Earth.

So, another set of near-evidence is connecting Ravenloft to Mystara. What else do we have?

The vampires of Mystara are more diverse than vampires of other game worlds. This collection of Vampiric Bloodlines at the Vaults of Pandius attests to that.

Immortals vs. The Dark Powers

Mystara and Ravenloft are both settings largely devoid of gods. There are the Immortals of Mystara that cover the same role as gods, but are explicitly not gods. Ravenloft has its Dark Powers which are also not gods. In fact, there is even some evidence that gods worshiped in Ravenloft might only be reflections of the Dark Powers. This all runs pretty counter to most D&D worlds, especially Krynn and Abeir-Toril where the gods are important and very active in the affairs of mortals.

Could the Dark Powers be Chaotic Immortals? I think that is a question best left un-answered, but it has, to quote Stephen Colbert, a bit of Truthiness to it.

Another factor. Both the Immortals and the Dark Powers have a history of scooping up land, countries, even entire civilizations and hiding them away. The Immortals do this with the Hollow World, and the Dark Powers do it with the lands of Ravenloft.

Barovia could have been scoped up and planted elsewhere, and both the Dark Powers and Immortals could have covered it up. Which does lead into my next point.

Lands

Mystara is a strange patchwork of cultures and lands. Vikings live right next to a Khanate, and on the other side of these steppes is fantasy Wales with bits of Renaissance Italy. These lands only make sense when you realize the Immortals have a hand in moving people around.

Same is true for Ravenloft. Only here, there is less movement.

Barovia is also small, only 24 miles East-West and about 10 miles North-South. This makes it smaller that an average hex on many Mystara maps. A place like could come from anywhere. More to the point it could go missing from anywhere.

Like Mystara, Ravenloft is a hodge-podge of lands and cultures.

Time Lines

Additionally, I can use some dates from the novels to narrow some ideas down. Now, a note about time. Time seems to run differently in Ravenloft, so I can't put an exact formula for it. There isn't one. I just have to try to deal with it. The only hard and fast rule I will adhere to is that there is no travel to the past.

WORKING: Timeline

This timeline is a work in progress with changes being made all the time.

I will add and move details around as I discover them. I am using the Forgotten Realms DR calendar here since many worlds have had interactions with the Realms so it helps with the dating. Any date in Red is a fixed date, one I have confirmation of. I have squared all the dates yet. Part of the issue is that Mystara's year is different from the other worlds. Some of the dates do not line up right yet, I am working on those.

This shorter timeline is based on these works:

John W. Mangrum's epic Ravenloft timeline.
Timeline of Ravenloft adventures, found on Reddit.
The Unofficial Timeline of Mystara
TIMELINE for Mystara, "Twin Campaigns" version

I still have a lot of work to do on these and some funky math to make them work. This is, of course, assuming that time passes the same way in all the realms, and I am not making that assumption. I could hand wave and say "it fits" but I at least would like to find a large enough whole for Barovia in Mystara to fit.

The Art

This one is a little more interesting in my mind.

Both the early Mystara Gazetteer line and the Ravenloft line share the same artists. Now this is not a huge surprise. There were a lot of books being pumped out by TSR in the AD&D 2nd Ed days and only a few artists. But they typically were used on various projects in various combinations.

Both Mystara and Ravenloft shared the same cover artist, Clyde Caldwell, and the same interior artist, Stephen Fabian. And some of the parallels are striking.

Count Strahd (Ravenloft) and Prince Voszlany (Glantri)

Victor Mordenheim (Ravenloft) and Rafiel (Mystara - Shadow Elves)

Count Strahd and Prince Voszlany look like they are related, and Victor Mordenheim and Rafiel look like they went to University together.

The Caldwell covers are fairly part-and-parcel with the look of Ravenloft from the start. So seeing all the books side by side they do "feel" right together.

Likewise the Stephen Fabian interior art has a dark spookiness to it and his style is so unique that when I picked up a 1990 copy of Anita and saw his art I knew it right away.

