A great day out!

Last Sunday, Kirsten and I headed to Fremont to ride the Niles Canyon Railway. We first booked this when we thought we'd be forced to leave the area, but it worked well as a distraction from the reality of cancer treatment.

We were lucky enough to book a trip pulled by their 1909 steam engine named "Snookum." This section of the railway was part of the original transcontinental railway and appeared in Charlie Chaplin's "The Tramp." Snookum was very impressive up close.

Niles Canyon is one of the hidden gems of the Bay Area, and we spotted hawks, a deer, and a possible gopher. I used to take any excuse to drive the canyon when I was with Lord & Sons, so seeing it this way was a treat.

Kirsten enjoyed it and made a new friend in the gift shop. We also passed their sideyard, filled with cool stuff, including a U.S. Army engine and tender. The Army still has about 200 soldiers with the 88U MOS Railway Specialist, an Army Reserve-only job field.

It was a great day and just the right thing for us.

Campaign seeds are everywhere.

I've been reading an excellent biography of Theodora of Byzantium. Daughter of a bear-tamer, mime, actress, and courtesan, she rose from the lowest ranks of society in Constantinopolis - beggars and actors - to become possibly the most politically astute female co-ruler in the long history of the Roman state.

It's a great book, but what prompted me to post is a story that came later in her life, shortly before her death. Theodora was a lifelong monophysite, believing that Jesus had only one divine nature. This contradicted the prevailing church teaching that Christ had two natures, fully human and fully divine. Monophysites were primarily found in Egypt (forerunners of the Coptic Church) and in the Syrian provinces. Their views and clergy were suppressed regularly.

This led to a frantic petition being brought to the palace by the king of the Ghassanids, Christianized Arabs. They no longer had bishops, and most of their priests had been killed or driven off by orthodox Christian leaders.

Theodora arranged for a deposed Patriarch of Alexandria to install a Syratic-speaking monk as Bishop of Edessa. Edessa already had a bishop, but this was all done in secret. Jacob, the monk/bishop in question, is described in the most heroic terms. Brilliant, the strength of an athlete, charismatic as all get out.

Jacob went to work, traveling at night with a small band of guards; he crisscrossed the Syrian provinces preaching, converting, and consecrating priests. The legend says 80,000 of them, but no matter the actual number, the church branch Jacob founded survives today as the Syrian Orthodox Church.

To me, this would be an excellent basis for a fantasy campaign. The player-characters are that small band of guards escorting this holy man around. He might be a reformer preaching against the corruption of the church or the empire (or both!). He might preach against excess wealth, or how elves and dwarves are people too, or he might be a long-rumored Prophet.

That's the pull. The push is the church, and probably the empire hunting you down. Of course, someone keeps setting up safe houses and meetings with sympathizers. Who is this mysterious patron?

A game like this would work best as an episodic campaign. Remember the "hero on the run" shows? Every week the hero would come to a new town, encounter some plot, and resolve it just as the pursuers show up. That kind of thing, but not as cliched. You'd also have daring escapes, accidental revolutions, actual wars, pirates, and all the other joys of life in Late Antiquity to deal with before we add fantasy elements.

I'd probably go with a low magic/distant gods setting here. This is gritty as the sand in your sandals, and too much magic ruins the feeling.