Martian Cities Schematic Map

One of the many projects I started and stoped work on over the past decade was an interactive map of the Martian cities. A map that shows distances which allows a GM to estimate how long a trip will take. A zoomable map covering every city, canal, and junction connected by the full network of established canal and caravan routes, with a built-in route distance calculator that reports a real travel distance between any two locations you specify. The result is this schematic map. Feel free to bookmark it, it's the kind of thing I hope you'll want to come back to next time you're planning a route.

Why this map needed to exist in the first place

This whole thing started because of a practical problem. I needed to know how far it really was from Syrtis Major to Melas, in the Belgian-controlled Coprates region, so I could calculate how long a canal or caravan trip between them would take, for an adventure scenario.

That sounds like a five-minute question. It wasn't. I tried working it out from Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds first, and it turned out to be genuinely difficult. The large-scale published maps of Mars are perfect for getting a feel for the Space: 1889 setting, but they're not built for pulling a real mileage figure off of them. At that scale, the gap between "a few days' journey" and "a multi-week expedition" can come down to a couple of centimeters of map, measured by eye, with no reliable way to convert that gap into an actual distance. And that's before you even account for the fact that a flat map distorts distance depending on where on the globe you're looking. I kept taking rough ruler measurements that didn't agree with each other, and I couldn't tell if that was my measuring or the map itself lying to me.

The place to start was Dan Thompson's merged map, the one that stitches Mars's three separately-published face-maps into a single continuous reference (used here with his permission, and with real thanks to him for it, since none of this happens without that head start). Even with that in hand, my first approach was just holding a ruler up to a printed copy. That led to the idea of overlaying a coordinate grid instead of eyeballing it. That led to realizing Photoshop would handle the grid better than graph paper would. And that led to the actual idea behind this whole tool: record real X/Y coordinates for every city and canal, and use them to build something closer to a subway map, one that could report a real distance between any two points instead of just showing a pretty picture of the terrain.

So this map and its Route Distance Calculator exist to answer that kind of question properly. Name two locations and get back a real, trustworthy distance, grounded in actual spherical geometry instead of a guess pulled off a fold in a poster map. Syrtis Major to Belgian Coprates, without traveling through Oenotrian territory, was the very first route it was ever asked to solve. Of course, the players decided to take a "shortcut" through the desert, off the established canal and caravan routes, and this map handled that too (although not necessarily the encounters they'd find along that uncharted route).

Here's how it actually pulls that off.

Every flat map of a round world tells a small lie

You can't peel an orange and lay the peel flat on a table without it tearing, stretching, or bunching up somewhere. The same is true of any map of a planet. There's no way to flatten a curved surface without distorting something: distance, area, shape, or direction. Every map projection ever made picks which one to sacrifice.

This Mars map uses a projection called Mercator, the same style Gerardus Mercator invented in 1569 for European sailors. Mercator's genius was realizing that if you're steering a ship, the one thing you can't afford to distort is direction. A straight line on the map needs to match a constant compass heading in real life. To pull that off, Mercator projections sacrifice distance instead. They stretch the map more and more as you move away from the equator, so regions near the poles end up looking much bigger on the page than they really are. It's the reason Greenland looks the size of Africa on old classroom wall maps, when in reality Africa is about 14 times larger.

The distortion is exact, not random

Here's the part that matters for our purposes. Mercator's stretching isn't a fudge or an approximation. It follows a precise mathematical rule tied directly to latitude. That means the distortion can be measured exactly at any point on the map, and if you can measure a distortion exactly, you can undo it exactly.

That's what happens behind the scenes here. Every city's X/Y position on the flat map corresponds to one specific true latitude and longitude on the Martian globe, the same kind of coordinates you'd use to pinpoint a city on Earth. When the map calculates a distance, it doesn't just measure a ruler-straight line between two dots on your screen. It first translates both points back into their real latitude and longitude, then calculates the distance the way navigators and airline route-planners have for centuries: as a great-circle distance, the shortest path between two points measured along the curve of the sphere, not across a flat page.

A simple way to picture it: imagine Mars as an actual globe sitting on your desk, and you stretch a piece of string taut between two pinholes marking two cities. The string wants to lie along the globe's curve, not cut straight through the inside of the planet. That string's length is what our calculator is measuring, not the distance between the two dots as they happen to appear on your flat screen. Two cities that look widely separated on the flat map, especially near the poles, can turn out to be considerably closer together in real terms than that flat-map gap suggests.

Why this actually matters, with real numbers

This isn't a minor technicality. If you simply measured distances with a ruler on the flat, uncorrected map, you'd overestimate the true distance by about 14% on average. For city pairs at high latitudes, where Mercator's stretching is most severe, the flat-map measurement can run as much as 62% longer than the real spherical distance.

