My today session. Took over 8 hours of play. I'm not joking.
The section began. The blessed started to lecture the town about a great evil to come; meanwhile, I quickly picked the bodies and got their money and weapons. I plan to buy it to invest. We spent the rest of our first day discussing with townsfolk about the city defenses and if anyone has traps. One dude suggested evacuating women and children from the town before the attack; the mayor said, "We do not have enough carriages and horses." But he said, "You exposed the corruption; it is up to you to organize defenses. You have the town treasury to purchase defenses. They are roughly US$500." I asked, "Can we use the people in prison to defend the city?" The blessed "are you crazy? There is even a devil worshiper among them." I said, "Jesus gave a second chance to even a *****. Let them defend the most dangerous areas of the town. After the battle, the city will decide between pardon or not. What do you think?" He said, "Fine, but they must have robes holding them into a specific area. And any form of devilry, and I will personally put a holly bullet in his face. And in yours."
After it, I visited the town prison and saw the "devil worshiper," I quickly realized. He is a huckster like me. He said, "I see, you are touched by Eldritch powers too." I ignored and toldeveryone the terms. Four of them accepted; six chose to stay instead of fight. We decided to use sheriff authority to confiscate ALL bear traps and to order criminals to make wooden stakes. Also convinced people to dig a lot of holes around the city. And spent the first day asking the town blacksmith to make as many bear traps as possible. Said that would cover the cost. One ranger said, "Look, we suffered in the first encounter due to a range disadvantage. We have US$500. Let's go into a nearby town and try to find sharps rifles and scopes. And you, Eric, go buy a firearm; your grenades almost killed us, and I don't trust such grenades." So we proceed to travel to a nearby city and buy weapons. We brought two Sharps Big 50 ($50*2), two Scopes ($30*2) for the two rangers, and a Cold Peacemaker used for me ($15). We also tried to buy some oil flasks and dynamite. When we were back, we saw a group of zombies and an undead horseman. We ambushed them, looted them, and found some dynamite stickies and a .44 double-action revolver. When we were back in Tombstone, a Pinkerton agent appeared in front of us and said, "So you are the new sheriff band. I know everything that happened. Let's talk privately." Talking privately, he persuaded us to, after the defense ends, renounce the sheriff position. Arguing that we are too suspicious. And that foreigners getting such authority invites suspicion of witchery and mind manipulation. I, as Eric, started to daydream about how mind manipulation could allow me to regain my mind. Our party decided to discuss ourselves. The Blessed and a Ranger were in favor of abandoning it. Another ranger and I were against it, but since Blessed is the sheriff, he argued that he would renounce no matter what. I said, "Fine." The mayor started to accuse us of using town funds to not fund enough defense; we had to defend ourselves in front of the city in the town hall. And on the last day before the siege, I, as Eric, had a dream, the mind power being used to get everything that I lost back. After waking up, I heard, "Summon me if you want such power." But for now, there is no way that I could summon her. To summon her, I must draw a specific sigil on paper and burn it with my own silver grenade at midnight of a full moon.
After it, a pause of about half an hour.
First round. At the sundown, everyone is positioned to defend the city. Before assuming the position, I cast Silver blessing (smite) on one sharpshooter big sharps and on my Colt Walker (I have no shooting skill, so it would help me hit anything). The Blessed buffed a sharpshooter and picked a Winchester rifle. Two sharpshooters with big scoped sharps in roofs, and I am also in a roof, everyone with wooden plaques in front, and I with a coat of the same color as the roof to serve as camouflage. Dozens of bear traps on the city entrance. There are a lot of pits around the city and a discrete oil ring around 60 m from the town, stakes to stop cavalry, caltrops, and everything prepared. The moment that a horde of zombies was viewed, our sharpshooters started to fire at them at 200 yards. A few rounds later, after dozens of them are dead (each shot can pierce multiple of them), some missing, others hitting, when the horde was 120 years away from us, the shots became much easier to hit, but suddenly, some zombies dropped some smoke bombs, obscuring our vision. Our sharpshooters kept firing at the smoke. Not knowing if we were hitting any enemy, suddenly, we saw a lot of undead horses with skeleton gunslingers leaving the smokescreen and charging at us with everything. Some horses got hit by the caltrops and dropped their riders but kept going with no fear and no intelligence, hitting the stakes.
