"Tall Tales" - Adventure for Deadlands
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A Deadlands: Hell on Earth Adventure by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock

PART VI: Epilogue and Resources


Part I: Zombie Problems
Part II: The Toxic Shaman
Part III: The Wild West Museum
Part IV: The Hall of Heroes
Part V: Cobalt Caves
Part VI: Epilogue and Resources


Ghost Rock Idol Rewards

Invoking the Spirits of the Heroes

One possible twist on this adventure might come about if someone thinks of trying to invoke the spirits of the old western heroes to help defeat the eviles here at the Wild West Museum. The Posse might get this idea from Black-Horn, or perhaps come up with the idea on their own. (In playtesting, this wasn't my original adventure plan, but it was a crazy idea that a member of the Posse came up with ... and I as Marshal thought it was worth giving him a shot at it.)

Basically, the idea is that a tale-teller in the Posse could gather up the rest of the Posse (or, if the Posse makes it back to the town, perhaps even round up the townsfolk) and then tell the tales of these old western heroes. The object is to try to beat a TN of 22 on a tale-tellin' roll, which should be a mighty feat indeed. It will probably require assistance from other members of the Posse. If they do this performance for the town, rather than just fellow Posse members, then it becomes a TN of only 20. (Hey, every little bit helps!)

If others want to help out, any member of the Posse who can make a TN of 7 on a tale-tellin' roll can add +1 to the primary tale-teller's roll. A Botch, however, will guarantee failure; too much interference just spoils the show.

Other talented Posse members may be able to help out in other ways. Creativity is encouraged. For instance, a musician in the group could add some musical accompaniment. By beating a TN of 7 on a performin' roll, a +2 can be added to the primary tale-teller's roll. (If there are any additional musicians, they can join the band, but their own successes only add an additional +1 to the tale-teller's roll past the first, up to a maximum of +4. Just putting together a symphony isn't going to invoke the spirits, after all.)

If the Posse somehow manages to make this target number (probably by burning some chips), then ... nothing happens, aside from giving everyone a warm fuzzy feeling, and boosting morale a bit. (Give them +1 to Guts checks for the rest of the day.)

However, at some dramatically appropriate moment, the heroes of the Old West -- or, their invoked spirits, anyway -- lend a hand in some way. For instance, perhaps while the Posse is holed up in the museum, they hear gunshots and a few cries of "Yee-haa!", and catch just a glimpse of someone out there, fighting the zombie horde. Once the dust settles, the zombies have been eradicated. (Of course, Cries-Burning-Tears might just be able to make more if he hasn't been defeated yet, but at least the Posse doesn't have an army of undead making life difficult for them.)

Ideally, this shouldn't be something overt, like Paul Bunyan and Doc Holliday walking right up to the Posse for a chat. There should be the possibility left in the minds of the Posse that some cowboys who happened to be going this way just dropped by and had a zombie-shootin' fest. (If someone thinks to look around for spent shell casings or bullets, they won't find any.) The Reckoning may have resulted in so many nightmares being given life, but on rare occasion, sometimes the good dreams come true, too, and this just might be one of them.


Invoking Spirits of Heroes Miniatures & Mapping

Rewards

The following are recommended rewards for the Posse for making it through the adventure:

AchievementReward
Agreeing to help the townsfolk of Blackbird1 white chip
Fighting off the Cobalt Rad Zombies1 red chip
Reaching the Wild West Museum1 white chip
Getting inside the Wild West Museum1 white chip
Driving off Cries-Burning-Tears1 white chip
Destroying the Rad Zombies1 red chip
Capturing Cries-Burning-Tears1 red chip
Destroying the Idol1 red chip
Reducing the Fear Level1 legend chip to taleteller
Burying Black-Horn's Remains1 red chip


Rewards Floor Tiles

Miniatures and Mapping

For the museum, I made use of the floor tiles and doorway sections from a Games Workshop game called Warhammer Quest. While the decorations on the floors and the design of the doorways are not perfect, they worked rather nicely at least to spell out the dimensions of the museum and to show what areas had been explored. I went ahead and laid out the cardboard tiles that represented the rooms, flipping them over (white side up) at first, then turning them to show the "face" when explored, and putting furnishings and figures on the table as appropriate.

