Alouette:
Hee...please let us know how this goes down if you can, I forsee strokes of genius or/and embarrassing deathage. That and I want to know how many innocent scarecrows they cunningly sneak up on and demolish...
To give the shortest version possible:
Thaddeus' attempts to spread rumors and taunt the posse out there were both radically successful. Hardly surprising considering the
players wanted to fight this foe.
The posse was confused at first by the inordinate number of scarecrows in the field. To make this even creepier, I decided the scarecrows were "skinned" with the hides of a missing wagon train and a couple of Mauve Shirts, forcing a Guts check at the onset.
I dropped some heavy hints to check out the ruined farmhouse where his usual gunmen had set up a great ambush with Gatling shotguns, but they didn't bite, going straight for the barn.
He was prepared for that too however as a massive flock of demonic crows came barreling out of the hayloft. They're just annoying enough to force the posse to spend some power points dispatching them with Blast effects.
Just when they decided to press the assault, the barn doors opened to reveal the zombie livestock. I let them devastate the undead animals for a round, when Thaddeus suddenly popped up in the field waving a pink hanky and cooing "Yoohoo boys!"
That's when the gun fighters ran into the midst of the scarecrows, which sprang to glorious effect with some wonderful grapple attacks with The Drop. I only gave them a Fighting of D6, but they did their job marvelously. In the meantime the supernatural characters found themselves handled very roughly by zombie chickens, which I had not anticipated, and a couple of leftover scarecrows.
Oh but that wasn't all. I've established previously that Thaddeus' modus operandi is to throw "hellfire" (Bolt or Blast with a fire based trapping) at explosives, detonating them.
It turns out each of the scarecrows, instead of having sticks for "bones", had a "skeleton" of dynamite.
The scarecrows thus didn't actually last very long, but they let Thaddeus throw hexes for three rounds, using the third round to blow them the heck up, destroying the mad scientist (who lived but was taken out of the fight), and severely damaging two of the other characters.
At that point the harrowed gunmen sprang, and to be honest it should have been a TPK but I decided that some of the good karma they'd collected should come back to them. A Blessed Outlaw horse thief (it does not make sense, don't try to make it make sense) they had decided not to turn in to a corrupt sheriff two sessions ago showed up with his blessed saber and distracted one of them. He didn't make it or last too long but it kept the whole thing from ending right there.
The standing gun bunnies got into a shootout with the remaining undead gunman and the huckster tried to disrupt Thaddeus' power of flight. Messing with his magic is a known sore point/weakness, so Thaddeus "wasted" his actions that round executing a Liu Kang style bicycle kick on her face and finished her off with a blow of his sword. The player botched her Vigor roll with no chips left and almost cried.
I drew some cards before reshuffling the deck for the next initiative, and pulled both Jokers, but I didn't tell anyone.
At that point it was Thaddeus and two gun bunnies and everyone was out of chips except for one blue chip in the hands of one standing character. The only advantage they had was one of the surviving characters is a total combat monster and has every initiative based edge possible at his experience level.
Thaddeus suffered an attack, killed the combat monster, suffered another attack from the survivor, and it was down to who could put a wound on the other first, assuming no raises on the resulting incapacitation roll.
Thaddeus went first and struck the winning blow... until the surviving character got a 13 on his Vigor roll before modifiers by acing with the chip. It reduced his Vigor roll by one die type, but he got to attack again, and missed. But so did Thaddeus, who despite his mountain of cards somehow managed to miss his hex, I think be blew the Spellcasting roll or something I don't remember.
And then, gloriously, a hit with a raise. There was a high five somewhere in the room. It got crazier when the damage dice came up 5, 6, 6... Which wouldn't mean too much, except the last man standing had the Gatling Pistol of Jade Underwood in hand when he fired.
At that point I declared their victory. They mercilessly teased the dead huckster, who had accumulated a reputation as being sort of useless. Really her main problem is that the player has no idea how to manage chips worth a hoot.
Oh how their attitudes changed when I informed them that their favorite punching bag rose from the dead four days later, more bad ass than ever. XD
I have mixed feelings about ending this. One the one hand this was a very high octane game of Deadlands and kind of unique, it makes me wonder how fun it would be to give some players used to the usual Seasoned or less characters the keys to some PCs with 80 experience points and go crazy. On the other hand, what a weird group of players I had, who probably wanted to be playing Pathfinder instead. XD
That and I need players who indulge me much nonsense like animated scarecrows with dynamite skeletons.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:06, Wed 06 July 2011.
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