At heart, the setting revolves around the travels of Doctor Dee and Edward Kelley in Eastern Europe. The good Doctor spent a lot of time out in the darkest depths of the Habsburg dominions, perhaps seeking support for Queen Elizabeth in the face of increasing Catholic pressures and feints, perhaps not. It seems that Dee and Kelley spent as much time getting in trouble as anything else.

In a time when witchcraft remained a serious issue with serious repercussions for the practitioners, Dee and Kelley trod a very dangerous path. Kelley, frankly, seems to have been a bit of a fruitcake, and Dee altogether too readily fell for his line. Dee, a man in whom Elizabeth had a great deal of trust, himself trusted in the esoteric prevarications and augurous protestations of a medium and sometime necromancer.

In The Dee Sanction, the player characters make up a team of investigators under the tutelage and mentorship of Dee. Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, has a keen eye in matters of intelligence and espionage. However, even he cannot claim any great knowledge of matters supernatural. The only way to truly protect Elizabeth necessitates fighting fire with fire.

In spite of the laws of the realm laid down to punish users of magic – like the 1542 Act Against Conjurations and Witchcraft – Walsingham cannot promise true safety without magic of the light. Walsingham advises an adjustment to the legislation, the Dee Sanction, which allows the formation of an undercover unit tasked with seeking out witches, warlocks and demonologists intent on harming the Queen or his dominions.

The setting supports adventures in England, during the 1570s, and thence to Eastern Europe, in the 1580s. Originally, I had my eye on Bohemia and the city of Prague, but this now seems a little too close to the bright lights and riches of nobility. I have come to favour something a little off the ‘beaten track’ and set my Dragonmeet playtest adventure in northern Moravia, which lies to the east of Bohemia.

Now, I’m doing a little preparatory work for Seven Hills in April (just a little) and find my new adventure also set in Moravia, this time in the dark forest and ruined fortresses of eastern Moravia, on the border with Silesia.

In the summer of 1586, a body lies motionless in the grounds of St James’s Park. Servants and courtiers charge across the well tended grounds, the crack of gunfire still echoing in their ears. A crimson outline spreads from the torn and shattered body of Queen Elizabeth, and with the ragged gasp of her final breath the future of England dies with her.

Three years earlier, in the troubled east European border town of Kraznow, a young girl wracked with spasms and tortured by spirits tells of the bloody fall of England’s greatest Queen. Might her words, and the actions of the Dee Sanction, uncover a way to thwart this assassination before it even happens?

I’m personally very keen on this continued stretch in my understanding and appreciation of Europe during this period. I have, in the past, focussed heavily on socio-economic studies of Tudor England, so this goes some way out of my normal territory for reading. I’m always up for a challenge – and, I feel, setting the game in this area allows more leeway for game referees who might themselves have little grasp of the period. Distant corners of Europe, filled with dark forests and trackless mountains, might seem more ‘homely’ to those used to running more conventional fantasy games – and perhaps make the setting more accessible.

Looks like we’re still in the early stages of playing The Holy Wax Infant of Prague. Trouble has yet to brew as the stalwart seekers of truth and justice, in the service of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, her spymaster Francis Walsingham, and the all-seeing Doctor John Dee.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I need to provide a tight and informative intro to The Dee Sanction for my convention games. This is the current draft. It would also work perfectly well for a game system intro (or maybe the back page blurb).

You’re a member of a secret organisation. You have a remit for national security under Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham commands a network of intelligence agents and contacts. Few would guess Walsingham would recruit Doctor John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s infamous court magician.

Dee leads a team of operatives who investigate and apprehend cultists and dabblers in the dark arts. You’re a member of that team, but not out of choice.

Somewhere between conscription and penance, you work for Walsingham and Dee under duress. You have faint hope that you can use your talents to earn your absolution and release.

Those around you know something of your background, but know nothing of the darkness. You’re not a good person. You are not blameless. You have done bad things, read awful truths, and owe allegiance to beliefs that do you no favours.

You can see light at the end of the tunnel. If only you can outrun the shadows of your past…

Part of that needs to be the background to events. What’s happening, why, and how did your character get involved. This seems to cover the bases for the moment.

Given I’m running another playtest in a little over a week, I need to get this down, along with the focussed crunch overview. Pardon me if I think out loud.

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• Embrace the Dark Side

Complex 214 takes places in a world of dystopian certainty. Tales of a dystopia driven by fear, bureaucracy and a low level of life expectancy.

Born from vats, trained to fill roles with a minimum level of ambition and competency, you live to work and serve the community first and foremost.

You have been biologically force-grown to a purified and protocol cleared template – you will not have any Mutation.

You have been hypno-trained and edutainment led to work within your defined capacity – you will not have any cause to push or apply skills toward suspect and Unethical Ends.

You work hard all day, eat and relax all evening, then sleep through the allotted suspension cycle – you have no time to engage in suboptimal diversions or foster Secret Affiliations.

In The Dee Sanction, you serve as part of the travelling support for Doctor John Dee and Edward Kelley, as they voyage through eastern Europe.

In 1583, court spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham sent an adept gnostic team to Prague on a mission he didn’t commit to public record. These men journeyed through rough and heretic-infested lands engaged in a task of maximum-security in the defence of the realm from increasing Catholic-fuelled aggression.

Today, still engaged in secret activities for Her Majesty’s government, they survive as scholars of fortune. If you have a supernatural problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them… maybe you can hire… The Dee Sanction.

Both games include specially designed six-sided dice, displaying facets of storytelling intended to support interpretation of failure and success.

In addition, a deck of cards allows you to rapidly and secretively determine the motivations and special abilities that both differentiate and set your character at odds. Your ends and affiliations drive your success but may also kindle the pyre of your downfall. Beware!

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• Complex 214 – Pitch to My Group