[DL] A Few Deadmen More...

[Theprodgialson@aol.com]

Hello everyone,
    I have been wokring on the background for a series of adventures for a 
Deadlands: The Weird West campaign i hope to run one day.  Any suggestions to 
improve this would be greatly appreacated.

Richard

The Bufflo Soldiers: 
    Black Confederate calvary units with White officers where originally sent 
out to the weird west along with their families and given forty acres and a 
mule for their assignment to off-set the threat form invasion form Mexico 
form the south, and the Union form the north.  The areas assigned for these 
units to patrol where mostly in the southern parts of the Arizonia and New 
Mexico territories along the shared border with Mexico.     They would over 
time come into conflict with not only the Mexicans and Indians (who where 
responsible for their distinctive nickname of 'Bufflo Soldiers'), but with 
the various criminal gangs of the area like the "Cowboys." 

Break in the narrative... 
    Does anyone have any ideas where their primary base would be located? I 
was thinking of making their main fort being close to Tombstone since it is 
almost right in the middle of the shared Mexican-Confederate boarder. 

Resume Narrative....

    The Bufflo Soliders established themselves to be amoung the most 
professional an well trained of the Confederate forces, and have established 
several communities around their Forts composed of their dependents and close 
family freinds.  These close nit military communities became bastions of 
civilization and offered some safety in the werid south-west since they where 
common stop overs for Texas Rangers and C.S. Marshals who handled most of the 
law enforcement duties of the territories for the Confederate government back 
east.

A Few Deadmen More... 
    The Confederate Government has spared more troops for the campaign for 
the werid west, and to secure their hold on the southern half of the Great 
Maze.  Davis was finally convenced to send those East Indian sepoys and that 
token line regiment that had been sitting in Charleston harbor since 1872 out 
to the werid west to support the limited resources the Confederacy had in the 
weird west.  After much debate Davis sent these British troops to support a 
renewed Confederate thrust to take California and at the same time teach 
Santa Anna a lesson.  The forces he could spare for the operation was made up 
of predominately Black troops that inculded the first Black officers to have 
been educated at the various military academies of the Confederacy (the 
Virginia Mitliary Insitute, the Citadel, the Carolina Miltiary Insitute just 
to name a few).  
    The Confederate Bufflo Soldiers first assignment was to secure the 
Confederate-Mexican boarder form further incursions by Santa Anna's army so 
it could not cut off the supply and logistics line that would be used by the 
Confederate reinforcements coming form Texas.
    The British 'reinforcements' will be arriving within the next few months 
after the new dedicated military rail lines are built exculively for military 
traffic to counter-balance the Mexican Army's French Foreign Legion allies.  
Rumor has it that the British will reinforce these 'reinforcements' with 
several more line regiments since the Union has started problems for the 
Crown with their abortive attacks on Canada.
    The British commanders have since issued a call for those officers who 
had already headed out into the weird west to muster up at Tombstone and 
prepare an area for the arrival of their men and equipment.  Also the British 
commanders have started to work with their Confederate counterparts in 
establishing a steady supply line for their troops, and have started to 
recurit form British citizens those with a nack for the new sciences to help 
develop and build new devices for crossing the great expanses of the 
south-western terreritories of the Confederacy.  
    The British have started work at establishing their own counter part of 
the Confederate Air Corps that has been dubbed the Royal Air Corps, and have 
requested permission to create a counterpart for the newly formed Confederate 
Aeronavy composed of armed and armoured zepplin type craft.  

    The Confederate Aeronavy is composed of Aeroships that have been built by 
inventors using the theories that are the core of the new sciences, based on 
established Zeppelin designs that have been used in civilian cargo and 
passenger lines.  The Confederate government got the idea for armed aeroships 
after a maverick Texas Ranger and his posse had purchased one of the 
'aircoaches' and had it armed and armoured for use in supporting their 
activies in the weird west.  Their aeroship the Forlorn Hope engaged several 
diffrent Pinkerton assembled posses and Union forces in the contested 
territories where they came out victorious and able to escape to safety 
before the Union was able to feild anything with the firepower to bring them 
down. 
    The first armed aeroship the Advance, was built at the Confederate Naval 
Yards in Charlotte North Carolina by a Confederate Naval Officer and inventor 
named Lieutenant Johannes Stryker late in 1877, while a new series of 
dedicated aeroships have started to be produced recently.  
    Stryker's invention of what has been dubbed the Levitation engine since 
it is able to create a feild of null-weight around the engine and anything 
attached to it.  It requires a reliable power source that can create large 
quanities of power.  To counter the threat that the levitation engine could 
fail and cause the aeroship to crash, aeroships are equiped with armoured 
helium gasbags that assists in keeping the large vessels aloft.  

Confederate Navy and Aeronavy Ranks: 
    Admiral 
    Captain 
    Commander 
    Lieutenant 
    Midshipman 
    Chief Petty Officer 
    Petty Officer 
    Able Seaman/Able Aeroman
    Seaman/Aeroman 

Richard