Interesting People: Buffalo Soldiers

So, I fought with this post for a bit. I wanted to make it an "Under the Hood" post, since it deals with game mechanics quite a bit. See, the Buffalo Soldiers are (ideally) the characters on deck for our currently missing player Eddie. However, I hope to use them as NPC's even if Eddie can't make our games - otherwise, people just get to see some of his basic abilities from the onset.

Buffalo Soldier In The Heart Of America.
Originally members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment mustered at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Buffalo Soldiers were drawn up in the years preceding the Civil War. During the Union's days of westward expansion, the regiment earned its name from the native warriors they clashed with. During the Battle of Utah, the regiment was a part of the Northern Fork, one of three armies that attempted to pierce the heart of the rebellious Utah territory. Years later, the regiment fought valiantly during the war between the States, though they were not a part of the ill-fated Second Battle of Gettysburg.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Soldiers broke up. Some remained in the military, clawing up the ranks to the position of officer, while many returned to their home states. Others settled out west, living alongside the Deseret and natives that they once fought. A group of "ten old guns" waited, though. Like the musketeers of legend, they kept their skills honed and uniforms hidden, until the day that the Union would need them again.

All for One, One for All
In the winter of 1895, the old guns of the 10th were approached by Magog. He requested that they follow Mr. Roosevelt on his westward journey, with explicit instructions to keep themselves hidden from Roosevelt and his companions unless absolutely necessary. That in mind, the ten Soldiers struck out through the trail blazed by Theodore, keeping just far enough behind not to be noticed. Riding together, the ten men became one again - as a regiment, they were always greater than the sum of their parts.

Under the Hood: The Buffalo Soldiers
Unlike all the other characters in IT: A, the Buffalo Soldiers are not an individual. They are a group, and being a group means that they get abilities that step outside the normal rules a bit.

For starters, the Buffalo Soldiers have a number of "boxes" next to the Hit Points line, equal to the current number of Soldiers in the group. When the Buffalo Soldiers' HP is reduced to zero, the character does not die, but a box is checked off. This represents the group losing a member, and thus reducing its overall effectiveness. For each Soldier lost, actions are rolled at a 1 point penalty. This doesn't mean that the individual Soldiers lose skill, but that their overall morale weakens.

-NOTE-
A quick note to add. As far as Morale goes, the Buffalo Soldiers only take penalties when they are reduced below 10 members. The penalty only persists as long as they have 9 or fewer members, and they don't get bonuses to actions for having over 10 members... though that might be a decent ability for them to purchase down the line. Say... "Well Led"? a 1 point bonus to rolls for each officer in the group? I've got a comments section, let's see what you have to say.

Second, the Buffalo Soldiers can split up. The Soldiers can break into 5 man groups. Initially, this means the Soldiers can break into two 5 man groups, who can act independently from each other. As the number of Soldiers increases, so does the number of groups they can break up to form, but each group can only take a single action per turn.

Third, the Soldiers start by sharing a single set of statistics and skills. If a Soldier dies, the player can replace it (or add new Soldiers) in major cities through a successful Contacts check and the expenditure of a Character Point (for the uninitiated, these are the XP of our game). For 3 character points, an Officer can be added to the group, to add a new member and bring a skill up by a level.

The following are the other special abilities the Buffalo Soldiers start with:

Fighting On Arrival, Fighting For Survival
A group of Soldiers can reroll dice, equal to the number of members in the group, per turn. No reroll may be rerolled - the second result is the final one. This reroll applies to single dice. For instance, any skill check can be rerolled once, as can a roll to hit, but individual damage dice may also be rerolled.

Strength In Numbers
Any skill check or roll to hit that equals the current total number of Buffalo Soldiers is considered a Critical Success. Note that the Drama Die of Critical Successes can also be rerolled via "Fighting On Arrival, Fighting For Survival."

This is where the Soldiers start off. Like all the other characters, as the game progresses they can purchase new (probably overpowered) abilities, as I concept them.

