Professor Elemental & The Anarchist Ambassadors

Professor Elemental winks at you as you both ascend the steps to the oak double doors. “Welcome,” he says, “to the School of Whimsy!” With a dramatic flourish, he grasps the door handle, turns it, and pushes. The door doesn’t move. 

“Welcome,” he says, “to the School of Whimsy!” With a dramatic flourish, he grasps the door handle, turns it, and pulls. The door swings open to reveal an atrium the size of your childhood home. Three enormous stairwells at the far end of the hall lead up, down, and sideways. The walls are lined with doors, only broken up by serious portraits of humans and the occasional ape. “So,” he says, “The dorms are through that door there. There’s probably a room you can set up in. I only have one question for you: Are you to be student or staff?”

Professor Elemental and the Anarchist Ambassadors is a steampunk rules-lite role-playing game. It’s set in the Victorian age and takes place in and around the Royal Victoria Commons – an anarchist enclave near Ipswich established by a royal charter. At the heart of the Royal Victoria Commons (RVC) is the School of Whimsy, a school founded on the principles of learning through joy and kindness.

Who You'll Play

You’ll play as Ambassadors: individuals who negotiate with the world outside the RVC and assist residents of the RVC who ask for help with problems they can’t tackle themselves. Ambassadors might be skilled diplomats, champion boxers, rascally thieves, genius tailors, masters of disguise, or dedicated teachers. Anyone with passion, skill, and empathy can be an Ambassador, but the most important qualification is dedication to working as part of the Ambassadorial team. Every Ambassador has been trained to rely absolutely on one another, even for tasks which might be considered solo endeavours.

The primary theme of this game is cooperation. Ambassadors are free to wander off and do their own thing, but they’ll struggle to tackle any significant problems if they do.

As Ambassadors, you might take part in daring airship races, venture into the school’s haunted attic to return a forbidden artefact to its resting place or engage in a diplomatic mission to foil nefarious forces outside the RVC who want to shut the entire project down.

The game is set in the world of Professor Elemental – an English chap-hop rapper. It’s a world of steampunk delights: airship races, tea, time-travel trousers, tea, ape butlers, tea, ingenious inventions, tea, tea, tea, and tea.

Players don’t need prior knowledge of Professor Elemental to have a good time playing this game. You’ll likely get more out of it if you’ve listened to an album or two, but this game was written for newcomers to the Elementalverse as much as it was for existing fans. All you need to know is it’s set in Victorian England, it’s Steampunk, and it’s often rather silly.

The School of Whimsy

The School of Whimsy is the cultural centre of the RVC. It hosts village fetes, organises airship races, and contains the aforementioned Lovecraftian attic. Most Ambassadors will be teachers or students at the school, although some come from further afield. It’s a richly detailed location for fans of Professor Elemental and newcomers alike, but there is also plenty of adventure to be had beyond the school’s grounds.

What's in the Book

• An introduction to the world of Professor Elemental
• Full rules, including:
  • Eight class specialisms
  • Twenty-six pieces of specialist kit
  • An index of 36 NPCs: eleven friends & allies, four nemeses, three rivals, six mercenaries (from the Company of Lone Wolves), four Old Ones, and eight characters from the Inn At The End Of Time
• A Game Master (GM) section with tools such as progress clocks, safety tools, and improvisation advice
• A 6000 word scenario on returning a stolen artifact to its original and rightful owners
• And appendices of useful maps, handouts, lists, and charts

How to Play

Professor Elemental and the Anarchist Ambassadors emphasizes teamwork. Each Ambassador contributes to the team’s success, similar to how different sections of an orchestra work together to perform a symphony. Its core action resolution system is called The Orchestra System.

The Performance, known in other games as a dice check or skill check, is when Ambassadors face a challenge that involves risk, like sneaking down a corridor, picking a lock, or punching a monster.

• At the start of a Performance, the Ambassador taking the main action, or leading the Performance, becomes the Melody character. The GM suggests which Melody to use, or the player can choose.
• The Melody player adds a single Core die to the roll pool plus any Melody dice.
• Other Ambassadors assist by contributing Harmony dice. They choose a Harmony category to lend dice from, representing ways they can support the Melody. The specific actions taken to assist are decided after the roll, based on which dice were successful.
• All the dice in the roll pool are rolled together, and the results are interpreted:
• Any die showing 4+ is counted as a success
• Any core or Melody die showing a 1 contributes to Fallout
• Pairs of 6s in the Harmony dice give a narrative boon
• Specialist kit or character boons sometimes allow for dice to be re-rolled
• The Melody player picks from a menu of outcomes depending on how many successes they have, the Harmony players describe how their successes (if any) contribute to the overall success, and the GM narrates what happens as a result.

