RE: [DL] S. T. Coleridge based deadlands adventure, questions

["Matthew M. DeForrest" <mmdeforrest@worldnet.att.net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> I just wanted to get some input from the list on this.  I was thinking of
> including a plotline that is loosely based of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
> work.  Nope you Moondogs I'm not talking about Rime of the
> Ancient Mariner.
> I'm going with Rush and doing Kubla Khan.

As an FYI, he is supposed to have dreamt it, started to write, a knock came
at the door, he spoke for awhile, then, when he returned to the desk, he
couldn't remember the rest (You can find the break in the poem just before
"A damsel with a dulcimer/In a vision I once saw" -- he makes the break
clear with a break of stanza and a change of tone and rhythm.).

I don't (just) bring this up to interest anyone listening in poetry.  Nor is
it just an occupational hazard.  I think this is where you can begin a
lead-in to the adventure.  Give the players important visions that last so
long as they can concentrate.  Then, have them interrupted.  (It might be
best to do this with a single character.)  Give them visions of the
future -- things they should hope to prevent or defeat.  Don't do it all the
time but just often enough to start the player heading to the opium dens on
a regular basis.

Then, once the player makes an appropriate roll (Concentrating long enough
on one vision to see it through to its end or getting a raise or two on a
spirit roll while doped up), tell him he has learned how to get into the
proper altered state without the opium.  Let him go with this for a session
or two before meeting the old man.

The old man, of course, is a Chinese mystic of some sort -- a Taoist priest,
a shaolin monk who is currently walking the earth, Lao Tzu, whoever you feel
appropriate.  He tells the player that he is not seeing visions -- he's
creating the horrors he sees.  Somehow, a demon (Manitou) has used his
drug-induced visions to send energy out of the Hunting Grounds through the
visions.  The old man then tells the players that they must defeat the demon
and that the easiest way for them to do this is to smoke some more opium and
have the dreamer bring them into the Hunting Grounds (or perhaps a
drug-created ante-world between this and the Hunting Grounds).  Here, they
will have to face demons of their own making (hints of worst nightmares) as
well as the Manitou.

Hope this helps.

Matt