Our latest Blood Praire recap’s tragic finale is here: the Doom of Derricksland!
Start at the beginning, or check here for our previous entry.
We’re taking Blood Prairie on the road this weekend. We’ll be showing it at ProtoCon 2025; if you’re there, drop by and try it! If you can’t make it, read on for a taste of how the playtests are going.
Session #4
Session #4 began in dire straits.
The Posse had successfully exorcised the Hungry Wind from their Wild One, Elijah, but at a terrible price: the life of their Occultist, Nebuchenezzar. Stinking of Kerosene, they sheltered against the wall of the outhouse behind Adelaide Ambedekar’s manse. The survivors (Wild One Elijah, Escaped Human Cattle Renn Field, Frontier Psychiatrist Dr Alabaster Snee, and the Unemployed Angel Loss Angelo) had only one thing going for them: $2000 in a cash box stolen out from under the nose of both Malaster King and the Oil Baron.
Desperate in Derricksland
There was no more denying it. Malaster King and his cult were both dangerous and evil. It would take a gang of heroes to free the city of Aberhart from their malice.
The Posse sincerely hoped those heroes would arrive at any moment.
For their own part, they planned to take their stolen cash and get while the getting was still good. This would necessitate a circuitous route, avoiding Aberhart, headed directly for the nearest bridge across the eastern river. Once across, they could use the money to fund the next leg of their journey toward safety.
They barreled east, crossing a frozen lake and avoiding an intensely localized blizzard. They came to a small, isolated cabin.
Isolated Cabin
Still reeling from their injuries at the Ghosthouse, they knocked politely and asked for a place to stay. Moving inside, they found the place empty, but with a hot meal still cooking on the stove. Only Elijah, camped out on the prairie, noticed a dog slip out from underneath the house and away into the frozen grasslands.
Renn went down into the basement, hoping to explore a little more. It reeked of chemicals. Unwisely lighting a lamp, they ended up destroying all the photographs in this basement darkroom. They only caught a quick glimpse of the bleaching photos: group shots of Malaster and his cronies in a lavish cult room.
The Posse also found a spellbook, containing a shapeshifting spell, and a remarkable collection of animal pelts. They started to have doubts about the dog that slipped away. Still, nothing bothered them immediately, and they decided to stay put.
The group stayed the night here, resting as best they could under Dr Snee’s ministrations. A little low on supplies, they decided to cut north to a ghost town shown on their map. They suspected they might possibly find the source of Malaster’s wealth there: an asbestos mine.
Miner Issues
The journey north was short but hard. Wolves chased them most of the way, and they ended up cutting Neb’s mule loose to satiate the beasts’ hunger.
The town they found was mostly abandoned. After some light looting, they found the inhabited mine in the northern part of town. The two guards out front looked tired, a little zoned out. They seemed deluded; one said something about how ‘The sun always shines here’, which was odd, on account of the decades-old eclipse.
They eventually got hold of the foreman, who, after some convincing, gave them shelter from the wolves on the condition that they not talk to his workers. Before too much time had passed, the foreman offered Dr Snee a tour, claiming to be in dire need of educated company. The others took the opportunity for a chat with the workers, who all seemed a little hypnotized. Like the guards, they were saying weird things. “I prefer payment in bread!” “I love mining for asbestos!”
Renn started playing music, attracting a crowd of miners and creating a distraction. As the foreman and the doctor rushed over to break up the proceedings, Elijah and Loss broke into the foreman’s house. Although they managed a little light robbery, they did not discover the chest in the foreman’s closet containing hair and fingernail samples from all the miners. Without this, they ended up not freeing the miners. Instead, the foreman kicked Renn out of the work camp like he was the mayor from Footloose. The others followed shortly after, and the town regrouped in the abandoned sections of town.
Back to Aberhart
During Renn’s night watch, the cult made its move.
A face appeared in the flames, speaking blasphemous commands in infernal languages. Using samples surrendered to Aberhart’s surgeon/barber Sweeny Bodkin, infernal magics attempted to force Renn to burn down the abandoned house his compatriots sheltered in. Used to a lifetime of compulsions (and obsessive loyal to the lost Blue Lady) Renn shook off these magic influences. The Posse doused their fire, afraid of more magical interference.
