Collection of Curses: A Deadlands Campaign Journal

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I've been rather taken with the Deadlands system and setting every since I stumbled across it on TV Tropes. "The Wild West, but with supernatural and eldritch horror" is a heck of a high concept. So recently I started running a campaign for a few of my friends. And 1 and a half sessions in, it's going really well! So I thought I'd try my hand at a campaign journal, too, because why not.

This log will contain spoilers for the module (Dime Novel in Deadlands terms) 'Round the Mountain, as well as secret information about the PCs. That means: my players keep out! (At least until we start the next Dime Novel.)


The Cast:

Sam Carson - a skilled medic (and secretly Voodoo priest) whose company deserted from the Union Army, becoming bandits... until they were darn near wiped out by a particularly unstoppable abomination. Sam thinks it was a Hangin' Judge, but while the resemblance is there, in reality it was a far more ancient and powerful spirit of vengeance. He managed to escape because one of his ancestors made a pact with a manitou, and he's inherited the benefits: he can become intangible at the cost of his stamina and being unable to physically affect the world. Haunted by both trauma and guilt, he suffers from a self-inflicted curse that renders him unable to touch gunmetal without burning pain. For the most part that's not a problem, since he's also a pacifist, doing no harm except to abominations. He's heading west to find a small town that won't mind their doctor being more than a little creepy.

Mettie Boyd - a gunslinger, and the only member of the trio without any magic, who drew unbelievably well in character creation. She wields twin pistols decked out with every trick her player could find in the sourcebooks I made available (I own all of them, but we're only using the ones I've actually read for the sake of all of our sanity). A terror in combat to a degree I seriously underestimated, she is constrained mostly by the Law o' The West drawback; she's honorable, and won't shoot first or anything like that. Well, that and a near total lack of noncombat skills except for Overawe (intimidation) which is useful in gun duels. Plus, the player drew a Joker as one of those fantastic cards, and a random roll for what that meant saddled her with the Cursed drawback, so if she ever goes bust (rolls more ones than any other number) the results will be catastrophic. She's heading west looking for fame and fortune.

Edwin Deveraux - a seller of knick-knacks, potions, and general snake-oil. He's unusually non-malicious for the type; from his point of view, whether his remedies and tricks will work is a gamble, but a fair one. That would be because he's actually a Mad Scientist with a specialization in alchemy, so his concoctions do have a genuine chance of working as advertised. Like his new partners, he also drew a Joker in character creation, but it took me awhile to come up with a good complication. I initially rolled that he looked exactly like someone famous, but I couldn't come up with any interesting ways to make that relevant. Instead, to complete the theme of every party member having some manner of curse, I gave him a cursed relic: the supernatural insight it grants him makes him almost impossible to get the drop on, but haunts his dreams with visions that are useless, terrifying, or both. Essentially the Blue Veil knack, but with the penalties of the Night Terrors drawback rolled into it. He's heading west to escape some trouble he's found himself in in the big cities of the east.


And so, all three of our cursed compadres find themselves headed west, together aboard the (ill-fated) Skyline Steamer.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Our first session was a partial success. Much of it was spent getting the hang of Tabletop Simulator, which we decided to try instead of our usual Roll20. We also learned that TT Sim eats through my battery power faster than my charger can supply it.

So we start aboard the Skyline Steamer, a train on the Denver-Pacific line (not one of the 'big six' railways, but arguably the next most important as it's ideally positioned to sell to three of them, and the one that buys it will likely win the race to the west). There are several other passengers, including a shyster who aims to con someone into buying his fake treasure map, a family with a pair of kids who are just the worst, and a wannabe reporter.

First thing's first, I ask the players to give a brief description of themselves and where they are in the passenger cars. I then tell them how the reporter, Denise (whose name I will continually mix up with Laura, the other important NPC) attempted to relentless question them, as is her wont, but was successfully deterred by Sam's creepy thousand-yard-stare.

