GotWK Campaign Part 6: Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!

This is an account of part 6 of my ongoing campaign set in my homebrewed wild west setting, Guns of the Western Kings.  Get caught up with the previous parts here.

Previously, on Guns of the Western Kings: The party was caught in a conflict between a mining company seeking to re-open the Sunbeam Silver Mine and a tribe of elves who  guarded the mountain and claimed that mining there would unleash a great evil on the world.  In the midst of this, they took a side-quest to investigate a mysterious ore coming out of a Dwarven settlement.  There they met a new party member, Theodore the adventurous businessman, but they also discovered what it was like to careen down a subterranean river on a broken-down paddle-boat.  They ended up in the desert far to the south, and worked their way northwards via an exciting and dangerous cattle drive.  As they approached the city of Templeton, where they intended to catch a train, they noticed they were being followed by a group of canine-headed humanoids who always stayed just outside of rifle range.

And now:

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After selling a load of accumulated goods in Templeton, including gnomish grave goods and a giant rattlesnake skin, the brave band of adventurers buys train tickets up to Fort Crawdon, hoping to finally get their plans back on track.  Heather especially was looking forward to it, since their adventures had taken her far away from the area where she was hoping to find her missing daughter.  It is a short train - two boxcars, two passenger cars, and a caboose.  Theodore's horse, Bucephalus, rides in one of the boxcars. Bjorn and Falco ride with the incapacitated Dawne and Ash in the frontmost boxcar, as the railroad wouldn't allow the tomb-cursed duo to sit in the passenger cars.  Heather, Theodore, Gudguníis, and Rusty take their seats in the passenger cars and the train chugs northward through the prairie.

Rusty was the first to notice a rider out the window - a lithe humanoid with the head of a coyote, armed to the teeth and riding with purpose.  He recognizes it as a wayaha, a race of roguish tricksters native to these lands.  Although the wayaha are a tribal people, they are quick to take up new ways of life, and many have been drawn to the way of the gun and become bandits and rustlers.  Gudguníis grabs his rifle and rushes to the back of the train, hoping to pick them off from the caboose, but as he passes into the second passenger car he sees the door to the caboose slide open and a coyote snout poke around it.  The wayaha bandit steps into the train car, brandishing a pistol, and calls out, "Your money or your life!" before Gudguníis blasts him with his rifle.  The coyote-man slumps back against a train bench, clutching his chest wound, fires off a shot at the half-elf rogue that misses by a foot, and collapses to the floor.  The door to the car slams back open and a burly, tough wayaha warrior, bristling with orangish fur, muscles his way in and blasts at Gudguníis with his shotgun.  Heather rushes into the car behind the half-elf and dives for cover behind a bench, calling out to the cowering civilians in the car to stay behind cover or flee to the next car.


Meanwhile, Theodore is concerned about the well-being of his horse.  He and Rusty go between two train cars and climb up to the roof of the train.  They see the original rider that Rusty had seen out the window peeling off to gather several recently abandoned horses.  Their former riders, guns and knives in hand, were busy climbing up onto the roof of a boxcar from the open side doors.  Theodore and Rusty open fire.  Then another tough-looking brute of a wayaha clambers up onto the boxcar and charges down at Theodore, using the movement of the train to give himself extra speed.  He bowls into Theodore, grappling him.  Theodore, a skilled pugilist, punches his assailant twice in the gut with his spiked gauntlets.  Another wayaha, trying to shoot Theodore, accidentally hits the tough in the back.  Enraged and bleeding from multiple wounds, the coyote-brute lifts Theodore up and tosses him off the train.

Back in the train car, the other tough wayaha is blasting away at the train benches but still failing to hit Heather or Gudguníis, the latter of whom has managed to snipe him several times.  Finally realizing the error in his plan, he drops the shotgun and grabs his brutally spiked morningstar, runs up to the bench Heather is hiding behind, and clocks her with it.  Heather reels but maintains composure and strikes back, braining the coyote-man, who collapses onto the floor like a 250 pound sack of steaks.

On the roof of the train, Rusty prepares an alchemical bomb.  Gauging the wind and the motion of the train, he throws it ahead of the tough wayaha who just threw Theodore off the train.  The bomb arcs and slams into the target's face, exploding and knocking his burning corpse off the locomotive.  The two remaining wayaha on the boxcar flee, climbing down to the space between the cars.  A moment later, Rusty notices that the front of the train is moving faster than the car he is on - the coyotes have decoupled the train!  The wizened prospector grabs a length of rope and a grappling hook from his pack and runs forward in an attempt to rejoin the two halves of the train, but he is knocked over by a strong wind, hits his chin on the roof of the boxcar, and rolls off the side of the train.

