Campaign: Facets

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

That left the final option, which A.J. thought offered the greatest chance of success. They’d run through La Veta Pass, if possible, but then turn south and travel down through the San Luis Valley (SLV). That opened out into the high valleys of what would be northern New Mexico, in their world, but the Rocky Mountains didn’t rise as high, down there, and the range had a number of huge gaps through which they could easily maneuver to reach the desert south of Dark Canyon.

While they’d undoubtedly pass near Eisehower’s theater of operations, A.J. said, he’d much rather do that than brave the Rio Cimarron Front. Moreover, the route used less fuel than either of the other options, the NASA engineer explained, and to escape the American airship they’d just burned more than he would have preferred.

Henrietta agreed with the assessment and Steven went along, also. That decided, Henrietta soon figured out their current location, and gave Steven a course for nearby La Veta Pass.

Less than an hour later, they watched the ground rise rapidly and saw La Veta Pass ahead of them, a saddle in the mountains. Steven also said they’d run into a headwind and the dirigible was bucking around a bit. A.J. told him to get as high as he could, and then the engineer grabbed a smoke grenade out of a nearby rack.

A.J. pulled the pin, waited for the smoke to billow, and then dropped it over the side. He watched as it fell, streaming smoke, and tried to figure out how the air moved in the narrow region below them.

Based on what he saw, A.J. thought the winds were a bit calmer, a bit more than a hundred feet down, but swirled around more unpredictably. He said he’d go back and crank the engines up, again, to give Steven had more power as he pointed the nose down for a run through the pass.

A few minutes later, the rest of the group held their breath (except for Beatrice, who had passed out, by then) as the tops of the lodgepole pines seemed to rise around them while the dirigible bolted toward the pass at the rapid rate of 43 mph. They ran into some chop as the pass flowed by below them, but Steven held it together and, less than 30 minutes later, the tree-tops began to drop away.

They’d made it through. A.J. closed the air intakes back down as Steven turned the airship southwards, and Frank finished off the bottle of tequila.

The flight south through the SLV passed peacefully enough, and the took the opportunity to organize the gear better and secure it to give them more room in the open gondolas. Below and to either side, the party saw the occasional scars of new mines -- the mountains through which they flew held the iron and coal that fed Pueblo’s smelters and mills, to become the instruments of war.

As the sun began to sink toward the west, the valley widened, as did the Rio Grande winding down its center, while the mountains got shorter and dryer. Henrietta pulled out A.J.’s maps, again, and picked a flight path that would take them over some nearby peaks low enough to be safe, bit still cut some distance as compared to the gap toward which they headed.

Steven shouted some orders and the airship turned more west than south as the land rose beneath them, again. As compared to the dash through La Veta Pass, this offered little risk and A.J. didn’t feel the need to abuse the engines any more than he already had.

The short-cut went well enough and the ground soon began to fall away and the group saw the tan and green of what would be the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in their world. As the land opened around them, they saw, several miles ahead, a deadly chase in progress.

At about 10 o’clock, two miles out and about a hundred feet below them, a large dirigible with the flag of Imperial Spain painted on its top vertical fin. A bit more than four miles out, to their 2 o’clock, a smaller U.S. airship fled the Spanish vessel.

Peering through binoculars, the group saw no sign that either airship had spotted them – but soon discovered why the American seemed so interested in escape. The front gondola on the Spanish airship mounted what looked distressingly similar to a Maxim machine gun. Nobody in the group could see the rear gondola clearly (the angle wasn’t as good and the horizontal fins blocked their view).

The sight of the chase triggered a brief, but fierce debate amongst the party. A.J. pointed out that Henrietta’s navigational skills had put them in an enviable position – to wit, they could very easily slip away from this whole situation.

However, Frank and Doc Bascher argued that, since they’d just stolen a one American dirigible and saw another get damaged while chasing them, the least they could do was to help the outgunned American reconnaissance craft. Even though their best two shots were otherwise occupied – Doc Bascher had tranked Beatrice unconscious and Steven was busy piloting – the greater range of the two best rifles might allow them to punch enough holes in the Spanish airship to force its withdrawal.

