Go to Part 1

Having not actually run a true urbancrawl for any length of time, I’m not really in a position to delve into truly advanced uses of the technique. But I do want to float out a few random thoughts I’ve had. This is stuff that I think will prove to be fertile soil for exploring in the future. (And if you have a chance to play around with these ideas in your own campaign, I’d love to hear your feedback on how it went in actual play.)

THE DIMENSIONS OF THE URBANCRAWL

First, I want to be very specific about what I think makes this model of the urbancrawl work by expanding on the metaphor of “dimension” in your urbancrawl that I’ve touched on before:

0^th Dimension: This is the gazetteer. Recognizing that the gazetteer is a separate entity allows us to focus on the ‘crawl itself. You don’t have to explore the gazetteer; its contents provide context and backdrop and common goals for targeted movement.

1^st Dimension: This is the basic “investigation” action. You could key an entire city with content and just allow basic investigation and it would work, but it would also be very bland.

2^nd Dimension: By creating different urbancrawl layers, you allow the players to contextualize their investigations. This makes the city “come alive” for the players and rapidly creates a sense of the bustling metropolis; of a place where there’s always something happening just out of sight. (I suspect this will become even more true as the city grows during play and the various layers begin interacting with each other.)

3^rd Dimension: Finally, adding depth to each urbancrawl layer and allowing PC activity to expose the hidden layers rewards player exploration. It can also be used to escalate the stakes and to increase the PCs’ investment in the setting. (In many ways it parallels the function that deeper levels of the megadungeon serve.)

URBANCRAWLS IN YOUR HEXCRAWL

The more time I spend playing around with this urbancrawl structure, the more excited I get about its potential. For example, you can use first dimensional urbancrawls to cleanly integrate villages, towns, and the like into your hexcrawls.

For most of these settlements, you can probably treat the whole town as a single district: When the PCs encounter a small village or town in the hexcrawl, the expected interaction is to look around and figure out what useful information it’s supposed to give you (i.e., rumors about potential adventures to be found in the wilderness). Alternatively, maybe investigating the village will end up triggering a local adventure (i.e., the whole town has been replaced by dopplegangers). In either case, the urbancrawl investigation action provides a default method for interacting with settlements of all sizes, even if it’s only when the really big, important cities range into view – Greyhawk, City-State of the Invincible Overlord, Minas Tirith – that exploring the city neighborhood-by-neighborhood and street-by-street becomes an interesting adventure in its own right.

To use a potentially ill-conceived dungeon metaphor: Most towns are like caves; they’ve got just one or two key entries. The big cities are full-scale labyrinths and can be chewed on for months or years.

MIXING URBANCRAWL SCALES

Most of the time you’ll probably want all of your urbancrawl layers keyed to the same map. But if the PCs become interested in the Dockside gangs, maybe you break up the Docks into specific sub-districts.

Similarly, maybe the vampires are only active in Oldtown. Or maybe there’s a gang war in the Guildsman District that you want to track street-by-street as territory gets swapped back and forth.

CROSSOVER NODES

Another assumption is that each node will only belong to a single urbancrawl layer, but it would actually be quite trivial to key the same node to multiple layers. These nodes would make the city feel more interconnected, but more importantly they would also serve as a mechanism by which the investigation of one layer can crossover into another.

For example, maybe the PCs have been rigorously pursuing the Halfling Mafia. If they end up raiding the blood laundering service the mafia runs for Count Ormu, however, that will tip them off about the local blood dens and possibly get them investigating the vampires, too.

URBANCRAWL TRANSMISSIONS

Technoir transmissions, as previously discussed, combine random content generators (for connections, events, factions, locations, objects, and threats) with explicit mechanics that generate a conspiracy as a direct result of the PCs hitting up their contacts in an effort to unravel the mystery.

It’s incredibly clever and extremely effective. And for dedicated groups, I think you can use the transmission system to add a fourth dimension to your urbancrawls: Tie the random content generators to your urbancrawl layers, seed the city with contacts for the PCs, and then let the system generate plot maps that bring the city to dramatic life.

I don’t have space here to fully explore this idea right now, but here’s a few preliminary thoughts:

• Connections, locations, events, and threats all probably double as items keyed to the urbancrawl layers.
• Many or all of the factions probably have their own layer on the urbancrawl.
• Objects are the one thing you’d have to create explicitly for the transmission dimension. (Fortunately, they’re also the easiest thing to create.)

For more complexity (or for groups who are new to the big city), add a mechanic that allows them to explore the city in order to make contacts. (Creating a dedicated contact layer in your urbancrawl or incorporating them into other layers seems like an easy solution.)

Finally, I’d be interested in adding mechanics to the transmission system so that performing generic or specific investigation actions would have effects on the plot map in the same way that hitting up contacts do.

