How to Make a Caravan Crawl Part 5 (Tsentral, ready to go western town)

Still working on my first caravan crawl. All the locations are written, and now I just need to polish the remaining three up a tad. I've also got the rules more or less done. Check out the start of the series  or the town of Ingalls for a better sense of what it is all about!! 

B: Tsentral: Quiet, Smoky.... + Leather, Ice. - Fine Cuisine.

Overview of Troubles
2 The Vault: A vault has just been installed at the local bank. It could only be opened by its creator, Demis Ville, but his patron, Monsignor Falx stole the designs, beat the means of opening it out of him, and didn’t pay him a penny. Demis sits dejectedly in the town bar, while all the nobles move their wealth into the vault. Patron: Jobs…Len Bixby: Lem can’t show his face in town. Recruit Demis for a job; robbing the vault. Pays party 20% of whatever is in there. Demis: Kill Falx. Gives means of opening the vault in exchange. Falx: Guard the vault. Daily pay is half what a farmhand would make. Gray Wardens: Find and apprehend the Bixby Gang. Price of a cow for each of the three Bixby brothers, price of a chicken for each other member of the gang.

17 The Child: Brooks Stills is missing. He's 9 years old, and was last seen leaving the settlement nine hours ago with his 17 year old brother, Chaz, a notorious drug addict. Ken Stills, their father, is up in arms, seeking Chaz to torture the truth out of him. Chaz is hiding at his dealer’s house (her name is Kylie) outside the settlement, high out of his mind. He will claim he took Brooks for a walk deep in the woods, and a six legged, four winged, goat headed creature flew down. If Chaz sobers up, he will remember that Brooks had wandered off just before the beast appeared. The beast is real, and its lair is in a cave only accessible by swimming to the bottom of a local river, through a water-filled passage and up into the cave, which is not submerged. Brooks is taking a nap in the woods. Patron / Pay / Job. Ken Stills / price of a chicken / find Chaz so Ken can torture him to help him “remember” what happened to Brooks. Ken Stills / price of a cow / get Brooks back. Komomok, shaman / a magic charm granting +1 to all saves for each party member / kill the beast and let him take the components.

IN TOWN quiet, smokey, mountains
Quiet: there's a stillness you can only find at altitude. Tsentral sits 8000 ft up, and you can see it in the way all the newcomers seem a bit out of breath.
Smokey: even in the summer, the daytime highs rarely get above 65. Every dwelling has a dutch oven or mortared chimney, and constant tails of smoke rise up from the settlement. At the edge of town, the factory belches thick black smoke into the air.
Mountains: around, the mountains stretch even higher. Visible peaks get as high as 15,000 ft.

--- Rye Brothers Ice Guild Hall tattoos, meeting, contractors, tax booth
Tattoos: Every paying member of the ice guild has neck tattoos.
Meeting: Carlton (bearded, ancient, monotone) rereads the meeting notes from yesterday’s Rye Brothers Ice Guild Council meeting. A crowd is still discussing the development; the Rye Brothers Ice Guild will move their retirement savings out of a hiding place in the ice and into the vault in Monsignor Falx’s bank. Carlton also facilitates those wishing to buy ice; it costs half the price here it will anywhere else in the region besides Ar-Atian. He has also set a bounty of 100$ on whoever is harvesting ice and selling it outside the guild, as well as a covert, non-publicized bounty of 125$ on Solomon Thyre, who is selling this non-guild ice at the Market in Agica.
Contractors: Dual office of the sheriff of Tsentral and the Rye Brothers Detective Agency. Sheriff Adonis Dane (black, jacked, quick-draw) has been re-elected sixteen times, but is in trouble due to the Bixby gang still being at large. For the last four years, he has contracted out his deputies with the Rye Brothers Detective Agency. Currently, his four contractors are Unguld, Gaston, Ewald and Lando (tattooed, dip, friendly to townsfolk, unfriendly to everyone else). Posters nearby advertise a 25$ price on Len Bixby, 15$ for his brothers, Dickson and Obadiah, and 5$ for any member of the gang. All bounties are dead or alive.
Tax Booth: The tax booth reeks. Niel Chalno (sweaty, pudgy, unsavory) escorted by Cha and Mai (gun-toting, toothpick-swirling, no-shit-taking). Niel is the representative of the People’s Department of Revenue, and collects the republic’s 15% tax on all large transactions, which all ice transactions are. The guild is not a fan; Tristan (teenaged, tattooed, funny), a younger guild member, has been leaving fish in a hollowed out post of the table used by Niel. Cha and Mai are convinced Niel just doesn’t bathe.