Maybe I need to make a witch, named Anita, (or Anita Tina, I always wanted a character with a palindrome name) from Mystara, Glantri in particular, who gets stuck in Ravenloft. I like this.

Of course, none of this is true. But it feels true, and isn't that better than the truth? At least that is what Leonard Nimoy, the Patron Saint of "In Search Of," has to say.

Links

The Piazza Board

Products

Basic and First Edition

Second Edition

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

In Search Of...Bruno's Earth

Who is Bruno? What is his Earth? Is there a Bruno's Mars? Why am I searching for it? These questions...are not likely to get fully answered, but I will give it a try in this segment of "In Search Of..."

So I found this curiosity on Amazon a while back. Two books, super cheap called "Bruno's Earth Game Book" and "Bruno's Earth Creature Manual."

Here is a quote from the Amazon page.

This is an expansion to the game that fills in the holes and gets rid of the obscure contradictory rules. It is more consitent and more detailed, yet easier to play. The games on the shelves these days are so complex and have so many volumes of rules, a dozen lawyers couldn't sort it out. Bruno's Earth goes back to the beginning and rebuilds from scratch, enhancing all aspects that make the game fun to play and fizes all the problems that made it hard to play. Bruno's Earth is a trim, detailed, cohesive game system that is fun to play and easy to learn.

I mean, this is no different than hundreds of forgotten Fantasy Heartbreakers out there. What makes this one special, or more to point, notorious?

Here are some bold claims on the back covers.

The author is listed as "Jim Patrick Guyer." Now there is Jim Patrick Guyer, who is an author and invented a game called Diamond Chess (old, inactive URL: http://diamondchess.net/) who passed away in 2021. I can't confim that this is the one and only Jim Patrick Guyer. Goodreads seems to think so, but that does not mean a lot. He does have a hotmail email address, so that at least gives some evidence this is old.

BrunosEarth.com listed in the Game Book was first indexed back in 2011. A coming soon page was up for a while, then it went blank.

A thread on ENWorld claims that it is from 1986. An ISBN search for Bruno's Earth Game Book does list Jan 14, 1986, as the publication date. This is likely for the 10-digit ISBN and not the newer 13-digit one.

An ISBN search for Bruno's Earth Creature Manual says it was registered in 2012. I am not sure why there is a 26-year gap when the books are obviously contemporaneous. Though that could just be in their current forms/format. Further searches only bring up the Amazon pages.

In truth, outside of the ISBN registration, I can't see much else for these books.

There are no threads on RPG.net for it. Same with Dragonsfoot

I tried searching the Usenet, but all the search engines I used to use are behind paywalls now.

That is just the foundational searching. What about the books themselves?

Bruno's Earth

These books are the pretense of a game. Despite the author's claim these are not what AD&D Second Ed should have been. Not even close.

The game book is 136 pages, and the monster book is 92 pages.

Bruno's Earth Game Book

Ok, I really have no idea what this is about. 10 pages for a Table of Contents (that's about 8% of the whole book). I am not sure what bugs me more. The only original art (that I can tell) is bad, the ComicSans font, or the text on the page.

What do I mean? Well out of the gate one of our player races is an Albino. Yikes. We also get Hobbits. So lets just get everyone to sue us all at once.

Of note, the art here includes some gray-scale, descaled versions of D&D 3rd Edition art.

Characters have 8 Ability scores, the normal 6 plus Memory and Comeliness, and are generated using 3d6, 3d20, and 4d24. How?? Don't ask me.

I could go on, but reading the rules are giving me a headache. That or the ComicSans font. I was hoping there were some ideas here I could mine, but no. Not really.

Brunos's Earth Creature Manual

Again, I do love monster books. But this one is testing my patience.

The monsters are divided up into broad categories (Natural, Super-Natural, Elemental, Undead), then alphabetically. These are largely copied from the AD&D 1st Monster Manual, with some from theFiend Folio and Monster Manual II. There are no demons or devils.

