Here's the first town I developed for our group's run of Dogs.  These are my notes that I wrote up before play.  The set-up included the Dogs noticing they carried a letter that came from back East (letter from Karl Ten Brink to Brother Edwin), and their arrival in town during the funeral for young Brother Simon.  It took much longer to run than I expected--3 full sessions outside initiation.  I'll post more about what happened in a bit.  Some actual play is here:  [DitV] The Death of Brother Hiram.

Julie

The Trinity Dogleg Branch

This medium sized town is on the outside of a dogleg bend in the Trinity river.  It is primarily a farmer community of Faithful.  A couple of community members are attempting to install a water run grain mill along the river before its bend.  The construction of the mill has been beset with failure.

Backstory:
Brother Zebediah was a violent man.  He kept to himself and isolated his family.  He regularly beat his wife, Sister Abigal.  He did not lay hands on his young daughter, but she was often frightened of his tempers.  One day, Abigal killed her husband while he lay sleeping.  She went to her brother for help.  The two of them buried Zebediah and made up a story that he ran off.  Later that winter Abigal died from a long illness.  Her daughter now lives with her uncle.

Brother Hiram
Abigal’s older brother.  He has a wife, Edwina, and three children:  Ruth (17), Aaron (11), Hannah (6).  Also living in his house is his niece, Mary (6).  Hiram feels guilt over his behavior to his dead sister.  She had come to him for help and to ask for his help to get out of her marriage, and he delivered her back to her husband.  Now, he feels that her sin is his sin.  He is overcompensating for forsaking his sister by favoring Mary over his own children.  Hiram is in a business partnership with his brother-in-law, Edwin, to build and operate a mill on the river.
He wants the Dogs to leave him and his family alone.

Sister Edwina
Hiram’s wife and older sister to Edwin.  Edwina is a good wife and mother.  She is Hiram’s confidant, and knows what he knows.  She feels that the actions of Abigal and Hiram were justified, and that her husband is a devout and good man.  She is becoming worried that he is attends to his niece over his own children, but understands why he does so.  She wants the Dogs to assure him that he is a good man. 

Sister Mary
Mary recently turned six.  She received a brand new doll for her birthday last month, and she loves it more than anything.  She misses her mommy and daddy even though her daddy wasn’t always her daddy--sometimes he was a monster.  She does not know what happened to her daddy, only that he wasn’t there when she woke up one morning.  She wants the Dogs to assure her that her mommy is ok.

Sister Ruth
Ruth has her heart set on Thaddeus.  Of course he will choose her over Sarah. 

Brother Aaron
Aaron’s best friend, Simon, recently died in an accidental fall at the mill site.  He does not want the Dogs (or anyone) to know that he was with Simon when he died.

Sister Hannah
At first she liked having Mary living with them; she was her playmate.  She is jealous over the doll her daddy gave Mary for her birthday.  She doesn’t have anything that pretty.

Brother Edwin
Edwina’s younger brother is a confident man who is certain that he can make the mill a success.  He has simply been beset by misfortune:  unsuitable foundations that caused the first raising to sink, financial set-backs, and other delays.  Some people are just unlucky, but his luck is changing.   He recently married the prettiest girl around, Sister Rachel, and she is pregnant with their first child.  It is unfortunate that young Simon died on the mill site the other day.  What was he doing fooling around there anyway?  He had warned both those young boys to stay away; it’s dangerous.  He wants the Dogs to bless his business venture.

Brother Cuthbert
Cuthbert runs a dry-goods store with his wife, Hester.  Their only son, Simon (12), was starting to learn the business.  He died recently at the site of the new mill; fell from part of the structure and broke his neck.  He blames Edwin who he never liked much to begin with.  He wants the Dogs to lay blame and avenge the death of his son, or he’ll do it himself.

Brother Joseph, Branch Steward 
He does his best, but he trys too hard to avoid difficult situations.  He would rather they all be friends and let by-gones lie.  Hiram confided in him shortly after Abigal’s death.  His opinion, “What’s done is done, and they are both dead now.”  He believes that Abigal’s illness was the King of Life’s retribution on her sin, and who is he to want anything different?  He wants the Dogs to calm Cuthbert down and to stop his need for vengence.

Sister Lavinia
Joseph’s perfectionist wife.  She takes pride in her orderly household and her excellent cooking.  She wishes that her husband (and subsequently herself) had greater authority than they do.  Her husband seems not to have that ambition and wants too much to be well-liked.  She hates that her husband knows something about Hiram’s family that she does not.  She wants the Dogs to inspire and rasie up her husband.

Brother Thaddeus
Joseph’s and Lavinia’s eldest son is nineteen.  He has been courting both Ruth and Sarah.  He knows that Ruth would be a good wife, but he is smitten with Sarah who doesn’t seem to care that he wants to marry her.  He wants the Dogs to convince Sarah to marry him, or at least give him a real chance to court her.  He has a younger brother, Saul.

Sister Sarah
Sarah is eighteen.  She visits Sister Clementine on the sly and this has enboldened her to independence.  She chaffs at the expectation that she is to marry, and avoids Thaddeus’s attentions.  Her parents are concerned.  She wants the Dogs to protect her from a forced marriage.  Her parents, Brother Virgil and Sister Beatrice, want the Dogs to talk sense into her.

Sister Clementine
The crazy, half-blind old woman who lives outside town.  The townsfolk give her charity, but otherwise avoid her.  She has no husband or known family.  She is Zebediah’s sister.  She knew her brother’s temper and suspects that Abigal killed her brother.  She considers Sarah to be the daughter she never had, and looks forward to her visits.  She wants nothing from the Dogs.

Karl Ten Brink [not yet present]
One of the financial backers for the mill.  He will be arriving in town shortly to see to his investment.

Julie, I see from your Actual Play post that you followed the book instructions for town creation very closely; do you have the pride-injustice-sin progression written up as well?

Hi Brendan,

Oddly enough, I did not write up the pride-injustice-sin progression.  That was much more set in my head than the specifics of the characters -- the Sin was Abigal's murder of her husband, knowledge and acceptance of that Sin on the part of her Brother, his wife and then the Steward was leading to False Doctrine.

Julie

Ah, I was wondering where you'd put yourself on the progression, since murder was obviously in play, but I couldn't discern a false priest.  Thanks!