--- Bank grand opening!, wagons, vault
Grand opening! Massive banner advertises the opening of the Vault. Monsignor Falx (tuxedoed, mustachioed, handkerchief dobbing his forehead) greets all the many people who come to deposit their belongings within the Vault.
Wagons: normally, these wagons haul ice. Today, they hold the collected retirement savings of the Rye Brothers Ice Guild (previously kept hidden high in the mountains); 16 metal trunks full of gold bullion. They're escorted by 10 people loading them into the Vault, 10 more armed members of the ice guild who came along “ just to watch” and the three Chief counselors of the ice guild: Wyatt Crow (young, funny, crass), Jennings Butch (religious, uptight, shame-filled) and Waylon Samuels (old as dirt)
Vault: The bank building is made of steel from the Factory, with two main doors at the front, two large windows flanking them, and no other ways into the building. The interior is lit by electricity, and on the back wall behind the teller’s row is the vault itself.

--- The Gladstone hearth, heavy pours, water and ice, depressed
Hearth: marketed as the number one place to warm up in town, the Gladstone is built around a giant stone fireplace, easily 15 ft in diameter at its base. Around this massive hearth is built. The building itself is a 100 ft wide wooden Hut, with rafters bolted onto the chimney of the hearth. Early in the morning and late at night, it is crowded with drinkers, eaters, gamblers, and people who just want to warm up.
Heavy Pours: behind a bar on a raised dias is Zidon (bartender, perceptive, bearded, accented) who also owns the place. Having the best pours in town, as well as for ruthlessly breaking up fights with a double barrel shotgun kept under the bar. He also clearly sees what is happening in town; Mayor Peter Cavendish of Ingalls is angling to put the Ice Guild out of business and take it over for himself; he’s sent his sister to create the Factory to help profit from the construction of the bank, and Zidon also suspects the Bixby gang might be not only behind the illicit ice trade but also on Cavendish’s payroll. Zidon also suspects that the construction of the Vault might be a ploy to get the guild’s retirement savings out of their hidden locations in the mountains, and into a place where the Bixby’s can steal it. He’s right about every part of it.
Water and ice : the gambling tables here feature a game called ice and water. It's a simplified version of craps, with players taking turns rolling 2d6, and gambling on whether the outcome will be a 2, a 7 or an 11, or any other number. The former is called water, and pays out 100% of the original bet. The later is called ice, and pays out 20% of the original bet.
Depressed: one man stands out particularly to those looking around. It is the vault maker Denis. He is drunk out of his mind, and has been drunk for 2 days straight. He will tell his story of woe to anyone who will listen- that he designed the Vault created for the nearby Bank, that Monsignor Falx promised to pay him for it, and then after the Vault was completed, Falx had him beaten without paying him a penny. He is resigned to the fact that he's never going to make a penny off of it. His deepest desire is seeing Falx dead. He will explain how to open the vault in exchange.

--- The Factory smoke, clanging, money
Smoke: stacks reach high into the sky, belching blackness above.
Clanging: inside, Bessemer process forges smelting steel, much of it used to create the bank and vault.
Money: This place is owned and operated by Deborah Cavendish (beautiful, crafty, black-haired), the sister of Ingalls Mayor Peter Cavendish. She is making ridiculous money owning this place, and it all goes back to Ingalls.

--- Doc Still’s House: Chair, Treatment, Begging
Chair: Set at the opposite side of the town square from the vault and near the Gladstone. Two story, with wide, broken windows on the front. On the ground in the street, a chair. It was thrown through the window recently.
Treatment: Genuinely an effective doctor, but also major anger management problems, Doc Ken Stills.
Begging: Outside his house, Doc Ken Stills begs anyone who will listen to help him find his sons. Chaz, to beat the shit out of him, and Brooks, to comfort him and keep him safe. The two went on a walk, but his older son, Chaz, returned without his 9 year old brother Brooks, and then ran off and now Brooks has been missing for 9 hours. Ken does not know where they went on the walk, or where Chaz goes to get high (it's Kylie’s house). Pays 10$ for the former, 100$ for the later.

