The Pen and the Sword: The King's Gold

A cry of alarm rang out above our heads, and when I looked up, I saw a face peering down at us, half lit by the lantern. The expression on the man's face was one of horror, as if unable to believe his eyes, as he watched us climbing toward him. He may have died still not believing, because Captain Alatriste, who had reached him by then, stuck his dagger in his throat, right up to the hilt, and the man disappeared from view. Now more voices could be heard above, and the sound of people running about below-decks. A few heads peeped cautiously out from the gunports and immediately drew back, shouting in Flemish. The captain's boots scuffed against my face when he reached the top and jumped onto the deck. At that moment, another face appeared over the edge, a little farther off, on the quarterdeck; we saw a lit fuse, then a flash, and a harquebus shot rang out; something very hard and fast ripped past us, ending in a squelch of pierced flesh and broken bones. Someone beside me, climbing up from the boat, fell backward into the sea with a splash, but without uttering a word.

"Go on! Keep going!" shouted the men behind me, driving one another onward.

Teeth gritted, head hunched right down between my shoulders, I climbed what remained of the ladder as quickly as possible, clambered over the edge, stepped onto the deck, and immediately slipped in a huge puddle of blood. I got to my feet, sticky and stunned, leaning on the motionless body of the dead sailor, and behind me the bearded face of Bartolo Cagafuego appeared over the edge, his eyes bluging with tension, his gap-toothed grimace made even fiercer by the enormous machete gripped between his few remaining teeth. We were standing at the foot of the mizzenmast, next to the ladder that led up to the quarterdeck. More of our group had now reached the deck via the ropes secured by grappling hooks, and it was a miracle that the whole galleon wasn't awake to give us a warm welcome, what with that single harquebus shot and the racket made by sundry noises - the clatter of footsteps and the hiss of swords as they left their sheaths.

I took my sword in my right hand and my dagger in my left, looking wildly about in search of the enemy. And then I saw a whole horde of armed men swarming on the deck from down below, and I saw that most were as blond and burly as the men I had known in Flanders, and that there were more of them to the stern and in the waist, between the quarterdeck and the forecastle, and I saw as well that there were far too many of them, and that Captain Alatriste was fighting like a madman to reach the quarterdeck. I rushed to help my master, without waiting to see if Cagafuego and the others were following or not. I did so muttering the name of Angélica as a final prayer, and my last lucid thought, as I hurled myself into the fight with a furious howl, was that if Sebastián Copons did not arrive in time, the Niklaasbergen adventure would be our last.

The Pen and the Sword: The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

He decided to finish the business, although not so hastily that it might work against him. Besides, there was no point in complicating his life further by killing a man in broad daylight, and on a Sunday. His opponent made a lunge, which Alatriste parried, making as if to deliver a straightforward blow, but instead shifting to the right, lowering his own sword to protect his chest and, in passing, dealing the other man an ugly cut to the head with his dagger. A bystander might have described his as both unorthodox and somewhat underhand, but there were no bystanders. Besides, María de Castro would already be on stage, and it was still a fair walk to the Corral de la Cruz. This was no time for niceties. More importantly, the strategy has worked. The young man turned pale and fell to his knees, bright red blood gushing from his temple. He had dropped his dagger was resting all his weight on his sword, which buckled slightly beneath him. Alatriste sheathed his own sword, then went over and disarmed the man by gently kicking the blade from under him. Then he held him up so he wouldn't fall, took a clean handkerchief from the sleeve of his doublet and bandaged the gash in the man's head as best he could.

"Will you be all right on your own?" he asked.

The young man looked at him, confused, but did not reply. Alatriste snorted impatiently.

"I have things to do," he said.

The Pen and the Sword: The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

He knew that Saldaña was as placid as an ox in all matters but those concerning his wife. Then passion blinded him. Any jokes about how she had got him the post in exchange for favors granted to third parties – as malicious tongues would have it – quickened his pulse and clouded his reason.

“With any luck,” thought Alatriste, “this will help me resolve the matter quickly.” He adjusted his grip, parried a thrust, withdrew a little to draw his opponent in, and, when their blades clashed again, he noticed that Saldaña already seemed less confident. He decided to return to the attack.

“I imagine she’ll be inconsolable,” he said, striking again. “She’ll doubtless wear deepest mourning.”

Saldaña did not reply, but he was breathing hard and muttered a curse when the furious barrage he had just unleashed slashed only thin air, sliding off the captain’s blade.

“Cuckold,” said Alatriste calmly, then waited.

Now he had him. He sensed him coming toward him in the dark, or rather he knew it from the gleam of steel from his sword, the sound of frantic footsteps, and the rancorous roar Saldaña let out as he attacked blindly.

Swashbucklers on the Telly

Bayuca is the blog I hope RBE grows up to be someday - it's consistently one of my favorite reads on the intrewebs.

Today's post (in Spanish) contains some exciting news for fans of swashbucklers, with no less than four series in development for television: BBC is producing a new The Three Musketeers series for 2014: Starz is working on Black Sails, a prequel of sorts to Treasure Island featuring the exploits of Captain Flint and his crew, also for 2014; NBC is producing Crossbones, another pirate series; and a Captain Alatriste series is being prepared in Spain, with anticipated release in other countries as well.

I think I'm gonna need to upgrade my DVR.

