[DitV] Coachwhip Cut-Off

[Jason Morningstar]

Feedback encouraged!  Help me tighten this town up.  I took it all the way up to hate and murder, but am considering toning it down - what do you think>

COACHWHIP CUT-OFF BRANCH

SOMETHING'S WRONG

A man is dead; a town elder named Jesse Sharpless.  He got his throat slit by a broken bottle and his second wife did it.  Her name is Dinah.

Nobody knows for sure what happened but Dinah is young - real young - and was not fulfilling her duties as a wife.  Jesse was patient, but Dinah says his patience ended one night when he came to her drunk and full of sin.  He forced himself on her, she panicked, and Dinah killed him with his own liquor bottle after he wrestled her to the ground. 

PRIDE

Senior wife Sister Madeleine sure didn't make it easy for Dinah.  Twenty years her senior, she was jealous of her beauty and threatened by her husband's obvious obsession with her.  Madeleine filled Dinah's head with horror stories of the marriage bed, pregnancy, and childbirth. 

Sister Dinah was terrified of consummating her marriage and refused to have any sort of relations with Jesse.  She is also in love with Madeleine's son, David.

Brother David, Madeleine's grown son, is in love with Dinah, who is his father's widow, and technically his mother.

INJUSTICE

A combination of Madeleine's terrible tales, Dinah's inexperience, and Jesse's sinful lust has resulted in a tragedy.

David and Dinah are a perfectly suited couple only two years apart but cannot marry, or even court.

SINS

Faithlessness and Deceit:  David and Dinah are meeting in secret to court.

Violence:  The head of the household is dead.  In David's arms, Dinah says it was a miracle from the King of Life that she could reach that broken bottle. The more time that passes, the less sorry she is. 

Disunity:  Madeleine never accepted Dinah, and now the entire Branch is divided over what to do with the girl.  About half want to turn her over to the T.A. as a murderess, and the other half want to ignore the whole affair as a sad accident.  Madeleine, every inch the righteous widow, was stirring up hatred and anger toward the girl, who is "living care-free in our midst, soaked in my dear husband's blood" - until she came down with whooping cough. Now she's quarantined and bed-ridden. 

Apostasy:  The kernel of a cult has formed around Sister Dinah.   

DEMONIC ATTACKS

The demons are causing the men in town to obsess with acquiring second wives.  They don't really need to demonically influence the women to illustrate that this may not be the best idea.  Martial relations are strained in every family. 

FALSE DOCTRINE

Dinah has come to believe that POLYGAMY IS WRONG. 

CORRUPT WORSHIP

Dinah and David spend their secret time together praying and selectively reading from the Book of Life to support their new-found doctrine.  Sister Carmel Craybeck, junior wife of the Steward, occasionally joins them.

FALSE PRIESTHOOD

As a secret couple, Dinah and David are reluctant to search out more potential cultists.  They have recruited Sister Carmel, however, who is an unsatisfied second wife of the Steward.  That's it for polygamous families in town, but there are plenty of angry, unsatisfied women. 

SORCERY

Dinah wants to shut Madeleine up, and the demons have obliged by giving her whooping cough.

HATE AND MURDER

None yet, although Madeleine would like to see Dinah lynched, and Dinah, flush with demonic power, won't hesitate to kill if necessary.

WHAT DO THE TOWNSPEOPLE WANT FROM THE DOGS?

The Steward, Bynum Craybeck, wants the Dogs to issue some minor punishment to appease the more hot-headed, and then marry the Sharpless wives to him.

Sister Carmel Craybeck wants the Dogs to divorce her from her husband.

Sister Dinah Sharpless wants the Dogs to forgive her for killing her husband.  She wants them to agree that polygamy can be sinful and a terrible mistake.

Sister Madeleine Sharpless wants the Dogs to cure her whooping cough.  She wants them to harshly punish Dinah.  She wants them to forgive her for her hateful words and cruel lies.

Brother David Sharpless wants the Dogs to marry him to Dinah. 

WHAT DO THE DEMONS WANT?

What do the demons ever want?  Chaos and ruin.  Bring more women into the cult, destroy more families, discredit the core doctrine of polygamy.

WHAT DO THE DEMONS WANT THE DOGS TO DO?

Forgive the tender, misguided waif that is Dinah Sharpless.  Re-write a bunch of rules to allow her and David to be happy. 

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE DOGS DIDN'T COME?

Dinah's cult would gather momentum, she'd marry David, Madeleine would die, and the infection would quickly spread to other towns.

WHO'S WHO

Steward Bynum Craybeck, 48, Wealthy postmaster and millwright

Sister Anne Craybeck, 35, Bynum's senior wife

Sister Carmel Craybeck, 21, Bynum's junior wife and a cultist. 

Sister Madeleine Sharpless, 39, senior wife and widow

Sister Dinah Sharpless, 16, victim and murderess, junior wife and widow.  In love with David.

Brother David Sharpless, 18, Madeleine's son.  Ranch hand.  In love with Dinah, his "second mother". 

John Bad Teeth (or Oconnenic), 23, Mountain Person Unbeliever and ranch hand, David's best friend. 

DEAD

Brother Jesse Sharpless, Counselor and horse rancher.

[ScottM]

Sounds like an interesting town to me.  I suspect you'll do well to detail out a few more characters; Anne and Caramel must have a dynamic. Why does Caramel hang out with the false cult-- what failing is the Steward guilty of to drive her away?

You also mention that the men and women are obsessing over second wives.  Perhaps a solid example or two will give you other characters to play, another viewpoint on the problem.

The steward needs some more meat to him; he's driven away his second wife and desires two more!  There's something to that...

Scott

[Jason Morningstar]

Thank you, Scott. 

I think I tend toward these huge geneology R-maps in my towns, so I thought I'd try going light.  But I'll buff up the Steward's family - that's a good idea and won't really introduce more characters. 

I'll post the result here:  http://www.meekmok.com/sassy/dogs/resources.html

--Jason

[Pôl Jackson]

WHAT DO THE DEMONS WANT THE DOGS TO DO?

Forgive the tender, misguided waif that is Dinah Sharpless.  Re-write a bunch of rules to allow her and David to be happy. 

But if the Dogs forgive Dinah and re-write the rules, then there's no longer any sin. And the demons need sin in order to influence the town! There's an example like this for one of the towns in the game book.

Maybe something more like, "The demons want the Dogs to spread disunity - either by supporting Dinah's supporters, or by supporting Madeleine's."

Or am I overthinking this?

[Jason Morningstar]

Perhaps I didn't word that in the best way.  If the Dogs do not interfere with Dinah, she'll be free to promulgate her cult once they ride off.  So the demons want them to be tender-hearted and forgiving and not get in the way.  Does that make more sense or should I re-write?  Now I'm thinking *I'm* missing something! 

[Pôl Jackson]

Jason: No, I don't think you're missing anything. The town looks good to me; it has plenty of "grab" to it.

There's an idea in the game that I find problematic: that the Dogs can redefine sin so that it isn't sin anymore. But that's a larger issue, and I'll start another thread to discuss it.