[GAMES] Plot-Thoughts -- Deadlands

[jordangreywolf]

Digital_Rampage's Saturday every-other-weekend Starfinder campaign is wrapping up, and he wants to know what I will be running next. He estimates he might have 2 sessions left, so that's an end in less than 4 weeks now. He proposed I run something else -- BUT NOT FALLOUT. To my surprise, he expressed interest in Deadlands, even though he's previously expressed dislike for Savage Worlds.

Goober_Chris indicates that he'd be on board for Deadlands as well. (He also said he'd back me up on Fallout, but I'll save that battle for another day.)

While out walking today (got to get in those FitBit miles!) I had some random ideas pop into my head, starting from a random blip of an idea for a name for a sinister-sounding town: "Purgatory, Texas." (No, I don't think I'm going to name it that, but consider it a "working title.")

---

Objectives:

• Platform: Fantasy Grounds (a VTT or virtual tabletop platform) to handle die-rolling, maps, character sheets, and inventory tracking. It also has a chat window for pasting blocks of text or hyperlinks for player reference, with scrollback. To ease communication, I plan to use Discord or Teamspeak for audio.



• Rules: Savage Worlds with Deadlands plug-ins. Possibly Adventure Cards, but they may detract from the "horror/investigation" vibe. I'll employ some house rules, such as some sort of SAN loss (a la Call of Cthulhu or Weird Wars), and "Benny Miss" (as I'm more okay with PCs using "plot armor" to NOT GET SHOT rather than to make Soak rolls to take bullets but shrug them off because DEY SO TUFF).



• Setting: Wild West, quasi-historical, circa 1880s, outwardly our own history, but of course the PCs are going to encounter something weird and inexplicable.
  
  I am NOT considering the Deadlands alt-history "magic and weird science are EVERYWHERE" canon as it has developed over all the supplements and even the new retcon. That's too much reading to expect everyone to do to get up on "current events." I'd rather for the Weird to STAY WEIRD -- not to be the status quo. Yes, on a meta level, WE EXPECT WEIRDNESS TO HAPPEN, but our characters should be surprised -- or at least the bystanders should be (if there are any). If any players want to play supernatural-power-users, I may have to institute limitations (e.g., "magic doesn't work as well in public in front of doubting Thomases") or just require that the PCs be discreet, or else they wouldn't have survived to this point FOR REASONS YET TO BE REVEALED.



• Tone: I want a sense of mystery to the supernatural and the strange. Ideally, the PCs would be a bunch of "normals," save that someone might have some "occult knowledge" of dubious application to the task at hand. If someone insists on playing a supernatural type, the supernatural should still be beyond complete understanding. No "Van Helsing" type who has personally slain vampires by the dozens and therefore knows exactly how these things pan out. This is about discovery and dread, not casually busting ghosts with proton accelerators (even if that could indeed be cool in its own way).



• Scope: Maybe 4-6 sessions taking place in or around a single town, with a single adventure arc, though the actual objective of the adventure might not be immediately evident (i.e., the original stated goal could be a red herring). I have no idea how long the "lockdown" will be in place, but it's possible that interests could diverge once it's socially acceptable to actually have guests in person at the house. Actually shifting to a home game would be disruptive for those players who are only in on this for the ONLINE aspect. So, I'm aiming for a relatively short run for the time being, with possibility to expand further IF there's interest.

---

So, some vague ideas, not fully formed into a "plot" yet:

The Town:
On the meta level, I've got a bunch of floor towns for buildings in an Old West town, thanks to Dog House Rules and their "Fort Griffin" expansion, so I intend to use those for floor tiles for any interior action. (It would be nice if I could have "distressed" versions of same, for end-game scenarios. I might work on something along those lines.)

