The Hill Cantons Run Red Mini-Campaign

It's summer and I have been predictably getting a little restless and low in the batteries. Time for another mini-campaign to break up routine.

This time about I am going to swing back to the murderous rapine of that Boot Hill (second edition) one-shot I ran a while back. I'm unsure exactly how many sessions this thing will go before it ends, but I think I am going to just expand off of the last dust-up.

Keeping the same town (with a hex map of the surrounding area) and keeping a scoring system in place. Points are going to be scored either individually but with the option to share for collective activities if the players want to. For example if they rustle a herd of cattle they can take individual shares of the point take (or one player takes all if he decides to cross his fellow's and kill them off).

At any rate one player is going to win--or at least several tie. That should punch up the mayhem factor a few notches. It will be interesting to see what happens with a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma game in place. Hell I will probably even throw in a prize for the winner.

So without any further adieu the revised Marauding Point System, local NPCs and the starting hooks. (Hex map of Cantones County coming later.)

Marauding Points

Each “combatant” killed: 50

Each scalp of a combatant taken: 10

Each non-combatant killed: -50

Each $1 of loot or bounty earned or taken: 1

Total destruction of an inhabited building: 20

Poor horse, mule, or donkey stolen: 20

Fair horse stolen: 30

Good horse stolen: 50

Excellent horse stolen: 100

Cattle per head rustled: 10

Sheep per head stolen: 5

Horse or Cattle Thief hung: 25

Getting killed: lose half your points

NPCs

Captain Ferral. Former Confederate bushwacker, discharged from the Texas Rangers for being too psycho tunes for that outfit. Meanest son of a bitch you ever met, though he never killed a woman who didn't have it comin'. Heads up the Moderators.

Jay Augustus Jissom. Semi-famous cattleman and trail-breaker of the Jissom Trail. Has set up a dry goods store in Cantones de Los Montanos to rival the monopoly of the Evo's-- and consequently touched off the Cantones County War (the Evo-backed Moderators vs. the Jissom Boys).

Claude Evo Jr. Cattle baron son of the gunned down Claude Evo. A spitting image of his father right on down to that damned bolo tie.

Frank Stripes. former doctor run out of his Mississippi practice for unwholesome phrenological studies with the craniums of dead convicts and vagabonds. Every once in a while--deep into his jug of corn liquor--he will slip up and introduce himself as “Phillip”.

Vilem “Bohemian Bill” Psanec. Fastest Moravian in the West. Laying low in the area after the Bad Rye Massacre. Has a fondness for slivovce. Officially neutral.

“Wild Bill” Hickock. Still in the area after the big shoot out drowning his sorrows in whisky and gambling. Fixin' to run on up to a little town called Deadwood.

Bat Masterson. What authorities there are over in the county seat in Broken Oath City have employed this dead-shot lawman to bring a little law and order to this side of the county. He's rumored to have a six-month contract in place before he moseys up to Dodge City.

Boss Peckerwood. Chubby, petulant former opera singer. Chief foreman at the Big Moran Mine and colder than a whore's heart on Sunday.

Paco and Tuco Ramirez. Twin brothers and “comancheros” (traders who illicitly trade with the Comanche).

Local News courtesy of Breezy Pete

Reckon that the Moderators and The Jissom Boys are hiring gunslingers seeing as they are evenly matched with five pistoleros a piece. See each of their bosses for hiring on.

It's said that the Ramirez brothers want no one less than Bohemian Bill dead but of course are too low down and yellow to do the deed themselves. They are offering 150 silver dollars to any one who cuts him down.

Speaking of the Ramirez brothers it is said one can buy just about anything contraband in their back room up to and including Comanche captives that they trade off for

Well and come to think of it speaking of killing for profit, I reckon those locked out silver miners up there want that old sow Boss Peckerwood dead too. Bet they'd be willing to hand over a few boxes of dynamite and some proceeds from the Western Federation of Miner's mutual aid fund to anyone who does him in.

Claude Evo Jr. has been outdoing his pa, no mean feat, in accumulatin' the biggest herd of longhorns this side of the Little Pecos. Everybody knows it's through rustling but who's going to stop the Big Man?