Above & Below

Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is an anthology of scenarios—and more, for the roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. In this roleplaying game, as magic returns to the world, there is the need to deal with the mysteries, oddness, and secrets of the ‘demi-monde’, as well as investigate crimes committed by those within it and those associated with it. In this urban fantasy game, this need is fulfilled by the London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch, also known as ‘the Folly’, and the Player Characters are its newly recruited members. Magic plays a big role in Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and some of the Player Characters are practitioners—Apprentice Newtonian Wizards—who will need their magic to best solve the mysteries that lie at the heart of the mysteries of these four scenarios as well as general investigative abilities, some taught at Police College and some learned on the street. Together, the quartet will do things. First, they will take the Player Characters across London as well as below the city and along the banks of the River Thames, second, they will take the Player Characters through a series of increasingly challenging and more involved cases. In terms of timeframe, the scenarios in the anthology are still set in 2016, but the content does take into account of the events of the novella, What Abigail Did That Summer.

It should be noted that four of the the three scenarios in Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection are not new, having previously been available as PDFs, whilst the first two scenarios are suitable as introductory scenarios as well as convention scenarios. The first of the four scenarios is ‘Going Underground’, a short mystery which takes place in an ‘ghost’ or unused station on the London underground, this being the British Museum station closed in the thirties. The British Museum station is now a ‘ghost station’—and it is this conflation of ‘ghost’ and ‘station’ which the author takes advantage of and should arouse the interest of the players and their characters. The Player Characters are awoken by a telephone call in the night from Sergeant Jaget Kumar, the Falcon Liaison Officer for the British Transport Police, who reports that ghost has been sighted on the station. The Player Characters are able to conduct a little research before making their way to the station entrance (it is quite close to the Folly) before descending to the remanets of the station where most of the action will take place. This is a constrained investigation, focusing upon making contact with the ghost there and finding out about what happened to them. However, this hides a deeper mystery connected to the British Museum next door, which is reputed to have been haunted by its very own ‘Unlucky Mummy’.

If there is an issue with ‘Going Underground’, it is that there is not a lot of action to the scenario, so some players may be disappointed. However, it is written as an investigative and social scenario and it has a gentle, almost cosy feel to it. This is a genuinely lovely scenario very nicely supported with some well-researched background.

The second scenario, ‘Font of Evil’, is much more of traditional investigation—and fact, a murder mystery—and does include an actual threat. Potentially problematically, the scenario is that it set on a specific date—Thursday, 19th May, 2016—as it is tied into the ebb and flow of the Thames tidal estuary. There is advice on moving the date, so it is flexible. The scenario concerns the strange death of Edgar Marsh, a young man whose main activity is ‘mudlarking’, that is the practice of searching the exposed riverbeds of the Thames at low tide for historical artifacts and lost objects. It quickly becomes apparent that he is not the only one obsessed with the activity and some of the things Edgar Marsh found. This will give the Player Characters a prime suspect and the second half of the scenario revolves around confirming his connection to the Edgar Marsh, and then tracking him down and confronting him. Another issue with the scenario is there is information that the Player Characters will probably want to know right at the start of the scenario, but saves it until later in the scenario. So, the scenario needs more attention paid to it during the Game Master’s preparation. The scenario will definitely end in a confrontation with the villain of the piece and what he is trying to bring about, so has a much more physical feel to it.

‘Font of Evil’ is very much a London-inspired scenario and much darker in tone than the previous ‘Going Underground’. Whilst the scenario does explore the consequences of Player Characters’ actions, it does not address what happens if they fail, so the Game Master will have to improvise. Otherwise, ‘Font of Evil’ is a dark and nasty affair.

‘The Goat-Man is Coming!’ is the third scenario in the anthology and is the only not have been published before. When the Folly is alerted by the local police liaison officer about an assault by a supposed ‘Goat-Man’ on the Parkland Walk, a linear green pedestrian and cycle route in north London, Inspector Nightingale asks the Player Characters to investigate as the ‘Goat-Man’ is a figure of local myth and has not been seen since the seventies. Much of the action of the scenario is along the few kilometres of the Parkland Walk as the Player Characters investigate the assault and check the veracity of the ‘Goat-Man’ myth. This is very much a step up in terms of the investigation’s sophistication with numerous NPCs to interact with—some of whom are quite challenging to interview—and multiple leads. The players will definitely need to make notes to keep up with the amount of information their characters can discover and learn. The scenario also presents an opportunity for the Player Characters to interact with members of the demi-monde, including a Len Deighton-inspired fox whom the Game Master will have a lot of fun portraying.

However, this scenario is tinged with sadness and it does involve children around whom the Player Characters will need to work with care and sensitivity. There are dire consequences for the Player Characters if this aspect of the investigation is handled poorly, both within the demi-monde and without. Otherwise, this is an entertaining scenario that should take two or three sessions to complete. If there is a downside, it ignores the question that a player and his character might ask, “What if the ‘Goat-Man’ is a faun or satyr?”