SECONDARY INVESTIGATION ACTION

Another trick that Hite incorporates into Night’s Black Agents is adversary mapping: As characters explore the Conspyramid, they can map the relationships of the nodes on the pyramid. They can also use the Human Terrain and Traffic Analysis skills to peek at the generic structure of the map around the nodes they’ve discovered. (For example, “Someone has to be running the money to these guys.”) Additional investigation can then nail these structures down. Night’s Black Agents rewards the players for identifying sections of the adversary map by rewarding a dedicated pool of points for actions targeting that section.

In terms of our urbancrawl structure, we can imagine a secondary investigation action that the PCs can take to follow-up on the leads they gain from identifying, exploiting, exposing, or eradicating a node on an urbancrawl layer. For example, if they take out a blood den in Oldtown they could follow up with a secondary investigation action that might tell them where they can pursue their investigation:

– Asking around about the blood den you just rooted out, you hear that a lot of people wearing the livery of House Ormu were seen coming and going at odd hours of the night from that warehouse.
– Somebody must have been supplying those shivvel dealers with their product. And somebody must have been paying off the local cops not to look too close.

Basically, the idea here is that, when they perform the secondary investigation action, you would look at other keyed content on that urbancrawl layer and point them towards it. (Structurally you’re saying, “You should go perform an investigation action in district X.” But you’re contextualizing that into the game world.) Just like Hite, you could also incentivize this action by offering rewards for following up on leads. (A +2 circumstance bonus, for example, would work in D&D.) And I suspect that there may be richer ways of building on these secondary investigation actions.

RESTOCKING THE URBANCRAWL

When you clear out a dungeoncrawl, the dungeon is empty. You clear out a city and… what does that mean?

To a large extent, the layered approach to stocking your urbancrawl solves this problem. If the PCs wipe out Count Ormu’s vampires and clear that entire layer, there are still other layers of the city to explore. (And, of course, you can always add new layers to the city over time.)

One thing I am interested in is what actually restocking a layer (or a city) will look like in a campaign over time. For dungeons, this is a process I talk about in (Re)-Running the Megadungeon: “You keep the dungeon alive by using wandering monster encounters to simulate the activity of the complex. You partially repopulate the dungeon between sessions to keep it fresh. The result is that you can take 10 encounter areas, a couple of tables, and get dozens of hours of play out of it.”

I expect that a lot of those skills and techniques will transfer from the dungeon to the city. But I also anticipate that urbancrawls are going to evolve in their own unique and fascinating ways.

So that’s the next step of this journey: To bring the first urbancrawls to the table. To let them begin to grow and live. To unleash the unbridled creativity of the gaming table upon them.

I’m excited.

UPDATE 2025

My thinking about urbancrawls continued to evolve and the ideas presented in this series refined through playtesting into an urbancrawl structure. The work is ongoing, but can find a specific, concrete implementation of the urbancrawl in So You Want to Be a Game Master:

Tomorrow I’ll be wrapping up my series on Thinking About Urbancrawls, so it feels appropriate to be thinking about other resources for city creation. I recommend checking out Michael Curtis’ Alphabet of the City’s Shadows. It’s an incredibly rich treatment of thematic elements that can be found in the best fantasy megalopolises. For example:

A is for Alleyways

Like the strands of a spider’s web, the alleyways of the city radiate out from the urban heart to ensnare the unwary. Stinking, trash-strewn, and labyrinthine, alleyways serve as the highways for the denizens of the city’s shadows and the homes for the truly downtrodden and lost. It is within these narrow channels that thieves, whores, madmen, and the wretched reside, far away from the opulent chambers and homes of the rich and powerful.

To step into the alleys is to leave the brightly lit world of the honest man behind, even if you can still glimpse those clean, bright streets at the alley’s filthy mouth. The world of the alleyways have rules of their own and those who do not take the effort to learn the rules of that world soon find themselves devoured by it. The alleys are gateways into places never seen by the honest and righteous, who shun such places with good reason. Adventurers, however, often must tread these paths as part of their sojourns into the city. The cramped shops and hovels off of the alleyways are the domiciles and places of business for Hedge Wizards, sages, the Thieves Guild, and other quasi-legal operations. Many alleyways contain the rusted, offal-choked grates that lead into the city’s Sewers, making them the only place to enter that subterranean world unobserved. The alleyways are also the last resort for desperate men when the Watch is hard upon their heels and they need a place to vanish from the law.

 ALPHABET OF THE CITY’S SHADOWS

Go to Part 1

This writing sample covers the first part of Chapter One. It was written when I was 16 years old.

CHAPTER ONE

Kalen watched the secondary monitors of his Red Wolf ‘mech, more interested in the tactical information related there than in the dense undergrowth being crushed around him as he moved quickly through the forest.