The "fountain" tile was used for the Lobby, the "tomb" tile was used for the Native American Exhibit, T-intersection hallways were used for Hazards of the West, How the West Was Won, and Native American Artwork. The long corridor pieces were used for the Hall of Horrors and the Hall of Heroes.

For the remaining rooms, the regular square rooms were used, and also some cardstock pieces to represent the remaining rooms. Plastic stand-up doors from Advanced HeroQuest were used to supplement the larger doorways. I used an assortment of monsters for the statues in the Hall of Horrors, and some general cowboys for the Hall of Heroes, plus several animal figurines for the Wildlife of the West room. I used my collection of plastic zombies and skeletons to represent the horde of undead, and Cries-Burning-Tears was represented with a Shadowrun miniature. For the brief visit to the town of Blackbird, I used some "Wolfbane" figures (Mourning Wolves and Warhounds) from Warzone to represent the quasi-barbaric survivors. The cavern areas were represented with some foam battlefield terrain that I'd made for Warzone battles.

Although other Marshals may not have access to the same accessories, it can be an interesting way to simulate the exploration of a building like this, by cutting out pieces of cardboard or cardstock in the dimensions of each room, and using markers to indicate features of the room on one side ... and leaving the flip side blank, to turn up when the room hasn't been explored yet. In this way, the Posse can have a rough idea of the outline of the building, and you can have a means of representing the layout, without having to mark out the "dungeon" as the heroes explore it. This adventure took two sessions to complete, and it was very helpful to have a map drawn out of the area, and "floor tiles" that I could put away for cleanup ... then bring out again to reassemble the areas that the Posse had been to.


Miniatures and Mapping Bottom of Page

Floor Tiles

If you have a color printer, the large images of each room can be printed out at 150 dpi as "floor tiles" to make the layout of the museum. If you have the plastic door frames from Warhammer Quest, you can glue the print-outs to pieces of thin paper cardboard, and link them together with the doors. (There are not enough door frames in the Warhammer Quest boxed set to use in the entire museum, so you may require substitutes.) Otherwise, you can just fit the pieces together. Each square should be 1 inch x 1 inch, which should correspond to 2 yards of character movement. For expedience, you may assume that every 2 units of Pace allows a character to move one square, and that diagonal movement is allowed, except around corners. It is possible for multiple characters to occupy the same "square", at the Marshal's discretion.

For convenience, here is the map, and a listing of the floor tiles used:

Map of the Wild West MuseumMap of Wild West Museum
Wooden StairsStairs (Entrance)
OfficeOffice
Mining/Logging/Farming ExhibitMining/Logging/Farming Exhibit
LobbyLobby
Gift ShopGift Shop
RestaurantRestaurant
Hall of HorrorsHall of Horrors
Hazards of the WestHazards of the West Exhibit
Native American ExhibitNative American Exhibit
How the West Was Won ExhibitHow the West Was Won Exhibit
Hall of HeroesHall of Heroes
Ladies' RoomLadies' Room
Wildlife ExhibitWildlife Exhibit
Native American Artwork ExhibitNative American Artwork Exhibit
Life in the WestLife in the West Exhibit
Gents' RoomGents' Room


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Deadlands, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: The Weird West and characters and features thereof are trademarks of Pinnacle Games, and their use here does not constitute a challenge of trademark status. This site is by no means official, and should not be considered representative of the quality of the products of Pinnacle Games. With the exception of the "Deadlands" logo, and except where otherwise noted, all artwork and all articles on this page are (c) by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock, and may not be reproduced without permission.