Basic story idea

[Crucible]

Hello all

I am reading all the TtB stuff I could get my hands on and I had an idea for a story pop into my head (yes I'll be the Fatemaster). Decided to not work it out completely yet and keep reading first. And as I'm a firm believer of "several minds are better then one" I'm gona post the idea here. Hoping you give me some insights or even expand on it or use it yourselves.

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Some people came through the breach to try and make a better life for themselves. This all seemed to work at first. They had a small group, went into the wilds and set up a frontier town. With all the trouble that goes with it. But they got cheated out of their belongings and control of the town by some one (I'd go for a normal human, not some Malifaux monster, humans are evil enough to be antagonists. Maybe just Guild).

The good townsfolk were forced to leave their homes after loosing everything. And they starved and froze to death in the wilds. Some Neverborn caught wind of this and took control of their misery, turning them so they have to relive the nightmare of loosing everything and starving over and over.

So you get a Guild controled frontier town that gets wiped out by nightmare Neverborn, who then get thrown back out and go through their own personal hell and die ... again. These nightmare Neverborn look human though and they don't know they are Neverborn. And the cycle continues.

The players have to figure out the problem and take on the big controling Neverborn to make the cycle end.

 

So there has to be something near the town to make it worthwhile for the Guild to want to go back there over and over. Sending fresh Through the Breach frontiersman that work the town till it gets wiped out again might not cost the Guild much but eventually word will get out.

Maybe this can be a second campaign. The first being that all the fated characters are the first frontiersmen that go through all the pains of establishing a frontier town. Fight some local wild life, fight off some outlaws, keep Guild from taking over town a few times, ... But in the end they lose it in the big finale. Enter the second campaign, fresh Fated Characters that don't know s*it about Malifaux but the players will know exactly what happened. This can then be their first story (or first few) in the campaign. This time they could be Guild investigators even.

 

So, any thoughts?

[hippodruid]

As far as reasons that entities usually take over towns, there's either a valuable resource involved or a strategic benefit to controlling the area.  The only valuable resources the Guild really cares about are soulstones, so there might be a mine, but it could just as easily be a troop of bandits who took over the town to extort money from travelers (if it's the only source of clean water anywhere near in the Badlands, for example).  Maybe the town is near a suspected Arcanist/Ressurectionist stronghold or lab, and the Guild have taken it to turn into a garrison and monitoring station, leaving a few Witch Hunters/Death Marshals, or perhaps the Ten Thunders have replaced the leadership so they have a legitimate front and a place to station spies and infiltrators and now rule with an iron grip of fear (dissidents disappearing in the night without a trace, paying protection money, being watched constantly in public, etc).  Factions and conquerors are pretty interchangeable here, so the important part to decide on what makes the place valuable, and then worry about who would want to control that.