flames of freedom -- boston besieged -- preview

8/9/2019 Flames of Freedom -- Boston Besieged -- Preview

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"#$%#&'"($)(*(+ Welcome to Boston Besieged , the rst adventure in the F LAMES O F F REEDOM

campaign for C OLONIAL G OTHIC !

e material in this book is divided into two sections. Part 1,Boston, is a sour-cebook for Boston during the Siege of Boston. It provides information on historicalevents and locations, along with adventure seeds for further action in the besiegedcity. Part 2, Kings Gambit , sees the Heroes confront mundane and supernaturalthreats in the town as shadowy forces plot to weaken the Patriotsboth those lay-ing siege to the city, and those within it.

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If the group plans to play with newly-generated characters, they can be of any background. Patriots are arriving daily from all over the Colonies to take part in thesiege, and the Heroes journey to Boston can be abstracted with the action beginning

when they arrive.

If the group has already played A Surprise for General Gage , the adventure in theC OLONIAL G OTHIC G AZETTEER , they are already in the Boston area and have cometo the notice of General Artemas Ward. Since Washingtons arrival, Ward is second-in-command of the Continental Army and makes an in uential patron. Complet-

ing A Surprise for General Gage is not essential for playing theF LAMES O F F REEDOM campaign, but it does give the Heroes a good start.

If the Heroes have adventured together elsewhere in the colonies, their journey to Boston can be played in full, reduced to a succession of encounters along the way,or abstracted entirely, according to the whims of the GM and the preference of thegroup.


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Boston sits on the Shawmut Peninsula, which is connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and surrounded by the waters of Massachusetts Bay and Back Bay,an estuary of the Charles River. e rst settler in the area was William Blaxton(also spelled Blackstone), who moved to the area now occupied by Boston Commonin 1625.

Puritan colonists settled Charlestown, to the north of the peninsula, in 1629,and in 1630 they purchased land from Blaxton to expand their settlement. Initially called Trimountaine from the three hills on the peninsula, the town was later re-named after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, from which several prominent colonists

had emigrated.

e Cambridge Agreement of 1628, which the colonists had signedbefore leaving England, guaranteed that the Massachusetts Bay Colony would beself-ruling and answerable only to the King.

e settlement developed quickly. In the 1630s, the Massachusetts Bay Colony planted a number of settlements nearby. e First Church of Boston was founded in1630, and Americas rst public school, the Boston Latin School, in 1635. Harvard


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College, the rst of its kind in the American colonies, was founded the following year.

Boston continues to be ruled by Puritans, and their ethics and morality gov-erned all aspects of life in the growing town. For example, the wife of Captain James

Johnson was accused of adultery and dragged to the gallows, but subsequently re-leased. Her case may have in uenced Nathaniel Hawthornes novel e Scarlet Letter ,in which Captain Johnsons brother Isaac is mentioned. On June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer

was hanged on Boston Common for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers fromthe colony. She is considered to be the last religious martyr in North America.

Between 1636 and 1698, six major smallpox epidemics in Boston had caused asubstantial number of deaths. In 1775, the Cape Anne earthquake, estimated at 6.0to 6.3 on the Richter scale, caused serious damage in Boston and the surroundingarea. It is believed to be the largest earthquake ever to hit the northeastern UnitedStates. On March 20, 1760, the Great Fire of Boston destroyed 349 buildings.

e upper (inland) stretch of the Boston Post Road was laid out beginning in1673, connecting the town to New York and prominent settlements in Massachu-setts and Connecticut. e lower route passes through Rhode Island and hugs thecoast all the way to New York.

Boston grew to be the largest town in British North America, but has recently been overtaken by Philadelphia.

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As a major trading port, Boston su ered more than most towns from Acts of Parliament intended to bring the colonies under closer control. Riots were neveruncommon in the town, from the near-lynching of Captain Johnsons wife to therecurring Pope Day riots on November 5, the anniversary of the thwarting of theCatholic-backed Gunpowder Plot in England.


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Tensions rose as Parliament levied increasingly harsh taxes on the Coloniesto help pay for the Seven Years War (known as the French and Indian War inNorth America). Customs o cials were intimidated, and in some cases tarred andfeathered. In June 1772, the customs vesselHMS Gaspe was attacked and burnedin Warwick, Rhode Island.