Second Session: Shpadoinkle and Salt Lake City

Part the First

In the aftermath of the "audition," the group quickly determined that the only way they'd reach Carson City in time would be to ride like madmen over the Rockies to Salt Lake City, where they could catch one of the Snakeback trails. These serpentine railways were built on the bones of the failed transcontinental railroad, built to the whims and specifications of whichever local community decided to foot the cost of construction.

Fortunately, during the height of the Kingdom of Deseret, they built extensive lines between their largest cities. Salt Lake City's Snakeback offered the party a nearly straight shot to Carson City, which would shave weeks off of their journey. With that in mind, everyone bundled up in the warmest clothing they could lay their hands on and struck out.

The first few days of their journey were relatively uneventful. Everyone had purchased enough supplies to not have to worry about hunting or scavenging for food, and the multiple layers they were bundled in kept the cold at bay.

Early into the party's third day of travel, they came to the ruins of Fort Suttor, built in the '50s during the Utah War. When the Mormon pioneers declared their independence, the Union left dozens of these forts throughout the Rockies. In the aftermath of the war, many of the forts fell into disrepair, and Suttor was no exception.

The party decided to search the fort for supplies. Splitting up to search the infirmary, barracks, and officer's bunks, they quickly discovered recent tracks in the snow... bare footprints (Okay. So, for a while we had trouble. I said "bare" footprints, they heard "bear" footprints. We got it resolved soon enough). While they were examining the tracks, the ladies in the barracks were attacked by something that was lurking in the dark.

A moment later Teddy came upon three more of the creatures, feasting on the body of a local hunter. Once, they might have been simply cannibals, but by the time the party encountered them, they were nigh-supernatural things controlled by a lust for human flesh - Wendigo.

The group dispatched the Wendio quickly, sustaining only a few injuries in the process. Searching the bodies, they found a handful of Deseret coins, and identified the leader of the creatures as Alferd Packer, a notorious local who had been arrested for cannibalism before.

Part the Second
Leaving Fort Suttor behind them, the party rode hard out of the mountains, going for several days without sleep. Their horses exhausted and near death, they rode into the edge of Salt Lake City as the sun was rising on a Sunday morning. Even from a distance, they could hear the peal of bells and rumble of organs, and could see as a small army of pilgrims wandered into the city from nearly every direction.

Knowing that they wouldn't be able to get a train in Deseret on a Sunday, and not wanting to draw too much attention from the Nauvoo Legion, the group decided to stay over in the Black Quarter - since the Kingdom of Deseret considered Africans the cursed descendants of Ham.

While there, they gained intel from different sources. At a public bath, the ladies learned of a Confederate soldier in Salt Lake City to address the Council of 50. At a gin-cellar fortune teller, Teddy and John Henry learned that the Rail Baron was wielding them like pawns, and that they could kill him if they fought him on his Hellbound Train, and that he had 9 brothers in the States, both North and South. Rufus learned that even in a theocracy, there are still back alley places to find hard drugs, and that while he might not have any old enemies, the Ghost Rider certainly does.

Under the Hood: Weapons

Hey! Who wants to see some actual game content?

When I decided to run another Interesting Times game, I wanted to use it as an opportunity to play with weapons, how weapons work, that kind of thing. In the past, we've just sorta randomly grabbed damages for weapons when we needed them, and didn't bother to do any research about the kinds of guns that would have been available at the time.

Since I use IT games as a sandbox to try out new ideas, I figured that starting with real-world weapons would be a great way to think about how guns work and how to make them more interesting. That being said, this is the weapon list I developed for the players the day before our first session.

Word and Blogspot aren't playing nice, so here's a .pdf link!

So, most of these weapons are based on real firearms that would have been available at the time. I took a little bit of creative license to fill some gaps in the lineup, and to make sure that similar rifles didn't feel too 'same-y.' Prices were either estimated around similar era prices, or made up to represent the quality/damage of the gun.

So, on to some of the special rules. All pistols, unless otherwise noted, can be "burst" fired. When you burst fire, you can hit multiple targets, suppress them, or focus fire on a single target to gain the Traumatic property (more on that in a moment). All Rifles have the Sharpshooter property. When you take an action aiming with a rifle, you roll an additional damage die if you it. All shotguns have the Traumatic property (see, told you so). Traumatic weapons roll explosive damage die, i.e. roll the die again and add to the initial result if you roll the target number. So, if your gun has Traumatic (8), a roll of 8 or higher is rerolled and added.

