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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paka" data-source="post: 1732776" data-attributes="member: 100">You stand between God's law and the best intentions of the weak. You stand between God's people and their own Demons. Sometimes its better for one to die than for many to suffer.  Sometimes, Dog, sometimes you have to cut off the arm to save the life. Does the sinner deserve mercy? Do the wicked deserve judgement? They're in your hands. - back cover of Dogs in the Vineyard by D. Vincent BakerReturn to Garden, Population: FourThe road to Garden was steep and dusty.  They came upon a spooked horse and there Benjamin III lay in the dust, moaning.  He was shot in the gut.  His innards were making a hissing noise like a deflating balloon and the boy was letting out a moan that only a boy in the greatest pain of his life can let loose.Anadarch was the first one to get to the shot boy and he paused only long enough to see that he would live until the others arrived.  Jeremiah stopped his horse and told the others to go on while he tended to the wounded.  Benjamin Ibex knelt beside his shot son and the Watchdog attempting to save his life and prayed to the Savior Who Has Returned to forgive his sins and shortcomings.“Don’t take my sins out on my boys, Lord,” he prayed.The goat pens in Garden had been opened and the herd was grazing.  The goats could sense the tension and groups of them were circling nervously, kicking up a veil of dust.  When the dust parted, Anadarch saw Benjamin “Deuce” Ibex II standing in the old town square with his hands up.“He told me that if you come any closer he’ll kill the Prophet.  He’s got him.  He bushwacked me and my brother and I think Tres is dead and he took the Prophet from us.  He said you’d know who he was.  He had eyes like a serpent.”  Anadarch’s eyes scanned the rooftops, looking for the Demon in Josiah’s body.“I am Anadarch, Watchdog of God, and I’ve come for you, Demon!”There was no response but dust and goats.“Are you a coward?  Is one Dog too much for you?”On a nearby roof he could see a shape.  He still wore Josiah’s flesh and the clothes of a Dog-in-Training but something was different about him.  Even the way he stood on the roof was inhuman.  Then he slithered down the building as if he had no bones in his body.Deuce pissed himself at the sight of the Demon and ran away to safety.The Dog and the Demon faced each other for a pregnant moment before their pistols were in their hands.  Josiah’s possessed body moved with blinding speed and his gun spit bullets at the Watchdog, tagging him in the shoulder.  Anadarch’s scarred hand, covered by a black glove took out his father’s pistol and planted a bullet in Josiah’s chest, driving the Demon on his back at the same moment the Demon tagged the Dog in the shoulder.Despite its prone state, the Demon slithered into a nearby saloon to nurse its wound, a bullet from the Left Hand of God.  Anadarch spun with the force of the bullet that struck him from Josiah’s pistol.  His brother Dogs entered Garden to find Anadarch on the ground, shot in the meat of the shoulder.  Jeremiah had his pa’s trusty Winchester.  Benny had an old rifle, holding it by the barrel for its use as a club.  Cain had a pistol out and when he got down from his horse he took out his bowie knife.Together they looked at the abandoned saloon and as one they ran in.  Anadarch leaped through the doors, pistol blazing.  Benny leaped through a pane-less window, ready to swing his rifle-club.  Cain entered cautiously, remembering has former failure with Josiah’s Demon.  He had his pistol out but his posture favored his knife.  Jeremiah was behind a barrel outside, waiting to hit the Serpent with a shot from his daddy’s rifle.The Serpent fanned Josiah’s pistol, causing the saloon to explode in a storm of bullets.  None of the shots hit but they caused confusion and kept the Dogs off of his back while he slithered towards the back door.  A broken panel of glass behind the bar exploded as the Serpent shot it and soon after a rusted chandelier fell, breaking the floor-boards but missing the Watchdogs.In a final desperate attack the Serpent spat its venom at the Dogs.  It was a spiritual venom, meant to harm souls weaker than the Dogs but none of their imperfections were great enough for the poison to take hold.  When the Serpent spit its bile at them to no effect the Dogs knew they had him.Cain’s knife flew true and pinned Josiah’s Serpent-possessed body to the saloon floor.  Gun out of bullets, pinned to the floor the Serpent grinned through Josiah’s mouth.  For a moment Josiah’s voice rang through.  “Don’t shoot me, Dogs.  I’m just a boy.”  The Serpent smiled a wide snake-grin at his adversaries.Cain began the exorcism and his comrades joined in.  He called on Josiah to aid them.  “You were almost a Dog, Josiah.  Come and fight this thing!”Josiah’s voice began sobbing as the Serpent left his body behind.  “I’m covered in snakes.  In a pit…covered…in snakes.”  The demon slithered away and Josiah’s eyes turned from yellow slitted with black to his own baby-brown.Benny walked outside and found Jeremiah slouched behind the barrel.  A piece of glass had flown out of the saloon and taken him in the neck while he aimed his shot.  He was split from neck to nipple.  Gently, the giant Watchdog took the piece of glass from his brother-in-arm’s neck and miraculously the wound closed.  