slaguru666andClaude Opus 5
514e0c903e
The man who told Vane what the chart had to say now has a name: a Mr Smith, with the company's paper, whom the company never employed. Vane names him if asked and cannot picture his face. A "do not resolve" line says who he is not to be explained here: he is the thread into STANDING ORDER. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
1140 lines
77 KiB
JavaScript
1140 lines
77 KiB
JavaScript
/**
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* THROUGH TRAIN — the crossing starter, as data.
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*
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* "Through train" is the railway term for a service that passes without stopping. It is
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* also the department's case name, and it is the problem: the players must get aboard a
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* train that cannot stop, because the running is what holds the crossing open.
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*
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* The supernatural here is science fiction underneath. Nobody aboard is dead and nothing
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* is haunting anybody. In 1881 a railway company laid track to a filed survey rather than
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* to the ground, then described the resulting line ten thousand times — timetables,
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* waybills, dispatches, telegraph orders — as being somewhere it was not. Reality keeps a
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* record of what belongs where, and an argument made at a constant speed on a fixed line
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* for six months is the most patient argument there is. On 3 November 1881 the record
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* gave way, and the train that was inside it at 11:40 has been running ever since.
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*
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* It is a standing wave. The motion sustains the error the way a bow sustains a note.
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*
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* What repeats is not just the train. At 11:40 on 3 November 1881 there was a GUNFIGHT
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* aboard over the payroll, and the four minutes that contains it is what the loop is
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* made of. It runs again on every pass, the same four minutes, and it has run about two
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* million times.
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*
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* TWO SIDES AND NEITHER OF THEM IS THE VILLAIN. The company's paid guards are protecting
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* a payroll they were hired to protect. The men who boarded at the water stop are owed
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* that payroll and are carrying a court writ that says so. Both have paper. Both believe
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* the others are thieves. The company sold the same money twice and is not aboard.
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*
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* Closing the crossing does not kill anybody. It RELEASES them: the loop ends, 3 November
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* 1881 resumes, and every person aboard goes on to live the life they would have lived —
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* including the ones who, on the real third of November, did not survive the next four
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* minutes. That is the weight of the ending, and it is a much better weight than the one
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* this scenario carried before.
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*
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* This is also the scenario that teaches the standing order on period crossings: NOTHING
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* MODERN GOES THROUGH. The catalogue already carries the 1881 issue — Webley, Martini-
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* Henry, oil lantern, brass compass, pocket watch — so the constraint costs the GM
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* nothing to enforce and gives the players something to feel.
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*
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* Full GM document: docs/scenarios/THROUGH_TRAIN.md.
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*/
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const P = s => `<p>${s}</p>`;
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const H = (n, s) => `<h${n}>${s}</h${n}>`;
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const UL = xs => `<ul>${xs.map(x => `<li>${x}</li>`).join("")}</ul>`;
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const OL = xs => `<ol>${xs.map(x => `<li>${x}</li>`).join("")}</ol>`;
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const TABLE = (head, rows) =>
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`<table><thead><tr>${head.map(h => `<th>${h}</th>`).join("")}</tr></thead><tbody>`
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+ rows.map(r => `<tr>${r.map(c => `<td>${c}</td>`).join("")}</tr>`).join("")
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+ `</tbody></table>`;
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const READ = s => `<blockquote class="rb-readaloud">${s}</blockquote>`;
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const ART = (id, alt) =>
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`<figure class="rb-plate"><img src="systems/ringbrp/art/scenes/${id}.webp" alt="${alt}"/></figure>`;
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/* ---------------------------------------------------------------- */
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export const TT_PAGES = [
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{ name: "1 · Run this first", content:
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ART("tt_01_draw", "Mercy Draw, and the line that should not be there")
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+ P("<strong>THROUGH TRAIN</strong> is the crossing starter: the case where the "
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+ "department sends the agents ACROSS for the first time. It runs in "
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+ "<strong>four hours</strong> across five acts, and it opens with its own "
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+ "induction, so it does not need a prologue in front of it.")
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+ H(2, "The shape of it")
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+ TABLE(["Act", "Time", "What happens"], [
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["<strong>One</strong> — The Bureau", "~35 min", "Where they work. The standing order. The kit swap."],
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["<strong>Two</strong> — Cordera", "~50 min", "Through the crossing, and an investigation to find the train"],
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["<strong>Three</strong> — Rance Doyle's men", "~35 min", "A town-side obstacle with a surname in it"],
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["<strong>Four</strong> — Getting aboard", "~45 min", "Forty seconds of slow track at the water tower"],
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["<strong>Five</strong> — The four minutes", "~50 min", "The gunfight, the papers, and the brakes"],
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["Epilogue", "~15 min", "Sixty-one names, written down"]
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])
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+ P("<strong>Hard rule: at 2:55 on the clock they are aboard</strong>, by the "
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+ "department's wagon if not by their own wit.")
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+ H(2, "The five things to get right")
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+ OL([
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"<strong>Nobody aboard is dead and nothing is haunting anybody.</strong> This is "
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+ "science fiction with a paperwork cause. If a table leaves thinking “ghost "
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+ "train”, it has been run wrong.",
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"<strong>They arrive in the wrong place on purpose.</strong> The crossing opens "
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+ "where the RECORD says the line is — an empty bench of scrub. That is the "
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+ "case stated as geography, and it is why Act Two is an investigation.",
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"<strong>Standing Order 9 is the difficulty setting.</strong> Nothing modern goes "
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+ "through. Charge for USING, never for carrying. Anchors are exempt.",
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"<strong>There is no villain anywhere in this case.</strong> Not in the town, not "
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+ "on the train. Everyone the agents fight has a reason you would accept.",
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"<strong>Closing the crossing does not kill anybody — it lets them go</strong>, "
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+ "including the two men who did not survive the real four minutes."
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])
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+ H(2, "Run it with")
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+ P("<strong>Four to six agents from the duty roster.</strong> Not the "
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+ "“(before)” sheets — this is the job, and it wants people who "
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+ "have been trained.")
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+ H(2, "Content warnings")
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+ P("Gun violence at close quarters, repeatedly; entrapment and confinement; "
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+ "bystanders wounded on screen; a decision that lets named people die; period "
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+ "hardship and labour exploitation; heights; a sibling present at a death.") },
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{ name: "2 · What is actually happening", content:
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H(2, "The lie")
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+ P("<strong>April 1881.</strong> The Cordera & Western needed four miles of narrow "
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+ "gauge across a dry wash called <strong>Mercy Draw</strong>. The company surveyor, "
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+ "<strong>Elias Vane</strong>, was told what the chart had to say before he walked "
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+ "the ground — by a <strong>Mr Smith</strong>, who called at his lodgings with a "
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+ "letter of instruction on the company's paper, and whom the company has never "
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+ "employed. He filed a survey showing the line on the <strong>north bench</strong>. "
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+ "The line was laid on the <strong>south bench</strong>, because that is where the "
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+ "ground allowed it.")
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+ P("Nobody was hurt by that. It is the dullest possible paperwork lie. And for six "
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+ "months every timetable, waybill, dispatch and telegraph order in the company's "
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+ "operation described a train running along the north bench.")
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+ P("<strong>Reality keeps a record of what belongs where.</strong> It can be made to "
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+ "get it wrong by anything patient enough — and a train is the most patient "
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+ "arguer there is: a fixed line, a constant speed, on the hour, every day, saying the "
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+ "same wrong thing about where it was.")
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+ P("<strong>3 November 1881, 11:40.</strong> The record gave way. Four miles of line "
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+ "came loose from the date with No. 9 and five cars on it, <strong>sixty-one souls "
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+ "aboard</strong>, and a <strong>gunfight already three seconds old</strong>.")
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+ H(2, "Why the agents arrive in the wrong place")
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+ P("<strong>The crossing opens where the record says the line is: the north bench.</strong> "
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+ "It has to — that is the wrongness it is made of. Agents step off a real grade "
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+ "in the present and step out onto a bench of empty scrub in 1881, with no rails, no "
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+ "ballast and no Draw in front of them.")
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+ P("This is not a trick played on them. <strong>It is the case, stated as "
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+ "geography</strong>, and a party that works out why they came out where they did has "
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+ "solved half of Act Two.")
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+ H(2, "The two sides aboard — and neither is the villain")
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+ TABLE(["", "Who", "What they have", "What they believe"], [
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["<strong>The coats</strong>",
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"Four men hired by the company to see the payroll to Fallon, led by <strong>Cass Merritt</strong>",
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"A signed letter of engagement, and the key to the box",
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"That men who board at a water stop are robbers"],
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["<strong>The writ men</strong>",
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"Five Cordera miners, eleven weeks unpaid, led by <strong>Josiah Ambrose</strong>",
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"A sealed writ of attachment from a territorial judge, naming that payroll",
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"That they are lawfully seizing wages and being shot at for it"]
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])
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+ P("<strong>The company sold the same money twice and is not aboard.</strong> Both "
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+ "papers are genuine. Neither man has seen the other's. Nobody in car three is lying "
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+ "and nobody is wrong. <strong>Do not adjudicate it.</strong>")
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+ H(2, "The running is what holds it open")
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+ P("The train is not trapped inside the crossing — the train <em>is</em> the "
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+ "crossing. A standing wave, sustained by its own motion the way a bow sustains a "
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+ "note.")
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+ UL([
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"<strong>Nobody is dead.</strong> They eat, sleep in shifts, and have organised a "
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+ "water rota. By their clocks it has been about nine hours.",
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"<strong>Nobody can get off while it runs.</strong> Three departmental attempts are "
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+ "on file; none returned.",
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"<strong>Stop the train and the loop ends.</strong> This is the mission, and it is "
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+ "not a mercy killing."