Some of the other special rules confer additional bonuses. For instance, Quickfire allows you to burst fire without the normal to-hit penalty. Other special rules add complications to the weapon's use. Complicated Reload requires an additional action to reload the weapon, while Heavy has a Strength requirement to use the weapon normally - otherwise, you have to spend an action readying yourself to fire it.

If anyone has any questions or comments about the way weapons currently work, feel free to post a comment and I'll try and answer anything you're curious about!

First Session - Hotel Colorado

Participating Characters
Theodore Roosevelt (Nick): Police Chief of New York City and avid outdoorsman.
John Henry "Doc" Holliday (Phil): Dentist, Gunfighter, and demonically possessed bounty hunter
Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman (Eli): Venerable herbologist, floramancer, and burgeoning green man.
John Henry (Swampy): Hammer swinging railway worker and part-time Vodou houngan
Anna-Maria Talbot (Roxxy): Werewolf of negotiable affections and caretaker of Doc Holliday.
Margret "Molly" Brown (Jenny): Wife of industrialist J.J. Brown, socialite, debutante and weekend bareknuckle boxer.

New CharactersRufus C. Terwilliger (Phil): Double-amputee cavalry soldier and the next host of the demonic Ghost Rider.
"Here we go again..."
The game started with the characters scattered across the United States, nearly a decade after they fought (and defeated) the megalomaniac Thomas Edison. For many years, they had all been gradually falling out of communication with each other, but late in the winter of 1894, a series of events began that would bring them back together.

For different reasons (Roosevelt's desire to hunt, Henry's need to flee pursuers, etc), from different places, and starting at different times, all of the characters were drawn to a single point on the map - Estes Park Colorado. Though they came from the corners of the Union, left at different times, and travelled via different means, they all converged together at the Stanley Hotel. Still unopened, the hotel stood in a massive game preserve in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

The only person who knew explicitly why they were drawn to the hotel was Doc Holliday. A few days prior, he was contacted by the Rail Baron, an enigmatic entity who held his contract as the Ghost Rider.

The Baron told Doc that his services would no longer be required, the terms of the initial contract having been fulfilled. The Baron hinted that there were big things on the horizon that would require some new blood in the Rider's seat, and that Doc would have to 'pass the torch' to this new Rider. This new host was in the employ of the hotel, an opium addicted bootblack who ate only enough to survive and spent the rest of his wages at the Hotel infirmary.

"An audition, of sorts..."
While the Stanley brothers were not expecting anyone to arrive at the as of yet unopened hotel, the presence of Molly Brown and Teddy Roosevelt quickly convinced them to open a few rooms to their uninvited guests. While the ladies and Mr. Roosevelt set up at the hotel and prepared for dinner, John Henry, John Chapman, and Doc Holliday went back to the servant's housing, where Holliday passed the spirit of the rider to its new host. Holliday died shortly thereafter, while the Johns tried to explain the circumstance to the new Rider.

That's when the Baron appeared again. He told the trio outside that they should get ready for an "audition, of sorts." Meanwhile, at the opulent dining table inside the hotel, Roosevelt and the ladies saw as several of the dinner guests and all of the servants were violent possessed by spectral entities.

The party fought and defeated the possessed hotel workers, through combined gunfire, fists, claws, and the flaming blade of the Ghost Rider. The fight ended with Roosevelt and Molly tag-teaming a poltergeist that seemed to be in charge of the possessing spirits, killing it by skeet-shooting a silver serving platter as it passed through the ghost.

Afterword, the Baron reappeared, applauding their efforts and saying that they 'got the job.' Then sternly instructed them to get to Carson City, Nevada within a week... which for anyone else, would be impossible.

