The next two ragged veterans to return to Blackthorn Hall are men who never saw any particular reason to abandon weapons simply because newer ones had appeared. Both had served with the 27th Virginia Cavalry, both had spent much of the war using old fashioned muskets with considerable effectiveness, and both had survived by combining patience with the sort of stubbornness that often passes for wisdom in veterans. The summons of Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair has drawn them back into the old circle, carrying weapons that may be outdated but are still perfectly capable of doing what they were made to do.
Obadiah Mason Chiswell
Obadiah Mason Chiswell had never possessed enough money to replace equipment simply because something newer had become available, which explains why he entered the 27th carrying an old percussion musket that had already seen years of service. Other cavalrymen mocked the weapon until Chiswell demonstrated that a large lead ball fired from an unfashionable musket remained perfectly capable of ruining a man’s afternoon.
Chiswell often served dismounted whenever the regiment required additional firepower, and he became known for extraordinary patience, careful loading and a refusal to waste ammunition merely because other men were shooting. He was never the fastest man in the regiment, but he was often the one still firing steadily after everyone else had exhausted both their cartridges and their enthusiasm.
After the surrender he carried the same musket home and continued using it for hunting, occasionally remarking that unlike governments, armies and currencies, black powder remained dependable. He worked small farms, repaired fences and took whatever employment came his way, while the old regiment gradually became something remembered rather than something lived.
Chiswell returned to Blackthorn Hall because his father had once worked for the Saint Clair family and because he considers obligations to be inherited almost as readily as land. He does not pretend to understand Lucien’s darker interests, although he has recently developed the habit of loading his musket before walking anywhere near the family burial ground after sunset.
Thaddeus Ewell Fontaine
Thaddeus Ewell Fontaine had always seemed older than the men around him, even when he was still young, and he distrusted most innovations on the grounds that they usually created new ways for things to go wrong. He disliked repeating firearms, breech loaders and officers who spoke too enthusiastically about progress, preferring the musket he understood and could repair himself with little more than oil, wire and stubbornness.
During the war Fontaine became a dependable rear guard and occasional marksman, although calling him a sharpshooter within hearing distance usually resulted in a lengthy explanation about the difference between careful shooting and showing off. He survived several disastrous actions by possessing an almost supernatural ability to recognise when an officer was about to issue an order that should be ignored.
The postwar years found Fontaine working small farms and avoiding politics with equal determination. He wanted little from the new world and expected even less from it, until rumours reached him that men of the 27th were gathering once more at Blackthorn Hall.
Fontaine arrived without invitation, carrying his musket, bedroll and enough ammunition for what he described simply as unfinished business. Of all the veterans at Blackthorn Hall, he seems least disturbed by the increasingly unnatural events surrounding Lucien Saint Clair, maintaining that Virginia has always contained stranger things than respectable people are prepared to admit.
Chiswell and Fontaine bring a slower but very deliberate sort of firepower to Lucien’s growing force, and neither man feels particularly disadvantaged by carrying weapons that others consider obsolete. Both understand their muskets completely, both know exactly what those weapons can and cannot do, and both possess enough experience to make every shot count rather than waste ammunition trying to impress anybody.
Their return also strengthens the sense that the old 27th Virginia Cavalry is becoming something more than a gathering of ageing veterans ( a bit like most wargames clubs!). Chiswell watches the family cemetery with growing suspicion, while Fontaine accepts the strange riders and disturbed graves with a fatalism that is almost reassuring, and both seem prepared to remain at Blackthorn Hall for as long as Lucien continues giving the remnants of the regiment a reason to ride again.
The next pair of ragged veterans to gather at Blackthorn Hall are men who always preferred to settle matters at considerably shorter range. Both had served with the 27th Virginia Cavalry, both had survived the collapse of the Confederacy, and both had learned during the war that when fighting moved into farmyards, lanes, barns and buildings, a shotgun could be a far more persuasive weapon than any amount of elegant cavalry doctrine. The call of Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair has brought them back to the old circle once again, older, poorer and rather less impressed by grand causes than they had been in their youth.
Hiram Ambrose Rucker
Hiram Ambrose Rucker had worked around horse yards and livestock markets before the war and joined the 27th with a borrowed saddle, a doubtful horse and a confidence in his own abilities that somehow survived both. He was never a particularly accurate shot at distance, but once the fighting became close his heavy double barrelled shotgun made accuracy a considerably less important consideration.
Rucker soon developed a reputation for being the man to send into barns, farmhouses and narrow lanes where cavalry tactics had ceased to have much meaning. He survived several encounters by firing both barrels at distances where missing would have required considerable effort, after which he generally relied upon profanity and a very large knife until somebody gave him enough time to reload.
After the war he returned to horse dealing and discovered that peace had not made him noticeably more honest. For several years he drifted between livestock markets, questionable card games and business arrangements in which ownership of the horse being sold was sometimes open to interpretation. He eventually heard that old men of the 27th were gathering at Blackthorn Hall and arrived without waiting for a formal invitation, bringing his shotgun, two bottles of whiskey and a horse of uncertain provenance.
Rucker claims that he returned because he was curious, although nobody who knows him believes curiosity alone would have carried him that far. The truth is probably simpler, because Blackthorn Hall offered him familiar faces, familiar arguments and the possibility of once again belonging to something larger than his next horse deal.
Edmund Lee Garnett
Edmund Lee Garnett came from a Virginia family that had once possessed considerable standing but considerably less money, leaving Edmund with the manners of a gentleman and the finances of somebody who could rarely afford to behave like one. He joined the 27th determined to restore something of the family reputation and discovered very quickly that war cared remarkably little for pedigree.
Garnett became a dependable cavalryman and developed a particular fondness for the shotgun during the increasingly confused actions of the final campaigns. His calm manner concealed a willingness to fight at unpleasantly close range, while his habit of apologising before firing became one of the regiment’s stranger traditions and did very little to comfort the men on the receiving end.
