| This severs as the main hub link to Category:Lord Beresford's Travellers For the 1930s equilvalent see The Tavistock Expeditions |
The Lord Beresford’s Travellers campaign is an exploration of the wild parts of the world set in the late 1860s and early 1870s, in a world with both magic and steampunk technology. It is run by Sir Tifyable.
The characters are British explorers, sponsored by Lord Beresford, who provides them with Morgan Travellers. (The campaign title is therefore a pun – the PCs are ‘Lord Beresford’s Travellers’ even when they aren’t using the vehicles.) The Morgan Traveller is a ‘land barge’ with six huge walking legs, capable of crossing almost any terrain (at about 3 m.p.h.) as long as it can be supplied with firewood (or coal) and water. They were originally equipped with three: two cargo-carriers and a passenger variant. Each takes a crew of two: driver and engineer/stoker, and is attended by a local crew of woodcutters and haulers who move ahead of the walkers to provide the fuel. Every time they move from the territory of one tribe into the next, the characters must negotiate for a workforce with the new tribe.
Lord Beresford, although a very wealthy industrialist and ennobled for his contributions to industry, is still ‘nouveau riche’ and therefore looked down on in British society. He has struck upon this new way of gaining entry to Society – having teams of people criss-crossing the world bringing back new artifacts and tales which will hopefully make his parties the place to be seen. If they also produce additional opportunities for wealth, so much the better.
The party's first adventure was a trip to South America in search of El Dorado. They found Conquistador relics, a black Jesuit dirigible gunship, and the Lost Valley dinosaurs.
The second and so far longest campaign was to Africa in search of the Kingdom of Sheba with a psychic archaeologist. It featured a mad scientist breeding human subspecies, long-term possession of their psychic, an immortal Witch-Queen, Roman legions (yes, I’m not scared of using the clichés of pulp fiction!), Arctic storms (in Angola!), and a slave-ring crossing Africa through magic gates.
Their third adventure started on that newfangled tranport from which it took its name - Flying Monkeys on the Orient Express. It led them via Constantinople to Tibet – former PC Christina, now six months pregnant and retired as an adventurer, was kidnapped by a Chinese cult attemptng to retrieve a magical amulet. The PCs managed to exchange her for the amulet and set out for revenge on the cult. The adventure climaxed in a scene with flying carpets, gargoyles with shotguns, harmonica shotguns, hopping zombies, Kung-Fu monks, and a Soul Trap for a "Goddess".
The characters are dispersed around the Empire now, but maybe some day Lord Beresford's call will send them out to adventure together once again...
(When the GM decides where they are going next, that is, and why. Could be the canals of Mars or the swamps of Venus.)
Sir Tifyable's latest campaign, involving most of the same characters as the Beresford Travellers, is The Tavistock Expeditions.