Trivia and other notes

• Freeland and Francis, the Stanley Brothers, invented a steam powered car called the Stanley Steamer. It held the landspeed record mile (28.2 seconds) for an automobile from 1906-1911, and no steam car beat its time until 2009.
• The Stanley Hotel is one of America's famous "Haunted Hotels." It served as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel, and was the filming location for the teleplay of The Shining.
  
• Other guests of the ill-fated dinner included John Harvey Kellogg, Wovoka the Paiute leader who would later found the Ghost Dance, Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven, and the Earl's personal guard "Texas Jack" Omohundo, Jr. Kellogg was present to construct facilities for tuberculosis sufferers, while Wovoka and the Earl were both former landowners that the Stanleys purchased the land from (the Earl in the real world, Wovoka in ours).
• Unlike the former Ghost Rider, Rufus has no legs. When he summons the rider, his Nightmare literally rides up from out of the earth beneath him, and the two are fused together in a tangle. Because of this, Rufus cannot dismount while he is the rider... though why would a cavalryman ever want to?
• The Rail Baron is based on Henry Morrison Flagler, a railroad tycoon and partner in Standard Oil.
  

The Road So Far: The Second Battle of Gettysburg

So, we started the IT: A game a little early. Several people didn't show up for a game, and I was chomping at the bit to run something, so I decided to start the players off with a prelude to our main story. Since one player was bringing a new character into the group, I thought it would be cool to run a prelude that introduced everyone to who the new character was, and to show them what led him to his ultimate fate as a member of their order.

This is the prelude of the Half Soldier, an opium addicted former cavalryman. He fought for the Union during the Battle of Utah, and met his initial fate during the Civil War, at the second battle of Gettysburg.

The character in question is Rufus C. Terwilliger. Born and bred in Arkansas, Rufus joined the Union Army at a young age. During the Battle of Utah, he earned the rank of Lt. Colonel, and led a cavalry regiment during the initial years of the Civil War.

The Windup...
In the run-up to the prelude, Rufus was a part of Company B, a brave group of cavalrymen who fought on the western edge of the war. Company B primarily jousted with other horse soldiers, interrupting supply lines and exploratory advances above the Indian Territories. Unfortunately, when the Confederates attacked Gettysburg, General Meade and his men were driven out. Desperate for reinforcements, they called up all of the scouts and rough riders of the Union army. Company B was one of the groups brought to muster.

Meade had a simple plan to retake Gettysburg. The infantry at his disposal would charge the entrenched Confederate soldiers, while cavalry would hit the flanks of the defender's lines. The charging cavalry were meant to focus primarily on the Puckle guns, rapid fire weapons from Europe that could cut the heart out of any forward charge. Company B was instructed to hit the south-west flank of Gettysburg. There, they would hit Devil's Hill, a steep peak which afforded artillery a commanding field of fire.

The Pitch
Before dawn the next day, Rufus led Company B into the woods west of Devil's Hill. He split his forces into three groups. The first were skirmishers, who would charge into the flank of the Confederate infantry with Terwilliger. The second were sharpshooters who would ride along the battle line, targeting officers and the loaders of the dreaded Puckle guns. Lastly, the dragoons would hold back by the treeline. Their heavy guns were to be employed against enemy cavalry and artillery as it presented itself.

With that battle plan in mind, Company B rode through the forests west of Devil's Hill, and awaited the infantry charge that would signal their time to ride...

SWING... And a miss.

The first stages of Company B's attack rode out without a hitch. The Confederate scouts in the woods were shot down without hesitation, mercy, or problem. The soldiers stood ready to ride against the Confederate invaders, eager and ready to retake Union ground.

When the infantry line charged up towards the earthwork defenses of Gettysburg, a cry rippled through their line, which was quickly taken up by Company B's horses as they charged out of the woods towards the far flank of Confederate Infantry. Terwilliger led his saber-swinging men down into the exposed flank of the enemy, while behind him his Lieutenants broke off to engage as they were instructed.

And that's where the battle began to turn. While the skirmishers clashed into the back of the Confederate line, chopping at riflemen and murdering Puckle Gun crews, while the sharpshooters picked off priority targets along the artillery line atop Devil's Hill, while the dragoons fired a fusillade into the responding charge of Kentucky Light Lancers, something terrible was being readied for the battle. The first Air Force readied for war.