“Robert, how’s your little Adder holding up?” The Adder-class ‘mech was one of the smallest, and they had lost precious moments earlier when it had become ensnarled in a patch of thorny vines.

“Pretty good, Kale. I’m keeping behind you, using the trail you’re beating down. Anything I’ve got trouble with, Steve helps me out with.”

Steven was off to Kalen’s right, moving along as quickly as possible in his humanoid-Hellbringer. He raised the ‘mech’s hand in a wave of acknowledgment.

Kalen smiled. “All right, we’re going to start bearing northwest now. Keep com silence until my strike order. No need to give away our presence with a stray signal burst.”

“Roger,” the voices of his two lieutenants overlapped on the frequency.

Ten minutes earlier a distress signal had reached Diamond Outpost where Kalen had been scheduled to serve garrison on the weekly rotation cycle. Kalen may have been the Helix Hero of the House of Alcrom, but it didn’t excuse him, or the Guard company he led, from the routine duties of being mechwarriors.

On the north road between the Kolan Heights and Poytr Point an Alcrom weapons convoy had been waylaid by the forces of House Ethaois. Even now, looking above the trees which brushed around his ‘Mech, Kalen could see the ineffective laser blasts of the convoy as it raced along the road away from its pursuers. If he and his Guard didn’t get there soon the convoy would be probably be lost within a matter of minutes.

A harsh tone sounded from his monitors and he twisted his head away from the cockpit’s visual display and back to the secondary screens. A tight line of bright dots had appeared, roving eastward. The convoy!

Simultaneously five more dots — the Ethaois ‘mechs — blinked onto the screen as well. A Sharpshooter and a Wasp were positioned on either side of the road, straddling the convoy. A speedy Hummingbird lagged behind them on the far side of the road from Kalen’s position. Directly behind the convoy, obviously cutting off any form of retreat, was a large Crusader. Further back there was a Quasar, apparently climbing a nearby hill.

Kalen toggled his com unit back on, “Okay guys, looks like we’re not slackers after all. Let’s nab the three closest first. Robert — see if you can keep that Quasar busy; Steve, nail the Wasp. I’ve got the Sharpshooter. We jump in three…two…one…”

At virtually the same moment the three pilots hit their ‘mech’s jump jets and sailed clear of the forest, reaching the apex of their jumps metres above the treetops.

Their actions were not a moment too soon. As the Quasar topped the hill it was climbing, it released a quick volley of LRMs — blasting the road ahead of the convoy into impassable rubble and sending the lead convoy vehicles caroming into the strip of cleared land on either side of the forest way.

Kalen brought his ‘mech down smoothly in the middle of the road. Twisting the torso of his Red Wolf around, he quickly peppered the Sharpshooter with his PPC before the Ethaoin pilot had a chance to react. He quickly checked on his two friends, noting with satisfaction that Steven had already engaged the Wasp and Robert was making his way up the hill towards the Quasar, before turning his attention back to his own opponent.

The Red Wolf‘s PPC hadn’t done more than superficial damage to the Sharpshooter, who was now returning fire — peppering Kalen with a series of short blasts from his shoulder-mounted lasers. In response, Kalen stepped his ‘mech out of the laser blasts for a moment and released a volley of SRMs at his opponent. As he had expected, the Sharpshooter’s pilot activated his anti-missile systems and reduced his barrage to shrapnel, but at least the laser was abated for a moment. Kalen toggled his autocannon and watched with satisfaction as it tore away the armor of the opposing ‘mech.

Unexpectedly the Sharpshooter’s jump jets flared to life, lifting it off the ground and away from Kalen’s fire. Having failed to anticipate his opponent’s action, Kalen pushed hard against his ‘mech’s foot pedals, urging the huge machine into a run, only to feel the ‘mech jerk away from his control as an explosion shook the cockpit.

As the Red Wolf twisted hard, spinning the Sharpshooter off the primary screen, Kalen quickly realized what had happened. The Sharpshooter’s pilot had used his ‘mech’s jump to effectively conceal the launch of a single missile towards Kalen; and Kalen, in his rush to pursue his opponent had ignored the warning signals on his secondary monitors.

Angry with himself for his carelessness, Kalen quickly jabbed at his controls, bringing his ‘mech back under control and swinging his bullet-like torso around to face the position where the Sharpshooter had last been in time to see a wave of LRMs heading towards him.

Instantly his autocannon roared to life, picking the helpless missiles out the air, as he launched his own missiles, but these swept under the Sharpshooter, which had already initiated a second jump to close the distance between them again.