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])
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+ H(2, "What closing it actually does — read this twice")
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+ P("<strong>Closing the crossing does not kill anybody. It lets them go.</strong> The "
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+ "loop ends, the third of November 1881 resumes from 11:44, and every person aboard "
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+ "walks forward into the life they would have had.")
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+ P("<strong>Including the ones who did not survive the real four minutes.</strong> "
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+ "History resumes as history: Josiah Ambrose and a miner named <strong>Tom Doyle</strong> "
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+ "died in that gunfight, and when the loop lets go they die in it. Not because the "
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+ "agents killed them — because that is what happened, and it has been prevented "
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+ "from happening for a hundred and forty-five years.")
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+ P("<strong>The agents are not choosing who lives.</strong> They are choosing to stop "
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+ "holding history still, and they will have met the people it lands on — and, "
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+ "if Act Three went a certain way, the brother of one of them.")
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+ P("The department's position is unambiguous: <strong>close it</strong>. A crossing "
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+ "held open by a repeating event degrades, and when it fails on its own — "
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+ "Registry's read is within a year — everyone inside is lost outright rather "
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+ "than returned. <strong>Waiting is the only option that is definitely worse.</strong>")
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+ H(2, "The crossing clock (0–6)")
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+ P("Move it on <strong>each pass the agents watch go by</strong>, when <strong>somebody "
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+ "uses a modern object across</strong>, and on a <strong>fumbled boarding "
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+ "attempt</strong>. <strong>Act Three does not move it</strong> — that happens "
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+ "in a town four miles away and the crossing does not care.")
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+ TABLE(["Clock", "What"], [
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["0", "Open. Four minutes at 11:40."],
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["1", "Thinning. The whistle arrives a half-second before it should."],
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["2", "Slipping. −1 Coherence to everyone across, once."],
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["3", "The line flickers — a hundred yards of grade is briefly not there."],
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["4", "The far end stops answering. Fallon's wire goes dead in 1881."],
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["5", "One pass left, and everybody can tell."],
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["6", "It closes, with whoever is aboard."]
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]) },
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{ name: "3 · Act One — The Bureau", content:
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ART("tt_11_bureau", "The Bureau — a corridor, a counter, a ledger")
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+ P("<strong>Goal:</strong> they learn where they work, what an anchor is, why the "
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+ "phone stays behind, and what the case is. <strong>~35 minutes.</strong>")
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+ READ("The building has no sign on it. It has a commissionaire, a lift that only goes "
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+ "to four of the six floors, and a smell of floor polish and old paper that you will "
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+ "come to know very well. Somebody has left a birthday card going round the third "
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+ "floor for a woman in Accounts. You are here because a train has been missing since "
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+ "1881, and it is Tuesday.")
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+ P("<strong>Play this as an ordinary morning at an ordinary job.</strong> The horror in "
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+ "this game is that the paperwork is real. Nobody is portentous. Nobody explains that "
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+ "the world is stranger than they know.")
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+ H(2, "The four stops")
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+ P("Run these as four short beats. Let the players wander between them; do not queue "
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+ "them up.")
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+ TABLE(["Stop", "Who", "What happens"], [
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["<strong>The desk</strong>", "a commissionaire with a ledger",
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"They sign in. Names, times, and their <strong>anchor numbers</strong>. He will not be hurried."],
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["<strong>Registry</strong>", "<strong>Mr Bewley</strong>",
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"The case. The survey. The three previous attempts."],
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["<strong>Stores</strong>", "<strong>Mr Prosser</strong>", "The kit swap, and the argument."],
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["<strong>Medical</strong>", "a nurse, briskly",
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"Anchors issued. Two minutes. Do not make a scene of it."]
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])
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+ H(2, "Registry — the briefing")
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+ P("Give <strong>TT-H01</strong> (case brief) and <strong>TT-H04</strong> (the filed "
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+ "survey) and let them ask. What Bewley will say:")
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+ UL([
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"<strong>The crossing opens on the grade at Mercy Draw, Nevada, at 11:40, for about "
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+ "four minutes.</strong> Every day, for as long as the department has watched it.",
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"<strong>A train is inside it.</strong> Cordera & Western No. 9, five cars, out "
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+ "of Cordera on 3 November 1881, never arrived at Fallon.",
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"<strong>Sixty-one people, by the manifest.</strong> He will not hand the manifest "
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+ "over yet: <em>“You will read it aboard. It reads differently there.”</em>",
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"<strong>Three attempts are on file</strong> — 1974, 1991, 2009. <strong>No "
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+ "survivors. All three tried to stop it.</strong> He does not know why that failed "
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+ "and he says so.",
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"<strong>The order is to close it.</strong> When it fails on its own — within "
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+ "the year — everyone inside is lost outright.",
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"<strong>The survey is the case.</strong> <em>“Bring me the paper. The paper is "
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+ "the case.”</em>"
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])
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+ P("<strong>The one thing Bewley gets wrong.</strong> He believes the crossing puts you "
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+ "on the grade. Every previous team went in expecting to arrive beside the line. "
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+ "<strong>DO NOT CORRECT THIS.</strong> It is on the file wrong, and the file is what "
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+ "they have.")
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+ P("<em>[CUS: Research or Insight]</em> on the file: the three previous attempts all "
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+ "logged their last position as <em>“the north bench”</em>, which nobody "
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+ "has ever queried because nobody has ever come back to be asked about it. "
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+ "<strong>Optional. It is a very good catch and it should feel like one.</strong>")
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+ H(2, "Stores — Standing Order 9")
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+ ART("tt_02_stores", "Stores, and the 1881 issue")
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+ P("Give <strong>TT-H02</strong> and <strong>TT-H03</strong>. Mr Prosser has laid the "
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+ "kit out on a counter and he is not interested in negotiation.")
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+ READ("Nothing you are carrying goes with you. I have laid out what you may take "
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+ "instead. You may argue with me if you like, but I have been doing this for nineteen "
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+ "years and you have been doing it since Thursday.")
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+ P("<strong>Nothing modern goes through.</strong> Give both reasons:")
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+ OL([
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"<strong>It costs you.</strong> An object that does not belong is a thing the far "
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+ "side must also be wrong about. <strong>Using</strong> a modern item across costs "
|
||
+ "<strong>1 Coherence</strong>, per object, first time.",
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"<strong>It is a beacon.</strong> A crossing is a place where the record is already "
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+ "wrong. It notices what does not fit, and the case clock moves."
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])
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+ P("<strong>Charge for using, never for carrying.</strong> A player who smuggles a "
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+ "torch across and never switches it on has made a good decision and should get away "
|
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+ "with it. <strong>The anchor is exempt.</strong>")
|
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+ P("If nobody asks what an anchor is, the nurse tells them: <em>it is the department's "
|
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+ "record that you exist and belong here, and it is the reason you can come back.</em>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Instead of", "They get"], [
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["service pistol", "<strong>Webley revolver</strong> — 1d10, six shots, slow reload"],
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["carbine", "<strong>Martini-Henry</strong> — 2d6+2, <strong>one shot</strong>, then work the lever"],
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||
["torch", "<strong>oil lantern</strong> and lamp oil, which runs out"],
|
||
["the handset", "<strong>nothing.</strong> Out of contact from the moment they cross."],
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["stab vest", "<strong>buff coat</strong> or oilcloth coat"],
|
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["medkit", "<strong>chirurgeon's roll</strong> and <strong>laudanum</strong>"],
|
||
["phone and GPS", "<strong>brass compass</strong>, <strong>pocket watch</strong>, <strong>spyglass</strong>"]
|
||
])
|
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+ P("Plus <strong>period coin</strong>, which will matter in Cordera, and <strong>iron "
|
||
+ "manacles</strong>, which will not.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Failure case")
|
||
+ P("<strong>There isn't one.</strong> Nobody can fail the Bureau. If the table is "
|
||
+ "quiet, cut to Prosser taking somebody's phone out of their hand and move on. "
|
||
+ "<strong>If it is running long at 35 minutes, stop it</strong> — the case is on "
|
||
+ "the handouts and they can read on the drive.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Panic:</strong> no triggers in Act One. Say the word once, explain the "
|
||
+ "track in two sentences, and leave it.") },
|
||
|
||
{ name: "4 · Act Two — Cordera, and where the train went", content:
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ART("tt_12_northbench", "The north bench, 1881 — where the paperwork says the railway is")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Goal:</strong> find out where the line actually is, that something still "
|
||
+ "passes it, and when. <strong>~50 minutes.</strong>")
|
||
+ H(2, "The crossing")
|
||
+ P("Mercy Draw, Nevada, 11:38. The grade runs along the <strong>south</strong> side "
|
||
+ "— ballast and tie marks, rails lifted in 1889. <strong>The crossing does not "
|
||
+ "open there.</strong> It opens on the <strong>north bench</strong>: a strip of empty "
|
||
+ "scrub on the wrong side of the wash, where no railway has ever been.")
