#CopperheadCounty AP:
I’m back on the AP horse for my playtest game of Copperhead County, my modern-southern-crime hack. In a nutshell, Copperhead County is a modern-day Blades game set in a fictional southeastern Tennessee county with a long history of crime and corruption. See this post for my last update on the project:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JasonEley/posts/3wedc2LPCa4
Last week, we started Season 2 of the game after a six-score Season 1 and a brief hiatus. I’ve missed posting several sessions, so I’ll recap the whole thing thus far! It’s super long, so feel free to walk on, or to settle in with some tea.
Our heroes: the towering Marvin the Heavy; the deadly weirdo Willem the Cleaner; the young chemist Haddie the Hazard; the stylish and canny Camila the Wheeler; and the sly gamer Jesse the Marker. This band of Hellraisers operates out of the small town of Piney Springs, TN, from a dingy bar called Marlene’s.
The game began with my starting situation, Fire On the Mountain: the Pettimore Clan (Tier 3), the longtime masters of local back-country crime, were attacked by unknown enemies when one of their mountainside drug labs was blown up, burning away their product and their family patriarch. The family set about pressuring other crews in response, and since the PCs started with a negative status with the McMorrow Clan (Tier 1), another backwoods crime family with an ancient feud against the Pettimores, the Pettimore captain Horace recruited the Marlenes to strike against the McMorrows.
Job 1: The PCs tracked Kyle McMorrow, a former high school classmate of Haddie’s, to a mountain cabin where he hung out with his fellow youngs, playing Madden and manufacturing bootleg pain pills. The crew scared the kids down, but were interrupted by a gang of dudes who showed up in a Florida-plated SUV to pick up product. They walloped the dudes, took their phones, told everyone to hit the road, then hauled out the pill-pressing equipment and burned down the cabin.
Job 2: The crew’s drug dealer contact set them up with a deal at a nearby Steak N Shake, with the county newcomer Jensen Allbright (Tier 1), a rich Californian transplant seeking to buy out the local underworld; along with his bodyguard, Houston. The deal went fine until they were interrupted by goons from the Heathens MC (Tier 3), a gang of gunrunning motorcyclists. The PCs intimidated them away, but as they drove away in their shared van, the Heathens gave chase on their hogs. The crew slammed the van brakes, causing the Heathens to crash into them, then leaped out and shot down the others. With their van wrecked, they had to hide in the woods until someone could come pick them up.
Job 3: Hungry for revenge, the crew decided to strike back at the Heathens, targeting a highway-side motel the club ran as a vice den. Since motorcycle dudes like to stay up late, they decided to strike early in the morning, when the MC would still be asleep. They found the motel watched only by a token crew of guards, most most of whom were asleep by the pool, their stereo still blasting classic Pantera (RIP, Roll20 Soundcloud jukebox). The PCs snuck through and cleared the motel of civilians, including the Heathens’ escort employees, some of whom the PCs recruited to work for them at Marlene’s. Then they threw gas around the lobby, planted some TNT, and blew the building up. The Heathens lieutenant in charge of the motel, Zeke, managed to run out in time, but was sniped in the knee by Willem as the PCs drove away. As cool as the motel explosion was, the commotion also gave them their first Wanted Level.
Job 4: Unfortunately, the new business at Marlene’s drew attention, and the crew was soon alerted that the bar had been invaded by gunthugs. They arrived and discovered the gunmen were the same Floridian dudes they tangled with in Job 1, this time led by their boss, Victor Perez, who it turned out was married to the leader of the McMorrows, Kyle’s older sister. The crew snuck around the back of the bar and surrounded Victor, who revealed that Kyle was missing and the McMorrows thought the Marlenes were responsible. Peace won the day after the crew befriended Victor and agreed to an alliance to take down the Pettimores. During downtime, Haddie critted a gather info roll to track Kyle, and found a telltale sign he had been abducted by Horace Pettimore…
Job 5: If the crew thought Marlene’s was safe yet, they were wrong: they were soon interrupted by the roar of a horde of motorcycles surrounding the bar, led by Zeke, the Heathens captain they wounded in Job 3. Zeke offered them a choice: they could submit to the Heathens, and pay a hefty amount of Cash every downtime, or be destroyed. Realizing it was a stupid idea to start a war with a Tier 3 gang, the PCs surrendered. Zeke and his goons moved into the bar, and he gave the crew an assignment: the Heathens sold guns to the Copperhead Patriots (tier 2), a far-right militia with very bad opinions, but suspected the Patriots were reselling the guns behind their back. The PCs were dispatched to observe and interrupt a deal, following a Patriots van to a construction site, where they discovered the deal was with Houston, Jensen Allbright’s bodyguard! Haddie and Camila hijacked a nearby bulldozer and used it to bulldoze the Patriots van into a big hole while the others opened fire on the militiamen. With Houston at their mercy, they decided to let him go with the guns, while taking the Patriots’ money for themselves.
