Arcs

# Campaign Arcs:

## Star Nationals

Addie, a Templar, and the two lone wanderers Max and The Kid, found themselves drawn to the small rest-stop town of Oasis, Nevada. It was there they stumbled upon the town's newest dilemma: people were missing, and the sick became walking dead. With the help of Oasis's local power source/self-proclaimed superhero, Atom Warlock, the group set about uncovering the source of these strange occurrences, and put a stop to them.

## Anvil Cannibals

After agreeing to team up and taking a rest in Oasis, Addie and Atom became tangled up in an abduction case. Luis Saint and his brother Brian had been attacked on the road by Road Orcs, and Brian had been dragged away by the brutes. Luis, Addie, and Atom followed their trail to the gang-friendly town of Anvil, uncovering one of the town's unsavory secrets.

## Intro to New Wells

Addie and Atom, along with Atom's newly made allies—the teenage witch Gregg, the holy-empowered preacher Junior, and the chaotic junker Choc—were tasked by Oasis's leader to bring back a meat delivery from New Wells, Utah. After a brief gang fight on the road, the group found themselves at the edge of a town under siege. Turned out the Combine had also taken an interest in New Wells, and they weren't leaving without a fight.

## Shadows in Dugway

After driving the Combine out of New Wells, Victor entrusted the town's saviors with a new request: investigate the Dugway Proving Ground, and recover defense schematics and supplies he believed were stored there. The catch: fair few people went scavenging there, and never returned. Atom, Choc, Addie, Gregg, and the newly recruited Syker Chen Jenny were soon able to figure out why. The military base was home to monstrous supernatural plague experiments, and someone remained to continue them.

## Plague's Servant

Upon returning with Dugway's treasures, Jenny, Gregg, Atom, Addie, and Choc were met with a roadblock: a mysterious biker and his beaten and bruised Templar prisoner. This biker was soon revealed to be the Anti-Templar Marcus Bloom, a servant of pestilence, and his Templar captive Tom, in truth, his plague-spreading accomplice. With the aid of Addie's former Templar mentor and long-time friend River Mortem, the group set out to put an end to Marcus's plans.

## Hell Riders

The group was not able to rest long after their devastating fight with Marcus before a new threat came into focus: the Hell Riders, formerly a small-time gang, now a demon-led force enslaving and terrorizing civilians around Utah and Nevada. The librarian Warner Page, formerly a prisoner of the gang, sought out the New Wells Six to put an end to the horror. With some digging and a little party-background knowledge, the party uncovered the truth: an old and powerful demon by the name of Atheron had taken control of the Hell Riders, and sought to summon his 'Eyes'—human hosts he possesses—to manifest his full power. Armed with this knowledge, and time of the essence, the NW6 set out to take out the Hell Riders and their demonic leader.

## Tracking Liberty

With New Wells and the surrounding area safe for the time-being, Atom pushed forward into pursuing his personal goal: finding an old friend and ally for his revenge on Silas, fellow Doomsayer Liberty. He and the party followed an old lead to Junkyard, dealing with a few unsavory hiccups along the way. Atom finds a fresh clue to follow in Bran, an old werewolf and powerful influence in the city. He told Atom he'd hired Liberty to look into leads on an artifact for him, and had gone missing. His son, Samuel who he'd sent after her had disappeared as well, and now he needed aid in bringing them both back. The party agreed to help, and set out to the abandoned town of Curie to figure out what had happened to the two of them. A coven of witches, led by a woman named Mab, had taken control of the area and captured Liberty and Samuel, and now the party found themselves assailed by magic-induced snowstorms and gremlin-like creatures.

## Redwater

With Liberty and Samuel brought back home, Atom and his old friend made contact with the Heretic leader: Joan. She asked a favor of him: to follow through with a delivery job to the town of Redwater. Atom requests the rest of the NW6 take the job in his stead, as he and Liberty work to gather resources for Joan. The party accepts, and finds themselves caught in the middle of a Combine raid on the town's old military base. It's there they run into an unexpected ally: River's father, Richard 'Dick' Mortem, who'd she'd been trying to track down for years. While searching the base, the party found the Combine's targets: an intact nuclear bomb, and hidden within, an artifact with a holy history: Saint Michael's Bell.

## The Goat, The Witch, and the Warden

At Addie's insistence, the group agreed to bring Saint Micheal's Bell to Boise for safekeeping. Unbeknownst to the group, Addie carried another motive for returning to the Templar headquarters: clear River's name of the murders she committed while possessed. On the road to Boise, the group ran into some trouble: an ambush by the Wrecking Crew. The NW6 made it through with minor scratches, and Addie violently interrogated one of the members to find her father's gang had taken to terrorizing the roads around Boise. Upon meeting with Simon, he confirmed the fact, and asked her to finish what she started years ago: bring her team and take Matthew Greene down.

