The Ripper Game

This is an role-playing campaign set in late 1880's London, played in Chicago, Illinois from 1996 to 1997. It is a dramatic game combining various genres of horror and mysticism from late Victorian England. Sources range from the Ripper murders themselves which sparked off the campaign, to spiritualism and Egyptology of the period, to the works of Sax Rohmer (i.e. author of the Fu Manchu tales), to the ongoing central theme: a strange mix of diabolic medicine, alchemical theory, and Tarot symbolism.

• Overview (for non-players)

• Timeline of events and adventures

• Persons relating to the plot, living and dead

• Magic in general (Alchemy, John Dee, etc.)

• The Blake Tarot
         The cards, pictured together

• Hawksmoor churches and other architechtural aetheric foci
  The Eye of Horus nodes

• Map of London neighborhoods

• The Paper Trail (Letters and Notes within the Game)

• Meta-game Notes

Player Characters

• Mr. Eck: An enigmatic minion of Miss Hawksquill's. His contacts extend mostly to the underworld of London. His rational mind has trouble accepting the oddities he's been encountering lately. (Mike Bathgate)

• Major Philip Rook: Officer (spy) for the Foriegn Office, late of Egypt. A master of disguise and intrigue. (John Kim)

• Stephen Edwards: A dashing novelist in the style of H. Rider Haggard. He is engaged to Sarah Hamilton, but lately has been hitting the bottle more than is good for him. (Mark Kobrak)

• Dr. Stringham: Famous for his discreet medical practice treating the nobility's afflictions of Venus... researcher into aseptic surgical techniques. Obsessed with carbolic acid. (Cullen Grace)

• Miss Violet Woodhull: A lady journalist who got her start reporting on prison conditions while travelling in China, where she learned a method of kung-fu that makes her ubiquitous parasol quite deadly. (Liz Henry)

• Viscount Botivant: An eccentric adventurer who enjoys looking over his collection of elephant guns and juggling indian clubs in the nude. (Alex Dentyoung)

• Norman Randall: Viscount Botivant's brawny manservant, who has a shady past and criminal skills. (Chris Lehrich)

Retired Characters

• Miss Ariel Hawksquill: Her gender is generally unknown by the politicians who ask for her advice. She is quite wealthy, has immense influence in the political world, and apparently, in the magical world as well. (Jim Wilson)

• Inspector Benjamin Grimmond: The originator of the Ripper investigation, a brutal officer specializing in the East End. His legs were nearly chewed off by rats in Fu Manchu's lair. Soon after, his paranoia, violence, and morphine addiction alienated him from the party. (John Kim)

• Professor Warren Hayward (deceased): His mystical researches unbalanced his mind, though he may have been more right than we knew.... (Jim Wilson)

Related Links

• The Victorian Web

• Casebook: Jack the Ripper

• Jack the Ripper and the Maybrick Diary (Two-part Article)

• The Alchemy Virtual Library

• Michele Jackson's Tarot Page

• Tarot Readings Site
  This includes the Buryn deck (below) and Rider-Waite. It will give random readings using either deck.

• William Blake Tarot of the Creative Imagination by Ed Buryn
  This is the commercially-published deck from which the cards used in the game are drawn. The titles and positions are different than in the Ripper Game.
  Also see my page of Complete William Blake Tarot images.