[AFHOTWTTGS] Agents of Chaos

I haven't forgotten about the system review. It's coming, I swear. I'm just a bit busy this week, and my freelance work eats away at the same set of mental resources that are involved in learning/running/reviewing an RPG. In the meantime, have some sketchy ideas for villains.

Scribbling up ideas for an adventure in a location which affords at least two historical moments to faff around with - maybe three if we count the original entombment of the Silurians - has me thinking about time-travelling meta-villains, the guiding hand between three separate adventures in the same location; one for each system, almost.

'Time travelling meta-villains', of course, gets me thinking about Faction Paradox. Who are Faction Paradox? I couldn't possibly comment on that, but if you want an immediate visual idea of what's going on with Faction Paradox, you could do worse than this:

Schemes layer upon schemes, strings tangle with strings. What is seen is seldom what is meant. There's an air of the macabre and theatrical about the whole business, and a distinct sense of the convoluted, and an investment in the history of a planet that will one day become their refuge.

Of particular interest, perhaps, is the idea of the eighteenth century; beginning with the end of the Restoration (a setting of history back on its proper track, perhaps) and the Enlightenment, and concluding with Revolutions (American, of course, and later French).

The French Revolution presents us with an archetype who easily slides into the Faction's conceptual armoury - I give you Madame Guillotine, ladies and gentlemen.

Image by Zoe Lacchei and used utterly without permission.

The flamboyant, elaborate costume needs but a demure little skull mask (opera-derived, anyone?) and she's ready to go; a charming murderess with the hint of a French accent. I'm not sure about the squirrel yet. It's probably a spy. Squirrels are beyond suspicion.

The other idea I've had knocking around for a Who antagonist, for the longest time, has been... well, again, you'll see.

The Plague Doctor; the mask is worn to prevent the ingestion of contaminated air, and the role is to intercede in outbreaks of the most fatal diseases. I see this one as a grand vizier figure; a power behind a throne, a necessary evil, a sort of Rasputin character. The presence of the Plague Doctor seems to grant unnaturally long life and great vitality, and his counsel verges on the omniscient.

Of course, neither of them fits remotely in the Middle Ages. Perhaps that's the point; wilful anachronism. Research continues, as does the process of statting this stuff up; it's useless unless it's rendered gameable, after all.