Author Topic: Adventures to Purgatory - A Western Game (Read 10296 times)

Dozus · « **on:** July 10, 2006, 06:58:10 PM »

Welcome to Purgatory, Arizona Territory. The year is 1887. Americans are pushing westward to settle the frontier, while Indians push back to keep their homeland. Tension is high across the nation; it was only a decade ago that Custer made his last stand. The West is still wild, with Union soldiers battling Indians and bandits making their own law in defenseless towns. Here in Purgatory, a small copper mining village, they say there's Indian witchcraft in the air as a plague spreads through the townfolk. Someone's got to take charge and bring order to Purgatory, before something really bad happens. It's a time of heroes and villains, cowboys and Indians, guns and sorcerery. Are you up to it, pilgrim?

Purgatory is a Wild West setting with a touch of magic. Feel free to join in the fun, adventure, and magic. Be creative as you want with characters, but please no magic-users yet. Don't forget, there are more than just whites and Indians in the West at this time: there are Mexican vaqueros, French traders in Canada, Chinese immigrants working on railroads, Black Americans escaping prejudice in the East, European immigrants looking for a better life... There are plenty of possibilities, so be creative.

Some background on the setting: Purgatory is a boom town that managed to survive after the end of the 1880s gold rush by switching to copper mining. The mining companies have left their mark, and the Greer & Henderson Mining Co. still operates here, sometimes bullying the independent miners who have staked their claim. The town is diverse, housing settlers from New England, Chinese and European immigrants, Mexican ranchers, and a few Navajo that managed to stay behind after the removal. There's several shops, saloons, and inns here, run by mostly friendly townsfolk. A Jesuit missionary has started a church, but mostly only the Mexicans attend Mass. A number of criminals, from dangerous to mundane, hide from the law here: deserters from the Union army, aging ex-Confederate vets paranoid of Northern aggression, horse thieves, trail bandits, a few known killers. The only law here comes from the sheriff, an office which no one seems to occupy for more than a couple months. Most disagreements are settled peaceably, sometimes with counsel by the Jesuit friar, and most of the others are settled by lead outside of town. The folk of Purgatory are peaceable, but if someone brings trouble, a number of them are armed and ready to deal with it. Immigrants and prospectors still come into town regularly, keeping a mix of familiar and fresh faces in Purgatory.

Please post here before posting in the actual role-play. I hate to be a stickler, but I would appreciate seeing characters and making sure they fit in with the setting before they show up on the role-play thread.

Dozus · « **Reply #1 on:** July 10, 2006, 07:23:00 PM »

Character name: Daniel Thorn

Age: 31

Job: Bounty hunter

Hometown: Bismarck, Dakota Territory

Appearance: Daniel is tall and lean, his skin a sunburnt tan from years in the desert. His eyes are a dusky hazel, and his shaved head bears short black hairs. A thin stubble covers his long jaw. He wears a black leather jacket over a faded white shirt and a maroon vest. Black chaps cover his Union-issue pants, tucked into tall black boots. A fine leather belt with a silver buckle adorns his waist, and his hands are hidden under rawhide gloves. An ashen gray hat with a black band sits atop his head.

History: Born to farmers in the Dakota Territory, Daniel Thorn always longed for adventure. He left his parent's homestead at 16 and joined the U.S. Army, serving as an cavalryman under General George Crook, called Three Star by the Sioux. Crook's troops kept the peace in Dakota, making sure Sioux didn't disturb settlers or railroad builders. Thorn quickly made a name for himself in the brigade, quickly making the rank of lieutenant. After the Battle of Rosebud in 1876, where Sitting Bull's Sioux warriors soundly beat Crook's army, Thorn reconsidered his commission. He had learned the language of the Sioux and began to question America's spread into their territory. After the Battle of Little Big Horn and hearing of Custer's defeat, Thorn was decided and resigned his commission. For several years, he wandered the West, occasionally living with friendly Indians and stopping in settlements across the West. After a brief stint in cattle ranching, Thorn decided to become a bounty hunter and try to bring a little order to the frontier.

Equipment: Horse, shotgun, pistol.

Special skills: Knows a number of Indian languages, including Lakota and Navajo.

Dozus · « **Reply #2 on:** July 12, 2006, 07:46:54 AM »

Thanks for the comment, Chuckanator. Feel free to make a character and join.

Murometz · « **Reply #3 on:** July 13, 2006, 11:12:01 PM »

character name: 'Sal Magrilla' (born Salvatore Samagriolla)

age: 35

job: eccentric adventurer and explorer (thinks he's a modern-day Columbus)

hometown: Palermo, Sicily

appearence: Deeply tanned. Thick, black, oiled moustache. Short, squat, and imperial looking (in his own mind).

