Jack the Ripper Adventures?

[AlHazred]

So, some of my friends group and I used to play the old Living Death Organized Play campaign, which was inspired/based on the TSR Masque of the Red Death box set. It was set in an alternate Victorian-era Earth, and was an excuse to use AD&D 2E with a host of modifications to do Gothic Horror. It was fun, but the system was a very clunky melange of elements to try to get the feel right, and the modules were not very well edited. But it was a volunteer-run campaign, so you have to cut them some slack, they had day jobs. We had a lot of fun with it.

So, that was 20 years ago. And I might end up being able to run a one-shot for them. And Jeremy Forbing has done a D&D 5E version of Masque of the Red Death which I really like -- he toned it way down, it has very vulnerable PCs but some mechanics that can be used to increase survivability without sacrificing the feel of the setting; I'm a fan. You can find it on the DM's Guild here if you're interested; please note that this is an affiliate link.

Anyway, since I only get one shot, I thought most Victorian-era-possible scenario for a Gothic Horror game would have to center on Jack the Ripper. I mean... He's iconic.

I'm comfortable coming up with my own stuff and converting stuff freely between systems and editions, but I also am really curious to see how other people have approached the scenario. So I went looking through my accumulated trove of PDFs, mostly acquired through Bundles, Sales, and so on. And Jack the Ripper is probably one of the more common tropes in Victorian adventures. Here's what I've found so far, but I really want to see if there's more I missed. Please let me know if you know of another one! I'm interested in all published adventures, supernatural and mundane, featuring this guy.

