[DL] Sharing from the wealth of information from the past....

[Wes Anderson <wes.anderson@lucasfilm.com>]

Inquisitor's Cowl
by Jeff Boggess

   A posse wandering through the West rides in to town late one night. The
next morning they are awakened by lots of commotion in the streets. When
they go to investigate (as any well trained posse will) the find that one of
the local parsons has been found dead. Give them a little while to nose
around or sit on their asses then send the sheriff to pay them a visit. Now
the sheriff has a dislike of some class of people, just by coincidence one
of the party members fits in to this category and suddenly boom you have
your primary suspect. (in my Deadlands adventure I had an Indian, it was
perfect). So now you send this poor feller to the hoosegow and his friends
will try to get him free.

   Let this go on for a few days angry mobs, attempted lynchings and
detective work to find the real killer are possible here. The night before
the PC is going on trial another body turns up and he is let go. Again the
dead man is a priest and killed in his church. Here you can shift the blame
to another character if your posse is not the heroic type (or not
cooperative). 

   Any way this sort of thing goes on until 5 priests are dead. Once all
five are dead the posse runs in to the villain for the game. He is a black
magician who has been steeling consecrated items for use in his rituals. The
ritual he is performing is one to create the Inquisitioner's cowl (see end
of text for details). Once it is created he has a showdown with the posse,
they finally clear themselves, ride in to the sunset the end.

   I usually throw a couple false suspects at the characters to confuse them
cause it is just much more fun if you let all the priests get whacked
usually I have an old recluse living on the hill outside town. He just moved
in everyone thinks he's strange. Turns out he is caring for his ailin' and
aging mother. Make the posse feel real bad when they bust in on him.

   The real bad guy is a young man obsessed with dark cults. (You know the
kid who got sucked in to Satan worship by playing role playing games (he
he)) While he is not in one he has found a powerful book of black magic. The
book it's self is an abomination in it's own right. I have yet to work up
states for it though. The major clue that more then just killing is going on
should be that something's are missing form each of the churches.

   These missing items are the components for the ritual and are as follows.
Would from the pulpit of one of the chutes. A small quantity of silver
(communion plates work good for this). A large quantity of iron (usually
iron work on one of the church buildings). The blood of a priest. And the
cup used for communion in one of the churches. The would used to build the
fire to work the iron and silver into the cowl. The blood is used to quench
the finished helm. The communion cup is used to catch the first of the blood
and poor it over the finished cowl once it is put on. Until this is done the
powers of the cowl are inactive

Now the cowl is not really a cowl but a heavy iron and silver mask. When the
blood is pored over it at the end of it's creation it permanently attaches
it's self to the wearers face. If he is killed after donning the mask he
crumbles to dust and cowl can be donned by another.

The Inquisitors Cowl gives the following abilities
raises all corporeal stats by one die type causes the wearer to have the
tempest ability black lighting the harrowed ability voice of the dammed at 5
and Texas twister at 5

The only way to destroy the cowl is to place it in a wooden box filled with
sea salt and berry it on hallowed ground for twelve days.



Let me know if any newbies actually want more of these adventure kernels.

Marshal of the "Fat Chance" Posse.