The time is the late 19th century (let's say 1888 just to arbitrarily pick a time for now, though any time during "The Old West" is probably acceptable). Our protagonists have for some reason gathered within a town that for now I'll call Purgatory, but it should have a less ominous or heavily foreshadowing name. There needs to be some reason why the protagonists have gathered here, and why they might remain in this town and/or its general vicinity for a while.

Something is wrong here, but I don't want to underscore that too clearly from the start. The PCs should have an objective to keep them occupied, and it should only be later that they start to wonder about what's going on with the town itself. In particular, there are bound to be some unexplained disappearances, and the remaining residents are either in denial of the disappearances, OR act as if they don't even remember those who vanished.

The truth is that Something Horrible happened in this town, and the whole town was destroyed some time ago. Whoever the PCs came to track down and find here is already among the dead (or undead, if you please). The PCs are interacting with a GHOST of the town and its restless inhabitants. The reason why some of those inhabitants may disappear is not because they're being preyed upon, but rather that some of the actions of the PCs (if there are any "do-gooders" in the group) may help some of the spirits to "find rest" -- or at least let go of this world. (Exactly what happens to them next would not be explained.)

No Innocents:
The trouble is, what happened here was truly vile, and the spirits lingering here are those who were complicit in some way. There are no "innocents" to be found: no babies, no small children, and while there might be sympathetic characters, there are no "genuinely virtuous" people. Everyone has a dark secret. (This is a ghost story/adventure, so I don't want to get deep into any recognizable theology here, but I'm trying to stay within what might be an acceptable conceit in the "Old West" -- that innocents shouldn't be among the tormented after life.)

What About the Animals?
Animals? I'm not sure. It might be interesting to have a town where there are no pigs, no chickens, no cows, no horses, yet food is still served, etc. The trouble is, any hint of such a detail is certain to immediately make players think, "Oh noes! CANNIBALS!" and -- well, that could be a good or a bad thing, but it's certainly a misdirection, and it could well be too early of a tip-off that All Is Weird Here.

Another possibility is that there are animals, but the Animals Are Evil. They're spirits, demons, manitou, something weird, something watching, something unsettling, or else they're just "projections" on the same level as anything required to make these abandoned or even burned-down buildings seem to be intact and normal to the PCs' eyes. (I.e., part of the malevolent illusion.)

Unfinished Business:
My notion is that due to some supernatural twist that took out this town, there are lingering ghosts left behind that manifest echoes of the ambitions and worries of the many victims of this tragedy, and in traditional ghostly fashion, some "unfinished business" is what keeps the ghosts around rather than allowing them to "pass on."

Some of this "unfinished business" could be fairly petty stuff, especially for some of the more "simple" folk in town. Perhaps the town drunk merely has a hankering for a touch of whiskey (real whiskey, from outside, not the "dream stuff" that the saloon serves), and if some PC would be so kind as to give him some (in exchange for some information, or whatnot), that's good enough for him, and he'll vanish as soon as nobody's paying attention to him.

It's that sort of thing that I imagine to start setting off the "Wow, something ain't right here" sense, as people start disappearing, and I wouldn't mind this suggesting a red herring that someone or something is preying upon the people of the town, and in particular singling out those that the PCs have helped.

The trouble is, some of these ghosts have "unfinished business" that the PCs likely would NOT want to fulfill. After all, the last wishes of a truly sadistic or hateful person might not be all that benevolent toward fellow mankind.

Player Motivation:
So, what sort of business could bring the PCs to this remote (and very dead) town, and keep them in town for a while? A few ideas:

• Collecting on an Old Debt: "Old Lucky Eddie," a gambling, swindling "entrepreneur" and maker and breaker of deals, owed a great deal of money to his creditors, including the PCs. Well, somehow he struck it rich in this town, and word got out to the PCs -- perhaps via a mysterious telegram or missive tipping the PC off to Lucky Eddie's whereabouts ... or perhaps an obituary notice for Lucky Eddie that they all happened to find out about. (I'm a bit weak on what details would make sense for the time period. There's no internet. There's not even a national news service -- at least, not something that would cover something so mundane across any great distance.)
  