The fourth and final scenario in the anthology is ‘Jimmy’s Last Dance’. Like ‘The Goat-Man is Coming!’ before it, this scenario starts with an assault. However, not by a supposed ‘Goat-Man’, but by a pirate in the borough of Putney south London and when the Player Characters investigate, it is clear that magic was used. What follows is a detailed investigation which involves a lot of standard Police procedure—interviews, surveillance, and so on—mainly confined to Putney, bar the occasional return to the Folly to conduct research. Over the course of the investigation, the Player Characters will be conducting multiple interviews, all of which nicely presented to help the Game Master answer their questions and portray the various NPCs. Beyond the fact that a pirate attacked the operators of a cannabis farm in south London, the investigation will lead the Player Characters to a criminal gang, a solicitor with less than ethical standards, a rotten son-in-law and a barely suspecting daughter, and an old lady with interesting secrets of her own. Their efforts will seem to weave in and out of the movements of the pirate, but eventually they will be able to find him and discover who he is and what he wants.

As with the other scenarios in Underground, Overground, the issue with ‘Jimmy’s Last Dance’ is when it is set, but add to that is its political dimension. It is set in 2016 and it involves a political scandal that was at its height at the time. This is The Windrush Scandal. Of course, the authors advise the Game Master to handle the issue with care and it is certainly not a problem that The Windrush Scandal is part of the scenario—in fact, it is actually woven into the plot of the case file—but rather that the timeframe is quite specific and thus difficult to shift the case file to another year. Elsewhere, there is advice on how to portray a pirate without sounding like Robert Newton. Overall, a very nicely detailed investigation that combines parochially British charm and menace, but like a modern Ealing comedy, can have a cosy ending.

All four scenarios are ably supported by advice and suggestions for the Game Master, whether that is written in the author’s voice or that of Peter Grant or even Ben Aaronovitch. There is advice on what character types that each scenario needs, referring to the pre-generated Player Characters in the core rulebook and, also how to run each scenario using Player Characters who are not affiliated with the Folly. Most of the scenarios have relationship maps and a plot progression charts too, to help the Game Master keep track of their particular investigations. Perhaps the oddest advice is on various pieces of British vernacular, such as the meaning of the term ‘old bag’ when used as a pejorative to describe a woman, old or not. Whilst a British audience will find this amusing, for a non-British Game Master, it explains the vernacular and gives alternatives where necessary. This gives her the choice of enforcing the verisimilitude with the given terms or using less pejorative ones.

Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection comes to a close with a trio of appendices. The first presents ‘New Spells’ from Bortnik, an old Russian peasant spell designed to drive bees away temporarily so that a hive’s honey can be harvested and Trip Trap that ties shoelaces together to Indagare Aliquem which creates a pair of linked metal items each of which knows where the others are (one the examples of its use is by New York Librarians with paired paperclips to track where certain books and items are) and Snow Stove which compacts a mass of snow into a compact cylinder that releases heat for several hours. There is a wide variety of spells here drawn from the novels with some of them amusingly commented upon by Ben Aaronovitch as to what Abigail, Peter Grant’s niece might do with them if she could. The third is a useful ‘Bibliography & Resources’.

However, topping and tailing Underground, Overground—or is that ‘snouting and tailing’?—is a look at Foxes in the Rivers of London setting and Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game. The anthology opens with ‘The Absolutely True and Accurate Account of How the Foxes Got Their Voices Back’, a new short story by Ben Aaronovitch, which gives the vulpine explanation as to how and why they learned speak. Speaking foxes, larger, longer lived, and more intelligent than their silent brethren, first seen in What Abigail Did That Summer, are going to be a big draw for some players to Underground, Overground as it comes to a close with a complete guide to creating and playing talking Foxes. This adds a new option to playing a member of the demi-monde, but in many ways a much more challenging one, since these are not anthropomorphised Foxes. They can speak, read, but cannot write and do many things because they lack opposable thumbs (not a problem for Talking Raccoons, the option suggested for play in the USA with Rivers of London: In Liberty’s Shadow: A Guide to Case Files in the USA). It is suggested that two Occupations are suitable for a Fox Player Character. One is the ‘Boffin’, the equivalent of a Lecturer, who has to teach the young fox kits, but the other preferred option is the ‘Spy’. Now this can be used to create Human spies, but Fox spies specialise in surveillance, especially in urban environments. Fox spies also think and talk like spies, especially fictional spies, so the roleplaying potential is rife with entertaining clichés and can be huge fun if a player knows his spy lingo. Fortunately, there is plenty of detail to help the Game Master and the player portray a talking Fox as well as creating one with the right skills and advantages. (Of course, it sets up the challenge of writing an all-talking Fox scenario!)

Physically, Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is very nicely produced. It is well written, the illustrations are excellent, the cartography good, and the handouts decent.

Ultimately, the only issue with Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is the time frame in which its scenarios are set, often quite tightly bound to 2016. This is not an insurmountable problem, and the individual scenarios do each give advice how to handle this if the Game Master wants to set them else when. This aside, all four scenarios are thoroughly entertaining, whatever their degree of detail and investigation, exploring different parts and aspects of London, as well introducing further elements of the demi-monde. Players will love it for the means to create and roleplaying talking Foxes, but that is just extra to the collection of intriguing investigations and mysteries in Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection that provide great support for the Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game.