Dog in a Black Coat

[tj333]

I've started a series of 9 Dog's town where a man who used to be a Dog but has become a sorcerer. His coat is now black and he travels from town to town stirring up trouble and teaching sorcery. I meant to do writeups sooner but its been a while since the early games so here is abrief summary.

Some of these towns are made by other pople. I'll track those down and post my Town writeups later.
The first town was Forgiveness Springs. The trouble was a man torn between his old life of crime and converting to the Faith and seeing to his newly married wife. The town just didn't have any grab to it but was an alright introduction to the game.

The second town was Alter Stream. Their was a big division between the rich and the poor in the town personified by 2 feuding families who were interfering too much in their children's marriage. At one point one of my players came up with his take on the town and how he thought it was going. it was a lot better then mine so I went with it. The Dogs sorted out who had to listen to who in the families and got them to share the wealth a little more.

The third town was Patience Rock and it kicked ass. Starting with the Dogs finding the town sheriff screwing one of the steward's wives in the brush out side of town. The sheriff insulted them and has the trait "I'm goin' kill me a Dog". Once the players learned he was doing a bad job of sheriff they tracked the sherrif back to the whore house (Patience Rock has a large unfaithful population from gold being found in the river.) with the sheriff in it, drug him outside and threw him into a watering trough. Once he got his pants back on the sheriff wasted little time in going for his gun but was shot down. (Quoting the scripture "The righteous man shall fall seven times but rise again" as the see to a gunshot was good.). For the sheriff's death the Dogs ran him out of town heavily injured. They want him to show up again in a later town.
The Dogs then went to see to the steward about his unfaithful wife. Part way through that conflict of convincing the steward his wife was cheating on him the second wife blurted out that he had only married them for their bodies (They were prostitutes before the marriage.). After a brief stunned silence the players gave on that conflict and split into 2 groups. One went after the steward to get him to change his ways and the other to try and convince the unfaithful wife to repent. They convinced the Steward he needed to change but failed on the wife. The steward stepped down from stewardship and the players ran the wife out of town afterwards.
The third cool part was when they went to raise Counselor Paul to steward. The conflict there was "Do the Dogs notice he is a sorcerer?". This was a close one with most of the raises and sees being the ceremony to instate him as the steward with most of the dogs actually droping out of the conflict before their dice ran out because Paul a seemed like a nice guy (Paul's wife meets you at the door and invites you in. Raise 12.). The fallout from the ceremony nearly killed Paul.
Rather then do a medical conflict one of my player declared they are there "to save souls not lives" and succeeded on the conflict to get Paul to repent before his death.
All in all a killer town that just went and hit the layers up side the head with "Hey, look at ME!!!".


The first 2 towns didn't really grab the players very well butn the third one did that and more. I'll have to watch to make sure my next town has enough grab to it.

[tj333]

Angel Canyon Branch

Mostly I'm looking to see if this town will grab the players enough.
With the rain, floods, and stone angels I think there should be enough evocative imagery.
The sides of the canyon have been carved by the rains and flash floods in the region. In many places the town founder believes he sees angels in the water carved stones. The areas with the most of the stone angels have been called the angel fields.
Being far from Bridal Falls and somewhat isolated Angel Canyon Branch doesn't have many Dogs showing up.

Pride: We can do this. You are with us or against us. The town will prosper without the Dogs coming.

Injustice: The town is splitting between those that follow the steward and those that oppose him.

Sin: Blasphemy, they have begun to sacrifice people by stringing them up in the canyons on the "angel's wings" as penance or as a sacrifice.

Demonic Attacks: The floods in Angel Canyon are worse then ever before and more people are being killed. Mostly the children are killed.

Corrupt Worship: Leaving some to the floods will save the rest.

False Priesthood: The steward is leading his flock astray but everyone does not want to follow him.

Sorcery: The steward has prayed for things to happen to those who oppose him and some of them have been taken in the floods. The Dog in Black is in town and could push the steward to more direct uses of sorcery.

Hate and Murder: The sacrifices on the angel fields. There have been a few gun fights as well..

