Dogs, Post-Apocalypse

[Lance D. Allen]

Hey all,

So my gaming group is about to start a DitV game, but rather than canon setting, we're playing in a Post Apocalyptic setting. This is mainly due mostly to my active disinterest in western settings, coupled with the prospective GM's dogged (pun intended) insistence on running Dogs. Once he showed me the resolution mechanic, and read a few choice tidbits from the book, my interest was more than piqued (what can I say? I'm a sucker for a cool mechanic) so we started haggling setting. I kept pushing for something strongly reminiscent of the Fallout series of video games, which unfortunately Lxndr (the GM in question) isn't familiar with.

I've recently done a lot of reading about DitV (including all of the Actual Play posts I could find) and I was becoming more inclined toward playing the canon setting, but for that stubborn disinterest in western settings. So we've decided on a compromise. We're bringing the Dogs almost whole-cloth into a post apocalyptic setting with the Faith and all. The only thing that really needs to be changed is flavor text, as Fallout is somewhat western in feel already. We hashed out a good explanation of how the apocalypse happened, and how the particular flavor of Faith that gave birth to the dogs came into being in one of the Vault communities that weathered the troubled times deep below the earth, and how that community spread and began to flourish in the untamed wilds that have survived the apocalypse.

What's funny is that, with all of the effort we put into the setting, our characters so far (2 players out of three have completed characters) could easily fit into canon DitV. So, without further exposition, my own character:

[Lance D. Allen]

Thaddeus Johah Gentry a.k.a. "Dove"

Strong Background: His mother was part of a group of Faithful moving to establish a new community when their caravan was caught in a fierce storm which damaged much of their equipment, and threatened to strand them in Faithless lands. Before despair could set in however, a man came riding through the storm, his presence seemingly a gift from the Lord as he took in the situation and took charge, guiding them to shelter and assisting in getting the caravan travel-worthy again once the storm had passed. Thad's mother, Emma, felt an immediate attraction for this brave stranger, which only grew stronger when she learned that he was one of the Faithful, though he served as a Marshall in these Faithless lands. That was why, when the caravan continued on, she found herself remaining.

After a short courtship, Emma and Marshall Thaddeus Gentry were married, and soon she was pregnant with his child. Unfortunately, not long after Thaddeus Jr. was born, she learned that her husband had been gunned down while trying to stop a band of rustlers and thieves from robbing a bank in a nearby town. Emma was left to raise their son all alone. Thaddeus grew into a strong, handsome young man, who immediately sought a position as Marshall Deputy when he came of age, to follow in his father's footsteps. Deputy Thaddeus Gentry quickly earned his nickname of "Dove" for his optimistic beliefs that all people are inherently good, and only need to be shown the right way to live. For all of that, when it came time to drop the hammers, he was held in awe by his fellow deputies.

It was about a year before reaching his majority that young Thad's life came to a turning point. Raised in his mother's Faith, he believed in the Lord, but had never really thought about it, other than trying to live virtuously and paying his respects to the Lord on Sundays. One night however, that changed. He had a dream, so vivid that he wasn't sure it had been a dream afterward, of a man he knew wearing the colorful, patchwork coat of a Dog. The man he saw was his father, whom he recognized from an expensive portrait his mother kept in the front room of their home. But upon recognizing his father, the dream changed. No longer did the man have the familiar smile lines and weathered skin of his father, but it was his own face that he saw. The sun above shone down brightly, so brightly that it was hard to see anything else.

The next day, he asked his mother about his father, whether or not he'd been a Dog. Rather than answer, she showed him a large trunk, which turned out to contain his father's old Dog coat, Book of Life, a jar with a few traces of dirt in it, and a worn leatherbound journal. Thaddeus knew then what he had to do.

(a cookie to anyone who can correctly tell me the inspiration for this character)

Acuity: 4d6
Body: 3d6
Heart: 3d6
Will: 3d6

Traits:
An Angel's Heart: 2d8
The Devil's Hand: 2d8
My Father was a Dog: 1d10
I'll make 'im proud: 1d6
People are Inherently Good: 1d10
Trickshot: 1d10
I was a Deputy Marshall: 2d6

Relationships:
My Ma: 1d8
The Marshall who replaced my Pa: 1d6
Remaining: 1d4, 2d6, 1d8

Belongings:
Dog's Coat
Pa's pistols and pistol belt
Ma's shotgun (who do you think taught Dove to shoot?)
Horse 2d6

I'll follow up with the other character later.

[Lance D. Allen]

Raven

Complicated History: Raven was the only name he ever knew, having grown up half-wild without a steady home. It really wasn't a surprise when he found himself in bad company, which was alright with him; The gangers were the closest thing to family he had. He grew up to be violent and callous, just another menace to good honest folk, roaming around the untamed wilderness of the new west.

