[SteamCraft] What to Do About India?

[TheAuldGrump]

So, I am planning out the first sessions of the Great War (1914) when I realize that I still have not done anything with one of the major covert conflicts of Victoria's and George V's times - the Jewel in the Crown of Empire, the battle in the shadows that lent us the term The Great Game. The British crown against the czars of Russia. Before I start on the Twentieth Century I want to finish the Nineteenth.

One tiny problem though - I have no idea what to do with it. 

I know what I want, in terms of ambiance and side details, but not the warp and woof of the plot, just elements of the pattern.

I want the Raj, I want Kali Ma and Shiva, mages and fakir, I want old Kalighata (Calcutta - literally Temple of Kali), I want Kipling, and Pakistan - but what I have is a handful of soup. 

The supernatural side is easy - I want something scary, with the fact that much of the horror and human misery comes from oppression, and that the PCs are agents of the oppressor (one of the first uses of the machine gun was to clear a market of unarmed protesters...). At the same time I want them to know that under it all is something worth fearing.  Something inhuman is waiting for release, and a sense that something is not going to wait patiently for much longer. (As a side note - I am not planning on using Fragile Minds for this, though of the plots I have for my SteamCraftings this is the closest to that in feel.)

It is the human side, the intrigue, pettiness, and human vice that I am missing. Politics and a secular evil, rather than what waits in Calcutta. I have Lovecraft, Collins, and Wilson - what I want is leCarre, Kipling, and Ludlum.

Any ideas? This will not see play until next year sometime, no real hurry, just an annoyance that I left it for so long and almost forgot about it.

The Auld Grump

[Krensky]

Well...

For some inspiration, re-read (I'm assuming) "The White Man's Burden" even though the final form is about the US in the Philippines.  Look at it from a perspective that Kipling meant it without sarcasm or too much irony, but still with a lot of cynicism.  Then re-read Sidhe Devil. 

Take senior administrator.  Now this man, convinced of his own glory, is determined to civilize and save the sub-continent.  He supports and whenever possible implements whatever policies and plans he can to bring this goal about.  Re-education, coerced if not outright forced conversion, massively cruel criminal punishments, whatever.  He's not engaged it out of mental illness (directly) or villainy or pacts with dark powers (although the results of his work taste oh so sweet to Ravan, Soorpanaka, and the Rakasha).  He's doing it out of love and an absolutely sincere belief, nay, certainty that he is helping these people by making them English, and not heathen wogs.  Take the worst elements of imperialism and the Raj, multiply a thousand fold by lifting from the treatment of the American Indian, Indigenous Australians and any other persecuted indigenous people.  Then pour it all into one man.  He's not a villian or even a monster. 

He's something worse.

And he's just laid the last paving stone and is about to open the gates to something far, far worse then he can imagine.

[OverNinja]

There is always the Thugee to root out.

[Slippery_jim_digris]

Just finished reading "Season of the Monsoon" by Paul Mann ISBN 0-8041-1259-2

A modern mystery set in India about a serial killer who's roots date back to when India was a British colony. The protaganist is the grandson of a Collector stationed in Jaigapur who murders young homesexual boys he had imprisoned or seduced and cut off their privates and breast. The book is about that investigation but gets off track briefly with the mention of the Hidjas.

Apparently there is a sect of eunuchs, the Hidjas, every bit as brutal as the Thuggee, who appear uninvited to functions such as weddings and christenings demanding payment for their blessings. If payment is not forth comeing, male children tend to dissapear, re-appearing if at all, as eunuch Hidjas.

The book set the mood I think you want to create . The horror of so much humanity in a small area. People turn up dead in the streets all the time and no one cares unless they are famous or rich. One character is a street person who collects bodies from the street for 10 rupees a body. Another is a corrupt cop who is in the employ of a gangster (as is most of the police).


Like I said, its set in modern times but I don't think things have changed all that much.

[TheAuldGrump]

Just finished reading "Season of the Monsoon" by Paul Mann ISBN 0-8041-1259-2

A modern mystery set in India about a serial killer who's roots date back to when India was a British colony. The protaganist is the grandson of a Collector stationed in Jaigapur who murders young homesexual boys he had imprisoned or seduced and cut off their privates and breast. The book is about that investigation but gets off track briefly with the mention of the Hidjas.

Apparently there is a sect of eunuchs, the Hidjas, every bit as brutal as the Thuggee, who appear uninvited to functions such as weddings and christenings demanding payment for their blessings. If payment is not forth comeing, male children tend to dissapear, re-appearing if at all, as eunuch Hidjas.

The book set the mood I think you want to create . The horror of so much humanity in a small area. People turn up dead in the streets all the time and no one cares unless they are famous or rich. One character is a street person who collects bodies from the street for 10 rupees a body. Another is a corrupt cop who is in the employ of a gangster (as is most of the police).


Like I said, its set in modern times but I don't think things have changed all that much.

That sounds good - I will be looking it up. It sounds perfect for some of the horror aspects, and will divert the PCs from Thuggee cults, while I understand where Kali Durga stands in the pantheon she has been a bit over used. The Hidja are new to me.

What I am looking for though is something of a 'big picture' political plot - something for Russia and Great Britain to be in conflict over, and for one of them to be doing to the other, and why they are doing it.

Separationists also play a role, though not as successfully as they might hope - a disease, magically created to decimate the British sort of fizzles, spawning a disfiguring venereal disease that prevents infection with the original disease - a bit like cowpox/smallpox in reverse. (Smallpox began as a mutant strain of cowpox.)

Adamant just released Imperial Age: British India - I will have to pick it up, maybe it will have something for me.

More suggestions for inspirational reading and viewing are also more than welcome.