|
||
+ READ("The air over the north bench goes wrong at 11:40 — not shimmering, "
|
||
+ "<em>creased</em>, like a page folded and opened again. Somewhere behind it a whistle "
|
||
+ "sounds, a long way off, and a locomotive starts working a grade. You cannot see it. "
|
||
+ "It does not get any nearer.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Everybody crosses. Nobody rolls for it.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>THE FOUR MINUTES IS THE DOOR, NOT THE VISIT.</strong> The crossing is "
|
||
+ "<em>openable</em> for four minutes at 11:40 — that is the window to step "
|
||
+ "through. Once across, the agents are in 1881 for as long as the crossing clock "
|
||
+ "holds, which is an afternoon and an evening. Say this the moment somebody starts "
|
||
+ "counting seconds. <strong>The clock at 6 is the deadline, and it is measured in "
|
||
+ "passes of the train, not in minutes.</strong>")
|
||
+ READ("The other side is the fourth of November, 1881, at about four in the afternoon, "
|
||
+ "and it is twenty degrees colder. You are standing on a bench of scrub and sage on "
|
||
+ "the north side of a dry wash. There is no railway here. There is no railway anywhere "
|
||
+ "you can see.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>R2 is automatic and it should land hard.</strong> They came out where the "
|
||
+ "chart said the railway was, and the chart is in their hands. <em>[CUS: Navigate or "
|
||
+ "Engineering]</em> confirms in one roll that nothing has ever been built here.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Cordera is visible</strong>, about three miles south-west: smoke, a water "
|
||
+ "tank, a grid of roofs.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Cordera")
|
||
+ ART("tt_04_cordera", "Cordera, Nevada Territory, 1881")
|
||
+ P("<strong>A railroad and mining town of about eighteen hundred.</strong> Woodsmoke, "
|
||
+ "horses, coal dust, and mud that freezes at night. Nobody is frightened yet. A train "
|
||
+ "went missing yesterday and the town is treating it as a company problem, which is to "
|
||
+ "say somebody else's.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Nobody here can help them stop it, and almost everybody will help them get "
|
||
+ "near it.</strong> The company wants its train back. Let the players use that.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Location", "Who", "What is here"], [
|
||
["<strong>The company office</strong>", "a harried dispatcher",
|
||
"Orders on spikes, the working timetable, <strong>the original survey in a drawer</strong>"],
|
||
["<strong>The telegraph office</strong>", "<strong>Ada Reyes</strong>",
|
||
"The dispatcher's book, and the only person in town who is ahead of it"],
|
||
["<strong>The roundhouse</strong>", "fitters, a foreman",
|
||
"Men who know the road. One of them walked the Draw this morning and will not go back."],
|
||
["<strong>The Bullion</strong> (saloon)", "everybody",
|
||
"Talk, and the wrong kind of attention. <strong>This is where Act Three finds them.</strong>"],
|
||
["<strong>The livery</strong>", "a liveryman who wants paying", "Horses. This matters in Act Four."],
|
||
["<strong>The assay office</strong>", "a clerk", "The company's notice, and the reward."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "Clue trail")
|
||
+ TABLE(["#", "Clue", "How found", "Type"], [
|
||
["1", "There is no railway on the north bench, and never has been",
|
||
"<strong>Automatic</strong> — they are standing on it", "Essential"],
|
||
["2", "The line is on the <strong>south</strong> bench, four miles out",
|
||
"Anyone in town, for the asking. <strong>Automatic to a single question.</strong>", "Essential"],
|
||
["3", "No. 9 left Cordera 3 Nov and never reached Fallon",
|
||
"<strong>Automatic</strong> — the talk of the town, and on <strong>TT-H05</strong>", "Essential"],
|
||
["4", "The filed survey and the built line disagree",
|
||
"Compare <strong>TT-H04</strong> with the ground — <em>[CUS: Engineering]</em>, or automatic if they simply look", "Essential"],
|
||
["5", "Six months of orders all say north bench",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Research]</em> at the company office, on the spiked orders", "Essential"],
|
||
["6", "<strong>Something still passes the Draw, roughly every forty minutes</strong>",
|
||
"The roundhouse man, or <em>[CUS: Listen]</em> within a mile of the wash", "<strong>Essential</strong>"],
|
||
["7", "No 11:45 entry in the dispatcher's book",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Research]</em>, or Ada Reyes volunteers it if treated civilly", "Optional"],
|
||
["8", "Ada has sent the same query up the line forty times", "Talk to her", "Optional"],
|
||
["9", "E. Vane, surveyor, was aboard", "<em>[CUS: Research]</em> on the waybills", "Optional"],
|
||
["10", "Six men went out yesterday to serve a paper on the train",
|
||
"The saloon, <em>[CUS: Insight]</em> or buying a drink", "Optional — <strong>the hook into Act Three</strong>"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>Clue 6 is the one the act exists for.</strong> If they have not got it by "
|
||
+ "1:15, the roundhouse foreman comes and finds <em>them</em>: a section hand called "
|
||
+ "<strong>Tobin Cray</strong> walked out to the Draw at first light to look for No. 9, "
|
||
+ "heard it coming, and came back without looking.")
|
||
+ READ("I heard her working the grade, mister. Steam and rods and all of it, close enough "
|
||
+ "to throw a stone at. There's nothing on that line. I stood there till it came round "
|
||
+ "again and then I stopped standing there.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Fallbacks.</strong> Clues 1 and 3 cannot be missed. Clue 2 is one question "
|
||
+ "to one person. If the party stalls on 4 or 5, the dispatcher — who wants his "
|
||
+ "train found — puts the filed survey in their hands himself and asks them what "
|
||
+ "they make of it.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Money.</strong> Period coin buys drinks, a room, a liveryman's goodwill and "
|
||
+ "a roundhouse man's hour. <strong>A party that tries to pay with anything else has "
|
||
+ "used a modern object across:</strong> 1 Coherence, and the clock moves.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Panic triggers")
|
||
+ UL([
|
||
"<strong>Arriving on ground that should have a railway on it and does not</strong> "
|
||
+ "— 1 point, if a player wants it. Offer; do not force.",
|
||
"<strong>Hearing the train pass with nothing on the line</strong> — 1 point, "
|
||
+ "and this one is not optional for anyone who goes and listens."
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "Failure case")
|
||
+ P("<strong>They cannot fail to find the Draw</strong> — the town will tell them "
|
||
+ "where the line is. What they can fail to do is find out that something still runs on "
|
||
+ "it, and the roundhouse fallback covers that. If Act Two overruns, cut the assay "
|
||
+ "office and the saloon talk and let Act Three come to them.") },
|
||
|
||
{ name: "5 · Act Three — Rance Doyle's men", content:
|
||
ART("tt_13_standoff", "Six men across a muddy street")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Goal:</strong> a town-side obstacle with the same shape as the one on the "
|
||
+ "train, and a name the players will meet again. <strong>~35 minutes.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>One-line essence: Rance Doyle wants his brother back, and the agents look "
|
||
+ "exactly like the people who took him.</strong>")
|
||
+ H(2, "What is actually going on")
|
||
+ P("Eleven weeks ago the Cordera & Western stopped paying the mine. Nine days ago "
|
||
+ "<strong>Josiah Ambrose</strong> got a writ of attachment out of a territorial judge "
|
||
+ "in Fallon against the company payroll. <strong>On 3 November he and five men went "
|
||
+ "out to serve it on No. 9</strong>, and none of them came back — because the "
|
||
+ "train did not come back.")
|
||
+ P("The company posted a <strong>notice</strong> (<strong>TT-H05</strong>) calling No. 9 "
|
||
+ "overdue, offering a reward, and naming Ambrose's six as wanted for interfering with "
|
||
+ "company property. There is a <strong>company detective in town</strong>, "
|
||
+ "<strong>Mr Shard</strong>, buying drinks and asking who was friendly with the writ "
|
||
+ "men.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Then five strangers arrive in coats that do not fit, with money, asking "
|
||
+ "about the train.</strong> Rance Doyle is not stupid and he is not wrong to draw the "
|
||
+ "conclusion he draws.")
|
||
+ H(2, "The confrontation")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Where:</strong> the street outside The Bullion, or the livery, or wherever "
|
||
+ "the party is when the act needs to start. <strong>Six men</strong>, Rance at the "
|
||
+ "front, two with revolvers, one with a shotgun, three with what was to hand.")
|
||
+ READ("There are six of them and they have arranged themselves across the street in the "
|
||
+ "way men do when they have talked about it first. The one at the front has a face "
|
||
+ "like his brother's, which you have no way of knowing yet. He says: <em>“You've "
|
||
+ "been asking after the train. So've we. Ours went out on it.”</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Rance wants three things, in this order:</strong> to know where his brother "
|
||
+ "is, to know whether the agents are Shard's, and to be taken seriously.")
|
||
+ H(2, "How this resolves")
|
||
+ P("<strong>There is no roll that makes this go away, and there is no roll that makes "
|
||
+ "it a fight.</strong> It resolves on what the players say.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["They do", "What happens"], [
|
||
["<strong>Tell him the truth</strong> — the train is still out there, still running, and they are going to it",
|
||
"<strong>It works. No roll.</strong> He believes them, because it matches what Cray said and nothing else has. He wants to come."],
|
||
["<strong>Show him TT-H04 or explain the survey</strong>",
|
||
"Works as well as the truth, and faster. He cannot read a chart, but he can tell when somebody is not performing."],
|
||
["Deny everything, stonewall, pull rank",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Fast Talk or Persuade — difficult]</em>. Success buys an exit, not an ally. Failure goes to the standoff."],
|
||
["<strong>Claim to be from the company, or get caught lying</strong>",
|
||
"Straight to the standoff, and Rance's men mean it"],
|
||
["Draw first", "The standoff, immediately, and the agents started it"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "The standoff — and what losing costs")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Rance's men are not trying to kill anybody.</strong> They intend to take the "
|
||
+ "agents somewhere quiet and find out what they know. <strong>Run it as a fight that "
|
||
+ "stops early.</strong>")
|
||
+ UL([
|
||
"<strong>Rance calls it off the moment one of his men goes down</strong>, or one of "
|
||
+ "the agents does. He has already lost a brother this week.",
|
||
"<strong>A downed agent is captured, not killed.</strong> The dying rules apply and "
|
||
+ "Rance's men will fetch a doctor, because they are not murderers and they know "
|
||
+ "what a murder charge does to a strike."