The years after the surrender were not kind to him, and he eventually made a living as a professional gambler, relying upon good manners, a respectable coat and the tendency of other men to underestimate somebody who spoke softly. Lucien’s invitation to Blackthorn Hall offered him something gambling never could, namely a return to a world in which the Garnett name, the Saint Clair name and the memory of the old regiment still carried weight.
Garnett remains unfailingly polite around Blackthorn Hall, even when discussing matters that would persuade most visitors to leave by the nearest door. He has also learned that Lucien’s hospitality comes with certain complications, particularly when some of the men sitting around the fire appear to belong to a generation that should no longer be attending reunions.
Hiram Rucker and Edmund Garnett give Lucien’s growing force the sort of brutal close range firepower that the old cavalrymen understand instinctively. Neither man has much interest in firing carefully from a distant hillside when a shotgun and a few yards of open ground will settle the matter more quickly, and both are particularly useful when Lucien’s business carries the posse into buildings, narrow streets or places where mounted manoeuvre is no longer an option.
For all their differences, the two men have found Blackthorn Hall disturbingly easy to settle back into. Rucker treats the strange noises, empty graves and unfamiliar riders with the same indifference he once applied to stolen horses, while Garnett prefers not to ask questions that might require impolite answers, and between them they have reached the practical conclusion that whatever Lucien Saint Clair is building, a pair of loaded shotguns will probably remain useful.
The season is almost over, although before anyone starts thinking about winter I should point out that this is Melbourne, where winter does not actually end so much as temporarily go into hiding before returning unexpectedly sometime in November when you have finally put the heater away and confidently ventured outside without a jumper. No, I am talking about something considerably more important than the weather. I am talking about footy.
And by footy I do not mean that namby pamby game where somebody receives the lightest touch from an opponent, collapses as though struck by sniper fire, rolls dramatically across the grass while appealing to every available official, and then makes a miraculous recovery thirty seconds later when it becomes apparent that nobody is going to give him a free kick. I am talking about Aussie Rules, a proper game where enormous men launch themselves into packs from ridiculous heights, players are tackled into the turf, somebody loses a tooth, an umpire makes a perfectly reasonable decision and fifty thousand spectators immediately unite in the belief that he is blind, incompetent and possibly engaged in an international conspiracy against their particular football club.
More importantly, I am talking about my beloved Western Bulldogs, who have managed to keep the season alive for at least one more week after a close win over Collingwood. Naturally, being the Bulldogs, they could not simply establish a comfortable lead, maintain it and allow their supporters to spend the final quarter enjoying the football with a quiet drink and a smug expression. That would completely undermine generations of club tradition. Instead, we received the complete Bulldogs Supporter Experience, involving hope, anxiety, despair, renewed hope, several conversations with the television, a brief consideration of whether following lawn bowls might be better for my health, and the familiar conviction that the umpires were obviously participating in some vast conspiracy whose precise purpose remains unclear but undoubtedly involves preventing the Bulldogs from winning.
Then we won.
Better still, we beat Collingwood, and there is something particularly satisfying about that because victories over the Magpies come with an additional benefit unavailable when defeating most other clubs. Somewhere across Melbourne, thousands of Collingwood supporters suddenly became very quiet, stared blankly at their television screens and wondered how the natural order of the universe had been so cruelly overturned. I am sure they will recover eventually, although there is absolutely no reason why the rest of us should be in any hurry for that to happen.
So now the Bulldogs march onwards into another week of finals football, although at the time of writing I am not entirely certain who we are playing, where we are playing or precisely when we are playing. These are merely administrative details which can be sorted out later. The important thing is that we are playing, because twenty four hours ago the season was threatening to disappear and leave me facing that horrible football wasteland when weekends suddenly become available for gardening, household maintenance and all those jobs I have successfully avoided since March by explaining that the footy is on.
Naturally, the dangerous thing now is hope, because experienced Bulldogs supporters understand that hope should be approached in much the same way as an unexploded artillery shell. You know you probably should not fiddle with it, experience suggests that doing so may end badly, but eventually curiosity gets the better of you and you start wondering whether perhaps, just perhaps, this could be our year. Before long you have mentally mapped the entire route to the Grand Final and are explaining to anyone prepared to listen exactly why the Bulldogs can win the premiership.
I am not going quite that far.
Yet.
For the moment, I am simply enjoying the fact that the season continues for at least one more week, Collingwood has been dispatched, the Bulldogs are still alive and the blood pressure should return to something approaching normal before we have to do it all again.
The next two ragged veterans to return to Blackthorn Hall are riflemen, men who learned during the war that patience, good ground and a steady hand could often achieve more than enthusiasm and noise. Both had served with the 27th Virginia Cavalry, both had survived the collapse of the Confederacy, and both had spent the years since trying with varying degrees of success to build lives outside the regiment. The summons of Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair has now drawn them back into the orbit of the old command, where familiar faces, old loyalties and increasingly unfamiliar events are beginning to gather together again.
William Fitzhugh Carter
William Fitzhugh Carter had been the son of a modest Virginia landowner and entered the 27th with enough education to keep company accounts but considerably more enthusiasm for soldiering than bookkeeping. During the war he developed into an excellent skirmisher and became known for taking deliberate shots from cover while the more excitable members of the regiment galloped about attracting attention. Carter survived the final campaigns largely because he had learned that bravery and standing in the open were not necessarily the same thing.
After the war he returned home to find the family property burnt to the ground. He sold the land leaving him to drift between work as a surveyor, hunting guide and occasional guard for merchants willing to overlook his Confederate past. He retained the long rifle he had carried during the war, patched and repaired many times but always carefully maintained, and often remarked that a good rifle possessed considerably fewer bad habits than most men.
Carter came to Blackthorn Hall after receiving a short letter bearing the Saint Clair seal, although he has never revealed precisely what Lucien wrote. Whatever the message contained, it was enough to persuade him to put aside the life he had built and answer the call of his old connections once again, bringing with him his rifle, a small collection of belongings and very few questions about what exactly Lucien intended.
