Alternate Settings

Shadows in the Fog is designed with a number of structures in place. If you want to transpose the game to another location or historical situation, you should bear some points in mind.

First, the game really requires a duality between surface and depth within the historical situation. In London, this is expressed through the glittering world of 1888 London as against the horror of East End poverty. The occult and magic in the game necessarily requires this: if the world is essentially a single seamless surface, the tension that drives characters into the depths will be lost.

Second, you need a crucial issue, event, or object that bridges the gap. In Shadows in the Fog, the bridge is Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes at the very bottom end of East End poverty but in the process attracted the attention of the highest spheres – indeed, the Queen expressed a personal interest in the case. Jack the Ripper thus becomes a metaphor for what the characters will become, as well as what in a sense they already are. And their fascination with the case keeps the tension at the forefront.

Third, you need to maintain the analogy between the characters and the players. In relatively modern games, Tarot will probably serve admirably. In games set in the deeper past, or far from the West, you may want to construct an alternate system. At the same time, it’s worth bearing in mind that Tarot is sufficiently peculiar to late 19th-century London that this part of the analogy is probably not difficult to maintain.

Fourth, I suggest that you avoid a fictional place and time. Once a campaign is really running, it’s going to be the ability of the players to dredge up a bunch of weird stuff from history that will develop and extend it. If you use a fictional construction, there is an inherent limit. I suppose that Tolkien’s Middle Earth is sufficiently complicated that you could do it, but it’s a stretch.

Suggestions for alternate settings

• ParisDecadence: set your game in fin-de-siècle Paris.
• NewOrleans: mid- to late-nineteenth century New Orleans is a great location.

Important Note

If you decide to construct a game like this, all your historical material is very welcome here. It would be great if we could keep things more or less within the 1880s, but beyond that anything -- especially anything historical -- will allow the odd foray outside London for those doing a "traditional" Shadows in the Fog campaign. Just be sure to mark whatever you insert as ParisDecadence or NewOrleans or whatever, so people know what they're looking at.

If you generate lots of material, we can always put a link to a whole partly-interlinked wiki right on the front page. The more the merrier!

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 17 Jan 2005