As part of session zero for Other London: Desk 17, I get the players to create Desk 17 itself. I’ve created a worksheet where the players answer simple questions (Where is Desk 17’s office? What’s weird about it? And so on.), choose their support team and select a couple of stunts.
And it crossed my mind that I could give players a menu of options for the location of Desk 17’s offices.
Ideas for where you might find Desk 17
Inside Marble Arch. This has form, as three small rooms were genuinely used by the police from 1851 to 1968.
The London Necropolis Railway station on Westminster Bridge Road. We are using this in our current game.
Mappin Terraces in Regent’s Park Zoo. Constructed in 1913-14, the hollow spaces inside were once used for the aquarium – but are they now Desk 17 offices?
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Above Mornington Crescent tube station. Mornington Crescent has pedigree – it not only houses the secret entrance to Charlie Stross’ Laundry but also the Peculiar Crimes Unit (from Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May series) is located in offices above the station (until they are destroyed in a bomb blast).
In Centre Point. Converted to residential flats, much of the tower is now empty (led to its being called one of London's "ghost towers")
In the BT Tower. In the old revolving restaurant, perhaps?
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| No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
50 Berkley Square is supposed to be the most haunted house in London. Desk 17 would fit right in.
The Kingsway telephone exchange, hidden in tunnels deep below Chancery Lane tube station.
Or some less salubrious ideas (particularly when you’re channelling Slow Horses):
- Below a Soho massage parlour
- Above a chicken shop
- Behind a candy store
- On a barge in Surrey Quays.
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