That is, until his gang ran afoul of the Dogs. Most of them died in a storm of auto-fire or escaped, but Raven was leg-shot and taken as a captive by the Dogs, and taken in to a prison supported and protected by one of the Faithful communities. One of the Dogs in particular seemed to take a special interest in Raven, taking care of his wounds and talking to him on the way to the prison.

Jason Walker would never be called handsome or friendly, but he was a good Dog, and even more importantly, a good man. The rest of the Dogs with him thought he was crazy for even trying to share the Faith with the hellion they had in their custody, but share he did. For all his efforts though, it seemed little would come of it. Raven was sullen at best, and tried twice on the way to the prison to kill his captors and escape. It was with relief that the Dogs threw him into a cell and left him there.

But for the next year, whenever their route would take them by the prison, Jason would stop in and talk to young Raven, and eventually, slowly the anger and contempt dwindled. Jason always had been a force of nature; Some thought he'd be able to convert a stone if he'd put his mind to it. When he saw the hatred disappear from the young prisoner's eyes, he took him into his personal custody, still in shackles, and out on the route.

For the next months, Raven watched the Dogs at their work and spoke with Jason about the Faith on a nightly basis. He came to know what he'd done, what he'd been had been wrong, and knew he had to atone for it somehow. When that realization came is when he had the dream; In it, he saw himself in the coat of a Dog bringing in the leaders of his old gang, and he knew what he had to do. Redemption was at hand. When he told Jason that he wanted to be a Dog, the old man just smiled and gave him the key to his shackles, a horse, and sent him on his way toward Vineyard.

(some liberties were taken with the story, as not all aspects of his history were covered, or remembered by me, but it's basically all there)

Acuity: 4d6
Body: 4d6
Heart: 2d6
Will: 5d6

Traits:
Reluctant to Kill: 3d4
But there's a lot you can live through: 2d10
I am Vineyard's Hound: 1d4
I can smell my own: 2d6

Relationships:
Jason Walker, mentor Dog: 1d8
Remaining: 5d6, 1d8

Belongings:
Dogs Coat
Colt .45: 2d8+1d4
Bone-handled Knife: 1d8
Horse, large: 1d8
The Good Book: 1d8
Blessed Earth: 1d6

the final character will have to wait until the other member of our group gets him created.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

These are prime Dogs. Rather than making a whole custom "Poodles in the Pool" or something, you've just got authorship of the environment. Very nice.

[Lance D. Allen]

And the last of the PCs:

Malachi(No last name, but at least we talked him outta "Cletus")

Well Rounded: Born in a settlement near the Vineyard Vault, where the Dogs are trained, Malachi spent much of his life around Dogs. Raised on a farm, his father also acted as the local doctor, consequently Malachi had access to various books, and is much more of a scholar than he gives himself credit for. A scrappy little guy, he learned early on that there weren't many arguments that a little two-fisted dissertation couldn't resolve. All the same, he did learn a bit of the healing ways from his father, and was eventually marked out as a Dog, and sent on to Vineyard to begin his training.

Acuity: 4d6
Body: 5d6
Heart: 4d6
Will: 4d6

Traits:
I am good at mendin': 2d6
I am learnin' good: 1d4
I am good on the farm: 1d6
I got in a lot of fights as a kid: 2d8
I am a Dog: 1d6

Relationships:
My Pa: 1d8
Remaining: 4d6, 1d8

Belongings:
Dog's Coat
Rifle: 1d8+1d4
Horse: 1d6

[Lance D. Allen]

And now for the accomplishment scenarios I didn't think to record the die rolls, and I don't think anyone else did, either, so the following will just be descriptive, without the numbers.  

First up, we had Raven. Raven hoped he could best his old mentor at something.

It starts out with Jason asking Raven about some cockamamie ideas he'd been spouting in his scriptures class, about the parable of the temple. Seeing his chance to argue Jason down, Raven jumps right back with his declaration that it wasn't nonsense at all. He pulled out his bible, to point out the specific scripture, and argued that the temple didn't have to be a specific building set aside for worship, that it could be anywhere at all. Jason came back by pointing out that he'd been telling Raven that all along. The foundation and walls he'd talked about were a metaphor for the faith and the scriptures, not necessarily literal. Raven, dumbfounded, tried to recover the argument, but then realized that he'd been arguing for the wrong reasons. It was pride that made him want to best Jason, and he realized that humility was the better part.

Endgame: He lost his accomplishment, and took the trait "Learned humility" at 1d6.