It's during the planning on assaulting Matthew's base, however, that an old enemy rears his head: Brad Modeen, leader of the Anti-Templars, has teamed up with the Wrecking Crew and Combine, and has been killing Templars and Caravans around Boise. Her revenge forced to wait, Addie agreed to take out Brad or die trying. While investigating Brad's base of operations and figuring out his weakness, Toussaint made a trip back to Boise to retrieve the Anti-Templar's kryptonite. However, he received more than he bargained for when he approached Simon: a sense of the presence of an old and powerful enemy: Baphomet. With some reluctance, Toussaint revealed this fact to Addie upon meeting her again, which she received poorly. Addie swore to find a way to get rid of Baphomet without killing Simon, and kept the secret of Simon's possession from the rest of the group.

With a bit of effort, the party dispatched Brad Modeen and his Anti-Templars, freeing the captured caravaners, and returned to Boise to find it under assault by Combine and Wrecking Crew forces. The group was able repel the assault, and the group set their sights on taking out Matthew and his Wrecking Crew. During preparations, the witch Cassandra Harley made contact with the group: take out Matthew and his allies, and she'd return what she'd recently stole from Dick Mortem: the artifact known as the Abyssal Maw, a demon prison cube. Seeking the Maw to imprison Baphomet, Addie led the group in pursuit of their targets.

The NW6 infiltrated Matthew's base and engaged his forces. Addie was able to capture her father alive, as well as River's red-hat mother, Anne Mortem. The group rendezvoused with Cassandra, and the witch made good on her deal, handing over the Maw. Gregg was stunned to meet Cassandra's apprentice, Mai Uhr, her sister she'd thought lost years before. The two made an agreement with one another, away from prying ears: they'd get there mother back, no matter what it took. On the way back to the group's new home base in Sumpter, Addie stayed back with River to finally kill her father and close that chapter of her life.

Later, after intensely researching Baphomet and binding rituals, Addie used the Maw to capture Baphomet, leaving Simon alive and relatively unharmed.

## The Summit

Bigger players are making moves in the wastes. After a long period of communications, the leaders of the major factions agreed to meet in Junkyard: Ike and his militia, Templars, Doomsayer Heretics, Admiral Kang, the Union, Librarians, and a group that hasn't had contact in ages: the Sioux Nations. They agreed to meet in hopes of coming together to take on the largest immediate threats in the region: Throckmorton and Silas. However, unbeknownst to many long beforehand, Toussaint had infiltrated the Combine and overthrown Throckmorton, taking leadership under the name Anne Banks. He reformed the group under a new name: The Unity, and attempted to weed out the worst of the new organization.

On the day before the summit, The NW6 escorted Simon and Jo to Junkyard. While waiting for the meeting to begin, the group uncovered an assassination plot to kill the faction leaders coming into the city. Queen Mab, the powerful and enigmatic witch behind Samuel and Liberty's capture, was revealed to be behind the attack, along with the help of OPEC mercenaries. With the crisis narrowly averted, the summit was able to take place in Junkyard's Pit.

These talks were interrupted when Ian McManus, a mercenary hired by Ike, announced the library delegation was still lost in Junkyard's underground settlements, and a group of witches had interfered with the search. Following the lead, the group headed down into the old tunnels to confront Mab once and for all.

## Damocles

With the summit behind them, the NW6 took some recovery time in Sumpter. Na-way, a former guard to the library delegation, had joined up with the group at Addie's invitation, and Ian with River's. Gregg and Heru's absence sat heavy despite the new arrivals.

While presenting new weaponry for the Union, Choc was tasked with looking into a Damocles bunker in an attempt to find more resources. Choc returned to Sumpter and asked the rest of the group to help in the assignment. Not long after preparations began, a recently woken Damocles agent, Murphy, snuck into Sumpter in an attempt to spy on the small example of civilization. He was soon confronted by the group, admitted his origins, and offered the locations of Damocles caches in exchange for a satellite up link. The offer is accepted, and, along with the recently arrived Junker Levy, they headed out in search of Damocles supplies.

## Tiger Claw

After Addie and River returned to Boise for retraining, Ian received a mysterious letter telling him one of his former Combine associates, Tony, joined the Sea Dogs, a pirate group active in the Maze. A national guard depot in Mountain View, California, should yield them a boat to help on the hunt. Addie agreed to help him, And the two, along with Levy, Choc, Derpy, Na-way, Dick, Noni, and Mac.

While in Mountain View, the group came across a group of fish mutants that occupied the area. Upon meeting their leader, a toxic shaman of their own kind called The Great One (also Luigi), they were informed that a red hat—Ian's target—had taken their clutches and mutated them to serve his own purposes. He was likely stationed near an oil refinery off the coast, and they offered the NW6 a boat and weaponry from the armory they resided to aid in their task.

The NW6 made it aboard Tony's boat, the Putrid Temptress, and confronted Tony and his enslaved mutant servants. During the confrontation, Tony was wounded and tied down. Levy was able to dig into his mind to find out Tony worked for a man named Rancor, who had stirred an uprising in Admiral Kang's pirate fleets. Tony wished to kill Rancor and take his operation. Necessary information received, Ian stabbed Tony in the throat, and watched the life drain from him.