History: The name Samagriolla was feared on the streets of Palermo in the 1850's, but Salvatore wanted nothing to do with his family's murderous business. Instead he dreamt of being an explorer, like the heroes of his books. Columbus, Magellan, Ponce De Leon, Pizzaro. These were the men Sal venerated, and he aspired to join their ranks in the annals of History. He vowed to find the mythical El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth after reading about them in books as well. America drew Salvatore for obvious reasons. The West might be mostly explored by now, but Magrilla's adventurous spirit had beckoned him to explore and experience this wild new land with his own eyes. Sal Magrilla always travels with Jacopo, his twisted dwarf of a servant. He carries two of the biggest and baddest hand guns Italian manufacturers had to offer at the time, and many items an explorer might possess. He rides a huge roan horse, named "Mazzini", while Jacopo rides behind on "Putana" (Slut), a smallish, runty, ill-mannered creature. Presently, Colonel Magrilla (as he calls himself, though he is no colonel) is looking for four things in Purgatory-- Indian legends, maps, Colt guns, and fellow explorers.

I'll polish this up some more tomorrow, when mine eyes are not bleary

Dozus · « **Reply #4 on:** July 13, 2006, 11:29:01 PM »

Glad to have you aboard, Muro.

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #5 on:** July 14, 2006, 05:45:02 PM »

Wait a while and I'll join, but I would suggest revising the year backwards... 1887 is pretty late in the Wild West milieu, especially since French trappers were not present by then. French trappers were pretty much gone by the early 1800s.

Dozus · « **Reply #6 on:** July 17, 2006, 03:51:26 PM »

Duly noted, CP. In light of fur trade history, I've removed that recommendation. But though Texan cattle drives ended in the 1890s, Arizona cattle drives to New Mexico continued well into the 1940s, so I'll keep the year setting.

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #7 on:** July 17, 2006, 08:01:51 PM »

That's fine, I was just noting the fur trappers

Murometz · « **Reply #8 on:** July 19, 2006, 11:30:04 PM »

This is kinda how I picture Ol' Sal

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/shadowm1.jpg

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #9 on:** July 20, 2006, 01:43:13 AM »

So...
Should I do a mysterious gunfighter, a la the Man With No Name?
Or a tired old ex-shootist who wants to leave the West behind him?
Or something else?

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #10 on:** July 20, 2006, 02:14:59 AM »

Elihu Burritt

Age:47
Occupation: Ex-gunfighter
Hometown: Nauvoo, Illinois

Elihu Burritt isn't quite old yet, but he's getting there. Beneath his hawkish nose bristles a thick brown handlebar moustache, beginning to silver. At his temples, his thick dark hair also sports patches of silver. His weathered skin is darkly bronzed and crenellated with deep wrinkles, especially around his deep blue eyes, which speak of a history full of hard rides, blood on dry soil, and gunshots in the dark.
He wears an old wide-brimmed range hat, caked with dust, and a sheepskin vest. His boots are cracked and faded from a lifetime of use. His pants have arcs of faded material where his holsters have swung against them for years. His entire appearance is pale and dusty and faded from a lifetime of hard use.

Burritt was born into a Mormon family in Nauvoo, Illinois. Soon after his birth, his mother died; from then on, he was raised by a harsh father (instilled with the old values of fire and brimstone which made even his neighbors among the Latter-Day Saints wince) and seven rowdy brothers.
Elihu never took to the Book of Mormon, and as his family moved with Brigham Young toward the Salt Lake Valley, he escaped, into the wilderness.
From then on, Elihu Burritt lived life the way his pious brothers would have scorned- swilling whiskey and whoring, selling his shooting on the frontier as a freelance hunter and part-time killer, robbing when he could not find the work. He saw many things, lived many lives. He was, in many ways, only one among many lost souls, struggling for their own room to breathe out here on the frontier.
Times change. Frontiers are breached, and closed. And Elihu Burritt believes he has hung up his gun for good. And yet, something in his mind will not let him go. He feels a deep sorrow and a remorse that he cannot name; he has seen things happen which he cannot understand, feels his world changing in ways that make him obsolete, a relic of time, an old statue left behind by history. He has tried many times to sell his guns for whiskey, or throw them into a lake, but this thing in his mind drags on his hand- he cannot do it.
Elihu Burritt is tired. But not tired enough, he thinks, not to try one last go-round. There aren't many Indians left any more, but Burritt has heard stories out of Arizona Territory... Blood-curdling fireside stories, about a town called Purgatory.

Dozus · « **Reply #11 on:** July 20, 2006, 11:49:45 AM »

Excellent, thanks for joining, CP.

Just one more player--Pariah, I'm looking at you

--and we'll get started.

Pariah · « **Reply #12 on:** July 20, 2006, 11:19:36 PM »

Name: Zebulon 'Zeb' J Huchs
Age: 45
Current Occupation: Blacksmith

Zeb has seen a lot in his life, and while he's never been rich he's been everything else. In a better time or place one might call him a Renaissance man, but in Purgatory he's just a down on his luck blacksmith with some rumors on how he spent 14 years of his life.

It all started out rather well, started being a very loosely used term here as he was 22 at the time. He was born to a small middle-class family in Alanta, and managed to stay out of most of the civil war. But that ended when Sherman started his march on Alanta and all remaining Georgians were called to 'die free men.' Setting aside his medical studies he joined the militia under Walcutt as a medic. During the battle at Griswaldville he took a bullet to the leg and was unable to flee with the rest of the routed militia, and barely remained uncaptured by the Union troops cleaning up afterwards.