A.J. said he could crank up the engines, again, which would allow them to close more swiftly and likely maintain their height advantage for much of that distance. However, the louder roar meant the Spanish would likely hear the approach about the time they got to reasonable rifle range.

Frank and Doc Bascher felt the risk worth taking, and A.J. finally agreed (although Aurelia groused they were putting her airship at risk…). The NASA engineer crawled back up into the envelope and a few minutes later, the engines began to howl and Steven began to overtake the Spanish.

Soon after they started their attack run, the crew of the American dirigible must have spotted them, as it began a slow turn to the left. Doc Bascher expressed consternation at what looked to her as if the American airship was trying to flee directly away from them.

However, she soon understood her mistake. Pleased at what they thought must have been a tactical error, the Spanish dirigible cut more sharply to the left to cut the angle and gain some distance – and showed its tail to the Frank, who had scrambled forward with Beatrice’s .30-06, and Doc Bascher, who had grabbed Steven’s scoped .308 sniper rifle.

The veterinarian and the former Utah State patrolman began to take potshots at the canvas of the Spanish vessel from about 1000 yards. As big as it was, that was still a long way out, but the pair’s accuracy improved as they closed. By the time they closed to within about 800 yards, they had started to consistently hit their shots as long as they took their time to aim.

At that point, the Spanish must have finally heard the howl of A.J.’s tortured engines over the clacking throb of their own. The Spainish airship started to nose down and, at first, the party thought it was trying to dive away. However, as the tail rose and the aft gondola came into view, the rear-mounted Maxim gun came into view and the group realized its error.

The Spanish Maxim gun chattered to life and the Friends of Olivia Lodge members saw yellow tracers zip by beneath them. Frank and Doc Bascher squawked in dismay and began to sight in on the gunner. Steven pulled back on the controls to make sure he maintained altitude – he had no desire to chase the Spanish through a stream of machine-gun bullets.

Doc Bascher peered at him through the huge scope on the .308, took her time as the stream of machine-gun rounds got closer, squeezed the trigger, and saw the Spanish gunner drop to the bottom of the Gondola (really good roll).

The pair watched as the Spanish scrambled to replace the gunner, and each took a shot as the new gunner took the position. Wicker-work flew as a few rounds from the Maxim hit the front gondola, but the rounds didn’t proceed to anything (or anyone) vital.

The next couple of bursts flew wide (I couldn’t roll for crap…), and then Frank got dead lucky and put one through the chest of the replacement gunner.

As the Spanish crewman slumped down, Doc Bascher shifted her aim to the left-side aft engine, hoping to cause enough damage that the Spanish would decide to extend the dive and try to escape. Four seconds later, the .308 barked and oily black smoke and orange-red flame blossomed as the critical hit nicked a fuel-line.

The flames flowed up the side of the airship and started to ignite the hydrogen that had leaked into the envelope from the punctured gas-bags. The Spanish began to scream as the airship ignited, and began a slow ballet toward the ground, far below.

A.J. backed the engines down to normal as the American airship, far ahead, began to flash a signal at them in Morse Code. Claudia read out, “W-E-L-L D-O-N-E” from the other vessel, to which Claudia replied, “G-L-A-D T-O -H-E-L-P.”

The American dirigible then flashed,“H-O-P-E C-R-E-W W-E-L-L,” followed by “W-H-E-R-E A-W-AY.”

That triggered a quick decision, and the group decided to maximize confusion. Claudia flashed back, “C-L-A-S-S-I-F-I-E-D” and then, “C-O-N-T-I-N-U-E W-I-T-H M-I-S-S-I-O-N.”

The Americans flashed acknowledgement and the courses of the two airships diverged. The American vessel headed into the late afternoon sun, while the stolen dirigible turned to the northwest.