Next up, the Wilsons attempt to pawn the chaperoning of their terrible kids off on Mettie. She intimates that this would be a very bad idea, showing off the revolvers she is currently polishing, but her passive-aggressive approach backfires when the parents are utterly unphased and take her up on her "if you think that's a good idea" threat. Now she's stuck with the kids, who promptly steel her polish and sprint off. Sam tries to intimidate the hellions into returning their loot, but while he rolls high, he also rolls more ones than any other number: he's gone bust! The boy yells "If you want it so bad, have it!" and flings the uncapped bottle at Sam and Edwin. Sam passes the hard Deftness check, though, and catches it without making a mess, capping it and returning it to Mettie.

The shyster sets up a poker game (how meta), and Edwin joins in. Both are playing fair (only for the moment in the shyster's case), so I determine the outcome for the first half-hour by having each of them draw a hand of five cards, plus one for each success/raise they can get on their card-game aptitude roll (whose name I forget), and use those to create the best 5-card hand they can. Edwin has the better hand by a solid margin, and I rule he's earned a full $20. He decides to spend some of it on good-will, offering to buy dinner from the dining car for everyone in the car. Much good cheer, and everyone heads there.

Unbeknownst to the party, there is much more going on behind the scenes here. At the start of the poker game, I mentioned offhandedly that one of the passengers, an Allen Seyberth, heads deeper into the train, towards the sleeper car or maybe the dining car. He and Laura Giles are actual members of The Agency, the Union's answer to supernatural threats, and they are escorting a newly discovered abomination called a Husker (a nasty flea-like monster that's big as a man and lays eggs in its victims) towards a secret facility for study. It's stored in the baggage car in a big crate, under the guise of being a museum piece, but it's woken early from its drugged slumber, and Allen is checking on it. Unfortunately for him, it's finally finished weaking its crate from the inside, and when Allen comes close to look inside, it bursts free and kills him instantly. It then moves into the caboose where, after a very futile struggle, it kills the conductor as well. It's at this moment that another train worker enters the baggage car, sees the carnage, and makes the snap decision to release both it and the caboose from the train to save the rest of the passengers (notably, instead of flinging himself off of the train to safety). He manages to safely detach the coupling, but unfortunately for this heroic soul the husker is still close enough to snatch him off of the sleeper car before he can get inside or the cars can drift far enough apart for him to be out of reach.

Meanwhile, up ahead the outlaw Clarkson has set dynamite on the upcoming bridge to send the train hurtling into the ravine below, where he and his friends can pick it clean of valuables at their leisure.

The train driver sees that the last two cars have detached, and hits the brakes. The dynamite goes off. And the train plummets into the ravine, with all the PCs inside.

Unfortunately for Clarkson and his lawless cronies, the reduced speed of the Skyline meant it didn't go sailing cleanly into the chasm like it was supposed to, instead bouncing down the slope and (mostly) settling a mere 40 yards down. All of the passengers (sans Allen, naturally) survive, and while the bandits regroup, Sam is able to set up a triage and treat most everyone... even though I screwed up the damage rules, and forgot tell the players to divide the damage they rolled by their size (which is 6 for all of them).

My battery dies, and after restarting and closing TT Sim, I end the session early with Clarkson yelling "All right, lads! Light 'em up!" and the ringing cracks of gunfire. This is really a blessing in disguise, as it means I have time to set up a cheat sheet for the combat rules and create a combat map.

[Crim the Cold]

Its neat to find another person who likes Deadlands. Are you playing Original, Reloaded, or Weird West? I'm running my group through a set of scenarios set in Deseret. Mostly so I have an excuse to include a bunch of infernal devices. I've been a fan of the savage world system since I found. Its different enough from D&D that a very effective palate cleanser. I switch out with the regular DM when everyone starts getting alt-itis and wants to start a new campaign with fresh characters. Thanks to this system we've actually gotten to tier 3 in D&D and they've gotten to Veteran tier in Deadlands. I've had a few people drop from wounds and wind up with permanent injuries but no deaths so far.