  So, this could be a bit of a "Sierra Madre" type situation where the PCs get a lead that Lucky Eddie's treasure is somewhere hidden in or around this town, and it's up to them to try to uncover it, and the PCs are either sufficiently greedy or indebted that presumably they'll stick around and weather some risks in order to see it through. (It's no fun if they're too sensible to try to bolt out of town as soon as things get sinister! I mean, I could spring the Twilight-Zone type maneuver where you head too far out of town, you end up right BACK in town again, but at that point the jig is up and it's pretty clear that everything has gone berserk.)



• Manhunt: Similar to the above, but the PCs are looking to track down Lucky Eddie or Bad Bart or whomever might be hiding out in this here town, and they have some sort of lead to point them to it. This would require that they all be bounty hunters or something like that, I suppose.



• Bad Weather: Inclement weather has forced a bunch of travelers to take shelter from the rain, dust storms, blizzard, or what-have-you, until it blows over. When will it blow over? Well, it will when it will. One consequence of this is that if the real town has burned down, then presumably whatever the PCs are "sheltering" in is purely ephemeral and isn't providing them much protection from the elements at all. (Well, maybe the STORM is imaginary, too.) So, if I went this route, I might have to dial it back a bit.
  
  Still, I could envision a situation where the high-roller PC staying in the posh hotel finds his health declining, and he's constantly got the shivers even though he stays near the iron stove, while the lone gunman who's basically just camping out next to his own fire is doing relatively well, and that could end up being a tip that "all's not what it seems."
  
  My main concern about using this route is that if "bad weather" alone is the thing keeping the PCs here, then there's no particular goal for the PCs to initially be focused on, so it's fairly obvious that whatever trouble is to be found has to come from the town, not whatever Bad Bart or Lucky Eddie they would be trying to track down otherwise.

Threat Levels & Injuries:
This isn't Pathfinder where PCs have hit points that regularly bounce up and down thanks to the combat grind offset by healing potions and clerics. Ideally, a PC will NOT GET SHOT. Source of wound will matter: It's far easier to recover from a punch in a fist-fight than it is to shrug off a BULLET, even if it's "just in the shoulder."

That said, I don't want to saddle PCs with the crippling Wound system as written. I am tempted to borrow an idea from Mansions of Madness, though I don't know how to implement it: For each Wound you take, you draw a Wound card, which lists some effect. Four cards (four wound levels) and you're Incapacitated, regardless of what those individual wound effects are. Specific wound effects could range from "a flesh wound" (no actual penalty, other than that you're that much closer to being Incapacitated) to a specific limb injury (-1 to tasks requiring that limb) to extreme pain (the old classic cumulative -1 to EVERYTHING).

If that's not possible, I might go for the more abstract "It's not a real injury until you hit Incapacitated." Incapacitated doesn't mean DEAD. It could mean a broken bone, or a bullet lodged in your shoulder, and once you get some first-aid treatment, there's still going to be a remaining Injury, just as in the regular rules. Everything up to and until that point is just a "grazing shot" or a "bruise," and will effectively go away once you've had a chance to recuperate and catch your breath from the latest battle. Just to emphasize, I don't want PCs taking bullets, and then we all forget about that 5 minutes later into the movie like the PCs all have crazy-fast regeneration or something.

But the other thought is that many of the threats the PCs might face could be largely illusory or spiritual, rendering some of this moot. For instance, I imagine a Yul Brenner-esque malevolent gunslinger who's quick to anger and "call out" any given PC. Maybe this gunslinger's lingering desire is to gun down some city slicker before he goes. In any case, he might be nigh-impossible to defeat fairly in a gun duel, and the PC might get shot, and it might seem to be quite life-threatening ... but after a bit of rest, the PC might be surprised to find that the bleeding has stopped, and instead of an actual gunshot wound, he's just got a nasty bruise-like mark.

