Blood And Steam

Spoilers ahead!*This article contains spoilers for **Blood And Steam**. Be warned!*

## Blood And Steam

### Characters

Friedrich Furdassky, Hope Puckett, Marcus G. Fairmont, Mother Hardy, William H. Daft

### Series

Red DREAD Redemption

**Blood And Steam** is the first episode of the Red DREAD Redemption roleplay series.

**Since these episodes have an overarching narrative structure, the episode guides contain major and minor spoilers.**

"*I put a lot of souls in a lot of holes and* I sleep just fine'**"**
―Marcus G. Fairmont
## Scenario

Our players begin in a luxurious carriage on a train. Each of them have a ticket to Graverock.

## Characters

Tom is the Games Master.

* Marcus G. Fairmont (Adam) – an undertaker from Calloway, West Virginia. He's currently on a streak of 21-0 in the professional undertaking competition. He's carrying a leather satchel with the tools of his craft. When we meet him he is writing in a notebook.
* William H Daft (Sullivan) is a politician, from Little Dick Alabama. He looks like William Taft, former US President. He's running for President, largely on issues that concern himself only. When we meet him he is writing about things that annoy him personally – he wants a horse, he wants the pavement outside his house to be less bumpy, he objects to his neighbour Abernathy Cornwallis.
* Hope Puckett (Holly) is from the Southern US. She is 5 ft 11, with copper-gold hair, a freckled face and slightly pinched features. When we meet her she is sitting quietly, looking around.
* Friedrich Furdassky (Laurie) is German. He has green eyes, a red beard and a great big Bavarian moustache - think Domhnall Gleeson with a great big Bavarian moustache. In his time in the US, he has been robbed, shot at and pushed him down, so he is slightly disheveled. When we meet him, he is reading his well-loved copy of *Alice in Wonderland*.
* (Agnes Margaret) Mother Hardy (Tilly) is an older lady. She is 5ft 8, with long grey hair. When we meet her she is reading the bible.

### NPC

* Pierre the train attendant, with young, delicate features, but showing tiredness. He wears a nice suit.
* Quentin Stone, with short cropped blond hair, wearing an exquisite 3 piece velvet suit.
* Robert Boyle the barman, a middle aged Irish man wearing a nice but dated suit.
* Cora Love, a woman with jet black hair and ruby red lips.
* Father Benito Bacardo, a tall man with dark black hair, weatherbeaten but handsome. His skin looks about 40, his eyes much older.
* Jacob Glenns, a 7ft tall man, huge and broad-shouldered. His face is a mask of pain and blood.

## Notable moments

* This really is an NRB masterpiece: everyone plays their parts wonderfully, the story is atmospheric, the graphics and theming are gorgeous and Tom is as spectacular as always. Plus, there are lots of puns. And lots of wrestling references.
* We peak early, with Tilly's hello: "there's some yee-haws in the house!" And Adam's: "Formalde-hi!"
* Tom explains how GM-hosted role play games and Dread in particular work. Attempting something that requires skill or luck requires players to pull from a Jenga tower. A successful pull is a successful attempt. A refusal to pull is a failure. Toppling the tower means the character is removed from the game, although that may not happen immediately - the host can choose to mark the character for death and allow them a few more minutes of play.
* Adam: "The first thing you want is a horse? Sullivan you’re not helping yourself". Sullivan assures us that neither Daft nor he wants to have sex with horses. Teri even puts a sign up on screen to confirm this. Although the cast claim this is merely the origin story.
* Pierre the train attendant comes to see the passengers settled and offer assistance. Marcus is disappointed the bar isn't open. Daft and Friedrich bond over voting and Friedrich even becomes Vice Presidential candidate.
* We're interrupted by a distressing entrance. The newcomer, Quentin, points a gun at our characters and says some very confusing things. Holly does our first pull of the game to read Quentin. She's shortly followed by Adam pulling to retrieve, then throw, a scalpel. Hope manages to take the gun, Friedrich is entertained by the fight.
* The fight ends with the sudden death of Quentin. Marcus will do his best to preserve the body, though his experimental fluids are unstable.
* The others retire to the bar, which distresses Marcus. He gives his flask to Daft to have it filled, and also asks Hope and Mother Hardy to get him whisky.
* Sullivan pulls so that Daft can hear a soft noise, which turns out to be a child's laughter.
* In the bar, Hope chats to the barman and orders the cheapest whisky for Marcus - which she immediately drinks. The barman thinks Hope is more of a tequila drinker - she's looking for the worm. The barman is Bobby, and asks Hope to find an object he has lost.
* Friedrich orders and drinks a whisky, and begins to flirt with a woman, Cora, in the carriage. She calls him 'Buffalo' and encourages him to wear his new cowboy hat. He worries it may make him look stupid.
* Daft orders whisky but fills the flask mostly with water and drinks the rest himself.
* Meanwhile, Marcus is asking for supplies for his procedure. He's happy to be left alone with the body - "I put a lot of souls in a lot of holes and *I sleep just fine*". He searches the body but finds nothing more than a warm ticket.
* Adam is negotiating with Tom: "This is an experimental procedure and it is to be handled with the utmost delicacy, grace and patience – but I want a drink." Tom insists on a pull for the sloppy work and a pull for the use of nitroglycerine. Adam's hands are actually shaking and Laurie and Sullivan are slightly irritated by his choice of pulls. Laurie: "Well, someone's dead, aren't they?"
* The train stops and our players disembark - at Nulle Part Trading Post. It's dusk and heavily raining.
* Adam: "Everyone's pulled except for [Laurie]". Tom: "I mean, if you saw his conversation with Cora earlier, it’s a matter of time."
* Friedrich hears a sound, Laurie pulls to hear it more clearly. His hands are shaking now too. The noise is a bellow.
* The trading post is abandoned, but Hope finds the box for Bobby. Teri brings an actual, beautiful box. Holly's hands are also shaking.
* We're sarcastically wondering why this game is called *Dread*, when it's so very relaxing and lovely.
* There's a church behind the trading post. Daft, Mother Hardy and Hope go in and meet Father Benito. He's kind but disturbing - suggesting they have met true evil and perhaps done a little evil too.
* Marcus and Friedrich look round the churchyard. There's a single named grave - Marcus recognises the name and is very distressed by it. He drinks from the flask, then heads in a rage to find Daft. He is interrupted by a genuinely horrifying sequence of events, as Jacob Glenns rises from the grave. Marcus: "No! No! No! I buried you!"
* We finish with a preview of the following episode.

## Trivia

* We have beautiful title cards and end credits

### Wrestling references

* Marcus the undertaker's has a winning streak (at the professional awards) of 21-0 - a reference to The Undertaker's series of 21 straight wins at Wrestlemania.
* Tom's description of the attacking figure includes his mask of blood and distress - "That's pain! That's gotta be pain!" mimics the commentary when Kane made his WWE debut during a Hell In A Cell match in 1997 ("that's gotta be Kane!")
* The character Jacob Glenns is a reference to Kane, whose real name is Glenn Jacobs. He is 7ft tall and wore a red mask whilst wrestling.