Re: [DL] "PC Death" Train aka Night Train Dime Novel Adventure (Spoilers)

[Reemull <reemull@yahoo.co.uk>]

This will get rather long, apologies.  However from the start - this
has Night Train spoilers so players, don't read on.

I played the Night Train scenario as a one shot using different
characters from our normal as I planned to play it out to it's most
deadly.  Most of it went straightforward until the train pulled in. 
The deputy and the posse were standing watching it - thinking "this is
rather odd".  When the doors opened and the nosferatu spilled out - two
failed their guts checks and ran - the others thought about it and then
ran.  The deputy failed his guts check and had a heart attack and died.
 The posse holed up in the sheriff's office to try hold off the tide. 
They did pretty well but eventually got swamped.  With the last two
surviving posse members left with the place getting swarmed by
nosferatu - one posse member shot the flamethrower on the back of the
mad scientist and blew the place sky high.  

Later I ran a follow up one-shot.  Only three players turned up - they
were all issued a note detailing changes to their character.  As it
turned out two had become vampires - the other was simply harrowed with
a fixation of drinking blood (hey, it was in the air!).  But none of
them knew what the other was - they all had selected powers at basic
levels from RVC2 but they didn't know what they did or what they others
had (they also had a random amount of wind left).  They lie in the
ruins of the jail house and hear the whistle blow and the vampires
return to the train.  At this point the sun starts to rise.  Then the
heroes arrive.  A group of riders arrive in town including a couple of
Texas Rangers, plus a Ranger Chaplain of sorts and a vampire hunter
expert that I lifted from Barbara Hamblys "travelling with the Dead"
book.

The decide to try and sneak on to the train rather than chance their
arm with the well kitted out heroes, who look rather competent.  As the
first rays of sunshine land on the town - they jump on the train as it
pulls out.

They travel on the train rather nervous amongst all the dormant
nosferatu, who are initially inquisitive but sensing no living blood
ignore them.  The train goes on to a siding and spends the day.  At
some point the harrowed tells the others that he has a vampire power
that allows him to go into sunlight.  So he sneaks out to get his
bearings and spies the undead train drivers.  As he snoops about he
also spies a man (whom he assumes is a voodoo man from his attire) who
seems to be planning the next town to hit.  The harrowed returns to the
carriage and the train eventually moves off.  This proved rather fun as
the two PC vampires started to have their doubts about the other PC at
this point.

That night they attack another town.  The PC vampires are rapidly
losing wind and realise that they need blood to survive.  The nosferatu
attack and the harrowed PC gets caught up in it all - but retains
enough control to ensure he attacks an animal instead of humans.  The
other two realise that animal blood does them no good (which makes them
more suspicious) and they are faced with doing the deed or sacrificing
themselves.  They decide they are more important and so they hunt their
blood and try out their new funky cool powers (was funny one had the
power to turn into a bat and so jumped out the window and activated the
power - but it took 3-4 turns to kick in - so he ended up with a sore
face!!)  

As the rest of the nosferatu round up the rest of the town, the PC's
gather together  as much dynamite as they can carry to the train
without being noticed.  They set it around the engine and carriages. 
They then wait out the night until the whistle blows.  As they are
waiting the see the hougan approach, he seems to be watching the town
from the station.  As the whistle blows the PC's blow the train and put
a bullet in the head of the hougan.  The hougan vanishes from sight,
collapsing off the far end of the station.  The sun starts to rise and
the returning nosferatu get caught in it's rays.  The PC's investigate
and find the body of the hougan missing.  They find him under the
station and can see his brain knitting together again.  This freaks
them out and they attack like there is no tomorrow.  While they are
attacking one of them sees that their are a number of undead (big
bodies - small heads - forgotten the name - they are in River O'Blood
and RVC2 I think)   They decide to ignore them and eventually take the
hougan guy down - however they are running pretty low on wounds and
wind.   

Unfortunately we had to finish there so they never got to face the
undead guys and figure exactly what the hougan was after in the town or
why.  Not too sure myself - but sometimes the conspiracy is more
important than the plot.  

After the game finished (and we were returning to our normal game the
following week) the harrowed explained to the others that he was not a
vampire - which they had all but figured out.  However he disclosed
that he had actually wired the station to blow while the others were
wiring the train.  So that when they were the only ones left he'd
remove their cover and expose them to sunlight.  However the other two
had already decided that the harrowed PC wasn't right and as such was a
danger to them and they planned to take him down anyway.  

It worked surprisingly well and was good fun - the main problem was
that it sort of spoiled part of the mystery of Deadlands when they got
to see things from the other side of the fence.

Cheers

Roy

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