Not that this should be cause for celebration, per se. The nasty bruise-like mark doesn't go away. If anything, it blackens and has nasty little tendrils creeping outward from the "wound." It might not hurt, but it sure doesn't look healthy, either. (In other words, a sort of "corruption," with an implication that too much of this could be very, very bad for the PC's health.)

This could be an excuse for having the PCs be able to bounce back from what we'd normally expect to be pretty bad injuries. However, not all sources of danger might be so forgiving. There are the evil animals, after all (who in at least some cases, might be *real* animals -- possessed, perhaps -- and thus their fangs and beaks and so forth might do real damage). That, and jumping off a cliff or getting caught in a mine collapse would be just as hazardous for one's health as you might expect.

The Dark Secret:
So, what sort of foul thing might have happened here?

Just brainstorming, I find myself thinking that Lucky Eddie (or whomever) actually did find a treasure. Maybe it's some of Hernan Cortes's lost treasure, blood-cursed gold stolen from Monteczuma after the massacre in Tenochtitlan. (I'd throw in a reference to Murrietta, the famous Californian bandit and ostensible precursor to the fictitious Zorro, but I'm not sure I'd want this to take place in California.)

Anyway, the gold, or some relic therein, was accompanied by a curse or was bound to a malevolent spirit (and tampering with the treasures released it). Frightful things began to happen, the town was shut off from the outside world, and the monster demanded blood sacrifices (e.g., at some point the town's children), kept raising the stakes, pit townsfolk against townsfolk, and eventually turned it into a dire "contest" to pick one survivor who would do the monster's bidding to lure more victims to the secluded town so it could repeat the process.

The monster isn't content with just killing off the PCs. No, what it would like to do is to turn them against each other, with the promise of leaving one standing to be let to go out and continue the cycle. "Who can you bring to me next?" he might like to know -- your greedy next of kin? Former members of a gang you ran with? Etc. While it is personally dangerous enough to be able to present a persuasive THREAT, it isn't so interested in murdering innocents as it is in compelling other people to murder those innocents FOR it.

I imagine the monster's motivations to be "classically demonic," but I'm not going to pretend that it's "actually" a demon. There are no easy ways out, such as splashing some holy water on it or hiding on holy ground, or anything like that. But in any case, there will be no third-party omniscient authority to spell these things out: if the PCs choose to call it "the demon" or "the ghost" or whatever, that's their prerogative.

(Related: In my questionnaire I should probably ask something like, "What is your character's 'Dark Secret'? And, depending upon just how genuinely Dark it is -- i.e., how would others react to finding out about it? -- it should act as an additional Hindrance, beyond the normal max. If it's just something pathetic such as "My dog didn't really eat my homework," then ... meh. Though I suppose if the player really roleplays it as if he'd be genuinely mortified for anyone to find out the truth, and might take extreme measures to stop that from happening, I suppose I might let it slide.)

That doesn't mean I really want the PCs to genuinely turn on each other, though I'd like the players to at least roleplay as if the characters are at least worried that the others might turn on THEM, and there's some sort of tension as a result. (I do have to be prepared for the possibility that one player might opt to be a real stinker and genuinely decide to betray the others.)

The Resolution:
See, here's the tough part. It can't be as simple as just shooting the monster in the head, or saying, "No, I WON'T turn to the Dark Side!" defiantly, or going out and walking Granny across the street (good deed!) and presto, monster is defeated. Nor is it a matter of "return Monteczuma's treasure" -- that should be patently impossible, considering that Monteczuma is long dead, and the monster is hardly trying to avenge or correct anything.

It could be a matter of piecing together snippets from torn journal pages, or making sense of random quotes made by "mad" townsfolk, tracking down whatever relic "contained" the monster, then doing something to recapture it. The thing is that I'm not sure how the PCs should reasonably be able to find out anything about any requisite "rituals," and it might feel cheap if it just turns into a MacGuffinQuest.

