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Blackwood Gazette #99-New Empress Theatre to reopen its doors in Time for One Year Anniversary of its Destruction

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By Alex Grosset, Arts and Entertainment

13/4- Thousands are expected to gather in Oeil de Fleur to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony for the New Empress Theatre. The world famous Theatre burned down one year ago during a performance of Delando’s “Fires of D’Kalm D’Korr”.

The rebuilding of the theatre has been met with several trials and tribulations over the past year. First, the Council for Arts and Commerce had an internal debate over whether or not the Theatre should be rebuilt at all or instead be replaced with an outdoor market. This of course led to people questioning the logic of a Council of combined “Art” and “Commerce”. The Council was split in two, and the artists won out when the Academy of Alchemists and Alliterators, led by former alum Sir Rigel Rinkenbach, threw their weight behind the theatre.

The second setback came during the winter months, and the recent Blackwood shortage. While Nor Easter was relatively unscathed by the shortage compared to Crowndon, it only managed to maintain its level of comfort by halting any ongoing projects, including the rebuild.

Construction resumed in the early weeks of Second Month, after the Desantana Blackwood Conflicts sorted themselves out. Much of the construction was already complete; all that remained was some wiring and the installation of the theatre’s new fire suppression system.

The New Empress Theatre will open its doors this weekend, with a showing of Delando’s “Fires”. The performers will not be using flare guns to simulate magic this time, we are told.

***

Related: Blackwood Gazette #4: Tragedy Strikes the Empress Theatre in Oeil de Fleur

 

Blackwood Gazette #99-New Empress Theatre to reopen its doors in Time for One Year Anniversary of its Destruction

Blackwood Gazette #98- Small Town Inventor Claims to Have Found Blackwood Alternative

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By Maurice Merchant, Editor in Chief

10/4- You’ve probably never heard of Argathal Gladstone, unless you live in the small village of Leadhills in the region of Crowndon colloquially known as the Middle of Nowhere. But if Gladstone has his way, his name will be sung with reverence throughout all the corners of the Triumvirate.

“I have discovered a Blackwood alternative that will change everything,” he writes to us, his words written with the shaky hand of someone very excited, or perhaps lacking in blood sugar.

“The answer to the looming Blackwood crisis lies not in coal, or the diesel engines being developed by those heathens in Sarnwain.*

“It lies in perpetual motion, that most alluring and elusive of scientific endeavors. Many have tried. I have succeeded. In my workshop I now possess a working model. Enclosed is a sketch.”

The sketch Mister Gladstone provided was impossible to interpret, much less print. He continues:

“Currently, I’m in in the planning stages of a full scale model, which I will unveil at this year’s IIC. Prepare yourselves, citizens of the Triumvirate. A reckoning is at hand! With my machine, we shall be free of the Blackwood Dictatorship!”

Out of curiosity, I sent one of our interns to Leadhills to interview Mr. Gladstone. The man had locked himself in his workshop and refused to come out, but the intern reported loud banging and manic laughter.

At a loss, the intern turned to the townspeople to get a better idea of the man.

“Oh, he’s genuine, that’s for sure,” said one old man, sitting on a porch outside the local tavern and smoking a pipe. “When my coach broke down last year, he fixed it right up. A right mechanist, that one. If he says he can do it, I believe him.”

The majority, however, were less impressed.

“He’s a lunatic,” said the mistress of the same local tavern, who was quick to offer her opinion after hearing the old man’s account. “He’s always in here, raising hell about Blackwood this and Technological oppression that. You say he’s planning on going to that fancy convention in Nor Easter? Good riddance I say. The man ought to be right at home with that sort.”**

*,**: Editor’s Note: the opinions of Mister Gladstone and the citizens of Leadhills are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blackwood Gazette or its employees.

Blackwood Gazette #98- Small Town Inventor Claims to Have Found Blackwood Alternative

Blackwood Gazette #97-Imperial Super Prison Nearing Completion

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by Chester Seaton, News

9/4-The controversy surrounding the Triumvirate’s joint project, an ocean-borne maximum security prison, continues this week as details leaked concerning the prison’s progress.