Sorry if I am writing too much in your campaign diary but it is so nice to see someone else that likes the system. Keep going! I look forward to reading more!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Its neat to find another person who likes Deadlands. Are you playing Original, Reloaded, or Weird West? I'm running my group through a set of scenarios set in Deseret. Mostly so I have an excuse to include a bunch of infernal devices. I've been a fan of the savage world system since I found. Its different enough from D&D that a very effective palate cleanser. I switch out with the regular DM when everyone starts getting alt-itis and wants to start a new campaign with fresh characters. Thanks to this system we've actually gotten to tier 3 in D&D and they've gotten to Veteran tier in Deadlands. I've had a few people drop from wounds and wind up with permanent injuries but no deaths so far.

Sorry if I am writing too much in your campaign diary but it is so nice to see someone else that likes the system. Keep going! I look forward to reading more!

Not a problem; it's nice to have a little discourse!

We're playing Deadlands: Classic, in the original Weird West setting. I've heard good things about the Savage Worlds version (which I understand is set a few years after this one?), and may try that out at some point, but Classic is the first version I heard about and so the one I actually started reading the books for, and so the one I introduced my players to.

I just finished our third session tonight, and for the first time someone took damage! ...A few points of wind, in the brief moments before Mettie absolutely annihilated the opposition again. I think I need to start disregarding the module's advice on the number of enemies to include, just so the rest of the squad will get a chance to act!

On that note, I'll try to do a log for the second and maybe third session tomorrow.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Time to make good on my threat promise!

When last we left off, I had ended the first session on a cliffhanger, with the bandits that blew up the train track returning to finish off the survivors. In between sessions, I remembered that damage rolls are not the number of wounds you take (first you're supposed to divide by your size, which is six for most humans and all of the posse), so I told them to erase any wounds they had left.

Surprise roll. If I was being mean, I'd have made them hit the target number for "not expecting trouble" (11), but while the players were in a state of ignorant bliss, their characters really should have been expecting danger after someone dynamited their train, so they only had to make 5 with their Cognition checks. Alas, Sam Carson still failed, and was forced to return all of his Action Cards to the deck.

But it turns out that that didn't matter so much, because Mettie Boyd, resident gunslinger gal, had both the highest two action cards and the Red Joker. She spends the first action moving up a bit and taking aim (any shots taken this action would have been hit with the penalty for running), and then she's up again and I'm reminded just how frequently someone dual-wielding double-action revolvers can shoot. Specifically, four times per action. First shot to the closest bandit; she easily hits, and rolls a 20 on the hit-location table. Headshot! And with multiple exploding dice, no less. The bandit isn't technically dead, but now has a crippling wound to the head, has failed his stun check, and is out of Wind; he's toasted for this fight, and bleeds out before it's over. Next she sets her sights on the bandit leader, Clarkson, who unbeknownst to the party is packing a spare stick of dynamite he would have used to flush them out of the train wreckage had they turtled up. One shot, with enough raises to target onto the "gizzards" (vitals), second shot same as the first. He actually makes his stun rolls and so is still in the fight, albeit one wound away from death. One last shot to the arm fixes that.

That's both Mettie's actions, so I think I'm good to go to have the bandits fire off a few shots at the party, realize they're screwed when the party survives, and book it. Then Mettie's player goes "Actually, I'd like to interrupt with my Red Joker." Which automatically lets her go first, and she fires off another four shots. Three of the remaining 5 bandits are injured and stunned, and the last two finally get their turn and promptly flee for their lives (technically the other three get to go as well, but waste their turns failing Recover checks), taking their now numerous spare horses with them.

So yeah, turns out I've got a character on my hands that can 1 v 7 a gang of bandits at 40 yards and win handily. Without even taking return fire, no less.

If combat was Mettie's time to shine, the rest of the session is Sam's. He patches up the bandits and intimidates them into telling what they know (answer: basically zilch). They have about enough food for 1 day, which is a problem, since it would probably take about 3 for the rescue parties to realize they're missing and track them to this spot. The group is approached by Lara Giles, who claims to want to retrieve supplies from the missing two train cars (which included the baggage train), including a precious family heirloom and perhaps some rations other passengers had left in their bags. In reality, she's a member of the Agency assigned to deliver the Husker to a secret base, and what she really wants are a) to retrieve her Gatling pistol so she can defend herself and b) determine whether the Husker is still alive and contained (in which case she will kill it).