Richard Dabney Page
Richard Dabney Page was already an accomplished hunter when he joined the regiment, having grown up among the wooded ridges and valleys of Virginia where accurate shooting was regarded as a practical skill rather than a military speciality. His ability with a rifle soon made him useful for scouting, picket duty and dealing with enemy officers or skirmishers who believed themselves safely beyond pistol range.
Page was badly wounded late in the war and spent much of the final campaigning recovering while the Confederacy collapsed around him, an absence he has always regarded as a personal failure despite having had very little choice in the matter. When he finally returned home there was no regiment waiting for him and very little of the old life left to recover, so he spent the following years hunting for food, guiding travellers through country he knew better than most maps and keeping largely to himself.
The rumours that the 27th was gathering again at Blackthorn Hall therefore stirred something Page had thought long buried, and he arrived carrying the same rifle he had once used in Confederate service. Unlike Carter, he is openly suspicious of Lucien’s interest in the occult and has seen enough strange things around Blackthorn Hall to know that some threats are not easily explained, although he has wisely decided that asking Lucien too many questions is likely to produce answers he would rather not hear.
William Fitzhugh Carter and Richard Dabney Page bring something different to Lucien’s growing force, since neither is interested in close range heroics when a rifle and a good position will do the work more efficiently. Their return gives the remnants of the 27th Virginia Cavalry two experienced marksmen who know how to wait, watch and choose their moment, while their familiarity with the Virginia countryside makes them particularly useful whenever Lucien requires eyes beyond the boundaries of Blackthorn Hall.
Both men remain loyal to the memory of the regiment, although neither is entirely certain what that loyalty now requires of them. Strange riders have been seen moving through the trees after dark, familiar names have begun appearing where they should not, and Page in particular has started checking the faces around the campfire rather more carefully than he once did, while Carter simply cleans his rifle and waits to see what Blackthorn Hall produces next.
I recently came across Sun Rot, and it immediately caught my attention because it seems to have been designed specifically for those of us who are unable to leave well enough alone when it comes to games, miniatures and new projects. It is part roleplaying game, part skirmish game, part board game and part miniature project, all wrapped up in a grim and decaying fantasy setting beneath a dying sun, which means it manages to combine several perfectly respectable hobbies into one potentially expensive distraction.
At its heart, Sun Rot is a cooperative, GM led adventure game in which the players control a small band of characters trying to survive in a world populated by strange creatures, questionable allies and the sort of situations that generally deteriorate as soon as someone announces that they have a plan. The setting is firmly grimdark, although not in the polished heroic fantasy sense that the term sometimes seems to have acquired. This is a world that looks worn out, diseased, unstable and probably best avoided altogether by anyone with even the slightest instinct for self preservation.
The rules are deliberately light, with characters drawn from four broad classes, Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Astrologer, while actions are resolved through a combination of dice and cards. The dice determine whether the character has managed to achieve something useful, while the cards can then introduce complications, consequences and unexpected developments, which rather neatly prevents success from becoming too reassuring.
This is where the game begins to move away from a conventional board game and becomes much more interesting. Rather than providing a precise answer for every possible situation, Sun Rot gives the GM and players enough structure to keep events moving and then expects them to decide exactly what those events mean. A simple encounter can therefore become considerably more complicated as one player attempts to solve a problem, creates another and then watches with growing concern as somebody else makes the perfectly reasonable decision to interfere.
For me, that is one of the strongest parts of the design because the emphasis is clearly on creating a narrative rather than calculating the mathematically perfect move. The cards and dice create the circumstances, but the players have to turn those circumstances into a story, and this should produce the sort of games where everyone remembers the ridiculous sequence of events long after they have forgotten who technically won.
The boxed edition contains a substantial amount of material, including more than 250 cards, a double sided board, card terrain, character and monster standees, tokens, twelve dice, rules and a large collection of scenarios. In practical terms, that means you can open the box and start playing without immediately discovering that you also require a separate starter set, three expansion packs and a piece of terrain that appears to have been discontinued six months ago.
The real attraction for me, however, is that Sun Rot does not have to remain a board game.
The supplied standees can be replaced with miniatures, the card terrain can be replaced with proper scenery, and the game is miniature agnostic enough to encourage the use of figures from an existing collection. This is where the whole thing starts to become particularly dangerous for anyone who already owns more miniatures than is strictly necessary.
There is also a dedicated Sun Rot range available through North Star Military Figures, including the principal characters, Lunar Celebrants and several monster packs. The official range gives the game a strong visual identity, but it does not lock the player into using only those figures, which is exactly how I prefer these things to work. You can use the official figures, substitute something suitable from the collection, convert your own or simply rescue an old fantasy miniature from the back of a drawer and give it a new career.
This flexibility is probably what makes the price of the game easier to justify. If Sun Rot were simply a US$99 board game, I would probably hesitate, particularly once Australian postage had been added and the package had acquired the usual impression of having been personally escorted across the Pacific. If it were merely a rules light RPG or a small skirmish game, I might have the same reaction.
The difference is that it is all of these things at once.
You are getting a board game that can be played straight from the box, a rules light roleplaying framework, a skirmish game that can be transferred easily onto a fully modelled tabletop, a large collection of scenarios and, should you wish to surrender completely, an entirely new miniature project.
That combination is where I think Sun Rot becomes well worth the money.
The RPG element provides the story and character framework, the board game components make the whole thing immediately accessible, the skirmish element gives the action a proper tabletop presence, and the miniature side opens the door to painting, converting and terrain building. None of these parts appears to overwhelm the others, so the game can be approached as casually or as obsessively as the player wishes.
You could play entirely with the contents of the box and never buy another thing, which is theoretically possible.
You could also gradually replace the standees with miniatures, build dedicated scenery, add the North Star figures, introduce creatures from other ranges and eventually reach the point where the original board has quietly disappeared beneath several square feet of lovingly constructed ruins.
That seems rather more likely.
