We’re back in the Blood Prairie!
Our Wednesday night crew, TTRPG hustlers all, recently did me the honour of playtesting Blood Prairie for four sessions. The results were awesome! In case you’re not familiar with our western-horror-fantasy post-apocalyptic-Canadiana project, here’s a little lead-in: (skip the pitch, if you’re an old hand)
The Pitch
They say God came to Earth in the form of his own Son to teach us compassion, non-judgment, and faith – to forgive us our sins and lead us to a promised land.
We showed him what we do to folks like that around here.
Now, God is dead and buried somewhere in the vast expanse of the Blood Prairie. The sun no longer shines on this cursed land; a perfect black disc blocks it, the spread wings of the Angel Leliel. Vampire Cattlemen drive human herds across the carnivorous grass. The Oil Baron, humanity’s last ruler, trades kerosene for fealty and angel feathers. Hungry winds drive men to madness, while witches hold strange black sabbaths on cold white snows.
Death is cheap.
Light is expensive.
Hope is lost.
Can you carve a fortune from the darkness?
Dramatis Personae
Apart from old Austin (me!) in the GM’s seat, we had:
Chelsea as Renn Field, abandoned Human Cattle and musician
Gabriel as Nebuchadnezzar, the Occultist with a book of shadows
Ryan as Elijah, Wild One, pool shark, and best friend to Mordechai, a potentially imaginary presence
Josh as Loss Angeleno, an Unemployed Angel trying to pass as a Hard Case
Jaki as Scabby Sarah, Escaped Human Cattle and rat-afficinado
Dave as Young Karazar, a dimensionally-displaced Gunslinger with amnesia
Session #1
We started with at-table character creation, which went pretty well. As you can see above, it was a motley crew. The group had, for varied reasons, run out their welcome back in Big Country. They were headed east, across the vast expanse of the Blood Prairie, not so much ‘heading to’ as they were ‘running from’.
As they entered Derricksland, an oil-rich region, they hit a ghost town and decided to do some scavenging. In the tight confines of a dentist’s basement, they encountered four Stitch-Zombies. A cramped gunfight broke out by the light of a single torch! For a moment, I thought we’d have a first combat TPK, but the players triumphed. They camped for the evening before heading out in the morning. They saw a strange glow to the East, almost looking like a sunrise.
Aberhart
As they followed it, they came to the town of Aberhart, nestled amid three lakes. A welcome sign out front provided a map of the region from sunnier times, and a stern prohibition warning that Witches and Occultists were not welcome inside. Nebuchadnezzar (Neb) snuck off to the nearby lakeside, drawing a magic circle in salt there, and summoning Leliel, Angel of Shadows. He asked the Angel for invisibility, hoping to sneak inside the town without being searched for Grimoires. The Angel obliged, but demanded as his price three human eyeballs. Luckily, the Stitch-Zombies had provided Neb with a small stash of formaldehyde-soaked peepers. Appeased, the Angel shrouded Neb in shadows, and the entire party entered the town safely.
They found the town had a thriving population. Well-lit, newly-built, and obviously wealthy, this seemed like a decent enough place to stop for a while. As most of the group looked for work, hit the bar, or inquired about buying a house, Young Karazer snuck into the biggest house in town, the manor of one Malaster King. This required dodging a security detail of white-coated guards. Once inside, Karazar ambushed Malaster with a request for work; clearly, his current muscle was not getting the job done. After some negotiations, Malaster set the Posse up with a bounty contract and a home.
The First Bounty
Reads-the-Right-Book Choate was wanted for Murder, Theft, and Sorcery: $60 Dead, and $180 Alive. Last seen squatting a house south of the Tarlake. Well, with a roughly $300 mortgage on a new house arranged, the Posse headed out to catch a criminal.
When they got there, they found a sedate, two-story house by the shore of the mucky, bitumen-poisoned lake. They briefly considered a more diplomatic, upfront approach before deciding that breaking in through the second-story window was the way to go.
Renn and Sarah were sent to scale the walls while the others laid in wait. Renn fell off the building, injuring themselves, but this turned out to be a stroke of good luck, as a failed Stealth roll alerted the building’s inhabitant. Scabby Sarah attempted to breach the higher window, rewarded for her efforts with three bullets to the chest from the gunslinger inside.
Death was instant.
Where stealth fails, arson follows! The Posse tossed a few firebombs into the building, hoping to flush out the occupant. The plan over-succeeded, and it seemed for a moment like they might lose the body. Loss ran into the building to pull out their (barely alive) quarry, miraculously escaping any harm from the flames with their Angelic power.
Back to Aberhart
As they returned to town, Elijah decided to buy Mordecai a drink in the local saloon, and the others peeled off to enjoy their new money. They’d not yet seen the town at night; it seemed like there was a lively nightlife. Some folks even bought cotton candy. It was only towards the end of the evening that Malaster King took the stage, delivering a heartfelt speech about the darkness surrounding them and the need to protect them.
“Remember friends, in the absence of God…”
The whole crowd roared back in a single voice. “MAN MUST MAKE LIGHT.”
With that, white-coated goons brought Reads-the-Right-Book’s already charred body on stage, lashed it to a pyre, and set it alight. We ended the session there, with the Posse looking at each other over spirits and candies, wondering if they were okay with their part in all this.
Post-Game
And that was Session #1! I’ll have to post about the others over the coming weeks. We had close calls, thrilling thefts, desperate marches, and a ton of fun. Sarah wasn’t the last PC to fall! We learned a lot, and made a lot of changes to our playtest rules. The Ashcan version fast approaches, so if you’d like to help us playtest this crazy dream, leave a comment below and we’ll make sure to get you a copy.
Like this? Read about our first and second big playtests! Or better yet, check out one of our already released TTRPGs; I’m very partial to Kung Flurry, but QuestCrawl is also very fun. And don’t forget: comment to see the Ashcan version of Blood Prairie! Coming Soon!