The Orchestra System always allows you to fail forward: even if a Performance fails, the story progresses. The failure introduces new challenges or opportunities, ensuring that the narrative continues moving forward.

Oh, and those narrative boons? When the players gain one, they find a piece of the Key to the Inn at the End of Time in a pocket or a bag. Seemingly, it’s always been there. Once they have three pieces, the key is complete. They may use the key once in any door with a lock to visit the Inn at the End of Time and recruit a time traveller to assist them for one day.

Ambassador Specialisms

These are the Specialisms you can choose for your Ambassador in the core game. Each Specialism gives you a bonus to one or more Melodies as well as a piece of specialist kit.

The Anarchist is a highly flexible Specialism, as befits combat, stealth, or (ahem) asset redistribution characters. There are as many types of Anarchist as there are stars in the sky, and they only rarely agree on what the word 'anarchist' even means.

If you want to play a more generalist character with a single focus like social persuasion, combat, or thievery, the Anarchist is one to go for.

Example Anarchist

Nik was a London chimney sweep who got stuck in the flue shortly before a meeting of the London Confederation of Rational Reformers. When they emerged from the chimney, a passion for anarchy burned in their heart, and a passion for burning away injustice soon stoked that. They’re rarely seen without their trusty Molotov cocktails.

Nik works in an Ambassador Team dedicated to foiling the schemes of the smugglers Nana Eunice and Gentleman Rex. 

Naturally sociable characters, Teachers are usually empathetic. Some Teachers find themselves the de facto responsible person of an ambassadorial team, whilst others refuse to plan anything and go exactly where their whims take them.

If you have a more teacherly character in mind, like a beloved professor or a respected tutor whose focus is more academic or social, then the Teacher might be for you.

Example Teacher

Kora Etera was a scientist in an era that insisted he couldn’t be one. Whilst escaping some burly people with big sticks, Kora darted in an alley they didn’t recognise and found themself in another time and place entirely – the School of Whimsy.

Kora works in an Ambassador Team that seeks out threats to the RVC and shuts them down. Past threats include mercenaries from British Industrialists or wealthy journalists determined to portray the RVC as a den of violence and debauchery.

A Minion works with one of the two local smugglers – Nana Eunice or Gentleman Rex – as well as the School of Whimsy. They're rarely subservient, as life in the RVC tends to deprogram that out of people, but they usually focus on action and leave the planning to others.

If you want to feel like a steampunk Peaky Blinder, who solves problems primarily by hitting things fairly hard with cricket bats, then the Minion will be up your street.

Example Minion

Sal works for Gentleman Rex and helps bring in supplies from outside the RVC -- mostly chocolate and medicine. In their downtime, Sal works with an Ambassador Team that explore hidden corners of the world in their dedicated airship, The Nosy Susan.

Tailors are found throughout the RVC as their passion for sartorial elegance is more easily fulfilled when they don't have to worry about making a profit from their work. Tailors who become Ambassadors bring with them unique skills that augment other characters' equipment (and clothing).

Pick the Tailor if you're after a support character whose skills and boxes of tricks will be adaptable to a wide variety of social and active situations.

Example Tailor

Krill learned to hide when they were very young due to a series of sad circumstances it’s best not to get into. On one particularly bad day, they hid in a wardrobe and found themself in the School of Whimsy when they exited. They learned tailoring from the very best the school has to offer and joined an Ambassador Team that seeks out people in desperate situations and brings them to the RVC where they can be safe. 

Not necessarily a literal gremlin, no one knows what the Chaos Gremlin is going to do next – often including the gremlin themself. Some Ambassadors slip naturally into the Chaos Gremlin mindset, whilst others see the specialism as more of an ... aspiration? Both are dangerous and only to be approached cautiously.

If you're the kind of player who likes to chase down shinies, lift every gem, and make weird inventions in their downtime, then the Chaos Gremlin is the specialism for you.

Example Chaos Gremlin

Tarquin Grousefoot Brumble was 3rd in line to the Duchy of Hull. His life involved lounging about, playing tennis, and complaining about people with a lackadaisical attitude. When Tarquin learned about the Royal Victoria Commons, he was outraged! He stormed over to Ipswich nearly immediately and started telling people off. A few days later, after spending some time in the company of an extremely patient pair of anarchists, Tarquin had renounced their claim on the Duchy of Hull and was happily working with an Ambassador Team dedicated to preventing the Old Ones from waking. His efforts cause nearly as many problems as they solve, but at least he’s trying.

Not necessarily a literal gremlin, no one knows what the Chaos Gremlin is going to do next – often including the gremlin themself. Some Ambassadors slip naturally into the Chaos Gremlin mindset, whilst others see the specialism as more of an ... aspiration? Both are dangerous and only to be approached cautiously.