There is also a design philosophy here that I find appealing. Sun Rot does not appear interested in producing a rule for every conceivable situation, instead using simple mechanics to generate problems and leaving the GM and players to interpret the consequences. For some people that will be too loose, particularly those who prefer every uncertainty to be resolved by consulting paragraph 7.3.2 on page 84.
For me, however, the freedom is part of the appeal.
I have always preferred games where the rules create situations rather than attempt to dictate every detail of what happens next, and Sun Rot seems to work very much in that spirit. The game creates the problem, the cards make the problem worse, and the players then have the pleasure of discovering exactly how much damage can be done while trying to repair it.
The more I look at the complete package, the more I think it offers very good value for the right sort of gamer. At roughly A$138 before postage it is certainly not cheap, but looking at it simply as a board game rather misses the point. For someone interested in RPGs, skirmish games, tabletop gaming and miniatures, it effectively provides several different forms of gaming within the same system.
That is either excellent value or a highly efficient method of emptying both the wallet and the painting queue.
My approach would be to start with the full box, use the supplied standees while learning the game and then gradually replace the characters and monsters with miniatures as particular favourites emerged. The North Star range provides an obvious starting point, but the miniature agnostic nature of the game means there is no real limit to what could eventually appear on the table.
And that, I suspect, is where Sun Rot will cause the most trouble.
The dying sun, grotesque monsters and questionable magic are all very well, but none of them is quite as dangerous as the moment you realise that the game has given you a perfectly legitimate reason to start another miniature collection.
I already have enough projects.
Naturally, that probably means Sun Rot is exactly the sort of thing I need.
There are battles decided by careful manoeuvre, clever positioning and a sound appreciation of the tactical situation. Then there are battles decided because one knight takes a look at his opponent, lowers his lance and decides that the simplest solution is to ride straight at the beggar. This was very much one of the latter.
The hero of the day was Sir Roderick de Montfort, the Red Knight, resplendent in scarlet surcoat and apparently possessed of the quaint medieval belief that enemy commanders existed principally to be charged. Facing him was Lord Alaric de Veyne, the Blue Lord, whose magnificent blue livery concealed a rather more developed instinct for self preservation.
The lord and noble knight began on opposite sides of the field and, for a glorious moment, it appeared that we were going to get the proper medieval conclusion to the affair. Sir Roderick spotted his rival, spurred his horse forward and charged directly towards him. Lord Alaric watched the rapidly approaching Red Knight, considered the traditional requirements of chivalry and promptly decided that discretion was considerably more attractive than valour. The Blue Lord turned his horse about and retreated, leaving his retainers to discover whether Sir Roderick was as dangerous as he looked.
He was.
Denied his intended opponent, Sir Roderick simply continued forward and crashed into the Blue Lord’s unfortunate retainers. Several of them attempted to bar his path and were promptly cut down, scattered or ridden over as the Red Knight carved his way through the blue ranks. What had begun as a heroic charge rapidly became a mounted pursuit, with Lord Alaric disappearing into the distance while Sir Roderick followed behind, occasionally pausing only long enough to remove another inconvenient retainer from his path.
Lord Alaric’s men certainly did their duty. Unfortunately, their duty increasingly consisted of standing between an angry knight and the man he was determined to catch. One after another they were swept aside, while their noble lord continued his somewhat undignified tour of the battlefield. Sir Roderick, however, refused to be distracted. The Blue Lord had started the battle as his chosen opponent and, regardless of how many retainers had to be demolished along the way, he was going to finish it that way.
Eventually there was nowhere left to run. Sir Roderick finally caught Lord Alaric and the confrontation that should have occurred at the beginning of the battle took place after a lengthy chase across most of the battlefield. This time there would be no convenient line of retainers to sacrifice and no easy escape route. The Red Knight charged home and brought the dastardly Blue Lord down, ending what had become less a battle between two noble retinues and more an extremely determined personal vendetta conducted on horseback.
Thus ended the glorious pursuit of Sir Roderick de Montfort, the Red Knight, and the considerably less glorious career of Lord Alaric de Veyne, the Blue Lord. Alaric had tried manoeuvre, retreat and the liberal expenditure of his own retainers, but none proved sufficient against an opponent whose entire tactical doctrine consisted of “There he is. Get him.”
Sometimes medieval warfare really does not need to be any more complicated than that.
I discovered recently that I am getting old. Not because of aching knees, grey hair, forgetting why I walked into a room, or making strange noises whenever I get out of a chair. No, the evidence came from my grandson.
We were doing something together and I asked him to hang up the phone.
He looked at me.
“Where?”
There are moments in life when the generation gap does not merely appear. It opens beneath your feet like the Grand Canyon.
Of course, he was perfectly correct. You cannot hang up a mobile phone. There is no receiver, no cradle and certainly no hook. Yet those of us of a certain vintage continue happily telling people to hang up, dial numbers and give us a ring, despite the fact that none of these actions bear much resemblance to what we actually do.
It reminded me of another recent encounter with my grandsons. We were helping out at Victorious and I was being nagged about something. Eventually I told one of them that he was sounding like a broken record.
I received the look.
It was the particular look a younger person gives an older relative when they are not entirely sure whether they have heard an ancient expression or are witnessing the early stages of mental decline.
Then it occurred to me that he probably had no idea what I meant. Why should he? A broken or scratched record getting stuck in the same groove and repeating itself endlessly was once an instantly recognisable experience. Today it requires an explanatory footnote.
Apparently I now speak a dialect called Old Person English, a language built around telephones attached to walls, records, typewriters, carbon paper, printing presses, film reels and technologies that disappeared years ago.
So, for the benefit of my grandchildren, here is a short translation guide to some of the expressions we continue to use despite the technology behind them having vanished.
Hang up the phone — There is nothing to hang up.
Dial a number — There has not been a dial involved for decades.
Pick up the receiver — First find a receiver.
Give me a ring — No jewellery is required.
Get off the line — What line?
Sounds like a broken record — Requires a short lecture on vinyl records, scratches and grooves before the insult can be properly appreciated.
Rewind it — Nothing is actually being wound.
Fast forward — See above.
Tape it — There is no tape involved.
