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Feb. 6th, 2012
Wild West D&D Character
Feb. 6th, 2012 03:13 pm(Writing this where I'll remember it- bit of background for a Wild West D&D game character I came up with while on a Wicked kick. Basically a halforc druid who comes from one of the taking-up-serpents churches and rains holy fire from the sky when she's pissed off.
We've been playing a prequel game until the majority of our group can actually play, and I played her as a little girl, a bit like the gal from True Grit. It's fun.)
Do you know the Widow McGowan?
They say she came to Tombstone as a girl on the wagon trains, a little orcling child with no parents and a hard gaze, a string of horses in her hand. She sold them, and bought herself a little stake just outside of town, no silver mine but a hardscrabble farm that takes most of her time. There might have been a man, or there might not have been- but either way she wears a veil over that green face and does not accept gentlemen callers.
Some days you can see her walking into town, clad in dusty black under her parasol, alone and straight and tall against the sky. She makes the rounds of the shops, and then after the churches, silent in the back row. She talks to no one as friend, keeps eyes to the front- but searching, like she's looking for something no one else can see.
They say she hears God, but the preachers say she hears devils, and either way, she doesn't much speak on it. She can preach brimstone and hellfire as good as any of them, and will if someone gives her reason to.
Afterwards, she goes and heals and midwifes at the whorehouses. Scandalous, but no one dares say a thing to her face, not after what happened to Elmer Thudd and his sheep-killing dog.
("Three times I have asked you kindly to curb that animal of yours, and three times you have failed. Now he's mine.
A whistling crack rings out.
"You can wear the mark of your own strap, can't you? Big man like you. And you will wear it until you are contrite.")
Respectable she may not be, but no one crosses the Widow McGowan- at least, not twice.
They say on clear nights, you can see her at her homestead, on the edge of the desert. She walks out on the sands, hat and veil like she's just out visiting, and stands alone amid a carpet of coiling, hissing rattlers.
They say she stands with her arms wide out, lets them twine up and around her body, her legs, her hands.
They say she dances with serpents.
We've been playing a prequel game until the majority of our group can actually play, and I played her as a little girl, a bit like the gal from True Grit. It's fun.)
Do you know the Widow McGowan?
They say she came to Tombstone as a girl on the wagon trains, a little orcling child with no parents and a hard gaze, a string of horses in her hand. She sold them, and bought herself a little stake just outside of town, no silver mine but a hardscrabble farm that takes most of her time. There might have been a man, or there might not have been- but either way she wears a veil over that green face and does not accept gentlemen callers.
Some days you can see her walking into town, clad in dusty black under her parasol, alone and straight and tall against the sky. She makes the rounds of the shops, and then after the churches, silent in the back row. She talks to no one as friend, keeps eyes to the front- but searching, like she's looking for something no one else can see.
They say she hears God, but the preachers say she hears devils, and either way, she doesn't much speak on it. She can preach brimstone and hellfire as good as any of them, and will if someone gives her reason to.
Afterwards, she goes and heals and midwifes at the whorehouses. Scandalous, but no one dares say a thing to her face, not after what happened to Elmer Thudd and his sheep-killing dog.
("Three times I have asked you kindly to curb that animal of yours, and three times you have failed. Now he's mine.
A whistling crack rings out.
"You can wear the mark of your own strap, can't you? Big man like you. And you will wear it until you are contrite.")
Respectable she may not be, but no one crosses the Widow McGowan- at least, not twice.
They say on clear nights, you can see her at her homestead, on the edge of the desert. She walks out on the sands, hat and veil like she's just out visiting, and stands alone amid a carpet of coiling, hissing rattlers.
They say she stands with her arms wide out, lets them twine up and around her body, her legs, her hands.
They say she dances with serpents.