Post by Catsmate on Jul 25, 2024 19:33:35 GMT
An idea that came to me while travelling recently. It could be the basis for a campaign, not entirely dissimilar to our own The Thing In Th Basement, involving a group of university students and a moderately-controllable, not-understood, mysterious, time portal to explore the past and future.
Alternatively it could be a one-off where the PCs (the Mob would fit perfectly) get swept up in events and end up stuck in Victorian London for a while
Or it could be the start of a campaign, or recurring scenarios, where the present meets the past, with Torchwood, various aliens and the Napoleon of Crime struggle to control the time portal.
Ghosts of the Tunnels
Synopsis.
Modern day urban explorers use discarded alien technology to travel in time through the London Underground. Weirdness ensues.
Background.
In the excellent C7 scenario Ghost Engines0
More than a century later these ‘circuits’ remain active and can be energised to transport people into the past.
Ghost Engines started in the disused (fictional) Marnock Spur tunnel where the passage of the Ghost Train dragged the PCs (who were there investigating missing children) into the past where the encounter the Paternoster Gang and gain local assistance from them.
Some eight months ago a UCL student, and Urban Explorer, named Charlotte Jackson dragged her mostly willing girlfriend Emilia Dixon down into some disused Victorian train tunnels1. Trespassing into a spur tunnel Emilia’s use of a ‘borrowed’ university scanning device revealed some weird inscriptions in the brickwork, that glowed blue-white under the scanner's signal, almost like some kind of circuitry….
Returning a week later, with Emilia now the more interested one, they found that a ‘borrowed’ backpack RADAR unit caused the mass of inscriptions to glow blue-white, definitely like a complex circuit.
Some research, and delvings in the weirder recesses of the web, where someone claimed to recognisee the patterns2, later Emilia had built a machine that she hoped could activate the lines.
That night the pair found themselves in a London where the tunnel was in regular use, the London of 1893.
After some quick reconnaissance, the pair weren’t dressed or equipped for the era, the pair managed to return to 2025, excited by their discovery.
A week later having arranged some cosplay gear and a few 'replica' coins, the pair returned to the nineteenth century and explored the world outside the railway.
It was a mildly profitable trip; one era's discarded junk is another's valuable antiques3.
Recently some of the pictures posted online by Charlotte were doubted by another Urbex group, so she challenged the group to come on a nocturnal tunnelling that they'll never forget.
Location.
London. In multiple eras. The tunnel is now in suburbia, but back in the 1890s it was on the outer periphery of the rail network. The circuits were inscribed in 1887 so this is the earliest possible destination, without GM fiat, but the network extends into the present day (whatever that is) and well into the future, at least to the period of the Dalek Occupation.
Base.
In Victorian London the pair established a base of operations in a disused side tunnel, constructed it appears as an office or planning place during works. They’ve changed the locks on the access tunnel and (eventually) covered the door with a solidogram they picked up4.
Notes.
Comments and ideas welcome.
0. It's one of their better offerings, complete with Steampunk elements, though it could do with better integration with the version of Victorian Britain created for Paternoster Investigations
1. Have you never done something objectively stupid for such reasons? At least this didn't involve parachutes or ostriches....
2. They’re attending UCL, once practically the scientific branch of Torchwood. There are a lot of old records, misplaced diaries and journals, curious artefacts, reels of magtape and other stuff, in boxes stacked in basements and a lot of institutional memory.
3. Potentially a connection to the Timeless Society.
4. Think the wall at the bottom of the stairs in The Visitation.
5. Some years before it was nominally invented too.
6. Though they're a few years early for the Broomhandle Mauser.
Alternatively it could be a one-off where the PCs (the Mob would fit perfectly) get swept up in events and end up stuck in Victorian London for a while
Or it could be the start of a campaign, or recurring scenarios, where the present meets the past, with Torchwood, various aliens and the Napoleon of Crime struggle to control the time portal.
The post contains spoilers for the C7 published scenario Ghost Engines.
Ghosts of the Tunnels
Synopsis.
Modern day urban explorers use discarded alien technology to travel in time through the London Underground. Weirdness ensues.
Background.
In the excellent C7 scenario Ghost Engines0
a pair of alien time travellers are stranded in Victorian London, one of them used local technology and advanced alien science to create a pocket universe under London and create portals into the subterranean train network which his Ghost Engine could use to hunt for his gaoler.