Don’t touch that dial — Good luck finding one.
Stay tuned — Nobody is tuning anything.
Tune in — Ditto.
Roll down the car window — What we actually mean is press the button.
Film it — There is probably no film anywhere in the device.
Footage — There are no feet of film either.
The cutting room floor — Now presumably the deleted files folder.
CC me — Carbon copies without carbon paper.
Cut and paste — No scissors and, disappointingly, no paste.
Put pen to paper — Open Word.
Back to the drawing board — Open another program.
Hot off the press — Often used for something that has never been anywhere near a printing press.
Get your wires crossed — Frequently said while using a wireless device.
On the same wavelength — No radio tuning required.
Burning the midnight oil — Electricity has made this considerably safer.
The penny dropped — Particularly impressive in Australia considering the penny disappeared in 1966.
Clockwise — Perfectly obvious until you meet someone who has grown up looking only at digital clocks.
Turn over the record — Once an essential part of listening to an album rather than an obscure instruction from an elderly relative.
Drop the needle — Vinyl enthusiasts may be keeping this one alive.
Put the pedal to the metal — Still understood, although increasingly threatened by cruise control, electric vehicles and eventually cars that do the driving for us.
Hold your horses — Usually said by people who own no horses.
Put the cart before the horse — Requires familiarity with two pieces of transport technology that most people have never used.
Close, but no cigar — Apparently there was once a time when narrowly succeeding might reasonably have resulted in tobacco.
Roll the credits — Assuming the streaming service does not minimise them and immediately try to start the next episode.
The strange thing is that none of us thinks twice about these expressions. We inherit them, use them and pass them along long after the objects that created them have disappeared. Language, it seems, is considerably more reluctant to throw things away than technology is.
Which means I shall continue to dial numbers, hang up phones, roll down windows, stay tuned, sound like a broken record, get my wires crossed and wait for the penny to drop.
My grandsons can continue looking at me strangely.
And if they do not understand something I say, they can always look it up.
Just don’t tell them to look it up in the phone book.
The five ragged veterans who now ride for Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair, master of Blackthorn Hall, are among the last remnants of the old 27th Virginia Cavalry still willing to answer the call of a Saint Clair. All are armed with pistols, partly because carbines, ammunition and decent equipment became scarce during the final months of the war, and partly because each has spent so long fighting at close quarters that a revolver now seems a more natural companion than a rifle. They are not young men, nor particularly respectable ones, but they remain dangerous, loyal in their own fashion and deeply attached to a regiment that officially ceased to exist long ago.
The five ragged veterans who now ride for Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair, master of Blackthorn Hall, are among the last remnants of the old 27th Virginia Cavalry still willing to answer the call of a Saint Clair. All are armed with pistols, partly because carbines, ammunition and decent equipment became scarce during the final months of the war, and partly because each has spent so long fighting at close quarters that a revolver now seems a more natural companion than a rifle. They are not young men, nor particularly respectable ones, but they remain dangerous, loyal in their own fashion and deeply attached to a regiment that officially ceased to exist long ago.
Abner Taliaferro
Abner Taliaferro had been a small farmer before the war, owning just enough land to consider himself independent and just little enough to lose nearly all of it while he was away fighting. He joined the 27th Virginia Cavalry early and quickly earned a reputation as a steady man who could be relied upon when more enthusiastic soldiers had exhausted their courage. Taliaferro was never particularly interested in speeches about glory, but he believed in his regiment, trusted his officers and remained in the saddle long after common sense suggested that he should have gone home.
By the end of the war he had lost his farm, two brothers and most of his faith in grand causes, although he never lost his attachment to the men with whom he had served. When Lucien Saint Clair began quietly gathering former members of the 27th around Blackthorn Hall, Taliaferro was one of the first to appear. He claims that he came because he owed the Saint Clair family an old debt, although those who know him suspect that the sight of familiar uniforms and old comrades was enough.
Taliaferro carries two battered pistols, both older than some of the men now claiming to be cavalrymen, and has the irritating habit of cleaning them while other people are attempting to have serious conversations. He says little, complains frequently and remains one of the few men in the posse capable of recognising when a situation is about to become a disaster, although experience has taught him that recognising this fact and avoiding it are entirely different skills.
Silas Pendleton
Silas Pendleton had been a horse trader, gambler and occasional thief before joining the 27th Virginia Cavalry, and military service did little to improve any of those qualities. What it did reveal was that Pendleton possessed exceptional nerves in a close fight and an instinctive understanding of horses, making him far more useful to the regiment than his civilian reputation might have suggested.
Pendleton preferred pistols even during the war, arguing that if a man needed to shoot farther than thirty yards he had probably failed to get close enough. He became notorious for riding into skirmishes with a revolver in each hand, a habit that produced several wounds, one missing fingertip and a collection of stories that Pendleton has improved steadily ever since.
After the surrender he drifted through Virginia making money wherever opportunity allowed, which generally meant gambling, horse dealing and activities best described as unofficial redistribution. Lucien eventually found him in a county jail and paid his outstanding debts, fines and several expenses that the local sheriff had invented on the spot.
Pendleton has been loyal to Blackthorn Hall ever since, although he insists this has nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with the quality of Lucien’s whiskey.
Thomas Beverley
Thomas Beverley came from a family of modest Virginia landowners whose property lay close enough to Blackthorn Hall that the Beverley and Saint Clair families had known one another for generations. Beverley joined the 27th Virginia Cavalry alongside two cousins, both of whom were dead before the final year of the war, leaving Thomas with a bitterness that never entirely faded.
He was a competent cavalryman but became particularly effective in the confused fighting that characterised the regiment’s later campaigns, when formations broke down and small groups of riders operated almost independently. Beverley learned to fight from hedgerows, barns, lanes and ruined farm buildings, relying on patience and a pair of pistols rather than heroic charges.
The postwar years suited him badly. The family property was sold to cover debts, his surviving relatives scattered and Beverley spent much of the next decade moving between temporary jobs and arguments with men he believed had benefited from the defeat of the Confederacy. Blackthorn Hall offered something he had not possessed for years, namely a place where the old regiment was still remembered and where nobody suggested that he should forget the past.