Theodore, meanwhile, barely managed to get on his feet and hop on the caboose of the train as it passed him.  He attempts to enter the caboose, but is shot twice in the back by a wayaha he didn't notice.  Fortunately for him, his stout armor deflects both sneak attacks.  The wayaha bandit leader, cover blown, draws his magic shortsword and attacks, but Theodore retreats up the ladder to the top of the car.  Gudguníis backs into the next passenger car, taking a potshot at the bandit leader as he goes, but only succeeding in alerting the coyote-man to his presence.  Heather retreats in the same direction, both wounded heroes hoping to blend in with the huddled civilians in the next car.

From atop the car, Theodore whistles for his mount.  Bucephalus heroically rips himself free of his hitching rope with a natural 20 Strength check, then leaps majestically out of the boxcar, and falls flat on its face, breaking two legs.  Theodore leaps off the top of the train to aid his horse, nearly killing himself in the process.

The bandit leader has, by now, made his way up to the entrance of the passenger car that Gudguníis and Heather have occupied.  Gudguníis pushes his way past the other passengers and leaves out the other side of the car, leaving Heather to fend for herself.  The bandit leader intimidates her, demanding she throw down her weapons and valuables.  Shaken and separated from her allies, she slowly complies.  Gudguníis, meanwhile, has climbed atop the train and run back over both passenger cars toward the caboose.  He swings down into the doorway and fires through the open doors, hitting the bandit leader in the back for massive damage.  Alarmed, the wayaha turns to fire.

Theodore, having shared a couple healing potions with his horse, mounts up and rides after the decoupled rear of the train, passing an injured Rusty, who is also running to catch up.  As the cavalier rides alongside the train, he sees the bandit leader between two cars,rifle trained on Gudguníis as he reaches for a potion.  Thinking fast, Theodore chucks his trident, piercing the wayaha leader through the throat and pinning him to the doorframe.

It takes about an hour for the train to be rejoined and get underway again.  The party finally arrives in Fort Crawdon late in the afternoon.  As they get off on the platform, they see a man nailing up posters on the notice board.  He stops and stares at them for a second, then runs off.  Each poster shows one of the party members' faces with the caption "Wanted - Alive, by the Deuclair Mining Co."  Heather suggests to the fleeing man that he should go around town and take down the posters because they are actually good guys who have never done anything wrong.  The man complies.

The party retreats to hide out at the edge of town.  They decide that Dawne and Theodore should go up to the fort to see what's wrong, since Theodore was not with the party when they agreed to help the mining company, and Dawne appeared to be a 12-year-old girl at the time.  They notice a lot more activity around the Deuclair Company offices since they last saw it, and there are now two guards posted out front.  Dawne gets past them by pretending to by the fiancee of Hanc Growlon (a.k.a., the man in the mustard suit, their former contact at the company.  Theodore just pretends to have business to discuss, using a successful Profession (businessman) skill check.  They ask Growlon about the wanted posters, and he explains that the wanted people had agreed to help prepare the Sunbeam Silver Mine for re-opening and keep it safe from Elven attacks, but instead they had just vanished with two months advance pay.  Since this was all actually true, Dawne decided not to argue the point and the two left before Hanc could recognize her.  They return to the party, and Theodore offers to go back to the stables and retrieve the party's horses.  He takes 500gp from the party loot and buys the horses back, pocketing a considerable lump of change for himself.

The party decides to flee up to Sunbeam and seek out the elves they had promised to help.  They get out just before Heather's suggestion spell wears off.  They wander the woods between Sunbeam and the silver mine, where last they encountered the elves.  Finally, their leader steps out from behind a tree, and they hear the creaking of bows being drawn back all around them.  They offer their services to the elves once again, and the leader responds, "How can we trust you?  You promised to keep the mining company away from the mountain, and yet they are here?"

"We tried," Heather explained, "but they were dead set on their silver mine.  They don't care about elven tales of great subterranean evils!  You have to believe us!"

"I will know I can trust you," the elf says, "If you bring us the man in the mustard suit!"

The party is most amenable to the suggestion, and are about to head off when they hear loud noises behind them.  An elf scout appears and says, "Mining company soldiers are advancing through the woods!  They approach from the road!"  With that, the elves melt back into the forest, leaving the party to deal with the mining company.  The party flees deeper into the woods.  Heather finds a safe-feeling grove of trees around a mighty oak where the party can take shelter.  Just as they begin to catch their breath, however, a woman appears out of the tree, her skin like smooth bark and her hair like branches, wearing a dress of leaves.