More than a century later these ‘circuits’ remain active and can be energised to transport people into the past.
- This was used in the opening of Ghost Engines to drop the PCs into 1889.
Ghost Engines started in the disused (fictional) Marnock Spur tunnel where the passage of the Ghost Train dragged the PCs (who were there investigating missing children) into the past where the encounter the Paternoster Gang and gain local assistance from them.
- Which is a bit odd, as there was no other suggestion that the Ghost Engine could travel to the future.
Some eight months ago a UCL student, and Urban Explorer, named Charlotte Jackson dragged her mostly willing girlfriend Emilia Dixon down into some disused Victorian train tunnels1. Trespassing into a spur tunnel Emilia’s use of a ‘borrowed’ university scanning device revealed some weird inscriptions in the brickwork, that glowed blue-white under the scanner's signal, almost like some kind of circuitry….
Returning a week later, with Emilia now the more interested one, they found that a ‘borrowed’ backpack RADAR unit caused the mass of inscriptions to glow blue-white, definitely like a complex circuit.
Some research, and delvings in the weirder recesses of the web, where someone claimed to recognisee the patterns2, later Emilia had built a machine that she hoped could activate the lines.
That night the pair found themselves in a London where the tunnel was in regular use, the London of 1893.
After some quick reconnaissance, the pair weren’t dressed or equipped for the era, the pair managed to return to 2025, excited by their discovery.
A week later having arranged some cosplay gear and a few 'replica' coins, the pair returned to the nineteenth century and explored the world outside the railway.
It was a mildly profitable trip; one era's discarded junk is another's valuable antiques3.
Recently some of the pictures posted online by Charlotte were doubted by another Urbex group, so she challenged the group to come on a nocturnal tunnelling that they'll never forget.
- Emilia, as the Stibbons of the pair, disapproves. So she does the sensible thing and plans ahead.
Location.
London. In multiple eras. The tunnel is now in suburbia, but back in the 1890s it was on the outer periphery of the rail network. The circuits were inscribed in 1887 so this is the earliest possible destination, without GM fiat, but the network extends into the present day (whatever that is) and well into the future, at least to the period of the Dalek Occupation.
- One option for the 2150s, and given the geographical oddities of the London shown in that serial, is perhaps some of the underground was moved, as a tourist attraction, far from the efficient mag-lev trains of the period. A brick-by-brick rebuild that preserved the circuit lines.
Base.
In Victorian London the pair established a base of operations in a disused side tunnel, constructed it appears as an office or planning place during works. They’ve changed the locks on the access tunnel and (eventually) covered the door with a solidogram they picked up4.
Notes.
- What equipment do the party bring with them? Charlotte and Emilia have appropriate clothing and money for the period, and know roughly how to act so as to blend in. The other trio are equipped for the undergound but less so for Victorian society.
- Unless Charlotte spun them a story about a Victorian themes party in the tunnels.
- Are the group armed? Charlotte and Emilia might be, there are few restrictions on firearms in Victorian England6, or they might have picked up a few souvenirs during the Second World War, or during that period in '68 when the entire network was closed.
- Does time pass at the same rate on both sides of the portal?
- Given that Emilia's 'opener' is basically a variation on the Barrlyght oscillator5, might this have other effects? Such as attracting those, in either period, who can detect such things.
- The period of a Dalek Occupation is a horrific one, might the pair tray and help? Potentially carrying diseases into the modern day. Or, worse, might someone in the 2150s find out what they're doing and use the tunnel as a gateway for refugees.
- What have the other factions in the 1890s noticed about the incursions?
Comments and ideas welcome.
0. It's one of their better offerings, complete with Steampunk elements, though it could do with better integration with the version of Victorian Britain created for Paternoster Investigations
1. Have you never done something objectively stupid for such reasons? At least this didn't involve parachutes or ostriches....
2. They’re attending UCL, once practically the scientific branch of Torchwood. There are a lot of old records, misplaced diaries and journals, curious artefacts, reels of magtape and other stuff, in boxes stacked in basements and a lot of institutional memory.
3. Potentially a connection to the Timeless Society.
4. Think the wall at the bottom of the stairs in The Visitation.
5. Some years before it was nominally invented too.
6. Though they're a few years early for the Broomhandle Mauser.
