Keith AmmannApr 11, 2023
THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER I
In which Dorothea Brooke, Ebenezer Scrooge and Estella Havisham visit the laboratory of Dr. Septimus Pretorius, where they find him under attack by a reanimated baboon and separated from his trusty Faraday pistol. As Scrooge shouts encouragements, Havisham and Brooke pump several bullets into the baboon, but it rises and continues fighting, and its severed arm joins the fray of its own volition! #CypherSystem #TTRPG
Show threadKeith AmmannApr 11, 2023
Finishing off the baboon and stabbing the arm with a dagger, Havisham asks Pretorius whether the baboon was a pet, a friend or an accomplice. Pretorius, laughing nervously, asks his rescuers inside and pours them each a tumbler of gin, inquiring into their purposes. Brooke extends an invitation to Pretorius to join the society, and upon being assured of remuneration, the man of learning agrees. Now the Society of Exceptional Personages awaits its first assignment.
Show threadKeith AmmannApr 26, 2023
THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER II
In which the enigmatic "M" meets with Brooke, Scrooge, Havisham and Pretorius and asks them to look into a possible connection between the recent murder of Col. Arkady Dornovich of the Russian Imperial Police on a train from Berlin to St. Petersburg and the murder of Metropolitan Police Inspector Odell Ainsworth, six months before, both of whom were found with the letter T carved into their foreheads. #CypherSystem #TTRPG
Show threadKeith AmmannApr 26, 2023
The four personages visit the District No. 3 police station and take advantage of Scrooge's commanding demeanor to arrange a meeting with the superintendent. He is unwilling to break protocol and share information about the Met's cases but, when told of the possible connection between the murders, tells them where to find Ainsworth's widow—a plan that Scrooge believes may provide an opening to converse with the deceased himself.
Show threadKeith AmmannMay 24, 2023
THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER III
In which Brooke and Havisham drop in on the widow Ainsworth, claiming to be members of the "Constables' Bereavement Society." While the widow makes tea, Havisham steals upstairs—and steals a cigarette case that belonged to Inspector Ainsworth. They take the personal item to the street where Ainsworth was slain, and Scrooge lights one of the inspector's cigarettes, preparing to make contact with the spirit of the deceased. #CypherSystem #TTRPG
Show threadKeith AmmannMay 24, 2023

The others see only smoke, but to Scrooge's eye, the wisps form into the visage of the late police inspector! Ainsworth's spirit discloses that he was killed by "those backstabbers, Simmons and Bancroft," after he took a £500 bribe from one Col. Martinov to manufacture evidence against a Russian national living in London, Max Alexeyev, in order to have him extradited.

"What happened to Alexeyev?" Brooke asks, and the personages plan to visit the offices of the Daily Telegraph to find out.

Show threadKeith AmmannJun 7, 2023
THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER IV
In which the four personages ply a newspaperman on the Telegraph's foreign desk with food and drink, and confirm that Alexeyev, a professor and translator, had in fact been charged with murder and subsequently deported; and also learn that Col. Martinov is rumored to be a member of the Russian secret police, while the murdered Col. Dornovich had been on a highly unusual mission to Berlin before he was slain. #CypherSystem #TTRPG
Show threadKeith AmmannJun 7, 2023
What was Alexeyev working on that drew the interest of the Russian government—documents he was translating, perhaps? Was the criminal's confession to Ainsworth's murder forged? And where is Martinov now?
Show threadKeith AmmannJun 21, 2023

THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER V
In which the personages pay a visit to King's College to inquire into Prof. Alexeyev's activities and learn that after his arrest, all his papers were cleared out of his office without the knowledge or permission of anyone at the college! Also, according to his colleagues, he was known to have socialist sympathies.

Might Inspector Ainsworth have been murdered by other radicals in retaliation for framing Alexeyev? #CypherSystem #TTRPG

Show threadKeith AmmannJun 28, 2023
THE SOCIETY OF EXCEPTIONAL PERSONAGES
CHAPTER VI
In which the personages decide to investigate the train on which Col. Dornovich was murdered and travel to the continent on the Nord Express. En route from Ostend to Liège, an already intoxicated Pretorius learns from a waiter that when the murder occurred, the train had been subjected to a series of uncharacteristic delays while traveling through Germany, causing it to fall three hours behind schedule. #CypherSystem #TTRPG
Show threadKeith AmmannJun 28, 2023

Pretorius has a fit of insight: The delays must have been deliberate, brought about to ensure that most passengers would be asleep at the time of the murder!

But was the ghastly killing the work of Dornovich's junior officer, Maj. Sergei Volkov? Of Alan Tremayne, Lord Alanmere, secretary of the British Embassy in St. Petersburg? Or did a cunning assassin somehow manage to board the train while it was in motion, then escape without a trace?

Show threadDatalessJun 28, 2023
@KeithAmmann Briefly thought you wrote “Lord Alanmore”, so now I’m wondering if that closeness was deliberate.
Show threadKeith Ammann
@Dataless Ha! No, I haven't even thought about that until now. Many of these names aren't original to me.
Jun 28, 2023 at 11:29amWeb