Delicious London

Alternate Universe Sapho

2017-08-17T01:47:48Z

Have you ever wondered how your DF character(s) would translate into Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu (5th ed) roleplaying game? Probably you have not. But in a fit of nerdness I worked up Sapho and Row as CoC characters.

STR, CON, INT, and DEX are self-explanatory; APP is Appearance (good-lookingness); and POW is Power (in DF, I interpret this as willpower). I assume that for almost all humans each of these stats ranges from 3 to 18 and these numbers in the population are distributed in a bell curve thusly:

SIZ is Size and CoC gives these examples: SIZ 1 = 1-12 lbs; 4 = 38-51 lbs; 8 = 109-120 lbs; 12 = 156-168 lbs; 16 = 220-239 lbs; 20 = 310-338 lbs.

The value of EDU is roughly equivalent to years of formal schooling or, more broadly, past studiousness.

Hit Points are determined by averaging CON and SIZ. Damage Bonus derived from a combination of STR and SIZ. Idea, Luck, and Know are percent chance of succeeding in generic relevant situations. These are set as INT, POW, and EDU x 5. Sanity (SAN) can be vaguely correlated with resistance to Nightmares, but I’m too lazy to do that; it is set at POW x5. Magic Points are not particularly relevant, but they are equal to POW.

Skills are the percent chance of succeeding in exercising the skill in non-trivial situations.

So here are my concepts (with some wiggle room assumed) for Sapho and Row in CoC.

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Poems

2017-06-15T02:48:07Z

For a short while in the Spring of 1895, one could find, if one were the sort to visit not-entirely-respectable purveyors of books, a slim volume bound in red leather and embossed, simply, with Poems. If one were to open said book, one would learn that it was authored by Lady Sapho L. Byron. The table of contents of said book are reproduced below; included, for the benefits of those not in possession of said book, are annotations.

[ooc: If your character has the initials B.M., C.d.W., D.W., E.D., I.J., J.S., K.A., L.M., M., M.B., N.A.-F., O.S., S.A.-F., Q.Q., or V.R. a signed copy has been sent to him, her, or it.]

Bandages
In which a Tomb Colonists muses on the meaninglessness of a slowly decaying life. In the end, he sits passively as the years first cover him with dust and then transform him into dust.

Cats
In which the poet celebrates the family Felidae, from its smallest to largest members with particular attention to domestic (not domesticated!) cats, ocelots, and tigers.

Valkyries
In which the poet treats her subject matter in the métier for which she is best known.

Heroes
In which the meeting of Alexander of Macedon and Diogenes of Sinope is portrayed.

Poets
In which the poet dreams of meeting Sappho of Lesbos. The two disport vigorously.

Viands
In which a lavish breakfast of Surface victuals is minutely and deliciously detailed.

Delights
Coffee, a cozy fire, and a good book.

Dances
A poem in three parts, in which the poet contrasts the movements and rhythms of the waltz, the galop, and the tarantella.

Pools
In which the poet describes her physical sensations of swimming in a cool forest pool below a waterfall and in a warm mountain spring. One may infer the narrator is sans habiliments.

Waters
In which the heroine rescues, from a Neath-filling deluge, seven pairs of each animal by building an enormous zubmarine. Eventually the flood recedes and the Neath is repopulated.

Buoys
In which parallels are drawn between the utter loneliness of the light-buoys and the utter loneliness of the human condition, viz., that ultimately, all women and men are alone.

Charcharodons
A poem about sharks.

Oysters
In which the poet explores the many ways and delights of eating oysters.

Pearls
In which the poet expounds upon the beauty of an oyster’s enfolded jewel.

Stones
In which the poet’s tears at her parents’ death are unshed. They fossilize inside her; eventually tiring from their stony weight, she herself dies.

Strata
In which a certain physiological process is described, in Huttonian terms, as the formation of geological strata … but in which the theory of Catastrophism is not entirely rejected.

Mirrors
In which the poet takes as her lovers her reflections in a room of mirrors. Descending from ecstasies (described in rather more detail than is entirely appropriate), she finds she can no longer tell if she is real or if she is a reflection of some other’s real self.

Ghosts
In which the phantoms of a haunted mansion are reveled to be, in truth, a brigade of clever Rattus fabers.

Cards
In which the poet visits a sibyl and asks her to casts London’s fortune. Revealed are the Five of Cats, the Nine of Mirrors, the Neath.

Ode to the Pre-Emptive Guinea-Pig, Asleep
Oh laconic missile so brightly gleaming,
Of shattered foes so sweetly dreaming,
Nestled deep within my pocket,
Ready ever, my deadly rocket,
etc., etc.

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A New Poem from Lady Sapho L. Byron

2017-04-27T23:25:58Z

A new poem, entitled 'Neighbors,' has been published by Lady Sapho L. Byron in La Voix du Cœur. The gist of it is this:

An Urchin was going from Veilgarden to Spite on Toothsome Road when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A bishop happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the Urchin, he passed by on the other side. “The poor will always be with us,” he reasoned, and after all, he was on his way to put some Devils in their place. So too, a Temperance Campaigner when she came by, passed the Urchin on the other side. She had an important rally to lead. But a Clayman, missing his right hand and half his face, as he traveled, came where the Urchin was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds and plied him with F. F. Gebrandt’s Tincture of Vigor. Then he picked up the Urchin, carried him to an orphanage, and took care of him. The next day he took out two Nodules of Trembling Amber and gave them to the head of the orphanage. "Look after him," he said, "and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have."

Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the Urchin who fell into the hands of robbers?

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