When they got 50 yards away from us, I picked my child. 45 but was missing a lot. The sharpshooters kept firing at them, but they were coming faster than we could kill them. When they were close to the prisoners tied to the city, the prisoner huckster threw a blast of dark purple flames, killing lots of undead, used his powers on the ****, setting himself free, shouted, "This is my thanks," suddenly became invisible, and fled—who knows where. The Blessed shouted "devil worshiper!!!" and started to fire his Winchester lever action, trying to predict his movement; no one knows if he was hit or not. While we were distracted by the undead near 30 m away from our city gates, a sharpshooter said "heavy cavalry," and we saw, from the smokescreen, four undead bison carrying a slow-moving, extremely large carriage. The bisons had some iron platings in the head, offering protection, and the carriage had some iron platings in the front. Our sharpshooters shot them. bisons; one was wounded, and the other deflected the shot of a big Sharps 50. The sharpshooter said, "We will take this carriage; your guys deal with the guys close to the city. Some rounds later, while I was throwing dynamite into the lesser undead close to the city, saving my 11 PP (2 used on buffs), two undead bisons got killed, and the other two got the carriage 50 yards away from our city gates and started to do a 180 rotation. What is inside such a large carriage? In the next round, the carriage almost did the 180-degree turn; the smokescreen; most undead were dealt with by the dynamite stickies and traps without them reaching the town gates; and most of the prisoners defended the city safe and sound but were still tied via ropes to the city, except the huckster that broke free. The sharpshooters shot the back of the carriage; it did pierce the armor, but we don't know if it did any damage to those inside it. Suddenly, the door opened. There was a freaking steam Gatling gun and 4 automatons. One was severely wounded by previous shots, and the other was lightly wounded. We fired again. The Gatling gun started to fire and killed most of the prisoners defending the gates in the open field; meanwhile, our sharpshooters luckily killed two automatons in the next round. Suddenly, I got hit by an explosion from the sky, a greenish-yellow blast from the skies. It was him. The vampire.
He was flying and hitting us from very high and doing evasive maneuvers. Being very hard to hit. I took a wound. Also started to try to hit the automaton getting close to the city gates with my blast powers, killing literally dozens, but once critically failed and took another wound. My silver grenade exploded in my own hands. One more wound and I'm dead. I had only 4 PP left. The Blessed decided to try to kill the vampire, shouting, "He is mine; kill the automatons," literally spraying and praying. Eventually, I decided to hide myself in a cellar. Almost dead. And fainted. For the rest of the battle, the cleric managed to wound the vampire, but he just retreated; the automatons got killed. The next day, recovering to 12PP and one wound, the blessed publicly renounced the sheriff post. Saying that he wants to be only a pastor. The mayor said, "Aren't you guys forgetting anything?" And I? What? "These rifles—you used town funds to purchase them, so they are town properties. Hand them over." So, our party lost two important rifles. We decided to stay in the town for a few days to recover; the next day, we got interrogated by a Pinkerton agent. He said that he has been trying to kill such a vampire for years. Said that if we share the reward, we can work together and that we could talk more tomorrow. That he has a US$4000 reward. On the night of that day, recovering from both wounds, during a festival to commemorate our victory. I noticed a full moon night, summoned Lilith, and tried to bargain with her for the puppet power.
Now I have the following powers:
- Blast: Trapped as alchemical silver grenades (spellcasting to prime, athletics to throw). 7-8 casts/fight (15 PP ÷ 2),
- Smite: Blessing of silver. Infuses weapons with silver essence (+2 damage, +4 vs. supernatural), trapped as silver-colored tracer rounds in firearms and glowing small silver mist on melee weapons.
- Puppet: Silver-Blood Puppet. The custom puppet skill was “downgraded” to the seasoned level, requiring that the caster take a wound to draw blood, put the blood into a vial, and transmute it into a mythical silver (spellcasting check followed by a throwing check);
After that, throw it at the enemy, and it would only work if it hits directly. Costs 5 PP. Took 2 wounds again in the ritual and appeared in the city, sneaked into a saloon, and paid for a room. Will stay there till my recovery.