By the time the eclipsed sun rose over the Blood Prairie, they’d reach a conclusion. They pissed off the cult. If Malaster could attack them through fire, not even the money they’d stolen or the river they wanted to cross would keep them safe.
It was time to go back to Aberhart and settle things, once and for all.
On the road back, they stopped again at the little isolated cabin. This time, they didn’t let the shapeshifter who lived there slip away. Risking it all, they confessed their plan to return to Aberhart and confront Malaster. They assumed that the inhabitant, one Nemo Nimrod, was one of the bountied sorcerers Malaster was beefing with. They were right! With their new ally, they headed south and then west.
Chased by wolves, they decided to cut their final mule loose. They arrived in Aberhart with a shape-changing ally, the weapons they carried, and a box of stolen cash.
The Plan
Sneaking into town, they found far fewer white-coated guards than they’d seen in town previously. Apparently, a cash box containing pay for those guards never arrived.
Pity.
Anyways, our newly rich heroes made contact with Elijah’s friend Honeyfly. Using his (at this point, well-established) charms, Honeyfly took several hundred dollars from the Posse in exchange for riling up a mob/fire brigade to surround the Torch Club.
The plan was simple. Nemo would skinshift into the form of a massive moose, then charge the Club’s antechamber, taking out the security there. In the chaos, the Posse would slip through into the club area and attack the main membership of the cult.
Burning Down the Torch Club
It went pretty well to start. The moose charged just as the first strands of Honeyfly’s crowd began to assemble. The Posse made their way past the thrashing moose without injury and made it into the club’s main drinking room. Panicked hangers-on fled as the guns came out, but five cultists present made to fight. Initiative was rolled, and gunshots rang out. Moments later, most of the cult was dead. Dr Bodkin, Judge Choate, and Sheriff Pilate fell quickly. Pandemonia remained on her feet long enough to evoke her demonic master, causing Dr Snee to burst into flames. Although the Posse managed to take her down seconds later, the damage was done. Dr Snee was badly burned and barely in the fight.
In the middle of the club, stairs led down into the cult’s ritual theatre. These doors burst open, revealing Malaster King and his muzzled vampire bodyguard. Bullets flew, as did firebombs and holy water. Malaster was shot, but survived to try to flee out a secret back entrance. The vampire was badly injured, but one after another, Elijah, Renn, and Loss all fell to the monster’s twin pistols.
Sadly, we hit a TPK.
Aftermath in Aberhart
Still, things were not a total loss. As the injured Malaster made it to the streets, he encountered Honeyfly and his mob. Drunk on chaos, they threw stones at their former mayor, ending his reign of terror as the Torch Club slowly immolated in the background.
Unfortunately, Malaster’s death caused the drowned bishop to arise from the Tarlake, as foretold in Adelaide’s notes. Leading his undead congregation into town, he began killing the townspeople. They had no choice but to turn to Malaster’s muzzled vampiric servant, newly freed by his master’s death. By the end of the day, Aberhart was transformed from a prosperous human town controlled by a fire cult into an open-air vampiric ranch. The once proud human inhabitants were reduced to cattle under their new vampiric master.
Doom had come to Derricksland.
The Blood Prairie will have to wait for new heroes to free it from this evil. That is, if what happened to this last group doesn’t dissuade them.
Derricksland Finale
Well, you can’t win ’em all, as they say. It turns out a Master Vampire with two pistols is nothing to sneeze at, even for a high-level team. Maybe an Occultist or Gunslinger like Neb or Young Karazar could have turned the tide. We may never know!
Blood Prairie is coming along really nicely. This marked (I believe) our fifteenth full playtest session. Can you believe it? We’re closer than ever to our ashcan release of the playtest rules. If you’d like to participate (and maybe run some of this crazy game for your own friends) comment below, and I’ll make sure we get you a copy.
Check out our first Blood Prairie recap, or maybe this post about Devils in DnD. And if you like what we do, toss us a few of those hard-earned dollars. We’ve got lots of great stuff in our store.