But this time Kalen wasn’t going to give his opponent a chance to conceive a second offensive, instead he raised his ‘mech’s left arm and began firing the laser there. Simultaneously his PPC began to pulse and the missiles held in pods all around the main body of his BattleMech streamed off on chemical propellants.

The Sharpshooter pilot, despite his momentary surprise at the ferocity of Kalen’s assault, managed to emerge relatively unscathed. He managed to destroy the majority of the Red Wolf‘’s missiles before they could strike, and his adept maneuvering lessened the damage which might have been wrought by the PPC. However, the cumulative effect of the attack gained its intended goal – several missiles struck one of his leg joints, and the laser fire found weak spots along the attachment point of his left arm, dropping it – and the anti-missile system it contained – useless to his side.

In Kalen’s cockpit the temperature was soaring and the sweat dripped from his brow, but it barely caught his attention as he launched another volley of missiles against the Sharpshooter.

Without the defenses in its arm the Sharpshooter was helpless against the Red Wolf’s final attack, and Kalen watched as the enemy ‘mech was reduced to a ball of flame. Its destruction gave him a chance to bring his ‘mech to a halt while he took assessment of the battlefield, allowing his heat sinks to laboriously remove the heat build-up he had accumulated so quickly.

To his left Robert had been intercepted by the humanoid Crusader before reaching the Quasar, which still stood passively atop the hill. Robert’s adept handling of the tiny Adder seemed to be keeping the conflict roughly even, but off to Kalen’s right Steven was faring worse. The Hummingbird had moved up in support of the Wasp and their dual assault was seriously wearing down the Hellbringer’s defenses, pushing him farther back into the forest.

Kalen quickly checked his heat levels and, noting that they were back within acceptable levels, started his ‘mech towards Steven’s position. Together the two of them should be able to eliminate the smaller ‘mechs and then join Robert against the Quasar and Crusader.

But before he had even begun to cross the distance, he saw Steven swing his Hellbringer’s torso towards the enemy Wasp and release successive waves of missile at the smaller ‘mech – overpowering it’s weakened autocannon and punching several successful hits through, forcing the pilot to eject before his destabilized fusion plant blew. Even Kalen was able to see the tactical impracticality of the maneuver, however. In focusing his attention on the Wasp Steven had left his ‘Mech’s back open to an undefended assault by the Hummingbird, which now took the advantage and pulverized the Hellbringer unmercifully.

With a final few steps Kalen pulled his Red Wolf within range. Quickly he fired a handful of LRMs at the Ethaoin Hummingbird, hoping to distract the ‘mech from its helpless victim. Even as the missiles began their deadly flight, however, Kalen knew they came too late to save the Hellbringer – already Steven’s ejection seat carried him in a graceful arc away from the exploding remains of his treasured ‘mech.

But even in death the Hellbringer cursed its killer, holding the attention of the Hummingbird’s pilot for a moment too long. Kalen’s first attack struck uncontested even as a second was being launched. The now heavily damaged ‘Mech slowly turned to face his new opponent, slicing Kalen’s second salvo into useless fratricide.

Kalen smiled as he engaged his jump jets, cutting the distance of the fight to within meters as he toggled his LRM system off-line and synched his short-range weapons into the primary controls. The rage of battle now pulsed through his blood, guiding the lethal paces through which he put his ‘Mech.

The Hummingbird fired his own missiles as the Red Wolf descended, but Kalen’s autcannon swatted them almost contemptuously out of the sky before turning its attention to the missile racks below the Hummingbird’s cockpit. As Kalen’s PPC joined in the barrage, the Hummingbird’s pilot seemed to realize what lay in store and ejected mere moments before the missiles exploded in their pods, blasting the ‘mech into a smoldering mass of blackened metal.

The Red Wolf’s barrage snapped off as the Hummingbird exploded, and Kalen swung his ‘Mech around, loping off at a near-run towards the hill where the Quasar still squatted, watching the Adder and Crusader battle in stalemate below it. Like a strutting bird, the Red Wolf mounted the hill and moved quickly to its summit as the Quasar’s pilot turned it to face the newcomer.

A pause came to Kalen’s frenzied action as he crested the hill. He watched as the Quasar he faced turned slowly towards him until the two mighty BattleMechs stood face to face, each in contemplation of the other.

The moment held for too long. Kalen sensed it. It stretched beyond where one pilot or the other should long since have broken it in a fiery hail of death. It was as if a stalemate had settled upon the two. As if some moment where combat could have begun had been passed by, and now both were held in a loop of inaction which might continue forever.

Kalen’s com-unit crackled to life.

“Helix Commander. Halt all offensive action. Withdraw immediately.”

Kalen frowned. The order made no sense. The convoy was not yet secured, and the Helix Guard’s defensive action was proving successful. Why the withdrawal?

“Repeat command.”

