The Plain People of Gaming: Talking to the Dead in the Dracula Dossier

I was listening to the new BBC podcast on The Ratline (it’s about escaped Nazis and post-war conspiracies, so it’s useful for both The Fall of DELTA GREEN and the Dracula Dossier), and was struck by one observation that there are very few survivors of WWII left. For that matter, most of those who were in senior positions in 1977 are retired or gone, too. Vampires may be immortal, but most witnesses are not. The larger the gap between the ‘present day’ strand of the campaign and those historical periods, the less plausible it is for various supporting characters to still be alive.

(On the bright side, Al-Qaeda is apparently enjoying a post-ISIS resurgence, so… I guess that’s good for espionage campaigns involving vampire-tainted counterterrorism operations.)

There are several ways (some used in the Director’s Handbook) to introduce an NPC from the 1940s or 1970s other than tracking them down in some retirement home.

The Successor: The Agents run into a child, former assistant, confidante or custodian of the late NPC who knew them very well and can answer all their questions. The dutiful daughter who took care of her aging parent; the protégé of a senior spy; a student of the late academic who carried on her work. This successor may dismiss stories of vampires and supernatural strangeness as nonsense, but the Agents can glean vital clues despite their disbelief. (In particular, see “Cushing”, p. 92)

I’ve Got A Box Of Papers In The Attic: “You’re looking for my mother. She died ten years ago… she never talked about her work for the government, so I can’t help you. Although, now that you mention it, there’s a box of her papers in the attic. She never threw them out. Said we shouldn’t look at them, but she had us drag them down once a year so she could relive old memories. Huh – actually, it was always on St. George’s day, and that’s today. What a co-incidence. I’ll go up and get them…” (The Acting Director of MI5, p. 80, uses this approach) 

The Transcript: The Agents discover a transcript or a recording of the late NPC – and  the mysterious interviewer is questioning them about the exact topic the Agents want to interrogate them about! Not only do the Agents get the information they seek, but they also have a new mystery to investigate – who was this other vampire hunter, who seems to have followed the same trail of clues as the Agents? And what happened to them? (The Late Con Artist, p. 84, uses this approach).

The Flashback: Combine any of the previous three with a flashback, perhaps using an adventure from The Edom Files. You need to talk to the MI5 Deputy who ran security in London in ’77. He’d dead – but when you dig into his files, you learn about another incident a few years earlier, involving the ballet…

Later in the campaign, dead NPCs can take a more active role:

I Have Prepared This For You: Not only do the Agents find the late NPCs’ papers/diaries/successor, they discover that the NPC anticipated that one day, someone would come looking, and that they’d need help. The NPC left behind a cache of supplies (Night’s Black Agents, p. 94), possibly including some Objects or handouts from the Hawkins Papers – and definitely including some lovely period gear. Escape in that lovingly maintained Aston Martin DB6, or take out bad guys with a WWII Sykes-Fairbairn knife issued by the Special Operations Executive back in ’41.

The Dream: One of the Agents dreams of the late NPC. It’s an unusually vivid nightmare – the two are in some building associated with the NPC (the old MI6 headquarters at Century House, a cottage in the Cotswolds, Ring Manor, a castle in Transylvania, a nightclub in Berlin) while a storm rages outside and some animal tries to break in (but what animal beats its wings against the upper windows like a bat, but scratches at the door like a dog?). Clearly, it’s just a dream, and none of the information obtained within can be relied upon… especially as Dracula can send deceitful visions by night. Or did the late NPC have some special grace from the Almighty to send one last message?

Necromancy: The campaign crawls with ways to raise the dead. There’s the Spirit Board (p. 279), the Online Mystic (p. 126), the Psychic (p. 96), the Solomonari (p. 74). Any of them could call up a dead soul, or even resurrect a corpse in some ghastly mockery of life. For the dead travel fast – and talk even faster, under interrogation.

Dracula is not a novel. It’s the censored version of Bram Stoker’s after-action report of the failed British Intelligence attempt to recruit a vampire in 1894. Kenneth Hite and Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan have restored the deleted sections, inserting annotations and clues left by three generations of MI6 analysts. This is Dracula Unredacted. Follow those clues to the Director’s Handbook, containing hundreds of encounters: shady NPCs, dangerous locations, conspiratorial nodes, and mysterious objects. Together they comprise The Dracula Dossier — an epic improvised, collaborative campaign for Night’s Black Agents, our award-winning vampire spy thriller RPG. Purchase the Dracula Dossier starter kit bundle in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.