Hi,

So I had a Friday night free and decided to play me some Dogs. Only my friend Lucas was free. So we just did a one-on-one session.

So here's Lucas's character: Brother Jonas Thorn. He's not much of a talker. He's had a complicated history. He's a mean, hard-driven young man who can survive the desert with only a bowie knife and a canteen. He took his big, nasty gun off his father's dead body. He can smell evil. He and his family are a convert to the Faith and moved out here from back East. He's a Dog and during his initiation, he learned to curb his violent temper.

So here's the town of Sweetwater. It's on the Eastern edge of the Faithful's lands. It's where lots of newcomers to the Faith stop when they travel out from back East. It's one of the oldest settlements and people are proud that they've managed to build up a thriving community out of nothing.

A bit too proud. See, the Branch and the rest of the "old-timers" who built Sweetwater are feelin' all high and mighty about their efforts and they put down and snub the recent crop of settlers. This slowly escalates in various ways. One of the Branch's assistants, Brother Tabor, is both an officer and a TA representative in charge of administering the Territory Development Program which is a government program that sends supplies out to territory settlements to help them thrive and prosper (even Faithful settlements, as long as someone is developing it, they don't care what weird religion they follow). Anyway, as part of the hassling, Brother Tabor has withheld supplies from newcomers who really need it. Things come to a head and Branch Jebidiah casts them all out of the church and all supplies stop. The newcomers all flock to Thorn's cousin Ezra (who's been there two years, and is the most senior newcomer). Brother Tabor comes out to threaten them a bit and tell them to get lost before he pulls his TA strings and gets the TA to run them out. Things get out of hand, Ezra throws a punch and then a mob scene breaks out and Brother Tabor is killed.

This is bad because a.) the TA sends a Sheriff to the town to check into things and b.) the Branch moves into full-blown false doctrine and false priesthood based around discriminating against newcomers (and really, anyone and everyon else).

So our Dog Thorn steps into the mess. He talks to the Branch's clerk and finds out that his cousin is implicated in a murder. Then he talks to the Branch who declares that he did his very best, but in the end, god told him to kick out these sinners. Thorn talks to the clerk and Brother Franklin (both of whom are assistant officers to the Branch) and finds out that there's a lot more going on here than a bunch of newcomers who can't handle the harsh frontier life.

He rides out to visit his cousin and along the way falls in with the TA sheriff who's come to investigate. The two of them strike up a friendship and the Sheriff consents to letting Thorn try to work out the problem before stepping in. Thorn confronts Ezra who confesses to his involment, but also denounces the treatment the newcomers have received. Ezra is willing to go back to Fort Carson with the Sheriff to stand trial, but would prefer not to be taken back to town.

Thorn convinces the Sheriff that they may need to look into the town a bit more. Thorn rides back and confronts the Branch who's very evasive. But by this time it's getting late so Thorn goes to the local Inn and spends some time staring out the window looking for trouble before turning in.

He wakes up early in the morning. The sky is red and ominous. There's evil and sin afoot. He wakes up the Sheriff and the two of them do the only sensible thing -- they have breakfast. Which is good because that's when the demon attacks. After a long scuffle, Thorn brings him down with consecrated earth and gunfire. The Sheriff shows up just after the body transforms back into Brother Franklin (allowing him to rationalize away what just happened). He also manages to keep Thorn alive (those demon claws had poison in 'em).

Thorn marches over to the Branch's house where he kicks in the door and sees the Branch and his clerk in full evil ritual mode. There's a big fight and Thorn guns them down. Then he gives the townsfolk a stern talking to. Then he annoints a new Branch. He finds a young man who was sweet on a newcomer girl and was sad to see her go. He's now the Branch (at least until Thorn can get someone better sent out).

Thorn arranges for a big meeting between townsfolk and newcomers and the Branch (with a lot of not-so-subtle pressure from Thorn and the Sheriff) begin the healing process.

The end.

Stuff about the game:

1.) Sometimes, when you have talking battles, it's difficult to say what your Dodge or Block is. You just want to launch in with your counterpoint.

2.) I need to work on describing different attacks/blocks/dodges. I felt rather like "He hits you", "he dodges", were all that there were. Not entirely true, but I need to work on it a bit.

3.) I also need to get a better handle on "swinging" from one conflict into the next. We had a demon attack become catch the demon become destroy the demon and I don' t think it went as smoothly as it might.

But overall it was fun and Lucas said he enjoyed it. So yay!

later
Tom

Sorry I missed it, Tom.

You're still going to have to ride into town (Boston, that is, or failing that, Medford) one day and let us locals get our Dogs on.

Rob