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>MEASURED, 400 runs each, four duty-roster agents against the six:</strong>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["The agents", "Result"], [
|
||
["<strong>From cover, and Rance folds early</strong>", "0.4 of 4 hurt, effectively nobody down, over in about 2 rounds"],
|
||
["<strong>In the open, and Rance folds early</strong>", "1.25 of 4 hurt, one party in eight loses somebody to the floor"],
|
||
["<strong>Shoot to kill — fought to the finish</strong>", "<strong>1.75 of 4 down, ten rounds, and the party is wiped in 24% of runs</strong>"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>The early stop is what makes this act survivable, not the miners being "
|
||
+ "weak.</strong> Six armed men fought to a finish are as dangerous as the payroll box "
|
||
+ "in Act Five — nearly one party in four does not walk out of the street. "
|
||
+ "<strong>If the agents start executing people, do not quietly soften it.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Losing the standoff costs them the 1881 issue.</strong> Rance's men take the "
|
||
+ "Webleys, the Martini, the spyglass and the coin, and hold the agents in a back room "
|
||
+ "for two hours. <strong>Nobody dies and nothing is unrecoverable</strong> — but "
|
||
+ "Act Four now starts with an unarmed party, and Act Five is a gunfight. <strong>Say "
|
||
+ "this cost out loud before the first shot.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Getting the kit back:</strong> ask Rance for it, once they have told him the "
|
||
+ "truth. He returns it, minus the coin, which has been spent.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Rance wants to come")
|
||
+ P("<strong>This is the important part of the act and it is easy to miss.</strong> Once "
|
||
+ "he believes them, Rance asks to come to the Draw, and he will follow at a distance "
|
||
+ "if refused. He is a fit, angry, useful man with a horse and no idea what he is "
|
||
+ "walking towards.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["The players", "What it buys, what it costs"], [
|
||
["<strong>Take him as far as the Draw</strong>",
|
||
"The default. He knows the ground, he gets them horses, and he stands on the bench and watches."],
|
||
["<strong>Take him aboard</strong>",
|
||
"He is competent in the four minutes — and <strong>he is in car three when his brother is shot, every pass.</strong> Then they have to tell him what closing it does. <strong>Only run it if the table can hold it.</strong>"],
|
||
["<strong>Refuse him</strong>", "He follows anyway, arrives late, and is on the bench at the end."],
|
||
["<strong>Never tell him anything</strong>", "He is in the crowd at the epilogue asking a Registry man questions nobody will answer."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>Give TT-H07 here</strong> — the list of six names in Ambrose's hand, "
|
||
+ "which Rance has carried in his coat since Thursday. <strong>Do not explain it.</strong> "
|
||
+ "In Act Five they will be standing in a car with all six.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Panic triggers")
|
||
+ P("Being taken and held — 1 point to anyone disarmed and locked in. "
|
||
+ "<strong>Nothing else.</strong> This act is meant to be a hard hour in an ordinary "
|
||
+ "world, not a supernatural one.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Failure case")
|
||
+ P("<strong>If the table talks its way out in five minutes, that is a win and you have "
|
||
+ "thirty minutes back</strong> — spend them on Act Four, which always wants "
|
||
+ "more. If it goes to a fight and stalls, Shard's arrival with two hired men breaks it "
|
||
+ "up: everybody scatters, and now the agents owe Rance nothing and know nothing.") },
|
||
|
||
{ name: "6 · Act Four — Getting aboard", content:
|
||
ART("tt_03_bench", "The grade on the south bench")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Goal:</strong> the Draw, the arithmetic of a train that cannot stop, and "
|
||
+ "forty seconds of slow track. <strong>~45 minutes.</strong>")
|
||
+ READ("The Draw is a dry wash a quarter-mile across with a made grade running the length "
|
||
+ "of the south side. There is nothing on the line. At eleven minutes past the hour you "
|
||
+ "hear a whistle, and then a locomotive working hard up the grade towards you, and the "
|
||
+ "sound goes past at about thirty miles an hour, and there is nothing there.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>It passes roughly every forty minutes.</strong> Let them watch two passes "
|
||
+ "before they commit to anything. <strong>Each pass they watch moves the crossing "
|
||
+ "clock one.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>R9 — the sound is a train ACCELERATING, always</strong> — is "
|
||
+ "<em>[CUS: Listen or Engineering]</em>, or free to anybody who was at the roundhouse.")
|
||
+ H(2, "What they are up against")
|
||
+ P("<strong>The train cannot stop and cannot be flagged.</strong> Thirty miles an hour "
|
||
+ "on the level, and the only place it is slow is <strong>the top of the grade at the "
|
||
+ "water tower</strong> — about eight miles an hour, for perhaps forty seconds.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>The water tower is half a mile up the grade</strong> and it is still "
|
||
+ "standing in 1881, which it will not be in the present day. Anybody who looks at the "
|
||
+ "ground sees the answer.")
|
||
+ H(2, "The three routes")
|
||
+ ART("tt_05_boarding", "The water tower, and forty seconds of slow track")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Say which route suits whom, out loud, before they choose.</strong>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Route", "Roll", "Suits"], [
|
||
["<strong>Drop from the tower</strong> — twelve feet onto a moving roof",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Athletics — average; <strong>only a fumble is a fall</strong>]</em>",
|
||
"Containment, the criminal, the Field Lead"],
|
||
["<strong>Ride it down</strong> — horses alongside on the bench, step across",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Athletics — difficult]</em>. <strong>A local does the riding</strong> — Rance, one of his men, or the liveryman.",
|
||
"Nobody, really. It is the fast option and the worst one."],
|
||
["<strong>The wagon on the grade</strong> — four horses, a plank across",
|
||
"<em>[CUS: Athletics — easy]</em>, slowest to arrange, needs the company's or Rance's help",
|
||
"<strong>The doctor and the Registry officer</strong>"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>THERE IS NO RIDE SKILL IN THIS GAME</strong> and the agents do not have "
|
||
+ "one. Any horse work is done by a local who is doing the players a favour, and the "
|
||
+ "agent's roll is only for the step across. Say so the moment somebody suggests "
|
||
+ "horses.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>The wagon is easier than the tower, and the tower is easier than the "
|
||
+ "horses.</strong> A party that spends twenty minutes arranging the wagon has bought "
|
||
+ "an easy roll and should get one.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>DO NOT MAKE THE TOWER DIFFICULT.</strong> Playtested at halved skill it put "
|
||
+ "four agents on 12–31% and all four missed, which stalls the one scene the "
|
||
+ "scenario is built around. Playtested with all five on the tower: two missed twice, "
|
||
+ "had to be carried across on the department's plank, and became passengers in their "
|
||
+ "own set-piece.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Everybody has to get on.</strong> A failed attempt gets the next pass, forty "
|
||
+ "minutes later, and the clock moves — not a full stop.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Panic:</strong> boarding is worth a point to anybody who wants one. Offer "
|
||
+ "it; do not force it.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>At 2:55 they are aboard.</strong> If two attempts have failed, the "
|
||
+ "department's second wagon arrives with two more agents and a plank, and the players "
|
||
+ "owe somebody a favour.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Failure case")
|
||
+ P("<strong>They cannot fail this act, only pay for it.</strong> Every failure is forty "
|
||
+ "minutes and a click of the clock. If the clock reaches 5 during Act Four, tell them "
|
||
+ "plainly: <strong>one pass left.</strong>") },
|
||
|
||
{ name: "7 · Act Five — The four minutes", content:
|
||
ART("tt_06_car", "Car three, between passes")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Goal:</strong> survive a gunfight nobody started for their benefit, work out "
|
||
+ "that it repeats, and close the crossing anyway. <strong>~50 minutes.</strong>")
|
||
+ READ("It is warm. That is the first thing. Sixty-one people in five cars and it smells "
|
||
+ "of bodies and coal smoke and coffee, and somebody has organised a rota for the "
|
||
+ "water. A child is asleep across two seats with a coat over her. They look up when "
|
||
+ "you come through the door, and one of them says: <em>“You want to be somewhere "
|
||
+ "else in about six minutes.”</em>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Where", "What"], [
|
||
["The locomotive", "<strong>Marius Kell</strong>, who has not let go of the regulator"],
|
||
["Tender, car one", "Coal that has not run out — the first hard evidence"],
|
||
["Car two", "Most of the passengers. They lie down before it starts. They have a drill."],
|
||
["<strong>Car three</strong>", "<strong>Where the fight happens.</strong> Overturned seats at both ends."],
|
||
["Car four", "Freight, the payroll box bolted down, the signed survey in the satchel"],
|
||
["Car five", "<strong>Elias Vane</strong>, alone, watching the line come out from under"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>Give TT-H08, the manifest, when Hester Bligh first speaks to them.</strong>")
|
||
+ H(2, "The four minutes")
|
||
+ ART("tt_08_gunfight", "The four minutes")
|
||
+ P("Starts on the whistle for the grade. Run it in rounds. <strong>It is the same four "
|
||
+ "minutes every time</strong> — same men, same shots, same two passengers hit in "
|
||
+ "the second minute.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Minute", "What happens if nobody interferes"], [
|
||
["1", "Ambrose's five come forward from car four. Merritt's four are at the front of car three. Somebody shouts <em>put it down</em>; both sides think they said it."],
|
||
["2", "First volley. <strong>Two passengers are hit</strong> — <strong>Tom Doyle</strong>, and Mrs Danforth's arm. Every time."],
|
||
["3", "Merritt falls back to the car four door and holds it. Ambrose takes the overturned seats. Everybody reloads: a Webley is six, a Martini is one."],
|
||
["4", "Ambrose reaches the box. Merritt shoots him through the door. The whistle sounds, and it resets."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>If Rance came aboard</strong>, he is in car three from minute one and he has "
|
||
+ "seen his brother. He will go to him. He cannot be talked out of it. <strong>He is "
|
||
+ "not part of the loop, so he CAN be shot</strong>, and the exposure table applies to "
|
||
+ "him as to any agent. Play him as a man with no interest at all in the mission.")