The sun lay barely above the horizon as the rugged cavity that marked Dark Canyon appeared below them – they had done about 450 miles in 12 hours, and even with Claudia’s technology spells, they were running on fumes.. Steven took the airship to the wide canyon northwest of Dry Mesa North, and slowly lost altitude.

At about 30 feet up, he decided to hold station, and A.J. and Jimmy dropped the engines down to just above idle as the rest of the group threw ropes over the side. Aurelia, Frank and Doc Bascher looked down and saw Izzy, Heck, and the two former cavalry tsiants gawping up at them in amazement.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

They shouted at the four strong monsters to grab the lines to steady them, and then the trio slid down. Aurelia noticed that the two former cavalry troopers seemed almost lost to the spirits possessing them and thought that, were it not for Don Maximo’s domination of them, she might have to fight for her life.

Neither she nor the other two had time to think much about that, though, as they quickly dashed to buggies they’d stashed nearby in the hope they’d need them for this very task. They bumped back toward the dirigible hovering above and, once they were in place, A.J. cut the engines.

Doc Bascher, Frank and Aurelia used the rear winches to anchor the buggies to big rocks, pulled out the cables from the winches mounted in front, lashed them to hawsers and, with the help of the monsters slooowly began to lower the airship as A.J. and Steven carefully vented the hydrogen.

About 45 minutes later, in the deepening dusk, the bottoms of the gondolas brushed the tops of the grass, and a dozen heavy cables lashed the airship to big trees and heavy rocks, all around.

Deeming it safe enough, the party unloaded the gondolas into the buggies by the light of the headlamps. Once that was complete and the buggies withdrawn to a safe distance, Aurelia clambered up inside the frame and used her sharp ceramic athame to cut large gashes in the hydrogen envelopes to allow the gas to escape.

Several hours later, the reinforced aluminum framework creaked and the wicker gondola’s snapped and crunched as the empty airship settled on its keel.

With that, the session ended.

##

Funny Quotes

Anten (OOC): Grand theft dirigible!

Beatrice (OOC]: I’m really, really sorry for saying I was bored, last time! I’m really, really, really sorry!

Frank (realizes Beatrice is too injured to climb a rope): I tie a noose!

Beatrice: Here’s what I can’t believe: we got away with this. So far.

Doc Bascher (sees the pursuing American dirigible): We couldn’t burn down Colorado, so let’s burn down the dirigible!

{The pursuing American dirigible blows an engine.)
A.J.: All the magic smoke went out of their engine!

Frank: I’m medicating myself against falling. The drunk guy always walks away from the accident!

A.J.: War, or mountain? We’re going to die, either way.

Frank: Never let go, Jack!

(The second Maxim on the Spanish dirigible comes into view.)
Doc Bascher: Shoot ‘em shoot ‘em shoot ‘em!

Beatrice (OOC): After all that, they’re gonna kill me while I’m unconscious!
Henrietta: That’s probably true.

Aurelia: Ceramic athame, for the win!

##

[evileeyore]

So, at what point did you resign yourself to the fact that you were going to be running Air Pirates of the Pearl Bright Ocean?


I'm guessing sometime in early 2016...

[Icelander]

Were these black-powder or smokeless powder Maxim guns?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Were these black-powder or smokeless powder Maxim guns?

Black powder Maxims. The Spanish are behind in a lot of ways, and the presence of the dirigible caught the party by surprise.

(It's a possible plot hook. Sometimes, I throw lines in the water just to see if the party wants to bite.)

The Spanish started to deploy Maxims at the start of the war, which they'd never before used in the Americas. However, the Spanish crown realized interlocking machine-gun fire would make it costly to break the Rio Cimarron Line, and deployed them when things started to heat up.

The soldiers, there, don't have a lot of experience with Maxims, though, and the airship crews have even less.

Smokeless powder started to be widely deployed among U.S. forces in the past 3-5 years, or so. Surrounded by so many enemies, the country can't afford to dilly-dally when they get a technological advantage.