--- The White Hair bear, chef, leather
Bear: A line stretches around the block to get the various specialties from this new restaurant. They serve pulled bear sandwiches slathered in melted white cheddar cheese (1.50), bear tomahawk steaks (7.75), and a very light and refreshing mix of foraged vegetables topped with bear meat in a huckleberry sauce (4.11).
Chef: Ardon de Boulos (young, tattooed, manic) started this restaurant with a hefty investment from the Monsignor Falx. Ardon has to make a profit, or else he loses the restaurant. His sous chef, Penny (younger, black, emotionally regulated), tries to keep him in check, but sometimes he gets in his own way. Right now, both of them know that they're short on bear meat. They'll pay double the price it typically fetches. Further, Ardon is fixated on the idea of magic and the paranormal. He has heard there is a ghost in Fort MacMillan in Agica. Would pay 25$ per log of timber from the fort’s walls, as he believes using that wood to smoke bear would result in better flavor.
Leather: Ardon buys most of the restaurant’s bears whole. This leaves him with a pile of bear pelts, which he is slowly turning into leather in a workshop out back. The workshop is manned by Tyron DeGaulx (friendly, bearded, blue eyed), who sells the pelts at half the cost of normal leather.

A is Ingalls, C is Atica.

SURROUNDING LOCATIONS

W Ice Fields work teams, night, cave, tents
Work Teams: Alpo lake has a diameter of at least a mile, and remains frozen nine months out of the year. Rye Brothers Ice Guild work teams with sleds venture out onto its surface to cut and haul ice back to town. Currently, a competition between Mick MacPherson (squat, dreads) and Ty Donahue (tall, bald) to see who can pull in the most ice this month.
Night: overnight, the Bixby gang creeps out of the hill, harvests a few sleds full of ice, and takes it back to their caves.
Cave: Each morning, in the narrow gap between the Bixby gang leaving and the work teams arriving, the same section of the ice is broken; everyone in the guild blames it on the ice bandits. Unbeknownst to them, during that time, a creature with six legs, four wings and a goat’s head punches through to leave its cave, the entrance to which lies at the bottom of the lake. Inside, you’ll find the bodies of several men and a few bears, along with 26 dollars in coins, two revolvers and a handful of bullets. Komomok, one of the bandits, saw this creature last night.
Tents: Over the three decades the ice guild has existed, countless small shelters have been built on or around the ice of the lake. One such shelter leads downward into a cave that stays a balmy 68 degrees year round. Inside, Brooks Stills (9 year old, precocious, scared) is taking a nap. If he is not rescued in the next day, he will attempt to wander home himself, and fall through the ice, dying.

X Bixby Camp Cave, Ice
Cave: Off the railroad, a small bunny trail leads to a cave. Inside, the Bixby Brothers gang camp. Always present, Len (redhead, quickdraw, clever), Dickson (brash, jacked, overweight) and Obadiah (wise, out of shape, bald) Bixby, listed from youngest to oldest, along with five or so members of their gang. Under Len’s pillow, letters from mayor Peter Cavendish of Ingalls, instructing him to steal ice and smuggle it to Solomon Thyre (located in Agica) and to rob the vault at the bank if possible. Len would love to have the help of the vault maker in getting it open, and would pay a group that would enlist that help for him 5$. He would do it himself, but can’t show his face in town.
Ice: In the back, sleds and ice cutting tools. The gang creeps down to the ice fields in the night, harvest ice, and then sell it at a significant discount compared to the guild. By the sleds, Komomok (native, shaman, weird) is mixing herbs. He saw the Beast from Under the Ice, and will pay the party with magic charms if they retrieve even a part of it for him to use in rituals.

Z Kylie’s House logs, smoke
Logs: It’s a log cabin.
Smoke: Both from the fire in a dutch oven, and from the “medicinal herbs” that Kylie (sassy, hypercritical) sells. Inside, Chaz Stills (traumatized, medicated, tremendous potential) hiding from his father, Ken, high out of his mind. Chaz will claim he took his younger brother Brooks for a walk up by the ice fields and a six legged, four winged, goat headed creature flew down. If Chaz sobers up, he will remember that Brooks had wandered off just before the beast appeared.