Take Dioscuria and Aryn, two real cities connected by an established caravan route. Dioscuria sits well north of the equator. Aryn sits almost right on it. Measure the gap between them on the flat map using a single uniform scale, and you'd call it about 1,939 miles. The actual spherical distance is 1,732 miles, so the flat reading overstates the trip by 12%. Nothing about the caravan route itself changed. The correction is purely in how the two points' positions get translated back into real latitude and longitude before the distance is measured along the globe rather than across the page.

The effect shows up just as clearly in a tight cluster of cities as it does over a long haul. The Boreosytris League (Meroe, Coloe, Umbra, and Saardaar) sits far enough north that the four cities are more tightly packed in reality than the map lets on. Add up the four established canal legs connecting them (Coloe to Meroe, Meroe to Umbra, Umbra to Saardaar, Saardaar to Coloe), and the true spherical distance comes to about 327 miles total. Read those same four legs off the flat map with a uniform scale, and you'd get roughly 498 miles. Every leg is overstated by 49 to 56%, because all four cities sit at nearly the same high latitude and get stretched by almost exactly the same amount. The League is a noticeably more compact, easy-to-defend cluster of cities than a glance at the map might suggest.

The upshot

Every mile shown on this map, whether you're reading a single route's length or adding up a multi-leg caravan journey in the Route Distance Calculator, is a real, spherically-corrected distance, calibrated against Mars's actual equatorial circumference. The flat map is just the display. The geography underneath it gets treated as the sphere it actually is.

Some notes about the map itself. I have attempted to eliminate any of the anomalies introduced in the original Conklin's maps. In particular, a few cities have different names on different faces (so I have chosen one name for consistency) and where one face showed a canal or caravan route that was missing on a connecting face, I opted to be inclusive. Finally, I made the assumption that the ruins indicated on the Conklin's maps were located along the paths of the ancient canals, rather than out in the Martian deserts. If you find something that I may have missed, please feel free to drop me a niote or leave a comment here and I'll do my best to rectify the map.

Happy gaming!

Bennet Burleigh (1840-1914)

Bennet Burleigh

BURLEIGH IS the Syrtis Major correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, a leading London daily, posted to Mars just as his paper once posted him wherever the Empire went to war. Scottish-born, he fled to America as a young man, fought for the Confederacy, was captured, escaped, and rode with a raiding party against Union shipping on the Great Lakes before the law finally caught up with him and sent him home in disgrace. He remade himself as a journalist and spent the better part of a decade following British arms through Egypt and the Sudan. He watched the campaign of '82 unfold from the canal works outside Ismailia, and three years later he was attached to the Desert Column on the Nile when Burnaby flew Gordon out of a besieged Khartoum by aerial launch, an escape that saved one man's life but neither the city's nor the column's. He does not consider himself a sentimental man, but he has watched enough relief efforts arrive after the fact to recognize the shape of the problem before anyone else in the room does.

Burleigh files fast, files first, and is not above petty sabotage to keep a rival correspondent's dispatch off the wire behind his own. He has no patience for Colonial Office caution and even less for a good story spoiled by a cautious editor, but he is scrupulously accurate about facts he can verify himself, having learned the hard way that a correspondent's whole worth is his word.

Reporter (Veteran NPC)
Att.		Skills
Str:	3	Fisticuffs: 2, Throwing: 1, Close Combat 2 (edged weapons)
Agl:	3	Stealth: 2, Marksmanship: 2 (pistol)
End:	5	Wilderness Travel: 4 (desert), Fieldcraft 3, Tracking 1
Int:	5	Observation: 5, Science: 1 (geography)
Chr:	4	Eloquence: 5, Linguistics 3 (Arabic, French, Spanish), Theatrics 3, Bargaining 3
Soc:	3	Riding: 3 (horse), Piloting: 1 (aerial flyers)
Motives: Ambitious, Adventuresome, Ruthless
The correspondent on a battlefield. Appearance: Burleigh is a stocky, weathered man in his late forties, thick through the shoulders from decades of campaign living, with a heavy mustache gone mostly grey and a Glasgow burr that thickens when he is angry or excited. His hands are permanently ink-stained, and he carries a battered dispatch case everywhere, along with a revolver he has owned since his American days and has no intention of surrendering to peacetime habits. His campaign clothes are practical rather than fashionable, patched more than once, and he shows no self-consciousness about it in company that would notice. He has a habit of watching a room's exits before he watches the people in it, a leftover instinct from a young manhood spent one step ahead of Federal patrols. When he smells a story, he becomes suddenly, disarmingly charming, a quality that has gotten him into headquarters tents closed to every other correspondent on three worlds. Background: Prior careers include soldier of fortune and journalist. Bennet Burleigh is 49 years old and is from the middle class

A View from the Bridge

It has been, by my own count, roughly a dozen years since the last of these editorials went up. I owe you an explanation, and a bit of an apology, for the silence.

