New Legacies (4) – the Other Legacies

The Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook (DH) covers the present-day Legacies of the main members of the Crew of Light – Billie Harker, Tabitha Holmwood, Thad Morris and the rest, the descendants of the original group who battled Dracula. However, Dracula Unredacted reveals the existence of several other members of this fellowship who, for reasons sinister or editorial, were excised from the narrative. Once the players discover the existence of Kate Reed or Inspector Cotford, might they not try to track down their present-day heirs?

Several of the existing non-player characters in the Director’s Handbook are explicitly or implicitly tagged as Legacies. These lesser Legacies (with one exception) aren’t part of the real Crew of Light, so they’re not as important to the campaign. The Director’s Handbook advises using no more than two or three Legacies, but don’t count these lesser figures towards that total.

The minor legacies are:

• MI5 Deputy Simon Cotford, Legacy of Inspector Cotford (DH p. 95)
• Psychic Osmond Singleton, Legacy of Albert Singleton (DH p. 96)
• Artist Vivian Aytown-Baptist, Legacy of Francis Aytown (DH p. 100)
• DIFC Tasker Gavin Parton, Legacy of Sir Robert Parton (DH p. 111)

There’s also the Acting Director of MI5, Jasper Harker (DH p. 80), but he died in ’68, so he’s not going to play a part in a campaign except in flashback or unholy resurrection. Arguably, someone like the Hungarian (DH p.94) might also count.

These minor legacies might still be tracked by Edom or hunted down by Dracula. Of the four, Cotford and Singleton are the highest-profile candidates – Cotford’s part of the security services, while Singleton’s a notorious quasi-cult-leader and a former Edom consultant.

Innocent: The Agents could concievably turn an Innocent Legacy into an ally by revealing their family connection. Making the connection between, say, Vivian and her ancestor Francis Aytown could convince her to trust the Agents – who wouldn’t be fascinated and intrigued by a mysterious ancestor who tangled with THE Count Dracula? Others, like Singleton, might be somewhat aware of their ancestor’s curious circumstances, but welcome the opportunity to find out more.

Asset: Any one Legacy might be an Edom recruit, obviously. A more interesting option – maybe it’s Edom practice to monitor anyone whose ancestor came into close contact with Dracula. In this scenario, Edom’s monitoring thousands of people in the United Kingdom. Are they bugging their phones and stealing their medical records (including blood samples), or is it more like the old Mass-Observation project, where Edom pays its subjects a small annual stipend, and in exchange they fill in diaries (Tell me about your dreams – especially around St. George’s Day)?

A fun early phase of investigation – let the players get hold of some Edom documents, including a list of names and addresses, and let the players work out why the mysterious bad guys are interested in a diamond importer, a bohemian artist, an RAF officer and an infamous psychic, along with one or two other Legacies like Billie Harker (DH p. 42) or Jacqueline Seward (DH p. 47).

Minion: For a terrifying take on Dracula – anyone who’s ever been in close proximity to him, or any of their descendants, is vulnerable to the Count’s psychic influence. This explains his virtual omniscience in Romania (DH p. 203), as his old hunting grounds are absolutely saturated in vampire-spores. Edom, too, is thoroughly compromised, and the Count’s only waiting for the right moment to flick the switch. His visit to London in 1894 planted many seeds, and he’s going to reap a terrible harvest very, very soon. This campaign is going to go a dystopian capstone very quickly, as Dracula mind-controls Edom and most of the British establishment, and the PCs are left fighting a guerrilla war in an occupied and conquered London. Only by studying the various Legacies can the Agents identify ways to foil Dracula’s influence before it’s too late…

The Dracula Dossier reveals that 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.