What do people want: The Steward wants the doubters silenced.
The doubters want the steward to stop the sacrifices.
The children want to be let back outside since they have been locked up to save them from the floods. (This is a bit of a turn around on one character's backgrounds since she was was abused by her farther and in the first town the farther was in jail.)
Everyone want the children to be safe.
Demons want: The isolated incidents of gunfights to become wide spread. The steward to start sacrificing the children to turn more people against him. For the children to suffer.
If the dogs don't come: Eventually a lot of people will get strung up on angel's wings or gunned down in the streets.

I think I'll start the Dogs in this town by having a letter to deliver and being directed out to the angel fields to find the recipient strung up on angel's wing dead.
To keep the players from facing off with the Dog in the Black Coat too directly yet he will be very much in the background and only show when something else is happening to keep the dogs from overwhelming him.
A full actual play will follow for this town after we play it this weekend.

[ironick]

Oh man, if you play music for your games, you have GOT to use "The Man in the Long Black Coat".  There are two versions that I know of, both pretty killer.  I believe the original was by Bob Dylan and Joan Osbourne did a cover of it.

[Ramidel]

Angel Canyon Branch

Mostly I'm looking to see if this town will grab the players enough.
With the rain, floods, and stone angels I think there should be enough evocative imagery.
The sides of the canyon have been carved by the rains and flash floods in the region. In many places the town founder believes he sees angels in the water carved stones. The areas with the most of the stone angels have been called the angel fields.
Being far from Bridal Falls and somewhat isolated Angel Canyon Branch doesn't have many Dogs showing up.

Pride: We can do this. You are with us or against us. The town will prosper without the Dogs coming.

Injustice: The town is splitting between those that follow the steward and those that oppose him.

Sin: Blasphemy, they have begun to sacrifice people by stringing them up in the canyons on the "angel's wings" as penance or as a sacrifice.

Demonic Attacks: The floods in Angel Canyon are worse then ever before and more people are being killed. Mostly the children are killed.

Corrupt Worship: Leaving some to the floods will save the rest.

False Priesthood: The steward is leading his flock astray but everyone does not want to follow him.

Sorcery: The steward has prayed for things to happen to those who oppose him and some of them have been taken in the floods. The Dog in Black is in town and could push the steward to more direct uses of sorcery.

Hate and Murder: The sacrifices on the angel fields. There have been a few gun fights as well..

What do people want: The Steward wants the doubters silenced.
The doubters want the steward to stop the sacrifices.
The children want to be let back outside since they have been locked up to save them from the floods. (This is a bit of a turn around on one character's backgrounds since she was was abused by her farther and in the first town the farther was in jail.)
Everyone want the children to be safe.
Demons want: The isolated incidents of gunfights to become wide spread. The steward to start sacrificing the children to turn more people against him. For the children to suffer.
If the dogs don't come: Eventually a lot of people will get strung up on angel's wings or gunned down in the streets.

I think I'll start the Dogs in this town by having a letter to deliver and being directed out to the angel fields to find the recipient strung up on angel's wing dead.
To keep the players from facing off with the Dog in the Black Coat too directly yet he will be very much in the background and only show when something else is happening to keep the dogs from overwhelming him.
A full actual play will follow for this town after we play it this weekend.

Ah...isn't Hate and Murder supposed to be the end of the chain, not the second phase?

[tj333]

Good point.
I'll start it with just as punishment, not to the death. Maybe the seward got stuck up there somehow and thats what started the whole thing.
Thanks for spotting that. I intend the game for this last weekend but a player couldn't make it so we played Burning Empires instead.

[Ramidel]

Good point.
I'll start it with just as punishment, not to the death. Maybe the seward got stuck up there somehow and thats what started the whole thing.
Thanks for spotting that. I intend the game for this last weekend but a player couldn't make it so we played Burning Empires instead.

Another thing is that "leaving people to the floods" is also Hate and Murder, not simple Corrupt Worship. (My countersuggestion? Leave livestock to the floods to save the people...)
Similarly, for Sorcery: it's strange that the enemies of the Steward are losing -their- livestock to the floods...
Then, at H&M, the Steward gets the bright idea that his enemies make perfect sacrifices, all strung-up on angel wings for the floods. (Gun battles...why are they happening, who is causing them? They seem to be an element you just threw in there, unconnected to anything else.)