Real life did what real life does. Work took over more than a few years. Family responsibilities piled up the way they tend to. And somewhere in the middle of all that, Paleotechnic Press went quiet, even though I never actually stopped working on it. I kept drafting articles, kept researching canon, kept reading through period material, kept sketching out scenarios and supplements, but I never had the stretch of time needed to finish anything properly or get it uploaded. A half-finished blog post is worse than no blog post at all, so I just let the drafts pile up in folders instead.

Then, this past year, I moved into a new home in Syracuse, New York. As anyone who has packed up a house knows, moving has a way of forcing you to confront every box you have been avoiding for a decade. I found several of mine, stuffed full of old notes, printouts, and half-finished manuscripts, sitting in the back of a closet. Some of it I remembered writing. Some of it I did not. All of it deserves better than a cardboard box.

So here we are again. I finally have the time to work on (and hopefully finish) some of what I started, and, this time, to actually publish it. My plans are deliberately modest, because I have learned my lesson about biting off more than I can chew. That said, after digging through the boxes and sorting the salvageable material from the scrap, some upcoming efforts will include:

1. Finalizing the Mars city route calculator, an interactive distance-finding tool I have been quietly building alongside everything else.
2. Finish and post the pieces that are furthest along, starting with articles related to a Martian railway venture as well as a Sky Galleons of Mars battle report, scenario, and short story.
3. Continue work on some old adventures that were parts of a campaign that I ran back in the day. One is a trilogy set on Venus, another is the middle chapter of a three-part campaign arc that grew out of Canal Priests of Mars, and a Wild West adventure that sends Buffalo Bill's touring company to Mars.
4. Get back to a regular posting schedule, real-life permitting.

Space: 1889 itself has not exactly stood still while I was gone. In fact, the most recent development landed right as I was writing this. Strange Owl Games, working under license from Ulisses Spiele, is currently running a BackerKit campaign for Space 1889: After, a full conversion of the setting to 5th Edition rules. Rather than rehash the old ground, "After" jumps the timeline forward a decade and puts players in the role of explorers rediscovering the inner worlds fresh, with new threats, new playable species, and a premium offset-printed rulebook to go with it. The campaign is already well past its funding goal and closes on August 7th, for anyone who wants to back it before then. I clearly have a good deal of catching up to do, and I will save a proper look at how "After" squares with the classic canon for a future post.

To anyone who bookmarked this site a decade ago and just never got around to un-bookmarking it, thank you for your patience, whether you knew you were being patient or not. To anyone new, welcome aboard. Either way, happy gaming.

~Joe

Hot Off the Presses...

EXTRA, EXTRA!!

According to the German Space: 1889 website, Raum 1889, we can expect a Kickstarter, sometime in 2015, for a new version of Sky Galleons!

The reported plan is to release both German and English versions of the rules (at the same time) in a boxed set with both Martian and British ship models in the box (so it sounds similar to the original, GDW version, of Sky Galleons of Mars).

The post also mentions that the rules will be based on the classic game, but a "big" update will be introduced as well. This is excellent news, and look forward to future developments on the project!

A View from the Bridge

Another month has cruised by and it is Halloween, where does the time go? At any rate, for this All Hallow's Eve edition of Paleotechnic Press' editorial page, I thought I would post short reviews of two, "new to me," RPG source books that I have recently acquired. But first, in "breaking news…" yesterday Chronicle City announced that their Space: 1889 reboot is now available as a download from DriveThruRPG (for those of you who missed the Kickstarter). The PDF looks very nice, but I prefer printed material (I know, I am so nineteenth century) so I will save my review until I get the physical book.

In the meantime, this past month I did receive a copy of Flying Machines of the Worlds 1902: Aerial Vessels for the Hive, Queen and Country Universe (©2012, Aerolyth Enterprises) from one of its authors, Terry Sofian. Flying Machines is a supplement to the Stars of Empire RPG. SoE postulates a Victorian world of 1894 where the colonial powers vie for control of the planets beyond the earth. If this sounds a bit familiar, that is because Sofian is also a fan of Space: 1889. Despite the high level similarity, there are several significant differences between SoE and Space: 1889. First, and foremost, is the existence of "The Hive." In SoE, the Hive is an extra-planetary organism threatening humanity's existence, and it serves as both a peril and a back-plot for the story arc of the entire game. The second big difference is that in the Hive, Queen, and Country universe (HQC) the timeline begins to diverge in the 1700s and Terry has spent a great deal of time postulating the effects of those changes over the course of the game's 150 years of "past future".