Books so far:
Kim (Rudyard Kipling, where I started.)
Song of Kali (Daniel Simmons, good, but way too modern)
Chronicles of History
The Tomb (Wilson, fun, but very bad)
The Bhagavad Gita (Kind of necessary, eh?)
The Serpent's Shadow (Mercede's Lackey, some good points, but largely 'meh')
Bats Fly up for Inspector Ghote (Keating - modern mystery, main character a police investigator in India.

Movies:
The Man Who Would Be King (Kipling again. One of my all time favorite movies, just behing The Lion in Winter.)
NOT Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (Gods no! I wish I could expunge this movie from my memory.)

The Auld Grump

[Krensky]

Well, he's kind of a love it or hate it... but... Bernard Cornwell.

Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress all take place in India in the (early) 19th century, covering the campaign against the Tipu Sultan and the Siege of Seringapatam.

The three books were inspired a BBC television movie titled Sharpe's Challenge that was lavishly done for a TV movie.

[TheAuldGrump]

Picked up Imperial Age: British India... not bad, but no new information. On the plus side it has some very nice period maps of India, so I do not feel like I wasted my money, but it would have been nice to find something chewy, more along the lines of the A Magical Society series by Expeditious Retreat Press. There just wasn't anything to sink my fangs into.  It was all stuff I already knew, or had found in a few hours of net searching, the maps and the bibliography are the most useful parts. No real attempt was made to flesh things out.

The Auld Grump

[NekoMouser]

I'd have thought the Sharpe's titles might have been set a too early to give you much of an idea of the conflict you're interested in. For an idea of a more modern India in the shadows, try Shantaram (ISBN 9780330423625). It's a bit of a bible, but it's a good read. And it's soon to be a Johnny Depp movie. ^_^

[Krensky]

He's looking for the nineteenth century, during the British Raj.  Shantaram looks like it's set during the last decades of the twentieth.

[TheAuldGrump]

I may have been a bit overly critical of Imperial Age: British India - while it does not contain any information new to me, it may be useful for those who do not feel like doing their own research. If I had read it before doing a little research I might be a tad more forgiving. Finding only information that I already had did not endear me to the book. 

Part of the planned theater is Afghanistan - just after the First Afghan War - the British have been driven out, the remnants of their army slaughtered in retreat. A certain Dr. John Watson will take a leg wound in the Second Afghan War, while stll convalescent he will take up a shared residence at 221 B Baker St. London....

Also reread O' Jerusalem and Justice Hall, both a bit late period (1920s) but as Sherlock Holmes pastiches go not bad at all.

The Auld Grump

[Morgenstern]

A blue baby is born and a massive campaign of kidnapping and counter-napping erupts?

[Agent 333]

The players are judged unworthy by the Nagah? You could get a lot of mileage and red-herrings from were-serpents. Seemingly unconnected murders.... weird clues like empty clothing left with a rifle when they investigate a shooting.... people that give them information all showing up dead by cobra venom...

[NekoMouser]

He's looking for the nineteenth century, during the British Raj.  Shantaram looks like it's set during the last decades of the twentieth.

It is...I referenced it more as an insight into the Indian character and philosophy than the historical period.

[Slippery_jim_digris]

I may have been a bit overly critical of Imperial Age: British India - while it does not contain any information new to me, it may be useful for those who do not feel like doing their own research. If I had read it before doing a little research I might be a tad more forgiving. Finding only information that I already had did not endear me to the book. 

Part of the planned theater is Afghanistan - just after the First Afghan War - the British have been driven out, the remnants of their army slaughtered in retreat. A certain Dr. John Watson will take a leg wound in the Second Afghan War, while stll convalescent he will take up a shared residence at 221 B Baker St. London....

Also reread O' Jerusalem and Justice Hall, both a bit late period (1920s) but as Sherlock Holmes pastiches go not bad at all.

The Auld Grump

Just finished reading O' Jerusalem and I was going to suggest it...

Going to have to find The Beekeeper's Apprentice now to find out why they where in Palestine.


Since I'm currently unemployed I've been on a marathon reading spree. I go through a 300 page novel in about 2 days, 500 pages in 3. Will be posting comments on some of the more relevent to Spycraft novels or any cool ideas that I come across. Expect something on Through Violet Eyes by Stephen Woodworth about communing with the dead and a fairly cool doomsday device from Antlantis Found by Clive Cussler

James Bolivar DiGris

[TheAuldGrump]

I may have been a bit overly critical of Imperial Age: British India - while it does not contain any information new to me, it may be useful for those who do not feel like doing their own research. If I had read it before doing a little research I might be a tad more forgiving. Finding only information that I already had did not endear me to the book. 

Part of the planned theater is Afghanistan - just after the First Afghan War - the British have been driven out, the remnants of their army slaughtered in retreat. A certain Dr. John Watson will take a leg wound in the Second Afghan War, while stll convalescent he will take up a shared residence at 221 B Baker St. London....

Also reread O' Jerusalem and Justice Hall, both a bit late period (1920s) but as Sherlock Holmes pastiches go not bad at all.

The Auld Grump

Just finished reading O' Jerusalem and I was going to suggest it...

Going to have to find The Beekeeper's Apprentice now to find out why they where in Palestine.

Heh, I remember seeing the title in a mystery bookstore and going 'that's a Sherlock Holmes story!', without seeing anything but the binding. It was a title that assumed that the target audience would know that Mr. Holmes retired to raise bees.

O' Jerusalem also ties in with A Letter of Mary and Justice Hall.

The Game is actually set in Eurasia, though again later period. One of the protagonists was once known as Kim....

The Auld Grump, if ever I forget thee  o' Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning....