Carved In Flesh Volume One

A Role-Playing Game Supplement for The Jack Hack

Developed by John R. Davis & Dr. Mike Galer (Dogs Dinner Games)

Based on The Black Hack by David Black One slash at a time, will be bathed in blood Welcome to Carved In Flesh Volume One Various degrees of thanks are given to: Derby 1790 & Derby DOGS RPG groups and Published In March 2020 Sample file

Carved In Flesh Volume One ...... 1 The First Canonical Murder ...... 3 The Facts...... 3 The Fiction ...... 3 Eight clues at the scene ...... 4 Come To The Circus, The Grossest Show on Earth ...... 7 20 freaks at the Circus ...... 7 8 incidents at the show ground ...... 14 6 things of note in the surrounding streets ...... 15 6 particularly dubious eyewitnesses ...... 15 6 slatterns looking for a mark at the show ...... 16 Antagonists: ...... 16 References...... 19 The Next 4 Volumes...... 19

This game requires a copy of The Jack Hack 2nd edition rules to play. The Jack Hack is a game of beating the odds in the depravity of late Victorian . It has focus on the Whitechapel area around the time of the infamous murders. The default setting for The Jack Hack is in the months leading up to the , the Carved in Flesh series will look at each one, volume by volume. CAUTION: This game features adult themes. There is some gore. There is some sex. There is prejudice and racism. There is Victorian Profanity. Clearly the Whitechapel Murders were a terrible event, but the mystery and legend surrounding them is perfect for game creativity. The Jack Hack is a game and shouldSample provide entertainment, fun and thrills. Stop if it doesn’t. file In The Jack Hack, whether through poor judgement, scandal, cruel enemies, addiction, or just plain bad luck, the Player Character are all members of society who have fallen into despair. Fortunately, they have each been saved from the brink of suicide by a mysterious benefactor. Each volume in the Carved In Flesh series is an adventure landscape, a limited sandbox, each dealing with one of the Whitechapel Murders and the mystery around Jack The Ripper. Each provides the means to randomly generate clues, trails, causes, methods, culprits, and so on, all possibly connected to an ongoing event in the area. In Carved In Flesh Volume One, this event is the appearance of a traveling & Circus. As Carved In Flesh Volume One opens, the Player Characters should be Second or Third Level and earned themselves some reputation as have earned some reputation in the Whitechapel area. The First Canonical Murder The Facts. The first Whitechapel Murder took place at about 3.30 am on the 31st August, 1888. The victim was a prostitute named . Her body was found at the murder site on Bucks Row, a backstreet in Whitechapel. The body is discovered at 3.40am or so by two workmen who inform the nearest policeman.

The Fiction Rather than the original workmen, Carved in Flesh Volume One assumes that the Player Characters are the first on the scene sometime after 3 am in the morning. History mostly fades from here on in, and the Player Characters will probablySample investigate this tragedy which has happened in their ownfile backyard: READ ALOUD:* “Following a balmy and warm late summer’s evening, the early morning has settled into a clammy, oppressive feeling, as you scurry through the sides streets north of Whitechapel Road. There is a sense a foreboding to the new day, a feeling that something dreadful has, or is about to happen. As you make your way quietly through the back alley of Bucks Row, you come across a terrible scene of carnage and despair. A body of a woman, or rather the torn and shredded remains of one, is slumped against a crumbling brick wall. There is something almost unnatural about the wounds. You have all suffered a hard, perhaps even depraved, few years, but even you feel a slight queasiness in the pit of your stomachs at the grisly scene.”**

* (Yes, this is about the only piece of truly boxed text!) **(Yes, yes I know you shouldn’t say how the Player Characters feel!) Mary Ann Nichols is clinging to the last vestiges of her life when the Player Characters arrive. Her wounds are beyond any medical assistance and within a few minutes of the Player Characters discovering her, Mary will pass away. If they linger at the scene for more than 15 minutes, the Player Characters will be spotted by either passing workmen or a prostitute and the alarm raised. Should this happen, the Player Characters will become the prime suspects in the death of Mary Ann Nichols If the Player Characters investigate the woman’s body and her immediate surrounds, a successful INT or WIS check will generate a few random clues to give them their first leads. Two or Three pointers should be enough to set them in the direction of where the traveling Freak Show & Circus has set up site. If the Player Characters do not actively investigate the woman’s body and her immediate surrounds, just have a trail of blood – footprints, smears, or droplets – on the ground and walls which leads towards the showgrounds, with perhaps the morning song being joined this morning by animal roars and the lingering smells of enticing flavours hanging in the slight smog. The late Mary Ann Nichols is dressed in a set of unremarkable garments, though a few items look very new. There are a few simple possessions of no consequence on her person, plus whatever the following table generates as feeling ‘important’. SampleEight clues at the scene file Roll a d8 or three to seed the crime scene with clues for the Player Characters to discover in the short amount of time they spend at the scene: 1 The Wounds Several long slashing wounds from a heavy blade about 8 inches long, plus a few odd-looking claw marks, each with a span the size of a man’s hand. (This is of a large feline, rather than a canine.) 2 Grasped in a Hand A crumpled and now bloodied piece of paper. It is a flyer for Noakes’s Circus of Freaks. Barely perceptibly written in pencil on the other side are the words ‘gilded cage’. 3 Blood on the Wall There is a blood smear on a wall leading northeast and away from the scene. 4 Carved in Flesh On one arm are carved the letters H-E-L 5 Any Old Iron Under the body is a broken chain link with a small key attached. Engraved on the key in tiny Cyrillic script is the word, ‘Тюрьма’. (This is the Russian word for ‘prison’.) 6 Strange Threads Caught under one of the victim’s fingernails are several gold and scarlet threads. (This thread is cheap and dyed in these colours.) 7 The Ticket Several feet away from the body, stuck between two cobble stones is a ticket. It is for the Special Exhibits tent of Noakes’s Circus of Freaks and has been punched. (Very close examination reveals a partial fingerprint.) 8 The Bonds The victim’s wrists are bound in frayed leather straps. (There are no long-term ligature marks and the leather is the sort used in an animal harness.)

The clues generated should point to Noakes’s Circus of Freaks and its Special Exhibits tent and to the involvement of someone who works there or who has visited the circus recently, in the death of Mary Ann Nichols. Flyers give the location where the circus has set up, on nearby open fields, to the northeast. The next thing you need to do is test the Player Characters. Black Usage dice: Are they mentally badly affected by the scene? White Usage dice: When word gets out, how will the people of Whitechapel react? Will they have gone somewhat quiet and inward, and therefore be less preparedSample to help the would-be heroes? file The Player Characters should not be given enough time to move the body, so its discovery by passers-by and the authorities goes as happened historically. (It is possible they try to move the body, in which case just have innards fall out, blood pools, and stain them, and have the sound of approaching footfall be heard… Or just ask the players to allow the body to be found to keep some historical consistency!!!).

Sample file