“Repeat. This is Diamond Outpost. Halt all offensive operations. Repeat. Halt offensive operations.”

“On who’s authority?” Kalen was grimacing now. This was the work of a bureaucrat who couldn’t stand the loss of the Hellbringer, he was sure of it.

“On the authority of—”

The com-officer’s voice was cut off and Kalen could hear the muted sounds of motion on the other end of the unit before a new voice came onto the channel.

“It’s on my authority, Kalen. Withdraw immediately. I’ll explain everything when you return.”

The voice was soft, mellowed with the wisdom of age, and Kalen knew it well. Lord J’hon. Current ruler of the House of Alcrom. He had long been a friend and mentor to the Helix who now sat in the Red Wolf’s cockpit. Kalen had long trusted his judgment, but he could not accept this.

“Enemy ‘mechs make safe withdrawal is impossible. I—”

Abruptly the jump jets of the Quasar came to life. Kalen cut himself off as his fingers tensed over the controls which would launch his defensive systems, but the Ethaoin ‘mech was receding from him, the jets carrying it down the far side of the hill and away from Kalen.

Simultaneously a second channel came to life on the com-unit.

“Ethaoin Crusader in retreat,” Robert’s voice echoed in Kalen’s cockpit. “Permission to pursue?”

Kalen hesitated for a moment. Then, “Negative. Return to base.”

“What?” Robert’s surprise mirrored his own.

“Return to Diamond Outpost. Kalen out.”

Kalen flicked Robert’s channel off and then spoke again, “Diamond Outpost, I am returning to base.”

He turned his Red Wolf around. He wanted some answers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My major influence in writing this was Robert Thurston’s Jade Phoenix Trilogy. I was given copies of the trilogy when I visited the Westfield Comics warehouse in the late ’90s and it remains one of my favorite pieces of pulp fiction. (Westfield Comics was the way I used to get my monthly comics as a kid: They’d mail you a catalog. You’d fill out an order form of everything you wanted. And then a big box full of amazing things would arrive on your doorstep. They’re still around and they’re still great people. But I digress.)

My original notes for the novel also include this gem: “It should be a running joke for at least the first few chapters that each chapters starts with ‘WHAT?!’ Kalen asks it in the first chapter, Natasha in the second, and finally Giles in the third.”

(I was apparently also enamored with spelling the word “maneuver” as “manuever”. I’ve corrected it here, but I’m guessing it didn’t exactly endear my pitch to the FASA editor, either.)

Common misconception: It’s not accurate to say “roll the dice” when you’re only rolling a single die. It would also be inappropriate to say that you’re rolling a single dice.

Actually, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, this isn’t true: First, the singular use of “dice” is recognized as correct.

Second, The singular “die” dates to 1393. The singular use of “dice” dates to 1388. So, technically, the singular use of “dice” is actually older than the singular use of “die”.

Furthermore, the plural use of “dice” only dates back to 1330. So, essentially, both “die” and “dice” have been used interchangeably as the singular form of the plural “dice” since Day One.

While I’ve got you thinking about dice, though, you might as well check out the “Dice of Destiny” article I wrote back in 1999.

This is one of the dumber things I’ve written. It’s a proposal I wrote to FASA for a Battletech novel at some point between 1996 and 1998. The reason it was dumb is that I was trying to carve out my own little niche of the Battletech universe when, with the benefit of age and hindsight, I can see that there was zero chance that FASA would be interested in doing that.

The reason I’m posting it here is because it was obliquely referenced last month when I talked about the AlterWorlds project that resulted in the creation of The Human Concordat. I mentioned that one of the subsequent AlterWorlds would have been “an insolated planet in the Mechwarrior universe”. My plan had been to repurpose the planet Callashan, described below, into an AlterWorlds setting.

SYNOPSIS

When General Kerensky performed his dramatic Exodus from the Inner Sphere, prompting the beginning of the Succession Wars, he was not alone in his horror at the fierce partisanship which had grown among the members of the Star League. A group of colonists from a conglomeration of worlds formed a coalition which headed into the Periphery in an attempt to escape the madness of the growing Succession Wars.

This group, unlike Kerensky, sought not to return in glorious triumph to reform the Star League, but rather merely to survive in peace far from the power mongers of the Inner Sphere.

In pursuit of this goal they settled a planet they would come to call Callashan, and for a long time the dreams of these colonists were met. Callashan was a world of peace. The memories of the War they had left behind slowly faded as the years passed, and the future looked to be a bright and hopeful time.

But as the memory of War faded, so too did the warning it provided. After nearly three hundred years of peace the world of Callashan began to politically fracture. Now three feudal kingdoms exist (the Houses of Alcrom, Gaos, and Ethaois), each vying for control of the world with the power of the BattleMech.

