Here's another excerpt of mine from a past issue of my zine AGE OF
MENACE, reprinted (with some changes) from the December 1997 issue of
A&E, which includes a Pulp Campaign Idea, "Captain Hades and the Fictioneers".

Enjoy!

::Brian::

SOME THOUGHTS ON MYSTERY PULP HEROES

Copyright 1997,1999 Brian Christopher Misiaszek

I've pondered about several ways to work around the shortcomings of a
"Mystery Hero" pulp RPG campaign. On possible solution I’ve come up
with would be a common mystery persona shared by all the PCs, who then
rotate in and out of this masked public role. Such a technique would
provide alibis for each person who temporarily assumes this secret
public role, allows for the shared mystery hero’s career to continue
despite hospitalization or incapacitation of individual characters, and
drives crooks batty trying to figure out how the masked hero can be in
two places at the same time.

There is some precedent for this in the pulps themselves, notably in
Norvell Page's SPIDER series (writing under the alias Grant
Stockbridge), where the hero is most often millionaire playboy Richard
Wentworth. However, on various occasions, both his chauffeur Jackson
and his soul-mate Nita Van Sloan have donned the dark mantle and guns of
the Spider to play this part whenever Wentworth needed an alibi when
being suspected of being the Spider. Heck, in one issue, the Spider was
supposedly *killed*, only to have his corpse be unmasked to reveal
Jackson (who curiously reappears alive again several issues later with
no explanation given!). In another issue--"Hordes of the Red Butcher"--
where Wentworth is on death row in prison because of a frame-up, Nita
dons the garb and guise of the Spider and proceeds to terrorize the
underworld, ruthlessly killing off several of gangland's worst
representatives. She even blasts Wentworth free from jail with high
explosives, thus proving that the female is the deadlier of the species.

For an example of such a pulp RPG campaign which would have a rotating
role for the key “Mystery Hero”, I present the following. Enjoy!

CAPTAIN HADES & THE FICTIONEERS

The FICTIONEERS is a unofficial club created by and for a number of the
freelance writers of the pulps living in Capital City, USA. When not
pounding out stories of blood and thunder on gasping typewriters or
wrestling with their pulp muse, they hold weekly gatherings in a
disused aircraft hanger, part of a mothballed army airport located just
outside of town. Qualification for membership in the Fictioneers include
having published a story in at least three different magazines, and in
at least two different genres. An appreciation for the finer merits of
card-playing and hard liquor is also mandated. For that’s the real
reason for the club, a chance to get together a bunch of jaded pulpsters
and typewriter jockeys for some much needed R&R by playing poker,
hoisting a few glasses, and swapping stories, ideas, gossip about
editors, and so on. The current and founding members of the Fictioneers
reads like a “Who’s Who” of greats of the detective, scientifiction,
hero, weird and shudder pulp fields, and includes the authors that hide
behind pseudonyms for such famous series as “Rip Valentine, alias the
Black Heart”, “The Insidious Dr. Umbra”, “Cardiac Jack, Jungle
Detective”, “The Wisp” and “The Magic Bulleteer”.

One day, suddenly faced with the disaster of a leaky roof in their
clubhouse and the dismayingly large size of the repair bill, the
Fictioneers decided to use a “novel” approach to save the home of their
weekly poker game. Why not let the club members come up with a story
which they could sell to an agreeable magazine, and use the proceeds to
pay for the repairs? In the course of an hour, they came up with their
idea for a serialized adventure hero, “Captain Hades.” On a battered
Smith-Corona, they typed up the following character conception, and
pinned it over a dart board in the room:

“Allen Blake, alias “Captain Hades”, is a hero with a dark past, a
former pulp villain turned good-guy. In the past he had been an acrobat,
master spy, forger, cracksman, bank robber and jewel thief. His
trademark appearance was a masked man in a quasi-military uniform done
up all in glossy black; at the scene of each of his crimes he would
always leave a black card with the words “Yours truly, Captain Hades.”
engraved on it in silver ink. Shown the error of his ways due to the
love of a special woman, he has completely reformed his crooked ways.
In addition, he has volunteered his services as a special agent for the
US Government, using his genius for criminal and his extensive contacts
in the underworld into a brilliant force for smashing crime. The
underworld is completely unaware of “Captain Hades’” change of heart,
and his superiors in the Govt. help maintain the myth of his villainy
by attributing fictitious crimes to him in releases to the press. Under
his co-command is a body of reformed ex-criminals, skilled experts in
many a field of sneaky endeavor who have turned away from crime as a way
of life. Captain Hades is also aided by his co-partner, Vivianne
Smythe, the tough and beautiful government detective who tracked him
down and incidentally became his soulmate.”

According to the plan, each Fictioneer would write a chapter of the
Captain Hades story in turn, where at the end of the chapter the hero is
left at a cliffhanger or deathtrap. The next writer in turn, without
cheating (and without knowing what the previous author had in mind for
the dramatic ending), would extricate the hero using his ingenuity and
skills from their close shave, continue the chapter, and then leave the
hero in *another* dire predicament and then pass the story onto the
next writer, and so on around the writing circle until the story
concludes itself. There was a general story plot to follow, so each
writer in the circle could very quickly deliver the goods on their
segment of the story. The plot itself generated using the Plot-O-Matic
random tables method (a “cheat” device sold in the back pages of some of
the pulps magazines of the day), so as to not encroach on each of their
own personal and highly honed formulas, as well as being a common ground
all could agree on using. As a final touch, they settled on the
nom-de-plume of Lester Kirk as the author of the collective story.