However, Tony seemingly resurrected, escaping into the water. Confused and frustrated, the group sought Kang's help in discovering Tony's secret to undeath and taking out Rancor's operations.

## The Denver Swarm

A couple weeks after defeating Tony and Rancor, Ian received another lead from his mysterious source, now known to him as Adam Hauptman. Two of his targets, Gayle Glover and Lindsey Brewer, both infiltrator cyborgs, had embedded themselves in Denver's Resistance and are serving some unknown leader. At the same time, Simon arrived in Sumpter and told her Vickers had been investigating Denver, had sent reports about people going missing and had recently sent out a call for help. Ian, Addie, River, Noni, Anne, Choc, Levy, Joel, Na-way, and the recently arrived Anya set out to Denver.

The NW6 entered Denver and fought their way into the local Agency building, confronted by metallic insects that formed into humanoid combatants. After finding Vickers, the Templar revealed that, according to the Agency's archives, Nazi scientists had been frozen in the building's basement by the government before Throckmorton thawed them out, and that they'd created the first nano-bots that would become something called The Swarm. They were used to make Deadlands, made to consume all matter, use it to replicate, and kill more and more. They had allied and merged with a creature called a Mist Fiend also stored in the building, and Gayle and Lindsey. Levy found a gun spirit had taken control of the Swarm. Vickers revealed a litany he'd found that, when recited correctly, could ward off, disable, and likely destroy the Swarm.

After a bit of investigating and skirmishes with Swarm forces across the city, the NW6 set out to the Saint Vrain nuclear plant to confront the Swarm's main form and put an end to it.

## Choc's Way Home

After the events of their last mission, the NW6 had taken up residence in Denver to aid in its repair. While in the process of fixing up the city, Choc was met by a messenger from his former home in Haven, Louisiana: Antoinette needed his help. He asked the group to help him save the town he build, and he, Addie, Levy, Ian, Joel, and River left for Haven.

On the way, the group ran into strange soldiers on the road, extremely similar to those they'd run into in Denver and the Damocles bunker. They were shells of humans, with various internal organs missing and armor melded into their skin. It was in that encounter the group was also met with Brice, Haven's security lead and his companion Martha. Though something about the man seemed off, the group followed him and Martha back to Haven.

Upon arriving in the town, the group soon forced Brice to reveal his nature: he was a vampire that had been turned by a man that had first seemingly come to help the residents of the town: Stoker. Stoker had helped Antoinette force out the Tarbaby gang that had been harassing the town, but soon showed his true colors and started some residents into his kind, other into thralls, and forcing the rest into the role of cattle. He'd set up base in the nearby Cadson Labs facility, where he'd taken Antoinette. Brice was swiftly put down by the group.

The NW6 soon set a course for Cadson Labs to confront Stoker and his minions. There, they also uncovered the secret experiments of the enigmatic corporations known as Pentacorp, Stoker's unfortunate origins, and the fate of Antoinette.

## Chasing Coyotes

About a week before Addie's wedding, the NW6 were tasked with helping the Union clear out an abandoned ruin a ways outside Denver, to create a new town from scratch. It was there that Simon and Charles Kornach met with Addie to bring some troubling news. Rat, who'd been sent by Addie to Texas to investigate OPEC activities, had run into some obstacles and needed help. On top of that, Charles had received news from the Sioux delegate, Bubba Rackem, that a group of Sioux scouts were lost in Houston while they were looking into toxic shaman activity that seemed to tear at the border of the Hunting Grounds.

Bran had also gotten word that his adopted daughter, Mercedes, a werecoyote, was captured by unknown actors in Texas. If she's not recovered, Bran's likely to start of war between the werewolves and Texas, which would create massive chaos and bloodshed down south. Addie, King (formerly Derpy), and Ian left to deal with the problem.

Along the way, they ran into Hazel, a Librarian who'd been captured by OPEC alongside Rat, and gave them the information he'd gathered about slave trading in the region. She also revealed that the leader of the Road Orcs, Red Fang, seemed to be feuding with OPEC over inadequate slaves and his forces were clashing with OPEC and their Tarbaby allies in the region.

The group clashed with opposing Road Orc and Tarbaby forces, capturing their group leaders. Noah, a shaman of the Tarbaby family, revealed the patriarch of the family, Hank, was trying to summon an elemental as an ally to uphold his power and using slaves as sacrifices to do it. They also found out that a man in Gas Town, Littlefoot, played a primary role in the slave trade, and their target was likely in his hands. The NW6 struck up a deal with Hanharr, the Road Orc war band leader, to push Red Fang to attack the town and create chaos amongst OPEC to cover their escape.

The NW6 then headed to Houston to deal with the Tarbaby plot, and later to Gas Town to rescue Mercedes and deal with Littlefoot.