The Mirror to the Future

So we pick up the game as the other game ended, with our two intrepid detectives tops in a bustling Victorian street before Anna Marie (AM), the now very real ghost that Anna had been seeing in the present. 

AM presented a sad case to the duo. Her sister was missing and the authorities could do nothing to find her. Could they help? In 1850, who else would you turn to than the rather  incongruous owners of a strange little bookshop?

The trio decided that they should not talk in public so they went to a nearby chapel to continue their conversations. The sister, Abigail, was 18 and was being courted by an aspiring playwright, Henry Charles, whose play - 'A Mirror To The Future' (an amazingly accurate depiction of life in 1950) - was currently being shown at a local theatre. Henry had disappeared as well and her father was convinced that they had eloped but AM thought different. Her father did not approve of HCS as he is 'deformed'  with a club foot.  She had looked at HCs house and it had not been cleared. 

The investigators took their leave and returned to the bookshop and the present - a tactic I had not thought they would engage. Some research into the theatre allowed them to narrate three things about it which were:

1. The theatre burned to the ground in 1850. 
2. The playwright was never found after the fire. 
3. The theatre site is rumoured to be haunted. 

The two changed into their approximation of Victorian female dress (failed rolls resulting in a negative modifier for social rolls) and returned to the past and AM. 

They decided to go to the theatre and see the play, Anna producing some appropriate coinage from her magic pockets. As they watched the play unfold they realised that Henry was in the box, watching the play! They went to intercept him, playing the role of Victorian ladies to the full until they ran to intercept him! And he ran, which was quite clever for a man with a crippled foot! Kelly, being more than a little kick ass, rugby tackled him and then he hissed and spat at her, actively trying to scare her. It worked and he escaped. They tried desperately to get the locals to stop him but they could not rally them to their aid, being strangely dressed and 'alien'. 

Retiring from the scene Anna used her photographic memory to recall that HC had jumped in a cab and she had heard him mention his house. They decided to investigate, in the middle of the night. Yeah, that would work. 

Entering the house through the back door, into a dark kitchen. I described the room in increasingly quiet voice, emphasising the shadows, the creaks, the smells and the whisps of smoke from the dead fire. Anna lit her torch (never knowingly underteched) and I screeched loudly as the cat leapt from its hiding hole. Ok it was a cheap trick but the girls nearly crapped themselves. Mission 'Fear' was going nicely. 

And then they decided to split up. Because it was more Dr Who!

Split screen action was handled with aplomb. 

Anna ascended to the bedroom only to have HC appear behind her, trapping her and assaulting her. She is useless in a fight and the now revealed Plasmavore (shapechanging alien vampires) began feeding on her. And then it transformed into her! She managed to escape but the transformed Plasmavore crashed out of the window. 

Meanwhile, in the cellar (seriously, this was Dr Who not Dead of Night) Kelly discovered the drained but conscious body of HC, the untouched  Abigail and ... the very dead body of AM. Which is strange because AM is now standing behind her now!

AM revealed that they were a pair of time displaced plasmavores and that they had tricked them here, creating a temporal disturbance using the revelations in the play, in a hope that someone would take them home. She asked to be taken through the 'unborn door'. Kelly had heard of their dead door, but not the unborn door and she did not want to unleash shapechanging vampires loose anywhere! The vampire tried to assault Kelly but she is a different kettle of physical fish and she knocked the Plasmavore out cold with the lantern she was carrying!

At this point they considered killing the vampire but they agreed they should not do that. Getting the living victims out of the building, they decided to take the unconscious Plasmavore to the theatre to lay a trap for the remaining one. They figured that it would come as it was desperate and that the theatre was the best place as it had to burn!

The Plasmavore did arrive ... Along with a mob of police and people lead by the furious HC. The Plasmavore looks like Anna and tries to persuade everyone that she is 'the real Anna' until Kelly asks her a question that only Anna could answer (about her love life!) and the Plasmavore breaks  and pleads to be taken through the Unborn Door. However the mob intervene and somehow a gas lamp is broken and the theatre burns

The Plasmavore is lost in the blaze, her cries echoing through the night. Some say that they still echo around the site, the screams of someone who just wanted to go home. 

In denouement we decided that HC and Abigail did indeed elope to avoid the scandal and thus he was never found again (as per the research)

When Kelly and Anna returned they had a very serious discussion about what had just happened and the implications. Should they nail the dead door closed and never go through it again? I was quite taken by the reaction they had - rather than assume that they had to continue 'just because' they questioned it thoroughly. However they decided to honour the wishes of Miss Mulholland. 

As an epilogue Anna was cleaning the top floor and noticed a new door. Going through it she found a new room that she has never noticed and a modern almost SF style door. The open light was flashing. Anna realises this must be the unborn door - a door to the future?

Opening it she sees the vista of a bustling star port! And then a short, black clad Judoon figure steps into the door

'Jo Rho Mo Fo Doh. Mo Ho!'