The Pen and the Sword: Captain Alatriste

It was clear that the Italian was doing very well. He could have killed the wounded man any number of times, but he was satisfied to harass him with false lunges and feints, as though he were enjoying delaying the thrust home. He resembled a thin black cat toying with a mouse before sinking its claws into it. At his feet, knee on the ground and back against the wall, one hand clutching the wound bleeding through his clothing, the younger Englishman was trying not to faint, and barely parrying his adversary's attacks. He did not ask for mercy; instead, his face, mortally pallid, showed dignified determination; his teeth were clenched, and he was resolved to die without crying out or moaning.

"Leave off!" Alatriste shouted to the Italian. Between thrusts, the captain's cohort looked at him, surprised to see him beside the second Englishman, who was disarmed and still standing. The attacker hesitated an instant, looked back at his subjected opponent, made a halfhearted feint, and again looked toward the captain.

"Is that a jest?" he asked, stepping back to catch his breath, as he whipped his sword through the air right and left.

"Leave off," Alatriste insisted.

The Italian stared at him open-mouthed, unable to believe what he just heard. In the dying light of the lantern, his pockmarked face looked like the surface of the moon. His black mustache twisted into a sinister smile, revealing his gleaming white teeth.

"Don't fuck this up now," the Italian said finally.

Alatriste too one step toward him, and the Italian looked at the sword in his hand. On his knee, uncomprehending, the wounded youth shifted his eyes from one to the other.

"There is more to this than we thought," the captain stated. "So we will kill them another day."

The Italian stared even harder. His smile grew wider and more incredulous, then disappeared. He shook his head.

"You are mad," he said. "This could cost us our necks."

"I will take the responsibility."

"So?"

The Italian seemed to be thinking it over. Then, with the speed of a comet, he lunged at the Englishman with a thrust so forceful that had Alatriste not blocked his sword it would have pinned the youth to the wall.

- Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Captain Alatriste

"In the Age of the Three Musketeers and Captain Alatriste!"

This month's RPG Blog Carnival topic is Running Games in Established Settings.

Why do we play in settings others have created? What are your favorite? (sic) Why is it that we are continually drawn to them? Are they a crutch? Do you modify your established setting to match your game? I’d love to hear any and all thoughts on the matter.

My current campaign, like many others I've run before it, is set in the most accessible and heavily supported roleplaying game-world ever: our own. Entire libraries of books, movies, music and other media present this game-world in lavish, unequaled detail, unlocking its secrets, hinting at its mysteries.

One of the main advantages of using any established setting is that many of the players around the table may begin the campaign with some of familiarity with the game-world. This can be particularly relevant to sandbox settings as it reduces the effort asked of the players to get up to speed at the beginning of the campaign. Games set in the our own world may have the lowest barrier to entry of any established setting, despite the richness and complexity.

But real-world settings also offer another advantage, the interplay of fact and fiction. Campaigns set in the real-world, past or present, may also draw from popular fictional tropes, providing more avenues of familiarity for the players.

The tagline for my Obsidian Portal campaign wiki, frex, reads, "Swashbuckling Adventure in the Age of the Three Musketeers and Captain Alatriste!" Though I've gone to some lengths to get the history right, my game-world isn't strictly historical; it's a blending of the 17th century with the fictional universes of Alexandre Dumas, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Robert E. Howard, Rafael Sabatini. the baroness Orczy, and others. In the campaign so far, the adventurers fought a duel alongside Gil de Berault, from Stanley J. Weyman's Under the Red Robe, and were enlisted to seize a castle from an alleged Spanish spy by his half-brother, Marius de Condillac, from Rafael Sabatini's Saint Martin's Summer. Along similar lines, I've also pulled in many of the 'canon' characters from the Flashing Blades adventures, such as Beinvenu, the ambassador from The Ambassador's Tales, and the vicomte de Praz-de-Lys, from, "The Great Marksmanship Tourney."

One of the challenges of blending fact and fiction is reconciling the historical record with the romances. Frex, M. Dumas based many of the characters of The Three Musketeers on historical figures, but he wasn't faithful to the historical timeline in doing so. The real-life Treville, for instance, didn't become captain-lieutenant of the King's Musketeers until more than a decade after the events of the first novel, but in order to take advantage of the players' familiarity with the tales, the fictional characters took precedence over their historical counterparts in my campaign.

Another challenge is deciding whether or not the actions of the players' characters can change the established setting. This is a particularly pertinent question when dealing with a campaign set in our own past; historical fiction, in particular cape-and-sword romances, may have the characters participating in historical events and interacting with historical figures, but is less likely to have them changing events in ways which significantly deviate from the record of the past. In many cases, the characters of the stories occupy the interstices of history.

Roleplaying games are different from stories, however. In sandbox settings in particular, the players are not constrained to follow a particular narrative by the referee, so the inevitable question is, 'Can my character change history?' In the case of Flashing Blades, where the rewards system is such that characters may, though their careers, reach positions of influence - bishop or cardinal, general and marshal, royal minister, master of a knightly order - which potentially allow them to alter the course of France, this is an especially pertinent question. With this in mind, I make clear on my campaign wiki that the answer is yes, they can change history by their decisions and actions. As such, part of my preparation for the campaign is considering what happens should such world-altering events come to pass. Frex, one of the most obvious and sweeping is, what happens if Cardinal Richelieu dies prematurely? Who is his likely successor, and what effect could the change have upon the future of France? There are few better ways to let the players know their characters are movers-and-shakers than allowing the 'metaplot' of the setting to change as a direct response of their choices.