The Swiss Guard - An Encounter In Poland

[Rainbow Six]

Afternoon all,

A while ago there was a suggestion that Pope John Paul II might want to be laid to rest in his native Poland after his death. The attached is an attempt to take that idea and expand it into a possible encounter with a group of Swiss Guards in southern Poland. Granted, it may be a bit of a punt for them to get all the way across Austria and Czechoslovakia, but I think it's in the same vein as the Twilight Encounter "What's the Polish for G'Day" and is something a bit different...

As always, comments are welcome.

Dave

[Olefin]

That is a terrific post! Definitely on a level with anything that GDW published. Could think of all kinds of ways that such a group could be encountered and how they could be worked into a campaign.

This should definitely be part of the next fanzine issue.

Encore!!

By the way, if I remember right Rome got nuked so St. Peter's may have been destroyed. You could work that into it, saying that since the traditional burial ground of the Pope's was now in the middle of a sea of rubble that they couldnt bury him with the rest of the Pope's.

[Schone23666]

Very nice. A worthy addition to Twilight encounters.

"You never know what's around the corner..."

[StainlessSteelCynic]

You could also have the Guard armed with some more unusual (as in older) weapons if desired.
Have a look at the following page, the photographer was allowed inside the armoury - have fun identifying the different weapons!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkline55/page97/

[Raellus]

Nice work. If I ever run another campaign in central Europe, I'm going to find a way to make sure my players run across this group.

You really should submit this to Grimace for inclusion in a future edition of the e-fanzine.

[mikeo80]

Nice work. If I ever run another campaign in central Europe, I'm going to find a way to make sure my players run across this group.

You really should submit this to Grimace for inclusion in a future edition of the e-fanzine.

Let me add my voice to the discussion. Very well done. I agree with the others, submit this story to Grimace for the e-zine!!

My $0.02

Mike

[Rainbow Six]

Thanks fellas, appreciate the feedback. I plan on sending a copy to Grimace for the third edition of the e zine.

Cheers

[WallShadow]

You could also have the Guard armed with some more unusual (as in older) weapons if desired.
Have a look at the following page, the photographer was allowed inside the armoury - have fun identifying the different weapons!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkline55/page97/

Nice--I see some SMGs (Beretta? Bergmann?) and several modern box-magazine battle rifles, plus lots of bolt-action longarms. Let's see the PC's try to put on the armor, though!

[Raellus]

Once again, Rainbow, this is really cool.

As I've been working on my sourcebook for the region, I've been thinking about the Swiss Guard's trek across Austria and I've got a couple of questions for you.

First off, did the RL Swiss Guard have a horse cavalry element, even just a ceremonial one? Since they're using horses, it stands to reason that the group would have at least a few members schooled in their handling and care. I suppose I could look this up myself but since you've already done some research on the Guard, I thought I'd check with you first.

Second, when the group inevitably runs into civilians, what's their cover story? Travelling merchants seems the likeliest choice but, if so, where's their merchandise? Would they ever tell anyone what their true cargo was if they thought they could avoid a fight by doing so? I can totally understanding them not wanting their secret to get out, as there are quite a few groups who would conceivably want to get their hands on the pope's remains. On the other hand, it could potentially buy the convoy allies.

I'm especially eager to read Rainbow's thoughts on these questions, but I wouldn't mind hearing from others as well.

[Tegyrius]

Second, when the group inevitably runs into civilians, what's their cover story? Travelling merchants seems the likeliest choice but, if so, where's their merchandise? Would they ever tell anyone what their true cargo was if they thought they could avoid a fight by doing so? I can totally understanding them not wanting their secret to get out, as there are quite a few groups who would conceivably want to get their hands on the pope's remains. On the other hand, it could potentially buy the convoy allies.

The merchant cover requires too much overhead. This mission would likely have a few priests (or bishops or even a cardinal) along due to its nature. Let them do what they know best. They're a traveling church and its escort, going up and down in the world to tend to people who need faith more than ever in these dark times...

- C.

[Rainbow Six]

Cheers Rae,

Firstly, I haven’t come across anything which states that the Swiss Guard has any mounted units and can’t recall ever having seen a picture of mounted Swiss Guards, but I’m afraid I couldn’t say 100% whether they do or don't.

I think Tegyrius has hit the nail on the head with regard to a potential cover story – they do have a Polish born Monsignor travelling with them, so most likely justification would be that the Monsignor has to get to Krakow for some important – and probably unspecified – reason pertaining to the Church, which is not that far removed from their true purpose. That in itself could well gain them local allies en route (and, potentially, opposition from your own Papal State). I could probably be doing with rewriting the paragraph that starts with the group not being openly hostile to any NATO groups to elaborate on that…

Whether they take anyone into their confidence regarding their true purpose is probably in part down to how an individual situation develops and can be role played out – a PC with good persuasion and possibly charisma skills may be able to get them to open up, and of course a GM is at liberty to have one of the party be a potential traitor who will betray the rest of the group for
reward (there’s a brief reference to that in the article already).

