So okay, we've got something interesting going on with our Dogs group. We've currently got 6 players altogether, though one of them is gone for a while to Tech School (for those familiar with previous posts, it's the player of Malachi) and we've got a new Dog, Br. Cain(e), played by Tracerfox from here on the Forge.

First a small bit of exposition on Br. Caine: Br. Caine is from a town that was almost entirely wiped out by a Dog. He was one of the only survivors (if not the only) and he feels that that Dog was wrong in his judgement. He's been educated back east, and he's entering the Dogs with the idea that it's his calling to judge the judges. His initiation conflict was whether or not he could come to terms with the idea that not all Dogs are guilty until proven innocent; that conflict was lost, and he's all the more judgemental for it.

In play, highlights of the last session: Conflict between Caine and Tirzah, where he's found out the heresy that she believes that all non-Faithful are the same as animals. Tense conflict, one of the few that actually had most of the group's investment without other PCs being present. There was a bit of a tense moment OOC when Tirzah raised by kissing Caine, a raise that Caine was forced to take the blow on. Trace thought that by taking the blow, he was going to have to have Caine return the kiss, or enjoy it, or whatever. It's funny that he was ready to escalate to fighting to continue the conflict, but he wasn't willing to enjoy a kiss (note: At that point, escalation wouldn't have allowed him to not take the blow; the raise was higher than a 12, so even had he rolled all 6's on an escalation, he wouldn't have been able to see.) When we explained that taking the blow basically meant that his character *would* be kissed, couldn't turn his head, or stop her or somesuch, but that he didn't have to return it, he continued the conflict. He eventually won the conflict, though it didn't go well for him overall, and thus left with his character believing he'd failed to convince her.

The real highlight was a conflict that took the better portion of an hour, and which unfortunately one Dog had been excluded. We'd been readying to summon up the murdered previous Steward's ghost to ask who'd killed him when a man we'd learned had been having relations with a non-faithful mutant came in to talk to the Steward. Not knowing how cool our upcoming conflict would be, I had Thaddeus ask Calandra to look into that.

Then we began the conflict. The stakes were not to find out who murdered the Steward; That was given to us before the first dice were even pushed forward. The conflict was whether or not we could return the Steward's soul to it's rightful place when the demons came to try to pull him under.

There was nothing wonderfully subtle about this conflict. It was blatantly, openly and hugely supernatural. Tentacles of darkness rose from the floor to pull the spirit under, and we (Raven, Thaddeus and Caine) pulled out all of the ritual stops to fight them. Despite being outnumbered, Lx had the demon's own luck with his dice rolls. We escalated to physical by throwing consecrated earth into the circle, and were escalated to fighting when the tentacles attacked us. We helped each other on several rolls, and had blows turned on us because we couldn't raise strongly thereafter. We all took fallout. Then final desperate attack of the demons had a tentacle ripping a chunk out of the floor to throw at Dove; I raised by jerking up my shotgun to blow the chunk apart, but rolled crap; I was gonna have to take the blow, and it looked like it was gonna be painful. Before I pushed out the third die though, Caine let loose with a pair of .50 cal fully-auto pistols (I did mention that this is a post-apoc game, right?) and blew the rock to bits before it could strike Thaddeus. After that, Raven managed to banish the demons and return the (torn in three) spirit of the old Steward to his rest.

My description doesn't do it justice. If I could write play accounts like Judd, maybe, or just express my sheer wonder as well as Clinton manages to. But this was one of those shared conflicts that you talk about for half an hour afterward, despite the fact that you were all there to witness it. It's the sort of moment that leaves you buzzing for days afterward at how incredibly cool and tense it was, and how relieved you were to get out of it unscathed.

Those moments are the reason I roleplay.

That is so cool. I love Br. Caine's concept and the conflict with Tirzah. Where else can a kiss be a weapon? I love how Dogs settles things. Soul saving, demonic tentacle attacks--very Sorcerer.

I need to play this game now. Those scenes are just so cool. Plus, Dogs post apocalypse. Rocks.

Lance, I would be very interested if you could get a little more into what specific aspects of that last conflict you enjoyed most, and how you felt when playing it. (I'm still poking that immersion thing).

- Frank