• Monograph #339: Return of the Ripper (Chaosium, 1986, Call of Cthulhu 3E): The only Gaslight scenario published in Chaosium's Monograph series, this features a Ripper who is
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  Sir John Danielson, an English noble turned into a psychic vampire by Tcho-Tchos and sent back to England to wreak havoc on the Empire
  . As might be inferred by the name, this also has the original killings taking place in the past, with a new series of copycat killings starting in London in the late summer to early autumn of 1893; there are a huge number of complications and side events. While I probably won't use it as-is, it includes a lot of maps and a huge amount of setting detail specific to Whitechapel and the events central and peripheral to the Ripper killings.
• "Death on the Docks," Challenge #67 (Chaosium, 1992, Call of Cthulhu 4E): This is of of the few Gaslight scenarios in Challenge. It takes place in 1893, where a series of killings are compared to the Ripper killings of 1888.
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  The new killings are caused by Mhae-Yrn, a druid worshipping Shub-Niggurath, a twisted Lovecraftian fertility deity. The original killings were not caused by the druid; in fact the scenario makes no determination on who caused the original murders.
  It's got a few characters and a couple of locations that could be lifted for Victorian Whitechapel, but it's only 5 pages long so there's not a lot of detail.
• Sacraments of Evil (Chaosium, 1993, Call of Cthulhu 5E): The title scenario of this collection, "Sacraments of Evil" by Fred Behrendt, takes place in the city of York sometime in the 1890s, when a copycat killer is committing murders. The original Ripper killings get a mention, but this is a derivative scenario. The killer is
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  actually two different killers: one is Edwin Bristol, a man being influenced by a lloigor, an insubstantial supernatural entity; while the other is Malcolm Sedny, a madman inspired by the lurid newspaper descriptions of the new killings
  . I really like the misdirection involved, and it's a good fit for the MotRD Gothic Earth setting, but might be too complex for a one-shot, even if I spread it over a few sessions. It would take a lot of work to transpose back to the original Ripper killings.
• "Catching Jack (Being a Play of Five Parts)," Role Player Independent #10 (September 1993, System Neutral): This adventure is highly structured. It starts after the second canonical victim is found, and uses as the Ripper
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  Dr. Domonic Gored, head of the fictitious Darkheath Asylum, who is using hypnosis on his most dangerous inmates to use them to carry out the murders. It's an interesting idea, especially in that it allows for a lot of variation in the killer.
  In any case, despite its highly-structured plot, the scenario is very loose in other details, at least partially because it's statless; the author states in his introduction that it can be used with Call of Cthulhu, Chill, Space: 1889, and Faerie Queen and Country (among others), it was apparently originally designed for The Adventures of Luther Arkwright RPG, and obscure RPG that I've never seen another article for.
• "Red Jack", Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales (TSR, 1994, AD&D 2E): The box set included three adventures: Red Death, Red Tide, and Red Jack; that last one used the Ripper killings as a plot element. It's well done, and has a really interesting variation on who the Ripper was (which I absolutely love) --
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  the ghost of Jeanne Witherspoon, the jealous wife of a doctor with a free clinic in Whitechapel, who frequently treated prostitutes there
  . But the scenario takes place two years after the original killings, when a series of copycat killings take place in Boston in 1890.
• RM8 Hour of the Knife (TSR, 1994, AD&D 2E): This was a Ravenloft module. The killings are transposed from London to the city of "Peridon... in the domain of Zherisia." Again, the supernatural features heavily in this one, as the killer is
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  a doppelganger posing as nobleman Sir Edmund Bloodsworth; it is part of a secret society of doppelgangers, performing a ritual to achieve invulnerability
  . It's a complex plan that sort-of requires it to take place in one of the Domains of Dread; transplanting to London in a MotRD game is possible, but tricky. I like the antagonist, though, interesting possibilities there, but I probably wouldn't get a chance to explore them all in a one-shot.
• Bookhounds of London (Pelgrane Press, 2010, Trail of Cthulhu): This book covers a campaign framework where the players play participants in the book trade in London in the 1930s; there's a lot of skullduggery and illicit activity where the large amounts of money offered for rare books comes into play! The scenario included in the book, "Whitechapel Black-Letter," is about a patron searching for a particular book he knows will come up for auction soon. As it concerns Whitechapel, the Ripper is mentioned but the action is sometime in the 1930s, so the killings aren't a contemporary concern. It's left to GM discretion, but the suggested Ripper is
