Jolly updates...

On the VSF front: I have recently taken delivery of a large quantity of Prussians Ruritanians from Northstar - a pack of 24 Infantry, two cannon with crew, and 10 Hussars. These (along with the dozen or so Ruritanians, composed of Zendarian Troopers from Westwind, and some officers from various places, that I already posses) will form the basis of my long-delayed Ruritanian forces.

I have made a provisional decision on colour-schemes. A long time ago, I discussed on Lead Adventure the notion that Ruritania should look 'chocolate box-y'. As such, using Prussian minis from 25 years before the general setting will not be out of place. Also, for 'colourful medley' effect, each regiment will have its own tunic-colour. The now traditional 'Ruritanian Gold' jackets (which in themselves are a reference to Colonel Mustard, rather than anything in the Zenda books) will remain the uniform of the Ruritanian Infantry. Artillery will be dressed in purple tunics, I think. That will I believe look 'well natty'. The Hussars I'm thinking will be uniformed in pale blue; I'm not sure about their hats yet. Future additions to the force may include Uhlans or Cuirassiers, or both, if they aren't the same thing, I'm really not too knowledgeable about this stuff. Rudolf Rassendyl is definitely described in Zenda as wearing a white Cuirassier uniform, perhaps something like this rather natty illustration:

Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Anton_von_Werner_-_Garde-du-Corps-K%C3%BCrassier.jpg

This implies that Prussia at least had some! So maybe I just need to look harder for the minis. Should I source any, they will be dressed in white (a damn tricky colour to paint effectively, I'll agree). If I can't, then the Uhlans will have to stand in, though Northstar's Uhlans don't have breastplates, which is rather what defines 'Cuirassiers' as far as I'm concerned. Also in the pipeline, some Jaegers, as Commodore Lethbridge-Stewart (the mini is another Westwind Zendarian, one of the Vampire Slayers) has a lovely dark green jacket, and can lead them when they have been purchased. However, I spent my Christmas-and-birthday money on the latest batch, and can't really justify getting more toy soldiers at the moment.

In other news, I'm finally reading Vile Bodies and have a little more information on the 'ex-King of Ruritania' featured in its pages. Vile Bodies is set around 1928. The ex-King is a godson of the Archduke of Austria (he does not say which), was a reigning monarch, and refers to the end of the monarchy being occasioned by WWI. This means he is likely to have been an adult before 1918, so at absolute minimum he was born before the turn of the century. He has a wife, called Maria Christina, currently in a lunatic asylum somewhere in southern England; his Uncle Joseph was assassinated at the opera, by people throwing bombs (likely, Anarchists); his unnamed sister also foiled at least one assassination attempt on herself involving bombs; there was indeed a plague of political bombing in Ruritania before the War; there was a Liberal minister in Ruritania called 'Count Tampen' who stole the King's favourite pen (a gift from his godfather); and the Prime Minister at the end of the war (it is not stated whether this is Count Tampen or not) was thrown from a window by an angry, indeed rebellious, mob. That is as far as I can get at the moment, but it does provide some clues to the post-Rudolfian history of Ruritania which I am trying to tie together with the other info.

What I would like to be the case is that I can make the chronology fit with the ex-King being the eldest son of Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Princess Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen of Scandinavia. This would tie the events of Zenda with those of Scandal in Bohemia... except, Wilhelm in this case is not King of Bohemia or even King of Ruritania... because Flavia is the reigning monarch. He may actually be King of Bohemia if this is not the same as Ruritania, and heir-apparent to Ruritania, perhaps, but I think I'll just demote him to Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein. Anyway, if their marriage was in 1888, as I think is perhaps the case, it is perfectly likely they had a son who was born in c. 1890, and was old enough to inherit the throne of Ruritania before the war. 'Uncle Joseph', perhaps Wilhelm's younger brother, was in this case probably assassinated around 1905-8.

The last thing I'm going to post today is a couple of newspaper clippings from the Strelsau English Gazette (Ruritania's only English paper!) that I made and then forgot about.

These are successive editions that relate to the projected beginning of the Ruritanian crisis. But perhaps nothing will come of it...

New Old Things

I've been helping my parents clear out their loft as they're moving house. Little by way of my gaming stuff left at their house, but I did find one of the old Matchbox Models of Yesteryear.

This is what it looks like (though the pic was ripped from the web):

Jaguar SS-100 from Matchbox Models of Yesteryear

It will possibly see service in VBCW gaming - that's the plan anyway. Maybe as the personal transport of the leader of any Fascist forces. I can just imagine it with a couple of pennants flying from the radiator grille.

