DitV town challenge: massive supernatural carnage

[lumpley]

The rules:

Create a town and post it in this thread.

Crank the supernatural up as far as you can. If your towns are usually supernatural-high, crank this one up even higher.

I want large body counts and horrific special effects.

I'll post one pretty soon. Start without me!

-Vincent

[Vaxalon]

May I ask why?

Our group found that the lower we cranked the dial, the more the game rocked.

[Vaxalon]

Well, I should say... when we were playing vanilla Dogs.

Playing Jedi definitely cranked it up a lot higher.

[lumpley]

Here's why.

No more questions! Do or don't, that is the answer!

-Vincent

[iconoplast]

Prudence:
Demonic Crows
Possessed townsfolk
Possibly Sorcerous Children
Two competing sorcerous cults
and One Creepy Voodoo Love Doll, animated by a Demon.

[oliof]

Eagle Rock

Pride
Sister Mountain Eyes is a converted Mountain Folk woman. She is married to the Sherrif, Brother Joshua. They have a daughter, Sr. Faith. Brother Joshua's Pride is having converted Sister Mountain Eyes by the act of love. Sister Mountain Eyes' Pride is clinging to the old ways of the mountain folk.

Injustice
Sister Faith's pride is thinking she can show people the legacy of both her parents is more worth than each single one.

Demonic Influence

The demons create all kinds of situations where people will go to their superstitious ways to fight them - milk turning sour unless people make signs on their doors, young couples falling barren unless they stuff their pillows with parsley, showing animals in the clouds during thunderstorms, sending young kids visionary dreams, changing the weather to make people desperate to change it.

Sin

People put more and more 'folk magic' rituals into their daily beliefs. Some turn to Sr. Faith for advice. The older ones have started Sister Mountain Eyes, who at first refused to answer requests like how to get the cats not to deliver a litter of cats every nine days (there are a *lot* of cats around). This stopped when the cats started talking.

Heresy

A lot of people gather regularly at sundawn with Sr. Faith to discuss what happened the day before and how to set things right.

False Priesthood

Sr. Faith is the leader of the cult. At the time, she can call down lightning, conjure ghost animals to fight spirits and hexes and took command of the army of speaking cats.

Hate and Murder

Some of the bigger threats require sacrifices. Some of the misfits have already been chosen to do one last useful service to community when the cows gave demonic ichor instead of milk.

What do the people want

Sister Mountain Eyes: Get the Dogs to acknowledge the mountain folk rituals are part of the creation of the king of life, not sorcery.
Brother Joshua: Wants to survive the madness of the daughter he loves.
Sister Faith: Wants to sacrifice her father to stop the drought.

If the Dogs never came

Sister Faith would sacrifice her father, and eventually her mother as well. She would be Faith Reborn, and wielding thunder and lightning, she would strike down all that are weaker than her (which would be a lot of people). She'd finally cut a path of destruction into the east, where her new cult would become the driving force of a new push out into the west.



Ideally, the dogs would meet Sister Mountain Eyes in town, praying for the well being of her husband, in a way that connects mountain folk and faithful rituals, i.e. calling him by his true name - which is the name of his totem.

Note: This was a 15 minute write up. More elaborate stuff to add would be a mountain folk shaman that Sr. Mountain Eyes is battling, a TA rep that is fighting for superiority with a glass sabre, and more. Maybe for another town.

[oliof]

Black Brook
inspired by Otfried Preulßer's The Satanic Mill. I highly recommend this book (although I only know the german original, Krabat).

Pride
Miller Smythes thinks he can make a living in the land of the faithful although he is not of the faith

Injustice
Miller Smythes uses young unmarried faithful men as cheap labor in his mill, collecting the profits for himself

Sin
Miller Smythes suffers from worldliness. The young men under his knout are without the protection of the king of life.