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  Robert Donston Stephenson, a real-life journalist who covered the murders and became a suspect. In fact, due to the occult influences (this is Trail of Cthulhu, bad magic juju comes with the territory), some guidance is given to the GM to use his spirit as an active participant in the chaos!
  In this adventure, the killings were part of an occult ritual; there are a lot of real details about the crimes provided and what sorts of occult significance can be drawn from them, which is something I have come to expect from Kenneth Hite!
• Streets of Zobeck (Kobold Press, 2016, D&D 5E): One of the scenarios in this book, "Ripper" by Mike Franke, is inspired by/derived from the Jack the Ripper killings. This is part of Kobold Press' Midgard setting, which is supposed to have elements to allow any 5E game to be set there; the city of Zobeck, the Clockwork City, is effectively a stand-in for Victorian London. The killings are caused by
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  Xazagra, a powerful devil who has bound himself into a magic knife, so he can possess the owner and cause them to do occult killings on his behalf; he uses this to execute individuals who are reneging on their pacts with various archdevils
  . This killer is definitely a lot more high-powered than normal groups of MotRD characters can handle; the scenario is primarily focused on investigation, but there are a bunch of small fights against supernatural creatures that I can maybe tone down.
• Sherlock by Gaslight(Fearlight Press, 2016, Baker Street): This supplement contains details on London, focusing on the poorer sections. There's a great section of locations you can drop into a Victorian London game, but of interest here are the two scenarios in the book, both Ripper-focused.
  • "The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee" by Matt Lopshire: This scenario seeks the PCs hired by George Lusk to patrol a section of Whitechapel in late September 1888. Clues lead the PCs to try to foil the Ripper, who is believed to be about to murder again. The Ripper in this one is
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    Lucien Mathias, a deranged pork butcher's apprentice, who wants to kill the subject of his unrequited feelings
    . It turns out this is not the actual Saucy Jack, however.
  • ""The Whitechapel Murders" by Bryce Whitacre: This scenario (actually a full campaign) covers the classic Whitechapel Murders. Details are given for each of the canonical five victims, along with timelines and loads of details. The Ripper in this one may be revealed to be
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    Agnes Stevenson, a devout Christian woman who runs a womens' refuge in Whitechapel, but has gone secretly mad and started trying to "clean up" the streets on her own
    . Several other red herring suspects are given a lot of detail as well, along with details for GMs to use them to make the PCs' task more difficult. This scenario has a lot of good information on the killings, along with locations specific to the Ripper phenomenon. It is a full-on campaign for the Baker Street system, where it replaces Professor Moriarty (the usual Big Bad of Baker Street campaigns) with Saucy Jack, and includes a lot of rules to effect that replacement in the mechanics of the game. This is good.
• House of Knaves (Danger Magnet, 2018, Ubiquity): A supplement written by Mike Dukes for Leagues of Gothic Horror, this is another scenario which takes place after the original killings. The original killings were implied to be the work of
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  Earl Brison, a founding member of the Quietus Guild, a group dedicated to "artistic" deaths and murders. He had learned to ritually murder in order to gain magical power and extended life, and reformed the Quietus Guild as the House of Knaves, a secret society of Ripper-copycats.
• Whitechapel: Vigilance Committee (Andrew Hand, 2021, 5th Evolution [D&D 5E]): This adventure involves the PCs as a group of scoundrels recruited by Inspector Abberline to assist the Police in investigating the Ripper killings. It uses the real-life Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, but reimagines them as a group of scoundrels; in actual fact, the group was composed mostly of working class tradesmen and craftsmen, who wanted to do something about the violence that was endemic to their home district. It has a large number of encounters designed for the Ripper's time and place which can easily be lifted for your own scenario. The Ripper is revealed to be
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  a Royal London Hospital nurse named Mary Percy, who was driven to the killings when contracting syphilis from her husband, who got it from a prostitute
  . There's a lot of useful detail given on the individual killings, the locations, and Victorian London in general.
• Red Jack (M. T. Black, 2024, D&D 5E): This is an update/modification to the original MotRD Red Jack scenario which moves the action back to the original killings, but includes Sherlock Holmes. Which, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure I like; I prefer my players to make their own investigations and conclusions, and Holmes might be too tempting an asset not to use. The Ripper in this one is
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  the ghost of Jane Morgan, the jealous wife of a doctor with a free clinic in Whitechapel, who frequently treated prostitutes there
  . As said, it's an update/modification to the original.

