The Train master - Idea

[NykylaiHellray]

Maybe the main wendigo makes new versions of iteslf, children so to speak by making people mad, twisting there souls into beings like itself.

The wendigo will be interesting to stat. As it is demonic, yet ghostly, and at the same time....is like an aberation.

There's a Wendigo template in the Fiend Folio, it's a fey with cold subtype.

Can I post it here? Is it OGL?

Not to sure =/....I would lik it if we did not have to rely on other supplements. As if we did use them it would be illegal to publish them even in a netbook =/.

Have to see what the others say.

Saying that I have adapted the story of the wendigo now, to include more elements of over legends, including the heart of ice. I will repostr it another time.


-----------------------------


Dark heart of grand central (a quick idea)

The trainmaster may appear to be human though, what you see is a ghost.


What is left of his body exists deep beaneath grand central, and it is in the place known as the heart.

Wrapped in steel, with a hundred metal rings rotationg around him, is what is left of the trainmaster. Each ring covered in ancient magic, and powered by the dark powers.

From this point all trains are controlled, easy track is changed in this place.

The body of the trainmaster hardly has any flesh left, and he no longer has eyes.

It is said all around grand central.....and in some versions of the myth all around the plaines of lost innocence itself, eyes are watching. Eyes om the trees, in the skys, and in the seas. From these he sees all that happens in his domain.

It is said it is what keeps this land here, and what keeps the trains running. It is said, if the heart is ever destroyed the land will be pulled back to where it came. Though this is only a legend.

Though it is impossible to destroy the heart unless the darkpowers will it to be destroyed. So even if there was a chance here, it is one you wont be using.

[Waldi]

If it isn´t OGL, then we could easyly make our own Wendigo !
As far as I know, the wendigo of the legends is a evil spirit, that posseses people who ate human flesh. In this case, we would need only one wendigo who is able to posses several people at one time ! Those wendigo would feel like the evil wood-spirits in the Evil-Dead-Series.
The wendigo in its spiritform is bound to his domain, just like any other darklord. His plan is, to use a human body as vessel for fleeing from his Prison (thats why he posseses people). Of course, the possesed ones can´t leave the domain also, but the wendigo hasn´t realized this yet.
The possesed can´t be differed from normal people unless the wendigo uses his magic powers. The wendigo will try to infiltrate the PC´s group and then striking when they suspekt it least and devour their flesh - or infect them. Perhaps that is the reason, why the settlers in Redwood-County are so extremely paranoid...the wendigo could be everyone !

And what about this western darklord:
"Reverend" Jebedia Holmes (crimelord and false cleric)
This man is the ruler of the rich and florishing miningtown Prosper. He seems to be a pious reverend of the anchorites, but his soul is as black as the anchorite-robe, he wears during the service in church.
Holmes is thought to be the most greedy bastard and son of a bitch western of Aruxco, but nobody in Prosper dares to say this loud.
As the richest landowner in and around Prosper, Holmes holds more power than the gouvernor of Prosper himself.
During the service, he seems to be a strongly fundamentalistic fire-and-brimstone-preacher. But that is only a facade. Holmes only thought is; "How can I get more money and land ?" (In fact, Holmes isn´t even a real cleric, he is just a gambler and betrayer)
The smaller farmers and ranchers around Prosper are frequently terrorized by Holmes henchmen and the prospectors in the mountains are not better of.
Untill he got the job as reverend 25 years ago, he kept himself alive by winning money in manipulated cardgames. Somehow he lied and betrayed himself into the position of the cities cleric after the old cleric died misteriously. Then he started his big coup - that is: get as much as you can !
Only few know about the curse, he suffers from. 11 years ago, he run a witchcraft-trial against his own wife, a beatifull and sensible half-vistani.
The poor woman had to suffer terribly unter Holmes blasphemous bigottry even before the trial and started to hate Holmes. Then, one day, she spend some of Holmes gold to help some poor immigrants. When Holmes found out, that some of his precious gold dissapeared just to feed some filthy newcomers, he turned into a ravaging mad and he started the dubious trial against his wife.
Shortly before the deputies hanged hear at the central-plaza of Prosper, she cried a last curse against Holmes. His beloved gold would be his death someday ! Since that day, everything thats made of gold is highly poisen for Holmes. He cannot even touch gold. But none the less he thirsts for gold just as he did before the curse (and he hates that he cannot hold his precious gold in his own hands anymore).
Holmes son Timothy fled out of Prosper shortly after the death of his mother to evade the terrible life in the house of his father - some say, he died somewhere in the wastelands. Others claim, he became one of the greatest gunslingers in the whole wide west, and someday, he will return and punish his father for his crimes....

[NykylaiHellray]

Cool story like it =)


As for the wendigo cool idea.

I am thinkng of adding to my story a pet cemettry refernce, as that was supposed to be to do with a wendigo.