Demonic Influence
During a year of particular bad harvest, a stranger comes to Miller Smythes and promises him work for thirteen years regardless of the harvest. He has to mill the stranger's goods for thirteen days a week and won't suffer destitution. He only has two more condition: He wants twelve boys to work for Miller Smythes, and one of them has to day at the end of the work for him. Miller Smythes accepts the deal, thinking that thirteen dead fools won't harm anyone.

Heresy
Miller Smythes signs the pact. In fact, he is milling the souls of the dead that won't go back to the king of life after death.

Hate and Murder
To control the boys, Miller Smythes has learned black magick, and teaches some of it to his boys to lure them and bind them. Miller Smythes despises the boys at the same time, since he knows they can be dangerous.

What do the people want
Miller Smythe: Wants the Dogs begone, they shan't mind his business
Brother William: The boy who died this year. He has two days until his soul will be milled. He wants the dogs to save his poor soul.
Brother Ezekiel: The youngest of the twelve mill workers. He wants to be shown the right way out.
The other boys: They don't want to realize the wrongness of their ways. Each of them hopes it will not be them who dies next year.



The Dogs could either find the wy to the mill at Black Brook by way of Brother William's bidding, or by way of finding the nearby town of Black Brook, who is looking for an orphan boy that came to town but went away before the Steward could talk to him. This could tie into the town where Ezekiel learnt being afraid of the steward, and/or the town where he was left in enough hardship to leave his community.

[Moreno R.]

Vincent said "as far as you can", so...

ARMAGEDDON

PRIDE

Sister Mariah thinks that she is so without sin, without any doubt, and so pretty, that she will be a saint of the faith someday.

INJUSTICE

She become the jewel of the city for the Steward and the headfamilies. Everybody else get ignored of at least put-down, everybody is judged by their parent/teachers/husbands/ against her example.

So everybody begin to hate her.

SIN

Deceit: some people begin to play a cruel prank on her. They let her believe that she has "miraculous" powers, they tell her that they have some disease, they let her put her hands on their heads, and they tell her that they are cured afterward. Poor Mariah isn't too bright and believe everything she is told.

Blasphemy and Apostasy: someone goes too far with this prank. They begin to mockingly "venerate" her in secret ceremonies in the church at night. She believes that they were told to do so by angels of the lord, for his mysterious ways.

DEMONIC ATTACK

The demons answers to these ceremonies. They make the "prank" a reality. She really begins to "cure" diseases (brought by the demons themselves, that have only to leave to "heal" them). The people who weren't on the prank believe her.  And after a while, even the people who did the prank begin to believe that it was the truth, after all, and call for her forgiveness. She forgive them, because they showed to her hers "real Powers".

False "Angels" (Demons in disguise) begin to talk to her, telling her what to do.

FALSE DOCTRINE

People (and even the Steward) believe that she is a saint, and everybody goes to her ceremonies. Almost everybody in the city become a cultist, many of them possessed. Almost everybody of them get real powers. Many of them can dominate the mind of others, can bend reality, or can read minds. When they use these powers they appears as bright angels burning in white flames.

SORCERY

With so many possessed people, the demons can do the innominable: they told Mariah do do a very important ceremony. In this ceremony, an Angel of the lord arrived and joined with her in blessed light. At the end of the ceremony, she is pregnant.

Her son is the Antichrist.

HATE AND MURDER

"people forgot the real word of the lord", said the "angels". So they must be punished. They must be killed. But to save them from an eternity in hell, they have to be "cleansed" with a special ceremony that will make them worthy of paradise.

The people of the city change its name. Now it's called "Armageddon". They storm the nearest cities, capturing all the peoples, taking them to Armageddon where they are tortured and killed, one by one, for weeks and months, until they die or they renounce the King of Life (at this time they, crazy and deranged from the tortures - think "Reavers" from the telefilm Firefly - they join the cultist)

They are creating an army. An army of burning bright angels with superpowers, of "Reavers" that want to skin you alive, of crazed fanaticians armed with magic guns that never miss their target, of Sorcerer that can commands hundreds of demons. For when the Boy will be born. At this time, they will destroy all the faithful.