If you're the kind of player who likes to chase down shinies, lift every gem, and make weird inventions in their downtime, then the Chaos Gremlin is the specialism for you.

Example Conductor

Gwendelyn makes scones in the nearby village of Bijoux Upon Twee. She didn’t consider politics much. She made scones. She was good at making scones. But she couldn’t deal with people arguing over their scones. One day, when two students from the School of Whimsy had been talking past each other for over an hour, she sat down with them and gave them a piece of her mind. Two weeks later she found herself splitting her time between scones and being a Conductor. Her Ambassador Team spends a lot of time mediating between the students and custodians of the School of Whimsy. Mediating and firefighting. Sometimes literally.

A Rin likes to spend time alone. Whilst they will engage with all this teamwork stuff, they’re not always comfortable with it. They enjoy being by themself without being lonely, but they can have a good time with friends if there aren't too many of them.

Example Rin

Rin Shima was torn between really enjoying being by herself but also occasionally liking other people to be sort of nearby. An expert in outdoor survival skills, she frequently found herself taking pity on Ambassador Teams shivering in the haunted forest. She explained the importance of preparation, tents, and sleeping bags and the correct way to build a fire. She found herself being drawn into the hijinks of an Ambassador Team that investigates time travel anomalies, although she refuses to learn any of the nonsense terminology.

Underground, overground, wandering free, the dinosaurs of the Royal Victoria Commons aren’t common, but they’re all wonderful. The Dinosaur is a flexible Specialism too and somehow less chaotic than the Chaos Gremlins.

If you want to be a barely-disguised dinosaur in a world of humans, then choose the Dinosaur specialism.

Example Dinosaur

Howlsfast dreamed of a life beyond the crater she and her family lived in. Surely there was a world beyond? One day she grew bored of foraging for sustenance and set off to find the edges of the world. Two days later she fell into a volcano but was rescued when a strange British man in a pith helmet appeared just as she was about to hit the lava and whisked her away to the School of Whimsy. Now, Howlsfast is in an Ambassador Team dedicated to solving great and terrible mysteries.

Previews

An Introduction to the Game

The game designer explains how things work as quickly as he can:

Actual Plays

The Quest To Return the Golden Frog

In this introductory adventure, the Ambassadors set out to locate The Golden Frog (from way back in The Indifference Engine album) and return it to its original owners.

Character Creation:

Actual Play Part 1:

Actual Play part 2:

Part 1 in 360 video:

Part 2 in 360 video:

The 29th Annual Bijoux Upon Twee to Glasgow Airship Calamity

In this adventure, the Ambassadors pick one of eight teams to aid in a great sky-race.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Team

Michael Coolwood(Game Designer & Lead Writer) is an author whose day job is writing novels about shapeshifting twins and utopias where disability is accepted. This is his second Tabletop Role-playing game.

Carly A-F (Art Lead & Illustration)

Francita Soto(Layout & Art) is a Chilean graphic designer / layout artist currently living in Spain. She has over 7 years of experience working in TTRPGs, and has credits in over 60 games, doing layout, logos, character sheets, and other design work. Francita likes the color pink, has a love for magical girls like Sailor Moon, and one of her dreams is to create a magical girl TTRPG in the future!

Jay Henningsen (Line/Copy Editor) has been an editor in the journalism and TTRPG spaces for over 20 years. He has previously worked with the Far Horizons Cooperative on the Roleplayer's Guide to Heists and several of their Short Games Digests.

Marx Shepherd(Project Lead) makes cool games for weird people and weird games for cool people, both as Marx of High Water and for the Far Horizons Cooperative, as well as being a freelance editor and voted TTRPGs' Most Horrible Goose four years running. You might remember him as the project lead for such indie smash hits as Outliers.

Far Horizons Cooperative is an international collective of indie ttrpg creators focused on fair and equitable pay, creating opportunities for new and diverse voices in the space, and mutual mentoring and support in publishing. make cool games, wage class war.

We're best known for our big collaborative projects like The Roleplayer's Guide To Heists or more recently the Far Horizons Guide to Mysterious Locations, and also for smaller hits like Samantha Leigh's Outliers, Kamala Kara Arroyo's Friendship Effort Victory, and Erik Bernhardt's Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants.

FHC has many, many other short games, free games, and digests of games, all available on our Itch.io store.

Statement on the use of so-called genAI

The Far Horizons Cooperative is dedicated to advancement and celebration of human excellence. Human emotion, design, desire, and creativity are integral to the artistic process. Use of GenAI or NLP systems is antithetical to that goal.

FHC has a long-standing moratorium against the use of so-called genAI, which was recently solidified into a organisation-level ban. You won't find any outputs from the planet-killing plagiarism machine in our works.