[DitV Town] New Prosperity

[Willow]

If you know me and you think there's any chance I might run this for you, DON'T READ THIS!

That means YOU, Daniel!

Anyway, everyone else, go ahead and read it and tell me what you think.  I just finished reading Dogs, so I've never GM'd it.  I sort of played for about an hour.  Is there too much here?  I like complicated plots.  Assuming its not too complicated, what might be some good ways to make it even more complicated?

New Prosperity:

Backstory:  About six months ago, prospectors found a large gold strike near New Prosperity.  When the strike was reported to the Territorial Authorities, it caused a bit of a stir.  About three dozen Easterners have traveled out to New Prosperity, financed by Rhine Industries, a company from Back East.  Given the potential wealth of the mine (and the political pull of Rhine Industries), a Territorial Marshall (Marshall Liselotte Hiedler) and five deputies have been dispatched to New Prosperity to protect the mine and enforce order.

Pride:  New Prosperity was a good size town before, and it just got bigger.  There's several egos in town that need to be taken down a peg or three, but the most important one of all is that of Brother Jacob.

Steward Jacob Austin feels that he deserves Stewardship over not just the local Flock, but the Atheist Easterners as well, especially that Marshall Hielder.  He objects strongly to the sin he sees in the Easterners, and sees it rubbing off on his own flock.  Instead of tending to his own, he's planning on going after the source of the problem, by getting rid of the mine.

Injustice:

Because of Brother Jacob's laxity in tending to his Stewardship, many of the Faithful have started to slip up in minor ways, now that their Steward isn't looking out for them.

Brother Adam Marcellus, the town's cooper, is profiting mighty highly from the camp of Easterners:  he's started prostituting his daughters, Harmony (15), Charity (17), and Chastity (19.)  The girls themselves love the attention they're getting and the reduction on their workload, and all the pretty clothes from Back East their family can afford now.

Brother Adrian (an older, good-for nothing layabout brother of one of the Dogs) has made his way to town, and has found himself a job with the mining company, trying to do hard work and redeem himself.  He's been seeing Sister Chastity, and has fallen in love with her.  (She's rather fond of him as well).  It's killing him that he has to see her with other men.

Many of the Faithful of New Prosperity in general, are giving in to the tempting Eastern influence of liquor, tobacco, gambling, and avoiding church service.

Sins:

Brother Jacob is committing the sin of Faithlessness, by neglecting his true duties, and Disunity for plotting against the mine.  About a third of the townsfolk are slowly slipping into the sin of Worldliness,  and a few of the faithful are having Sex with the Marcellus Sisters.

Demonic Attacks:

The demons want to stir up resentment towards the Easterners and cause a full scale bloodbath.  They're causing lots of general misfortune to convince Brother Jacob and other faithful members of the town that the Easterners (particularly Marshall Hiedler and Foreman Walgrave) are sorcerers.  They'd also like to make sure that rumors of the mine spread to encourage further Easterners to come to the town, and any rumors of violence by the Faithful to spread, to encourage a violent response from the Territorial Authorities.  The Sex and Worldliness is just icing on the cake to them.

Because the source of all of this is strife over the mine, many of the Demonic attacks are related to the Earth.  Wells dry up, crops die, buildings collapse, and jars of Consecrated Earth shatter.  Recently Brother Ezekiah Adler's barn collapsed, killing his herd and badly injuring three of his sons.

False Doctrine:

"The mine is the source of New Prosperity's woes.  It must be destroyed."

Brother Jacob is still planning his attack on the mine, but his sermons have become more vengeful and full of hate as of late, encouraging his Flock towards violence in general.  The demons want him to keep on preaching to convince more people.

False Priesthood:

Brother Jacob is the Cult Leader of the False Priesthood.  He's got about five core followers with which he plans the attack on the mine, including Brother Eziekiah, who blames the mine for the suffering of his sons.

The demons want Brother Jacob and his followers to blow up the mine (preferably with lots of people in it.)  They want Marshall Hiedler and Foreman Walgrave dead, because they represent the Territorial Authority, and will probably merit a harsh response.  They want to kill any folk who have been tolerant of the Easterners, like Brother Adrian, and leave the town with only xenophobic troublemakers.

Characters:

Brother Jacob wants the Dogs to help him chase the Easterners out of town and co-opt them into his plan.  He won't tell them about his plan at first, but will wait and see how they act.

Brother Adam wants to live a life without work, and he doesn't want his daughters to have to work (traditionally) either.

Sisters Harmony, Charity, and Chastity don't want the Dogs to take their fancy clothes away, and they want to continue being special.  Charity wants the Dogs to help her marry Adrian, but she doesn't know how.

Brother Adrian wants his sibling to forgive him and tell him that he's living right.  He wants the Dogs to stop Charity from being a prostitute and help him marry her so they don't have to sin.

Brother Ezekiah wants the Dogs to help him get revenge by running those Easterners out of town.

Foreman Gunther Walgrave wants the Dogs to help him make peace with the locals, and perform a religious service of some kind for his men, who aren't welcome at Brother Jacob's sermons.  He doesn't mind being called Brother Gunther, but he doesn't want to join the Church.

Territorial Marshall Liselotte Hiedler wants to enforce order and the laws of the Territories, and she wants the Dogs to help her do it.  Particularly this means No Killing.  She doesn't want the Dogs to make a big fuss about all the "sins" that people are committing that aren't illegal under her laws.  She doesn't want the Dogs (or anyone else) to go around killing people.  She wants the Dogs to support her authority as a Marshall.  She wants the Dogs to call her "Marshall Hiedler", and  NOT "Sister Liselotte".

[ffilz]

Looks interesting. One note, you made an editting error in the wants, hooking Adrian with Charity instead of Chastity. Reccomendation - rename one of those two sisters... Unless you want to play up the confusion between the two...

Frank

[Alex F]

I like, and think it needn't be too complicated - after all, the players needn't deal with everything to engage with the town. Just don't be obliged to throw further NPC's at the players when things are already interesting. Just do it at the points they think they can stop and catch their breath.

On thing: I think it's best to keep things to specifics - when you say "Many of the Faithful of New Prosperity in general" I would pick a character instead. Otherwise things might get a bit woolly, and you might find yourself applying this feature to other named protagonists when in the cold light of day you might have preferred to keep the sins distinct (and the reverse may also be true).