The Feel of Gunfire: a review of Luke Gearing's Violence

The following is a playtest writeup of Faceless, my adventure for Violence.

Two American soldiers are trapped in the tunnels. Ahead of them, a room with eight Viet Cong inside, armed to the teeth, but unaware the Americans are there. Behind them, a collapsed tunnel, and on the other side of the rubble, a creature that can take any shape. In their hands, stolen AK-47s, both short on ammo. 

With no good options, my players take the only way out they can see. The two of them charge into the room, win the initiative, and begin to unload on the Viet Cong inside. Gunfire rings out, shots start to hit, and dice clatter against the table. And both the characters and the players look on with dread: this is a last-ditch effort, and as the bullets fly and the dice fall, we all wait to see whether those bullets will fly true, or whether the Viet Cong will end up with a turn to respond.

And impossibly, miraculously, astoundingly, almost every roll hits, despite the disadvantages against it, and almost every hit knocks someone down, and both the characters and the players let out a cheer of joy and a sigh of relief as they look down at their empty magazines and at a room empty of enemies. 

This is Violence by Luke Gearing.

Honestly, I very rarely use anybody else's rules to bring games to my table, preferring to create my own systems instead, but frankly, I found the ethos around Violence so evocative (see this, this, this and this) that I wanted to create my own adventure for it. And, I had time to playtest that adventure, so I figured I might as well run the adventure using the system it's designed for. It created a particular experience at the table that I have been looking for for quite some time, and I found myself wanting to put that experience in words. Go read the system for yourself and then come back, because I'm not going to hit on every part of it.

Before character creation, before a description of the core resolution mechanic, and before even introducing rules for what firearms are, Violence hits you with the mechanics for shooting someone. It follows that immediately afterwards with the rules for resolving injuries, which are the primary outcome of succeeding in shooting someone. And for those who haven't read it, the three possible results there are "flesh wound. No effect.," "injury," and "down". That's it.

And, look at what's not in violence. There's no hit points. There's no attributes. There's no system of encumbrance. There's no tables of firearms. There's no skill tree. There's no wounds table. There's no 5e compatibility, and if you attempt to use the 5e SRD you will be hunted with dogs. There's no system of progression. There's not even an insanity table. But that's the thing about violence. It's not about any of the above. It's about resolving violence.

So if it's about violence, then the rules for shooting someone had better freaking work. And I confess at this point that I have tried many systems for guns in games, and found none to my liking. We all know 5e is clunky, but even a Borg-like or an Odd-like just did not connect with my expectations for how violence should feel, and I've been even more turned off by stuff like Friday Night Firefight that turns gunfire into a math equation.

Its at this point that I should put my cards on the table: I've been soaking in media depictions of violence since I was a kid, and the more I grow up, the more I have drifted to grounded depictions of that violence. I think about Heat, True Detective, Collateral, the Way of the Gun, El Camino or some of the shootouts in Better Call Saul, The Veteran, Wind River, and more. I won't try to analyze or explain it, but as I think about the way tension builds up through the act of gunfire, as well as the ways a character can go from, "certainly going to die" to, "certainly going to win the gunfight" in just a second, there's a swinginess that gets lost in systems involving "an action and 30 ft of movement," or hit points or wounds. I also simply cannot conscience a system without attack rolls because of how heavily shootouts involve people missing.

And, at first glance, I thought the one in Violence looked clunky. First, you make a separate attack roll for each shot you fire from your gun. Second, for each shot from a gun, you have to make a calculation about the number of advantages and disadvantages that it should have. That also requires asking whether each of the character's skills applies to the roll, which I have found can really slow games down. Further, every shot that hits requires a further d20 roll to determine if it causes an injury. In the case above, that meant my players were rolling a hell of a lot of d20s, and before we even got to that point there was a period of debate about how many dice they should roll and why. In my head, this mechanic would serve only to slow the game down, and I expected that my players might get a little bit bored. 

But then I tried the system. My players found themselves In a life or death, do or die situation with only the bullets in their guns providing them a thin sliver of hope. That desperation showed as they debated with me about whether a VC soldier standing unaware behind a table counts as conveying cover or not. It showed when one of them did the math to calculate their chances of succeeding (Never tell me the odds, kid). It showed further as they prepared their d20s, and chose only their luckiest of dice, and then began to nervously deploy them. And then midway through, they paused to assess their results, and redid their calculations of how well they needed to roll in order to actually accomplish their goal. And then, impossibly, almost everything came up in their favor, and they won a gun fight.

