Deadlands Reloaded - Big Chief is Dead
This is the 23rd session log of our Dealdands Reloaded campaign "The Great Northwest" (April 4th 2014)
Having found the path to the Old Glade, the posse was now surrounded by at least 20 sasquatch warriors. Fortunately these did not seem intent on attacking them right away. Instead they took them into their midst and escorted the posse up into the high mountain valley where the ancestral village of the sasquatch was hidden among a grove of ancient sequoias.
The group was confronted by a sasquatch shaman on the way, who got into an argument with Rrurgh, the leader of the band. As Gus prayed to understand the alien tongue, Chris produced a wampun that spread the miracle of tongues' power to the whole group.* The shaman, Worragh was his name, had followed and observed the posse, and now spoke highly of them and their fight against the Seven Devils in Hell's Canyon. But the had been exiled from the Old Glade by the Big Chief, and Rrurgh was reluctant to allow him to accompany the group. But Tyler managed to convince him to allow it.
[*Again I ignored the original Trail Guide campaign here, removing the character Hunting Hawk and let the players' powers work properly.]
In the glade the whole tribe of more than a hundred sasquatch, elders, adults, children and all, surounded posse, with suspicion, fear but also some hope on their faces. There were two more humans: Angry Mouse and a Shaolin monk by the name of Li Chang, who turned out to be Lotus Blossom Wen's brother.*
[*The replacement PC for Matt, who had died in the last session.]
Then Big Chief arrived, guarded by eight of the toughest and meanest Bigfoot the posse had ever seen. And they soon realized what was wrong: The Big Chief was Harrowed, and the manitou controlling him was causing all the trouble between humans and sasquatch.
At first Gus had thought the chief's death wounds could still be healed and had offered to do so. Cunningly, the Harrowed challenged him to try it - sure in the knowledge that such an attempt must surely fail. But Gus turned it around, insisting that the healing would need to take all night in the presense of Big Chief - giving him a chance at attempting an exorcism. Still Big Chief was confident the little human could not harm him - and backing out of the healing challenge would surely make his tribe wonder now.
So the posse was taken to the chief's tree and Gus taken inside together with the Harrowed. After a while the chief fell into the Harrowed's death-like sleep, but his guards were still around and kept a close eye on Gus and his friends. The posse began to worry that the chief would kill Gus in the morning before the ritual could be completed. To avoid this they resolved to get the tribe together to watch. Tyler and Hunter sat out to do this and managed to get both Rurrgh's and Worragh's help in getting the tribe together. And Gus was able to browbeat the guards to carry the sleeping Big Chief outside so everything would happen in the open.
[You can download the full-size A1 pdf of the battlemap by clicking on the image above.]
So more than a hundred Sasquatch and the whole posse watched as Big Chief awoke again, and Gus neared the end of his ritual. The harrowed chief glared the Blessed and the struggle between their spirits began in earnest. Back and forth did the fight go, but then Gus remembered the successes they had in fighting evil spirits and with a great shout banished the manitou.*
[*Very fittingly, Gus' player had drawn the Legend Chip the group had won for deafeating the Seven Devils and freeing the workers at Hell's Canyon. When the spirit roll went against him, he used the chip to add a 1d6 to the result... and that die exploded three times! An epic result.]
With a final lounge Big Chief tried to get at Gus before the manitou was driven away, but Tyler and Racing Clound protected their friend. Li Chang put down a sasquatch with one blow, Bu wrestled one to a standstill and Hunter stunned another. Then Worragh, Rrurgh and other sasquatch intervened, putting a stop to the fighting. Seeing their chief lying there, the posse managed to convince the sasquatch that he had been dead for a long time and that the war against the humans was the will of an evil spirit. The siege of Walla Walla was at an end.
[And here the campaign ended, with the prospect of following this up in the future with "The Flood" or perhaps "Last Sons". I will put up a summary of the whole campaign in a later post.]
Having found the path to the Old Glade, the posse was now surrounded by at least 20 sasquatch warriors. Fortunately these did not seem intent on attacking them right away. Instead they took them into their midst and escorted the posse up into the high mountain valley where the ancestral village of the sasquatch was hidden among a grove of ancient sequoias.
The group was confronted by a sasquatch shaman on the way, who got into an argument with Rrurgh, the leader of the band. As Gus prayed to understand the alien tongue, Chris produced a wampun that spread the miracle of tongues' power to the whole group.* The shaman, Worragh was his name, had followed and observed the posse, and now spoke highly of them and their fight against the Seven Devils in Hell's Canyon. But the had been exiled from the Old Glade by the Big Chief, and Rrurgh was reluctant to allow him to accompany the group. But Tyler managed to convince him to allow it.
[*Again I ignored the original Trail Guide campaign here, removing the character Hunting Hawk and let the players' powers work properly.]
In the glade the whole tribe of more than a hundred sasquatch, elders, adults, children and all, surounded posse, with suspicion, fear but also some hope on their faces. There were two more humans: Angry Mouse and a Shaolin monk by the name of Li Chang, who turned out to be Lotus Blossom Wen's brother.*
[*The replacement PC for Matt, who had died in the last session.]
Then Big Chief arrived, guarded by eight of the toughest and meanest Bigfoot the posse had ever seen. And they soon realized what was wrong: The Big Chief was Harrowed, and the manitou controlling him was causing all the trouble between humans and sasquatch.
At first Gus had thought the chief's death wounds could still be healed and had offered to do so. Cunningly, the Harrowed challenged him to try it - sure in the knowledge that such an attempt must surely fail. But Gus turned it around, insisting that the healing would need to take all night in the presense of Big Chief - giving him a chance at attempting an exorcism. Still Big Chief was confident the little human could not harm him - and backing out of the healing challenge would surely make his tribe wonder now.
So the posse was taken to the chief's tree and Gus taken inside together with the Harrowed. After a while the chief fell into the Harrowed's death-like sleep, but his guards were still around and kept a close eye on Gus and his friends. The posse began to worry that the chief would kill Gus in the morning before the ritual could be completed. To avoid this they resolved to get the tribe together to watch. Tyler and Hunter sat out to do this and managed to get both Rurrgh's and Worragh's help in getting the tribe together. And Gus was able to browbeat the guards to carry the sleeping Big Chief outside so everything would happen in the open.
[You can download the full-size A1 pdf of the battlemap by clicking on the image above.]
So more than a hundred Sasquatch and the whole posse watched as Big Chief awoke again, and Gus neared the end of his ritual. The harrowed chief glared the Blessed and the struggle between their spirits began in earnest. Back and forth did the fight go, but then Gus remembered the successes they had in fighting evil spirits and with a great shout banished the manitou.*
[*Very fittingly, Gus' player had drawn the Legend Chip the group had won for deafeating the Seven Devils and freeing the workers at Hell's Canyon. When the spirit roll went against him, he used the chip to add a 1d6 to the result... and that die exploded three times! An epic result.]
With a final lounge Big Chief tried to get at Gus before the manitou was driven away, but Tyler and Racing Clound protected their friend. Li Chang put down a sasquatch with one blow, Bu wrestled one to a standstill and Hunter stunned another. Then Worragh, Rrurgh and other sasquatch intervened, putting a stop to the fighting. Seeing their chief lying there, the posse managed to convince the sasquatch that he had been dead for a long time and that the war against the humans was the will of an evil spirit. The siege of Walla Walla was at an end.
[And here the campaign ended, with the prospect of following this up in the future with "The Flood" or perhaps "Last Sons". I will put up a summary of the whole campaign in a later post.]