The story of The Double Helix focusses upon Kalen, the greatest hero — the “Helix” — of the House of Alcrom. In an attempt to form an alliance between the House of Alcrom and the House of Ethaois, Kalen has been betrothed to Natasha; the Helix of House Ethaois.

The marriage, however, will be anything but simple. The leaders of the two houses argue over where the marriage be held… and when… and how. The bride- and groom-to-be have not only never met each other, they have tried to kill each other dozens of times upon the battlefield. The House of Gaos will do anything to prevent the marriage from taking place, including killing and destroying anybody and anything involved.

And if the marriage is this much fun, just imagine what the honeymoon will be like.

CALLASHAN

The advantages of the world of Callashan are numerous, particularly if it were to ever be translated into a setting within the BattleTech or MechWarrior game systems. Because it is isolated and secluded (Callashan has lost the Dropship technology necessary to leave the planet) Callashan would make an excellent stand-alone product.

Callashan also has a potential as a “beginner’s intro” to the BattleTech system and universe: without becoming fully immersed in the history of the Succession Wars, the Exodus, the Clan Return, and all the other innunendo of the main BattleTech universe a player can become comfortably familiar with the ‘small’ world of Callashan before expanding.

Other possibilities of future expansion would include discovery of Callashan by the Explorer Corps project — possibly mistaking the world for one or more of the Clan homeworlds.

But what is Callashan?

Before delving deeper into the plot of The Double Helix I feel it’s important to explain a few things about the local politics, the important people, and the current social structure of the world of Callashan.

Callashan was formed as a Free Colony to escape the terrors of the Succession Wars — following the example of Kerensky, several small colony worlds near the Periphery picked up lock, stock, and barrel and rode out into the unknown in search of a new home under the leadership of a man called Callashan (hence the planet’s name).

Callashan ruled as the first king of this new world, but he died without heir, and a primitive feudal structure was left in his place — a struggle between the houses of Alcrom, Gaos, and Ethaois (the three planets which had first settled this world) for supremacy.

Callashan had not wanted to see war visited upon people who had struggled so long and hard to avoid it, and so he instituted a championship. Each house was to nominate its greatest BattleMech pilot — their Helix — to the Triple Helix, a round-robin competition held once every five years. The house whose Helix emerged victorious would claim the crown for the next five years, when a new Triple Helix would be held.

But kingships are not meant to be prizes, and so, inevitably, this system collapsed beneath petty feuding. The competition of the Triple Helix was moved onto the battlefield. Nonetheless, the position of the Helix still holds tremendous power and respect within the new governments.

Note: Over the years Callashan’s Mechs have developed away from the standards. Therefore, those Mechs whose names are still the same will often be ‘tweaked’ from those currently owned by the Inner Sphere powers. In addition many new Mechs are also present.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

Kalen – Kalen is the hero of our little tale. Kalen is one of the best Helixes in the history of Callashan. He is about 25, sandy-haired, well built and a generally likeable guy. He is also a demon in the cockpit. He feels great respect for, and has a paternal figure in, Lord J’hon (see below).

Natasha – The heroine of The Double Helix, and also the daughter of Lord Optun (see below). Natasha is the youngest to ever achieve the Helix rank. Only 18, her Mech skills are exceeded only by her firery temper. She has olive-skin and dark hair, and serves the House of Ethaois faithfully.

Kenneth – Our primary villain, the Helix of the House of Gaos. In the most classic of traditions where Kalen is “one of the best”, Kenneth is the best. This of course means that by the end of the story Kalen will have barbecued this guy in this cockpit. Ken is extremely talented and about 19 years old. But he’s also a jerk, impatient, and generally immature. He also whines too much. He’s coddled and favored by…

Lord Dysim – Current ruler of the House of Gaos. He puts up with Kenneth, because, on the whole, Kenneth is a superb Mech pilot. House Gaos is the most powerful of the three houses, due in large part to the secret technological programs initiated under Dysim’s reign of power. However, Dysim is also a cruel, corrupt, power-mongering individual. He’s married to…

Lady Eve – Lady Eve is not exactly a “sharp cookie”. She’s easily dominated by her husband, and he cares little for her — she has failed to produce an heir, and is therefore worthless to him. She plays an exceedingly minor role in this novel. In fact, so minor, she has managed to utterly slip off the synposis below.