Flying Machines of the Worlds is one of several supplements to the basic SoE game. This particular supplement is truly a tome, weighing in at 256 pages! Written by Arun Rodrigues and Sofian, Flying Machines advances the Hive, Queen and Country timeline to 1902 when the state of aerospace technology has progressed significantly beyond what we traditionally see in the 1889 world. From the book's introduction:

The people of Hive, Queen, and Country have been flying since the 1860s, and had mechanical computers since the 1830s. By the 1900s aircraft have been designed for 40 years, and computation has advanced the state of the art by another 5-10 years. Thus, the ships of the 1900s are in many ways more advanced than the aircraft of the late 1930s...

The Flying Machines book is divided into 3 main sections. The first several chapters of the book provide background on the HQC world, but the bulk of the book is taken up by the ship designs and illustrations in the second section. The authors have detailed each ship in much the same way that Fred T. Jane detailed naval vessels in his series of "real world" books. Flying Machines is profusely illustrated, every ship class is represented by a number of different isometric views; perfect for modeling. The designs fully occupy 180 pages and there are ships of every size and type.  The types are broadly broken down into aerolyth (a elemental, anti-gravity, discovery), Fredrickshaven (lighter than air), and Cayley (dynamic lift aircraft) flyers. The book's last section includes the referee's "eyes only" information and a chapter on modeling an aerolyth flyer. The authors' attention to detail is commendable and the book is chock full of information. The ship designs are plentiful and many can be used with with Space: 1889 and/or Aeronef with little, or no, modification. Because of the later time frame postulated in Flying Machines (and the advance of technology) the ships would certainly be useful in any dieselpunk, or even pulp era, game settings as well. In fact, anyone interested in turn of the century aeonaval/SciFi, warfare will find Flying Machines a treasure trove of ideas.

The second supplement I picked up this month is Miskatonic University Library Association's Secrets of the Congo (©2009, Chaosium, Inc.). The book is a perfect bound, glossy-covered, book. The text of the supplement is a setting for classic 1920s Call of Cthulhu, although as the author suggests it may played in a Pulp or Gaslight Cthulhu style (ie with more heroic characters and improbable escapes). This volume is 134 pages with maps, handouts and photographs, in addition to the text. The book is well laid-out with clear text and quality illustrations.

This monograph is, first and foremost, a scenario campaign set in the Congo with additional information, rather than a sourcebook with adventures attached. The main scenario hook is that one character's uncle has gone missing in the Congo. He may have found something wonderful, or perhaps not, but if the uncle can be proven dead, a large inheritance will pass to the character. The first section of the monograph details the geography, biology and anthropology of the Congo, as well as the state of the country where the investigators find themselves. Notably, the text is sprinkled with quotes from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The quotes help to reinforce the backdrop of the Belgians colonial control of the area, but also the decrepit state of the colony. The text also provides some optional rules that will allow Keepers to resolve large scale battles (mass combat).

In addition to the primary scenario, seven Congo adventure seeds, two pages of useful notes for running the adventure, seven sample characters, and ten pages of handouts are also presented in the monograph. The final three pages of information in the book detail commercial flying operations in the 1920s, including factual information on flying boat use throughout the world.

Secrets of the Congo is equal parts Joseph Conrad, Indiana Jones, Stanley and Livingstone, with some Lemuel Gulliver thrown into the mix. It is a useful reference for any gamemaster, but I believe the background information will be particularly useful for an Earth-based Space: 1889 campaign. Production and content-wise Congo is a solid monograph, and despite its (relatively) high price (which may possibly be explained by the quality of the publication), it is a worthwhile addition to your game library.

The reviews out of the way, what is on tap for Paleotechnic Press next month? I have several articles queued up for publication. In no particular order, an interesting historical article on "future" naval warfare, another NPC, as well as several more old Space: 1889 articles, that I hope you will enjoy…meanwhile, as always, happy gaming!

~Joe

Look up in the Sky!

NEW VARIANT RULES FOR SKY GALLEONS OF MARS

Players of GDW's Sky Galleons of Mars aerial combat game who feel they have mastered the game might want to consider using the following supplemental rules to cover situations not anticipated by the original game.

NEW MOVEMENT RULES

HMS Aphid vs. Hullcutter, by James Colton McGonigle, ©1988 

These rules are intended to add some uncertainty to the tactics of the game, and thereby simulate the often unpredictable nature of high-altitude battles.

