Wet & Wonderful II

FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE is written by Thaddeus Flott, (imaginary) alchemist and operatic tenor, in answer to A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City by Beauregard Hardebard, The Master and Four Wardens of the Fellowship of the Art or Mystery of Haberdashery and Millinery. Flott claims said guide to be a fine work, but suggests that reflects poorly upon the details that sees about him as he goes about his daily flânerie. He suggests that his Miscellany is perfect for visitor to learn a great deal about the city, but not too much about any particular one thing, to ready them for those occasions when he should compulsively tell everyone he meets the many things he has learned, and to be able to do it in a charming manner! And thus, the reader will be in such a position to earn a reputation as one of the more charming boors at any bourgeois social engagement he should attend. This is the manner in which FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE should be approached and once done, for the dedicated boulevardier, there is FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME TWO!

FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE is published by Superhero Necromancer Press and is an expansion to A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City. Both are systems-agnostic and are there suitable to be used with numerous different roleplaying games, but FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE should definitely be used with A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City. Like any miscellany, FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE is a book of things. In fact, FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE is a book of lists of things, whether they are people, encounters, emporia and other businesses, rumours, goods and services, and more. Barring an essay at its rear discussing theatre in the Rainy City, no entry is longer than ten lines, and a great many of them, much, much shorter than that. This is done district by district and what it means is that the Game Master can dip into FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE, whether in preparation or in play, pick out a detail, whether a name or a location or an object, and slip it into her game as her Player Characters go about their own flânerie.

For example, in general, ‘Brollys Used Instead Of Hats By The Undiscerning—A List By Beauregard Hardebard’ will be use to almost anyone, suggesting ‘The Pocket Parasol’, which provides maximum protection for the wigged and unhatted with its adequate use of lace and ‘The En Garde’, hard-tipped and sturdy, for when disagreements become pointed. There are notes on magical resonances when spells do not co-operate, such as adding an emotional effect or making the spell cracked. There are grimoires for sale, like Damson Days, a.k.a. The Secret of Ooze, Purple or Otherwise, by Pores the Indifferent and Skin Trade, On The Delicate Art of Etched Homunculi. There are new gangs, for example, ‘The Weathered Crows’, a gang of animated scarecrows and effigies and ‘The Welcoming Committee’, a gang whose membership is entirely made up of Gulls who shakedown of newly arrived ships of refugees for their jewellery. Guilds include ‘The High Society of Chivalrous Chiffoniers’ and ‘The Eternal Order of Smoke’, whilst notable legal covens which oversee contracts in a city without government, include ‘The Law Offices of Right Honourable Honorius Laborius Constantine Fuddyduddy, Fuddyduddy, and Fuddyduddy’ and ‘The Salty Hull of Mary Clew, Sela Konigsdot and Hurra O’Malley’.

FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE does this over and over. List upon list in delightfully fusty and parochial language that borders on the Dickensian. Once it has done for the Rainy City in general, there are lists devoted to each of the city’s ten districts. In Rickety and the Swells, there is a list of pirate captains, captured, executed, stuffed, and displayed on the Plank, each waiting to possess someone and continue about their life, whilst in The Mids, there is a list of ‘Who is Duelling In Public Square Today?’. For example, ‘Ten Rusty Nails, Pugilist, vs. City Jeansm Achterfuss. Over the particularly annoying cant of Mr. Jeans’ hat as he undulated down the street.’ Again and again, FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE gives morsels of information that intrigue and interest, but never a fuller explanation. Just enough to wonder where such details and situations might go were they to encounter the curiosity of the players and their characters.

Physically, FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE retains all the charm of A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City. The artwork appears as woodprints with a Renaissance feel, but with an unsettling nature to it upon closer examination. The nature of the book with its many, many lists is short and pithy.

A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City engaged the senses from page one, bringing the storm-tossed, sodden metropolis and its strange inhabitants with their odd habits to life. FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE continues in that vein with little tidbits and gobbets of detail and colour that will enrich the Game Master’s Rainy City campaign even further. FLOTT’S MISCELLANY VOLUME ONE is a feast of the bonne bouche, indulgently odd and quirky.