|
||
+ H(2, "HOW MUCH FIRE THE AGENTS DRAW — read before running it")
|
||
+ P("<strong>The two sides are shooting at each other, not at the agents.</strong> "
|
||
+ "Getting this wrong turns the scene into a massacre. Work out what each agent is "
|
||
+ "<em>doing</em> and give them that much fire and no more.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["The agent is", "Shooters", "Cover", "Measured over 300 runs"], [
|
||
["<strong>Head down, not acting</strong>", "none", "—", "Untouched. A legitimate choice for a pass."],
|
||
["<strong>Acting from cover</strong>", "1", "−30%", "<strong>2 of 4 hurt, half a party member down, no wipes.</strong> The intended shape."],
|
||
["<strong>Moving in the open</strong>", "2", "−30%", "3 of 4 hurt, one down. One party in 300 wiped."],
|
||
["<strong>Going for the payroll box</strong>", "2", "none", "<strong>3½ of 4 down. More than half of all parties wiped.</strong>"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>Tell them the last row before they commit, not after.</strong> Everything "
|
||
+ "else is survivable. <strong>Nobody rolls to hide</strong> — taking cover is a "
|
||
+ "decision, and it works.")
|
||
+ H(2, "THE LOOP RESETS. THE AGENTS DO NOT.")
|
||
+ P("Everybody who belongs to 1881 is back on their feet at the next pass, unhurt, with "
|
||
+ "no memory of having been shot. <strong>The agents are not part of the loop and their "
|
||
+ "wounds are permanent.</strong> Say this before the first volley — a player who "
|
||
+ "thinks the reset will heal them will take risks that kill them.")
|
||
+ P("A downed agent is <em>down</em>, not dead: the dying rules apply, and the only "
|
||
+ "medicine aboard is a chirurgeon's roll and a bottle of laudanum. First Aid is the "
|
||
+ "whole answer, and somebody has to stop shooting to give it.")
|
||
+ H(2, "What the players will try")
|
||
+ TABLE(["They try", "What it does"], [
|
||
["Shout, show a warrant card, take charge", "Nothing. No authority aboard is recognised. <em>[CUS: Persuade at −30% on the first pass]</em>"],
|
||
["Shoot one side", "It works, and changes nothing. Everyone is back next pass. <strong>Let that land in silence.</strong>"],
|
||
["Get the passengers down", "Genuinely useful. Doyle and Mrs Danforth can be pulled clear before minute two."],
|
||
["Get to the payroll box", "The obvious idea, and the one that kills them. See the table."],
|
||
["Show one side the other's paper", "<strong>The good move.</strong> It does not stop the fight; it is how they learn what they are looking at."],
|
||
["Get to the locomotive", "Through car two and the tender, under fire in the gap. This is the route to the ending."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "The paper — the ambiguity, made findable")
|
||
+ ART("tt_09_payroll", "The payroll box, car four")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Merritt</strong> carries a letter of engagement from the company: see the "
|
||
+ "box to Fallon, surrender it to no one <em>upon any pretext whatsoever, including the "
|
||
+ "presentation of any paper</em>. <strong>Ambrose</strong> carries a sealed writ of "
|
||
+ "attachment naming that same payroll against eleven weeks of unpaid wages.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Both genuine. Neither man has seen the other's.</strong> An agent holding "
|
||
+ "both has the whole truth: the company sold the same money twice, then put nine armed "
|
||
+ "men on a train with it.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>NO ROLL IS NEEDED TO SEE EITHER PAPER.</strong> Between passes Merritt shows "
|
||
+ "his letter to anybody who asks — he is proud of it, and he has had a hundred "
|
||
+ "and forty-five years with nobody to show it to. Ambrose shows the writ to anybody not "
|
||
+ "currently shooting at him, because having it read is the entire thing he wants. "
|
||
+ "<strong>Do not put Persuade in front of this.</strong> Playtested with a real team, "
|
||
+ "the Field Lead's Persuade was 15% and fell to 1% under the crowd penalty.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Closing it")
|
||
+ ART("tt_10_couple", "The gap between the cars")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Kell will stop the train if a person he believes has authority tells him to, "
|
||
+ "out loud, to his face.</strong> Not on a note, not shouted from the tender. Getting "
|
||
+ "there means the gap between the cars — <em>[CUS: Athletics]</em>.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Convincing him takes NO ROLL if they can tell him one true thing about his "
|
||
+ "own train.</strong> That the coal has not run out. That it is the same four minutes. "
|
||
+ "That the line was never on the north bench. The moment somebody who knows what is "
|
||
+ "wrong says so, he asks them to say when.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Only a party that can tell him nothing has to roll</strong> — Persuade "
|
||
+ "or Status at average, and a failure means he wants another pass to think. "
|
||
+ "<strong>Do not gate the ending on Persuade.</strong> Seven of the ten duty-roster "
|
||
+ "agents have neither trained; playtested, three separate attempts on Kell all failed "
|
||
+ "and the scenario had no way to end.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>When the brakes go on, the loop lets go.</strong> Four minutes finish for "
|
||
+ "the first time since 1881. Tom Doyle and Josiah Ambrose do not get up. They never "
|
||
+ "did.")
|
||
+ H(2, "The choices — no roll resolves this")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Choice", "What it costs"], [
|
||
["<strong>Close it as ordered</strong>", "The mission, done. Fifty-nine released into their own century. Two men die of wounds taken in 1881, in 1881."],
|
||
["<strong>Close it, having pulled the passengers clear</strong>",
|
||
"Works for Mrs Danforth. <strong>It does not save Tom Doyle</strong> — he is shot again on every pass they spend arranging it, and the wound that kills him is the one from the pass they stop on. Nobody can save Ambrose: only stopping the train stops Merritt shooting him, and stopping the train is what kills him."],
|
||
["<strong>Try to end the fight first</strong>", "Admirable, probably impossible. Every pass moves the crossing clock; at 6 it closes with everyone inside."],
|
||
["<strong>Refuse, leave it running</strong>", "Everyone lives, for a value of living four minutes long. It fails inside a year and then nobody is released at all."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "If they ask Vane")
|
||
+ READ("I filed a chart that said the line was somewhere it was not, because a Mr Smith "
|
||
+ "told me to and I wanted the work. Six months of honest railwaymen repeating it made it "
|
||
+ "true. Now — you have seen the middle of the car. Two of those men do not get "
|
||
+ "up when it stops. They have not got up two million times and they will not get up "
|
||
+ "now. I would still stop it. It is not our place to hold a thing still because we "
|
||
+ "have grown fond of it.") },
|
||
|
||
{ name: "8 · Epilogue, cast, and what not to resolve", content:
|
||
ART("tt_07_after", "Afterwards, the register")
|
||
+ P("<strong>~15 minutes.</strong> A Registry room, a form, and somebody writing down "
|
||
+ "sixty-one names.")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Ending", "What the register says"], [
|
||
["<strong>Closed as ordered</strong>", "Fifty-nine walk forward into their own century. Ambrose and Doyle die of wounds taken on 3 November 1881, four minutes after they took them. Registry counts it a success and it is one."],
|
||
["<strong>Closed, Mrs Danforth pulled clear first</strong>", "As above, and she keeps her arm."],
|
||
["<strong>Closed late</strong>", "The same ending, more expensively. If the clock reached 6 first, add the agents to the list."],
|
||
["<strong>Left running</strong>", "Logged, monitored, inherited. Sixty-one people continue to live four minutes. When it fails, nobody is released at all."]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>If Rance was aboard:</strong> he is in the Registry corridor, and nobody has "
|
||
+ "told him he cannot be. He wants to know why a government he has never heard of "
|
||
+ "decided his brother should die on schedule. <strong>Let a player answer him. Do not "
|
||
+ "answer for them.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>If Rance was not aboard:</strong> he is on the north bench at dusk with six "
|
||
+ "horses and no riders coming back, and he is still there when the crossing closes.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Registry's note on any ending:</strong> <em>“The department did not "
|
||
+ "cause these deaths. It ceased to prevent them. The distinction matters to the file "
|
||
+ "and it is not expected to matter to the agents.”</em>")
|
||
+ H(2, "NPC roster")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Who", "Essence", "Key line"], [
|
||