Before he was captured in his prison, he cursed the land in which he was trapped. That any body buried here, or person who dided here, they would come back to life by the end of the day.

Also I am thinking should we make redwood country, or the area where the trail is, cold? As wendigos like the cold weather.



Also since we know have tons of stuff, whould we start doing a map?


http://www.weirdus.com/ great site for more ideas

e.g. the story of ressurection mary and the jersey devil, are to very interesting legends we could use

[Waldi]

I will try to create a map tomorrow...I hope you will like it

Just for a better overview now the domains, I thought off placing on the map:

Main Domains:
Grand-Central: The metropolis of the train-master
Redwood-County: the cold northern woodland-domain, lair of the Wendigo
Prosper: the small gold-rush-town ruled by Reverend Holmes
The Wasted Huntinggrounds: the most part of the Plains - Darklord is the bitter and angry Native Black-Owl, Warchief of the Chipooka-Tribe.
The Riverlands: a domain, that looks like the east-coast-states described in Mark Twains "Tom Sawyer". Civilised villages, green fields, Steamboats on the river. Darklord could be a ricean Vampire in a dekadent southern-stile Estate...(a ravenloftian Lestat)
Aruxco: A mexico-like domain far south plagued by the Camasotz-Cult

Pocket-Domains:
The Chipooka-Burial-Ground in Redwood-County. Cursed by Black-Owl to give eternal unrest to those who lay there...
The Battleside an Squirrelpeak: a place in the plains terrorized by eternal militaristic nightmares...
Ilksmouth: a small city at the seaside, basicly the same as Illsmouth in Lovecrafts novell

Other suggestions ?

[NykylaiHellray]

Looking good =)

We also have your gunslinger gang, did you say there a pocket domain?


Ok since we have got the main areas planned out (houses towns can be added in latter).

We can start doing all the history.

I think we need to doa timeline of the land, detailing main events.

Also for each area we need to do legends and myths that surround it.

I think I may add the story of the melon heads and ressurection mary, how I am going to fit them in I am not sure. Any other american myths I can think of I will try to add in.


I also think we should put an asylum somwhere...where I am not sure yet.

[Waldi]

So, this is now the map of the Plains and the surrounding Lands - I haven´t added the Railways and the domain-borders jet. I also left blank, how large the whole cluster is (so every GM can make ist as big as he needs it) I would suggest to do that with the population-numbers to. Lets just say "Grand-Central is a big city" instead of "It has 10XXX inhabitants"..



Now for the History of the plains, as the inhabitants know it. Here is my suggestion (I use the barovian calender). And I stole the idea of the spain-like Holy Empire (please forgive me ):

Legendary Prehistory of the Natives:
- 657: First Tribes enter the still green and flourishing Plains and live there under heavenly conditions (tons of game to hunt, wild plants to gather and eat, perfect weather).
-406: First tribe-wars between the brothers Two-Bears and Singing-Weasel
-396: After ten years of warfare the tribe of Singing-Weasel is nearly wiped out. The surviving braves and their squaws are forced to flee southward. Warchief Two-Baers founds the warloving Chipooka-Tribe
-396 to - 200: The Chipooka fight wars succesfull against nearly all other tribes. Than, in 200 they try to invade the northern woodlands and fail badly. The invading chipooka-bravea are nearly wiped out by the warriors of the mysterious Takani-Tribe

The rise and fall of Aruxco:
-340 to -150: The decendans of Singing-Weasel find Aruxco and rise to a higher level of civilisation. While the rest of the tribes remains in the stone-age, the Aruxco learn to work soft metals like chopper and gold, develop better agricultural techniques and invent the pueblo.
-150: First of the great temple-pyramids in Aruxco is builded
-30: The mysterious high-priestess Azcal-Xochitl apears in Aruxco and preaches of Camastotz. High-King Ilhuicamina is seduced by her with the promise of immortality and gives the order to abandon all other gods.
-30 to -25: King Ilhuicamina becomes slowly a Vampire. All other cults in Aruxco are wiped out completely. Only Camasotz is allowed to be workshiped in Aruxco
1: Aruxco starts the first War-of-1000-Flowers to gain "material" for the blasphemous human-sacrifices at the main temple-pyramid
1 - 240: The selfproclaimed God-King Ilhuicamina starts a whole series of flower-wars against the northern tribes, while he conquers the bronze-age-citystates south of Aruxco. This is the golden age of Aruxco
240: While Ilhuicamina starts a extraordenary bloody ritual for the sake of Camasotz, strange mists surround the borders of the known lands and the climate changes dramaticly. The plains dry out and the Lake Chipoo becomes the great salt-flat.

