A Spot of Tiffin

Tomorrow should be a very interesting day for Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks, as we're off to Hartlepool's Historic Quay for Tiffin on the Trinc!

Picture courtesy of IAIN, the International Association of Institutes of Navigation.

HMS Trincomalee is a beautiful old girl, with quite the history. A Leda-class frigate, she was actually obsolete by the time they'd finished building her, leading to her spending most of her life either mothballed or acting as a training ship. She is now the oldest British warship still afloat, thanks to her unusual teak construction (most warships of the time were made of oak).

Lovingly restored over the last twenty years or so by a charitable trust, you can imagine how excited we are to be running taster demo games on board this gorgeous ship, surrounded by fellow steampunks and probably quite a few bemused members of the public!

The historic quay opens at 10am, and Tiffin on the Trinc officially opens at midday, with legendary graphic novellist Bryan Talbot firing the noon-day gun. If you can make it along, we'd love to see you!

Time Flies...

It's been a busy old week here at the Cake Factory, with lots of social media promotion for the game, as well as the paper version making its debut on Modiphius Entertainment's stand at the UK Games Expo.

So far, there have been over a thousand downloads of our free preview version, and the full game was at No.6 in the download charts (I would make a Prisoner-themed joke, but it wouldn't quite work seeing as only the first full chapter of the game is free), and is currently sitting at No.33 in RPGNow's Top 100 games. Not bad after only a week, eh?

And last night, way after this humble author's usual bedtime, I was chatting to Dan and friends at the Harboiled GMshoe's Office about the game and its influences, the Victorian space race, dinosaurs as player characters, how to handle supernatural elements and whether or not you could play at superheroes with the system. Dan is a very gracious host, and asked some very challenging questions which I hope my sleep-addled brain managed to answer fully and coherently!

Drum Roll, Please!

If you're going to do something, it's best to make sure you do it properly. And I'm very pleased to announce that, after a few years of polishing, refining, and stalking some wonderful artists (in the friendliest way possible, of course), myself and Modiphius Entertainment are pleased to announce that Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks is available for your delectation and delight from those fine purveyors of all things gamery: RPG Now (click on this to go straight to its sales page).

With lovely artwork by his High Tea-ness, Dr Geof, additional squiggles by my good husband, Mr. Richard Hardy, and beautifully laid out by that dedicated gent, Mr Michal Cross, we do hope that you'll find the game as much fun to play as it was to write and test.

I'd also like to thank everyone who helped with that testing and supported us during the early days - I think I managed to get all of your names into the Acknowledgements!

Our Friends in the North

Well, actually, a scone recipe from the Hairy Bikers, Si and Dave, who are from the North and seem very friendly to boot. And its got a Canadian theme (sort of) with lots of lovely maple syrup. I'm putting up the recipe as is, but do beware with the liquid quantities - it can all go a bit gooey, so you might want to go a bit careful when it comes to mixing the wet and dry ingredients.

Cup conversions are courtesy of Delia Smith, and this recipe should make you about 12 scones.

300g (2 cups) self-raising flour
100g (1 cup) rolled oats (oatmeal/porridge oats)
100g (approx 2/3 cup) wholemeal flour
50g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
160g (aprox 3/4 cup) unsalted butter
100g (1 cup) chopped walnuts
125ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk
150ml (approx 2/3 cup) maple syrup

Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (350F, 180C)
Mix the self-raising flour, wholemeal flour, rolled oats, caster sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl
Rub the butter into the flour mix until it resembles fine breadcrumbs
Fold in the chopped walnuts
Pour the buttermilk and maple syrup into a separate bowl and mix thoroughly
Slowly add the buttermilk & syrup mix to the dry mix to form a dough
Roll the dough into a log shape and cut into 3cm (1.25") rounds
OR
Roll out the dough onto a floured surface to a depth of 3cm (1.25") and cut out the scones
Place the scones onto a greased baking tray
Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until risen and golden brown

Eat warm with butter and a nice cup of tea (or coffee)

Enjoy!

Cogs and Cookies!

In celebration of the fact that I finally remembered my password for the blog, we'd like to share a rather lovely cookie recipe with you. It’s taken from the back of a packet of Dove's Farm Organic Spelt Flour, and its quick and tasty (and actually quite Romanesque, what with the honey, cinnamon and spelt). Perfect for dunking (if you like that kind of thing), do enjoy!

Dove's Honey and Cinnamon Cookies

200g wholegrain spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
100g honey (we like Chain Bridge honey 'cos its good to support local suppliers)
100g sunflower oil

Preheat your oven to gas mark 5 (190°C or 375°F)
Place the spelt flour, baking powder, cinnamon, honey and oil all together in a bowl.
Mix until a dough is formed
Place teaspoonfuls of the dough onto an oiled baking tray. Make sure you leave room around each one for it to expand
Bake for 8-12 minutes, until golden brown

Mecha Chickens Not Included

When I'm writing for conventions, I often like to have scenarios that are linked to the place the game is being run. Lincoln was no exception and I did quite a bit of research to try and find a local hook for the story. Providence was again smiling because George Boole, the father of Boolean logic (and therefore of modern computing) was born in Lincoln and ran several schools there. The castle at Lincoln is also fascinating, having been used as a gaol during the Victorian period. And then, of course, there was The Lawn...
After a bit of cogitation, the seed for the scenario developed under its own steam. I also like to make sure that if I'm writing a detective style scenario, I have several people who could have done it. That way, I can reuse the scenario, giving it a slightly different twist each time. It worked very well for a scenario I used to run for Pelgrane Press at conventions; every time it aired someone different was the murderer, so you could actually play the same game more than once and still get something new from it. The Lincoln game was constructed to have three possible outcomes, all based on the same core background.

I ran the new scenario twice at Lincoln over the weekend, first for a group of experienced roleplayers and then for two newcomers (ably assisted by some more experienced hands we've gamed with for years in an LRP capacity). The version used for the first session was one of the two slightly more complex iterations of the story. There were quite a few technical challenges to running it that were beyond our control, but all in all it went well and proved that the idea was a sound one. The players quickly came on board with the system and seemed to thoroughly enjoy decorating their cakes before we got going. Not that the cakes had anything really to do with the story, but it was a fun thing to do (there was multi-coloured icing sugar, hundreds & thousands and silver balls!).

For the second session, I reverted to the first and much simpler version of the tale. The two young ladies who joined us were absolute naturals and really jumped into the game whole-heartedly. The technical difficulties of the day before were overcome by a change of venue and there was much hilarity, especially when the group decided that a well educated giant mecha chicken was probably responsible for all of the shenanigans in old Lincoln town. Well, that, or Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss. It wasn't, more's the pity, but it was a rather fun idea. Again, the group neatly solved the puzzle with minimum hinting from me.

The highlight of this game for me was that one of the young ladies wanted to set up her own group at home to play it because she'd enjoyed herself so much. You can't ask for more than that.

The Asylum

Some days it feels as if we're all living in one, but The Asylum is a fantastic steampunk convention that will be taking place in Lincoln over the weekend of 10-12th September 2010.

We'll be running Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks at the Asylum (possibly in a prison cell, no less!) on Saturday & Sunday afternoon. Each session will be for between 4-6 people. We'll also be selling a newly updated and expanded version of the game for a very measly sum at the Dicken's & Rivett stall (who will also be selling PixiePunk Designs jewellery). Jon Hodgson's wonderful design will be on the cover, lovingly tweaked by Terry Lightfoot.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that Saturday's game may also have an extra special touch to it. At the very least, I'll be baking something delicious to take along. After all, gamers (especially Victorian steampunk ones) need cake!