Cattledash!
A downloadable adventure
Karl Druid presents a quick adventure for FRONTIER SCUM
You did it. You rustled rancher Clammon’s prize cattle—all 40 head. The only hickup? The law’s hot on your hooves. Up ahead, a ridge rising from the dust, and there, the gate to your salvation: Bonesome Gulch. Go through the canyon and you’re in the Big Nothing; in the jurisdiction of the Outlaw Union. Make it to the other side and the fence in Sickwater will pay 25 silver for each cow still breathin’. It’s no use going back the way you came; more law’s on its way.
- Designed to be played in about 2-3 hours, Cattledash! is the perfect adventure for when time is in your interest. Quick!
- It's the spiritual successor to Clamdash!, the original glacier dashing adventure for MÖRK BORG. Cool!
- Includes a form fillable cow sheet for tracking cattle attrition. Handy!
- Includes two tokens for VTTs, one for YOU and one for the LAW. Immersive!
- Featured on the Plus One Exp livestream of June 24th, 2022. Fun!
- Released as part of the FRONTIER SCUM release jam. Creative!
FRONTIER SCUM is © Den of Druids.
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I'm so excited to use Cattledash! as my group's introduction into Frontier Scum tonight! I fell in love with the system after watching QuestingBeast's review of it, and after months of finishing up other games I can finally sit my group down to play a session of it.
I did have a question though. How large is the canyon assumed to be, and about how long is it expected to take to get through it? The descriptors of the law being "hot on your hooves" and seeing their "cloud of dust" pursuing you makes them feel very, very close, but the idea that you would stop to poke around the burned down town or collapsed mine seems at odds with that.
I know cattle drives were often slow and took a while, so I wasn't sure if this was a car chase on horses or more of a long chase with the canyon being a sort of culmination of a longer, unseen engagement with the law.
My plan as of writing is to run the canyon as a two day trek, with them having to make a stop about halfway through (likely in the Burned Down Town) to rest the cattle before continuing on in the morning. I'm hoping for a sunset showdown in the Home Stretch with the law.
Thank you again!
Heya! The landscape leading up to the canyon is assumed to be very flat, so the dust cloud could still be a ways away.
I don't really have a good answer for how far away or how much time it would take for them to catch up ... it's all abstracted into the "timer" mechanic, so you could really scale it any which way. I think a two-day trek sounds like an eminently reasonable interpretation!
The effect of the setpieces on the story also depends on the situation. If the law is closing in the gang might see the saloon as a great place to make a last stand, or maybe the allure of an abandoned bank is reason enough.
There was another comment here proposing modifying the number of checks you make based on the speed of the slowest PC's horse, which could certainly spice up the chase as well!
Let us know how you get on!
Thank you so much for the fast reply!
I just wanted to let you know that the game went very well. The players had a fantastic time, and we ended up with only really wild Witchy Horse Arsonist Grave Digger that stole the show. She unfortunately died to the Cave Hyenas, but everyone else made it out and overcame an ambush by the lawfolk at the home stretch. They had 26 out of the 40 cattle alive by the end.
I just have to say I love how colorful the character creation was and my players said they had almost as much fun just creating their characters and horses as they did actually playing the game.
Definitely looking forward to running more in the future.
Thank you! Glad that it worked out fun 🤟
Oh and in case you missed it, the kickstarter for a new FS adventure, TIDES OF ROT, is launching September 5th!
Hi Karl, thank you for making this wonderful game (Frontier Scum) and this very exciting module!
My friend was having too easy a time of it, though: his single PC was ignoring everything along the gulch and just riding on ahead, so to shake things up I had the cave hyenas launch a surprise attack on him from the smaller cave mouth near Grift's Creek.
I also wanted to run this idea past you to take into account the different speeds of the mounts in the game:
I assumed the law-men are all on regular riding horses, so wanted to find a way to ensure they caught up with slower travellers more quickly. What do you think?
Hey! Thank you for the kind words 🙏
The premise does sort of depend on players getting distracted by things such as the bank etc, something that is more likely to happen with more players. When that isn't the case throwing some spanners (hyenas) in the works like you did is a great way to handle it.
The horse idea sounds interesting and could defo work, though I would consider how to handle a larger group of players where people may have different kinds of horses. I suppose they would have to adjust to the slowest person in the party?
Essentially, if the players decide to travel together (as a group) they have to travel at the speed of the slowest mount in the party, but I guess people on faster mounts can just do everything quicker, so don't incur the same penalties for their actions.
If faster riders decide to leave the slowest one behind, the slowest will be forced to deal with the law-men sooner. Racing horse riders could, in that situation, act like scouts, dashing ahead and back again without causing the law-men to progress any further on their account, but it will be the slow ones who are in the most danger here, which makes sense given the nature of this scenario!
It is, of course, a little abstract, but is really just a way to ensure the PCs on slow mounts feel the consequences!
I have tried using this method with my friend (who was riding a slow mule) and it, combined with the surprise hyena attack, has worked much better to create a sense of tension and peril for him. I think otherwise he would have sailed right through without incident, and the potential for exciting drama this adventure offers would have been missed.
The hyenas killed his mule in the ruins of Grift's Creek, just before he killed their matriarch, and he fled on foot. Thanks to the amount of failed GRIT checks the hyena attack caused, the law have arrived in Grift's Creek not long after he left, so the sense of imminent danger is very real now!
That sounds solid, definitely gonna try running it this way next time!
Cool!
As an update: my player turned about when he saw the vultures (I had them be Blood Vultures) perched in the Quiet Valley, as he said he wanted to avoid any more beasts after the Cave Hyena attack. He met Gobias Potter, who warned him he'd have to pay for any pots broken. My player said he had no silver (true), so Gobias told him where he could find some: he said the well next to his hut was a secret emergency access shaft to the Collapsed Mine, which contained a lot of silver!
I planned to use the Mörk Borg module called 'This Hell of Mine' as the interior of the mine: you will see I think it fits quite well to the layout and theme of Bonesome Gulch!
There's also a series of paintings in the mine which I was going to use as a prequel to 'The Blood Moon Vernissage'.
However, as my player descended the rope into the shaft, I made him do a GRIT check to successfully descend. He failed. I made him do a SLICK check to see if he re-caught the rope. He failed. I made him do a GRIT check to see if he landed without taking damage. He failed. I made him roll 2d6 for damage, following the falling damage rules from classic D&D. He was mortally wounded. I made him roll a Death Check...he died!
That should have been the end of the story, but I had him wake up again aboard the Organ Rail! Gobias told the law-men where he was, they dug him out of the mine and the sheriff (who I said was Ingo 'No Mercy' Makarty from Fort Gullet) put him aboard the Morgan Rail and made a deal with Dr Vulchester: the doc would "patch him up" (with Gnomon blood serum) and be allowed to do "medical tests" on him, in exchange for being transported to Fort Gullet to hang. When my player woke up in the prison car, he was shocked to discover his arms had been replaced with Giant Eagle wings (I took this from 'Borrowed Time').
When he met Vulchester, the doctor explained he had used him as a prototype for the Harpy. Now Vulchester is dead and my player is heading toward the front of the train!
Hell yeah! This is exactly how it should go, absolute chaos and thinking on your feet 🤘 thanks for sharing!