Re: [DL] Erie Canal

[vonweitzel@bellsouth.net]

Subject: [DL] Erie Canal


> I've got a posse acting as escorts for a very rich lady from Boston to
> Chicago.  They have made it to Albany, New York with no real problems
> and are going to take the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then catch a ship to
> Toledo.
>
> As silly as this sounds I never expected them to take the canal. Do you
> have any ideas for 'weirdness' upon the very calm, peaceful, and quiet
> waters?  Let's see, it's four feet deep, the boats move at four miles
> and hour and they are convinced that nothing can go wrong...that tells
> you how much these players know about the world of Deadlands.

I have never traveled on the Eire canal, but I spent a week travelling 190
miles on a canal in England.  Each night the mist would rise from the canal
so thick you couldn't see the bank 3 feet away.  You could use that effect
to a number of good ends.  Spectral apparitions in the mist, a psychic
presence giving them night terror like hindrance each night on the canal,
gremlins hiding in the mist to cause mischief, or a vampire/serial
killer/psycho using the mist to commit his/her evil deeds.

or throw nature at them:  how many of the characters can swim?  four feet of
water can still drown a man that doesn't know how to swim, I love doing that
to my players.  4 sessions in to the campaign and we've gone from one
character that can swim to all the characters being able to swim

another part of the trip I took in England had us travel through a tunnel
that was a good 2 or 3 miles long.  The inside of the tunnel was coated in
red clay, the gritty slimy stuff that sticks to everything and stains.  If
you threw a local fear monger in the area around such a tunnel the clay
could take on whole new properties; acidic, poisonous, diseased, animated,
etc.  or throw a couple of turns in to the tunnel and in the middle it is
pitch black with only a single ship lantern (fixed forward) and what ever
light sources the characters have to illuminate the tunnel with.

throw gremlins in to the manual locks.  The trip I took we had more manual
locks we had to work than there were miles we covered.  One day we went up a
hill through 60 of the d**n things.  if the mechanisms are rusty or off they
are a pain to crank, rocks and sediment collect in the sweep of the lock
gate making them a test of strength to open.

I don't know how your character's boat is propelled but most of them were
pulled by mules or horses using cables.  you can have the animals get
spooked, bolt and either run away or drown(then how are they going to propel
the boat).

and lastly throw in pirates at them:)
not galleons on the main but highway men with blockades and tolls.

Well that's my $.02 worth.  I hope it helps

Mikhael