According to the leak, the project had been in development for years before its official announcement last year, with construction having begun nearly two years ago. As a result, the prison is nearly complete, and is scheduled to set sail within the next few months.

Other details in the leak point to prisoners already being held in completed portions of the ship, which is currently in dry dock in an undisclosed location. This has led to citizens across the triumvirate to make inquiries about family members currently incarcerated in maximum security prisons.

A spokesman for the project, currently codenamed ‘Delphinidae’, spoke with press this morning about the allegations.

“The information concerning the construction of the prison is largely accurate,” the spokesman said. “The ship is nearly completed, and will set sail shortly. As for allegations that prisoners have already been transferred aboard, without notifying their families, they are completely false.”

Blackwood Gazette #97-Imperial Super Prison Nearing Completion

Blackwood Gazette #96- Mathis Galland’s Racing League Set to Begin

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

8/4- First announced during seventh month of last year, Pandion Aerodynamics CEO Mathis Galland announced today that his Imperial Air Racing League has come together nicely and is preparing to begin its first season next month.

“We’ve currently signed twenty four racers and their teams,” Galland said in a press release. “They range from professional fighter pilots to up-by-their bootstraps farm boys who’ve been participating in underground racing leagues for a couple of years now. Watching these two groups come together and race each other will be exciting to watch. We’re already starting to see tensions between them; they’re ready to tear each others throats out!”

The league will consist of several event types, including head to head racing, stunt competitions, and group races. Surprisingly enough, it is this last category that has many wondering about the safety of this endeavor.

“The group races sound a bit dangerous,” said a city zoning member in Toring who is helping to negotiate the logistics of the races. “All of these super competitive, ‘Look At Me I’m Invincible’ types, speeding through the air and trying to get the upper hand, sounds like a recipe for a sky full of twisted wreckage to me. I can’t wait to see it!”

Blackwood Gazette #96- Mathis Galland’s Racing League Set to Begin

Blackwood Gazette #95- Imperial High Society Gathers for Heisenberg Test Flight

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by Chester Seaton, News

7/4- Walsh is abuzz with gossip today as the first high profile passengers for the Heisenberg Test Flight began to arrive this morning. The first to arrive was Delando, who refused to leave his carriage when he discovered that no one else had come.

“This is a disaster,” the reclusive playwright could be heard saying within. “I cannot be seen to be the first! People will think I’m desperate for press! Take the carriage around the city one more time.”

Restrictions on the base where the test flight is taking place prohibited Delando from leaving, however. According to our last reports, he was still in his carriage.

Also arriving was former pin-up Pippi Tralala, who had no such reservations about being the first to be seen, as the emaciated model tumbled from her carriage and raised her arms.

“Oh, the Sun!” she is said to have screamed. Many attribute this sentiment to Tralala’s controversial diet of sunlight and air, which she has reportedly subsisted on for nearly a year, though no one knows how.

Others have continued to trickle in since, bringing with them a menagerie of bodyguards, servants, and personal entertainers, and all of them eager to talk about anything other than the test flight.

The test flight itself, originally scheduled for tonight, has been delayed until the twelfth, due to scheduling conflicts with the test flights most prestigious passenger, the Empress Marcellete Bastian, who refuses to travel on dates with odd numbers.

****

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Blackwood Gazette #95- Imperial High Society Gathers for Heisenberg Test Flight

Blackwood Gazette #94- Von Grimm Gang Storms Frontier Fortress

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Chester Seaton, News
6/4- Bandit leader Doctor Argyle Von Grimm is back in the news this week as New Crowndon reports that the Mad Mechanist of Moseille has attacked and occupied Fort Winstone.

“We’d hoped to keep a lid on it,” said Colonel Frederick Tanner, of the Second Northern Frontier Regiment. “It is a small Fort, with little value other than the arms stored there. We’d hoped that Von Grimm would break when re-enforcements arrived, and that would be the end of it.”