Giles – Is Kalen’s engineer. Actually he works with the entire Alcrom Helix Guard, but he and Kalen are also the best of friends. He serves…

Lord J’hon – The current ruler of the House of Alcrom. J’hon has taken no wife, nor does it appear he is going to. However, he took Kalen under his wing after the youth’s father was killed in a Mech (his mother having died several years earlier in a cockpit as well), and Kalen is the current heir. He is the mastermind of the marriage which The Double Helix focusses upon, and he’s worked for months with…

Lord Optun – Current ruler of the House of Ethaois, to get the whole thing worked out. Optun, while originally hesitant about the plan, has now welcomed it with open arms. Natasha is his daughter, and with Kalen as the sole heir of the House of Alcrom the two houses will be united under a common rule within a generation. Lord Optun is about ten years younger than Lord J’hon (mid-40s) and is married to:

Lady Julia – Who is generally optimistic about everything… even if the world is about to come to an end. Natasha can’t stand talking to her, usually with good reason. Finally we come to her son,

Prince Andrew – Who is pretty much exactly where he wants to be. He’s slightly younger than Natasha, but still acts kinda like a “big brother” to her.

CHAPTER BREAKDOWN

Chapter One: Kalen is on the field, commanding his Alcrom Helix Guard against a raid of a supply depot by the forces of the House of Ehaois. The battle goes very well for Kalen and his unit, but as final pursuit for destruction of the incursion is about to commence he is ordered back to base. Upon returning to base he demands an explanation for why he was not allowed to finish his assault, particularly as he was about to confront the Ethaios Helix. By way of his explanation he is told of the engagement to Natasha for the first time. Although the truce is “official” both powers have yet to inform commanders, which is why the encounter happened at all. He has just enough time to ask something to the effect of, “Wait, go over that again…” before Chapter One Ends.

Chapter Two: “WHAT?!” Natasha is a little less calm when confronted with the news from her father and mother. They argue for several minutes (this gives us ample time to introduce several political elements of the planet). Natasha then goes off to seek counsel from her brother, Andrew, and they talk for several minutes. At this point we’re no longer totally certain if Kalen is ever going to come back again, so…

Chapter Three: Kalen goes to Giles, his best friend and mechanic, and tells him the as-yet unreleased news of his engagement. They talk for awhile while Giles conducts repairs on Kalen’s mech (or at least some of the Mech’s in Kalen’s group). Also introduced during this time period is Giles’ assistant, David, who becomes crucial later on in the plot.

We now cut to House Gaos, where Kenneth is speaking to Dysim. He’s somehow discovered the marrriage alliance (through a spy — who is actually David, but that isn’t revealed until later to the reader).

Chapter Four: Natasha is onboard the transport shuttle taking herself, her father, her mother, and Andrew to meet Kalen on a border outpost between the areas controlled by the two houses. She’s sullen, and nobody’s attempts to cheer her up succeed. After a couple pages of sullenness a bomb goes off crippling the shuttle which proceeds to crash.

Cut to Kalen and J’hon waiting at the outpost. News comes in of the shuttle’s crash… plus Gaos Mechs are on their way towards the area. Kalen clambers into a mech himself and is off to the rescue.

Cut back to Natasha in the wreckage. Well, it’s not really much of a wreck. Everybody’s shook up, and the shutttle is defenseless and certainly not going anywhere, but no one’s dead (as we quickly ascertain). She takes instant control, organizing everybody and calming people down.

Back to Kalen, who lumbers over the hill and down to the shuttle. He loads up the four people in the shuttle (Natasha, Optun, Julia, and the pilot) into his own cockpit as best as possible. He completes this just as the Gaos mechs come plowing into sight. What follows is an action-packed, multi-page sequence of a running chase betwen Kalen (who is drastically outnumbered) and the Gaos mechs. Kalen is little aided by Natasha’s constant exclamations of advice.

Of course he is eventually successful at getting within range of a sufficient back-up force to scare the Gaos Mechs off, and the chapter ends on a happy note.

Chapter Five: The official “first” meeting of the betrothed couple takes place as planned. Afterwards, everybody gets together and talks for awhile about the mutual future of the two houses, the stunning rescue by Kalen, and other pieces of stupid trivia which is absolutely boring Natasha (from whose perspective this section is told) to tears. She doesn’t like what she sees in Kalen, which is just as well because…

Kalen thinks pretty much the same as she does, as we switch to his perspective for the remainder of the session. He and Natasha are never left alone, and barely speak to each other. In the end, after much argument a plan is laid for the official announcement ceremony, and farewells are spoken.

Finally we cut to House Gaos where we are treated to Kenneth carefully weaseling his way out of responsibility for the failure to successfully complete the sabotage the House Ethaois transport.

Chapter Six: This story switches POV between Kalen and Natasha rapidly, telling of a dual raid by the Gaos on both House Alcrom and House Ethaois. The chapter begins with Kalen talking to Giles, then receiving word of the raid. Our first contact with Natasha is in the cockpit of her Mech shortly after that as she attacks the Gaos forces. This is basically a straight-out battle chapter. The gaos forces are pushing towards two security compounds (one for each House). Natasha successfully prevents the breach of her compound, but Kalen fails to protect his.