Also, as an aside, with regard to why they are in Poland in full Swiss Army uniform, when I first wrote the piece I opted to have them disguising themselves as West German troops whilst travelling through Allied controlled Austria as I figured they would likely blend in with the crowd. My original intention was to have them change to Warsaw Pact uniforms , probably Polish Air Assault, when they crossed into Pact held territory but I decided against that on the basis that the group collectively would not have the language skills to pull it off if challenged rigorously (and also ran the risk of being “conscripted" into a larger Warpac force should they encounter one), so I quickly went off that idea. Likewise the idea of them keeping their German disguise was impractical in enemy territory, so given the choice between reverting to their own uniforms or disgusing themselves as civilians I opted to have them revert to Swiss uniform - part of my reasoning was that southern Poland ( bear in mind the article was originally written with a view to being a Polish based encounter) was already home to soldiers from a multitude of nationalities so one more small group wouldn’t make any difference, and disguising themselves as civilians would expose the language issues again (and a heavily armed group of ‘civilians’ would look suspicious in itself . My intention was that they would try and rely on their advance scouts to try and avoid any potential opposition / threats and reach Krakow covertly rather than fighting their way there (although I wanted to make it clear that they were well armed and equipped in the event they did have to fight, and they have suffered a number of casualties).

Hope that helps…

[Raellus]

It certainly does. The matter of the care and handling of horses can be explained by a few of the Guards' pre-service backstories so that's not an issue. I too like the idea of posing as a travelling church if questioned.

As for uniforms, I think that shades of green would be very common across armies by 2000. Many (if not most) prewar uniforms would have fallen apart by then and replacement unis manufactured after the nuclear phase would likely be much simpler in terms of cut and color (i.e. less elaborate camouflage). IRL, the Austrian army still mostly wears plain green so, for me, that would be the way to go, at least while in Austria.

[Cdnwolf]

This article so ties in with your theme....

http://popes-and-papacy.com/wordpress/john-paul-ii-re-interment-post-beatification-goes-against-his-will-again/

[Tegyrius]

First off, did the RL Swiss Guard have a horse cavalry element, even just a ceremonial one? Since they're using horses, it stands to reason that the group would have at least a few members schooled in their handling and care. I suppose I could look this up myself but since you've already done some research on the Guard, I thought I'd check with you first.

Alas, these guys used to be, but got out of the cavalry business in 1904 (according to teh wikipedias, which are never wrong):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Guard_%28Vatican%29

- C.

[Raellus]

Here's an adventure starter I whipped up for a mission connected with this encounter.

...

DIA Facility, Salzburg

He didn't look like a DIA officer. Maybe that was the point. He was short, not-quite stocky, but he didn't have the undernourished look that most folks nowadays had. He wore a wrinkled, white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, and dark slacks. He hadn't shaved for a few days and his dark brown hair was just a touch overlong. Sweat stains darkened his shirt around his armpits; the smoke from his cigarette masked any associated smell.His partner was taller, thinner, and cleaner cut. The second man's look fairly hollered spook.

"I'm agent Dale. This is agent Dean."

The taller man nodded, barely, but remained silent.

"The Vatican is moving the earthly remains of John Paul II, in secret, overland to Krakow. Apparently, it was the late pontiff's dying wish to be buried in his home soil, and the new Pope means to oblige. It's not clear why the Vatican's doing this. It might have something to do with this new renegade Austrian pope we're hearing about. It more likely has something to do with the Vatican's internal politics. That's not terribly important. What is important is that we want to help them do it.

He paused, a lengthy, pregnant silence, most certainly intended for effect, before continuing.

"If the U.S. can smuggle the Pope's remains into the middle of PACT-controlled Poland, it'll be a major embarrassment for the Soviets, and a major PR coup for us. Our sources are telling us that powerful elements within the Polish military are on the verge of turning on the Soviets. We get John Paul to Krakow, it might just seal the deal and buy us some new friends. We want you to find the Vatican's delivery team and escort it safely to Krakow.

"Now, the Vatican doesn't know that we want to help them; we really have no way to securely communicate with them. They don't even know that we know about this operation. They don't want anyone to know. Our station in Vienna picked up a rumor from one of its informants and later verified it with a field agent. They passed it along to us and now we've got to move on it. This is a time sensitive operation. The Vatican escort team has already crossed the Austrian border here," Paul tapped the large wall map with his index finger, "and, as far as we know, they're on the move. We believe the escort is a team of about ten men, seven or eight of them Swiss Guard- their best- and the others supernumeraries, likely clergy. They're moving by horse and wagon, at night, on back roads, trying to avoid notice.

"We're going to drop you somewhere in here. You're going to intercept this group, or track them down, and convince them that you're there to help.

"They might not want it. If they refuse your offer, you need to do whatever you need to do in order to secure the precious cargo and get it safely to Krakow. We'd prefer this be a team effort, though, so force should be your last option."

Dale picked up a large dossier from the table and dropped it back down theatrically.

"This is everything we have on Austria. You leave tonight at midnight. Any questions?"

-

The dossier is- you guessed it- the contents of my Austria sourcebook.

Raellus