The U.S. has even less of a social safety net than they did in our 1919 (basically none, except in some of the wealthier states), and are forced to maintain a significant standing army. Regional factionalism is only kept in check, in a lot of ways, by the constant external threat.

(Even British Canada remains a bit chilly toward their southern neighbor, although U.S. relations with the British Empire are about as friendly as they get with a European power.)

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

So, at what point did you resign yourself to the fact that you were going to be running Air Pirates of the Pearl Bright Ocean?


I'm guessing sometime in early 2016...

That's about right. Bennie Rae had never played a table-top RPG, before, but when we asked her to create a character concept, she gave Anten one nearly two pages long. He built Aurelia for her. :)

Without going into too much detail, Bennie's involved in theater, and had a lot of interest in trying out a game because she recognized it as an ongoing exercise in improvisational acting and the arc of character development.

Aurelia has a difficult past, and the ability to escape from the constraints of modern society, and live wild and free, appeal to her very much. So, Bennie Rae -- who has a strong personality that resembles a grown-up, slightly more stable version of Tiny Tina -- was really the first player to come up with a long-term goal. :)

She's also a huge fan of Firefly, and in the space-tramp campaign that Anten is working on, Bennie's character will be the captain. So, she's got a theme.

(The two campaigns will run contiguously, and Anten's will include a subset of the group -- basically, the core people who show up the most consistently. I didn't want a leadership role in that campaign while running this one, so I'll play the ship's cat.)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Upon examination, he realized he could tinker with the air intake to enrich the fuel mixture beyond what was probably safe, and get extra power (and burn lots of fuel) at the risk of blowing an engine.

Do I detect something corresponding to the Emergency Thrust Task from the Spaceships combat system?

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The flames flowed up the side of the airship and started to ignite the hydrogen that had leaked into the envelope from the punctured gas-bags.

Punching bullet-sized holes in an airship just increases the leakage rate, and usually not enough to make a difference in a fight, as was discovered during WWI, but if you can get the leaking gas mixing with air, it will burn.

The reasons that holes do so little are that an airship is very large, plus its gas is not under any significant pressure. We're used to rubber balloons, which impose pressure, but airship's gasbags don't do that, because of the lack (or cost) of suitable materials when they were popular.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Do I detect something corresponding to the Emergency Thrust Task from the Spaceships combat system?

Nah. It just seemed like the sort of thing a NASA engineer would think of -- especially one who had spent the previous year tinkering with compression diesel engines.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Punching bullet-sized holes in an airship just increases the leakage rate, and usually not enough to make a difference in a fight, as was discovered during WWI, but if you can get the leaking gas mixing with air, it will burn.

The reasons that holes do so little are that an airship is very large, plus its gas is not under any significant pressure. We're used to rubber balloons, which impose pressure, but airship's gasbags don't do that, because of the lack (or cost) of suitable materials when they were popular.

Oh, I'm well aware that followed the Rule of Cool more than it obeyed actual physics.

However, when the player of a 21st Century veterinarian dressed as an early 20th Century nurse (wimple and all) manages to roll a critical hit while shooting out the engine of one dirigible from a second airship, 800 yards away?

If the Rule of Cool doesn't apply, there, then it doesn't apply, anywhere. :)

[tshiggins]

We held the most recent session of Facets not long ago. It was mostly a bookkeeping session, but the group made some important choices and then got the show on the road, by the end of the day.

Characters Present:

Dr. Henrietta "Indiana" Johnson -- A personable, age 29-and-holding Anthropologist who specializes in the pre-Columbian indigenous people of the American Desert Southwest. A Native of Apache Junction, AZ, "Indiana" is good with people and has been fascinated by American Indian religion and folklore since she was a child. Henrietta speaks Apache fluently, and not-so-secretly wishes archaeology could be more like Raiders of the Lost Ark and less like digging in a trench with a trowel and a toothbrush -- Played by Debbie S.