Beverley rarely smiles and has little interest in Lucien’s occult interests, although he has learned that asking too many questions at Blackthorn Hall generally produces answers he would rather not hear.
Josiah Cabell
Josiah Cabell had been one of the youngest men in the 27th Virginia Cavalry and was barely old enough to shave when he first joined the regiment. What he lacked in experience he compensated for with enthusiasm, horsemanship and a reckless conviction that bullets were a problem mainly affecting other people, a belief that the war corrected without entirely curing the recklessness.
Cabell survived several actions in which older and supposedly wiser men did not, eventually becoming an accomplished scout and messenger who could move rapidly across difficult country and had an uncanny ability to find gaps in enemy patrols. He developed a preference for pistols because they interfered less with riding and because, as Cabell still explains, anything that cannot be settled with six shots probably requires leaving.
After the war Cabell attempted several respectable occupations with uniformly poor results, including farming, clerking and working for a railway company. None lasted long, partly because he disliked authority and partly because civilian life seemed painfully slow after years spent riding through gunfire.
When rumours reached him that men of the 27th were once again gathering at Blackthorn Hall, Cabell arrived within the week. He now behaves as though the intervening years were merely an extended period of leave and appears remarkably unconcerned by the fact that some of the men he remembers dying have also begun returning to duty.
Nathaniel Randolph
Nathaniel Randolph was never a wealthy man, but he came from an old Virginia family proud enough to behave as though poverty was simply another inherited tradition. He enlisted in the 27th Virginia Cavalry with his own horse, a serviceable pistol and a coat his mother had altered from an older relative’s uniform.
Randolph developed into a stubborn and dependable cavalryman whose greatest talent was simply remaining in the fight. He was wounded repeatedly, lost three horses and once returned to the regiment after being officially reported dead, an administrative error he found highly amusing at the time and considerably less amusing now that Lucien Saint Clair has begun taking a professional interest in such matters.
After the war Randolph became a wandering farmhand and occasional deputy, never staying anywhere long enough to establish new roots. The old regiment remained the strongest connection he had to anything resembling home, and the Saint Clair name still carried considerable weight with him.
Randolph is the most openly uneasy about what is happening at Blackthorn Hall. He has seen lights in the family cemetery, heard horses moving beyond the stable walls and recognised at least one face among Lucien’s followers that he distinctly remembers helping to bury.
Despite this, he remains, because as Randolph explains whenever the question is raised, a man should not abandon his regiment merely because some of it has become difficult to kill.
Together, Taliaferro, Pendleton, Beverley, Cabell and Randolph form the hard core of Lucien Saint Clair’s growing force at Blackthorn Hall, men bound less by politics than by memory, comradeship and an inability to leave the old regiment entirely behind. They still wear what remains of their cavalry clothing, still argue over campaigns fought years earlier and still fall naturally into the habits of men who once depended upon one another for survival, while their pistols remain close at hand whenever Lucien requires something more persuasive than conversation.
What none of them fully understands is exactly what Lucien intends for the remnants of the 27th Virginia Cavalry, although all have begun to suspect that he is interested in restoring rather more than its name. Strange riders have been seen around Blackthorn Hall after dark, old saddles have disappeared from the stables and there are increasingly familiar faces among men who should have remained in Virginia soil. For the five veterans, however, the answer is simple enough, because if the 27th is riding again, then they intend to be there when it does.
My second Dark Confederacy posse has its roots firmly planted in the old Virginia aristocracy, although in this case it is very much the sort of aristocracy whose neighbours learned that an invitation to dinner was best accepted before sunset. At its centre is Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair, master of Blackthorn Hall, an old plantation lying among the wooded ridges and rolling farmland of Virginia, where the Saint Clair family had accumulated land, influence and enemies for generations.
The Saint Clairs traced their American ancestry back to the colonial period and regarded themselves as Virginians first and almost everything else a very distant second. Generations of the family had served as lawyers, magistrates, militia officers and politicians, while younger sons had traditionally entered the army or found some other suitably respectable occupation involving horses and firearms. Blackthorn Hall reflected that history, with family portraits covering its walls, weapons from earlier wars hanging above fireplaces and a library containing several generations of correspondence, military journals and books that became considerably more unusual the farther one ventured towards the locked cabinets at the rear of the room.
Lucien grew up surrounded by stories of family service and developed particularly strong connections with the 27th Virginia Cavalry (Author’s note: I know there were only 26 Virginian Cavalry Regiments in the “War of Southern Independence”), with relatives, neighbours and family retainers serving in its ranks during the war. Blackthorn Hall became an unofficial stopping place for officers and men whenever circumstances allowed, its stables supplying fresh mounts while its cellars and kitchens supplied those things that cavalrymen generally considered equally important. Lucien never forgot the sight of Confederate horsemen gathering beneath the trees before riding away, nor how many of those familiar faces never returned.
Although wealthy enough to avoid much of the hardship experienced by ordinary soldiers, Lucien was no coward and remained closely associated with the regiment and its veterans. The war nevertheless affected him profoundly, as casualty lists steadily removed relatives and childhood friends while the world into which he had been born collapsed around him. When peace finally came, Blackthorn Hall remained standing, but its fields were neglected, its fortune diminished and many of the chairs around the Saint Clair dining table permanently empty.
Lucien increasingly withdrew into the family library, where an earlier interest in history and antiquarianism gradually moved towards spiritualism, folklore and considerably darker subjects. He became fascinated by the possibility that death might not represent the absolute boundary that conventional religion and science assumed, and his considerable remaining wealth allowed him to acquire obscure manuscripts, forbidden texts and strange objects from dealers throughout America and Europe. Visitors became increasingly rare, servants began finding excuses to leave Blackthorn Hall and strange lights were occasionally reported in rooms that had supposedly been locked for years.