Here goes the Dogs. The were called here by the King of Life, with omens, dreams and holy signs. They know that the boy will be born at Midnight, before they will be able to call any help.

WHAT PEOPLE WANT
Sister Mariah want the dogs at her side. Aren't they as the three sage men who were there at another epiphany?
The "Reavers" want to torn them limb from limb
The Demons want to kill them, but they can't if Mariah order them to don't do it. They find it difficult, too, because the Vest on the dogs prevent the readings of their minds or the use or any powers against them directly. They have to use deceit, or threat against the people they are still in cage awaiting torture and death.
The last free person to flee from the demons, that the dogs meet on their way to the city, tell them everything and say to them that, for the good of humanity, they have to kill the mother and child.

WHAT IF THE DOGS NEVER COME

If the boy is born, the vest will not protect them anymore (give them a sign about this). All the faithful in all the world will be killed or turned. The Human Race will forget forever the King of Life. The King of Life will burn all the world with a terrible cleansing fire that will left nobody alive. The Demons will laugh for eternity.

[oliof]

Brother Blood: Awesome

[ffilz]

Ok, here's my entry, it's my first town (I'd love comments - probably in another thread). Since we did chargen last week, I threw a few bones to people's traits.

Buttercup Overlook

Buttercup Overlook is a small struggling town deep in the mountains.  A mountain people village is nearby in a canyon.  There are four houses clustered at the edge of a small clearing, one of which has a burned down barn behind it.  At the edge of the clearing, a burned out shell of a house lies in ruin.

Mountain man, Br. Malcom Falling Bear converted to the faith three years ago when he married Sr. Eliza who was recently widowed.  Eliza's 14 year old son Jacob died in a hunting accident two months ago.  A month ago, Steward Andrew Dunn's home burned to the ground in the middle of the night, he and his wife Rose died in the fire, but their 13 year old daughter, Patience, escaped.  The next day, Br. Caleb Chambers declared himself steward.  Three days ago, a drifter came into town.  He has been helping with odd chores and sleeping in Br. Amos's woodshed.

PRIDE:

Br. Malcom Falling Bear is proud of his ancestry as a mountain person.

Sr. Eliza thinks Constance is too good for Malcom.

INJUSTICE:

Br. Caleb has been calling Malcom "one of THEM" and calling for him to go back to his people.

Sr. Patience has had to beg for food and shelter since the fire.

SIN:

Br. Caleb has been "counseling" Eliza.

Br. Malcom has been demanding sex from Patience in exchange for food and shelter.

DEMONIC ATTACKS:

Caleb's barn burned down last week.

Eliza's blood time has been continuous for the past two months.

Two days ago, an ewe died giving birth, the little ram had horns and ran off into the woods.

FALSE DOCTRINE:

Br. Malcom holds the mountain people spirituality equal with the faith.

Sr. Constance holds that a marriage between a faithful and a mountain person is null and void.

CORRUPT WORSHIP:

Br. Caleb has been calling on the nature spirits, using psychotic drugs in his worship.

Sr. Constance has been holding seances, burning incense and scented candles in a pentagram.

FALSE PRIESTHOOD:

Br. Malcom has involved Eliza and Patience in his worship.

Sr. Constance has involved Caleb and the Drifter in her worship.

SORCERY:

Br. Malcom has been calling evil spirits to haunt Caleb.

Sr. Constance has been sending dreams to Eliza.

HATE AND MURDER:

Br. Caleb was induced by the demons to burn down the Dunn home.

Sr. Eliza was induced by dreams to kill her own son.

WHAT THE TOWNSFOLK WANT:

Br. Malcom: Wants the dogs to convince the town-folk that mountain people are good.

Sr. Eliza: Wants the dogs to stop her bleeding and get Malcom back into her bed.