After advancement, Haddie took the Blue Sky special ability and completed her development of a new drug, an LSD derivative delivering a chill, party-friendly vibe, which she called Soma. Can this new psychedelic corner the Copperhead drug game..?
Job 6, Season 1 Finale: Victor Perez called on the Marlenes for help. His guys had tracked Horace Pettimore to a mountain stronghold where they thought Kyle McMorrow might be kept. Together, the two small crews would infiltrate the compound and find out, with the Marlenes taking the front and Victor going around the back. As the PCs approached Horace’s house, a pickup truck drove by and they decided to blow cover and stop it at gunpoint. They were correct that the truck was driven by Pettimore associates, but the passengers were able to fire a text message to Horace before they were secured. Leaving the truck duo tied up by the road, the Marlenes decided to forget about infiltration and sped their van downhill to the house, exchanging gunfire with Pettimore guards before crashing straight through the front door. Their van wrecked, the PCs were surrounded by goons led by Horace and his son. Another gunfight ensued and Marvin got hit and Trauma’d out while taking the Pettimores down. With his final gasps, Horace revealed that Kyle McMorrow was already dead, and the PCs hightailed it out of there in a stolen truck. A couple of county Sheriff cars showed up and gave chase along the treacherous mountain roads. The PCs wisely decided to only shoot out the cops’ tires, but Willem got hit in the commotion and took the crew’s second level of Trauma before they escaped.
With all the Rep and Cash they gained tussling with stronger factions, the PCs were now Tier I. Unfortunately, they’re still on the hook with the Heathens, paying them every downtime and tolerating their presence in their own lair. What they may not appreciate is that the Heathens’ presence is also the only thing keeping the Pettimores from destroying them… what will these lovable Hellraisers get up to in Season 2?
Job 7, Season 2 Premiere: With Jesse out on vacation, Marvin, Camila, Willem, and Haddie went to meet with Jensen Allbright in his office in downtown Patterson, the county’s central city, to discuss an alliance against the Heathens. They found Jensen high AF, his office reeking of marijuana from what he claimed was an earlier meeting. Not pressing the issue, the crew listened to his terms: Jensen would provide the PCs with intel to use to disrupt the Heathens’ gunrunning business, and after the MC was defeated, Jensen would run the gun racket in Copperhead County. They agreed, although Camila also got Jensen to agree to pay them points off his profits, and got his man Houston to agree to lend them backup when the time came to fight the Heathens head-on. Jensen passed them papers he’d obtained from a recent ATF surveillance of the Heathens, showing a tool shop on the outskirts of the city where the Heathens modified and stored weapons.
The crew, having enjoyed success attacking the Heathens in the early morning (see Job 3), decided to do that again. They found the shop on an industrial street near the Copperhead River, all quiet at the crack of dawn. They snuck around the back and Haddie went to work cutting a hole through the fence, but soon heard a motorcycle approaching the shop. They sprinted through the fence-hole and hid behind some junk, watching as a middle-aged Heathen (Rooster, by the name on his leather rocker) came up to inspect the mysterious van parked behind his shop. Willem fired a desperate potshot with his silenced pistol, wounding Rooster, and with his amazing Reflexes ran up and finished him off. RIP, Rooster. (A discussion ensued about whether the crew was being too murderous. It was resolved that, unless instructed otherwise, Willem was always performing Lethal Takedowns.) As Marvin dumped Rooster into the river, the others took his keys and opened the shop’s back door, where they found a van and several crates of firearms in a garage. They peeked into the shop floor and saw three Heathens on a couch watching early-morning TV; only one of them, a young Prospect, was awake. Rooster’s cell phone buzzed as the Prospect texted him, wondering when he was going to show up. Willem had taken the phone and tried to assume Rooster’s voice, texting the Prospect that he’d had a late night at the strip club and wanted to show him a cool video in the garage. Unfortunately, this raised the Heathens’ suspicions, as Rooster had told them he was going to spend time with his son the previous night. The Prospect woke the other Heathens and went to check out the garage, but Willem again Reflexed forth and zapped the Prospect with a stun gun, while Marvin ran up and bashed in one of the goons’ heads with his bat. The remaining goon drew his revolver and shot at Camila, but only hit her vest as she dropped him with her shotgun. As the shocked Prospect woke up, the crew intimidated him into silence and tied him up, loading him, and the guns, into the Heathens’ van to deliver to Houston for safekeeping. Before they left, they repeated their patented anti-Heathens move and planted explosives on Rooster’s gunsmith machinery, blowing the shop apart as they drove away into the morning sun.
