Simple America

Friday was the missus birthday. She had to work and I mean all day she was in meetings. At five she stopped working and we loaded all of my daughters bags (she is going to Appalacian Trail in Tennessee to hike) and drove to Todai. This is an excellent buffet that has sushi, tempura, udon to name a few of the dishes. I ate so much food (starved myself all day) that I though I would burst. There was some grilled fish that was divine. Wish I knew what kind it was. I saw that they have one of these in Kay El. Anybody over there tried it?

After dinner we dropped off the girl. She returns next Sunday. Miss her already.

Then I went back home. Had to finsh some things for 12 to Midnight as we met Saturday. Left home early Saturday morning with my son in tow. On the way we played Deadlands. Deadlands is an alternate west history in which magic has filled the west and zombies inhabit many a ghost town. A mysterious element called ghost rock has been discovered and it has made possible some fantastic scientific break throughs. Because of these events the Civil War came to an end with United States divided. So there are a lot of story possibilities.

My son created a character for Deadlands called Walter Obediah Wately. He is a huckster that grew up in Texas on the family farm located near the Brazos River in Fort Bend County. The story begins as he returns from a trip to Houston. As he gets closer to the farm he sees smoke in the air. He hears his mother and sister screaming from inside his burning home. Walter runs to the well to get some water to douse the flames. There he sees the corpse of his father laid out on the ground. A knife protruding from his back.

Walter is unable to save the women folk. On his father’s corpse he finds a blue velvet pouch with a crossed bones silhoutte stitched on it, and it contains ashes. Walter reports the murder to the county sheriff and when the sheriff sees the pouch he says voo doo is involved. Walter asks what the heck is voo doo? The sheriff does not know a whole lot, except that most voo doo takes place in Louisiana.

Recalling his father’s frequent trips to New Orleans, the younger Wately takes a train to the Big Easy. Once he arrives in the city he locates his elder cousin, Jebediah Wately. Jebediah takes Walter in. The pair resides over a saloon called Red Eyed Mary’s and that is where Walter learns how to play poker and other games of chance. More importantly his cousin teaches him how to perform feats of magic. This magic includes throwing cards that are as deadly as any bullet. In a desperate move he can pull off a 54 card pickup that can hurt a slew of folk. When he needs to be sneaky he can teleport from one shadow to the next. To complete his training Jebediah gave Walter a pouch that has his intials, WOW. From this pouch Walter can pull out a helpful trinket during a time of need.

One evening Walter is returning to the room. Before he opens the door, he finds it peculiar that the door is cracked open. This worries him and he reaches into his magic pouch and pulls out a pistol. As he pushed open the doors he sees his cousin laid out on the floor. A figure moves at him and Walter shoots him right between the eyes. Screams fill the air. Walter looks at his cousin and sees that he has been strangled by the claw marks at his throat. The figure he shot looks to have been dead quite some time. A zombie. He notices that a blue card with crossed bones covers his heart, held secure by a long thorn piercing his chest.

By this time the constable arrives and questions Walther. He wants to know why there is a recently shot corpse in the room with his dead cousin. By this time the magically produced pistol has vanished. Three hours pass as the law men try to find a pistol. The constable tells Walter he is not to leave New Orleans as he is the main suspect in this murders and for suspected grave robbery.

Red Eyed Mary tells Walther he is bad for business and can no longer reside upstairs. Walter has to move a few blocks before he can find another room in the French Quarter. He spends his days playing cards earning enough to keep a roof over his head and food in his belly. During this time he keeps noticing a man with a red bushy moustache and sideburns wearing a bowler. He inquires to the constable in regards to this fellow, but the law man does not know about him.

A couple of days later he learns that Red Eyed Mary is murdered. She is strangled in a fashion like his cousin, Jebediah. At this time Walter is questioned by the constable. Walter has been playing cards all day and the bartender confirms this. Walter tells the constable of his family’s murder and shows the voo doo bag. The constable does not like this at all and orders Walter to leave New Orleans.

Walter recalls Jebediah mentioned Wately’s living in Missouri. He buys passage on a Missisippi steamboat to Cape Giradeau, Missouri. While on the cruise he notices that red moustached man again. He learns the man goes by the name of Bill Duffy, but no more than that. Tired of being followed, Walter sneaks off of the boat and is successful in evading Duffy.

Walter takes the stagecoach to Springfield, Missouri. On the way a gang of outlaws tries to rob them. Using his card magic he kills three of the men, while a fouth flees. Once he gets to Springfield, he inquires about the Wately family and learns there is a family homestead to the southwest.

He makes it to the family home the next day. There he finds a whole mess of Whatley’s to include his grandmother. She tells him about his father. How her son loved a white voo doo witch, a queen amongst her own people. The two soon married and his new wife became pregnant. The woman died in child birth giving birth to Walter. Walter is shocked at this revelation as he thought his mother was the woman who had raised him. But the worst news is that Walter’s mother has a sister called Madame Blue and this woman blamed Walter and his father for killing her sister. She promised to kill Walter and his father.

Walter showed his grandmother the pouch he found on his dead father’s body. His grandmother said he could only stay the night. She would give him a good horse. But he needed to go west and lose himself. Grandma Whatley also took the time to show the young man how to use his blood to draw more arcane power for desperated times.

And then we came to Caldwell and our destination. So we stopped playing until later in the evening.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Gaming, Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.