Dr. Arthur "A.J." Jamison -- a retired NASA scientist with a home in one of Moab's nicer canyon sub-developments, who volunteers for 4CSAR because he needs to do something to get out of the house. Considers himself responsible for Sunmi Jones, who is enough of a science-geek that the two of them can actually hold a conversation. -- Played by Anten S.

Aurelia R. Lockrin -- A young woman with a shady past who teaches History at Grand County High School (Home of the Red Devils!), and volunteers for 4CSAR because she's a bit of an adrenalin junkie and likes the companionship. -- played by Bennie Rae P.

Dr. Belody "Doc" Bascher -- a local veterinarian for both large and small animals, who frequently fixates on her job and uses 4CSAR as her primary social outlet. -- played by Samantha H. (Not available, this time.)

Beatrice "B" Lawrence -- U.S. Army veteran who works for a local air charter service as a helicopter mechanic. She recently lost the lower part of her left leg in a fight with a sorcerer from an opposing lodge, and now wears a high-tech prosthetic. A cynic about men, she is accompanied by "Grunt," the biggest, best-trained pit-bull anybody has ever seen (purchased as an ally, and a totally badass dog, even before it was possessed by what appears to be a benign “foo” spirit) -- played by Bernetta W. (Not available, this time.)

Claudia Abigail Tavulari, member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and an old friend of Arthur Jamison’s. The team has been helping Arthur research the portal physics, on the sly. – Played by Tisa T.

Stephen Mack, another member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, a former U.S. Marine Corps test pilot, and outdoors enthusiast. – Played by Jeff T.

Frank Moses -- A former Marine who quit his job as a trooper with the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP). Moses formerly volunteered with 4CSAR and has an interest in Doc Bascher. Frank has spent the past several months living in the Dark Canyon base camp on the 1918 side of the portal. -played by Mike H. (Not available, this time.)

NPCs Present

Jimmy Ehrland – A fugitive from the 1919 Colonia de Nova España, on the other side of the portal, he had fled from his vampire mistress, Doña Eva, only to find himself in a strange, alien world to which he must struggle to adapt.

Grunt: Beatrice's ally, a large pit-bull possessed by a protective "foo" spirit.

##

The arrival of the stolen dirigible at the group’s Dark Canyon home-base kicked off a summer of intense activity. Arthur, Steven, and the newly-healed Beatrice needed to refurbish the airship with modern materials and replace the hydrogen envelope (made from goldbeater skin – the outer membrane of cattle intestines) with a lighter, modern polyethylene membrane (the stuff used in bubble-wrap) better able to hold helium.

In addition, they replaced the cotton canvas envelope (waterproofed with a material composed of iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose acetate butyrate) with a lighter, more sturdy one of modern materials (woven polyester, permeated with polyurethane to make it water-proof).

Unlike modern blimps, the helium balloon consisted of only a few large gasbags, so A.J. installed a system to pump some of the lifting-gas into storage tanks, to save on the mass of ballast (and prevent them from having to vent the helium, hideously expensive in 1919, to change altitude). The group also replaced the four heavy original compression diesel engines with modern, lighter, quieter and more efficient models that offered about half-again the horsepower (150 HP each, rather than about 110).

The group also discovered that the haphazard method of landing the dirigible had warped some of the keel aluminum. They had to straighten that out, and A.J. fabricated some braces to strengthen the damaged parts of the framework.

Beatrice also spent much of the second part of the summer in A.J.’s workshop, building carbon-fiber gondolas based on boat kits she purchased online, to replace the wicker ones crushed when they landed the dirigible.

The work required a lot of labor, but the assistance of four agile and very strong monsters (who were bored and didn’t have anything else to do…) moved things along. Neither Heck nor Izzy had any technical training, while Ben and Abe had been cavalry troopers and not airship crewmen, but they worked willingly and listened well, especially because A.J. made sure to pay them handsomely.