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In 1765, a group calling themselves the Sons of Liberty hanged two tax collec-tors in e gy from a tree near Boston Common to protest the Stamp Act. e treebecame known as the Liberty Tree and became a popular meeting place. Groupscalling themselves the Sons of Liberty sprang up in other cities, spreading leaetsand handbills and calling meetings at Liberty Trees or Liberty Poles that had been

raised as landmarks. ey popularized the slogan no taxation without representa-tion.

In 1767, the Sons of Liberty adopted a ag with nine vertical stripes: ve redand four white. is is said to have represented the nine colonies who attended theStamp Act Congress in New York in 1765. Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, andNew Hampshire did not send delegates, and those from New York were delegatesof particular counties within the colony, not of the colony itself.

e Sons of Liberty were probably never as organized as the British (or somehistorians) supposed. eir leaders stayed in touch, but most Sons of Liberty wereonly mobilized locally as the need arose. ere were problems in preventing thecrowds who gathered from turning into violent mobs.

e Sons of Liberty, or people usingtheir name, were involved in the tarringand feathering of customs o cials, and

were said to have been involved in theBoston Tea Party as well as other pro-

tests. Among their leaders in Boston were John Hancock, Samuel Adams,Paul Revere, Benjamin Edes (the pub-lisher of theBoston Gazette ), and lawyer

James Otis, Jr. Hancock was also thechairman of the Massachusetts Com-mittee of Safety, which was formed in1774 and acted as a kind of provisionalgovernment. Among other powers, it

could call up a militia, with penalties formen who did not turn out.

Adventure Seed: Local leaders of the Sons of Liberty make ideal patrons for begin-ning Heroes up to 1774. e Heroes may be given a variety of tasks from setting up Lib-erty Poles to distributing lea ets to sabotaging British e orts to enforce unpopular Acts of Parliament. ey must avoid the notice of the British authorities at all times and must also


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deal with British attempts to in ltrate the organization and discover the identities of itsleaders.

Adventure Seed: Clever Heroes may become double agents, working simultaneously

for the Sons of Liberty and the British authorities.ey will have to feed both sides just enough information (or misinformation) to keep them happy and con dent in the Heroes abilities, and avoid the suspicion of both sides.

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Famous today as one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock was a Boston merchant who came into conict with the customsauthorities on two occasions in 1768.

In April two custom o cers (calledtidesmen) boarded his brigLydia without aproper warrant, and were thrown o the ship by his crew. Massachusetts Attorney General ruled that Hancock had broken no laws, to the frustration of the customsservice.

In May, Hancocks sloopLibertyarrived in Boston Harbor carrying a shipmentof Madeira wine. is time the tidesmen had the necessary paperwork, and foundthat the ship was carrying only one-fourth of its capacity. Suspecting that Hancock had hidden the rest to avoid paying duty (despite the fact that two tidesmen had

stayed on the ship overnight and attested that nothing had been unloaded), cus-toms o cials led two lawsuits. e Liberty was con scated and used for customsenforcement (before being burned by an angry mob in Rhode Island the following

year), and Hancock was charged with unloading the alleged missing cargo withoutpaying customs duties. He was defended by Boston lawyer John Adams, and the casedragged on for ve months before being dropped without explanation.

Adventure Seed: John Hancock hires the Heroes to recover the Liberty from the cus-toms service in Rhode Island and bring it back to Boston. Some of his missing cargo is still

hidden on board in a place that the tidesmen were unable to nd. A 1778 map of Rhode Island at Wikimedia Commons (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/ Rhode-island-map.jpg) will be useful to the GM in playing out this kind of adventure.

/)0*#$%&$'*1,%%,-20 e Libertya air prompted Parliament to pass more restrictive laws aimed at

curbing smuggling and bringing Massachusetts under control. Troops were sent tothe town and tensions with the colonists escalated.

e Boston Massacre started as a small a

air. On March 5, 1770, a wig-makersapprentice arrived at the custom house on King Street and asked for a Captain Lieu-

tenant John Gold nch, claiming he had an unpaid bill. Ignored by the sentry, the ap-prentice left and returned later with a group of friends. After an exchange of insultsthe group started throwing snowballs, and a Private White struck the apprentice onthe side of the head with a musket.

flames of freedom -- boston besieged -- preview

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