That is not what has happened, however, according to Field Marshal Ameron Lassiter.

“We sent in Second Cavalry to retake the fort,” Marshal Ameron said. “They have a reputation in the region, and we hoped that would be enough. Unfortunately, Von Grimm has hunkered down and entrenched his forces in the hills around the fort. The terrain makes it very difficult to reach, and there are more of them than we anticipated. Von Grimm is also, how should I put this? ‘Inventive’ in his use of the terrain and the arms he has stolen.”

The initial push to retake the fort resulted in almost a third of the 2nd Cav to be slaughtered. As a result, Marshal Ameron and Colonel Tanner find themselves in a difficult position.

“The fort is of little value anymore,” said the Colonel. “But the deaths of the men who held it and the deaths of the men who have taken it demand satisfaction.”

“We’ve ordered a squadron of Dragonflies from Nor Easter,” Ameron said. “If we can’t take them on the ground, by The Man, we’ll take them from the air, and hopefully put an end to the Von Grimm menace once and for all.”

Blackwood Gazette #94- Von Grimm Gang Storms Frontier Fortress

Blackwood Gazette #93-Investigations Ensue After Fire Rages Through Academy of Alchemy and Alliteration

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By Chester Seaton, News

20/3- New dispersions have been cast upon Nor Easter’s Academic Alliance of Alchemists and Alliterators after a fire broke out and gutted the Academy’s top two floors earlier this week. No one was killed, but three were injured with reported third degree burns.

“We were holding a party for Francois to celebrate the occasion of his third cousin’s adopted niece’s 32nd birthday,” said Anatole Coulomb, a third degree Alchemist on the fourth rung of Primality, according to his background sheet. “Either as a mistake, or as a joke, someone miscalculated the amount of powdered charwood in the mixture of the candles that adorned his Rise de veau pie. When he went to blow them out, instead of simply re-igniting, they exploded.”

“It’s a simple mistake really,” Coulomb added. “Happens more often than you’d think. Usually, it just ends with a crispy eyebrow. But someone had been mixing a dissolving agent earlier in the day, and residue had blown onto the nearby drapes. That was the end of that, really. There was no avoiding it.”

The incident has left Nor Eastern officials with no choice but to launch a full scale investigation into the safety practices and zoning regulations pertaining to the academy. The organization is no stranger to such scrutiny.

“Something like this happens every ten years or so,” said Maximillian Voutiste, the regional fire marshal for Oeil de Fleur. “Some young alchemist decides to try and figure out Blackwood, or play a prank, or make a love potion, and before you know it, a city block is leveled. The Academy used to be inside the Capitol building, but we’ve had to move it three times since its founding. Another incident like this, and they’ll have to move outside the city limits. I won’t miss them.”

Blackwood Gazette #93-Investigations Ensue After Fire Rages Through Academy of Alchemy and Alliteration

Blackwood Gazette #92- Protests Flare Up in Southern Monteddor Over New Taxation Policies

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By Chester Seaton, News

9/3-The recent shift of power in Monteddor has led to civil unrest in the southern Empire this week, as several agricultural collectives gathered at farmers markets along Monteddor’s Llopesquo River to protest the new trade taxes being implemented on their goods.

“They call them a ‘security tax’, to pay for increased protection along the river,” said Saldivar Nnavante, a fruit farmer from a small village near the river. “But they are nothing more than extortion monies. Which is nothing new around here, but at least before we knew who we were paying, and those people never took more than we could afford. Now it’s some boss in a ministry somewhere, putting a flat rate on everything. I don’t even have to go very far, just five miles, but I’m expected to pay the same as a man who must go all the way to the coast? Don’t even get me started on the crop tributes.”

It is these crop tributes that most of the protestors seem to take an issue with. Alejandro Julianos, now the ruling military authority within Monteddor’s borders, has demanded that food growers and ranchers ‘donate’ 30% of their goods to feed soldiers in the area. Similar requests have been made of hotels, brothels, and other services in the region.