By the time they were done, they’d modified and lightened the housings for the four new engines; replaced every heavy hawser with light-weight nylon ropes; added winches in strategic locations; had an envelope that used dark gray, blue and white digital "negative space" camouflage; and warmer, dryer enclosed gondolas.

The project also proved as expensive as it was labor-intensive, and the team burned through almost all of the $800,000 in profits that Aurelia managed to get from the period coinage, after Wren’s fence had taken his 30 percent.

Fortunately, Doc Bascher had chosen to sell off her long-neglected veterinary practice in Moab, and she contributed the proceeds to the endeavor.

(Samantha and I talked about Doc Bascher’s activities the week after the session, since she and Mike couldn’t make it the day the group met. We’ll make the rolls next time, when we get everybody caught up.)

The Dark Canyon portal opened twice during the dirigible refurbishment – on July 27 and August 26, during the new moons – and the members of the group not directly involved with dirigible operations scampered back through in July. They needed to finish preparations for the mission through the Paris Catacombs portal to the world of an alternate 1711 CE.

A quick call to their contacts at the Academy Club soon secured tutors with esoteric skills and a notable lack of curiosity. Basic research earlier in the year had revealed that, in their own history, French Smallsword fencing had started to appear in Continental Europe in the early 18th Century, where it slowly began to replace the established Transitional French school that focused on rapiers.

Aurelia, with her small size, fast reflexes and ambidexterity, had started to learn that style, and she continued those studies. Jimmy and Beatrice had started to learn the Transitional French school, and Jimmy continued those efforts. Henrietta decided to stick with staff kata, but also practiced bayonet drills.

A.J. had picked up some dagger fighting techniques, while Steven had managed to get a few basics in the Spanish fencing style of La Verdadera Destreza (but mostly planned to just shoot people, if it came to violence).

Frank and Doc Bascher firmly agreed with Steven’s approach, although the former Marine had a background in Fairbairn Close Combat. Claudia stuck with her non-lethal options.

The group took to heart the lessons learned in the long trip through the alternate Colorado of 1919 and wanted to move much more quietly through the northern Europe on the other side of the Paris gateway.

With that in mind, Aurelia devoted a lot of her time to on-line purchases of modern (and more comfortable) versions of early 18th Century period clothing, as well as modern replicas of period gear – including weapons. She soon realized that some of the more serious artisans at the Colorado Renaissance Festival made really good versions of rapiers and smallswords based on historical models (although there was a lot of crap, too…), and used modern steel much better than most available in the early 18th Century.

(This is actually a true thing. The Colorado Renaissance Festival is one of the more active ones on the Dirt Circuit, so we get a lot of artisans and entertainers, here.)

At first, Aurelia thought flintlock rifles and pistols would be tough to find, but was shocked to discover an active community catered to by custom firearms manufacturers. She bought three flintlock “Kentucky Rifles” and six flintlock pistols of various designs, laid in a small supply of real black powder and larger supply of modern, smokeless “black powder,” as well as some lead bullets, molds, a small cauldron, and lead ingots.

With the purchase of some other gear and bits and bobs, Aurelia declared herself satisfied, and hauled everything back through the portal during the August opening. She also took along some cheap spices for trade, and more expensive items faceted for spell component use, should they ever reach 1711 London and the parent lodge of the Enlightenment order founded by John Dee.

However, space in the gondolas was quite limited, and the group could only carry a fraction of what they could fit in even one buggy trailer. Upon everyone’s return to the base-camp in the 1919 world, A.J. provided an update about how the alterations to the dirigible affected its performance.

Basically, the group had been able to increase the operational ceiling from about 9,700 feet to about 10,500 feet. They’d increased the range from about 500 miles to about 750 miles at a constant cruising speed of about 45 mph.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

While a fairly impressive feat, given what they’d had to work with, it would never get them to the 12,000-plus foot portal to Shangri-La, in the Himalayas north of Kashmir. Frankly, A.J. said, they’d need at least another year and would have to rebuild their dirigible almost from scratch, to accomplish such a long voyage at such high altitude.