Br. Caleb: Wants the dogs to run Malcom out of town and marry Eliza to him.

Sr. Constance: Wants Eliza to go away and let Caleb be hers alone.

Sr. Patience: Wants a good man.

Drifter: Wants to settle down.

WHAT THE DEMONS WANT:

Want Malcom to kill Caleb and be run out of town with the drifter taking Eliza and Patience to open a brothel.  Want Constance to recruit the whole town to her seances.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE DOGS NEVER CAME:

Caleb would kill or run malcom out of town.  Eliza would die in Caleb's bed.  The drifter would murder Caleb and run off with Patience.  Constance would go East to study witchcraft.

I wasn't sure how much time to allocate to this, but I was quite pleased that it didn't really take long at all. Most of the time spent was typing it up nicely (and re-typing part of it after MS Word crashed on me).

Frank

[David Laurence]

All out, you say? I'm going to use this tonight, to cap off my campaign. Basically, the core question is: Does anybody deserve to be saved?

Coldwater Branch

PRIDE: Sr. Waitstill Snow is an elder of Coldwater Branch, and a righteous and pious woman, small and slim but straight and strong, with clear blue eyes and snow-white hair. She knows the Book of Life as well as anybody, better than most, and was a Dog in her youth. Her late husband, Br. Jedediah, was the Steward of Coldwater before the present Steward was elected. The new Steward, Br. Josiah Grant, is much younger, not yet 50, and only called to the position 3 or 4 years ago. The Pride is, Sr. Waitstill feels she is a better preacher then Br. Josiah. She used to hold weekly prayer meetings among friends, but for the past six months or so she's been holding them daily, with the aim of filling in the gaps in Br. Josiah's preaching, and more people have been coming.

INJUSTICE: Sr. Waitstill has been spending an inordinate amount of time preparing for her prayer meetings, and has been letting her true stewardship slip, as have those attending her meetings. When it came time to bring the harvest in, the work simply wasn't getting done. In particular, Br. Bartholomew Lee, a member of the prayer group, was bringing his entire family to the meetings daily, and more than half of their abundant crop threatened to rot in the fields.

SIN: The sin is Faithlessness; at least some of the members of the prayer group feel that attending the meetings is explicitly more important than their stewardships. Br. Bart is one, as is Sr. Hannah McKay, the schoolteacher, whose lessons have been ending an hour earlier every day, and Br. Jackson Smith, whose crop is likewise not being brought in. Br. Josiah had spoken individually to each of the three, urging them to see to their duties, but wasn't entirely sure what to do in the face of their piety.

DEMONIC ATTACKS: The demons blighted most of the crops of those members of the congregation not attending Sr. Waitstill's prayer meetings, sparing the crops of those who were. In particular, Br. Nathaniel Hunter (a convert to the Faith from Back East whose farm abuts Br. Jackson's) lost more than three quarters of his crop, and his wife Althea was expecting a fourth child soon.

FALSE DOCTRINE: Seeing the fields of the non-pious rot, Sr. Waitstill decided that this is a punishment for insufficient faith on the town's part. She believes that Br. Josiah is not fit to be Steward, and Sr. Waitstill should replace him.

CORRUPT WORSHIP: The worship of the prayer group has been corrupted. Sr. Waitstill is leading full-fledged services as if she was the Steward, doubly dubious as she is not a man.

FALSE PRIESTHOOD: The other six members of the prayer group support Sr. Waitstill and she has, unknown to herself, become a Sorcerer. Cult members are as detailed above, plus Br. Jeduthan Miller, Br. Thaddeus Hunter (Br. Jackson's older brother) and Sr. Malvina Snow, Sr. Waitstill's daughter. Plus their families.

SORCERY: The demons, following Sr. Waitstill's unspoken desire, struck down Br. Josiah with a terrible fever.

