The Train Back East

[Judd]

The train winds through the hills and into the plains, until the desert lands of the Faithful are a distant memory, a white line on the horizon that is eaten by the golden plains.

There are armed men on some cars to guard against train robbers.  They are dangerous men, paid guns who are not of the Faith.  Some eyes look to the coats and ken their meaning but others see only a quilted jacket and nothing more.

Watchdogs of the Lord have headed Back East before out of Bridal Falls.  They are never heard from again.  Is it because they lose their Faith or their lives?  Which is worse?

Pride: This train leads to away from the barbaric west and into opportunity

False Doctrine: There are treasures of wisdom and gold Back East that the land of the Faithful cannot compete with.

Conductors: want the Dogs to put away their guns and be quiet passengers and understand the opportunities that await them in the great cities of the East.

Faithful family: want the Dogs to assure them that there is a life of Faith to be led in the east.

Traveling Salesman: wants to show the Dogs the power that is waiting for them and communicate that the sorcerous industrialists have noted their crossing...and would you like some snake oil?

East Province Authorities: want the dogs to aid them in finding an escaped convict, their leader is a lapsed member of the Faith.

Bank Robbers: they are disenfranchised Mountain Folk and Faithful who are striking at the cabals of industrialists the only way they know how, the money they transport from the good pockets of the western Faithful into the demon-infested bank vaults ofPride the East.

Faithful bride to be and aunt: bride wants the Dogs to sweep her off her feet and take her away from the elder Steward she is going Back East to marry while the Aunt wants the Dogs to remind the bride to be of her important duties as a Steward's wife.

Non-Faithful Preacher: wants the dogs to explain their authority and why he was tarred and feathered in the first town of the Faithful that he came across.


Whenever I start a game of DitV, I always begin the morning after they are given their coats and ride out of Bridal Falls.  I tell them that cabals of evil an sorcerous industrials await Back East and the congregations of the Faithful whom they are supposed to protect are in the west.  They always go west.

But what if they went Back East?   What if they decided that there were enough Watchdogs west and someone needed to be bold and valiant enough to head east to the source of the evil?

I wanted to prepare for that  occasion.

When we board a train I'd imagine we create a community, a make-shift mess of a community but a community none-the-less.

There is some heavy-handed shit in here but I'm just playing with the idea of how I'd begin the trip Back East.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

This is pretty darn nifty. I like that you're using the rules to make an unusual situation that's all that much better for its weird constraints.

[Judd]

This is pretty darn nifty. I like that you're using the rules to make an unusual situation that's all that much better for its weird constraints.

Its just kindling right now, not ready to be set on fire, I think.

But there's a seed of a good idea here.  And I think it'd be neat to play with the idea of community.  Wherein a community is any group of the Faithful, even a few on a railcar heading east.

Its coming together and the town format makes it easy to create a situation like this, I think.

[TonyLB]

The short-term history of how somebody ends up being recognized or self-identifying as the de facto Steward would be a really interesting part of the mechanic of it.  I agree with nikola, this is some funky stuff.

[Judd]

The short-term history of how somebody ends up being recognized or self-identifying as the de facto Steward would be a really interesting part of the mechanic of it.  I agree with nikola, this is some funky stuff.

Tony, I'm not following ya.

[TonyLB]

Well, if you're viewing the rail-cars and their passengers as equivalent to a town then there's some person whose responsibility is to look after the souls of the faithful:  the Steward.

They may not realize that they are the Steward.  After all, nobody has formally appointed them.  But people are likely to defer to them in varying degrees anyway... it's how the Faithful are wired.  A little six year old who comes around and hugs the woman who's quietly crying is performing the role of the Steward, for instance, and merits consideration in that regard (by the GM... not necessarily by the players).

On a completely unconnected note, they may not do a good job.  Without formal appointment, the role of Steward can easily be grabbed by the prideful or the inadequate.  And they can easily deny their responsibilities while embracing their de facto power.  But that's just good sin-material for the Dogs, isn't it?

Now I'm thinking about way-stations where people huddle together to avoid a deadly winter storm, and similar genre conventions.  Cool!

[Judd]

Gotcha, that is making much more sense now.

Thanks for clarifying.