Also, helping the ghosts "find peace" isn't the solution, either. Whatever damage was done is already done. The PCs might feel "good" about any ghosts they help to "find peace," but my notion is that the ghosts are mere "psychic echoes" of the once living persons. (For one thing, they shouldn't be terribly deep conversationalists, as they are more-or-less going through the motions of whatever they would have done in former life, and aren't very receptive to new input unless it's something that matches up a previous fragment of memory and can provoke a "recycled" response. This could be hinted at by townsfolk "mistaking" PCs for other people, calling them by the wrong name, etc. ... but I'd prefer to minimize that, and just have most of the interactive PCs use generic terms. "Howdy, pardner!")

The Monster can't get any satisfaction out of tormenting the ghosts any further, and is only dismayed about their disappearance insofar as it complicates his attempts to entrap any new arrivals. (Maybe people who wander into town and promptly LEAVE aren't ensnared by the "trap." So, random travelers along the road might stop in town and head out without much ill effect, aside from some disturbing dreams, and the mail might even be delivered, but that's about it, unless the Monster senses a particularly "juicy" individual full of dark secrets worth ensnaring and tormenting further, at the risk of drawing too much attention to this little affair.)

Also, eventually the jig will be up -- perhaps there ARE organizations in this world who "clean up" such dark forces (or other spirits who don't take kindly to such shenanigans), and eventually, regardless of what the PCs do, this Monster will either be imprisoned again, or forced to move on to find new prey, but it can still do a lot of damage before it comes around to that point, so it'd be nice if the PCs could manage to defeat it. Thus, the Monster does not have limitless patience; it wants to be satisfied, and sooner rather than later. It can't just wait out the PCs.

The Distractions:
However, I'd like for at least the first session to have its own mini-quest. Maybe the PCs can actually find Lucky Eddie (who isn't so lucky after all). He might blab a few things, and perhaps the Monster has persuaded him that he'll be free or even granted remarkable POWERS if he can manage to kill one or more of the PCs (e.g., "I want a life for a life! Bring to me someone who has lived life to the fullest -- not some innocent whelp -- that I can feed upon, and THEN, you shall be free to leave with these worthless shiny baubles.").

That might be something for if the objective is not so much Lucky Eddie as it is his treasure, because otherwise if it's JUST to find Lucky Eddie, there might be good reason to leave town right away once he's found and most likely gunned down as he tries to murder someone. Perhaps he'll babble something about the treasure that could be an obscure hint to where it's hidden, though the treasure isn't the true objective of this adventure (just a MacGuffin to keep the PCs in town for, say, two nightfalls, which is enough to bring them under the binding curse that prevents them from easily leaving -- though of course they can't know that until it's too late).

Also, I need a better name than "Lucky Eddie." It doesn't sound very Western at all. Maybe "Lucky Old Pete"? "Prospector Pete?" "Six-Gun Sal?" "Bronco Bill?"

The Monster:
Who or what is The Monster? Well, I don't expect to give a complete and clear explanation, but I am tempted to associate him with an Aztec deity, though I don't know whether he would be inclined to introduce himself as such. It at least gives me an anchor for some way to set boundaries for his "powers" (other than just "makes illusions and clouds minds a la 'It,' and traps mortals in demonic-seeming pacts").

For the sake of starting somewhere, I am inclined to associate him with Xolotl, the "sinister god of monstrosities," brother to Quetzalcoatl; god of fire and lightning; god of twins, misfortune, sickness, and deformities.

Possible opportunities include working in a red herring about werewolves, a European style Black Dog, a reference to the Cadejo (South American equivalent to the legendary Black Dog / Hellhound), or even throwing in the appearance of a "trickster" coyote (Huehuecoyotl) who quietly leads a PC toward clues, etc., as a device for giving a PC a shot at thwarting the machinations of a "demigod" spirit.

...

Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. I may add to this later as I have time to think some more.