Douglas Boddington, a dwarf yet to make his last name in the world, is known for two things: cheap knockoff clockwork games and a remarkable ability to jury rig incredible make-shift devices from whatever materials are to hand. It is this ability that has reduced the overheads for the production of Boddington Games and Boddington is often to be found buying a job lot of old broken clocks at knockdown prices rather than pay full price for brand new cogs to build his games with.

A case in point is the incredible story of the Sewer Sledge. Working the "Saint Nick" shift as Boddington calls it, that August period signalling when Games and Toy manufacturers turn their attention away from the toys of the summer, and prepare for the long slog towards the toys of Winter and Christmas, Boddington was in the middle of creating a custom built sled in the style of the Troika or the horse drawn sleighs of the frozen north, capable of bearing six or seven passengers.

Being present at the Alhambra incident, Boddington was one of several adventurers who followed a trail of clues back to the records of the General Registry Office in Somerset House. Having "cased the joint" (in the argot of the criminal underclass) the heroes realised that to access the relevant file they would need to break into the filing room from underneath, thus the need for a long and arduous trek through the mire of London's Sewers

Boddington himself was far from squeamish and had already donned his vulcanised rubber waders and a rudimentary diving suit, although the distaste for the idea of wallowing in filth was evident on his new compatriots faces, indeed the thought of doing a tunnel run appealed to his dwarven sensibilities. That was, until it was pointed out to him precisely how deep the water level of sewage ran to and that it would be a particularly unpleasant way to drown leading to an his footnote in history being a humorous obituary in the London Times.

So it was that Douglas Boddington set about converting the sled into a functional amphibious craft. Working on a design borrowed from the insects of nature who distribute their body-weight through their legs across a large surface area and thus seem to skate across the meniscus without breaking the surface tension, Douglas built several legs onto the sled attaching a skate like float beneath each for added buoyancy when the craft was traversing across liquid. In his favour was the added viscosity of sewage which would give some element of extra surface tension.

Next Douglas had to provide some form of propulsion. Wheels would not be ideal because of the cylindrical nature of the sewer systems tunnels, but a friction based system would still be preferable because of the ability to brake and the reduced need to compensate for drift when steering. In the end, Boddington knew he'd rather drive than pilot, but how would he overcome the tunnel problem? His answer came to him when his gaze happened upon the leaf spring suspension he had stripped from the now amphibious sled. If he constructed a set of disc frame gimbals bisecting the sled length-ways so that the sled hung gyroscopically in its centre, the disc would run against the walls and ceiling providing a friction based drive whilst the sled would sit in the centre without the risk a capsizing. Should the tunnel width get smaller, the wheel would have a hinged point on either point and be tensile enough to bow into an elliptical shape. If the tunnel grew larger than the width of the gimbal, it would simply find the lowest secant line in the tunnel to fit its width and run along the walls.

Rather than the wheel itself rotating around the craft he mounted ball-bearings within the wheel frame that could be driven in any direction. A series of drive shafts moved by a joystick so that they could engage one or two gears in compass point directions allowed for the ball-bearings to be powered in any direction, whilst another joystick controlled the plane of the gimbal disc so that it could be moved around obstacles.

The power for the ballbearings was provided by a clockwork motor that could quite easily be hand cranked to maintain a steady pace by 2 crew members (the sledge carrying a capacity of 10 at full limit), whilst it would run out of its own energy after 20 minutes (although given a larger motor, obviously this could be increased).

No physical armaments were mounted on the sled, although this did not prevent the crew from carrying their own weaponry.

The one design flaw that Boddington had not anticipated with the craft was running into reservoir cavern areas of the sewer. Whilst simple paddles would overcome this problem, it was not conceived as a risk until the crew were marooned in the middle of a lake of sewage, with the threat of attack by sewermonkeys. It is under such duress that Boddington's mind thrived however and, using the bare materials at hand he conceived of the now legendary Boddington VV Engine.

The prototype, despite being besieged by a nest of sewermonkeys and launched at incredible velocity from an outlet pipe into a pumping station, survived its maiden voyage and now occupies pride of place in Boddington's workshop.

The sewer sled was a remarkable success and rumours abound that although Boddington has not launched the vehicle onto the market (sewers being of limited appeal to most sane people who could afford such a machine) he has had many "private" clients who find this subterranean style of locomotion suits the nature of their activities.