Screw Galley Sprints: A player commanding a Martian Screw Galley may elect to have his ship's turncranks do a "sprint" during one movement phase. To perform a sprint, the player rolls a die and divides the result in half (rounding all fractions down). The resulting number is the additional number of movement points gained by the ship for this turn. The next turn, the ship may only use half its normal movement points (round down). A ship can only sprint once per scenario.

Boiler Overloads: British players can attempt a similar technique using a steam flyer's boilers. At the start of his movement, the player declares he is overloading the boiler, rolls a die and consults the following table:

Boiler Overload Table

1:	Boiler Explodes (see Critical Hit table).
2:	Boiler Damage; speed reduced by 1. (as with Boiler hit damage result, this speed reduction only lasts one turn)
3:	No Effect.
4:	Add 1 movement point.
5:	Add 2 movement points.
6:	Add 3 movement points.

(A player may use this option as often as he likes.)

Updrafts and Downdrafts: Winds do not only blow horizontally; there are often powerful currents of air pushing a ship up or down. This can sometimes be useful, other times devastating. At the start of each ships movement, roll a die. If the result is 6, then that ship has encountered an updraft or a downdraft. Roll again and consult the following table:

Draft Table

1:	Strong downdraft. Roll a 1 or 2 to avoid losing one altitude level.
2-3:	Downdraft. Roll a 1-4 to avoid losing one level.
4-5:	Updraft. Roll a 1-4 to avoid climbing one level.
6:	Strong updraft. Roll a 1 or 2 to avoid losing one altitude level.

When rolling to avoid changing altitude, Kites always add 1 to the die roll. A player may always elect not to roll; this means changing altitude without the expenditure of movement points. Note that each ship may also climb or descend to counter the effects of wind currents - unless the trim gear or engines are out of order.

High Martian flying parties and English marines aboard Throckmorton Conveyers will also be affected by updrafts and downdrafts. Because they are smaller, they are more vulnerable to the wind. Roll normally to see if flying parties encounter updrafts or downdrafts, but they are automatically affected if those winds exist. On a 1-3, the winds blow the fliers up one altitude level; on a 4-6, the winds blow the fliers down one level. Fliers blown into the ground roll one die for each individual in the party - on a 1 or 2 the individual survives. Any Throckmorton Conveyers blown into the ground are automatically damaged and cannot be used even if the passenger survives. No flying parties or conveyers may be lifted above Very High altitude.

NEW COMBAT RULES

Martian Pole Mines: The Pole Mine is a new device, created by Oenotrian shipbuilders desperate to overcome the superior British vessels. It is nothing more than a standard Drogue Torpedo mounted on a long pole in front of the vessel. The vessel makes its attack as if intending to ram the target vessel, but the impact triggers the pole mine before the ships collide. A Pole Mine does damage to the target like a Tether Mine or Drogue Torpedo. The attacking ship suffers no damage, but after the mine detonates, the attacker must roll normally to avoid colliding with the target ship. As with other ram attacks, the target may attempt to evade a Pole Mine.

The Pole Mine is intended to be mounted on small, fast screw galleys, analogous to the torpedo boats of Earth's oceans. Only a single Pole Mine can be mounted on a vessel, and once triggered, it is gone. Weight: 1 ton; cost £25; Crew: none.

High Martian Sabotage Parties: High Martian flying parties can perform other jobs besides simply boarding enemy ships. One flying party in a given scenario can be designated by the High Martian player as a specially-trained Sabotage Party. The Sabotage Party can attack the rigging of kites, the propellers of screw galleys and steam flyers, and the rudders of any craft.

The party must be in the same hex as the target when attacking, and and the player must state what component is being attacked. He then rolls a die. On a 6 the party does one die worth of damage to that component. If the crew quality of the High Martian is Crack, then the sabotage party does damage on a 5 or a 6.

Mutiny: High Martian screw galleys use slaves as turncranks. Under certain circumstances, these slaves may to revolt and take control of the ship. Each turn, before the Movement Phase, the High Martian player rolls a die for each screw galley under his command, and adds the following modifiers to the roll:

Mutiny Table Modifiers

+1	for each enemy boarding party aboard;
+1	for each Critical Hit the ship has suffered;
+1	if the High Martian ships are outnumbered;
-1	for each High Martian officer aboard;
-1	if the enemy is outnumbered;
-1	if the ship is on fire.

The player then consults the following table:

Mutiny Table

1-7:	No effect.
8-10:	Turncranks refuse to crank. The ship has no movement Points this turn. Roll again normally next turn.
11+:	Turncranks rebel. They are organized into Boarding Parties of 10 men each, under the control of the enemy player.