To be continued ...

Episode One: The Very Curious Bookshop...

Scene One: Kelly is working in the Round Table when there is a fracas in the bar. She intervenes with her 'Impulsive' verve and levels the punter, pinning him to the pool table and warning the other revellers that if they carried on they would get the same. Bert, the humourless owner of the bar, invites her to take an indefinite holiday from working at the pub. Realising she has just been sacked, she makes her way over to Anna's to cry on her shoulder. They discuss that Ms Mulholland, the owner of the bookshop where Anna works, has been away in Europe for weeks. In the night, Anna sees a spirit - a Georgian girl called Anna-Marie who was asking where Ms Mulholland was and why she hadn't opened the door recently.

Scene Two: Kelly and Anna open the bookshop and are visited by Mr Borthwich - a ridiculously tall, think figure dressed in old style clothing (think Henrik Hansen from Holby City) who introduces himself as a representative of Twilight Inc ('Reclaimers of ancient machinery and technology'). He is seeking Ms Mulholland, but as she is not here, he leaves. Definitely creepy. After that, there is a knocking from a feature of the bookshop called 'The Dead Door' - a false door leading to a brick wall, a folly within the house. There is, of course, nothing on the other side to knock. The final visitor in the scene was Heironimous Greene (with an 'e'), who turned the shop sign to 'closed' when he entered and introduced himself as the solicitor of the Mulholland family who was there to give the sad news that Ms Mulholland died on her European tour and has left the shop to Anna ... if she can find the key to the Dead Door. If she could not find in within 24 hours, the shop would be auctioned to the highest bidder.

[A note on the bookshop: As the game went on I added more and more detail to the shop. It started as a four story bookshop, which looks incongruous in the sleepy village. The basement was added during chargen. I threw in phrases like 'looks bigger on the inside' etc. The shop was described as having an Georgian ground floor and an Edwardian top floor etc. Architecture out of time...]

Scene Three: An investigation took place, as Kelly and Anna searched for the key. They narrated in a secret room where Ms Mulholland did her business and spoke to Mr Tiddles, a stuffed cat,  and I added some collections of photos, press cuttings and interviews in the room regarding anachronisms. There was definitely something time-related going on here. 

[The descriptions of the bookshop became more vivid now. They could see, as they were looking harder (and breaking through the perception filter), little pieces of TARDIS technology in the house. Nothing was clicking yet though.]

At this point in the evening, Mr Borthwick tried to break into the shop to steal something. He was heard by the keen eared Kelly, who then tried to tackle him. She did so, but then Borthwick disappeared from her grasp, appeared behind her and slugged her over the back of the head. Anna, being outside of the fight, witnessed his little hop backwards in time. Very strange. He tried to leg it, but Kelly tackled him again and he screamed that he was bing attacked. A crowd formed from late night drinkers and a test was held as to who could sway the crowd. In the end, the ex-policewoman was able to exert her Voice of Authority and good looks to convince them to believe her but Borthwick used his time-hop again to make his escape.

Kelly and Anna continued their investigations, this time expending Story Points to narrate in their own sources and add their own details. Kelly contacted Steve, her 'Friend' in the Met. He confirmed that Twilight Inc. existed were touting business around the rich and famous about 'eliminating regret', claiming that they could help people - for the right price - to undo bad decisions, such as saying the wrong phrase or rolling the wrong dice. It was correctly deduced that this would be the result of the same 'time hop' technology that Mr Borthwick used.  Steve reckoned it was a scam, trading standards etc. Anna, on the other hand, trawled the net and found a lot on Twlight Inc. on 'conspiraciesrus.com' which detailed the early days of the company, its bankruptcy and the insanity of its original owner, one Mr Borthwick who was obsessed with keys (all details added by Lara!)

At this point both the girls paid a Story Point for the reveal and we called up the Doctor's theme tune in our heads as I described the falling of the perception filter and the revelation of Gallifreyan architecture around the shop, pieces of TARDIS etc. The shop was built out of the remains of a TARDIS!

And then the Cloister bell started to chime!

Downstairs, Borthwick and his goons - black jumpsuited demolition men - had broken in and were ordered to take the place apart until they could get the Dead Door. Being 'impulsive' Kelly  rand down the stairs, trying to fight them off whilst Anna tried desperately to work out how to get the 'shop' to work. Kelly roundhouse kicked one of the men but stumbled down the steep stairs, thankfully avoiding their swinging tools. Anna failed to activate the TARDIS. Kelly ducked through the legs of the men and dived into the basement, to put herself between the men and the Dead Door (and to protect Anna's stash of tech in the basement.) She used a Story Point to call for a revelation and I told her that as she was scurrying she looked up and saw the OPEN/CLOSED sign fall off the door, and as it fell, it changed languages into something alien. Flashback to Mr Greene (with an 'e') 'closing' the shop and it twigged that the key was the shop sign. Anna failed again to get the defenses to work. The men broke the door down to the basement with their tools. Kelly grabbed some of Anna's tech that looked like a gun and fired, but failed her roll and impotently sprayed the men with compressed air! Finally, Anna activated the TARDIS defenses and the shop activated the time-hop devices on all on the men, and Borthwick, and zapped them away, back to their base.