There are a few honorable mentions. I cast my net far and wide to try to find any possible element from the case I could use to make the game interesting, and I came across a few items.

• "An Alien Werewolf in London", White Dwarf #62 (Games Workshop, February 1985, Classic Traveller): This issue of the venerable UK gaming magazine includes this scenario by Jae Campbell. In it, the killer is
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  a Vargr, a wolflike alien from the setting, who is addicted to combat drug which has driven him into fits of homicidal rage
  . This is all caused by an extraterrestrial Temporal Matter transmitter, which as far as I know never showed up in any other Traveller article or product.
• “Suppressed Transmissions,” Pyramid Online (Steve Jackson Games, 1 October 1999): Kenneth Hite's “Suppressed Transmissions” column for the online version of SJG's Pyramid magazine is always a fantastic trove for anything historical, vaguely-historical, or even pseudo-historical, and this subject is no exception. In his entry, “Jack's Wild: Six Stabs At The Ripper,” he covers six alternatives for the identity and motive of Jack the Ripper. This entry was reprinted (with extra notes) in Suppressed Transmissions Volume 2; I still hold out forlorn hope for a Volume 3 and Volume 4 some day.
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    The Ripper was a Freemason. He admits this is a "usual suspects" answer, but supplies a good and not-frequently-suspected candidate: Dr. William Wynn Westcott, working as a coroner for Central London in 1888 -- and also cofounder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
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    The Ripper was a ceremonial magician and the murders were designed as a ritual to empower the Sun God by stealing power from the Goddess; or vice versa, he supplies some ideas that way, too. For this item, he pulls in all sorts of meaningful coincidences surrounding the killings.
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    The Ripper was a Royal, or someone close to them. From Prince Albert Victor Edward to Queen Victoria herself, although Hite suggests King Leopold II of Belgium for an unusual answer.
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    The Ripper was (a group of) Irish. Based on some paintings and some other coincidences, the theory is that the killings were perpetrated by one or more Fenian terrorists to bring disrespect on the British Government.
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    The Ripper was Lewis Carroll. Yep, you read that right -- one of the more outrageous theories proposed is that Charles Dodgson did them in a fit of insanity. I like his suggestion that it was a Looking-Glass version of Lewis Carroll.
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    The Ripper was an extraterrestrial. The one theory that nobody seems to hold to, but it would explain much: how he could move about invisibly, the organ removals, etc.
• "Arcane Artifacts - Jack the Ripper's Knives," The Unspeakable Oath #16/17 (Pagan Publishing, 2001): This issue of the US periodical featured a one-page item by Ben R. Leeb. The description pins the cause of the murders on
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  a ritual to a corpse-god requiring prostitutes to be murdered to provide the wielder with magical power
  .
• London By Night (White Wolf, 2002, Vampire: The Masquerade): This Victorian Age Vampire supplement has a lot of detail on Victorian London, but it is slanted heavily towards vampires, naturally; still useful detail for a Gothic Horror game, and plenty of detail on Real World items as well as items from the World of Darkness setting. It has a two-page infobox, "Who was Saucy Jack?", which covers several popular Real World suspects as well as suggesting supernatural possibilities relevant to the World of Darkness.
• Rippers (Great White Games, 2005, Savage Worlds) and Rippers Resurrected (Pinnacle Entertainment Group, 2015, Savage Worlds): In this setting, a doctor survives a werewolf attack and discovers that he can graft parts of supernatural creatures to himself to give himself enhanced abilities; this "RipperTech" is used to justify all sorts of abilities. He and Abraham Van Helsing found the "Rippers," a secret society of do-gooders who use this technology. Sadly, the taint of the supernatural drives many who make use of RipperTech mad, and the doctor himself goes mad and becomes Jack the Ripper, organizing the supernatural monsters into the Cabal, which hunts down the Rippers wherever they can. This is all in the campaign backstory; none of the adventures I was able to locate actually describe the Ripper killings in the form they take in the game background.
• The Dracula Dossier Director's Handbook (Pelgrane Press, 2015, GUMSHOE): The Dracula Dossier is a campaign for Night's Black Agents which assumes the novel Dracula was actually a redacted version of a report of real events. The campaign is meant to take place in the 1940s, but since the novel was published in 1897, the Jack the Ripper killings can be used for atmosphere. The section "Is Jack the Ripper Involved Somehow?" gives a numer of ideas on how to use the murders with the story of the vampire.
• Leagues of Gothic Horror (Triple Ace Games, 2016, Ubiquity Engine): This core book for the line mentions Jack the Ripper several times, in completely different forms. One character background mentions the Ripper as
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  a werewolf
  . The Ripper is also mentioned as the archetype for the Serial Killer (a creature template in the Bestiary section) which would imply a completely-human killer. Then, later on, the Ripper is revealed to be
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  Leather Apron, a mystical leather apron formerly worn by Aztec priests during sacrifices which has developed an unholy thirst for blood. It has caused several murder sprees, of which the Jack the Ripper killings are only the most recent
  . Still later in the same chapter, the Ripper is implied to be
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  Sir William Gull, Freemason and Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria, a favorite Ripper suspect among enthusiasts. Following a stroke in 1887, he developed an unnatural hunger that eventually led him to perform the killings; his family, finding this out, had him lobotomized by a fellow Freemason who could be trusted to keep the secret, and then committed to an asylum which has later burned down. This plot thread is further developed in the supplement Guide to the Walking Dead
  . Finally, in the section on "Dark Places," an adventure seed involving later Ripper-style killings has the Ripper
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  dead, but possessing an innocent to continue his killing spree
  . That guy gets around!
• Guide to Vampires (Triple Ace Games, 2017, Ubiquity Engine): This supplement to Leagues of Gothic Horror has a number of vampires to populate your LOGH game, including
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  Jill, a streetwalker who managed to "survive" a vampire attack but is now a thrall
  , whose nightly hunts have been called "New Ripper Killings!" in the press.
• Carved in Flesh Vol. 1 (Dogs Dinner Games, 2020, The Black Hack): Each volume of this supplement for The Jack Hack (a variant of The Black Hack) is a scenario (or an "adventure landscape" as it calls itself) covering one of the canonical Whitechapel murders; so, this one covers Mary Ann Nichols. As an adventure landscape, it does not actually specify the killer, but provides a host of possible suspects
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  from a nearby Carnival
  , many of which make interesting NPCs to pepper your Victorian London with.

[AlHazred]

I figured I'd also compile a Jack the Ripper movie list for inspiration, but I had no idea just how many movies have been based on the Whitechapel murders. Nevertheless, I found a few that I thought seemed interesting and maybe good for inspiration; I wonder if, after I finally get to watch them, I'll still consider them good fodder for gaming:

• A Study in Terror (1965): Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) and Dr. Watson (Donald Houston) investigate the Whitechapel murders.
• Jack the Ripper (1973 series): This was a series starring Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt (Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor) analyzing the case, with the incidents portrayed in flashback. It was a six-part series and was apparently hugely successful for them; the characters had been made popular by a couple of previous long-running police procedural series. I'll have to find this one, seems interesting.
• Murder By Decree (1979): Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and Dr. Watson (James Mason) investigate the Whitechapel murders. Amusingly, a couple of actors from A Study in Terror were in this one, too; one of them in the same role!
• Jack the Ripper (1988 miniseries): I actually remember I watched this when it was on television -- I'm a sucker for a Michael Caine film. He plays Inspector Abberline in it, and I remember liking it quite a bit, but reading Wikipedia it looks like they took some liberties with the characters. Still, I remember it was entertaining.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

• Monograph #339: Return of the Ripper (Chaosium, 1986, Call of Cthulhu 3E): The only Gaslight scenario published in Chaosium's Monograph series, this features a Ripper who is
  VIEW CONTENT:

  an Englishman, turned into a psychic vampire by Tcho-Tchos and sent back to England to wreak havoc on the Empire
  . As might be inferred by the name, this also has the original killings taking place in the past, with a new series of copycat killings starting in London in the late summer to early autumn of 1893; there are a huge number of complications and side events. While I probably won't use it as-is, it includes a lot of maps and a huge amount of setting detail specific to Whitechapel and the events central and peripheral to the Ripper killings.