"Heather, my child," she says.  "You must come with me.  Your daughter is in grave danger!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my main incentives for creating the wild west Guns of the Western Kings campaign setting was having a party of adventurers fighting on a train.  This session, I finally got to do it, and the players loved it.  Resident d20 doodler Kent Hamilton, player of Gudguníis, said it was his favorite play session since the water room trap.

Fighting atop the train was fairly simple.  Anyone moving down the train could move at 150% speed, anyone moving up the train could move at 50% speed.  If they wanted to try to move faster (as Rusty did), they had to make an Acrobatics check, with failure meaning falling off (as Rusty did).  I expected someone to fall of the train, and I expected someone to get thrown off the train, but I did not suspect someone to jump off the train after getting back onto it, and I definitely did not expect someone to make their horse jump off the train.  That was definitely the highlight of the night.

The wayaha came about because I wanted to use gnolls, but hyena people just didn't seem to fit in the wild west.  I considered just reskinning gnolls, but gnolls are big and burly, but coyote-folk should be, on the whole, more lithe and trickstery, like the Coyote of Native American mythology, so I went ahead and made a new monster.  Wayaha is the Cherokee name for Coyote, so I used it for this new race of roguish coyote-people.  Below, you'll find the stat blocks for a basic wayaha, as you might see in a GotWK bestiary someday, and the stat block for the wayaha bandit leader.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Wayaha         CR 1

XP 400

CN Medium humanoid (wahaya)

Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +3

DEFENSE

AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor, +3 Dex)

hp 11 (2d8+2)

Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +2

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee club +1 (1d6) and bite -4 (1d6), or bite +1 (1d6)

Ranged shortbow +4 (1d6/x3) 60ft.

STATISTICS

Str 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 15

Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 14

Feats Improved Initiative

Skills Bluff +10, Perception +3, Stealth +7, Survival +7; Racial Modifiers +4 Bluff

Languages Wahaya

SQ trickster

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Trickster (Ex)

Wayaha are natural tricksters.  Bluff and Stealth are always a class skill for a wayaha, and they gain a +4 racial bonus to Bluff. 

ECOLOGY

Environment any

Organization solitary, pair, pack (2-12 plus 1 leader of 3rd level), tribe (10-100 adults plus 50% noncombatant children, 1 pack leader of 3rd level per 20 adults, 1 chieftain of 4th-6th level, and one shaman [cleric or sorcerer] of 4th level, plus 2-8 coyotes)

Treasure NPC gear (leather armor, shortbow with 20 arrows, club, other treasure)

Wayaha are lithe, fur-covered humanoids with coyote heads.  They are natural rogues and tricksters, often using their natural wits to get out of sticky situations (or get others into them).  Although generally a tribal society, wayaha are quick to adopt new ways of life.  Hence, many wayaha have been drawn to the way of the gun and become bandits and rustlers. 

Wayaha Bandit Leader               CR 4

XP 1,200

wayaha rogue 3

CN Medium humanoid (wahaya)

Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +9

DEFENSE

AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +3 Dex)

hp 27 (5d8+5)

Fort +2, Ref +9, Will +4

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft.

Melee +1 shortsword +6 (1d6+2/19-20) and bite +0 (1d6+2), or bite +5 (1d6+3)

Ranged +1 .22 repeating rifle +7 (or +5/+5) (1d8+1) 80 ft.

Special Attacks Sneak Attack +2d6

STATISTICS

Str 14, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 17

Base Atk +3; CMB +5; CMD 18

Feats Improved Initiative, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot

Skills Appraise +8, Bluff +13, Climb +8, Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +8, Handle Animal +9, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (local) +8, Perception +9, Ride +9, Sense Motive +9, Stealth +9, Survival +9; Racial Modifiers +4 Bluff

Languages Wahaya, Common

SQ trapfinding, trickster

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Trickster (Ex)

Wayaha are natural tricksters.  Bluff and Stealth are always a class skill for a wayaha, and they gain a +4 racial bonus to Bluff. 

ECOLOGY

Treasure NPC gear (+1 studded leather armor, +1 .22 repeating rifle with 2 bandoliers of bullets, +1 shortsword, 500 gp, CMW pot (CL3), Potion of Master Thievery +4) 

That'll do it for this week's post.  Until next time, happy trails and happy rails!

-your locomotive d20 despot