Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

After the breakup of the Aachen Case in the mid-18th century, the last blade of the set was the only one to travel east to the German states rather than west to France. It was purchased by the Graf von Ansberg, a noted collector of fine steel and weapons, and added to his magnificent collection in 1785. Six months later, the Graf, the Gräfin, their seven children, and all the members of their household staff were dead, having fallen victim to a particularly virulent form of scarlet fever that had swept through the household.

To cover outstandind debts, the collection was purchased by Rudolf Freihold of Stuttgart. Freihold, who lived in Berlin and left his business to subordinates, soon grew frustrated with his inability to sell the blade. The Prince of Lüneswick purchased the dagger in 1786; it was returned to Freihold’s shop at the former’s death from smallpox 18 months later. The next sale, to the Archbishop of Tainz, was cut short by the Plague of Tainz. That outbreak of typhus caused the deaths of over 5000 people in Tainz, including the archbishop. The dagger was once again returned to Freihold.

Rudolf Freihold was a shrewd businessman, and kept trying to sell the blade even as his own staff in Stuttgart was constantly falling ill. Attempted or aborted sales from 1789 include:

-The Lord Mayor of Bad Kesel, who died of dengue in 1790.
-The Bishop of Herburg, who died of stomach cancer in 1791.
-Gräfin Elizabeth of Rhineholdt, who perished of puerperal fever in 1792.
-General Herrmann von Glaintz, whose death in 1793 cost Prussia its victory at the Battle of Dordrecht.

In 1797, frustrated at his inability to sell the dagger, which he had taken to calling der Schüttelfroster (“the Ague-causer”), Freihold donated it to the personal collection of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. The Duke died within the year, but the blade remained in the treasury, dutifully enumerated each time an inventory was taken. The royal inventories correspond with outbreaks of cholera in 1866 and 1881, and smallpox in 1870.

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Acquired in 1788 from an unknown dealer by Jean Rennes, 2nd Marquis du Fourquevaux, this dagger passed from his ownership after only a few years. The Marquis was primarily a tenant farmer, relying on crops from Forquevaux to cover his extravagant spending. However, the harvest of 1788 was a spectacular failure, contributing to the general famine in France at the time and utterly ruining the Marquis. He sold off all his property and holdings at auction, a process interrupted by his death in 1791 during the Reign of Terror.

Purchased by a General in the National Guard, Auguste Des Jardins of Lyon, the dagger appears in his official 1811 portrait after the campaigns in Germany and Poland. Official dispatches indicate that General Des Jardins had a reputation as a whiner, constantly complaining that the areas in which he operated did not have sufficient forage and that his men were constantly shortchanged in the supply chain. This was apparently borne out when the general and most of his command starved to death near Minsk in 1812.

The dagger was lost for some time after that, with rumored owners in Ireland and India. It appears next in a catalogue of items seized from a Jewish importer in Amsterdam by Nazi officials in 1943. A local SS official used it as a ceremonial dirk for a time before giving it to his mistress, who died in the Hongerwinter of 1944-1945. It was recovered by American troops in 1945 at the salt mine at Merkurs, and recognized by one of the MFAA members as belonging to the Aachen set.

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The only dagger without a corresponding scabbard; the Aachen Box contains space for the dagger only. Curiously, it has spaces for the remaining three scabbards, which may indicate that the was made without one. After the Aachen box was broken up, the first record of the dagger is in the hands of Michel-Paul Cantonneau, the 8th Comte du Bloix, in 1785. He apparently acquired it in Aachen itself during a trip to the city’s mineral spas and brothels.

Its appellation as the “Bloix blade” comes from an incident around Christmas of that same year. It was the custom of the Comte to host a reception for nobles under his suzerainty around the holiday, primarily lower nobles and their sons and daughters rather than marquis or ducs. Considered a “charity event,” it was notable for its relatively easy commingling of nobles from different strata and was locally important for matchmaking. Two days before Christmas, 1785, the Comte emerged into the reception with his new blade in hand and began a stabbing spree that resulted in the deaths of 17 guests and the wounding of a further 22.

A force of 10 Maréchaussée were required to subdue the Comte, who had to be shot to end his rampage. The dagger passed into the hands of a Maréchaussée captain, who murdered his family and disappeared into the Foie woods not quite one year later. Since then, the dagger has been associated with a number of incidents, many of which cannot be verified conclusively:

-The murder, in 1791, of a patrol of National Guardsmen near Foie.
-A 1796 massacre of royalist prisoners in the Vendée region by a Guardsman.
-An 1812 outbreak of violence in Paris that claimed 17 lives in the 3rd Arrondissement, principally street vendors.
-The murder of large families by seemingly otherwise wealthy and well-adjusted members in 1801, 1822, 1837, 1844, and 1871.

