Welcome to 'Last Flight of the Albatross', a freeform game I will be running at Conjuration 2003, Cambridge.
The game first ran at Fallcon (Oxford) in 2001. This site provides game background for potential players (see links at top).
If you'd like to play, click here for details of how to SIGN UP!
Easter 1916. The German Zeppelin ZXIII, nicknamed Die Albatross in German Army Airship circles because of its unlucky designation number, finally left the safety of the Belgian shore and headed out along the Channel towards its rendezvous with fate. Two previous missions had been aborted owing to technical problems, and the crew prayed that it might be third time lucky.
Their commander, Baron Max von Carlshof of the German Army, had no time for such nonsense. The weather was clear, and a low easterly wind drove the huge ship over the Channel like a majestic bird, the summer sun playing warmly on the smooth seas below. It was a daylight raid, and the Baron took delight in explaining the workings of the ship, navigation, and the unfolding panorama to the two civilians who watched anxiously from the control car.
At 5pm, the ship slid gently over the English coastline, passing north between Portland Bill and Poole in Dorset. The craft had followed the Channel and the favorable wind for some time but now turned north-east, slowly creeping over the patchwork of green fields and sleepy villages below. Dorset, then Wiltshire, and finally, as the sun sank low over Salisbury Plain, the great ship began to lazily circle, lower and lower...
The correspondent of the London Times takes up the story...
Extraordinary scenes were reported from Wiltshire where a German airship crashed last night. Witnesses report that around sunset, a Zeppelin approached from the south-west, continuing north until it reached Old Sarum, where it dropped a number of bombs on the ancient hill. The craft then proceeded toward Stonehenge, spiraling inwards towards the monument at a height of less than 500 feet.
Local farmer John Applethorpe bravely attacked the craft with a shotgun, but the range was too great. The crew, gesturing frantically, cursed him loudly in German. The ship continued to rain down bombs, forcing Applethorpe to take cover after a German machine gunner fired on him from the forward gondola.
At 6:17pm, a sharp wind buffeted the Zeppelin, causing it to rise and spin. The crew screamed as the ship groaned and the metal girders flexed audibly. Moments later, a gout of flame flared from the tail, and the great ship plummeted to the ground, consumed by fire before assistance could be brought. By 10pm, the crash was the talk of Salisbury, with hundreds gathering to view the wreckage.
A company of soldiers arrived around 1am, collecting debris and removing the charred remains of the crew. While previous Zeppelin raids targeted London and ports, this raid seemed to serve no strategic purpose beyond terrifying sheep grazing on Salisbury Plain.
What, one wonders, did the ghosts of the Druids make of this fiery carnage?
Nonetheless, the recovery of the Zeppelin will doubtless be of great interest to the War Ministry, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill has already expressed his delight at the capture of this example of perfidious Hun technology.
JE, Salisbury.
Well, that is the story as far as you have seen it so far, from the crash three days ago. A wall of silence fell almost immediately, but the crash has been the talk of the town, and several pub ballads sing the praises of Farmer Applethorpe, who brought down a Zeppelin with his shotgun!
Now it seems a Society Baroness has been asked to host a top secret seance to discover the truth of what happened... so the players gather, and the game begins!