The coming of the white man
290: A first Expeditionship coming from the mysterious "Holy Empire" lands. It´s comanded by Capitan Esteban Franco.
291: Imperial troops build the first fort "Santa Lucita" (Ezras-Hold today). The contact to the natives is peacefull at first. The imperials try to spread their religion with missions.
305: Imperial ships come more frequently, Santa Lucita expands
306: the new Viceroy Franco hears for the first time about the immense rich city of Aruxco.
306-315: First contact between Imperials and Aruxco ends bloody. The Aruxco see them as new source for their sacrifice-rituals, while the Imperials intend to steal the Aruxcos gold.
315: Great Battle at Aruxco. The city is leveled nearly complete by imperial knights and musketeers. Only the great pyramid stands undamaged. Ilhuicamina is impaled and burned by imperial priests while high-priestess Azcal-Xochitl manages to flee into the desert. Aruxco is turned to the imperial religion and becomes a colony.
315 - 460: the slowly downfall of the imperial colony starts because the mistways home to the empire become more and more unsecure. Ship-traffic becomes very infrequent.
470: A ship with fleeing pilgrims from Mordent arrives at the shores of todays Redwood-County. Soon, a little colony florishes at the coast. Grand-Central is founded.

...so much for now, of course I will expand it

[NykylaiHellray]

BLOODY HELL O_O

Cool map O.O How did you make it? The only part which does not work is the odd font you used for the title.

I would suggest no underline and use black and do it in an old style font, oe somthing traditional (sorry been doing typography in design class lol).

But damn great map.

Nice timeline, where do you suggest I add the war of the wendigo, where the snakebite clan shaman, and other tribes unite?

I think we should give grand central another name prior to the trainmaster, before he brought the trains.

Since the vampire clan are now responsble for making the plaine go to the demiplane of dread. I think I will say that he made his technology in another plane, and he himself was snatched up, at a later date.

480 -------- prospered, and develops from town to city.
490 A mysterious man arises in ------- bringing with him technology. It is rumoured that the dark powers took him from a more advanced plane.
495 - Construction is started on a monlithic construction known as a trainstation on the outskirts of ---------.
500 ---------- is renamed grand central at the stations completetion. Railway rumoured to be capable of planer travel. Capable of not just traversing the demiplane of dread but also the great wheel. People though cant seem to get trains out of the demiplane though. Trains seem to only go in.
505 - City expands, slowly being built around transtation.
510 - Trainmaster is seen less and less.
520 - Watchtower addition is added onto trainstation.
550 - Trainstation now exists in the centre of grand central.
600 - Trainmaster not seen in over 80 years, people rumour he is dead.

[Waldi]

I promise, I will exchange the fonts ! At the moment, I had no proper westernstile-font. I created the map with the programm Micrografx Picture-Publisher 8. It´s nothing expensive - years ago I purchased it for 5,-€ at Aldi (a german discount-market)

Historical events that will follow are a trade-war between the mordentish settlers and the imperial colony, the slowly withdrawing of the imperial forces (because of a great war far away). After this time the descendants of the mordentish pilgrims dominate the eastern lands of the plains and the way back to the core is blocked. Therefore, the mistway to Souragne is explored, and the southern River-Countys get a heavy souragnian-like culture. Because there is no contact home to Mordent, the Republic is founded in Grand-Central.
The white man pushes further west, and comes into great conflict with the native. The first Redskin-Wars break lose and over decades, the natives lose ground. There is also a great war between the Republic and the souragnian colonies (like those in Coopers "The last Mohican"). During this war, the two forces allie with diverse native-tribes and use them as cannon-fodder. After the war, the natives are betrayed badly by the white men (they fought for him and lose their land as reward) During this time, the wendigo rises .
In a long time of relative peace between the two "white" Powers, the souragnian colony joins the Republic. One century later, it comes to the civil war, because the former souragnian people feel supressed by the gouvernment in Grand-Central. The River-Countys start a well organised uprise but fail after 5 years of civil war, because they lose the battle at squirrel-peak.
During the war, the trainmaster apears in Grand-Central and builds his first tracks (paid by the Republics military administration). The Chipooka try a rebellion against the white men, but fail also. Today, most of them are "locked" in the Chipooka-Reservation-Camp.
Today, the people of the Plains still suffer from the devastating war and rebuilding goes only slowly - the Republic has become a lawless and chaotic land where most communities have to stand for themself.
During the civil-war the mistway to the core was re-recovered, when a small republican warship crashed into the Port of Mordentshire.
Now, the traffic between the two clusters ins slowly growing and a lot adventurers from the core seek their luck in the new world, that apeared west of the Sea of Sorrows...

Edit: I would set the arrival of the trainmaster a bit later - as you can see above

Edit the second:
I would suggest the name "New Glenwich" as old name of Grand-Central.
And back to the outlaw-pocket-domain; This is a moving Domain, so we don´t need to place it on the map

[abe]

what the stats for the darklord?