HATE AND MURDER: With the support of the prayer group and with the Steward's continuing sickness as an excuse, Sr. Waitstill was raised to Steward, and her False Doctrine took hold of the town. Br. Josiah's fever quickly took a turn for the worse, and he died withoout regaining consciousness. The blight on the crops went away, which led to most of the rest of the town coming to support Sr. Waitstill's false Stewardship. They all believe they are worshipping righteously, even though their services have come to include human sacrifices – starting with the disbelievers in the congregation. On the outside, Coldwater is a happy, prosperous, Faithful town. Demonic attacks have stopped, and everyone is getting along under Sr. Waitstill's stern but loving stewardship. The inside is a different matter.

In short, the whole town is insane. The vast majority of the townsfolk (old folks, women and children too) are possessed, and the rest are paralyzed with fear.

What do the townspeople want?
Sr. Waitstill wants her false Stewardship supported by the Dogs. She wants them to help her with the next service, one way or another.

Br. Nathaniel, driven mad by the demons possessing him and with the death of his family weighing on what's left of his conscience, wants the Dogs to shoot him.

Some of the children of the town (Simon, Hosannah and Hope, among others) want the Dogs to play with them.

Sr. Clementine wants the Dogs to bring her husband back from the dead.

The demons want the dogs to join in the corrupted ceremony. Failing that, they want them to become the next sacrifice.

Scenes:
The Tree of Life in the temple, lovingly crafted from human bones.
The schoolhouse, complete with laughing happy children, decorated with bones, skulls, and curtains of human skin.
A tidy little home, neat and clean on the outside, gruesome and straight out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the inside.

[jburneko]

Town: The Twin Rivers Branch (Part I)

Pride: Brother Mitchell, the Town Steward, thinks his family deserves more of the community resources than other families.
Injustice: Because Brother Mitchell has spent all the community funds on himself Sister Malvina cannot afford expensive medicines for her sick son Brother Ethan.

Sin: Sister Malvina begins the manufacture and sale of alcohol to pay for Brother Ethan's medicine.
Demonic Attacks: Lt. Woodrow Stockwell arrives with territorial troops on a wealth auditing assignment.

False Doctrine: Brother Virgil, one of the alcohol customers, believes that drinking leads to divine revelation..
Corrupt Worship: Brother Virgil begins ritualizing his drinking in a form of divine communion.

False Priesthood: Brother Virgil begins taking in the poor and others outcast from Faithful society including Sister Constance and Brother Samson.
Sorcery: Brother Virgil has seen a vision of the future and will stop the territorial authorities invasion at all cost.

Hate & Murder: As a warning Brother Virgil and his follows kill two territorial authority soldiers (Sergeant Sheppard and Sergeant Wilson)

Town: The Twin Rivers Branch (Part II)

Pride: Brother Jeremy, a Dog and brother to Brother Virgil, thinks that his family deserves more lenient judgment.
Injustice: Brother Jeremy discovers Brother Virgil's cult but lays all the blame on Sister Malvina and sentences her to execution.

Sin: Brother Noah, Sister Malvina's husband, kidnaps Brother Stephen, Brother Jeremy's fellow Dog, and tries to ransom him for Sister Malvina.
Demonic Attacks: Brother Reuben, another Dog, is struck by lightening in the middle of town square.

False Doctrine: Sister Honora believes the Dogs have fallen out of favor with the King of Life.
Corrupt Worship: Sister Honra dons the identity of the "The King's Shadow" and begins terrorizing members of Brother Virgil's cult leaving behind a calling card with the picture of the Tree of Life with an extremely long shadow on it.

False Priesthood: Sister Honora breaks Sister Malvina out of jail and reunites her with her husband.
Sorcery: The King's Shadows begin using manipulation of light and shadow to spy on Virgil's cult.

Hate & Murder: Brother Virgil makes his move on the territorial authority using alchool fueled Sorcery such as fire bombs and walls.  The King's Shadows attempt to intervene.  The result is massive three way bloodshed and many innocent townsfolk dead.

Jesse