GotWK Campaign Part 2: Blood on the Rails

This is an account of part 2 of my ongoing campaign set in my homebrewed wild west setting, Guns of the Western Kings.  Get caught up with part 1 here.  

Vulture-Tribe Orc Berserker - Kent Hamilton

When we last saw our heroes - Face, Blair, and Heather - they had vanquished a bandit gang of hobgoblins and kobolds in the Sunbeam Silver Mine and discovered that the old mine, long thought to be played out, was still producing silver.  That night, Blair struck off on his own, still convinced that he was evil inside and hoping to save his companions from himself (translation: Blair's player wanted to play a different character).

The next morning, Face and Heather sat in the sheriff’s office.  Sheriff Flant sat across from them, his dirty old boots propped up on his messy desk.  Two of the hunks of silver ore that they had liberated from the Sunbeam Silver Mine rested atop a stack of coffee-stained papers.  Flant took another puff from his pipe, then wheezed, his grey moustache bouncing along with his rattling cough.

“I have to say, everyone in town is mighty pleased that you found silver in that mine, seeing as we was all told it was played out.  Silver was the lifeblood of Sunbeam; without it we been withering up, fixing to expire.  Problem is, that mine is still property of the Deuclair Mining Company.  Mr. Deuclair bought up the whole damn mountain less’n a year after the first silver strike.  Course, weren’t two years after that the mine up an closed, citing a lack of ore, which we can clearly see is no longer the case!”  He laughed and tapped the ore with his foot.  “We cain’t draw none o’ that silver out without oversight from Deuclair.  Our town’s got hope again, but hope’s gotta go through a whole mess o' clerks and lawyers afore it can reach the people.”  He paused and took another puff from his pipe.  “Course, being as the silver ore you liberated was already mined, that’ll fall under spoils of war.  No need to notify Mr. Deuclair on that account,” he winked.

d20 Despot Reviews The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

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In keeping with my role as cultural arbiter of all things 'fantasy', I think it is about time for a review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I think you will agree that this is a timely review, especially compared to my last one, which was of a book that came out almost 30 years ago.

In short, I really enjoyed The Hobbit II: Hobbit Harder.  I was also disappointed with it, but less so than I was disappointed in the first Hobbit (which I also enjoyed).  I thought that the added content fit in to this movie much better than in the first movie, and Desolation was a more solid and enjoyable movie as a result of its addition.  But there were a lot of things that were lacking, particularly in the content that was actually from the book.  But I'll get to that later.

Spoilers for the movies and the book follow