[NykylaiHellray]

Nice history, I will make the changes to my section of the timeline soon =)


Abe, atm we have not got that far ^_^' *sweat*. We will eventually.....

Just have to get the setting for the cluster up and running first.

Then we will begin stating darklords. Also things like new monsters (e.g. the wendigo).


As for monsters of this plane, I am wondering. Should we make up more new ones then just the wendigo?

Saying that I just remembered, there is an old mexican ghost story of these bird monsters which attack invaders, there life is linked to the warrior. The stromger the warrior the stronger the monster.
I will have to research more though, but it would be an interesting think to add to the vampire culture.


Also just wondering, if the aztec esque people where responsible for taking the plaines to the mists. Why did they do it? Is the vampire god of there linked to the dark powers maybe? Or should we just allow players to make there own theroies?

[NykylaiHellray]

Nice history, I will make the changes to my section of the timeline soon =)


Abe, atm we have not got that far ^_^' *sweat*. We will eventually.....

Just have to get the setting for the cluster up and running first.

Then we will begin stating darklords. Also things like new monsters (e.g. the wendigo).


As for monsters of this plane, I am wondering. Should we make up more new ones then just the wendigo?

I was also wondering could we get away with aberations, and if so how could we use them?

Saying that I just remembered, there is an old mexican ghost story of these bird monsters which attack invaders, there life is linked to the warrior. The stromger the warrior the stronger the monster.
I will have to research more though, but it would be an interesting think to add to the vampire culture.


Also just wondering, if the aztec esque people where responsible for taking the plaines to the mists. Why did they do it? Is the vampire god of there linked to the dark powers maybe? Or should we just allow players to make there own theroies?

[Waldi]

Well, I imagined, that the god-kings ritual had something to do with creating a sphere of eternal night over Aruxco....and somehow that worked But there should be other theories as well - thanks to the fact that the conquistadores burned most of the "pagan" scrolls that told the history of ancient Aruxco - so nobody knows what happened exactely.

As for the darklord-stats....I´ve been working on the stats for Reverend Holmes, but no one else jet...

[Waldi]

But perhaps we could make a list of the western darklords, that exist yet....

Great Domains:

Grand Central : The mysterious Train-Master - the sinister lord of mad steam-tech
Redwood-County : The Wendigo - a ancient and evil spirit with a devouring hunger for human flesh.
Prosper : Reverend Jebedia Holmes - a false priest and the most greedy man west of the great saltflats.
Aruxco : High-Priestess Azcal-Xochitl - a 3000 years old, seductive vampire. Currently she "works" as a tabledancer in the strange salloon "Meson Sangriento"
The Wasted Huntingrounds: Warchief Black-Owl - a bitter and fanatic native, who closed a pakt with dark powers in an hopeless atempt to drive out the white man..
River-Countys: Gilles de Rosceresse - a charismatic, cultivated and completely chaotic ricean vampire who dwells in a ancient and baroque estate. He created a secret coven of ricean vampires, who recently rebelled against him and now ignores his orders...

Small Pocket-Domains:
Port Illsmouth: Captain Obhed Lewis - the leader of a strange, dark cult of Illithid-Workshippers, commands a large group of reavers (Cthullu greets )
Battleside of Squirrel-Peak: The collective lost souls of the fallen soldiers - died in such a horrible battle those poor souls are unable to find eternal rest
Fort Biggs : The Wolven-Lady - a teenage halfblood-girl, who was terribly missused by the soldiers in the fort. In search for revenge she closed a strong friendship with the alpha-lycanthrope of a werewolf-pack and brought the werewolfes to siege the fort and slay all soldiers inside....

Edit:

The O´Leary-Gang : Ahab O´Leary - a Lich and an outlaw, and also the son of a bitch. Even his own death can´t keep him or his fellow undead desperados from raiding towns, robbing post-carriots and having a damn good time with stolen brandy....
Serenity Gulch : Mayor Bradley Higginbothom the III - a ghost as everyone in this forgotten and deserted town in the middle of the saltflats. Perhaps it was´nt a very good idea by Mayor Brad, to found the city on an ancient holy site of the chipooka and slaying the old chipooka-medicine-man who guarded it personaly......

[NykylaiHellray]

Nice summary of the domains and darklords =)

I am thinking we could make some special PrC for this place.

Ideas so far are, shaman, sherrif, and maybe engineer.

[Waldi]

Another special-feature of this cluster would be the following:

Firearms are no exotic weapon in the Plains of lost Innocence. Guns and pistols are aviable for moderate prizes in every "civilized" settlement. Unregarding of the CL of the domain, the white settlers use always firearms as favoured ranged weapon.
The natives have only few firearms (stolen or bought) and use primary bows.
Crossbows are virtually unknown in the Plains (and, according to the widespread repeating firearms are not realy usefull here)