Each group of 10 can inflict 1 die of casualties on the officers and gunners, following usual combat rules. Once all High Martian on board have been defeated, the rebel-controlled ship will attempt to leave the map. The revolt can be put down by the High Martian player if half the rebelling turncranks are killed, or if the enemy in the battle is defeated. If the rebellion has been put down on a High Martian ship, then there will be no more mutinies aboard that vessel during the battle.

Note that the High Martian player need not begin rolling until his ships have started suffering casualties. These rules could also be used to determine the behavior of captured merchant ships controlled by privateers but crewed by prisoners.

Notes: These rules can create some interesting tactical situations. For example, the Sprint rules mean that even relatively slow Martian screw galleys have a chance of closing with faster British steam ships, to board or ram. The wind rules make scenarios amid the mountains especially tricky. Pole Mines are a way for small ships to do significant damage, and are cheap enough for any ship to mount. The High Martian rules are particularly appropriate in more role-playing-oriented scenarios, such as the Great Raid, or in a Sky Galleons campaign game (inspiring the slaves on a High Martian screw galley to revolt would look marvelous in the pages of the London Times ).

About the Author

James L. Cambias is Chief Game Architect at Zygote Games. Jim began writing games in 1990, and worked for Game Designers' Workshop, Steve Jackson Games, HERO Games, and Iron Crown Enterprises before joining Zygote. He is also the author of the SF novel A Darkling Sea, and the forthcoming Corsair (Tor Books, Spring 2015)

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by James Cambias, ©1991. This article originally appeared in issue #10 of The Game Oracle. It is used here with the permission of the author.

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Heros von Borcke (1835–1895)

Heros von Borcke, in Germany, after the American Civil War.

Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke is known as the "giant in gray." Born to an aristocratic German family, he spent his childhood in Berlin and Halle before receiving a Prussian military education. Von Borcke was commissioned an ensign in 1853 and admitted to the Cuirassier Regiment of Guards as a cadet. He was then posted as second lieutenant to the Second Brandenburg Regiment of Dragoons in 1860. After obtaining a leave from the Prussian Army, he embarked upon the adventure of his life; sailing for Bermuda, intent on joining the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

Speaking almost no English, von Borcke managed to secure letters of introduction to Confederate authorities, and slipped into South Carolina's Charleston Harbor via a blockade runner on May 24, 1862. He next traveled to Richmond, where he met with Confederate Secretary of War George Randolph, who presented him with a letter of introduction to Major General J.E.B. Stuart.

A deep friendship developed immediately between the two men, and von Borcke was made a captain in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States and later promoted to the rank of major. Von Borcke could be entertaining and told wonderful stories with his thick accent. His horses were as big as his extra-long sword, a beast of a blade forged in Solingen of Damascus steel. He rode with Stuart, who affectionately called him "Von," during the Northern Virginia and Maryland campaigns, acquiring a reputation for bravery. He served with Stuart in the Battle of Middleburg on June 19, 1863, where he suffered a severe wound. The examining doctor somberly declared the wound, which pierced the lung, mortal -- but von Borcke woke up the next morning determined to live, and he did. Placed on limited duty for the remainder of the year, he resumed his position on Stuart's staff in the spring of 1864. Heros was present at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, where J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded, and von Borcke sat at Stuart's deathbed, holding his hand, and promised to see after Stuart's widow and children. Von Borcke was promoted to lieutenant colonel in December of 1864, was voted the official thanks of the Confederate Congress, and sent on a diplomatic mission to England by President Jefferson Davis.

While in London, he wrote articles for the pro-Confederate Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. The articles were later collected and published in book form as Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence. When the Confederacy collapsed in 1865, von Borcke returned to his native Prussia and resumed his military career. He fought in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, receiving the coveted Order of the Red Eagle for his gallantry, but his old wounds continued to plague him, so he retired from the Prussian Army as Captain in 1867.

Von Borcke had three sons with his first wife, Magdalene Honig. When Magdalene passed away in 1883, he married her sister, and they had a daughter named Karoline Virginia -- named in honor of his adopted, and beloved, southern state back in America.

Even after the war, von Borcke's maintained a deep affection and respect for the Confederacy. So much so that unsuspecting visitors to East Prussia are often surprised to see the Confederate flag flying (next to the Prussian flag) from the battlements of von Borcke's ancestral estate in Geisenbrugge, Pomerania. In 1884, he returned to the United States for a reunion with many former friends and comrades, and presented his famous Damascus sword to them. The sword was later given to the State of Virginia.

Von Borcke is an aristocrat of some means, with a bent for adventure, meaning he could be encountered nearly anywhere in the solar system -- wherever the German flag is flown. However, his poor health (the result of his Civil War wound) makes Mars' dry climate and lower gravity an attractive option. His sympathy for the Confederate cause means that he may also be encountered wherever a Confederate expatriate community exists.

