Dark Places

We have started a campaign game of Bliss Stage, missing a player from when we played the intro scenario in the book. In Bliss Stage, game preparation is part of play, and we spent around one and a half sessions on it, but it could easily have been done in one single session. What we have now is a setting for the game, both real and dream, and a group of characters who are going to try to fight the alien invasion.


Game is set in Edinburgh, of course, and I immediately thought of my friend Malcolm, who besides being a game designer also delves into urban exploration. A while ago he visited an derelict cold war underground bunker near where I live, and I suggested the bunker as the group’s headquarter, which everyone liked. Malcolm shot some really creepy, evocative images from inside the place, which were great as well. Basically it’s a three-level underground ROTOR radar bunker of which the top level was a WWII fighter control bunker. There’s some info and pictures here:
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=16446

The dreamworld is a mono-colour toned deserted landscape with strange physics and dimensions, scattered with great mausoleums and huge mud flats. There are scaffoldings with containers filled with people. Sometimes the dream loops over and over again. The aliens are tall and two-dimensional, looking like black and white projections of news reels from earth’s history.

Our group of survivors is a resourceful one, and they have made great use of the location, by even getting an old generator running on alcohol made from potatoes, and broadcasting to other survivors via their own pirate radio station.
 
Their grown-up leader is Elspeth McClaverty, a former farmer and land owner with brain damage from a riding accident. Elspeth is a little uncool, old and with a fucked up short-term memory.

Pilots
Elijah, played by Pooka, 17-year-old angry seasoned veteran who recently lost his little brother.
Fay, played by Louise, also 17. An innocent sweetheart, sweet, friendly and prone to problems.
Oscar, played by Liz, 15, narcissistic bisexual carefree hedonist.

Anchors
Tony, a likeable, techie radio guy. Tony is kind.
Maria, 15, a well-read, super intellingent, loud, big girl. Maria is savvy.
Michael Anderson, 16, a wanna-be pilot who couldn’t cope with piloting. Michael Anderson is experienced.

Secondary characters
Grizzly, 10, who defected from “the cannibals”, another surviving group in Edinburgh.
Gwyn, 15. Former Judi champion, risk taker. She was involved in Elijah’s brother’s disappearance.
Clint, 17. The farm hand, the loner, the isolated practical guy.

The Edinburgh cell’s hopes are…
…that we can make a better civilization
…that we win a decisive battle

Character generation in BS is a great collaborative effort, where everyone is bouncing ideas of each other, constantly. All these teenagers grew out of a discussion and then somebody said “Oh, he must be a pilot! She’s totally an Anchor!” etc. It wasn’t until towards the end of the session we decided who were actually going to play which character. We all liked this process very much. Liz did arrived in a bad mood, and it turned out that she was fearing that she was going to endure a classic old-school chargen session where you have to come up with exciting things and details about the character you are going to play, and then never use them ever again in actual play. Needless to say, she was in a much better mood afterwards.

…end of transmission