That’s the chain of updates, of course. But also, in a moment of genuine inspiration, I created a unique marker that unlocks several parts of the Smuggling Module (Q1h/Q165) – the chain tattoo that you gain, involuntarily, after completing your smuggling training with the Terror, Terence Kneebone, aboard his steam crester, the Swell Dolly.
Who is the Steam Highwayman? A free adventurer, bound to no-one, riding wherever you will… Until you accept something like Penrose’s ring or the chain tattoo and you become associated with a dreaming visionary revolutionary or a ruthless smuggler.
This last two weeks I’ve been working almost entirely on the smuggling module. I thought I could write a short series of passages, but to balance out the scale of the trade network I’ve already built for firkins of brandy and the like, I have needed some size, length and openness. In a way, I’ve rebuilt something like the open-sea module, but without as much freedom. Yet I’ve still needed some passage extensions to the book to fit in what’s needed.
How does it work? Well, that all depends where you are. In Devon, you’ll simply need to find some smugglers on the North or South coast, win their trust, hire them to sail with you, head out to a rendezvous on a foreign shore or at sea, buy contraband and then bring it to a depot point, put it ashore, return to your port, head to your depot, get your contraband aboard your velosteam – provided you have your barrel panniers fitted – be lucky enough to escape the attention of the Constables, bring your cargo to a buyer, like a friendly landlord, avoid narks, get a good price and repeat. Information regarding most of this – rendezvous points, willing smugglers, innkeepers happy to buy and places where you can hide your goods – is readily available as a series of rumours you’ll hear in pubs, freight yards or on the road.
And in Cornwall? It’s complicated by the Imperial Blockade, which is meant to stop small craft bringing goods into Cornwall, so you’ll need to be lucky in avoiding their ships, or have money for bribes, or a fearless crew ready to fight, or perhaps a craft that can submerge… And then, once ashore, your sale of spirits is carefully observed by the gangs answering to Bad Percy and the Terror – so you’ll need to pay a share whenever you do sell some barrels, cutting into your profits.
And of course, you’ll need to wear the chain tattoo to gain the trust of anyone in the network.
If it sounds complex, it is. There are around thirty codewords that track your access to rendezvous and depot locations, the availability of the six different vessels you can sail with and the attitudes of the gangs towards you. There are around thirty rumours that carry information about it all – and although the module is mostly standalone, it ties in, of course, with several of the key dynamics of the Rebellion. After all, liquor is not the only contraband you can smuggle into Free Cornwall.
Why bother? Wasn’t the book almost finished already? Well, Cornwall without smuggling would be like a pasty without pastry – it would always have been a massive regret. And to do it well, as I mentioned above, when there is now a network of around forty places wanting to buy your firkins of gin or lace scarves, I needed something semi-open. I’ve done my best to limit the size and repetitiveness of the strands, but I’ve also accepted that the book will be massively improved by something that is at my standard of ‘good-enough’ – I don’t need to invent new mechanics to solve this. Hence the proliferation of codewords, when instead some sort of map-based solution has occasionally suggested itself to me.
This is going to greatly alter the balance of the book. The amount of money that can be made is large – as long as you have capital. It increases the danger that Terence Kneebone poses and embroils you deeper in his nefarious network. Who is the Steam Highwayman? In Cornwall, a smuggler of unlicensed brandy, steaming along clifftops with the Constables in pursuit, just as the place demands.
So since last update I have:
- Fixed a roadside encounter with poor workmanship
- Written a new pub in Helston
- Completed Q11 – the orchestral airship quest. This is a fun one reminiscent of the airship quests in Highways & Holloways.
- Planned more than 200 passages of the smuggling module
- Written around 70 passages of the module
And what next? In the next fortnight I aim to:
- Finish the smuggling module!
Next update due: 21.11.25