In their history, he noted, it took Germany – at the time one of the most advanced technological nations – until after WWI to advance airship technology to increase the performance envelope enough to let an airship make such a trip. It would take this world at least another 10-15 years, he said, unless the Friends of Olivia Lodge decided to open its own airship company.

Aurelia declared herself quite pleased with the results of the work, and dubbed the group’s stolen vehicle the Paradise, and the rest of the group agreed readily enough.

With that understanding, and with Sunmi at loose ends in the world (and guarded by a near-deity with a vested interest in her welfare, at least in the short term), everyone agreed they really had no need to get to Shangri-La, per se. While the Friends of Olivia Lodge needed a way to try to get their airship to the 1711 world, any route would suffice.

A.J. said he’d asked Henrietta to look into alternative options to the portal to Shangri-La. The archaeologist said she done some research and found a number of ways to travel between dimensions, a few of which might permit airship travel.

Henrietta explained that, in addition to the dimensional portals that opened regularly, other passageways existed. They already knew it was possible to walk into Faerie, she said, so she’d gone looking for other portals to other places and had hit the jackpot.

(Debbie rolled a critical success on her roll against Henrietta’s Research skill, and info-dump commenced.)

Henrietta had started looking into the passageway to what Oliver McShane’s library had called the “Orbital Realm” of Jupiter, which they’d heard a bit about some time back. As they’d learned, it did, in fact, open in the sky above every world that had a Manhattan island, at an altitude of about 1,320 feet.

The passageway was large enough to allow airships to pass through, she said, and the top of the antenna of the Empire State Building extended to slightly above its bottom rim. The Esagila Guardians who secretly controlled the structure had built it only a few feet away from the dimensional membrane, she added.

Technically, Henrietta said, it would be possible to climb to the top of that skyscraper and find themselves in very close proximity to the portal. On any night during the summer when Jupiter reached its highest point in the in the night sky, she said, the portal opened for about 12 minutes, and they could jump through to the Orbital Realm of Jupiter from their own world.

In this one, it would be far more practical to simply fly the dirigible through the portal in the wee hours of the morning, Henrietta explained, especially since it opened for a 12-hour period around the Autumn Equinox. That would occur in this world at 8:35 p.m. on September 23rd, 1919 – less than a month away.

According to the books, the passage shouldn’t prove difficult, Henrietta continued. The books indicated the Orbital Realm of Jupiter consisted of an endless sky with towers of clouds sprinkled with floating cities and navigated by airships blown along rivers of wind.

In addition to the numerous portals to various Manhattans, it supposedly had connections to the Elemental Plane of Air and the realm of Camelot in the Inner Realm of Briah, the birthplace of myths.

She said that, since the 1711 world almost certainly had a Manhattan island, it should be possible to locate a passageway that opened, there, and slip through in the middle of the night.

However, Henrietta said she had identified other such “Orbital Realms,” as well, the passages to which seemed somehow linked to the classical bodies of the sky.

The Realm of the Moon: The gateway to the Orbit opened in the middle of Lago Nemi, a large lake in Italy, during a full moon. Any would-be traveler had to take a boat out to the deepest part of the lake and then sink it while remaining aboard.

The realm appeared as a vast country of beautiful white sand, lit by a silver radiance beneath a purple sky. In addition to many portals to Faerie (of course…), it had passages to the Pearl Bright Ocean and (for astral travelers) easy passage to the Land of Nod.

The Realm of Mercury: The gateway lay at Macchu Picchu, and only opened at dawn during the summer. The traveler had to allow himself or herself to be bitten by a venomous snake, and then had sacrifice the snake with an iron knife.

(On dimensions without a Machu Picchu, getting to the top of Huayna Picchu mountain was enough, although the snake-bite and sacrifice were apparently still required.)

The Realm of Mercury, itself, apparently changed constantly. The landscape included fiery blasts; huge chasms that spewed fogs which condensed immediately into deluges; and widely varied lighting under which both flora and geography constantly shifted.