Chapter Seven: The official ceremony of the betrothed couple is committed — it is broadcast across the territories held by the two houses. Afterwards Natasha and Kalen have their first real opportunity to speak to each other in length and alone…. it doesn’t exactly take well. They’re at each other’s throats. They control their tempers quickly, however, when their Lords enter, but they aren’t thrilled to hear the next piece of news: Kalen is to accompany Optun, Natasha, and the rest of the Ethaois diplomatic party back and tour their security measures.

When they arrive in Ethaois, however, the tour is cut short by news of a second Gaos attack along the border — again the intended target appears to be the security compound. Kalen suits up with Natasha and they’re off again. (Although this looks awfully close to the last combat sequence, there’s a lot of actual character development between the two.) In addition to their viewpoint, we also follow the Gaos Elemental Leader as he leads his strikeforce into the security compound and withdraws the files needed before blasting out. Although Kalen and Natasha (and Natasha’s Guard) fight hard, they’re too late to stop the extraction (although they take out a good number of Gaos Mechs).

During the end of the fight, however, Natasha’s Mech is seriously damaged and she is forced to eject — Kalen saves her life by attacking a mech preparing to destroy her ejection seat. At this point Kalen begins to analyze how he really feels about her.

Chapter Eight: In the aftermath of the battle Kalen and Natasha begin discussing what the purpose of the raid was. Kalen knows his security compound was also harboring secret research into a next generation of mech, and Natasha also knows that her compound was being used to test new satellite spy equipment. After a bit of brainstorming they realize the only common element between the two compounds was the fact they were security compounds: Meaning the probable target of extraction was the area battle sheets used by the two houses.

Kalen needs to get back to Alcrom and warn his people, and Natasha warns her father.

Chapter Nine: Now the fun starts and the plot starts speeding up. When Kalen tries to board his shuttle, he is denied access by a guard. He is forced to knock out the guard and forcibly take off from the Ethaois compound.

Meanwhile, Natasha has reached her father who is in an uproar about Kalen’s “escape”. Natasha is confused.

It turns out that Optun had no intention of actually going through with the marriage. Instead the entire purpose was to lure Kalen to the Ethaois compound, trap him, and then ransom him for a considerable gain of power and territory from the House of Alcrom. Natasha is disgusted… if nothing else, Kalen saved her life, and now she discovers that she has been utterly deceived by her own parents.

Kalen, for his part, is madly flying towards the Alcrom border. He is being pursued by Ethaois aerofighters, but — after several tense moments of aerial acrobatics — he manages to cross his border and be joined by Alcrom aerofighters who force the Ethaois fliers off. When Kalen arrives at the main Alcrom compound he is greeted by the news that Gaos has begun a full scale assault upon the Alcrom border. J’onn has sent to Optun for assistance, but has been refused. Kalen decides he must have been mistaken about Natasha after all, and that the whole situation was a part of some sick ruse.

The situation on the front is bleak — Gaos has used the battle sheet tactics stolen from the security compound to breach the normal patrols, and they are striking deeply into Alcrom territory — their apparent target being the Alcrom central compound. Kalen is heading out into the thick of things.

Chapter Ten: Kalen leads his men into the battle, and over the course of the chapter they are slowly decimated by the Gaos forces. The chapter ends with Kalen in a nearly hopeless position with his men dropping around him like fleas.

Chapter Eleven: The cavalry rides in — taking the form, in this case, of Natasha and the Ethaois Helix Guard. She’s rallied her loyal soldiers, ignored her father’s orders, and come out to aid House Alcrom. The battle rages on, now switching POV between Natasha and Kalen. They become separated as things begin to look worse and worse for House Alcrom. Kalen is eventually faced off by Kenneth and two other Mechs of House Gaos. Kalen fights a slowly losing battle, destroying one of Kenneth’s supporting mechs, but Natasha (again) shows up in the nick of time to wipe out the second supporting mech. They win the day, signalling a turning point in the battle of House Alcrom.

Chapter Twelve: House Alcrom emerges victorious. Kalen and Natasha return to House Alcrom. Natasha has been disowned by her father, her Helix status cancelled, and the other warriors in her guard decommissioned. Kalen and Natasha face their true feelings for each other, and the book concludes in a glorious ceremony which names Natasha an Honorary Helix of House Alcrom (another first for her) and recommissions her warriors as House Alcrom soldiers.

FUTURE PLANS

The Double Helix ends in such a way that no sequels are necessary. If such sequels are requested, however, they are easily provided. Kalen and Natasha do go on to unify Callashan, but shortly after their reign begins new trouble looms: The Explorer Corps have found the planet; the Inner Sphere has returned.

Go to Part 2: An Untold Novel’s Beginning