There are some new monsters. Skrags, a type of undead, some new dragons. There is one, an Orinthopter. It is listed with the Golems under Elementals. The image looks like a crudely drawn glider or kite. There needs to be a description on what this is supposed to be. Is it a construct? An object? It has a Wisdom score, so is it alive?

Look, I could keep on going, but I won't. The author is not around anymore and there is no need for me to be a dick here.

I am not sure how this thing got onto my radar but I have it and no idea what to do with it.

As I said before, it is notable due to its mystery, availability on Amazon, and the author. There might be a story here, but I need help to dig up. I have been researching this since December 2023 and working on this post since June 2024.

In this case, my deep dive gives us nothing.

Thursday, May 16, 2024

In Search Of Beckett Mariner

Normally, I do these for a topic related to Dungeons & Dragons or some other concept. But May is my Sci-Fi month, and I LOVE Star Trek. So, let's take a deep dive and explore the strange past of Star Trek Lower Deck's own Beckett Mariner!

Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner

Mariner's On-Screen Dates

We know that she had the following postings. I am putting my best guesses at her age in parentheses.

2349-50: Likely birth year(s).
2368: First Year at Starfleet Academy (16-17)
2372-2375: Served aboard Deep Space 9 (20-21 to 23-24)
2370s: Served aboard the USS Atlantis (24+)
2379 (or thereabouts): Served on the USS Quinto (30s)
2380: Served on the USS Cerritos (30s)

Those are all established (more or less) dates, ages are only a guess. Yes, she is a 30 year old Ensign on the Cerritos.

What about other evidence of her existence? The first big one comes from the Star Trek: Next Generation episode "The First Duty" in the 5th Season of TNG. We know from both TNG and Lower Decks this was Stardate 45703.9 or 2368.

The First Duty / Old Friends, New Planets

Nitpickers Guild and Vulcan Stev Blog

So, obviously, that background actress was not supposed to be Beckett Mariner. But it is really, really convenient.

Captain Mom Carol Freeman

What else do we know about Beckett? Well, her mom, Carol Freeman, is a Starfleet Captain. Capt. Will Riker described himself as "Carol's Mentor," which she said, "I wouldn't go that far." We know that in 2381 she is the Captain of the U.S.S. Cerritos so when exactly was Riker her "mentor?"

I am going to suggest she served aboard the Enterprise sometime between 2363 and 2371 (SD 48212.4 – 48975.1). She was friends with Sonya Gomez, who was also a Captain at the same time and was an Ensign on the Enterprise in 2364-2365. And, and this is the big one, Carol piloted the Enterprise out of spacedock. At some point she served on the Enterprise, was mentored by Riker, met and became friends with Sonya Gomez.

It is not a stretch then that Beckett was also on the Enterprise during this time. Is there evidence for this? Of course! Or...well, there is some flimsy circumstantial evidence.

Beckett on the Enterprise-D

The Star Trek: TNG episode When the Bough Breaks takes place in 2364. It features a bunch of kids, including one young girl who could be a young Beckett Mariner. You can see the scene here:

If Beckett is 18 in 2368, she would be 14 in 2364. The girl in the video looks younger than 14. If we assume she was particularly gifted and joined Starfleet at 16-17, then we could say she was 12-13 here.

So, maybe not her, but it certainly *could* be.

For other potential Becket Mariner sightings, I will have to go through TNG Seasons 1 to 5 and Deep Space Nice Seasons 4 to 7. You'd think I could just, you know, remember with all the times I have watched these.

I am looking forward to finding more evidence! In the meantime, on to my next "In Search Of" topic.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

In Search Of Duchess and Candella

I mentioned earlier in this year that my oldest son's group is running through ALL editions of D&D to celebrate 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons. They made characters, and they are taking them through each edition. They have done OD&D, Basic and they are now ready for 1st Edition Advanced. The characters are now 2nd to 4th level, but there are only 5 of them. And they want me to run an AD&D game for them.

Last week I finally figured out what I am going to run. They will go through the Orange version of module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess.

I will explain its infamy to them and run it like it was 1981 for them. So, a mix of B/X and AD&D. Just like we did it. I'll talk more about the adventure, but for now, I want to focus on a small side matter with the adventure(s).