==============================================

Next came Malachi's accomplishment. A bit of a note here: Malachi's player is a rather subdued, and hasn't yet responded well to games with stronger player authorship. He seems to enjoy himself, but it takes a lot of kibitzing and encouragement to get him to come up with something on his own. Anyhow, his hope was that he could learn that fighting didn't solve every problem.

As part of his apologetics course, Malachi has been set the task of telling some skeptical pilgrims about the faith. After a while of talking, the eldest of the three bursts out, saying that it's all hogwash, and that there was no reason to believe the things he said were anything more than coincidence. Trying to keep his temper in check, Malachi responded, citing scripture to show that nothing was coincidence. Scripture didn't impress the old man, who lit into Malachi with a will, having worked up a good head of steam. Seeing that the bible wasn't going to work, Malachi escalated to physical, taking him by the arm to show him a nearby farm. Calling upon his own experiences, he showed how the farm prospered, and how harmonious everything was, as a result of the King of Life's influence. The oldster wasn't buying it, insisting that the farms where he came from were just as good, and demanding that Malachi prove, if he could, that their way was any better. Finally, Malachi saw his opening, and turned to face the old man with something of a triumphant smile. He noted that everything couldn't be as good as the old man claimed, or else he and his kin wouldn't have come to Vineyard, looking for meaning. Malachi quietly pointed out that the old man would see the truth of it himself if he listened with his heart. The old man, totally deflated by the confident response finally quieted, and acquiesced.

Endgame: Malachi took a good amount of Fallout from the whole thing. Though he'd not really argued well, he believed he'd done so as a result of his "good learnin'" and took an additional d4 there, which will definitely cause more complications later. He also ended up with a d4 relationship with the old man, Wiley. It'll be interesting to see how that relationship will play out when they meet again. Finally, because he won the point without resorting to violence, he took the trait "Fists first isn't always the answer" at 1d6.

==============================================

Finally was Thaddeus' accomplishment. In his time as a Deputy Marshall, he'd come to believe that words and guns were the only viable means to end a conflict. He hoped he'd be able to find a middle ground between the two.

Well, it began because Thad was a bit of a talker. When not training, he was often found having a drink (though never to sinful excess) at a saloon in the settlement around Vineyard Vault, and talking about his times as a Deputy Marshall. Though he never exaggerated his exploits, his tales weren't far off bragging, and it eventually came to a point when another local patron was sick of hearing the stories. He told Thaddeus that all of his stories involved the pistols he wore, and declared that Thad wasn't nothing without 'em. Thad responded mildly, as was his way, that those sounded like fighting words, but that it wasn't his place to be fighting with the faithful. He was generally used to being able to talk down a conflict, so it took him by surprise when the man took a swing at him, escalating to violence. Thaddeus escalated to physical but not violence when he dodged out of the way. Here the conflict was upon him; He wasn't at all confident in his ability to fight with his fists, and talking didn't look like it was going to work. Though the man had challenged his ability without the guns, Thaddeus broke and ended the conflict the best he knew how. Before the man could recover and take another swing at him, both of the semi-auto pistols were clear of their holsters, and aimed dead at the man's heart. Thaddeus suggested that maybe the man just sit down and have a drink. The man just smiled and pointed out that he'd proved his point.

Endgame: Thaddeus took a small amount of temporary Fallout, but as it was temporary, and this was just the Accomplishment phase of the game, we didn't bother determining what it was. Because Thaddeus had failed his accomplishment, he took the trait "There ain't no middle ground" at 1d6. He's gonna be hard pressed to not pull his pistols when things get antsy.

[pasoliati]

We're bringing the Dogs almost whole-cloth into a post apocalyptic setting with the Faith and all. The only thing that really needs to be changed is flavor text, as Fallout is somewhat western in feel already. We hashed out a good explanation of how the apocalypse happened, and how the particular flavor of Faith that gave birth to the dogs came into being in one of the Vault communities that weathered the troubled times deep below the earth, and how that community spread and began to flourish in the untamed wilds that have survived the apocalypse.

For an interesting look at post-apocalyptic setting for Dogs, look at Orson Scott Card's "The Folks on the Fringe".

[Lxndr]

We're bringing the Dogs almost whole-cloth into a post apocalyptic setting with the Faith and all. The only thing that really needs to be changed is flavor text, as Fallout is somewhat western in feel already. We hashed out a good explanation of how the apocalypse happened, and how the particular flavor of Faith that gave birth to the dogs came into being in one of the Vault communities that weathered the troubled times deep below the earth, and how that community spread and began to flourish in the untamed wilds that have survived the apocalypse.

For an interesting look at post-apocalyptic setting for Dogs, look at Orson Scott Card's "The Folks on the Fringe".

I already own it, and have read it, though it's buried somewhere in my bedroom right now.  I recommend it to any fans of both the sci-fi survivalist genre and Dogs.