Adventure: Showdown at High-Moon
A gunslinger sees a lot of tricks in their day, usually by fools who think they can outclever a bullet to the chest. I’ll admit that this one is.... new.
Hooks:
Early in their adventures the party hear tell of the legendary orcish gunslinger Skavel Ironbough, who’s innumerable deeds of grit and daring are a standard against which the would-be heroes must measure themselves. However, when they finally get a chance to see Ironbough at work, they’re treated to a very different sort of show as the legendary marksman is brought down by a ragged woman in rider’s leathers who faces off against him in a shootout. Never actually drawing her pistol, the unknown woman closes on Ironbough at a steady pace, withstanding every bullet the orc puts into her with a mildly pained grimace one might expect as if she was walking barefoot over some mildly sharp stones. Watching aghast along with the rest of the crowd, the party watches as the woman crushes Ironbough’s windpipe with her bare hands, before turning to the onlooking townsfolk and declaring “ The Matter is settled, anyone who comes after me and mine will get the same” before unhitching her horse and riding out of town.
After this the legend spreads, the woman’s name is Evita Capitoloro, a former ranch hand famed for scarring her employer’s son (possibly in a fit of anger or jealous passion) before fleeing to the wilderness and turning rustler. She’s said to lead a gang of former outlaws, and her former employer, Emanuel Roth is convinced she’s looking to make a move against his holdings next, and has put out word that he’s looking to hire on more help for his next big drive. With people panicked and the region’s most famed gunslinger in an early grave, perhaps it’s time for the party to step up and assume the mantle, and take up the cattle baron’s call.
Along their travels, the party will be approached by a seedy trapper with spectacularly bad vibes who will offer to lend them a seemingly mundane item that would prove a great aid to their current situation. Meeting them at the crossroads outside of town, approaching their campsite at night, this “kindly hermit” will continue to pester them until the party actively ask him to leave. It’s not until one of the heroes is knocked out in combat that the hermit’s true nature is revealed, as he appears in a vison of a black forest, offering to lead the dying character back to their body. The kindly hermit is a devil, who offers boons to the desperate to see just how far towards ruin they might travel if only given the slightest bit of help. He asks for no favors, no contracts, only wishing to see what ends might occur if he supplies the means.
Setup: Before she turned rustler, Evita was more than just a hand at the Roth family ranch, she was one of their best drivers, personally tasked with covering for the mistakes of Emanuel’s oldest son, a boy thoroughly spoiled by the wealthy pedigree his father had spent years acquiring. Overworked and under appreciated, Evita had been saving for years to buy up some land and strike out on her own, sure to be successful with the experience and contacts she’d made working for the Roths. It was on the tail end of her last big drive that the Eldest Roth boy, all smiles, let it slip that he had found out about her plans and had bought out the land she’d laid a downpayment on, insisting that his father would never let her strike out on her own as a competitor and that her only future in the cattle business would be under him. He was not subtle about what he meant, nor was Evita subtle when she cracked her bullwhip across his face or when she coiled the leather cord around her fist and beat the smug bastard’s perfect teeth in.
It was that night after running off into the badlands that the Kindly Hermit found her: wiping the blood from her knuckles in a creek and shivering from shock and desert chill. The devil offered her a wolfskin to keep warm, and like all his gifts, it let her do the impossible, in this case bestowing lycanthropy and a supernatural toughness upon a woman against whom the whole world had suddenly turned.
From there it was the work of years, getting together a crew, using her knowledge of the cattle trade to plan raids on Roth’s herd, finding ANOTHER crew after the last one got shot down by the rancher’s thugs or was torn apart by an unpredicted bestial transformation. Eventually however she worked it out, found a way to (mostly) control her wolf, found a gang of outlaws and bastards and tough and as determined as she was, found an old military fort they could use as a hideout with a sturdy powder vault they could lock her in while she waited out the moon.
An old fort that the Cattle Baron has sent the party towards in hopes of eliminating the woman who scarred his heir and strangled his hired gun, completely ignorant of the inhuman trap they’ll be walking into.
