The Ministry of Blades

• 21st February 2010

The Movie Pitch

Steed and Mrs Peel meet Dracula.

The Elevator Speech

Agents of a secret gov­ern­ment agency use magic, gad­gets and weaponry to battle the forces of dark­ness in the fog-shrouded streets of Vic­tori­an London.

Tone

Pulp hor­ror, with strong help­ings of fist­icuffs, weird sci­ence and stiff upper lips.

System

Sav­age Worlds.

Player Character Roles

Juni­or agents of the Min­istry of Blades, offi­cially known as the Eso­ter­ic Research Office. Agents are drawn from all walks of Brit­ish soci­ety, but all have been exposed to the hor­rors of the night and have not only sur­vived, but have shown cour­age in fight­ing back.

Adversaries

  • Vam­pires.
  • Were­wolves.
  • Dis­tor­ted products of twis­ted science.
  • Ghosts.
  • Sin­is­ter criminal-types.
  • Fiendish for­eign agents.

Locations

Assor­ted evil-infes­ted loc­a­tions across Lon­don and the Brit­ish Isles, including: 

  • Sew­ers.
  • Rook­er­ies.
  • Man­sions.
  • Dimly-lit streets.
  • Museums, cathed­rals and oth­er his­tor­ic buildings.
  • Occa­sion­al for­ays into the wider Empire and world.

Appendix N

  • The League of Extraordin­ary Gen­tle­men (com­ics rather than the movie).
  • Sher­lock Holmes.
  • Drac­ula.
  • Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
  • The works of Edgar Allan Poe.
  • The Avengers (the Brit­ish 1960’s tele­vi­sion series).
  • Adam Adam­ant.
  • Doc­tor Who.
  • Castle Falken­stein.
  • The Broth­ers Grimm.

Notes

The ini­tial idea for this came from an organ­isa­tion briefly described in the Vic­tori­an Age Vam­pire Storyteller­’s Hand­book, but rap­idly evolved into a Vic­tori­an-era cross between the Avengers, James Bond and Drac­ula. I prefer it that way (they prob­ably ship the emo­tion­ally-dam­aged off to a small vil­lage in North Wales)… The game style itself is very cine­mat­ic, I’m try­ing to encour­age over-the-top action (play­ers will not be pen­al­ised if they fail to achieve some­thing spec­tac­u­lar) and ridicu­lous coin­cid­ences (the play­ers can use Ben­nies to adjust the plot – although not at this stage of the cam­paign). Rules addi­tions are com­ing from Rip­pers, the Sav­age Worlds Vic­tori­an hor­ror cam­paign, and Thrill­ing Tales, Adam­ant Enter­tain­ment’s pulp sup­ple­ment. I’m not sure wheth­er this counts as Gas­light Fantasy or Steam­punk but I’m happy with either appel­la­tion; I’m term­ing it “Steam­Pulp” as that seems to reflect the more action-ori­ented approach I’m taking.

The format of this sum­mary was inspired by posts on I waste the Buddha with my Cross­bow.