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Spoiler!!! Berlin - The Wicked City: The Devil Eats Flies


chili

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Spoiler!!!!

 

 

So, i'm very interested in running the mini campaign included in "Berlin the wicked city". i read through the book and it just seems tons of fun (5/5).
I did however have a somewhat big question that I may have missed regarding the first scenario, "the Devil eats flies" so again - spoiler alert!!!

One of the major NPCs of the Scenario is Prince Constaninovich, which is in fact a counterrevolution assassin named Pyotr Shabelsky-Bork. he is the one that actually hires the players to find Franziska Schanzkowska/ Sasnovski. now the thing that I can't figure out is why? what are is motive with her?

the scenario internal logic is that this Franziska is claiming to be a Russian princess, related to the house Romanov, but first it doesn't seem that Constnovich can know about that before the appearance of it in the news already in the middle of the scenario, and second, he already know that her true identity is that of "a Polish peasant girl calling herself Franziska Shanzkowska or similar".
In short: only in the middle of the adventure he knows that she claims to be of royalty, and more that that, he knows who she actually is, what is his interest in all of that? At the moment it seems that the scenario starts with an NPC who just pretending to be a prince in order to find a peasant polish girl for no particular reason.

i'm pretty sure i missed something, so please, if you can help me see it, please do...

thanks!

 

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  • 4 months later...

Hey chili. I've come to this forum to find the answer to this as well.

It is never stated in the adventure, but I am assuming that being a Russian émigré, Pyotr would have known about Anna Tchaikovsky at the time of the start of the adventure, as Baron Kleist was having private audiences before going public through the newspaper piece.

The question for me is why Pyotr is interested in Franziska. I guess that he has somehow worked out that Anna might be Franziska, making it likely that Anna is an imposter. This is probably the result he wanted. Proving that Franziska is dead rules out the suspicion that Anna Tchaikovsky is actually a Polish peasant girl. I don't know what it means to Pyotr that Franziska is alive.

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Sorry I missed the original post back in December! Always happy to answer questions about the book—feel free to tag me or send a DM. :)

17 hours ago, Ben Chapman said:

The question for me is why Pyotr is interested in Franziska. I guess that he has somehow worked out that Anna might be Franziska, making it likely that Anna is an imposter. This is probably the result he wanted. Proving that Franziska is dead rules out the suspicion that Anna Tchaikovsky is actually a Polish peasant girl. I don't know what it means to Pyotr that Franziska is alive.

This is correct. Through his association with the monarchist movement and the Sovereign Order of St. John, Shabelsky-Bork is intensely interested in locating any potential survivors of the Romanov dynasty, but like a monarchist Uri Geller is just as interested in exposing the fakes. We can assume he or his contacts have been following the thread of clues as Anna/Franziska moved across Europe. He wants to ascertain if she's alive because, well, if she is and it turns out she's the real deal, he'd very much like to put himself at her service.

(There's some deep, deep background on her story that moves from the Caucuses to Romania and eventually to Berlin but wasn't terribly relevant to what was already a pretty meaty scenario—no pun intended. I'm actually working on a project right now that should expand the background of the Order of St. John and touch on Romanov imposters in greater detail, but for the purposes of this scenario, all you really need to know is that he's a monarchist and counter-revolutionary with an extensive spy network operating throughout Germany and points east.)

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Well, that is the case because at that point of time Berlin was not for children ... 😉

But if you are interested in other films to get you into the Berlin Zeitgeist of that era I would recommend:

Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler) - silent movie by Fritz Lang from 1922 about a criminal mastermind who wants to bring down civilization and erecting an Empire of Crime instead

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) - a talkie by Fritz Lang from 1933 and a sequel. The good doctor lost his bid for world dominance in the first part and was places in an insane asylum. But that does not stop him in trying again! A megalomanian insane head of a criminal organization trying to perverting society and establising a rule based on (often senseless and terroristic) murder and mayhem was too much for the Nazis and thus the film was never allowed to be shown in Germany from 1933-45.

M - eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder ( M - A city searches for a murderer) - another talkie by Lang from 1931. The film revolves around the actions of a serial killer of children and the manhunt for him, conducted by both the police and the criminla underworld. Great, if you want to see the Ringvereine organizig the manhunt for the killer because he is "bad for business" and "not a professional". If you thing the Mafia is "organized" see the German underworld get going! And, yeah, Luigi, you better take notes for the Don, eh!

Cabaret from 1972 with Liza Minelli and Michael York - great for songs and optics of the "roaring" part of the German Twenties. Takes also a look at the growing Nazi movement (but just in passing).

Mordkommission Berlin 1 - produded for TV in 2015. If you like Babylon Berlin that is teh film you should watch. Way better in my opinion. It is about the feud of a police detective of the Mordkommission homicide devision and a criminal - big shot of the Ringverein Krokodile. Unfortunately it seems that that never came out for English-speakers.

 

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1 hour ago, Der Rote Baron said:

Cabaret from 1972 with Liza Minelli and Michael York - great for songs and optics of the "roaring" part of the German Twenties. Takes also a look at the growing Nazi movement (but just in passing).

Cabaret is brilliant in many ways. It definitely shows the rise of the Nazis, but in a very subtle way, starting with one or two, then more and more appearing, then them being violent and so on. The "If you could see her through my eyes" song is very funny for what it is, but the ending shows it in a different light completely.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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