["<strong>Mr Bewley</strong>, Registry", "wants the chart and the truth written down", "<em>“Bring me the paper. The paper is the case.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Mr Prosser</strong>, Stores", "nineteen years of this, and will not be argued with", "<em>“You may argue. I have laid out what you may take.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Ada Reyes</strong>, telegraph", "an answer up the line", "<em>“It never got to Fallon. I've sent it forty times.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Tobin Cray</strong>, section hand", "to not go back out there", "<em>“There's nothing on that line. I stopped standing there.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Rance Doyle</strong>, miner", "his brother back, and to be taken seriously", "<em>“You've been asking after the train. So've we.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Mr Shard</strong>, company detective", "names, and the reward money", "<em>“Who drank with them? That's all.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Marius Kell</strong>, engineer", "to be allowed to stop", "<em>“You tell me when. I'll not do it before you say.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Hester Bligh</strong>, conductor", "her passengers accounted for", "<em>“Sixty-one aboard. I have counted them every hour since.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Cass Merritt</strong>, hired guard", "to see the box to Fallon, as engaged", "<em>“I have a letter. Whatever you have, I have a letter.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Josiah Ambrose</strong>, miner", "eleven weeks of wages, lawfully", "<em>“There is a judge's seal on this. Read it and then shoot me.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Tom Doyle</strong>, miner", "to go home. Dies at minute two, every time.", "<em>“Rance said don't. I should've listened to Rance.”</em>"],
|
||
["<strong>Elias Vane</strong>, surveyor", "to be asked, at last", "<em>“I signed it. Six months of honest men made it true.”</em>"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "Do not resolve")
|
||
+ UL([
|
||
"<strong>Who was in the right.</strong> Both papers are genuine and the company is "
|
||
+ "not aboard to answer for it. If a player asks the GM to adjudicate, do not.",
|
||
"<strong>Why the coal has not run out.</strong> The wave sustains it; that is as far "
|
||
+ "as anyone gets.",
|
||
"<strong>What is at the far end of the line.</strong> Nobody aboard has reached it.",
|
||
"<strong>Whether closing it was a rescue.</strong> Fifty-nine people say yes. Two men "
|
||
+ "do not get to say.",
|
||
"<strong>Whether Rance forgives them.</strong> He does not say, and Registry does not ask.",
|
||
"<strong>Who Mr Smith is.</strong> Vane will describe him if asked: a grey coat, the "
|
||
+ "company's paper, a pleasant manner, and a face he cannot now picture although he has "
|
||
+ "tried for a hundred and forty-five years. The company never employed him. Registry "
|
||
+ "opens a file on the name and it stays empty. <em>(He is the thread into STANDING "
|
||
+ "ORDER. Plant the name and nothing more.)</em>"
|
||
])
|
||
+ H(2, "GM notes")
|
||
+ UL([
|
||
"<strong>Act One is not a briefing, it is a workplace.</strong> The birthday card "
|
||
+ "going round Accounts is doing as much work as the case file.",
|
||
"<strong>Play the passengers as people, hard</strong> — and the nine men in the "
|
||
+ "fight hardest of all.",
|
||
"<strong>Never let the players win the fight.</strong> They can survive it, shape it, "
|
||
+ "and pull people out of it. Only the brakes end it.",
|
||
"<strong>Rance is the emotional wiring of the whole case.</strong> He turns a number "
|
||
+ "into a surname.",
|
||
"<strong>Cut first:</strong> the assay office, the saloon talk, and the Act Three "
|
||
+ "fight. <strong>Never cut the boarding.</strong>"
|
||
]) }
|
||
|
||
];
|
||
|
||
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------- */
|
||
|
||
export const TT_HANDOUTS = [
|
||
|
||
{ name: "1 · Case brief", content:
|
||
P("<strong>DEPARTMENTAL CUSTODY SERVICE</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<strong>CASE:</strong> TT-004 / MERCY DRAW<br>"
|
||
+ "<strong>CLASSIFICATION:</strong> ACROSS — PERIOD<br>"
|
||
+ "<strong>FAR SIDE:</strong> 3–4 November 1881, Nevada Territory")
|
||
+ P("A crossing has stood open in a dry wash in Nevada since 1881. It is held open by a "
|
||
+ "narrow-gauge train, No. 9 of the Cordera & Western, which has been running the "
|
||
+ "same four miles of track for a hundred and forty-five years and has never stopped.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Sixty-one people are aboard. They are alive.</strong> By their reckoning it "
|
||
+ "has been about nine hours.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>There is an armed exchange in progress aboard.</strong> Two parties, four "
|
||
+ "minutes, and it repeats on every pass. It has repeated approximately two million "
|
||
+ "times. Both parties are armed with period weapons and both are lethal.")
|
||
+ H(2, "Orders")
|
||
+ OL(["Establish what holds the crossing open.",
|
||
"<strong>Close it.</strong> The people aboard are then released into their own "
|
||
+ "time to live out the remainder of their lives — or not to, exactly as "
|
||
+ "they would have done had this department never existed. That is the objective. "
|
||
+ "It is not a rescue and it is not an execution.",
|
||
"Recover the filed survey. Registry wants the paper.",
|
||
"<strong>Be off it when it closes.</strong>"])
|
||
+ P("<strong>You are not authorised to prevent any death that would have occurred on 3 "
|
||
+ "November 1881.</strong> You are authorised to stop preventing them.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Containment 6 · Resources 5 · Clearance 4</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<em>Three previous attempts are on file. None returned. All three tried to stop "
|
||
+ "the train first.</em>")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "2 · Standing Order 9 — period crossings", content:
|
||
P("<strong>STANDING ORDER 9</strong><br>CROSSINGS TO A DATED FAR SIDE")
|
||
+ P("<strong>NOTHING MODERN GOES THROUGH.</strong> No exceptions are granted for "
|
||
+ "convenience, and none has ever been granted for safety. You will be shot at with "
|
||
+ "1881 weapons and you will answer with 1881 weapons.")
|
||
+ OL([
|
||
"An object that does not belong to the far side is a thing the far side must also "
|
||
+ "be wrong about. <strong>Using such an object across costs one Coherence, per "
|
||
+ "object, the first time.</strong>",
|
||
"It is also a beacon. A crossing is a place where the record is already wrong. It "
|
||
+ "notices what does not fit.",
|
||
"<strong>Carrying is not using.</strong> The department does not search you. It "
|
||
+ "simply advises you that the cost falls when the thing is switched on, drawn, "
|
||
+ "worn or fired.",
|
||
"<strong>Your anchor is exempt.</strong> It is yours, it is of no value, and it is "
|
||
+ "the only object the department will not take off you.",
|
||
"Stores will issue to the period. Do not argue with the storeman."
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<em>Signed for Registry. This order is older than everyone who has to obey it.</em>")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "3 · Issue list — 1881", content:
|
||
P("<strong>STORES · ISSUE AGAINST CASE TT-004</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<em>Sign for each item. Sign again when you bring it back.</em>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Item", "Note"], [
|
||
["<strong>Webley revolver</strong>", "1d10 · six shots · reloading takes a round you will not have"],
|
||
["<strong>Martini-Henry rifle</strong>", "2d6+2 · <strong>one shot</strong>, then work the lever"],
|
||
["<strong>Oil lantern</strong> + lamp oil", "it goes out, and it can be seen from a long way off"],
|
||
["<strong>Brass compass · pocket watch · spyglass</strong>", "there is nothing else to navigate or time by"],
|
||
["<strong>Buff coat</strong> or oilcloth coat", "in place of the vest"],
|
||
["<strong>Chirurgeon's roll · laudanum</strong>", "in place of the medkit"],
|
||
["<strong>Iron manacles · sealing wax · quill and ink</strong>", "you will need to write things down and lock things up"],
|
||
["<strong>Period coin</strong>", "the company will want paying and so will the livery"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<strong>NOT ISSUED:</strong> handset, torch, stab vest, service pistol, medkit, "
|
||
+ "field slate, scanner, anything with a battery in it.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>KEEP:</strong> your anchor.")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "4 · The filed survey", content:
|
||
P("<strong>CORDERA & WESTERN RAIL ROAD CO.</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "SURVEY OF LINE — MERCY DRAW SECTION — FILED 12 APRIL 1881")
|
||
+ P("<em>A drawing. A dry wash running roughly east to west, benches marked on both "
|
||
+ "sides, and the proposed line drawn firmly along the <strong>NORTH</strong> "
|
||
+ "bench, with levels and chainages written along it in a neat hand.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Certified a true survey of the ground:</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<strong>E. VANE</strong>, Surveyor to the Company")
|
||
+ P("<em>Countersigned, in a different and much faster hand, by a company officer whose "
|
||
+ "signature is not legible.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>The line was laid on the south bench.</strong> It is still there. You have "
|
||
+ "walked on it.")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "5 · Company notice — No. 9 overdue", content:
|
||
P("<strong>CORDERA & WESTERN RAIL ROAD COMPANY</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<strong>NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC</strong><br>Cordera, 4th November 1881")
|
||
+ P("<strong>TRAIN NO. 9</strong>, being the scheduled service of the 3rd instant from "
|
||
+ "Cordera to Fallon, five cars, is <strong>OVERDUE AND UNACCOUNTED</strong>. The said "
|
||
+ "train did not arrive at Fallon and has not been reported upon any portion of the "
|
||
+ "line.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD</strong> is offered for information leading to "
|
||
+ "the recovery of the said train and the property aboard her.")
|
||
+ P("<strong>WANTED FOR INTERFERENCE WITH COMPANY PROPERTY:</strong> J. AMBROSE, and "
|
||
+ "five men in his company, believed to have boarded the said train at the water stop "
|
||
+ "upon a pretended paper. Any person harbouring or assisting the same will be "
|
||
+ "prosecuted to the full extent.")
