Dragon Quill

The third chapter describes a small town of Okeeokalee Bay, Florida, with something strange in the water causing about a third of population to have various minor and major magical powers. As a consequence, everyone here knows about the supernatural and accepts it as a part of life because this book hates me.However, my issues with the concept of secrecy aside, I’m inclined to like the setting because it’s a small town built around a tourist trap with weirdness abound. So, you know…

Bill is actually a good candidate for the role of subHarry. In absence of any other options, I’ll go with him fucking around Harry’s mind.

And yeah, I know that a small town with big secrets is an older trope than either DF or GF, I still can hope.

Well, let’s see how much my hopes are misplaced.

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The Glorious Revolution is upon us, comrades! Join Red Army today to die tomorrow!

OK, truth be told, as much as I enjoy playing up the image of a dirty commie sometimes, I’m not really one. The truth of the matter is that communism doesn’t work. It’s a distant utopia that requires either unlimited resources or perfect people to function (and if you have either, nearly any social order would work fine). And the attempt to make it work has resulted in some really, really horrible things.

So, kids, don’t try communism at home.

But, as with many other historical horrors, it makes for a great game of make-believe. The time of Russian Revolution is fascinating. It was a time of ideals clashing against reality, producing nearly unprecedented human brutality. You had reds driven by unreachable ideals and personal ambitions imposing their vision of the world on common people, you had whites clinging to the old order which time was gone or attempting to find a more moderate solution to Russia’s problems, you had blacks using the chaos of war and the fact Russia is fuckhuge to seize control over some territories and try to live the ideal of anarchy, you had greens fighting for common people and ultimately being crushed and forgotten between two giants. And, of course, you had the common people themselves, just trying to survive and being pushed beyond their limits.

There is a lot of material for potential games on every level: a game of survival, political intrigue, war action, spy games, Kafkian nightmares due to the secret police gaining power and influence, assassination plots, etc., etc.

And adding supernatural component to the conflict expands the possibilities even farther. I was actually tangentially involved in a Russian TRPG project about the Revolution called the Red Lands, in which the civil war was interrupted by the sudden appearance of magic, which prolonged the war for a few years as the participants suddenly gained unexpected advantages, and turned the whole conflict from a mundane war into a direct battle of ideals, with the winner potentially gaining power of Revolution to reshape the world into their image.

As such, I’m curious how this game handled the issue. It’s only one chapter rather than the whole game dedicated to the period, so I don’t expect it to be very detailed, but let’s see how well it does thematically.

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So, the third volume of Dresden Files RPG. The premise here is that a number of Paranet (about it later) reports written after the events of Changes were turned into setting expansions, giving us four potential playable locations structured similarly to Baltimore chapter from the first volume. There are also some expansions on magic system due to “facts” the devs learned over Harry’s continuing adventures and some information on Nevernever.

The book actually looks promising at a first glance. The biggest problem with Dresden Files RPG always was the fact it’s a Dresden Files RPG. When it followed the deeply flawed lore of the books, the result was the inconsistent mess of the Laws of Magic and the like. More generic material not tied to the peculiarities of the books was mostly at least OK or outright good.

As such, expanding the game into other locations not directly connected to canon and doing its own thing has potential.

Let’s see if my hopes are justified.

(There are going to be some spoilers for the events in the later books, included Changes ending. You’ve been warned.)

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