Hiya fellow Dogs-addicts. At the last minute, two of my fellow players decided to call me on my bragging that Dogs was easy and quick to set up. We're getting together in about an hour or so and I've just thrown together another town to play. See, we should be playing the second half of Silent River, but unfortunately one of my players is really ill today, and we didn't want to leave him out of the exciting conclution.

So, I present to you the hastily thrown together concoction of Dry Canyon Crossing for your enjoyment and commentary.

Pride
Brother Elazer, venerable grandfather, figures he's earned the right to drink whisky and smoke tobacco. After all, he's always been faithful and he's raised his family to be good people.

Injustice
When caught by his two adult grandchildren (they find his considerable stash of northern-brewed spirits), he makes them promise not to tell anyone about his habits. Now the two grandchildren are torn between family obligations and obligations of the Faith.

Sin
By bad coincidence, the grandchildren are asked question after question that they find themselved forced to lie about in order to protect their grandfather's secret.

Demonic Attacks
The demons dry up the town wells. Now the town has only Elaezer's whisky to drink.

False Doctrine
On the second day of the drought, Elaezer begins bringing bottles of his spirit around to other families of the town. He believes that the King wants him to share what he has to drink, and he has most of the townsfolk believeing that, so long as the drink is blessed and it's consumed only when thirsty, that the King will be just fine with it.

Corrupt Worship
Many of the families have begun openly thanking the King for the whisky and blessing it before drinking a few sips in the privacy of their homes.

What the NPCs want
Elaezer wants the Dogs to drink with him.
The Steward wants the Dogs to make the wells wet again.
The Grandson wants them to hear his sins, but dosen't want to reveal his grandfather's secret.
The Granddaughter wants the Dogs to find the stash and destroy it all, even if it means that the town goes thirsty. However, she dosen't want to tell the Dogs directly about her grandfather's secret.

What the Demons want
The demons want all of the townsfolk to die of thirst with whisky on their breath.
I'm gonna go with a motif of buzzing flies for the demons. When they affect or influence someone directly, I'm gonna narrate a fly buzzing in their ear.

Opening Scene
To get things rolling, I'm going to start out by informing the players of the drought, and suggest that they're bringing a few barrels of water by mule to the town. I have no doubt that they'll agree that they should be bringing some water. Then, before they actually get to Dry Canyon Crossing, we'll get into a confrontation where the demons do a little buzzing in the ears of thirsty and desperate men who are willing to kill the Dogs in order to get all their water.

That should set the pace nicely, doncha think?

What I think I'm missing right now, and hope that I can come up with soon, are some hard choices for the PCs to make once they reach the town. Right now, everything seems really easy.

-Eric

I wonder how it would play out if the Dogs just defined "End the drought" as Stakes.

Hmm...

Helluva question. Helluva thought.

The first thing that comes to mind is that part of the GMs responsibility in the game is to regulate the scale of the stakes. So, just like one cannot walk into a town and set the stakes as "Do we fix all the problems here?", I think that one could not set those stakes IF everyone felt that would fix all the problems of the town.

Whatcha think?

-Eric

I don't know if you have to refuse those stakes. After all, if the wells are full again there's still the question of the whiskey, and of what people did when they thought there was no hope.

Some might claim that if the sharing of the whiskey was ordained by the King of Life then the return of the water must be demonic in origin. Or you could have a household that refused the whiskey even unto the death of their young child, and now want someone to be punished for Sin at least as badly as they suffered for virtue.

I was genuinely just wondering how it would play out. I think there are lots of opportunities. I certainly don't worry that you have "peaceful community, just add water."