That is, who exactly are the thieves, Duchess and Candella?

In Search of...Duchess and Candella

In both versions of the adventure, you encounter two thieves pretending to be Lady Maidservants. Well... not convincingly, since they know very little about what a maidservant does or where anything in the castle is. But they are earnest and "very attractive" and ask to join the party.

Now, I always thought that "Duchess" was the dark-haired one and "Candella" the light-haired one. Largely because I thought the dark-haired one looked like a Duchess and Candella is said to have a string of pearls on her. The orange version gives us their ages as 18 for Duchess and 20 for Candella.

I always liked that art. You are catching two thieves almost red-handed, and the look of surprise on Candella's face and her hair flying about was just great.

They became minor recurring NPCs in my games. Showing up, stealing something here and there, and then disappearing again. If the PCs were ever tossed into jail, then sure enough, Duchess and Candella were already there.

I had not thought about them much, and they certainly don't get the ink that the likes of Aleena or Morgan Ironwolf get, but they were/are fun NPCs, and I wanted to know more about them. Turns out I am not the only one.

What does the Web Say?

There are a few links worth visiting and following up on. First is Greyhawk Musings: On Duchess and Candella. This is a great place to start due to its thoroughness. In fact, this blog is a treasure trove of information on them, and I respect David Leonard for that. He speculates that the dark-haired woman thief in G3, The Hall of the Fire Giant King, is Duchess now 11th level. This begs the question, what happened to Candella? Side note: I used that very same thief as a recurring character when I ran G3, but for me, it was Evelyn the Princess Escalla. But I appreciate what he is doing here. Like me, he equates Duchess with the dark-haired woman and Candella with the light-haired one.

We learn from no less of a luminary himself, Frank Mentzer, that these two figures were not just Jean Well's characters; they were her favorite duo of characters. She also did the art of them in Polyhedron #4.

Sadly, we can't ask Wells herself, as she passed away in 2012.

Greyhawk lore master Jason Zavoda made some similar observations and connections for Greyhawk.

I mentioned I was not the only one to find these two fun. They have appeared in more recent products as well. Or at least homages to them.

Candella, sans Duchess, appears on the cover of Blueholme.

She is the one getting the treasure. Wearing the same outfit as Candella at least.

In a minor cameo, but also a cover, no less, they are part of the new D&D Companion Project. I hope to have more on that soon.

And as I mentioned above, the 11th-level thief from G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King might also be Duchess, without Candella.

Duchess and Candella in Other Adventures

B12 Queen's Harvest is another Basic-level adventure. This time though the "B" is from the BECMI flavor of Basic and not the BX one.

Very early on in this Carl Sargent-penned adventure from 1989, we are introduced to two thieves, Erren and Sarrah, on pages 6-7. Their ages and appearances line up with Candella and Duchess, even if their stats don't quite match, though. It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that Candella and Duchess also have other aliases. They are presented in an NPC Mini-Capsule, so they are important to the adventure, though no other details are given.

The fan module by Agathokles, The Dymrak Dread, makes this connection solid with Sarrah, now known as "the Duchess," and part of the Thieves Guild, and her friend Erren Candella. Here they are 5th and 6th level respectively. This adventure also has Orcus and witches in it, so it is worth my coming back to.

Another adventure to feature them, and this time by name, is the Palace of the Golden Princess, an homage to the original (Orange) Palace of the Silver Princess and Jean Wells herself. There are 5e and OSE versions of the adventure, and they are tied to a comic series taking place in a land inspired by the map in the Original B3 Palace of the Silver Princess. There are even some allusions (in an oblique way) to the Return to the Keep on the Borderlands.

They also briefly appear in Mr. Welch's Mystara Player's Guide for 5e, notably under Mystara's Most Wanted.

Thought their biggest feature run has been in the various Folio Black Label adventures. Most notably in Folio: Black Label #10 and The Complete Folio Black Label.