It would take some stitching and he wouldn’t be able to ride hard for a few days but Jeremiah was alive and would soon be well.Benjamin Ibex II, whom the people of Eden called Deuce, was gone.  He had left Garden with the Prophet.  The Watchdogs knew that a Serpent was in the boy’s body, coiled around his soul.There was no indication of which direction the Serpent had headed towards with the Prophet as his prisoner and wearing Deuce’s skin.  The goat-herder’s boy knew every trail and hill in these parts and the Serpent no doubt had put that to good use.Once Josiah was situated and Anadarch and Jeremiah were on their feet the Dogs left Garden to deal out God’s Judgment upon the people of Eden. GM’s Note:Anadarch’s player, Aaron, is also rather new to our grou,p seeing how I’ve known Mateo and Mario for about ten years or so.  I have played alongside Aaron in our weekly Riddle of Steel game for the past two weeks or so but had never GMed for him before.  I am looking over this write-up and I wonder if I didn’t allow him to be first in line a bit too often.  He seemed to be doing a whole lot, almost many places at once.This could be the result of a player really rising to my pace and keeping up or it could be me being a lazy GM and letting an aggressive player be everywhere at once during a game.  I don’t think Aaron was over-stepping his bounds but it is something I will watch for later.The shootout between Anadarch and the Demon was one conflict that Anadarch lost but the Demon took more fall-out.The final shoot-out, ending with Cain putting his knife in Josiah’s shoulder was a separate conflict that was between the Demon and the four PC’s.  Mario tried to sit it out, saying that he was tending to the boy but I said that he had done all he could for now and should be there for the final showdown.I’m not sure if we did the conflict right between 3 people.  I need to re-read the rules now that I see how they basically work.  Having done so, I see that we did a few things incorrectly but we all left having enjoyed how the die mechanics work.  I am excited to play this game again with the rules firmly in everyone’s mind and the concept out of the way.Judgment in EdenThe people of Eden gathered around the outside of the Temple and waited in the shade of the apple trees.  The Steward waited on the steps too and the four Watchdogs of God were inside debating the sins they had found in this town.The Dogs disagreed for a time and when the Steward and Benjamin Ibex I began getting into a loud verbal spat on the Temple steps, their different opinions coalesced into one strong feeling: something had to be done and now was the blessed time to do it.When Cain tried to make it to the door before Anadarch the Dogs nearly went to fisticuffs to decide who would walk out the Temple doors first.  Despite the tensions, the Eden-folk saw the four Watchdogs of God walk out of the Temple’s front doors together and to the congregation’s eyes four Dogs exited their Temple united in righteousness.Benny looked at Benjamin Ibex I who was red-faced from screaming at the Steward.  The towering Dog looked down at the goat-herder whose one son was shot and other son the puppet of a demonic Serpent.“You lied,” Benny said simply, not knowing much but knowing what’s right.The Dogs broke him down and by the time they were done he was sobbing his apologies to the town.  They chastised his pride in trying to out-preach the Steward and they chastised his untruths that had allowed his pride to take root.They decided the town needed both Benjamin Ibex I and the Steward.  By the Watchdog’s decree, the Steward’s daughter had to marry an Ibex boy, of the Steward’s choosing to mend the breach of Eden.  There were folk in Eden who were sure there was going to be righteous Watchdog bloodletting but they got none.A local knitting circle had even placed bets on who would be dragged into the street and shot.  Marjory Ellen Kline, sly mother of eight, won quite a length of gingham from the circle’s betting pool, saying that the Dogs would opt for mercy.Having been mutilated, lied to, shot and spit on, the Dogs looked onwards where a Serpent traveled with a hostage Prophet towards unsuspecting congregations.  The distant desert was a harsh white line on the horizon.GM’s Note:Dealing out their judgment is the most important part of this game and I wanted the players to make a decision.  I think they don’t fully understand their power just yet.  The game was running late and I was pleased with how it went.We weren’t running conflict resolution, not understanding the back and forth of it but we’ll get it next time.  I’ve re-read the book having played the game and I’ve got it now, clear as day.It’s a great game, from the campaign shape suggested, to the conflict resolution that so beautifully displays the way conflicts escalate from words to blood and the wonderful implied world that is so rich and so danged wide open  (excuse my language).I tired to run a Deadlands game years ago in which the players were in a traveling circus and they traversed the west, going from town to town, putting on shows and helping local townsfolk.  I realize now it is Dogs in the Vineyard that I wanted to be playing.Real world epilogue:  Aaron, who played Anadarch, was at his work on break and someone said, “That’s funny as hell,” and he thought a Watchdog thought.  “You think Hell’s funny?  Go find out!”  *BANG*It is my most sincere hope that we get to play this game again some time soon.  Our schedules are all kindsa hectic.  We'll see.</blockquote>

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