The Grudge finally came to Norway, so we had great plans. Watch the movie, and then game until we had to sleep with the lights on. But then we didn't get tickets for the Grudge.

So we gamed. Vanilla Dogs with more emphasis on the supernatural.

Characters:

Brother Esiaha (Christer); the guilt ridden survivor of the Hope Junction Massacre who once again dons his coat.

Brother Nathaniel (Espen); a giant of a man whose greates secret is a cowards heart.

Brother Daniel (Jon); a half-breed orphan who grew up in the Temple.

Brother Jacob (Ole M); a strong speaker and child of promise.

Willows Creek
This sheltered medium sized township of dark brown houses, sheltered in a steep forested valley was to be the Dogs first stop, and their arrival was long overdue. Pride having over many years escalated to Hate and Murder.

This is still a game in progress so I have to be a bit vague on the details, but what I can say is that I drew a r-map that made your avrage soap look uncomplicated and defined what the NPCs wanted in different directions. Leaving the players to sort out who and why the young Leah Thomas was murdered. Or if she even was murdered.

Enter the Dogs
the Dogs came to town towards the end of funeral. Despite the sadness of the setting joy was found in their arrival. The Steward, Thaddeus Ward, asked if they would bless the dead Leah and speed her to heaven. Brother Jacob initated a conflict where what was at stake was the young woman's soul. Would it be claimed by the Serpent or would it rise purified. So began our game. Bang right into a battle with the demons.

Seeing the strength of the Demons the Dogs knew that something was very rotten in this town. They won and freed young Leah from her posessor's grip, and set about finding out the who's and whys of Willow creek. Here I introduced and presented every NPC on my r-map in play. Not everybody spoke, but those that did subtly pointed fingers. And there was a missing boy, Paul Shore, son of Dr. Ishamel Shore.

Br Esiaha and Br. Daniel went up the Creek (NO pun intended) to find out where Leah was killed. They found a dark low cottage locked from within and inside it they found the missing boy. Paul had been hanged by another man's hand. They burned the cottage to purify it and brought the boy and other evidence with them. Darkness fell as they entered the woods.

Did I mention that we had the Shining playing in the background during char-gen. redrum redrum redrum.

Br. Nathaniel and Br. Jacob went to talk to the errant kid everybody pointed their fingers at, the orphan Jonathan and his Uncle Malachi, here Nathaniel confronted the damaged Hester. Would she tell all about her husband? went all the way to physical before Nathaniel gave, not wanting to use his burly size against the poor woman.

The two dogs in the forest were beset by mailgn forces that tried to lead them astray. Jon (Br. Daniel) had to leave so he caved. It looked like the other Dog would make his way out, but then the Malign forces went physical, the body of the young man sliding of Esiaha's horse. The Dog then gave up, took his fallout. He looked down, hopelessly lost and found the body gone. When he turned back his holy Bible was missing.

Further conflicts were Nathaniel and Jacob arguing whether to go out looking for the missing Dogs and then barely finding Esiaha before the Malign forces attacked him.

They talked to early morn and went back to Hester's farm only to find that Jonathan had eloped during nightfall. They also learned that a man called Virgil was a woodsman and the only man to travel upstream on That Side of the creek. They also began to pick up a lot of information on the town. I snuck a look at Espen's notes and there were lines all over the place. Evidently having a good r-map and then presenting all important NPCS early was getting results.

Malachi, Jonathan uncle went looking for his nephew to give him a piece of his mind and belt, and the dogs tried to extract information from poor Hester again. She left the house crying, thus escalating to physical. Both Esiaha and Nathaniel gave here.
Jacob, who so far had been watching, ran after her initating another conflict to push the answers from Hester. She escalated to physical and then to weapons as she clambered up a pile of fire wood with axe in hand crying and beeseching the dog to leave her be. At this stage both Esiaha and Nathaniel had mounted their horses and were keeping an eye on their Dog, Espen and Christer implying that Ole M shouldn't push it much farther before the bullets started flying. Thankfully Ole gave.

This was the last conflict we rolled.

As they rode to speak to the suspicious Br. Virgil I noted that Espen kept asking of the state of the different Npcs's houses and farms. Having read the DitV book he sees this as an indication of the piousness of the NPC. Most Intriguing. The talk with Virgil was long and suddenly bad light was cast on the upstanding people of community, noteably the Steward Thaddeus and Dr. Ishamel. just as the dogs were about to leave Esiaha notices his bible lying on the windowsill.

And here we ended the game cause it was getting early.

What we learned:

DitV rules. Combining notes take from the Mysteries. How to and proper understanding of r-maps from Sorceror's Soul gave me a town to play that seethed with hidden agendas. With influence from the Shining and japanese horror blended into techniques borrowed from gothic horror the evil became palpable, yet hidden.

I am getting there on the conflict resolution bit, just stumped at how I should have played the conflict between Ole M and the two dogs had they drawn their guns to enter the conflict. Should I have paused the conflict between the Ole M and the NPC to resolve this conflict nesting) or should I have let the two enter into the conflict on Hester's side. The latter seems more right, but it would have left Ole M with very little dice against two "fresh" characters. This might have seemed unfair. And there are historic reasons why I do not want to do this to Ole.

Also, the way I have interpreted the text using cermony either blocks or raises without using dice. This makes me loose most conflicts or prevent me from pushing the players to escalate. Have I read this wrong?

Yeah, you read that wrong. When you use ceremony to Raise or See, you still have to put dice forward. Ceremony doesn't give you any dice (unless you take it as a Trait, say, "Laying on hands 2d8") - all it does is let you Raise and See vs. incorporeal things like sorcery, demons and the souls of the Faithful.

I can't wait to hear more.

Oh and nobody can join a conflict already in progress. End the current conflict abruptly - have your NPC(s) Give if the PC(s) won't - and launch a closely-related followup. If you have trouble arranging this, you might try making your stakes a little smaller-scale. Does that make sense or am I writing in shorthand?

When you're done with it, would you make your town public?

-Vincent

End the current conflict abruptly - have your NPC(s) Give if the PC(s) won't - and launch a closely-related followup

When you're done with it, would you make your town public?