In 1871, the Bloix blade was taken from its last known owner, a member of the Paris Commune who had attacked a gathering of priests and nuns. It entered into the metallurgy collection at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, where it remained until identified as part of the Aachen set in 1901.

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The blade is named after its earliest known owner, Henri Delacroix, 5th Duc du Richat. Records seized in 1789 and now part of the Archives Nationales indicate that the Duc purchased the blade at auction for 12 écu d’argent. The auction, which dispersed the worldly goods of a metalworker who had vanished and was presumed to be dead, furnished a number of other impressive antiquities at surprisingly reasonable prices.

The Duc was taken enough with the dagger that he wore it on his person, ostensibly for self-defense. Its prominence in the Duc’s 1787 portrait in the Louvre indicates that he enjoyed flouting it, though the painting does notably show a much different handle than the later extant photographs. When the Duc disappeared in 1788, failing to appear in his chambers and presumed to have drowned during a late-night walk, the dagger passed into his estate’s general collection.

After being looted the following year, the dagger did not reappear in the official record until 1863, when it was listed in a catalog of antiquities for sale by Hans Colbert, a dealer in Aachen. His catalog photograph of the Richat Dagger is the only know represenation from life, as both Colbert and his house photographer, Jean-Baptiste Girodoux, vanished before the dagger could be sold.

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Our society has eliminated payphones, which makes it impossible to call someone inside when you’re locked out of a building with your phone and keys inside. The only way to get in, other than using a strange’s cellphone coated with an unknown biofilm, is to hurl something at a lit window.

But what small object rattling around in your pocket should you sling? Here’s a handy guide to what various professions should chuck for maximum effectiveness:

TEACHER – Glue stick

MINISTER – Gideon Bible

TEAMSTER – Lug nuts

POLICE OFFICER – Shell casings from the planting gun

FIREFIGHTER – Matches and accelerant

LAWYER – Subpoenas (crush or fold first)

RETAIL – Quarters from the register

DOCTOR – Human gallstones (kidney and bladder stones work too)

PRESIDENT – Nuclear launch codes (remove from briefcase first)

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“Ah, doesn’t that sea breeze just do wonders for you? Opens your nostrils, opens your mind, opens your heart!”

Zaldi Xianuende stood astride the deck of the Curmudgeonly Toad, a ramshackle but seaworthy skiff out of Toan, and bellowed out platitudes in a powerful voice. After the better part of a week with her, the Toad’s crew was less than enthusiastic as she walked the decks clapping them on the back and waxing poetic about the sea.

“Tetpa, isn’t this invigorating work?” she cried at the seaman busy emptying the bilge.

“Hmph.” Tetpa wasn’t about to disagree with Zaldi since she was both taller and broader than he. But he wasn’t about to disagree either.

Zaldi pirouetted around the mainmast. “Katapti, isn’t the air up there just so gloriously invigorating?”

The lithe she-elf in the ropes, who tired easily but was as dextrous as a ball of spiders, felt safer to be honest given the twenty feet and howling wind betwixt them: “Blow it out your rear, you pointy-eared giant of a pest!”

“Yes, I agree!” Zaldi said in singsong, catching only the barest snatches of Katapi’s grousing. “It is the best!”

The ship’s master, a dwarf called Poxos, was at the wheel, staring intently at the horizon. “How do you do it, captain?” Zaldi said, taking the steps up to the small bridge in three bounds and all but blocking his field of vision. “How do you deal with the ecstasy of the open waters?”

“I manage,” grunted Poxos.

“It can be difficult, I’m sure. But you do it well, I can hardly tell that you’re joyful under that mask of indifference!”

Finally, Zaldi found her charge, Myn. The young lady was around half Zaldi’s age and a somewhat more than half her height, but she shared a similar mixed parentage. She was at the gunwhales, the sea breeze in her face and the boat at her back.

‘Mom said you could be a handful,” Zaldi said. “But she has a tendency to look on the dark side. You haven’t been any trouble at all!” She gave Myn a hearty clap on the back.

“HUUUUURK!” Myn, who had been looking rather green even for someone whose mother was a goblin, lost her breakfast over the side at the blow.

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An old man was killed by a heart attack brought on by a suddenl, loud noise very close to his head. The police, inspecting the scene and suspecting foul play, decided to bring in a forensic artist to make a sketch of what could have caused the noise which led to the man’s untimely demise.

“Do yoy have any idea what could have made such a loud noise?” said the inspector.