Having effectively deserted he fled west, in hopes of getting out of all this foul business. Soon he was prospecting the hills for any sign of gold, silver, or copper in hopes of striking it rich, and failing at this turned his hand to being a cow hand. Soon however the wanderlust took him up again and he left an otherwise fine life, a decision that he has regreted many a time, to seek a fortune as a mercenary and bounty hunter, however he failed quite handily at this, being brought down by a band of theives as he helped guard a shipment of gold.

Soon he turned to the was of the gambler, wandering from town to town so that the upright folk of the West wouldn't be offended by this deeply amoral carreer. However he was a worse gambler than he was a hired gun, so instead he turned his hand to banditry, which he didn't excell at but was better than quite a few. This he left after a short year, and he hung up his guns and became a blacksmith in a small mining town. He was here when the gold vein ran out, and in the past 8 years that's about as close as he came to picking his gun back up. Even more recently he's had his hands full dealing with the plage victims as they roll in.

Skills: He's competent in anything from medicine to murder, making a couple of stops at agriculture all the way through to zoology. He's a Renaissance man, a Jack of All Trades, and though he is a bit rusty on some of the newer stuff he keeps track of what's happening in the world by talking to people that come through the town, and finangaling books on various subjects, including some on occultism before the plague started.

Equipment: Really basic doctory equipment, a small notebook/journal that he's taken to using recently, and his old M1855 Root Revolving Rifle

There we go, I think that covers everything.

Dozus · « **Reply #13 on:** July 20, 2006, 11:56:46 PM »

Huzzah! We begin.

T-Bone · « **Reply #14 on:** July 21, 2006, 03:33:16 PM »

Name: John Aicrin
Age: 40
Current Occupation: None

John is a guy who's struggling ever bit of the day. His parents were alcoholics that never cared for him so he grew up fast. He was kicked out of the house at 13 and he was never able to get a job so if he finds something worth trading he'll trade it for food or water. He lives in an abandon tool shed and is armed with a shotgun, a knife, and two six shooters. He owned a horse at one point but had to eat it or else he would starve. He owns a jacket, a cowboy hat, and some tattered up pants and cowboy boots. There's not much to talk about him except he's a poor man just trying to stay alive.

Murometz · « **Reply #15 on:** July 21, 2006, 03:35:16 PM »

poor? not much to do? Fantastic! He will do.

He will soon be approached by Colonel Salvatore Samagriolla's Western Expedition Recruiter Force. We are in need of ones such as you. You dont mind carrying a lot of stuff do you?

welcome!

T-Bone · « **Reply #16 on:** July 21, 2006, 03:56:46 PM »

As long as I can find a nice spot in the story.

Murometz · « **Reply #17 on:** July 28, 2006, 08:00:04 AM »

great, I think Elihu is about to kill me, and we just started...

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #18 on:** July 28, 2006, 08:55:41 PM »

Haha, not yet...

Pariah · « **Reply #19 on:** July 28, 2006, 09:51:31 PM »

By yet he means that if you don't hire him he's liable to shoot you down while you're trying to buy a drink. And if you do hire him he's gonna kill you right before you find whatever it is you're looking for.

Callista Miala Moonshade · « **Reply #20 on:** August 04, 2006, 11:06:35 AM »

Sandy Ruben:
Age: 22
Current occupation: Assassin

Sandy has been around guns all her life, She has an excellant eye for targets and has been an assassin since she was 17. Sandy has an excellant shot and is very good at long distance shooting. She loves her desert eagles they were a present from her father who was killed by a Tall heavyset man which Sandy never saw the face off. She has been travelling ever since and just so happened to fall across purgatory.

Equipment: two desert eagle 357 pistols and a twin-barrel pump action shotgun strung to her back

Pariah · « **Reply #21 on:** August 04, 2006, 06:56:10 PM »

A'ight, I can deal with that. 'Cept one little discrepency. Desert Eagles didn't exist til the 1970s and the .357 didn't exist til 1938. Those aren't too much of a problem though, just a couple of changed words.

Dozus · « **Reply #22 on:** August 04, 2006, 09:29:27 PM »

Yep, Pariah's right. Switch those guns out to something more contemporary, perhaps a set of Colt revolvers, and you've got yourself a right good character.

CaptainPenguin · « **Reply #23 on:** August 05, 2006, 03:47:01 PM »

... Well, I dunno' about the pump-action shot gun, that strikes me as also being anachronistic, but I'm probably wrong.

Pariah · « **Reply #24 on:** August 05, 2006, 09:23:43 PM »

Not as bad. A Mr. John Browning invented both the pump action and lever action. The earliest pump gun that I could find is Colt' Lightning pump action rifle, starting in 1884. But I'm sure that someone somewhere coulda jury rigged a shotgun outta it if they wanted. Maybe she hadda kill this Joe at some point.