Another find at my parents' house was a very old game called Scoop!. It's a newspaper game: the basic idea is that the players are the editors of daily newspapers (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express and the News Chronicle, which ceased publication in 1960 and kinda dates the game). The editors spend resources to get stories that they use to fill in blocks on a mock-up of a front page; the winner (as far as I remember, I haven't played it in more than 30 years I don't think) is the first to complete the page.

The reason I bring it up is that there's a certain amount of Imagi-Nations goodness going on. One of the stories that editors can ... bid for? ... is about a war between the Stentorians and the Ugonians. I haven't examined the game in detail yet but there may be other stories which mention imaginary countries or other significant events. At the very least, there is a war between two Imagi-Nations that needs to be taken into account sometime in the 1950s (at a reasonable guess). The likely explanation is a Cold War conflict but like tension between Greece and Turkey or Chile and Argentina, it could be two Western allies that were in conflict. Or, like the USSR/Vietnam v China/Khmer Republic conflicts it could represent strife between different 'communist' countries. I shall do more research and think on.

I was reminded of another game from my childhood that features an Imagi-Nation, possibly the most famous of them all. As a kid I played a game called Contraband, which belonged to one of the friends of my parents. The game was a kind of card game that involved smuggling. Different cards involved different things that needed to be smuggled. I seem to remember these included some diamonds, a gun and the Ruritanian Crown Jewels. The game seems to have started production in the 1950s. I definitely played it around 1979, which suggests that between those times, the Ruritanian Crown Jewels were missing. I guess the reason is, Ruritania was an Eastern Bloc country between the 1950s and 1970s (probably something like 1948-1990) and the Royal Family (if it even survived) was in exile. We don't know exactly what the history of Ruritania is but that seems a reasonable supposition. If the 'ex-King' (or possibly ex-Kings) that feature in the works of Evelyn Waugh and PG Wodehouse are anything to go by, Ruritania had suffered at least one deposed monarch by the late '20s, though whether deposed by Communist uprising, a liberal democratic republic, or Fascist takeover is entirely unclear. But whatever happened between the wars, after WWII Ruritania was likely in the Eastern Bloc. The definitive history of Ruritania is yet to be written, but there are hints at least. Sadly I don't have a copy of Contraband but I'm thinking I might try and get one. Probably should get hold of Vile Bodies too.

Death of Lord Burlesdon

Full text of the obituary is...


It is with great sadness that this newspaper must report the death at his London home on Saturday last of Robert James Augustus Hugh St John Bathley Crane Rassendyll, 12th Earl of Burlesdon and 29th Baron Rassendyll.

Countess Burlesdon has confirmed that the Earl became ill during a stay at Burlesdon House over the New Year. Returning to London to consult with the Earl’s doctor, it was found that the illness had rapidly progressed, and after too-vigorous a Burns’ Night Supper on Thursday last, the Earl took to his bed, and gave up his life during the night of Saturday 27th.

The late Earl’s eldest son, John Heatherley St. John Augustus James Hannay Rassendyll succeeds his father as the 13th Earl of Burlesdon and 30th Baron Rassendyll.

Born at the family’s London residence in Park Lane in 1840 to his parents James, the 11th Earl and Lady Charlotte, daughter of Augustus and Philomena Bathley-Crane of Devonshire, and named for his late uncle Robert, the 10th Earl who had died two months before, the young Robert Rassendyll spent much of his childhood in North Surrey, at Burlesdon on the family estate.

He was educated at Rugby, Jordan College Oxford, where he studied Political Science, Divinity and German Literature, and the English University of Weser-Dreiburg. Following his successful matriculation, he achieved a commission in the Royal North Surreys, a regiment with which his family has been intimately connected, and served with distinction in the First Kamistan Campaign and then the Matoboland Wars, rising quickly to the rank of Major.

After resigning his commission in 1867, he returned to Burlesdon and married Miss Rose Virginia Constance Heatherley, daughter of Jebediah Heatherley of Esher, the noted manufacturer of marmalade. Over the next eight years, the Countess bore him six children, John, William, Henry, James, Constance and Gustave, who were brought up at Burlesdon in the idyllic surroundings of the family estate.

Following his marriage he stood for election to the North Surrey parliamentary constituency in June 1868 for the Liberal Party, and took the seat with a majority of 3,461. A follower of the maxim ‘change is too important to be rushed’ he was also the author of several works of political philosophy, including ‘The Ultimate Outcome’, and ‘Ancient Theories and Modern Facts’.

The late Earl regarded himself as a ‘conservative Liberal’ and served under Prime Ministers from both parties. His first government position, serving under Lord Fotherington-Thomas, in the Liberal administration of Lord Marlingbury, was from 1869 as Under-Secretary for Indian Affairs, where he put his intimate knowledge of the Kamistan situation to good use. In 1873 he joined the first Conservative administration of Lord Crindlehurst, also holding a position in the Imperial and Foreign Service. He resigned from his post on the death of his father, the 11th Earl, the following year, and returned to Burlesdon.