Clearing up after the battle, Mr Greene (with an 'e') appears and congratulates them. He explains that Ms Mulholland had always intended them to have the shop but she wanted to be sure that they were sufficiently skilled in detective work to appreciate it. She was a detective too and her business came through the Dead Door (as did many of her books...). Greene (with an 'e') hands them her business card 'Ms Mulholland: Temporal Detective Agency' and says that its their business now.

Kelly and Anna turn the sign to open and there is a knocking at the Dead Door. They open it to show a door opening out onto a Georgian street from another Dickensian bookshop. Standing at the door is Anna-Marie who is pleased to see them as she needs their help. Her sister has gone missing!

Final Cut Scene: Borthwick and his goons appear in their modern base where he rages at their failure to capture the remains of a genuine TARDIS. A Twilight Inc. scientist tried to placate him by telling him that it was not a totally lost day as they had opened the outer casing - panning across to show technicians working on the shell of a Dalek!

Recap: The two characters are now owners of a TARDIS enhanced bookshop with a door which can place them through time and space, and a 'business' which recommends them as detectives for weird cases (but they don't know that yet!). They have crossed paths with the creepy Mr Borthwick who has some time travel technology and is blatantly much more than meets the eye. They also have the friendship of Mr Greene, but more on him later. The feedback from the girls was exceptionally positive!

Anna Roswell

Name: Anna Roswell
Concept: Habitually unemployed college drop-out who sees 'spirits', tinkers with tech and loves books.

Considers Kelly to be her 'rock'
Used to live in the flat that Kelly now lives in, in Riverdale
Her favourite hangout is an old second-hand tech shop
Volunteers in an old bookshop and maintains a workshop in its basement
Pursues a futile desire to learn to dance with her exasperated teacher Madama Rosmerta
Lives next door to Steve, a friend from Uni, high school crush of Kelly, who considers her 'one of the lads'

Home Tech Level: 5

4 - Awareness               
2 - Coordination
6 - Ingenuity
3 - Presence
4 - Resolve
3 - Strength

1 - Athletics:               
1 - Convince:               
2 - Craft:                    
0 - Fighting:               
4 - Knowledge:               
0 - Marksman:               
2 - Medicine:               
4 - Science:               
0  - Subterfuge:               
2 - Survival:               
4 - Technology:               
0 - Transport:                

Traits

Boffin - a character adept at jiggery pokery!
Indomitable - +4 vs control, hypnosis or possession, hard to sway from her path
Photographic Memory - able to commit important information to memory
Resourceful Pockets - on a doube or SP, find a handy item in your pockets
Technically Adept - +2 to rolls to repair, use complex items or perform jiggery-pokery

Clumsy - make additional Awareness and Coordination tests in time of stress
Distinctive - -2 penalty to hide in crowd, +2 to NPCs attempting to remember PC

Kelly Thomson

Name: Kelly Thomson
Concept: Former Police Officer, busted out for 'seeing aliens', now returned to Riverdale

Considers Anna to be her good friend, always there to help
Works as a barmaid in 'The Round Table', a rough pub in Riverdale
Has a former partner, Simon, who has quite a liking for her.
Has a sister, April, who still works as a police officer
Owns a flat in an old building in Riverdale - her base of operations
Had a high school crush on Steve, Anna's next door neighbour
Home Tech Level: 5

4 - Awareness:               
5 - Coordination:            
3 - Ingenuity:               
5 - Presence:               
3 - Resolve:               
4 - Strength:               

3 - Athletics          
1 - Convince
0 - Craft
3 - Fighting
1 - Knowledge:               
1 - Marksman:               
2 - Medicine:               
0 - Science:               
3 - Subterfuge:         
2 - Survival:               
0 - Technology:             
2 - Transport:                

Traits

Brave - +2 to Resolve rolls when you could be scared or need to not show fear
Empathic - +2 to Presence or Convince rolls when empathising or reading someone
Friends - 'Simon', former partner in the police force
Keen Senses - +2 bonus to Awareness when trying to spot something, with any sense
Quick Reflexes - Always go first in the phase in which you operate
Tough - Reduces damage taken by 2
Voice of Authority - +2 bonus to Presence and Convince to get people to do what you want

Impulsive - You really like to act quickly and not think too hard about things
Outcast (Police) - -2 to social rolls involving the police

Introduction

Welcome to the world of TEMPS, the temporal detective agency. This is a new game I am running using the Dr Who - Adventures in Time and Space rules by Cubicle 7. The players are my daughters, Lara (playing Anna) and Emma (playing Kelly). I'm going to try to keep a record of actual plays and original monsters and characters here for posterity.