Army (Veteran NPC)			Lieutenant-Colonel Heros von Borcke
Att.		Skills
Str:	4	Fisticuffs: 4, Throwing: 2, Close Combat: 4 (sword)
Agl:	3	Stealth: 2, Marksmanship: 2 (pistol)
End:	2	Wilderness Travel: 3
Int:	2	Observation: 1
Chr:	5	Eloquence: 5, Language: 1 (English)
Soc:	5	Riding: 5 (horse), Leadership: 2
Motives: Adventuresome, Arrogant, Eccentric
Appearance: With curly blond hair, laughing eyes, and an engaging personality, von Borcke has an imposing presence. By nineteenth-century standards, he is larger than life, standing six feet four inches in height and weighing in at well over two hundred forty pounds. His stature, personality, and social status make him popular among his peers. However, he can also be a bit vain and difficult to get along with at times, especially for his servants. Although he recovered from the wounds suffered in 1863, neither von Borcke's physical strength nor his endurance fully recovered (having been Str: 6, End: 4 as a young man).

Victorians and their Dogs

The Nineteenth Century ushered in an age of devotion to the dog. In fact the saying “man’s best friend” is traced to a poem printed in The New-York Literary Journal in 1821. Queen Victoria exemplified this devotion and loved her animals, in particular her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Dash. The Queen commissioned many paintings of Dash, as well as her other dogs, these paintings lead to the rise of "dog art" and in particular portraits of pet dogs. Paintings by specialists like Arthur Wardle and Maud Earl, became "must have" items for the well-to-do merchant and aristocratic class home.

In fact, in some ways, no Victorian home was complete without at least one canine. The animals were symbols of wealth and status during Victoria's reign. Some dogs even had their own maids who fed, groomed and kept them clean. Popular lapdogs included the Schipperke, the Skye Terrier, the Yorkshire Terrier, the Maltese and the King Charles Spaniel. Dogs like the Jack Russell Terrier, that were too large to fit comfortably in a lap, were used for fox hunting and were also considered fashionable companion breeds. The Newfoundland, a gentle giant, was beloved for its docile yet protective nature, becoming “nanny dogs”, thanks to their love and devotion to the family’s children.

A focus on breeding, and "pure bred" lines, started during this time period, and several modern breeds originated in the 1800s. However the emphasis on breeding for aesthetics allowed less desirable traits, such as propensity for diseases, to pollute many genetic lines. Despite that fact, when Victorians began to value their dogs both as companions and as partners, the press for the humane treatment of the animals began, a trend for which the Queen would be proud!

DOG-BREEDING ESTABLISHMENTS, ZAHNA - SCHWEINTZ - ANABURG Gold and Silver Government and Societies Medals Awarded. Permanent Exhibition Sale at Schweintz, District Merseburg, stations Jessen-Holsdorf, Berl.-Anh. Railway, of always upwards of 100 superior Dogs such as Ulm, Danish, English, Mountain, Newfoundlands, Mastiffs, and Pet Dogs. For the forthcoming hunting season I beg to offer thoroughly trained, also rough, Hunting, Pointers, Terriers, and Greyhounds, who can be brought to Zahna, a station between Leipsic and Berlin, over my extensive hunting-grounds, by my own huntsman if required. Illustrated Price-Lists, with 50 Illustrations, in the German, French and Dutch languages, with full particulars respecting breed, qualities, and description, with references to well-known sportsmen in all parts of the world, sent free and post paid on application. My Album of 50 various Dog breeds, which have been awarded a first prize, and containing directions as to care, breeding, treatment, and training of the Luxury and Hunting hound, is to be obtained for 10s. Address for letters and telegrams, OTTO FRIEDRICH, Zahna, Prussia.

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A "hat tip" to the Aurora Regency blog's Kristin Burlingame, for her Dogs in Victorian Times post.

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Martian Thunder Jugs

A heavy thunder jug on a naval mount.

The Martians, like eighteenth century Earthmen, developed short smoothbore cannon that fire heavy shot for their weight. These cannon can throw their projectile only a short distance, but it arrives with shattering impact. On Earth these weapons gained fame as "carronades." On Mars they are known as "thunder jugs."

Thunder jugs have never enjoyed the widespread acceptance of their terrestrial counterparts . Short cannons can never match the range, accuracy or penetrating power of their longer bored cousins. At most ranges they are inferior to them. if however a ship armed with long guns can be lured into carronade range, the short guns will quickly decimate it. Light-weight weapons mean more bangs for the ton, with more hits. Since each hit has the same chance of causing damage, the more hits the better. The average damage value (DV) per ton of weapons and rate of fire per DV are also higher with thunder jugs, giving a ship armed with a larger number (but identical weight) of them the ability to batter a long-gunned opponent to splinters.