Everything I thought would slow things down instead built tension, and did so in perfect alignment with my expectations for how violence should work. The process of rolling a bunch of dice was no longer a boring part of a 3-hour long combat in a 5e game, but instead, life-or-death in dice. Violence is the only system where in one attack my players could either mow down eight enemies or completely miss their shots and run out of ammo. There's something to this swinginess that really facilitates the feeling of uniquely modern violence.

And, this isn't even to talk about the great mechanics for explosives or hand to hand combat.

So yeah, if I'm running a game with guns, I'm using Violence, and you should too. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Read and download Faceless now.

How to Make a Caravan Crawl Part 4 (ready to go western town)

This is a continuation of my series on How to Make a Caravan Crawl! It's taken a bit longer than expected to finish the sample Caravan Crawl I started in part one and partially finished here, but below you'll find the next settlement. I've got two more settlements written but needing cleaning up, one I'm halfway done with the initial process, and one I haven't started. I post this hoping it's useful, but also as motivation for myself to keep the work up!!

A: Ingalls: Bustling, Dreary & Rainy.... + Coffee, Leather (from demon), Water, - Luxury Goods.
Overview of Troubles
5 The Alligator: Marv’s Magical Emporium is closed. The main attraction, Carl the Dancing Alligator, has escaped! They say he disappeared in a cloud of smoke during a show, shocking Marv Templeton, his trainer, and hasn’t been seen since. That hasn’t stopped people, led by Carl’s biggest fan / local breadmaker, Margie, from searching the nearby swamp, where Carl came from in the first place. Unbeknownst to all, Margie used magic to teleport Carl into her basement, where he is slowly starving to death. Patron / Job. Marv / Find Carl. A year’s pay in a day, plus lifetime free admissions to his show. Tiela, swamp dweller / Get everyone out of the swamp. Doesn’t care how you do it, pays in rations. 5 per party, mostly alligator meat. Sissy, local housewife / Kill Carl. “He’s a danger to society!” Pays in gold. Her deceased husband’s gold teeth. 24 of them.

20 The Werewolf: An old children’s song, “One night healing, the next mirth, then justice. All he touches becomes like him. There goes the wolf made a man.” Two nights ago, a beautiful, silver-haired man was seen entering old Madge Ferguson’s house. The day after, she was able to walk again. Last night, that same man turned a barrel of water into wine and served it at Harry’s bar, and in the ensuing party, everyone swore they had never been so happy. However, this morning, the man was gone, and so was Madge Ferguson. Instead, in her house was a ravenous wolf that could walk on its hind legs. Tonight, the man will return, bringing justice. Patron / Pay / Job. Claude Storenstein, railroad baron who knows the song and has been treating his workers very poorly / price of a chicken per party member / defend him from the man overnight. Bob Ferguson / gratitude / find his wife, Madge. No, not the wolf, his real wife! Doctor Ekmo, resident mad scientist / 16 gold teeth / capture the silver-haired man, alive, for experimentation.

25 The Demon: add two resources in excess to this settlement. Last year, this settlement was attacked by a group of bandits. Even with a much smaller force, the settlement won out. This year, they had the best harvest they’ve ever had, building new buildings and negotiating favorable trade agreements. Outside the settlement, two guards loiter outside a cave. The leader of the settlement regularly comes to visit the cave, and then returns to town, with all of the big decisions being made a visit. Within the cave, a heavily built humanoid that would measure at least 8 ft tall, lying prostrate visibly covered in festering wounds. With horns like a goat, one eye gone milky white and the other barely able to open from swelling, this creature introduces itself as Saint. It is close to the end of its incredibly long life, and now spends its dying days helping this settlement dominate all those around it. If left unchecked, within one year, this settlement will conquer all those within 10 weeks travel. Within 5 years, it will have conquered the entirety of the world, just as saint passes away. Patron / Pay / Jobs. Saint / eternal life / Has a list of people in other settlements. “Tyler Givens, a revolver that never misses. Jon Harris, a holy symbol that emits light. Sarah Simons, the fastest horse in the land.” Kill all three, take what they have. Father Adelard / a blessing granting +1 to an attribute / help him locate the unholy energies in this settlement and banish it.

