The Search for the Sunken Space Needle in Seattle

 Poster by Harry BonathA New Campaign
In other words, “The Battle to Seattle”. But what am I talking about? The next Dinosaur Cowboys campaign! This won’t be a test campaign run solo, this will be an actual campaign with 3 of my friends. We’re aiming to start at the beginning of February, and run 9 game nights playing through a broad story arc.

History and Fluff
As you may remember, part of the history of Dinosaur Cowboys involves greenhouse gases being released when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted, which melted a bunch of the ice caps and raised the ocean water level. That means coastal cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle were under water.

But now in the year 2294 (ie: 9 years after the rulebook history leaves off at 2285) there are rumors of a strange tower emerging from the ocean. Scraps of pamphlets and waterlogged tourism books identify this tower as the Seattle Space Needle.
As with any old world technology, there is a lot of mystery around the contents of the tower. Perhaps scientists stored away desperate experiments, or maybe historians packed the tower with books and manuals from the past.
Regardless, word of the receding ocean tides (whether they are temporary or permanent is up for debate) has spread like wildfire, and a new gold rush to be the first posse to Seattle has begun.

Rules of the Campaign
early-tableIn terms of rules we will play 1 introductory session, unrelated to the campaign, wherein everyone is refreshed on the basics of the game and shown various posse strategies. Then each friend will design their own Posse using the standard rules, with my help that first game session.
Week 2 would be the official start to the campaign, with each new Posse involved. The plan is to have TWO simultaneous 1vs1 games going, on a 4’x3′ chunk of a split 6’x4′ table (see right for the early version).
Who fights who and over what terrain will be decided by the campaign route each player chooses. Initially they all start somewhere in the Mojave Desert, but after that two branching decisions will be presented at the end of each week as to where the posse goes next.
For example Player One and Player Two choose to go to Las Vegas after the Mojave Desert, and Player Three decides to go through Death Valley. That means Player One and Two will fight it out in Las Vegas. Player Three will fight a generic NPC posse that I design and play, in this case across Death Valley. So the matchups will change as the gang fights their way north to Seattle. This should allow lots of variety, choice, and fun.
The usual campaign rules will be used, although I’ll be tweaking the Wounds slightly (mainly for Dinosaurs, since some don’t make sense, like “Broken Tail” which involves Difficult Terrain). If someone cannot make a battle that week they’d miss out on the IP/ND gained from combat. So expect a v2.1 rule update with some minor touchups (as usual!).

Any details I post here will be written with the players in mind, so there won’t be spoilers in advance or any big reveals. But I will try to get a picture or two of each game, although certainly not to the detail level of my previous reports. Should be a grand ol’ time!

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