The light thunder jug behind a bulkhead.

Short cannons appeal most to armed ships whose primary business is not warmaking. The small crew sizes and simplicity of operation of thunder jugs means that a merchant skipper can hire less crew and waste less time in training. This, coupled with their range and penetrating power limitations, have meant that historically that thunder jugs have most often been met with aboard armed merchant kites that are interested in defense. Most kites mount but a few jugs. However, some Warm Winds-class ships have been seen with up to ten of the heavy thunder jugs on each broadside. The small size of the weapons also make them easy to conceal. More than one pirate has been obliterated by a hail of carronade shot as it came alongside what it thought was easy prey. To players this will mean that a Martian merchant kite will be able to carry impressive short range fire power, enough to fend off machine gun armed European privateers. The next encounter your players have with a Warm Winds out of Crocea might be more bloody than anticipated. A broadside of grapeshot from a battery of thunder jugs is enough to make even the heartiest of Red Captains consider a safer occupation.

Martian Thunder Jugs

Weapon	Wt	Pen	Dv	ROF	Crew	Rng	Cost
Light	10	0/0	2	1	1	0/1	200
Heavy	20	1/0	3	1	2	1/2	400

About the Author

Terry Sofian describes himself as a generalist in a world of specialists. He has worked as a genetic engineer, in disaster preparedness and homeland security management, and in health, safety and environmental compliance for hospitals, nuclear waste cleanup sites and numerous industry clients. He has had a novella, Blackwater Ghosts, published in Weird Tales and several non-fiction pieces in The Coast Artillery Journal and Warship International. His current projects include the Steampunk/Victorian Science Fiction setting of Stars of Empire, also known as Hive, Queen and Country. Using Black Pigeon Press' incredibly adaptable Hacktastic game engine allows players to adventure in an altered Victorian era, facing threats from both Earth and Off-World. He lives in the Midwest with his amazing wife Shannon and has an extremely bright daughter Kelly.

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by Terry Sofian, ©1993; this article originally appeared in Transactions of the Royal Martian Geographical Society, Vol. 1, No. 7. It is used here with the author's permission.

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French Ironclad Colbert

The central battery ironclad Colbert is one of the ten ships of the French navy that constitute the group ranking next in importance to the squadron of great turret ships, of which the Formidable is the largest. The group consists of six types, as follows:

274mm cannon in the armoured section of a Colbert class
ironclad, by Gustave Bourgain, circa 1885. 

1. The Ocean type; three vessels; the Marengo, Ocean, and Suffren.
2. The Friedland type, of which no others are built.
3. The Richelieu type, of which no others are built.
4. The Colbert type, of which there are two; the Colbert and the Trident.
5. The Redoubtable type, of which no others are built.
6. The Devastation type, of which no others are built.

Laid down in 1870, the Colbert was launched at Brest in 1875, and her sister ship, the Trident, in 1876. Both are of iron and wood, and the following are the principal dimensions of the Colbert, which apply very closely to the Trident: She is 321 ft. 6 in. long, 59 ft. 6 in. beam, and 29 ft. 6 in. draught aft. Her displacement is 8,457 tons, her indicated horse power is 4,652, and her speed 14.4 knots. She has coal carrying capacity for 700 tons, and her crew numbers 706. The thickness of her armor belt is 8.66 in., that protecting the central battery is 6.29 in. thick, which is also the thickness of the transverse armored bulkheads, while the deck is 0.43 in. in thickness.

the French ironclad war ship Colbert.

The Colbert-class was designed by Constructor Sabattier as an improved version of the ironclad Richelieu and they were the last ships authorized in the 1857 Naval Program. The class reverted to a single propeller shaft to improve sailing qualities and to lessen the chance of the propellers being fouled by fallen rigging. As central battery ironclads, their armament is concentrated amidships and consists of eight old 11 in. guns, two 9 in., six 6 in., four deck mounted torpedo tubes, and fourteen revolving and machine guns. Like most ironclads of their era, they are also equipped with a plough-shaped ram.

While the exact reason for such a prolonged construction time is not known, it is believed that reduction of the French Navy's budget after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and out-of-date work practices in French dockyards were likely causes.—Engineering.

html Technical Specifications:

Class	Year	MS	Ram	Spd	Hs	Blt	Bty	Blk	Trt	Deck	Armament
CBI	1877	35	Y	2	6	3	3	2	—	—	Bow: 1o9, A: 1o9, FS: 1o11, BS: [3o11], 3o6; DT-4, 14QF

click image for a PDF copy of the ship chart.