Behind the house, beyond an avenue of ancient oaks, lay the Saint Clair family burial ground, surrounded by a large wall and dominated by weathered monuments carrying names familiar from almost two centuries of Virginia history. Among them were several comparatively recent graves belonging to men who had ridden with the 27th Virginia Cavalry, including that of Colonel Augustus Beauregard Saint Clair and his beloved charger, Beauregard. one of the family’s great Confederate heroes and a celebrated cavalry commander whose exploits had become part of Saint Clair legend.
Lucien began spending more and more time there after dark.
Precisely what he discovered among those graves remains uncertain, although Blackthorn Hall’s remaining servants became accustomed to seeing their master walking towards the family plot carrying books, lanterns and occasionally objects that respectable gentlemen had little reason to possess. There were nights when unusual lights could be seen between the headstones and mornings when the earth around particular graves appeared to have been disturbed despite there being no evidence that anyone had entered the cemetery.
Lucien himself dismisses such observations as the imagination of superstitious servants, although he has never provided a particularly satisfactory explanation for why several old cavalry saddles have recently disappeared from the Blackthorn Hall tack room.
What is certain is that Lucien Beauregard Saint Clair is no longer simply an eccentric Virginia gentleman with an unhealthy interest in the occult. He has become a necromancer of considerable ability and the centre of a new Dark Confederacy posse, drawing around him former soldiers, desperate gunmen and men whose loyalty to the old cause survived considerably better than the cause itself. Some follow him because of the Saint Clair name, others because of his money, while a few seem to have known Blackthorn Hall and its master for much longer than their appearance should reasonably permit.
Visitors occasionally remark that the Saint Clair family plot contains rather more empty spaces than it once did.
Lucien merely smiles, pours another glass of Bumgardner’s Pure Old Rye and changes the subject.
Writing background stories for a Dracula’s America posse might appear, at first glance, to be an unnecessary addition to a miniature wargame. The figures have statistics, weapons and abilities, the rules provide scenarios and campaign mechanisms, and everything required to play is already present. Yet this treats the game purely as a mechanical contest. Dracula’s America: Shadows of the West was deliberately designed as something broader, a Gothic horror skirmish game set within an alternate version of the nineteenth century in which small groups of distinctive individuals struggle within a developed fictional world.¹ The relatively small number of figures involved makes characterisation particularly valuable because players are dealing with individuals rather than anonymous battalions or regiments.
This is one of the principal reasons I have increasingly found myself writing backstories for my Dracula’s America posses. They are not simply decorative pieces of fiction added after painting is finished. They change the way in which the miniatures, the posse and ultimately the game itself are perceived. A figure identified only as a veteran with a rifle remains essentially a collection of game statistics. Give him a name, explain where he came from, describe why he follows the posse leader and provide some small element of his previous life, and the same miniature acquires an identity. Once that has happened, what occurs to him during a game begins to matter in a different way.
There is a substantial body of game studies scholarship supporting this distinction between simply manipulating game components and becoming engaged with the fictional situation those components represent. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman argue that meaningful play develops through the relationship between player actions and the larger system within which those actions acquire significance. They also identify narrative, simulation and social interaction as important ways through which games generate meaning.² A miniature wargame can therefore operate simultaneously as a tactical system and as a narrative environment. The dice determine whether a character survives a gunfight, but the narrative determines why the player cares whether he survives.
This distinction becomes especially important in skirmish games. In a large historical battle the destruction of an infantry battalion may be important because of the tactical consequences of losing several hundred represented soldiers. In a game such as Dracula’s America, the loss of a single miniature can represent a significant proportion of the entire force. The original rules envisage posses containing no more than about a dozen individual models, reinforcing the importance of individual characters rather than mass formations.³ When a miniature has acquired an identity through previous games and through a developed background, its loss may consequently possess narrative as well as tactical significance.
The player is no longer merely thinking that a rifleman has been removed from the table. It might instead be Malachi Graves losing one of the increasingly battered veterans who has followed him halfway across the American West, or Lucien Saint Clair watching another member of his resurrected Confederate following disappear beneath a hail of gunfire. The mechanical event has remained exactly the same, but its meaning has changed.
Gary Alan Fine identified this process remarkably early in his study of fantasy role playing communities. He examined role playing games as social worlds within which players collectively construct and maintain shared fictional realities through interaction.⁴ Although a miniature skirmish game differs considerably from a conventional role playing game, the principle remains applicable. The rules establish boundaries and mechanisms, while the participants determine what events occurring within those boundaries mean. A failed shooting roll can simply be a failed shooting roll, or it can become the occasion when a supposedly deadly gunslinger emptied his revolver at an approaching zombie and somehow missed every shot. The latter is much more likely to be remembered.
Backstories provide the framework within which these accidental events can be incorporated into an emerging narrative. This is important because tabletop narratives differ from novels or films. They are not entirely predetermined by an author. The player may establish a character’s past, personality and motivation, but the subsequent interaction between player decisions, game mechanisms and opponents determines much of what follows. In this respect the game produces what might be described as an emergent narrative. The story is not simply being told before play begins but is being generated through the act of playing.
I may therefore decide what a character did before the first game, but I cannot determine what happens once that figure reaches the tabletop. Dice, cards, opponents and my own occasionally disastrous decisions take over. What begins as written background becomes a continuing biography produced through play. This distinction is important because it prevents backstory from becoming merely another form of fiction writing attached to a game. Its purpose is to establish the beginning of a character’s story rather than determine its conclusion.
This is particularly appropriate to Dracula’s America. Its setting already depends upon the collision of history, alternative history, the Western and Gothic horror. Dracula rules the United States, supernatural factions operate within recognisable nineteenth century surroundings, and historical imagery is continually mixed with the fantastic.⁵ Writing backgrounds extends the same process. A Dark Confederacy posse can be anchored in the historical Confederacy and the aftermath of the American Civil War while introducing necromancy and resurrected cavalrymen. A Church of Dagon posse can draw upon Lovecraftian horror while still consisting of individuals who possess occupations, relationships and motives appropriate to its imagined Western setting. The background therefore establishes connections between the broader fictional world supplied by the rules and the particular collection of figures standing on my table.
