Re: [DL] The Sidhe in Deadlands [rant]

[James Knevitt <jknevitt@yahoo.com>]

--- Soothsprayer <hercubadger@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> For Deadlands and Weird Wars I’d recommend Wraith:
> The
> Great War as a resource. Ideas of how to turn the
> battlegrounds of the civil war into Deadlands of
> their
> own, equipment and horrors that can be used in
> either
> game, concepts of abominations that may walk the
> lands, and general mood information.

I may end up buying that, or at least borrowing it
from a friend. I agree with your ideas on this one.

 
> Another resource includes The Reality Disfunction
> series by Peter Hamilton. While serious science
> fiction the concept of a gateway returning the
> spirits
> of the dead has some merit. Perhaps cultists in the
> Weird West open just the wrong portal and instead
> provide this gate way for restless spirits to
> return.

Aha! Peter F. Hamilton is one of my favorite sf
authors. While I haven't gotten hold of The Naked God
yet, your idea here is also a good one.

> Who is to say that the Reckoners don’t keep tainted
> souls in storage until the time they may be useful.

Refrigerated?

> There used to a series on television called
> Brimstone
> where the lead character was the returned soul of
> the
> damned. The Devil had returned him to this world so
> that he could hunt down 100 or so other damned souls
> who had escaped hell. That could make an interesting
> NPC to run across. These souls could have escaped
> from
> the Wraith side of the spiritual fence and are now
> Harrowed/Risen running around the Weird West.

That's my basic idea. Just replace 'Wraith' with
'Changeling' and 'Harrowed/Risen' to fae. People seem
to think that I'm turning a Deadlands game from
western horror to something else. I'm not. I'm taking
the darker elements of Changeling and forcing them to
fit the mold of the DL setting.


The adventure session I've just completed involved (I
can say all this since I have no players on this list)
a pair of sluagh from an organisation known as the
Ebon Chancery. They approached the characters
responsible for accidentally releasing the greater
'manitou' known as The Burning Man into the real
world. They referred to TBM as their 'wayward cousin'
and needed help in banishing him back to Arcadia/the
Hunting Grounds. One of the posse, an Honorable New
Orleans Hexslinger named Jacque, was 'marked' by TBM
and thus is an anchor for the Burning Man's essence in
the material world. This meant that TBM could now
possess Jacque at any time once he had enough energy
to do the job. They journeyed to the University of
Mississippi, where they were told a mystical item
known as a Shatterstone could be found. 

While there, TBM started a house fire in the town,
attempting to kill the family inside and personally
blame Jacque for their deaths. The two men of the
posse (Jacque and a Dirt Farmer/Gunslinger named
Victor; both Veterans o' the Weird West) entered the
burning building to save the family. Jacque was
attacked by a manifestation of TBM while in the
building, in an attempt to delay his rescue attempts
until it was too late. The family were saved, however,
and TBM's plans were foiled for the time being. 

They journeyed to The University proper to talk to the
man possessing the Shatterstone, a professor of
engineering named Hyram Nathaniel Bodine (imagine
Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers when he's the
teacher at the start of the movie). Bodine refused to
give up the Shatterstone, claiming he liked it as a
paperweight. Instead he offered to discuss the matter
with Jacque at the University's poker night. Long
story short, the poker night was a meeting of
hucksters, Jacque twigged but didn't say anything, and
he won the Shatterstone 3 out of 5 at poker (the
profesor had extensive faculty debts and the faculty
head offered to wipe them clean in exchange for the
stone. Jaqcue then needed to beat him at poker to win
the stone, otherwise the faculty head would have a
expensive but pretty paperwight).

The Shatterstone safely in their hands, the posse
paused to consider what to do next. The Shatterstone,
when properly focussed by the right person in the
right place, could tear open a portal in the barrier
between the real world and Arcadia and send TBM back.
Now, Arcadia is closest to the real world where
positive emotions abound, such as New Orleans during
Mardi Gras. Since Mardi Gras is over for another year,
and a sense of urgency is present, the posse chose
instead to go to Humbug Square in Atlanta, Georgia,
home to Anastagio's Olde Time Lunar Carnival and
Midnight Circus, the largest semi-permanent
circus/carnival in continental North America.

--- End of session until next week ---

One side note: the two Ebon Chancery gentlemen ('Mr
Black' and 'Mr White') selected the dirt farmer,
Victor, as the person to focus the Shatterstone. They
had said previously that he looked like someone they
knew once. They also said he has the gift that is
required to focus the Shatterstone.

Now the player has no idea what's going on. All this
is news to him. He knows (through a slip-up on my
part) that his Veteran o' the Weird West result was
'Eternal Hero' - a real doozy.

I had the idea that Victor doesn't really remember his
childhood, and he has been on his farm for as long as
he can remember. He has diffuculty remembering a time
when he was younger than about 16. the truth is, he is
really an 'Eternal' hero. I decided that Victor is in
actuality a Seelie noble banished from Arcadia 700
years ago. When his mortal body dies, he is born again
into a human body, but the human body's personality
overrides the personality of the banished fae noble.
He was banished by the UnSeelie fae known only as
Marbh (another 'manitou' from "A Cut Above", thank
you!). He constantly hears a little girl laughing, and
does not know what it means. that is why he can focus
the Shatterstone. It's not Victor who has the gift,
but the Seelie noble that resides in his body without
his knowledge. Kinda like a silent backseat passenger.

Incidentally, I customised the Veteran o' the Weird
West result for Jacque so that he occassionally has
visions of a battered, beaten young girl. This too is
Marbh. The two characters have a tie that is more
important than it first seems ... :)

Anyway, that's it. My players loved it. I haven't lost
the feel of the game - it's still my old Deadlands
game with Mojave Rattlers, Hellstromme and Black River
Railroad. It just has sidhe, too.

Here's some quotes from last session:

Random Quotes from Jacque:
"As my momma used to say, ‘you know nothin’ boy,
nothin’!’"
"You just don’ wan’ me to explode and blow up your
whole café!"
"I know you’ no slave; I never pay my slaves like
this."

Upon seeing a bank robbery in progess at Dodge City
just as their train pulls away from the station:

Jacque:
"I could’ve stopped them."
Beth:
"I could’ve written about it."
Victor:
"I could’ve killed somebody."

Beth, the muckracker for the Atlanta Voice, talking
about the house fire started by The Burning Man:
"If nobody dies, it’s not a human interest story, so I
don’t care."

Jeremy (Jacque's player) on how to get the
Shatterstone from Professor Bodine:
"First we’ll try civilized means, then I’ll try to
steal it, and finally he’ll come in and be the only
university bandit there ever was."


> As an aside, the only thing I’ve discovered that was
> worse than a Vampire LARP was a Changeling one.
> There
> should be laws against people doing that sort of
> thing
> in public.

I was in a Vampire LARP very briefly. If I wanted to
play politics, I'd do it at University (incidentally,
I am next year).

James

=====
Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study Hard. Be Evil.

"Lend me your dark & nasty stuff, O my buddy Bert !"
- Paul Jacoby

"Should you choose to test my resolve in this matter, you will be facing a finality beyond your comprehension, and you will not be counting days, or months, or years, but millenia in a place with no doors." - Joe Black, "Meet Joe Black"

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