Henri von Giffard

Messages:

Message to Mo12 for House Taurus and All Members, from Mr von Giffard:
"Gentlemen, it would seem that Mr Darkenford is trying to join as many
houses as possible, I have had information that he has tried to join at
least two others. Much as I feel it would benefit us all to have new
members I feel that an individual in many houses will find his resources
severely split, I think two is the maximum. So I would vote against this
individual for the time being until he can show us that he can equally put
effort into House Taurus. On another issue I would like to put forward the
name of Niels Graaf for membership for House Taurus, this is an individual
who has always had an interest in inventing things, but never the
facilities to do so. He has joined me on a couple of projects to design
items of use for him. Please consider this individual and vote ASAP. Best
Regards, Henri von Giffard."

To Mr von Giffard and Lord Maguire, from Mr Edison: "Wise words, gentlemen:
I can see that Mr Darkenford would not really be an appropriate member of
our House. I know little of Mr Graaf, although he seems a pleasant enough
chap. Do you think he will have enough time free from his military duties
to make much of a contribution to the House? We don't want any time-servers
who will always be too busy to do any inventing. On the other hand, with Dr
Bang's withdrawal and Mr Wylde's tragic death, we are rather short-handed
in Europe, able though you two gentlemen of course are. Yours, Tom Edison."

To House Scorpio and the Mo12, from Mr von Giffard: "As you can see I have
worked from First Principles to devise a new set of Scorpionic Rituals
which will enable us to summon entities in half the time and will require a
quarter less penance time. This should enable Scorpio's to summon more
powerful entities for the same spiritual energy. Henri von Giffard."

To House Scorpio, from the Member of the Twelve: "Many thanks to our newest
member for his sterling work on cleaning up our ritual. Who would have
thought that two ccs of mouse blood might be sufficient? What an age we
live in! La Vey."

Notes:

Council business: the Vizier's motion that all private messages from 0001
should be read out to all Members was passed on the Vizier's casting vote,
with every other member of the Council abstaining.

Scorpio stuff - you complete your studies, with the Emperor's help, and
copy your revised ritualogy to the rest of the House. The Emperor also
helps you summon a Guardian Angel of your own, rather than lending you his
one: apparently your own will be more obedient and flexible.

Triton suit - goes as planned, see News.

Phoenix - it's not as good as you'd hoped, given the other matters
occupying PIST (Count von Essen has ordered them to work on a load of
miscellaneous weapons projects, and the Magister Militum has also been
trying to beg new weapons off them). Stats on the two machines are: Pegasus
15 feet long, 1 man (the pilot also stokes), 200 lbs of spare capacity,
range 50 miles, speed 75 miles an hour. Phoenix 100 feet long, 6 total crew
+ passengers (at least 2 must be crew), 1 ton of spare capacity, 120 mph,
800 miles range. You patent it and put both into production.

Stone waves - you reckon that it should be possible to have one 'guardian'
demon look after 20 or so subsidiary ones, and a capable mage could
probably manage half a dozen of the guardians. You improve on Stone's
design (not difficult), using pyramidal crystals instead of black boxes,
and it strikes you that this now looks not at all dissimilar to the
Infernal Mail system you and Karageorge investigated.

You have PIST improve the Kraken, underwater Giffine Guns and rigidized
diving suits for Graaf.

You sign an alliance with Byzantium, on Count von Essen's permission.

Lord Maguire has deposited the plans to the MaryAlice II in the House
Taurus patent library.