In The Complete Folio Black Label (covering Black Label 1-6 with extras), nearly every piece of art features our daring duo in all sorts of predicaments throughout all the adventures. They are also rendered by various artists like Brian Brinlee, Peter Bradley, and Simon Adams, among others. Folio: Black Label #4 and Folio: Black Label #5 even feature them on the cover. Honestly, I bought a bunch of these just to see how much Candella and Duchess art there was in them.

Another artist whose work has been featured in the Folio: Black Label books is Domenico Neziti. He has done so many pieces of Duchess and Candella that I am giving him his own space below.

Here are a few of his pieces from his Instagram page.

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A post shared by Domenico Neziti (@domenico_neziti)

And another I could not find on his Instagram.

Domenico Neziti "Demon Bait"

He clearly has these two down, with some more on his DeviantArt page.

With new books out like Folio: Black Label series it is easy to see how these two have had all sorts of adventures. I can see something akin to distaff versions of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, though maybe less magic. Likely a bit closer to The Rat Queens. When I used them in games I always made Candella closer to the Thief-Acrobat concept and Duchess maybe a little closer to a Thief-Assassin. But I don't get "evil" off of either of them, really. Plus, Duchess doesn't have the strength score to be an assassin. Maybe more fighter-thief.

Duchess and Candella in my Games

Duchess and Candella, Sheets from Dark Wizard Games

I have used them in the past, as I mentioned, but never to the extent I have some other characters and certainly not to the level some other gamers have.

Given all the art out there, they have certainly had a lot of adventures, and some that look outright crazy. But these two seem like fun characters to have "madcap adventures." I mean, is Morgan Ironwolf going to pretend to be half-naked bait for a demon? No, I don't see it. I'd love to use these two in my Forgotten Realms adventures but honestly they are so Mystara/Oerth feeling for me I can't see moving them over any easier than I could move the B-modules over.

I have at least figured out how they met. This came up in an adventure before. They were both, independently trying to steal this ruby, from the local guild-mistress of thieves. They didn't know the other was also trying, nor did either know this was the guild mistress. They failed, and the guild mistress, Amara, impressed by their attempt or something else, took them in and made them work together. The two became good friends, and their careers began. In my mind, Candella had been a tavern wench who had become tired of watching adventurers coming in with ill-gotten gains when she could have all that gold. Duchess' background is a bit darker. She was a servant girl working for a Baron and Baroness. The Baroness had accused her of stealing a necklace, but she had not. The Baron, who was broke, had sold it to cover some of his debts and suggested she could work off her guilt in his bed chamber. When she refused, he got violent, and she ran to escape him, and he fell down the stairs to his death. Knowing she would be blamed and likely executed, she ran. She thinks she is still wanted for the Baron's murder. She isn't; no one ever looked for her. In fact, the Baron's debt was so great that the local authorities had plenty of other suspects. The Baroness died soon after in the home of a relative.

I know, according to the art above, that Candella gains some Boots of Flying, and Duchess gets a huge magic sword.

Since my oldest is running his group through all of the editions of D&D I'll also do versions of them for every edition. Say 2nd level for D&D Basic/Expert, 4th level for AD&D 1st, 8th level for AD&D 2nd Editon, 12th level for D&D 3.x, 16th level for D&D 4e Essentials (better Rogues), and 20th for D&D 5th Edition. That should be fun, really. Course I'll need some good prestige classes when I get to 3.x. I think I'll post them when I get around to stating them all up.

While I will keep them at the same level, at any given time, Candella is about 600 XP ahead of Duchess.

Candella and Duchess for B/X. Art by Brian Brinlee and Domenico Neziti,
Vitruvian Character Sheets Blog of Exalted Deeds

While reading up on them, I saw one person online refer to them as a couple of "party girls." I mean, sure, that fits. The vibe I have always had with them was they were both adventuresses out for a bit of fun and hopefully score some treasure. Ok, a lot of treasure. Though at least one academic dissertation places them in the role of temptresses. I suppose that would work too, though not how I would play them.

Have you used these two in your games? How did it work for you? What happened with them?

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