|
||
+ P("<em>Inquiries to Mr SHARD, at the Bullion.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>BY ORDER</strong>, the Superintendent.")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "6 · Working timetable and last dispatch", content:
|
||
P("<strong>CORDERA & WESTERN · WORKING TIMETABLE No. 14</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<em>In effect 1 October 1881</em>")
|
||
+ TABLE(["Train", "Cordera", "Mercy Draw (north bench)", "Fallon"], [
|
||
["No. 9 · mixed", "10:55", "<strong>11:40</strong>", "13:20"],
|
||
["No. 4 · ore", "14:10", "14:55", "16:35"],
|
||
["No. 9 · return", "18:00", "18:45", "20:25"]
|
||
])
|
||
+ P("<em>Every timetable, waybill and dispatch issued by this company for six months "
|
||
+ "names the north bench. There is no railway on the north bench and there never "
|
||
+ "was.</em>")
|
||
+ H(2, "Dispatcher's book · 3 November 1881")
|
||
+ P("<code>11:31 No.9 out of Cordera, on time, 61 souls and mixed freight</code><br>"
|
||
+ "<code>11:38 No.9 entering the Draw. Whistle heard. Clear road to Fallon</code><br>"
|
||
+ "<code>11:45 —</code><br>"
|
||
+ "<code>11:52 Fallon asks after No.9</code><br>"
|
||
+ "<code>12:20 Fallon says No.9 has not arrived. Line walked. Nothing found</code><br>"
|
||
+ "<code>14:00 Line walked again, both benches. Nothing found</code>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>There is no 11:45 entry.</strong> The page is not torn and nothing is "
|
||
+ "crossed out. The clerk simply had nothing to write.")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "7 · The writ men — six names", content:
|
||
P("<em>A leaf torn from a pocket book. Pencil, in a careful hand that is not used to "
|
||
+ "writing much. Rance Doyle has carried it since Thursday.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Went out 3rd Nov. to serve the paper on No. 9:</strong>")
|
||
+ UL(["<strong>Josiah Ambrose</strong> — has the writ",
|
||
"<strong>Tom Doyle</strong>",
|
||
"Wm. Sennett",
|
||
"P. Garrity",
|
||
"Halloran",
|
||
"the Swede — <em>Nilsson</em>"])
|
||
+ P("<em>Underneath, in the same pencil, pressed harder:</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>“Tom said he would be back Friday.”</strong>")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "8 · Passenger manifest", content:
|
||
P("<strong>No. 9 · 3 NOVEMBER 1881 · SIXTY-ONE SOULS</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "<em>Kept by H. Bligh, Conductor. Counted hourly since.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Crew (4):</strong> M. Kell, engineer · J. Doss, fireman · H. Bligh, "
|
||
+ "conductor · T. Ruiz, brakeman")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Passengers (57), in part:</strong> E. Vane, surveyor · the Wheelock family "
|
||
+ "(6, incl. four children) · Sr. Mary Agnes and two novices · A. Pike, assayer · "
|
||
+ "eleven miners returning to Fallon · Mrs C. Danforth and infant · Dr S. Okafor, "
|
||
+ "physician · nineteen others named · <strong>four unnamed, entered only as "
|
||
+ "“working passage”</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Children aboard: nine.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("<em>The conductor's count has never once come out wrong. She would like that "
|
||
+ "noted.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Nine of the sixty-one are aboard for the payroll.</strong> Four in company "
|
||
+ "coats. Five miners of the Cordera works. They are not listed together, because "
|
||
+ "nobody knew.")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "9 · Letter of engagement — found on Merritt", content:
|
||
P("<em>Good paper. Company letterhead, a wax seal, and a hand that has written a "
|
||
+ "thousand of these.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>CORDERA & WESTERN RAIL ROAD CO.</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "Cordera, Nevada Territory · 29 October 1881")
|
||
+ P("Mr C. MERRITT,")
|
||
+ P("You are engaged by this Company, with three men of your choosing, to attend the "
|
||
+ "payroll consignment aboard No. 9 on the third proximo and to see it safe to the "
|
||
+ "Company's agent at Fallon.")
|
||
+ P("You are to admit no person to the freight car and to surrender the box to no "
|
||
+ "person save the said agent, <strong>upon any pretext whatsoever</strong>, "
|
||
+ "including the presentation of any paper, order or instrument. The Company will "
|
||
+ "answer for any such paper in its own courts and not upon its own train.")
|
||
+ P("Your fee is fixed at the sum agreed. The key travels with you.")
|
||
+ P("<em>Signed for the Company</em> — <strong>and the signature is not "
|
||
+ "legible.</strong>")
|
||
},
|
||
|
||
{ name: "10 · Writ of attachment — found on Ambrose", content:
|
||
P("<em>Cheaper paper, folded small and carried a long time. A court seal, pressed "
|
||
+ "properly, and a judge's hand.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF NEVADA</strong><br>"
|
||
+ "IN THE MATTER OF <strong>AMBROSE AND OTHERS</strong> against "
|
||
+ "<strong>THE CORDERA & WESTERN RAIL ROAD CO.</strong>")
|
||
+ P("Upon the sworn complaint of Josiah Ambrose and forty-one others, labourers of the "
|
||
+ "Cordera works, that wages for eleven weeks stand unpaid;")
|
||
+ P("<strong>IT IS ORDERED</strong> that the sum of the payroll consignment now carried "
|
||
+ "by the said Company be <strong>ATTACHED</strong> to the satisfaction of the said "
|
||
+ "wages, and that the complainants or their nominees may take and hold the same "
|
||
+ "against the accounting of this Court.")
|
||
+ P("Dated at Fallon this 1st day of November, 1881.")
|
||
+ P("<em>Sealed and signed by the Judge.</em>")
|
||
+ P("<strong>Both of these are genuine. Neither man has seen the other's.</strong>")
|
||
}
|
||
];
|
||
|
||
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------- */
|
||
|
||
export const TT_CAST = [
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_bewley", name: "Mr Bewley",
|
||
role: "BUREAU, present day. Registry. Holds the case file and signs for the agents.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "deliberate", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 9, siz: 11, con: 11, int: 16, pow: 14, dex: 10, cha: 12, edu: 17 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "research", spec: "", val: 75 },
|
||
{ fam: "knowledge", spec: "", val: 65 },
|
||
{ fam: "anomaly_lore", spec: "", val: 60 },
|
||
{ fam: "insight", spec: "", val: 50 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "Sixties, cardigan, reading glasses pushed up. He is NOT mysterious and he is "
|
||
+ "NOT withholding: he answers every question he can answer and says plainly when he "
|
||
+ "cannot. HE IS WRONG ABOUT ONE THING and does not know it — he believes the crossing "
|
||
+ "puts you on the grade, because the three teams who found out otherwise never came "
|
||
+ "back to correct the file. Do not have him hedge about it. He is confident and he is "
|
||
+ "mistaken, and that is the whole trick of Act One." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_prosser", name: "Mr Prosser",
|
||
role: "BUREAU, present day. Stores. Takes the modern kit off them.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "deliberate", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 12, siz: 12, con: 13, int: 12, pow: 13, dex: 11, cha: 10, edu: 11 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "knowledge", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "repair", spec: "mechanical", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "bargain", spec: "", val: 45 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "Nineteen years behind that counter and entirely immovable. He does not "
|
||
+ "threaten and he does not explain twice. If a player argues, he waits until they "
|
||
+ "have finished and then says the same thing again. He is the scenario's way of "
|
||
+ "teaching Standing Order 9 without a lecture, so let him win every exchange. If "
|
||
+ "asked whether people smuggle things through: 'Constantly. It costs them.'" },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_rance", name: "Rance Doyle",
|
||
role: "1881, Cordera. Miner. His brother Tom went out on No. 9 and did not come back.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 15, siz: 14, con: 15, int: 12, pow: 15, dex: 13, cha: 13, edu: 6 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "rifle", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "insight", spec: "", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "navigate", spec: "", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "athletics", spec: "", val: 50 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "martini"],
|
||
tactics: "THE EMOTIONAL WIRING OF THE WHOLE CASE. Thirties, hard hands, eleven weeks "
|
||
+ "unpaid, and his brother has been missing for a day. He takes the agents for company "
|
||
+ "detectives and he is NOT WRONG TO. He can be talked round with the truth and ONLY "
|
||
+ "with the truth — no roll needed, and no roll saves a lie. He calls off his men the "
|
||
+ "moment anybody goes down, because he has already lost enough this week. If taken "
|
||
+ "aboard he is in car three when Tom is shot, every pass, and he is not part of the "
|
||
+ "loop, so he can be killed. He has no interest at all in the mission." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_shard", name: "Mr Shard",
|
||
role: "1881, Cordera. Company detective. Buying drinks and collecting names.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 12, siz: 12, con: 12, int: 14, pow: 13, dex: 13, cha: 14, edu: 10 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "pistol", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "insight", spec: "", val: 60 },
|
||
{ fam: "fast_talk", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "spot", spec: "", val: 50 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "webley"],
|
||
tactics: "Pleasant, patient, and paid by the day. He wants the six names and he does not "
|
||
+ "much mind how he gets them. USE HIM AS PRESSURE, NOT AS A FIGHT: he is the reason "
|
||
+ "Rance is jumpy and the reason strangers asking about the train are a problem. If Act "
|
||
+ "Three stalls into a brawl, Shard arriving with two hired men is the button that "
|
||
+ "breaks it up. He will offer the agents money for what they know." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_cordera_man", name: "Cordera man (town)",
|
||
role: "1881. One of Rance's five in the street. Use for all of them.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 14, siz: 13, con: 13, int: 10, pow: 11, dex: 11, cha: 10, edu: 5 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "pistol", val: 35 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "dodge", spec: "", val: 30 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "webley"],
|
||
tactics: "NOT TRYING TO KILL ANYBODY. These are unpaid miners who want to take the "
|
||
+ "strangers somewhere quiet and ask them questions. They aim for legs, they close to "
|
||
+ "grapple, and they stop the instant Rance says stop. A downed agent is captured and "
|
||