There is also an important relationship between narrative and engagement. Gordon Calleja argues that involvement in games is multidimensional, incorporating not simply manipulation of game systems but spatial, shared, affective, narrative and ludic forms of involvement.⁶ He uses the concept of incorporation to describe a stronger condition in which the game environment becomes integrated into the player’s experience of play. Although Calleja developed his model principally in relation to digital games, the underlying concept is useful for understanding tabletop gaming because it emphasises that engagement does not arise from game mechanisms alone.
This is where writing backstories becomes particularly useful. Naming characters and providing them with histories increases the opportunities for narrative and emotional involvement without changing a single rule.⁷ The weapon ranges remain the same, movement remains the same and the probabilities governing combat remain the same. What changes is the player’s relationship with the pieces being moved. The miniature becomes connected to a larger imagined world and to events that occurred in previous games.
The distinction between immersion and engagement is also worth considering. Immersion is sometimes used rather loosely in discussions of games to describe almost any situation in which players become absorbed in what they are doing. Calleja argues that the concept is more complicated and proposes a model incorporating several different forms of player involvement rather than treating immersion as a single psychological condition.⁸ This is particularly useful for miniature gaming because players continually move between different forms of engagement. One moment I may be calculating movement distance or considering the probability of a successful attack, while the next I am considering whether a particular action is appropriate for the character involved.
Narrative therefore does not require the player to forget that a game is being played. Indeed, much of the pleasure comes from moving between these different perspectives. The player can simultaneously understand that a miniature has certain statistics and regard that miniature as representing a particular character. Tactical calculation and imaginative involvement are not mutually exclusive. They can operate together.
Backstories also contribute to continuity between games. This may be their greatest value in campaign play. Without narrative, a campaign can easily become a sequence of linked tactical encounters in which experience, injuries, equipment and casualties are carried from one game to another. Those mechanisms certainly provide continuity, but a developed narrative gives that continuity additional meaning. An injury becomes part of a character’s history. An opponent responsible for killing a valued member of the posse becomes a rival. A recruit arriving halfway through a campaign can be given a reason for joining. An unlikely survivor begins to acquire a reputation.
The rules provide the events, while the players turn those events into history.
Fine’s discussion of gaming as a shared social world is again useful here because the fictional reality of the game is maintained through the interaction of its participants.⁹ Events acquire significance because players remember them, discuss them and incorporate them into later play. A character who has repeatedly survived dangerous situations may consequently acquire a reputation that has no formal existence within the rules. Other players know who he is because they remember what happened previously.
This also explains why it is unnecessary to produce elaborate biographies for every figure before beginning play. Too much predetermined history can become almost as restrictive as having none at all. A useful background establishes identity, motivation and relationships while deliberately leaving room for the tabletop to determine what happens next. The purpose is to create enough narrative structure for later events to possess meaning without writing the ending before the game has begun.
In practical terms, a few paragraphs may therefore be more useful than several pages. A character needs enough information to explain who he is, where he came from, why he belongs to the posse and perhaps what he wants. Everything after that can emerge through play. The first game adds another piece of history, the second adds another, and before long the character possesses a biography that neither the player nor the game designer could have predicted.
There is a further social dimension. Backstories give opponents something with which to engage. When both players know that one particular miniature is the notorious gunslinger who survived three previous encounters, attacking him becomes more interesting. When a necromancer has repeatedly escaped capture, his appearance on the table acquires significance before the first activation occurs. Gaming worlds are socially maintained rather than existing solely in the imagination of an individual participant, and their stories are strengthened when they become shared experiences.¹⁰
This helps explain one of the peculiar pleasures of miniature wargaming. Players frequently remember stories long after they have forgotten the result. The precise victory point total from a game played several years ago may disappear completely, while everyone remembers the cavalryman who charged through a hail of fire, the preacher who refused to die, or the supposedly terrifying monster that spent most of the battle achieving nothing useful whatsoever. Narrative provides a structure through which the randomness inherent in many games is converted into memorable experience.
There is consequently no conflict between narrative and game mechanics. The two work best when they reinforce one another. Salen and Zimmerman emphasise that meaningful play emerges from relationships between player actions, outcomes and the wider game system.¹¹ Narrative can add another layer of significance to those outcomes. The rules create uncertainty because players cannot completely control what happens, while the narrative gives those uncertain consequences meaning precisely because they cannot be predetermined.
A character who survives because the author decided in advance that he must survive is merely part of a story. A character who somehow survives six games despite repeated attempts by opponents to kill him has acquired a legend.
That, ultimately, is why I write backgrounds for my Dracula’s America posses. Painting the figures creates the physical collection and the rules make it possible to use them on the tabletop, but the background transforms them into something more than playing pieces. It provides a starting point from which the unpredictable events of each game can develop into an ongoing story. This does not require players to become actors, conduct lengthy role playing sessions or subordinate tactical play to storytelling. It simply adds another level of engagement.
A Dark Confederacy veteran who survives because of an improbable card draw remains exactly the same miniature with exactly the same statistics, but he is no longer quite the same character. He has acquired another incident in his history. After several games these incidents accumulate, relationships develop, grudges appear and personalities emerge that were never deliberately written in advance. At that point the posse has moved beyond being a painted collection selected from an army list. It has developed its own history.
For a game such as Dracula’s America, where Gothic horror, alternative history and cinematic Western action already depend so heavily upon atmosphere, that seems entirely appropriate.¹² The backstory does not replace the game. It gives the game something to continue.
Footnotes
Jonathan Haythornthwaite, Dracula’s America: Shadows of the West: A Wargame (Oxford: Osprey Games, 2017).
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).
Haythornthwaite, Dracula’s America.
Gary Alan Fine, Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), particularly the discussions of collective fantasy, game structure, frames and the reality of fantasy.
Haythornthwaite, Dracula’s America.
Gordon Calleja, In Game: From Immersion to Incorporation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 35–54.
