Burial at Crossroads.pdf

Burial at Crossroads

a game by Bryan Hansel

Burial at Crossroads

At the crossroads, a pile of broken water-rich rock marked the road west; the north road bore a

sign marked ÒTo New Askja.Ó Those who could read went north. You journeyed west. West across

the volcanic desert, past other grŨners who already marked their claims with names like Lamia,

UshaÓs Hole and Lunar Landing. Your claim, illegally named after your lost love, proved barren.

Without money, without food, without friends, without love, taking a job meant a chance at

another claim and wealth and maybe love.

The job: Deliver a skinner to Oasis, the city of exile. An exileÓs fresh start means your fresh

start. To help you along your journey, someone in exile hired a mercenary, a scientist, a gambler,

a frontiersman, a forgotten marshal and a native. Each of you have something to gain and

something to lose. YouÓll journey to Oasis together, apart or alone, and deliver the skinner or be

consumed by the desert.

A Game for Game Chef 2010, Now a Finalist!

Theme: Journey

Using: Skin, Desert, City

Notes addressing questions for playtest:

GM set difficulties: If it seems unfair that the Governor sets difficulties on the fly, then play with

difficulties bases on map locations:

3 is near New Askja; 4 is near Crossroads; 5 is south of Crossroads; 6 is south of the chasm

Or the Governor places difficulties on the map before play. Let me know what you think.

Hitting condition-style desires: Changed. See text. Play it more often with gusto, but not

every other desire.

Use of Native class: If the use of a sterotype in classic westerns bugs you, rename the class

mystic.

Injury conditions: GM gives them based on the fiction.

Take a Stand Questions: I updated the procedures in the text, but not the example. Use the

example as the flavor that the game is going for, but not as an example of procedures. I hope the

updated procedures answers these questions clearly. If not, here's the goods.

Can I roll against every other character involved in the stand?

Only those not on together with you.

Do I get the dice I buy to roll against every other character or do I have to pay for extra dice each

time?

If you roll it, it's gone.

Do other players also get to roll and make adjustments to the groupings or just the player taking

a stand?

The other players only roll if you fight them. They can bargain before a fight, but during

bargaining they don't roll dice.

How do you know when the standoff is over?

When you have a majority on together or have fought everyone and lost.

Possible Playtest Additions

*Difficulties are selected by the party's leader. They correspond to the type of actions a Governor

can take. Maybe inversely proportional.

*Take a Stand: Add a helping hand. Anyone on a square with you can sacrifice something to help

you roll. Shows her roll?

Important Places

The Black Desert (The West): Black as far as the eye can see with a westerly backdrop of

towering mountains abruptly rising from the ground. In some areas, the rocks are jagged, but in

most places theyÓre smooth with a black sand filling in the depressions. Shifting black sand

dunes exist in places. The rock feels porous. The air smells hot and gritty.

Weather and dark clouds come primarily from the east. Strong daily storms bring lots of

lightning and sometimes rain. The rain quickly disappears into the ground where itÓs held in

place by deposits of a water bearing rock. Uncaptured water drains towards Nukpana Chasm or

just disappears.

Greening operations dot its surface and are owned and primarily worked by miners

known as grŨners. The larger operations employ many workers, who live in company towns, and

are characterized by massive rusting equipment, that only a few can work and upkeep, and large

water towers. Some smaller mines, often dug by solo prospectors, consist of hand tools, a small

cistern and a shack. Solo prospectors, often uneducated, who find a rich load of water-bearing

rock, quickly come into wealth.

A typical greening operation prospects for water bearing rock. Once enough water

bearing rock is welled, the machines grind the surface rock into small grains of sand. In other

machines, over months, the sand bakes to a workable soil. Then the grŨners install underground

irrigation pipes across their claims. Years later, after planting successive seasons of specially

engineered plants, the soil becomes richer until it supports food-bearing plants.

