Grimcleaver

So things are getting real in our Malifaux campaign and the Fated have invovled themselves in a plot to kidnap the Governor General. The Hollow Marsh gala to commemorate the new pumping station has just happened (including what everyone thought was an attempt to assassinate the Governor General--so alert level is maximum) and everyone is on their return trip back to Malifaux aboard an incredibly well defended and luxurious train. The kidnappers, led by an escaped convict murderer and insurrectionist called "El Cerdo" plan to blow the tracks under the train as it comes off one of the bridges out of the Footprints canyons and cause a derailment while most of the train is still stuck on a suspension bridge hanging over a grand canyon drop into sharp rocks, man eating cactuses and giant scorpions. So what kind of defenses would the Guild have set up to prevent stuff like this from happening--because frankly it seems like it would happen all the time. Especially with all the loads of soulstone that rumble over these bridges. What would we be seeing them do to insure this kind of stuff wasn't happening all the time. How do you ever get the Governor General out to places by train and make examples of fools who dare attack his entourage? Because as much as this plan seems tight...it's gotta' not be. It's gotta' be like the stupidest plan ever. It's too easy. If it were this simple, someone would have done it already. Still once you've overturned a train going 40 miles per hour and it's turned into a pile of twisted wreckage like something out of Super 8 it's hard to imagine how any kind of real defense would be possible and how most folks won't just be in various stages of dead and mangled...

So far there's a gang of bandits that used it as a hideout, but that's about it. I was just curious because other places like the Observatory ended up being huge set pieces in one of the huge epic storylines that I would have totally missed out on if I hadn't researched the heck out of everything.

No luck there so far, though the Cold Street writeup is really good!

Sweet guys! Thanks. I definitely love the idea of eisengeists. That's just fantastic. As far as the monkeys--I want something with ties to oldMalifaux, Killjoy and (educated guess) probably Titania. I like the idea that they might just be new--reskinned metal dove kinda' things, in this case gargoyles made of metal tentacles (maybe using undead nephilim tots as an armature or not). All the old malifaux constructs we've seen so far seem to be some mix of Kythera style interlocking gears and Doc Ock arms. Just some musings. What do you guys think?

In the Fated Almanac, the spell for conjuring gamin lists a whole bunch of subtypes, after which there's a box section that says how metal gamin are something different and that only a handful of people know the secret of producing them. Looking at their art, it's pretty different too--the other types all look like spunky imp/goblin things made of whatever element, whereas metal gamin have an almost stonelike body and metal masks, almost like tikki masks. So who has the secret of making them? Are they an old Malifaux thing? Are they a Union thing? Associated with the Rider? I'm just curious. The Fated in our game have blasted a big hole in the slums of Riverside with about fifteen sticks of dynamite and toppled a nearby building into the whole, which in turn collapsed that section of sewer into an even older section. Down there in the dark I plan to have them run into this big Pyramid Head kinda' thing called the Organ Grinder, a condemned Nephilim ogre like Killjoy that's borged out with pressure gauges for eyes and chained to an enormous crank that creates creepy freaking music from an enormous subterranean calliope. I'd like him to control some weird monkey like things, but I'm unsure what I want to go with, so metal gamin are one of the things I'm looking into, because they look kind of odd in a cool way. But I want to know more about them first.

Aaand doublepost...

That Dead of Winter story is an absolute gold mine. Thanks a lot you guys. Y'know it occurs to me that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for folks to set up some kind of a wiki for the story elements of Malifaux so Fatemasters could get up to speed without having to spend weeks in the short story mines with an oil lamp chipping story fragments out of the rocks...

Yeah. I noticed that. When I tried to post it said there was an error sending it, so I posted it again...and apparently both posted. Now I'm trying to figure out how to delete the old one. Heh.

Thanks, I'll see if I can hunt that down!

Obliteration has turned out to be a big part of the game I'm running, so I'm trying to find out as much about it and it's vessel Tara as I can. I know about the write-up on the Wyrd site for Tara, and the Abeittor of Obliteration Advanced Pursuit. What I'm hoping for is to track down any of the fiction that talks about them. I picked up the Nythera module hoping to find out some more about them--as I'd heard that her fate was somehow tied to the resolution of the organized play of that adventure...but couldn't find anything. Anything anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated . Thanks!

Read the fiction. Most games have goshawful fiction. Not this one. There's no better way to get a feel for the kind of stories you're going to want to be telling than to start with the 1.5 Core book and just read all the fiction in all the books. Malifaux doesn't have a lot of variety of antagonists. You have zombies, Neverborn (which can look like anything, but most of the time look like big demons), big mutant animals and gremlins (basically hillbilly goblins) but the last two you really only run into outside the city. Other than that it's all humans. That's really not a huge canvas, and you run out of new stuff surprisingly fast, so you really have to make the game about people--because if you're just doing missions throwing the PCs against the monster of the week, you're going to run out pretty quick. Thus the setting's history and mythology is a *big* deal, and you can't really find most of it on a wiki or anything. It's just not out there anywhere yet. It's pretty much exclusively in the fiction. The good news is the fiction is amazingly good and readable. Most of it has even been turned into radio plays you can listen to on breachsidebroadcast.com. You really will want to understand the different factions, who their leaders and major characters are, and how to present them right. The mood and flavor of Malifaux is a touchy thing and you'll want to immerse yourself in it. Plus there's a lot of secret lore you won't even know exists until you start reading.

South of Riverside is an area called the Howling Slums. It's clearly marked on every map of the city, much like other areas like Kythera and the Observatory that end up featuring big-time in the fiction. The only references to the Howling Slums I've been able to find is that they used to wail with this loud yowling screech from deep underground and that recently an inexplicably it just stopped--unnerving folks as much by the fact that it just went away as it ever did when it was happening. So has anything been said about this? Any fiction about it? Anyother references to it? An opportunity has come up in our game to tie into it and so I'm trying to research everything I can about it. Thanks folks!

There we go! Thanks.

So I finally got a hold of a copy of Under Quarantine. Still can't find the section on the Grave Spirit. No luck at all. Can I get a page number from someone? I might just be looking in the wrong parts--it's a decently thick 200 page book. Thanks.

That custom icons feature is fantastic. There's now a little me on the map instead of a red pointy. That's awesome. Thanks!