IN TOWN Bustling, Dreary & Rainy, Trolley

Bustling: Carts and people moving every which way. A sense of enthusiasm and optimism; obviously new buildings everywhere.

Dreary & Rainy: Constant cloud cover, deep brown mud topped with lush green grass.

Trolley: An electric trolley line connects Harry’s Bar, the Rail Station, the Light of Our Lord Church and the Situation Room in a circle.

--- Harry’s Bar colorful, anxious, crowded

Colorful: tapestries adorn the wall, a piano rests unplayed in a corner, fun trinkets and bud vases with fresh flowers adorn the tables.
Anxious: rushed, whispered conversations “it's just an old nursery rhyme, right?” made much worse by Terri Smith (Bob haircut, attention seeking, always remembers what's going on in your life), who floats around to the various tables repeating things she's heard other people say.
Crowded: everyone from town was in here last night, partying with a beautiful silver-haired man who turned water into wine. Everyone from town is back after they heard Madge Ferguson was turned into a werewolf. Everyone is afraid that they're going to be turned into a werewolf too. Doing everything but actually order drinks. Harry Harriet (bearded, awkward, lanky), the owner, is trying to calm people down, so he can get back to making money. It's not going well.

--- Rail Station: road and rail, banner, trade

Road & Rail: covered station hosting the rail line and paved road headed to Tsentral in the mountains. Honestly, both are very nice. Passenger line unloading, along with boxcars of ice. One car is always armored; word on the street is the ice guild pays in bearer bonds. This is, in fact, true. The armored car is guarded by two men, and inside, there are 1000$ in bearer bonds.
Banner: “railroad and road. courtesy of Mayor Peter Cavendish. Join us as we build to the heavens! Ad Astra Eternis!”
Trade: booths. One for train tickets, one labeled for the Rye Brothers Ice Guild, manned by Jenson Rye (shrewd, prominent neck tattoos, glad-handing), and a variety of other goods dealers. Plenty of wheeling and dealing, lots of information to be had about prices throughout the whole region.
Also, Jim Morris (stoic, scarred, multiple firearms), looking to hire guards to help him keep an eye on Claude Stornstein's house. Won't tell specifics of why they want more guards, but pays $1.50 a day per guard, with a $1 bonus if they have to actually fight.
And, Tyreek (merchant, wheeling and dealing, tall), trying to offload 25 sacks worth of leather at 25% off typical prices. Word was this place needed more leather, so Tyreek bought, and it didn’t exactly pay off.
Finally, Stitch Markus (leather apron, binder, spectacles), interior designer, is attempting to furnish a few of the new buildings around town. Would pay double price for power line, telegraphs, lightbulbs, and anything else that screams, “New!!”.

--- Madge Ferguson’s House and Observatory cottage core, husband, tracks, telescope
Cottage Core: embroidery, rugs, upholstered chairs, the whole nine yards. Over it all, star charts and models of the solar system.
Husband: Jerry (wheelchair-bound, hard of hearing) absolutely distraught. Believes this is all a cruel prank, that his wife has been kidnapped, and that someone placed a giant wolf able to stand on its back two legs in his home.
Tracks: lead off into the woods, where Madge Ferguson in wolf form can be found devouring a chicken.
Telescope: Out back, a metal dome. Inside, a large, twenty lens telescope, measuring 15 feet from end to end. Jerry used to be into this kind of thing.

--- Light of Our Lord Church first, simple, confession.
First: plaque, telling that this was the first building constructed in this settlement. Dust on the pews indicate it is much less well attended today.
Simple: unpainted wood, A-frame, reasonable steeple. Icon at the front, depicting the Descent of the Light.
Confession: despite the dust on the pews, often, a line waiting to offer confession with Father Adelard (wise, strong-willed, kind), who bears a holy symbol of a sun that can emit bright light 1/day. He is painfully aware that he cannot solve all the problems facing him at once. Wants to uncover and destroy the silver-haired man who has been visiting town, find the source of demonic influence that he's been sensing within the settlement, and also perform an exorcism on a woman in the tent at the nearby crossroads. He believes the werewolf is most likely coming from the standing stone circle just outside of town, and will enlist parties to go destroy the circle, believing it will stop the werewolf.

