The year is 1877, and the end of Summer is nearing fast. One of the warmest on record, we’re told in the margins surrounding yet another set of “suspicious disappearances” and “freak accidents.” At least in all the papers that used to be worth the paper they were printed on. Nowadays, it seems like the tabloids are the more reliable source. Eleven years ago, the West Coast fell into the sea, leaving spires of so called Ghost Rock. This material proved far more powerful than coal, attracting rail barons, industrialists and scientists alike to the new maze of waterways. Since that day, ghost stories, legends, monsters, myths, have been exploding across the States. And as near as anyone can tell, the truth is becoming stranger than fiction. Back east, the cemeteries are even reportedly cracking open to leave otherwise decisive battles in this War Between the States stalemates, leaving no end in sight. Both sides, North and South, have laid out a bounty, offering immense wealth and connection for whoever first builds a railroad across the continent to what used to be California. Sometimes, in pursuit of these Rail Wars, the ambitious rail companies hire agents, both to deal with these new supernatural phenomena, and with each other. And worst of all, one of those agents has one of my employer’s guns. August is going to be a long month.
-Recovered from the diary of an unnamed debt collector, written mid-August, 1877.
MUSIC CREDITS:
In The West Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
PLAYERS
- Greg – Guillaume Olivier. Canadian hunter and fur trapper. He’s a large and jolly man, but behind that carefully groomed beard is a man who’s slain bears with a bowie knife. Guillaume feels that he has conquered the North, so he has moved to the U.S. to see if he can find a challenge worthy of his strength. When he’s not seeking thrills against dangerous opponents, he’s drinking and telling tall tales about himself to anyone who will listen.
- Kevin – Gabriel Young. Sixty-three and loving it, Gabriel Young has seen the world change in almost every way. Formerly enslaved in Georgia, he and his family fled north to Boston, where he found work as a machinist and eventually joined the Union Army as war broke out. After the supernatural horrors of Gettysburg, he started to develop a talent for the new science, finding work as a freelancer amid the constant troubles of the fractured former United States. Now a widower with an adult son deeply involved in the clandestine activities of the Agency, he has left behind the East to seek adventure and insight in the West.
- Axe – Wilhelmina “Mina” Saltonstall – An intense, somewhat slight woman nearing thirty and almost always clad in the mysterious black duster of the Union Agency. Tarnished by the sorcerous legacy of her now-forgotten family, she puts her skills in the Huckster’s arts to use keeping the Union safe and prosperous.
- Josh – Clem. An enigmatic, sharpshooting, wisecracking teenager from the Confederacy. Ran off with a very expensive rifle, and now the Confederacy wants it back.
- Susan – Artemisia “Missy” Weston. She is a well to do lady of 27 from upstate New York who has come west after receiving her portion of an inheritance seeking adventure. Having expensive taste is okay when you have the money to back it up. She has a plethora of skills; sewing, surgery, a silver tongue, and soliciting spirits. You know, just girly things. A secret family past with the dead haunts her every decision for how to approach the problems she faces
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I remember listening to your previous Deadlands AP. That didn’t go according to plan..
It was really funny.
remember the same fondly! sounds like this one’s going all the way to completion, thank goodness