“Change is always difficult,” a Julianos spokesperson wrote in an official press release. “Often, it is quite painful, and there is no doubt that many enterprises will fall or be absorbed by the state when all is said and done. But the new High King, together with Admiral Julianos, believe that this change will make for a stronger Monteddor, one that will rival even Crowndon in its military and industrial might. I think everyone will agree that it’s high time those pasty, haggis eating bullies in the north get taken down a notch.

“I mean, they call themselves ‘The Crown’, and yet they don’t even have a monarch. Who the hell do they think they are?”

Crowndon official have yet to address the spokesperson’s comments.

Blackwood Gazette #92- Protests Flare Up in Southern Monteddor Over New Taxation Policies

Blackwood Gazette #91- Auction for Test Flight Tickets Raises Millions

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By Chester Seaton, News

2/3- An auction for tickets to participate in the upcoming Heisenberg test flight was held this weekend. Bidding for each ticket started at 2000 imperial scrip, but reports say that each ticket, around 100 in all, went for no less than 50,000 each. This, on top of the fact that a 1000 scrip entry fee was charged for each of the auctions reported 500 seats, resulted in a killing for The Ministry of Crowndonian Planar Wing Transport.

The high entry fee priced out most of the average citizen, and most of those in attendance were movers and shakers in Triumvirate society. Socialites from all three empires, and even a few from Sarnwain, were in attendance. Tickets went to the wealthiest, surprising absolutely no one.
Among the winners was Nor Eastern Empress Marcellette Bastian, who took home the first twenty tickets.

“It is important that Nor Easter has a heavy presence on that plane,” said Her Imperial Majesty. “Not only for posterity, but as a show of support for our industrious neighbors to the west.”

Other winners include: Yolanda Desantana, who sent an envoy on her behalf, stating ‘business reasons’ for her inability to attend in person; Archibald Starkfeld, owner of the largest tobacco grower in the Colonies; the playwright Delando, currently working on the film version of his newest play; and Minister P.P. Walther, a weapons manufacturer from Toring.

Almost as interesting has who was there are those who were not. Notable absentees were Rigel Rinkenbach, the industrialist whose challenge kept the enterprise going, and Ivan Klankenvroot, whose company conceptualized and began construction. Neither man could be reached for comment.

The Heisenberg test flight is currently scheduled to take place on the seventh of next month. Citizens of Crowndon and the Triumvirate all are encouraged to attend.

Blackwood Gazette #91- Auction for Test Flight Tickets Raises Millions

Blackwood Gazette #90- Heisenberg Project Nears Completion; Test Flight Imminent, Crowndon Says

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By Chester Seaton, News

23/2- The Ministry for Crowndonian Planar Wing Transport, formerly known as Klankenvroot Industries before it was taken over by the government, has announced that the highly contentious Heisenberg Project is nearing completion.

The project, intended to serve as the world’s first commercial fixed wing air craft, has had a rocky road. Updates on the project recently went dark, in light of Crowndon’s economic woes.
Work on the project has continued, however, and a test flight is scheduled for early next month. Tickets for the inaugural flight are being auctioned off later this week, with several members of high society expressing an interest in taking part.

The announcement has been met with some consternation, however. The revelation that the extremely expensive project continued in light of the Blackwood shortage and the market crashing Great Tuna Heist has many of Crowndon’s academics up in arms. It is estimated that over ten thousand people in Crowndon’s Northern reaches died or disappeared during the harsh winter, and the idea that money was being poured into a prototype technology that would serve a purpose already being performed by air ships is morally offensive.

In light of the announcement, we reached out to Klankenvroot rival Sir Rigel Rinkenbach, for an update on his own project.

“To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgotten about our little wager,” Rinkenbach said. “Since Ivan [Klankenvroot] has defected and come to work for me, I lost complete interest in the matter. We’ve moved on to other projects, exciting ones that will change to world. Which probably goes without saying, as I’m involved, after all. I cannot speak of them at this time, however.”

Blackwood Gazette #90- Heisenberg Project Nears Completion; Test Flight Imminent, Crowndon Says