--- The Situation Room coffee, holding court, 10 year plan, law
Coffee: cowboy style, grounds and water boiled in a metal kettle without a filter. 15 c a cup.
Holding Court: Mayor Peter Cavendish (suave, moustachioed, type A), surrounded by coffee farmers, bankers and merchants, discussing the weather, interest rates and the recently invented sport of golf. Genuine and infectious hope for the future lifts the spirits of all within the room.
10 Year Plan: wood cuts show each year of the 10 year plan. Year 1 was the railroad and road to Tsentral, along with the defense of the settlement during the wars between the Republic and Empire. Year 2 shows the settlement joining hands with the Rye Brother’s Ice Guild, with the ice guild standing two steps below them. Year 10 shows the mayor either sharing coffee beans with the whole region, or ruling the whole region. Really hard to tell.
Law: Tracy (stoic, bald, black), a gray warden, offers a price of 25$ for the capture (alive) of any of the Bixby brothers for robbery. They were last seen outside Tsentral. No one here seems to like Tracy.

--- Margie’s Photography swamp, creepy, basement
Swamp: Right near Town Center, there's a patch of ground significantly more muddy than the rest of town. It's in a perfect circle around Margie's Photography studio.
Creepy: Exterior is plain. Interior, the normal stuff, like a camera, different backdrops, and costumes. But also, it’s covered in memorabilia of Carl the dancing alligator (see W: Marv’s Magical Emporium), to a very, very creepy extent. In one corner, a basement door, locked.
Basement: cut into the ground beneath the crawl space of the house is a mud bowl filled with water. An underground spring feeds it, and seeps into the ground, creating the swamp effect near the house. All along the walls, ritual, symbols, blood, and trails, and various magical artifacts. Within the water, Carl the dancing alligator kidnapped by his biggest fan, and slowly starving to death.
Surrounding Areas

V: Swamp stone, gators, Tiela
Stone: at the center, a stone protrusion, square-shaped, stretching 10 ft above the swamp. Moss and lichen dare not grow on it. On its top, arcane symbols. If the fresh entrails of water dwelling creatures are thrown on the symbols, it allows the casting of enlarge once per day.
Gators: 20 of them. Three are immediately visible from the edge of the swamp, lurking and attempting to prey on those who get too close. The rest are disguised amidst moss and reeds. Carl, the dancing alligator is not here.
Tiela (elderly, wispy hair, talks to herself a lot): Hut, balanced atop a few logs in the swamp. Hates the search parties that have come through this way. Will pay in magical charms granting +1 to a roll once per day to get everyone out.

W: Marv’s Magical Emporium & Doctor Ekmo’s Hut

--- Marv's magical emporium search party, empty ring, gift shop
Search party- a number of faithful fans of Marv's shows, gathered with water bottles and lamps. They plan to travel to the swamps, to try to find Carl. Led by Margie (overbearing, very funny, handmade sign says “ Carl's number one fan”).
Empty ring- large tent surrounding a show ring, set into the ground with a water feature along with a number of slides and ramps. Inside, nothing. Outside, a large sign saying “Carl, the dancing alligator”
Gift shop- close up magic sets, flash powder, trick decks of cards, and rigged dice. Inside, Marv (eccentric, charismatic, business-minded) inconsolable. He truly loved Carl as one would love a favorite dog, and is offering ridiculous sums of money (100$+) to anyone who promises to find him. He can't actually pay more than $40. 

--- Dr. Ekmo's Hut straw, smoke, creatures
Straw: makes up the roof in the walls, over a simple wicker frame. Surprisingly effective at keeping in warmth and keeping out cold. For those who look closer, woven into the straw is a significant quantity of hair. 
Smoke: a fire burns in the center of the Hut. The rest of the space is occupied by room to sit around the fire, a simple cot in one corner, and a table with books, tools, and cooking equipment. Around the fire is Dr Ekmo (wild haired, tattooed, otherworldly intelligence). They say this new science is almost like magic. Ekmo believes the two are the same, and is obsessed with both magical tradition and scientific knowledge about the fusion of the primal and the human. He aims to find ways to meld wild beasts with each other, and ways to imbue human beings with the best qualities of wild beasts. He believes Carl's ability to understand humans would make it easier to transfer his other qualities to a human. He will pay $50 for Carl, with a $10 bonus if he's caught alive. He does not want Marv to know that he's making this offer, as they are old friends.
Creatures: hanging from the rafters or creatures that look like they should not exist; ones with five legs, far too many eyes, or the right number of parts, but in very much the wrong places. Each of the creatures has been skinned and hung to bleed above the fire. 