To the surprise of all the Fictioneers, the very week after coming up
with the concept of Captain Hades, there appeared a masked man in a
jet-black military uniform who appeared on the scene of a jewel robbery
and thwarted the thieves by firing a few rounds from the machine gun
held casually in his hands at their feet. The police later found the
crooks handcuffed to their roadster parked outside of the jeweler’s;
under the wipers of the car was a black card with--surprise!-- the words
“Yours truly, Captain Hades.” printed on it in white script. Over the
subsequent weeks, other incidents of such crime fighting by the
mysterious “Captain Hades” was reported enthusiastically by the press in
Capital City.

Only the Fictioneers had known about this character concept and name
adopted by this lone wolf of justice; the stories hadn’t yet been
published yet! The members of the Fictioneers eyed each other warily,
trying to guess which member was the heroic masked crime fighter. Was
it the pulpster who had been a Pinkerton operative in his earlier days?
The telegraph-operator turned treasure-hunter turned aviator? The
two-fisted amateur boxer? Jinkies! all of the Fictioneers had a past
whose experiences where consistent with the exploits of this *new*
“Captain Hades.” Who could it be?

The secret was finally revealed one dark and rainy night. While
gathered for one of their weekly meetings, and wondering what was
keeping one of the Fictioneers, the tardy pulpster finally arrived. The
door to the hanger burst open and in he staggered clutching his arm.
After croaking out the words, “The Skull! Save the Professor!”, his
eyes suddenly rolled up and he collapsed in the doorway.

He was wearing a rain soaked black military uniform, with a darker
stain seeping from his clutched arm. A black mask, slipped askew under
his chin, was also visible.

The others rushed to his aid, and removed his costume, revealing a
nasty gunshot wound and a fractured forearm. After first aid was
administered, the man regained consciousness and told his story. Yes,
he had been Captain Hades over the last few weeks. Stimulated by the
character concept, and restless to get some real experience about
crime-fighting which he could turn into pulp prose, he took on the
role. Much to his surprise, he found he liked the charge he got out of
acting out the role, helping people and wielding justice. The excitement
and adventure was addictive!

Only now he was now in over his head. He had heard vague references
about a person or thing known only as the Skull, who was behind a string
of ghastly murders in Capital City. A strange power or device that
stripped the flesh off the living, leaving only the ivory grin of
death. Those who paid the “insurance” demands of the Skull lived; those
who did not died horribly as the flesh bubbled and blebbed away. The
costumed pulpster had nosed around a little in the waterfront district,
noticed some funny business going on with one of the docked freighters,
and when he investigated, found himself captured by thugs who turned out
to be the Skull’s men. While tied up, he overheard some talk that ran
chills up and down his spine. Apparently, the next ghastly crime was to
be performed that night at midnight, on a university professor who was
too close to the heart of the Skull’s secret power. They also had an
unnamed spy located in Police headquarters, who would alert them of any
raid or plan against themselves. Even more chilling, he learned the
Skull’s men were planning to kill him, Captain Hades, with the
Flesh-eating ray, and hurl his boney remains in front of City Hall as a
threat to the Mayor to cough up more dough or else!

With a strength and ingenuity the pulpster didn’t know he possessed,
he managed to get away from the gang, only to be shot up in the process
of diving into the harbour. Exhausted, he managed to make it to shore,
more dead than alive. He knew he couldn’t help the Professor in his
damaged condition, and he couldn’t inform the police without alerting
the gang through their spy and having them disappear without a trace.
He decided to go to the Fictioneers for help, knowing their candid
approval for the good deeds of Captain Hades. Could they help?

The Fictioneers could, and did. Working from the information overheard
by their injured friend, they consulted city maps, dug up some flak
jackets and service weapons from some stores at the abandoned army
airport, and made their plans. They decided the sight of the supposedly
dead Captain Hades would be somewhat unnerving to the Skull and his men,
so they drew lots to see who would take on this role temporarily. The
winning and grinning) Fictioneer donned the drying costume of Captain
Hades, while the rest of the band who would accompany them wore masks.
Arriving before midnight, they managed to ambush the Skull and his men,
successfully turned the device against the mad inventor himself,
converting him into his very namesake. The survivors of the gang they
left tied up for the police to find, who told to the authorities a
chaotic story about Captain Hades returning from the grave to work his
revenge. The newspapers went mad with their lurid coverage of the
story.

Quickly finishing their original story proposal only a week after the
real events (with a fast substitution of “The Skull” whenever their
villain’s name appeared in the Fictioneer’s original story) led to a
smashing sell out of the first issue of “Captain Hades”, and the
surprise issuance of a very lucrative long term contract with the
publisher. Thrilled by this dual success, Fictioneers pledged to use
their abilities and talents to support the role of Captain Hades. Not
only would they continue writing the adventures of Captain Hades, they
would on a rotating basis take on the role of the costumed hero to
thwart evil on the streets of Capital City, taking the load off the
“original.” A roster/schedule was made up for when and who a
Fictioneer would take on the role of this weird avenger of justice.
This would provide the chance for the other Fictioneers to continue on
with their own lives and literary duties, with the remainder providing
back up support and alibis for the role when needed. In addition, the
magazine sales and radio spin-offs would pay for the upkeep of the
character of Captain Hades, paying for the multiple costumes, labs, and
other necessary equipment of this hero.

After all, the stuff that dreams are made of can be pretty expensive
indeed...

If you enjoyed this writeup, please drop me a line at brian_misiaszek@yahoo.ca.