Wierd War 2 plot help

[khorboth]

I'm cooking up a solo game, and I'm a little short on plot. So, I thought I'd turn to you woderful people for help. I have my big plot, but I need short-to-mid term plots.

We're set in World War 2. I'm doing Very Little supernatural. The kind of thing that stays hidden.

My PC is running an underground anti-facist newspaper in Verona. We're looking summer 1940 to summer 1941. She has a radio which keeps her in contact with others in the resistance, but has minimal contact (some for an adventure is cool).

So... what are your ideas?

[whswhs]

A while ago now, Tim Powers wrote a novel, Declare, about the use of radios for espionage in Nazi occupied France, in a setting where radio signals attracted the attention of supernatural beings. There was a lot of good detail on how radios were used and how their use was concealed.

You might also like to look at GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics, where chapter 6 specifically includes devices used in electronic warfare during World War II.

[ericthered]

It seems that standard WWII plots work well for small stuff in that sort of game.



Do they have contact with a command chain outside of Italy, or will they be doing everything by themselves?


Some Ideas:

• Supernatural murders in the countryside that the government is denying knowledge of would be an interesting challenge: knowledge is being suppressed by the government, but talking about it probably won't actually hurt the war effort, and you have to weigh in whether or not talking about it hurts your own credibility.
• Someone close to you disappearing is a classic of WWII.
• Presumably the newspaper is run off of equipment with a legal purpose. Authorities inspect the building on general principals, or ask you to work overtime printing THEIR stuff.
• A violent resistance cell is using your network as a recruiting and staging ground for increasingly reckless assassination and sabotage.
• Conflict looks to break out between the local supporters of democracy and communism, undermining your local resistance

[The Colonel]

Verona has a quite decent under layer of Roman ruins and, before that some theories point to an Etruscan heritage. So being literally underground in Verona has some possibilities.
Especially if you look at one of my favourite historical pointers - when the Romans took over from the Etruscans, a culture with elaborate burial customs was replaced by one that insisted on burning its dead. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Some other ideas:
An escape chain bringing someone unusual through ... someone certainly more esoteric than the traditional downed aircrew
An Ahnenerbe/Sonderkommando Thule/Other Wacky Nazi operation retreats through town, or sets up shop here.
Supernatural assets of one side or another playing havoc - traditional Italian Strigae (vampiric witches) could work for either side, both or neither and be annoyed by any of them
Werewolves are generally seen as a Germanic thing. Whose founder was raised as a wolf again?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Verona has a quite decent under layer of Roman ruins and, before that some theories point to an Etruscan heritage. So being literally underground in Verona has some possibilities.
Especially if you look at one of my favourite historical pointers - when the Romans took over from the Etruscans, a culture with elaborate burial customs was replaced by one that insisted on burning its dead. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro established that her heroic vampire Saint-Germain was born in ancient Etruria.

[khorboth]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Yes, non-weird ideas are great. Since she's working with the church, she has some protection from authorities.

I'm musing all the ideas, though. And the local witches will show up later. So something involving them eould be good.

[dcarson]

Hiding things from the Nazis is always good. People, gold, artwork, prototypes. Or stealing the same from the Nazis.

[L.J.Steele]

Check out Donner's All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days -- set in Berlin in the pre-war and early war years and focused on Mildred Harnack and her circle. Good look at life in a resistance group.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by khorboth

My PC is running an underground anti-fascist newspaper in Verona. We're looking summer 1940 to summer 1941.

This is, presumably, the phase from Italy entering the war (10th June 1940) to the invasion of the USSR (Italy dispatched troops there in July 1941). There won't be a lot of Germans around in Italy, but the Italian Fascists will be quite confident and active.

Many things that happen in Northern Italy will touch Verona, because it's at a road intersection. Troops for the invasion of France will pass through there, as will their supplies. Keeping count of troops and supplies and reporting on them will be basic resistance work, as will slipping copies of the newspaper into the supplies: Italian quartermasters were always aware that the war was running on a shoestring, and may be receptive readers of alternative news.

[RogerBW]

Is the newspaper broadly communist, socialist, or anarchist? None of them get on well with each other, unless they're getting together to fight off the blackshirts.