[/quote]

I've actually played this one! I managed to get us off of the book in the scenario, as I had the idea to bait ghouls in the sewers and talk to them about what they had seen. The game ended kind of ridiculously, as one of the PCs introduced in the last session got shot by the doorkeeper of a tavern while carrying explosives, which leveled the building and killed the Ripper on accident. The original two PCs (my character and one other) managed to recover and get out of the hospital before anyone else's to raid the Ripper's home for stuff.

I figured I'd also compile a Jack the Ripper movie list for inspiration, but I had no idea just how many movies have been based on the Whitechapel murders. Nevertheless, I found a few that I thought seemed interesting and maybe good for inspiration; I wonder if, after I finally get to watch them, I'll still consider them good fodder for gaming:

This isn't really a movie focused on Jack the Ripper, but he does have a cameo appearance in Shanghai Knights. HIs killing spree is ended by being punted off of a bridge by a girl who knows kung fu.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

• Monograph #339: Return of the Ripper (Chaosium, 1986, Call of Cthulhu 3E): The only Gaslight scenario published in Chaosium's Monograph series, this features a Ripper who is
  VIEW CONTENT:

  an Englishman, turned into a psychic vampire by Tcho-Tchos and sent back to England to wreak havoc on the Empire
  . As might be inferred by the name, this also has the original killings taking place in the past, with a new series of copycat killings starting in London in the late summer to early autumn of 1893; there are a huge number of complications and side events. While I probably won't use it as-is, it includes a lot of maps and a huge amount of setting detail specific to Whitechapel and the events central and peripheral to the Ripper killings.

I've actually played this one! I managed to get us off of the book in the scenario, as I had the idea to bait ghouls in the sewers and talk to them about what they had seen. The game ended kind of ridiculously, as one of the PCs introduced in the last session got shot by the doorkeeper of a tavern while carrying explosives, which leveled the building and killed the Ripper on accident. The original two PCs (my character and one other) managed to recover and get out of the hospital before anyone else's to raid the Ripper's home for stuff.

I figured I'd also compile a Jack the Ripper movie list for inspiration, but I had no idea just how many movies have been based on the Whitechapel murders. Nevertheless, I found a few that I thought seemed interesting and maybe good for inspiration; I wonder if, after I finally get to watch them, I'll still consider them good fodder for gaming:

This isn't really a movie focused on Jack the Ripper, but he does have a cameo appearance in Shanghai Knights. HIs killing spree is ended by being punted off of a bridge by a girl who knows kung fu.

[AlHazred]

I've actually played this one! I managed to get us off of the book in the scenario, as I had the idea to bait ghouls in the sewers and talk to them about what they had seen. The game ended kind of ridiculously, as one of the PCs introduced in the last session got shot by the doorkeeper of a tavern while carrying explosives, which leveled the building and killed the Ripper on accident. The original two PCs (my character and one other) managed to recover and get out of the hospital before anyone else's to raid the Ripper's home for stuff.

Sound like you guys played it right. I've run plenty of CoC, and I don't think I've ever had a scenario go off "by the book"!

This isn't really a movie focused on Jack the Ripper, but he does have a cameo appearance in Shanghai Knights. HIs killing spree is ended by being punted off of a bridge by a girl who knows kung fu.

Oh, if I was willing to list them all we'd be here all month! There are hundreds of movies about, or peripheral to, the Ripper!

[AlHazred]

Updated the original post with more information provided by people in similar threads I made in other forums.

[alhoon]

I don't see how this wasn't mentioned but... Paridon's adventure would fit very well in Masque of Red Death.

[AlHazred]

I don't see how this wasn't mentioned but... Paridon's adventure would fit very well in Masque of Red Death.

Are you talking about RM8 Hour of the Knife? Because that was in the OP.

[alhoon]

Nope, the FOLLOW-UP in the site of the Kargatane. Shadow of the Knife or the like.