The Mouse Guard are gone. Those that were unfortunate to have been captured during the Second Great War faced inmousely treatment at the claws of the Weasel Secret Police, and were either killed during ‘questioning’ or transported ‘East’. Only a tiny fraction managed to escape the clutches of the Overlord’s army at the beaches of Dawnrock and they now work with Gwendolyn in the Northern Isle in planning and organising towards the liberation of Mousedom. Only a few are still utilised as secret agents and they occasionally sneak back to the mainland to assist the resistance or personally undertake missions for Gwendolyn. The danger posed to not just the Mouse Guard secret agents, but those mice in the towns where the agents may be caught is just too great.
It is the brave individuals, of all walks of life, who now have taken up the fight against the occupying weasels and their authoritarian rule. Initially very ad-hoc, ill equipped and ill-trained the early resistance cells were easy targets for the Secret Police and hundreds died or were sent East. However, the successful, well organised and lucky cells survived and when contact was made with Gwendolyn, they formed the backbone of the new resistance. These new cells, composed of between one and four mice each, received training, equipment and missions from afar and all sought to bring as much disruption to the weasel occupation army and to send information and those sought by the regime back to Gwendolyn. No cell knew the names or details of any other cell and they used codenames to communicate and maintain secrecy
Each cell received its own orders from Gwendolyn, but generally they all undertook the following at some stage.
1: Gathering intelligence on Weasel military deployments and movements to aid Gwendolyn in planning the liberation
2: Assassinating those who are enemies of Mousedom and working directly or indirectly with the Weasels
3: Hiding and protecting a wanted mouse and moving them through the underground railway to the North
4: Delivering secret messages between cells
Any more ideas for missions? I’d like to have the same sort of breadth and depth as in the MG missions chapter.
I really like the idea that you get your mission before you’re deployed and then that’s it. You’re on your own until you can make it back north. So you can complete your mission and return to the rendezvous or decide to go native and stay on and fight – pursuing your own agenda that just might put you at odds with Gwendolyn’s lackeys.
Recruitment for this is interesting. Veteran guard could use the same mechanics that are in there now, but recruited townsmice will require different options. Mostly, they need to be cut off from the Guard skills and forced to put more points into mundane stuff.
I hadn’t even been looking at it from that perspective. I’d been thinking of looking at it from the point of view of the “what are you going to do when the MG aren’t around to keep you safe?” kinda thing. But I really like the idea of coming at it from both ends.
Elite secret agent MG slipping into occupied mousedom on a vital mission of great importance to the war effort or plucky young amateurs just trying to stay alive while helping the war effort from within the resistance.
I hadn’t really put any thought into that aspect of character generation yet, but I could see the problem arising soon and I think that’s definately the most sensible approach to take.
You could have it so you choose a level of veteran-hood for your character: survived war, trained in the north, post-war partisan, post-war civilian. Survived war could be like Guard Captain – there are only a few of these mice kicking around. Trained in the North is Patrol Leader, only one per mission. Partisans can civilians can be used as appropriate.
Fascist secret police oppressing mice made me remember a comic I read years ago which mouse-lovers should be aware of. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is basically a recounting of his father’s experiences in a concentration camp during WWII, except all of the characters are different animals based on their nationality:
Maus is indeed a fantastic graphic novel, but oh so very dark. I was hoping to avoid the whole holocaust thang by merely using ‘being sent East’. No one is really sure of what happens in the East, but no one ever returns either.
John