It is the first week of November, 1866 & the Lord Mayor’s Parade of 1866 is about to get under way. Sir Thomas Gabriel was elected on Michaelmas (Sept 29th) and is about to be brought before the Queen as is custom so she may know who will be the head of the Corporation of London.
Preparations for this event start almost as soon as the election on Michaelmas is concluded and the groups involved in making sure everything happens successfully are many. One of these many groups are the Police, both the Met and the City of London Police. Whilst the CoL Police force would love to leave out the Metropolitan, they can’t due to the security concerns of the members of the peerage involved in and around the procession and goings on. Our Police Constable (PC) has been asked to help out the members of the Carriage committee. Whether this is honest or mean-spirited is hard to tell, but our PC is the only horse Beastman on the force.
Going over to the Guildhall on the 5th of November, our PC finds a great panic going on. The grand carriage of the Parade has been stolen! As well as four of the grand black horses of the Queen who pull the carriage. As he is the first officer on scene (they have been trying for the last couple of hours to figure out this on their own before the PC got there), they will relate to him what has happened.

At about four in the morning, one of the regular patrols of the grounds came through the courtyard where the carriage was being polished to find it missing. He knew this could not be an easy task as the carriage is gilt and therefore heavy. Looking in the area he remembered the carriage to be he discovered that horses were used (a puddle of urine was there) and he then jogged over to the far side of the yard where the Queen’s horses were being stables. Gone, all four, including all the leather harness and rigging for the carriage. He went in and awoke the soon to be leaving Lord Mayor and his staff and they have gone over every inch of the Guildhall trying to work out what has happened. How no one heard anything is right impossible to figure out (or at least no one has bothered thinking about it) & no one as well saw anything while the PC assigned to Guildhall night duty was on his rounds.

Background for Players

Here’s a quick bit of background for you guys for what I have so far for the game.

The year is 1866 (I know the game calls for 1867, but this is late in the year), the first week of November. The city of London is in excitement for the upcoming Lord Mayor’s Show.

The Lord Mayor’s Show (which is still celebrated) is put on November 9th by royal decree (1189) to present the newly chosen Lord Mayor to the King. To quote from Wikipedia “The Lord Mayor’s main role is, as it has been for centuries, to represent, support and promote the businesses and the people of the City of London.” Basically he’s the chief businessman of London & looking at what he does now, a whole bunch of other things.

This event is put on every year & is a huge deal in London. A grand parade through the city is held and faire and entertainments during and afterwards.

Every campaign gets an Adventure Log, a blog for your adventures!

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.