It had connections to every world with a Huayna Picchu mountain, as well as all four elemental planes, plus the city of Atlantis in a large bay on the edge of the Inner Plane of Briah. The bay opened into the Pearl Bright Ocean, Henrietta reported, and apparently Atlantis engaged actively in trade.

The Realm of Venus: The gateway to the Orbit of Venus lay at the Petra tou Romiou, on the shore of Old Paphos, on the island of Cyprus. It activated during the day of the Spring Equinox, and to enter it the traveler had to brave the choppy water and swim around the rock.

The realm, itself, consisted of a vast ocean, green with mineral salts and plankton, that had large islands of floating seaweed and pretty golden-green clouds that periodically spawned storms. Supposedly, merfolk and other fantastic beings lived in the sea, which had portals to the Elemental Plane of Water, as well as many passages to the Pearl Bright Ocean.

The Realm of Venus also had frequently-open pathways to any world in which the ancient harbor at Paphos remained in operation. (In the 2015 worlds, Old Paphos lay several miles inland, because the old harbor had long since silted up and turned into a flat plain. They presumed the same was probably true of the 1919 world, also.)

The Realm of the Sun: This gateway opened only during the daylight hours of the Summer Solstice. The traveler had to melt 12 drahms of gold (one drahm equaled 4.37 grams) while standing at the center of the ruins the Great Temple of the Aten, in Akhetaton (Amarna), in Egypt.

(In dimensions without an Akhetaton, the gateway lay in some other ancient, sun-drenched North African city near the Nile.)

The books noted that the Masai word, Serengeti, translated to “endless,” and in the Realm of the Sun, the word literally applied. Most of the realm consisted of a infinite, rich plain of tall grasses, through which moved vast herds of African wildlife and the predators who lived among them.

The huge veldt did have patches of thick jungles of vast trees and occasional large lakes connected by wide, meandering rivers. It also had portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire, the Briah city of El Dorado, and ruins (especially Akhetatons) in North Africas near large rivers.

The Realm of Mars: The gateway lay in the bitter air above Mount Erebus, in Antarctica, at an altitude of about 13,000 feet. It only opened during the 24 hours of the Winter Solstice, and for 10 minutes when Mars rose high in the sky, in Antarctica’s dark winter months.

The realm consisted of a cool red desert laced with canals lined with dark purple plants. It resembled the Mars of planetary romances, and a scribbled note by Oliver McShane left in the margins indicated he thought a visit to Edgar Rice Burroughs (a contemporary of his) might be in order.

Apparently, in addition to the steam-powered war-tripods, techno-magic flying machines, beautiful amazons, barbaric warriors of all shapes and sizes, courtiers, servants and wildly dangerous creatures, any spirit that made its way to the realm found itself clothed in a new body. The new arrival could live and fight amongst a network of pyramids and cities linked by wide canals through the red desert sands, between huge volcanos that spewed out lava rich in metals used in the construction of weapons and war machines.

The dusty skies included portals that led to the air above the Briah city of Ilium, and many worlds that included mountains in an equivalent of Antarctica. In addition, some of the volcanoes had portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Unfortunately, the portal lay beyond the reach of their current airship, A.J. noted, but it was good to know for future reference.

The Realm of Saturn: This gateway lay at the top of Ayers Rock in Australia, and only opened during the dark of the moon. It required the sacrifice of the fully-intact skeleton of a sapient creature, which got consumed in the process.

At the center of this vast realm of dark, rich soil scattered with the bones of ancient giants and dead monsters lay the city of Abydos, the City of the Undead. While not necessarily hostile, the inhabitants of that city made visits by the living somewhat… problematic, and the books advised caution.

Despite the fact that the world included portals to the Elemental Plane of Earth, something called the Abyss and the Sword Bridge, and many different Australias, most of the group decided they’d try to avoid this particular Inner Realm.

(continued...)