She and the posse follow the train track back down the, which the detached two cars rolled back down before derailing themselves at a curve. Due to the murders committed by the Husker, the cars have a Fear Level of 2, which I describe as a growing unease that's reminiscent of the wreckage left behind by the 'Hanging Judge' attack from Carson's backstory (albeit a pale shadow of it in terms of strength). Here it turns out that while Sam Carson has a decent number of ranks in the Search aptitude, nobody has any ranks in Track, which is going to make finding the various tracks and trails around the cars difficult for the posse (and Lara sure has no interest in pointing them out). However, he is easily able to determine the number of victims based on the blood, and that they are almost certainly dead after losing that much. No bodies to be seen, though. He initially barely misses Allen's Gatling pistol, and Lara is able to successfully retrieve and stow hers without the posse getting suspicious. However, on a second sweep of the baggage car, he rolls well enough to find it (at which point he rightly points out that his gunmetal curse should have given him a bonus in the first place, as he would have instantly noticed had he picked up the bag and it started hurting him). The posse doesn't know what to make of that. They are, however, pretty confident about their analysis of the shattered crate that housed the Husker. Most animals can't scratch their way through the solid wood of a crate, then burst three and kill three humans. Lara suggests wolves dragged the bodies off, and the posse plays along for now (mainly to avoid alarming her, ironically). She also suggests that it would be a very bad idea to be away from the group after the sun goes down with said wolves, and after a few more cursory looks around, the posse heads back. Lara slips up a bit, though; despite the darkness, she walks confidently and without slipping, in marked contrast to her persona as a city-slicker... and to her skills walking down to the cars in the first place, which the posse remembers the next day.

The posse spends a rather stressful night keeping watch; rightly so, as the Husker is walking all over the ravine where they're holed up, and they can hear it scuttling faintly in the darkness. They hypothesize that it wants something with the bodies of the bandits, which were left where they lay (albeit covered in a sheet). They try lobbing improvised torches up to the corpses to scare it off, but the distance is just too far. Then they hike up there, only to find that the bodies and sheet are untouched (actually because the Husker just hadn't started to retrieve them yet, but they don't know that). They spitball various ideas for keeping the corpses illuminated or destroying them that range from "likely to burn the forest down" to "certain to burn the forest down", but ultimately decide to just leave them, as they don't want to drag potentially tampered with corpses closer to the civilians. (We later recall that Clarkson had a stick of dynamite left on him, and have a good laugh and just how close the party came to blowing themselves to kingdom come). At the end of the second watch there's even more debate about what to do, which I finally settle by telling them that if they walk up there, now the sheet is shredded and the corpses are gone. Come morning, they also realize that the corpses in the locomotive have been removed too, which gives them a bit of a scare; those were much closer to the sleeping party and civilians.

Anyway, once everyone's eaten, they decide to give the missing cars one last look-over, and I decide to give them a couple more clues, namely that the caboose is turned on its side but the bloodstains are still on its floor, and that the linkage where the baggage car was attached to the rest was removed cleanly, not broken. That proves enough for them to piece together pretty much exactly how the inciting incident played out, which impressed me, though they haven't realized the Agency's role in things yet. Their dramatic rendition of how things went down also impress Denise, the wannabe reporter, who is accompanying the party against their protests and those of the Lara.

Now that they have a clear idea of how things went down and a clear trail to follow, the party is ready to track down the Husker (which they've been calling the "Scorpion Man"). I end the session here.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I just finished our third session tonight, and for the first time someone took damage!
Maybe it's a good think you're not playing the Savage Worlds version, my group is a dozen sessions into our campaign and everyone has died* at least once. Definitely seems to be one of those systems with a fine line between "kicking ass" and "tpk."



*Well, the first casualty got to come back Harrowed without having to draw for it, and I decided the fudge the dice and let the last guy live.