Re: [DL] Erie Canal

[Ross Coburn <coburn@videotron.ca>]

Really, really flat River Leviathans!

On Tuesday, May 8, 2001, at 09:43 PM, vonweitzel@bellsouth.net wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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