And a miss. And a Miss.

For a while, it looked like Company B was winning the battle single-handed. The skirmishers led by Terwilliger had driven off nearly half of the infantry, while the dragoons killed almost all of the light lances of Kentucky. Unfortunately, that's when the Confederate unveiled the hammer and anvil that would win them the day.

From Devil's Hill, a barrage of artillery rang out. Unlike every other shot that had fallen from the Confederate lines, the shells of Devil's Hill had a bizarre, musical quality to them - like Waterford Crystal thrown against a wall. Where the shells landed, unnatural light and energy erupted, ripping the land apart. With a choral sound, thousands of soldiers from the North and the South were ripped down through rifts of greenish light. The artillery on the hill wasn't just killing those it hit, it was ripping them down into some unfathomable place between the spaces of dimension and time.

Rufus watched as the sharpshooters charged the hill, and he watched as they were cut down. Cannons were loaded with the same warped stone fragments that had rained down on his lines, cannons that erupted into the charge that tried to take the hill. Rufus saw Burley, the Lieutenant in charge of his sharpshooters, take a saber of that same bizarre materiel through the throat.

The Lieutenant Colonel threw caution aside, and led his last soldiers in a charge against the hill. Behind him, the dragoons put fire down to suppress the enemy, as Terwilliger charged forth in the last seconds of his military career.

Before he every reached the summit of Devil's Hill, Lt. Colonel Rufus C. Terwilliger was shot. A cannon blast, which would likely have killed another man, ripped through his left leg. His horse was killed a moment later, and fell, crushing the bones of his right leg in the impact. Only through the immediate and capable ministrations of a Union doctor was he able to survive.

From that day forward, though, Rufus was a half-man. His legs amputated at the knee, he could never ride again.

Or so he thought.

Interesting People:and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog

...to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea."

Known by the codename Magog, this agent is a representative of a new organization within the United States interested in preserving the nation. Operating beyond the normal realm of warfare, this company will gladly employ espionage, assassination, and outright sabotage to ensure the protection of the Union against a world of potential foes.

As the son of one of the company's founders, Magog has much to prove. Of all the company agents, he is the most willing to utilize the extra-normal abilities of people worldwide. If they can be swayed by promises, money, or outright threats, Magog will do everything in his power to ensure that the Union has an arsenal of interesting people at its disposal.

Interesting People: See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Already a celebrity in 1895, the young Helen Keller is an influential, controversial figure in the United States.

Breaking away from her parents, Helen moved to New York city with her companion Anne Sullivan at the age of 11. Already a celebrity due to her amazing development despite physical adversity, Helen was a media darling. Pulitzer saturated the market with stories of the "Child born in darkness," permitting Helen and Anne to live comfortably in the capitol city on residual income alone.

Unfortunately, in 1892 Anne Sullivan died during a labor riot outside the capitol, a collateral casualty of strikebreakers trying to suppress a worker's demonstration outside Rockefeller Center. The loss of her companion tortured young Helen, and she fled to the only other group that suffered as much as her in that springtime conflict - the Socialist Workers Group of America.

Now, Ms. Keller is both spokesperson and mascot for the worker's movement, and can always be found at the shoulder of Eugene V. Debs, the movement's leader. With Deb's elocution and Keller's pitiably story, they have increased the membership of the movement fourfold in the last three years.

Helen has one other, much darker, secret though. Since she suffered her crippling illness in 1881, Ms. Keller has been cut off from the sights and sounds of the world, living literally in silent darkness.

Into that darkness, a things found its home. A cruel, capricious thing, which whispered to Helen when none others could. Over the years, this spirit has become one of the foremost influences into Helen's life. Indeed, it was likely the spirit that orchestrated the murder of Anne Sullivan, in order to foster hatred and loneliness in Helen, and to drive her to an upcoming political force.

Known to Helen as either "the Phantom" or "the Dark Man," the spirit has recently become strong enough to act through her, directing her actions to its whims. Whether it is a solitary creature, or one that follows the guidance of something more malevolent, has yet to be determined.