One native plant, the Copi, flowers across the desert. Its seeds germinate quickly, often

overnight after a rain. Their roots, tiny white strands, reach out to scrap grains of black sand

together. They consume the sand to grow, often to waste high. All the nutrition swells into the

fist-sized seeds, which fly away on the next dayÓs wind to a crack where they wait until the next

rain. After the seeds fly, the stalks crumble to black dust. When people are around, the plants

refuse to germinate. Flour made from the seeds is as gritty as rock. It wears teeth down quickly,

but is nutritious--one seed can feed a man for a day.

A small ecosystem of insects, rodents and reptiles revolve around the seeds. The insects

pollinate the flowers and mine the seedÓs meat, the rodents eat the insects and the reptiles eat

the rodents. Nearer to the mountains, white tigers, snow eagles and yeti bear venture out onto

the desert at night.

New Askja: An ordered and tranquil settlement organized into smaller kin-based communities

and towns. Most families are young and well-educated. Decades and decades of greening work

created an agrarian society and miles and miles of newly created farmland surround the cityÓs

center protecting it from the dust and grime of other western places.

Three features define the cityÓs center: a date and citrus tree orchard, a public garden

with unregulated fountains and a University built from white marble quarried in the mountains

and shipped to New Askja on a high-speed railroad specifically built for the purpose.

Oasis (The ExileÓs City): The greatest punishment for criminals is physical exile to Oasis, a

city located at the only natural oasis in the Black Desert. Although miles from Oasis, the

Nukpana Chasm limits access. Only one railroad bridge leads across the chasm. That bridge is

guarded by highly trained federales.

OasisÓs economy centers around rich warlord-like exiles, who employee the rest of the

exiles to do their bidding and help maintain their power. Because exiles are forbidden from

making money outside of exile, they run into power struggles as their wealth and savings run

out.

As rough as and as gritty and dirty Oasis is, on the surface it seems docile. People live out

their lives, some have families. A weak government tries to keep the infrastructure functioning.

Scientists with their maintenance skills are sought after and protected. They often live a

privileged life in Oasis. ThereÓs always work for mercenaries and frontiersmen.

Nukpana Chasm: Over a half-millennium ago, the first explorers of the Black Desert settled

within the water-rich walls of Nukpana Chasm. After a half-millennium of settlement, these

people adapted their lifestyles to survive in the extreme environment of the chasm. Over a mile

deep in places and a mile wide in places, itÓs walls climb almost vertically.

The settlers, now considered natives, live in dwellings carved out of the black rock. Their

bodies were adapted to to drink the stagnant, black, silty water below and modified to eat the

native flowers, but they eat primarily fish and rodents. Some dwellings are adapted to grow

plants using soil stolen or bartered from the grŨners.

A nature-worship religion, known as Nukpanism by scholars, has grown-up around the

chasm and most natives follow it. Spirit animals protect practitioners, who are able to commune

with the animals and plants of the world.

There are only two real places for non-natives to cross the chasm: the railroad bridge and

the confusing, jumbled ford near the mountains.

Crossroads (Officially named Indra): A dirty, lawless, grŨners city located on the

crossroads of a rail line that runs between Oasis, New Askja and the east. It consists of quickly

built false front buildings, uneven rock roads, supply warehouses, taverns and almost anything

that anyone would desire.

The law enforcement--what limited laws there are--is overseen by one marshal, who

commands a sheriff and several deputies. The federales occasionally seize power to replace a law

enforcement team that falls from favor. Many of the wealthy business owners are connected to

the railroad or the powerful back east. They often demand a change of law enforcement. If the

federales wonÓt do it, they take it into their own hands.

Inhabitants of Crossroads are mainly young, impulsive males searching for quick wealth

with a inclination to conflict. So many people funnel into causing the town to experience

explosive growth. Many new innovations appear from Crossroads.

Railroad: A high-speed modern railroad built to open expansion into the Black Desert and,

hopefully, when work finishes, through the western mountains to the fertile plains far beyond. It

runs between Oasis and New Askja. Crossroads sits on this line and the connection to the east.

From New Askja, the line extends to the mountain quarries and new tunnels. Lots of nomads

work on the furthest reaches of the rails.

There are many small trading posts and forts connected by paths across the Black Desert.

And lots of other places for encounters to occur. During play, youÓll find them.

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