Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for Aces&Eights. I suppose with a little work and a bit of magic it could be repurposed for Deadlands, but as planted here is set firmly in the West of Old. It is appropriate for any sort of group, experienced or not.

The Seed
Unseasonable and unnaturally heavy rain hits a one street, two saloon, dust bowl of a town bringing a share of the usual problems, but as a long black day pours into a longer, blacker night, the rail line becomes dangerously unstable, and no one will know until the first train comes around the last bend to hurtle off the tracks like a dragon seeking hot flesh to sate an ancient hunger.

Planting the Seed
Characters can become involved just by being in town, or if you owe them some cruelty, by being on the train itself.

The Details
When the train jumps the tracks the engine will plow into one of the two saloons, injuring and killing many, and starting a fire for good measure. Two passenger cars will be thrown into the train station with even greater harm to man, beast, and property. When all of this is over, anyone callous enough to have looted bodies, or able to get their hands on personal effects in the wreckage, or from the fat sheriff’s narrow office will have every manner of adventure open to them from bogus and authentic deeds to property, claims of varying degrees of worth to all manner of metals, to diaries and letters full of mystery, hints, and ambiguity. There is a reason the laughter of carrion birds is so satisfied.

What is going on
In this particular seed, virtually nothing is going on, but the backdrop of disaster will give you an opportunity to give life to your community and reveal secrets of character and upbringing that you might like to emphasize. Heroes will rise up with the call to action, and then sink back to quiet lives of hard work and humility, boastful popinjays will steal the limelight and parade false acts of courage and intelligence, while men of truly low character will take advantage of the chaos to profit at others’ losses. People will be robbed, corpses will be violated, homes will be invaded, and banks will prove once again to be unsafe places for money.

Where will your group of characters stand?

Related articles

• Saturday Seed~ 83 (Aces & Eights) (runeslinger.wordpress.com)
• [Black Campbell] Quick Review: Aces & Eights Shattered Frontier (blackcampbell.wordpress.com)