“I’m drawing a blank,” said the artist.

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The bullet missed the Sacred Jar, though it wobbled on its base. Hampton shoved it across the table with a dismissive sound, half hoping that it might fall off and shatter despite the Supplicant’s pleas. Instead, it came to rest an inch or so from the edge, tottering but not falling.

Marigold sneered. “Let them have it.”

As the assembled people in the small chapel fell to their knees and cried out about the miracle that had just taken place, Hampton and Marigold donned black priest’s robes and cast the hoods over their faces.

“We just have to walk out of here carrying the bags,” he said. “Slowly, without arousing suspicion. We’ll only have a few minutes, five at the most, but if we can make it off the Temple grounds, we’ll be able to get away.”

Marigold nodded and took up their bag, stuffed with golden and silver relics. They strolled out through the grounds and gardens without acknowledging any of the other Priests of the Jar, and were blocks away when the sirens began ringing and riot troops of the GSF-1 closed in.

“Now what?” said Marigold. “After you’ve shot at the Sacred Jar, what laws are left to break?”

“I know a man who can help us sell this junk,” said Hampton. “We just need to get there without being recognized.

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Deputy Marshal John Cunningham
Male Dwarf Ranger
16 STR, 15 DEX, 13 CON, 12 INT, 12 WIS, 9 CHA
25HP, rifle 1d8 (6 shots), dagger 1d4

Deputy Marshal John Cunningham led the charge at Slaughter Gulch that routed a group of wild locals intent on raiding a local settlement. But he didn’t get any credit for this victory, all the plaudits going to his superior at the time who was actually asleep and drunk. Bitter over his stolen glory, Cunningham constantly feuds with Marshal Hopkins, considering the latter to be a braggart and a blowhard.

Deputy Marshal Buzz Hopkins
Male Elf Ranger
12 STR, 16 DEX, 13 CON
20HP, revolver 1d6 (7 shots), sword 1d6

Deputy Marshal Buzz Bopkins is renowned for putting away the O’Callahan Gang, one of the most notorious groups of outlaws and lawbreakers the area had ever seen. He has shamelessly ridden this event to local fame and local prosperity despite the fact that it was entirely luck–he happened upon the O’Callahans when their sentries were drunk and asleep. He constantly preens himself over this victory and feuds with Marshal Cunningham.

Caleb Jung
Male Human Bard
12 STR, 15 DEX, 14 CON, 16 INT, 12 WIS, 8 CHA
15HP, sword 1d6, revolved 1d4 (8 shots)

A perennial washout, Caleb Jung is nevertheless perpetually happy and upbeat despite working a series of terrible jobs like manure shoveler, manure wagoner, manure courier, and manuresmith. He is a constant fixture at any sort of trial or job opening where he thinks he can improve himself, but does not let his 100% failure rate get him down in the slightest.

Westminster Talbot
Male Elf Mage
9 STR, 13 DEX, 12 CON, 20 INT, 8 WIS, 10 CHA
10HP, rod 1d4, Magic Missile (5 uses), Charm Person (3 uses), Color Spray (2 uses), Fireball (1 use)

Scion of the Talbot Farms Talbots, the apple and apple cider and hard cider kings of the area, Talbot has a self-important and patrician air about him that even others from the same social strata find insufferable. His equipment is of the highest quality, amd he is not without skill, but he frequently finds that the only people who can stand to be around him are those he pays for their trouble.

Jasper Scuddemore
Male Half-Orc Barbarian
18 STR, 14 DEX, 17 CON, 10 INT, 9 WIS, 8 CHA
25HP, sword 1d8
Manservant to Westminster Talbot and raised with him since birth, Jasper Scuddemore is unflinchingly loyal to Talbot, advancing his cause and making excuses for him utterly selflessly. Unbeknownst to both Talbot and Jasper, they are half-brothers–Mr. Talbot having had a fling with Jedda Scuddemore, his half-orc former nurse.

Dr. Daniel Evans, Esq.
Male Elf Rogue
12 STR, 19 DEX, 10 CON, 18 INT, 9 WIS, 17 CHA
15 HP, revolver 1d10 (5 shots), dagger 1d4

A gambler and ne’er-do-well, Evans tends to pepper his speech with Latinate malapropisms that he believes make him sound smarter. He has a reputation as a fierce card player and as the slayer of notorious bandit “Gravedigger Perkins,” both undeserved. In reality, Evans is a poor player that relies on cheating and braggadocio to win, and he merely convinced Evans to commit suicide rather than submit to capture. Despite this, he does have an avowed soft spot for those who are down on their luck.

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