X: Claude Storenstein’s House plantation, walls, art 
Plantation: massive footprint. The single largest coffee farm in the area. It's the perfect climate for it, and Claude makes a killing by loaning people money, forcing him to work on his property to pay it off paying his employees next to nothing, and refusing to let them leave until they pay off their debts to him. In the fields, hard at work, is Jameson (grizzled, beer belly, sunburn). After 15 years here, and has now cultivated sufficient relationships to stage a breakout. There are three barracks buildings holding 12 workers each, usually overseen by 2 guards per building with shotguns. The breakout will take place in 3 days, and if he sees visitors that he suspect might be friendly, he will attempt to enlist their aid.
Walls: much newer than the building they surround, made of brick. Two gates, one at the front and the other at the back, both wide enough to accommodate a coach. Two guards watch each gate. The front is the entrance for guests, the back is the entrance for supplies.
Art: the building itself is simply beautiful. Three stories, wrap around porches on each story, and an inside decorated as a Victorian mansion. The front-facing room on the third floor is Claude’s (cut throat businessman, cowardly person, silk bedrobe) bedroom, and since he heard about the silver haired man, he has refused to leave that floor. There's one main spiral stairwell that connects all three floors, as well as an elevator which leads down to the front foyer. He's increasingly drawn guards out of the plantation to keep watch from the walls.

Y: Cave guards, Shadow, Saint
Guards. Rick (tall, y'all, kind) and Stephen (tubby, thoughtless, sarcastic) are the mayor's cousins. They get paid to camp outside this cave and make sure no one but the mayor goes in. He visits every other day around noon. They're quite happy with the arrangement, and take turns leaving to go hunt.
Shadow: cave entrance is cast in a perpetual twilight, even when it looks like light should penetrate the entrance. Radius of light cut in half.
Saint: if standing upright, Saint (confident, scheming, dying) would be 8 feet tall and heavily built. Instead, he lies prostrate on the ground, consumed by rot. One eye is milky white, the other is swollen shut. He is at the end of his incredibly long life, and seeks to help the mayor conquer this region. He has blessed their coffee output, and gave the mayor the 10 year plan found in the Situation Room. However, he sees obstacles - three people with magical resources. Saint is looking for a party to eliminate three people: “Tyler Givens, a revolver that never misses. Father Adelard, a holy symbol that emits light. Sarah Simons, the fastest horse in the land.” Tyler is at the crossroads, Father Adelard is in this settlement, and Sarah lives in D: Tal’ne.

Z: Standing Stones clearing, circle, spirit

Clearing: 50 ft wide, ovular.

No living thing grows within it, but a wolf wanders, occasionally laying against the base of one of the

standing stones. The wolf's fur is the same perfect silver as that of the beautiful man who entered town.

Circle: made of standing stones, each at least 10 ft tall, with such perfectly straight lines and angular edges, but it looks like it was carved by a giant. 

Spirit: She is Song, Woman Wisdom, chorus of Those Gone Past. Spirit of History, community, and tradition, brought to life by the songs sung around these stones in the first thousand years of their existence. She wants the characters to…

--- Forge a blade from one of these standing stones. Plunge it into the heart of the demon known as Saint, who resides in a cave not far from the settlement. In exchange, once per day, you may sing a song and buoy the spirits of your compatriots, giving them a d4 that they may add/subtract from the result of any roll they make.

--- Find who in the settlement is responsible for its liaisons with the demon known as Saint. Bring them here, and cast them into the stone circle naked, where Song will deal with them. In exchange, you may once conjure a blast of noise so loud it could definitely an entire army.

--- Bring a new song of your exploits to the standing stones. Once, you may raise your voice in song to quiet the emotions of a crowd.

She transforms the wolf here into the silver haired man each night; tonight, the wolf will go seeking whoever is after the demon, and all who drank wine with the wolf the night before will be turned to wolves themselves. She would undo these things in exchange for both of her primary wants.