Archipelago: Venetian Tragedy
Friday, 2 pm: Venetian Tragedy
This is apparently a system using a variant of Matthijs Hjolter's Archipelago. The idea was to create a lovely, gory Jacobean tragedy.
- Jason -- Lorenzo, Doge of Venice, dotard
- Me -- Lucia, his daughter, traitor, the optional PC
- Jeff Dieterie -- Cardinal Izago, disgrace
- Eric Tage Larson -- Revenge, the living embodiment of revenge who whispered in people's ears, urging them to vile deeds
- DeWitt Davis -- Stephano, captain of the guard, fool
- Todd Love -- Bianca, the doge's wife, wanton, raised as his ward
We each chose an Ancillary and a Location.
- Me: Messenger, Pizzo San Marco, the heart of vice
- Todd: Hound, Jewish Ghetto
- Jeff: Prisoner, Doge's Palace (private)
- DeWitt: Magician, Grand Canal
- Eric: Footman / Guard, Doge's palace (public)
The idea was to limit the cast and setting. Every player acted as a guide to the person on their left, except for Revenge. The guide's job was to set the scene and try to guide the PC towards the fate the guide had drawn from them. The player of the PC had no idea what that fate was.
All of the PCs had secrets. Perhaps the nicest of the PCs was the doge, who had killed the man who was the father of Bianca and Stephano. Yes, they were brother and sister. No, I didn't know that, and neither did the two PCs or their players.
The doge did, and, in an attempt to make up for what he had done, raised Bianca with his own daughter, Lucia, and married her. He made Stephano the captain of the guard and arranged for Stephano to marry Lucia.
However, unbeknownst to the duke, Bianca and Stephano were in love, and Bianca was carrying Stephano's child. Lucia and Bianca were bitter enemies, pretending to be friends, and Lucia wanted Stephano. She also despised her father and had taken some strategic documents that she was considering selling to the enemy outside the gates. Cardinal Izago was in lust with Lucia.
We created a lovely, sick tragedy. Bianca tried to turn the Doge against Lucia, but failed. However, she convinced the doge to forgive her by saying that she was carrying his child. The cardinal persuaded Lucia that her father wanted them to lie together. The doge died of a heart attack while sputtering at Stephano's ingratitude, although I forget the context. Izago and Stephano planned to poison Bianca, but Lucia warned Bianca, though not out of altruism. Bianca tried to drink the poison anyway, but Stephano had second thoughts and stopped her, imprisoning her for her own safety. I honestly forget whether she survived the session.
Lucia tried to give the documents to the city's enemies and to flee with Izago, but both were caught and killed. Alas, the guard who killed Izago was bitten by a poisonous snake and died, which meant that the one witness that Stephano was acting in the city's best interest was dead. Stephano was killed when he returned to the city.
We learned that when a PC dies, the PC's player can be another Revenge. This led to the line: Don't listen to that _other_ Revenge!
One suggestion we made to Jason, who's still tweaking the game, was that anyone addressed by Revenge should be seriously encouraged, if not outright required, to have a dialogue with him.