The life of the Earl has not been devoid of tragedy. Nine years ago, the Earl’s brother Rudolf Rassendyll, a former Captain of the 27th Lancers, was killed during a visit to Ruritania. The exact circumstances of Mr. Rassendyll’s visit have never been made public but the Ruritanian Government has issued a statement to the effect that Mr. Rassendyll was working in a personal capacity for the Royal Family, when he was attacked by agents of Count Rupert of Hentzau, a notorious villain who was later killed by the late King, Rudolf V of the House of Elphberg, in a duel occasioned by an attempted assassination.

Lord Robert will be fondly remembered, especially by the inhabitants of Great Burlesdon, for his generosity and concern for the welfare of the simple folk who live there. He sponsored the provision of the electrical and gas supplies to the village, and no blame can be attached to the late Earl for the unfortunately fatal incident that occurred shortly after the supplies were connected. A patron of the Parish Church of St. Igwulfa and St. Michael at Burlesdon, his strong singing voice was a welcome addition to morning Psalms and will be sorely missed by the congregation there.

The body of the late Earl will be conveyed to Burlesdon House, where it will lie in state until the morning of the 17th of February; the funeral will take place at the Church of St. Igwulfa and St. Michael at 1 o’clock.

Sherlock Holmes, Atlantis, and... Dwarves?

Inspired by the latest round of the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law Holmes & Watson caper ('Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows', available at all good Kinematographic Projection Emporia and Electric Theatres), especially as it seemed to be set exactly 120 years before I watched it (like the Atlantis campaign over at the Lead Adventure Forum) I decided it would be fun to tie the two together in order to round off the Atlantis capmaign.



As a result, I uploaded this, from the London Evening Messenger of December 20th, 1891, to the LAF site, with the rest of the text as it (somewhat inexplicably) breaks off with "... German E ..." and then stops. "Empire" of course. And then some more words, which you'll have to visit LAF to find out about, probably.

Anyway and such, the idea had entered my head of there being a peace conference at Reichenbach, where the fate of the Interventions on Atlantis was to be decided. And so it is; for the next few days at least, the Castle of Reichenbach will play host to a peace conference involving Britain, France, Russia, Germany, USA, CSA, Japan, China, Spain, and the Caliphate of Khosind (a small North African state which declared its independence from France some years ago, apparently), all of which have forces in the field in Atlantis, and at the very least Austria-Hungary, which doesn't, but is keen to discuss among other topics the Ruritanian Question.

So if there is to be Peace in Our Time, with Chancellors and Prime Ministers flying by aeronef back and forth carrying pieces of paper bearing the forged signatures of heads of state, it may be that I can finally draw the Atlantis Campaign to a close. Which brings me to the subject of Her Majesty's Native Forces, enlisted as soldiers of the Queen during the campaign. I have gotten a few steps closer to finishing them, and would like to present, for the first time anywhere, a sketchy but still colourful Daguerrotype of the Morlock Allied Native Infantry Corps (part of the Combined Atlantean Rifle Brigade).



Wearing old kit from the Zulu War and only now retrieved from storage, they are a little out of place in the brash modern world of 1891, but I don't really mind that much. They'll make a fine addition I think to the Thin Red Line (or in their case, the Quite Short but Stought Red Line).

Plans obviously are now to base them, and stat them up for GASLIGHT - shouldn't be too hard, they may be Dwarves, but they're British Dwarves, don'ch'know?

Count Maximillian Disappears

This is the scrap of newspaper that Whimsy Pootling finds in the ransacked study... is it a clue to her father's disappearance? It's the front page of an old copy of the Strelsau English Gazette, Ruritania's only English paper. She is certain her father was on his way to Ruritania when he was last seen.

But what has it to do with him? The newspaper is nearly twenty years old, from the very month she was born. What can the connection be between the mysterious disappearance of Count Maximillian, whoever he is, and her father's disappearance? And who are the dour men in black jackets that have been seen about the village? Were they responsible for the break-in at Pootling Hall?

Whimsy really doesn't know, but she is beginning to suspect that things are going to get a lot more dangerous before she gets any answers...



The image, first posted over at the Lead Adventurers' Forum, is thanks to the wonderful engine at the Newspaper Clipping Image Generator, a fine place to start a story off indeed, and newly added to the links on the left there. Make your own Martian Invasion, Shrinking Ray Discovery, Custard Explosion or whatever you like. But beware (as all press barons should) that with great power comes great responsibility...