+ "a doctor is fetched. If the agents shoot to kill, these men die easily and the town "
|
||
+ "closes to the party for good." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_tom_doyle", name: "Tom Doyle",
|
||
role: "1881, aboard. Rance's brother. Shot at minute two of every pass.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 13, siz: 12, con: 13, int: 11, pow: 12, dex: 12, cha: 12, edu: 6 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "rifle", val: 35 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "dodge", spec: "", val: 30 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "martini"],
|
||
tactics: "Twenty-four, and the youngest man in the car. He is hit in the second minute "
|
||
+ "of every pass and he has been hit two million times. Between passes he is friendly, "
|
||
+ "embarrassed, and asks after the road home. HE DIES WHEN THE LOOP LETS GO. The agents "
|
||
+ "can pull him clear of the volley on any given pass and it changes nothing — the "
|
||
+ "wound that kills him is the one from the pass they stop on. If Rance is aboard, "
|
||
+ "these two find each other, and that is the scene the act is really for." },
|
||
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_kell", name: "Marius Kell",
|
||
role: "CIVILIAN, 1881. Engineer. Has not let go of the regulator since 3 November.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "deliberate", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 14, siz: 13, con: 16, int: 12, pow: 16, dex: 12, cha: 11, edu: 8 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "engineering", spec: "field_systems", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "repair", spec: "mechanical", val: 60 },
|
||
{ fam: "listen", spec: "", val: 50 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "Fifties, burnt down one side of his face by the firebox door, and very tired. "
|
||
+ "HE IS NOT MAD AND HE IS NOT POSSESSED. He worked out on the first day that the "
|
||
+ "train slowing is the end of everything, and he has been right for a hundred and "
|
||
+ "forty-five years. He will not stop unless somebody with authority tells him to, and "
|
||
+ "he will do it the moment they do. He would like that to be a person, out loud, not "
|
||
+ "a note. If asked how he is: 'I'm all right. It's only the one job.'" },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_vane", name: "Elias Vane",
|
||
role: "CIVILIAN, 1881. Surveyor. Signed the chart. Knows exactly what he did.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "deliberate", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 10, siz: 11, con: 11, int: 16, pow: 14, dex: 11, cha: 12, edu: 15 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "engineering", spec: "field_systems", val: 65 },
|
||
{ fam: "navigate", spec: "", val: 60 },
|
||
{ fam: "knowledge", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "insight", spec: "", val: 55 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "Rides alone in the last car watching the line come out from under. He has had "
|
||
+ "the time to understand the standing wave and he explains it better than the "
|
||
+ "department can. HE WILL NOT VOLUNTEER IT — he answers a direct question honestly and "
|
||
+ "says nothing otherwise, because he has been waiting a very long time to be asked. "
|
||
+ "He wants the children put off first. He does not want to be forgiven. Asked who told "
|
||
+ "him what to file, he says: a Mr Smith, with the company's paper, and he cannot picture "
|
||
+ "the man's face." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_bligh", name: "Hester Bligh",
|
||
role: "CIVILIAN, 1881. Conductor. Sixty-one aboard, counted hourly.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 11, siz: 11, con: 14, int: 13, pow: 15, dex: 12, cha: 15, edu: 11 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "persuade", spec: "", val: 60 },
|
||
{ fam: "spot", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "first_aid", spec: "", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "status", spec: "", val: 50 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "She is the reason there is a water rota and nobody has died. Competent, "
|
||
+ "unsentimental, and the person the agents should have to convince of anything. She "
|
||
+ "will fight to have every name put off and she will not accept a number. If the "
|
||
+ "players choose who goes, SHE is the one who has to be told." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_reyes", name: "Ada Reyes",
|
||
role: "CIVILIAN, 1881. Telegraph operator, Cordera.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 10, siz: 10, con: 12, int: 15, pow: 13, dex: 14, cha: 13, edu: 13 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "computer_use", spec: "", val: 30 },
|
||
{ fam: "listen", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "research", spec: "", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "insight", spec: "", val: 45 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch"],
|
||
tactics: "Has sent the same query up the line forty times in a day and a half. She has "
|
||
+ "the dispatcher's book, she will let a stranger read it if they are civil, and she "
|
||
+ "has already noticed that there is no 11:45 entry. Play her as the one local who is "
|
||
+ "ahead of the town." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_merritt", name: "Cass Merritt",
|
||
role: "1881. Hired guard, the coats. Has the company's letter and the key to the box.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 1, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 13, siz: 13, con: 14, int: 12, pow: 13, dex: 14, cha: 12, edu: 9 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "pistol", val: 65 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "spot", spec: "", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "dodge", spec: "", val: 40 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "webley"],
|
||
tactics: "Forties, a good long coat, entirely unexcited. He was hired to see the payroll "
|
||
+ "to Fallon and he has a signed letter saying so. HE IS NOT A VILLAIN and he is not "
|
||
+ "greedy — he is a competent man doing the job he was paid for against men he has "
|
||
+ "every reason to think are robbers. Falls back to the car four door at minute three "
|
||
+ "and holds it. Shoots Ambrose through that door at minute four, every time. He will "
|
||
+ "not stand down for a judge's paper he has never seen while he is being shot at, and "
|
||
+ "he will listen afterwards, which is too late and is the point." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_ambrose", name: "Josiah Ambrose",
|
||
role: "1881. Miner, the writ men. Carries a court order for the payroll. Dies at minute four.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 15, siz: 14, con: 15, int: 13, pow: 15, dex: 12, cha: 14, edu: 8 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "pistol", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 55 },
|
||
{ fam: "persuade", spec: "", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "status", spec: "", val: 40 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "webley"],
|
||
tactics: "Eleven weeks unpaid, five men behind him, and a writ of attachment from a "
|
||
+ "territorial judge in his coat. He believes — correctly — that he is lawfully seizing "
|
||
+ "money owed to him and being shot at for it. He gets to the payroll box at minute "
|
||
+ "four and Merritt shoots him through the door. HE DIES WHEN THE LOOP LETS GO, and "
|
||
+ "nothing the agents do in the four minutes prevents it; only closing the crossing "
|
||
+ "does, and closing the crossing is what kills him. Sit with that before you run him." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_coat", name: "Company guard",
|
||
role: "1881. One of Merritt's three. Use for all of them.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 1, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 12, siz: 12, con: 12, int: 10, pow: 11, dex: 12, cha: 10, edu: 8 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "pistol", val: 45 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 40 },
|
||
{ fam: "dodge", spec: "", val: 30 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "webley"],
|
||
tactics: "Webley, 1d10, six shots and a slow reload. Fires down the length of car three "
|
||
+ "and takes cover behind the seat backs. WILL SHOOT AN AGENT who crosses the aisle or "
|
||
+ "moves toward the box, because from where he is standing that is what a robber's "
|
||
+ "friend looks like. Withdraws to the car four door with Merritt at minute three." },
|
||
|
||
{ key: "tt_writman", name: "Cordera miner",
|
||
role: "1881. One of Ambrose's four. Use for all of them.",
|
||
chosenStyle: "reflex", naturalArmour: 0, species: "baseline",
|
||
ch: { str: 14, siz: 13, con: 14, int: 10, pow: 12, dex: 11, cha: 11, edu: 6 },
|
||
skills: [{ fam: "firearm", spec: "rifle", val: 40 },
|
||
{ fam: "brawl", spec: "", val: 50 },
|
||
{ fam: "dodge", spec: "", val: 30 }],
|
||
weapons: ["punch", "martini"],
|
||
tactics: "Martini-Henry, 2d6+2, ONE SHOT then work the lever — which is why the fight "
|
||
+ "has the rhythm it has. Not a soldier. Frightened, angry, owed money, and shooting "
|
||
+ "at men who are shooting at him. Takes the overturned seats at minute three. Will "
|
||
+ "shoot an agent who moves toward Merritt's end of the car." }
|
||
];
|
||
|
||
export const TT_CASE = {
|
||
key: "tt_case",
|
||
name: "TT-004 · Mercy Draw",
|
||
containment: 6, resources: 5, clearance: 4,
|
||
destination: "Mercy Draw, Nevada Territory, 4 November 1881",
|
||
standings: [],
|
||
notes:
|
||
"<p><strong>Crossing clock 0 / 6.</strong> Move it on each pass of the train, when "
|
||
+ "somebody uses a modern object across, and on a fumbled attempt to board.</p>"
|
||
+ "<p>0 Open · 1 Thinning · 2 Slipping (−1 Coherence, once) · 3 The line flickers "
|
||
+ "· 4 The far end stops answering · 5 One pass left · 6 It closes, with whoever is "
|
||
+ "aboard.</p>"
|
||
+ "<p><strong>The crossing opens on the NORTH bench</strong> — where the record says "
|
||
+ "the line is, not where it is. Registry's file has this wrong and Bewley believes "
|
||
+ "the file.</p>"
|
||
+ "<p><strong>Standing Order 9 is live:</strong> using any modern item across costs 1 "
|
||
+ "Coherence the first time and moves this clock. Carrying costs nothing. Anchors "
|
||
+ "are exempt.</p>"
|
||
+ "<p><strong>Issued for this case:</strong> Webley revolvers, one Martini-Henry, oil "
|
||
+ "lanterns and oil, brass compass, pocket watch, spyglass, buff coats, a chirurgeon's "
|
||
+ "roll, laudanum, iron manacles, and period coin.</p>",
|
||
legs: [
|
||
{ label: "Act Two — across, and find the line", kindId: "approach", difficulty: "average", mod: 0 },
|
||
{ label: "Act Three — Cordera, and Rance Doyle's men", kindId: "cordon", difficulty: "average", mod: -5 },
|
||
{ label: "Act Four — board the train", kindId: "containment", difficulty: "difficult", mod: -10 },
|
||
{ label: "Act Five — the four minutes, and out", kindId: "extraction", difficulty: "average", mod: -10 }
|
||
]
|
||
};
|