Bitter Creek (Campaign)

*If you were looking for the location, see Bitter Creek.*

**Bitter Creek**, also known as **The Wild West Campaign**, was the third campaign held by the members of Flafa. It lasted from July 18th, 2022, to July 31st, 2022. It was the second campaign DM'ed by FennekinGalaxy. It featured Chris-tian Mothman as Charles "Hamilton" Maddock, Kaiju as Cody, Lexbomb6464 as Amra Carfaren, Grey as Grey, Sonicario as Jonah Winters, and Moon as Moon Matt.

## Storyline

### Session 1: Moons and Goons (7/18/2022):

Starting Characters: Hamilton, Cody, Jonah Winters, Amra Carfaren, Grey

The party opens in the Barley House saloon at separate tables each enjoying their separate drinks, when a man walks in, kicking open the saloon door. Screams can be heard, as the man walks up and holds the tender at gunpoint to try and rob the place. The party kicks into action against him.

Amra Carfaren and Cody convince one of the bandits to give him their money and leave, with Amra Carfaren being able to do the same to another. Cody teaches the remaining bandit how to do the nae-nae. The party convinces the bandit that just nae-nae’d to leave, and out of frustration the main ringleader of the bandits fires at Cody. After a long-winded gunfight, Cody shot the leader, then identified as Glenn Hartford, in the head, killing him instantly.

Sheriff Clayton Steele comes onto the scene after a short while, coming to address the situation. He gives the party a reward for Glenn’s bounty, and encourages them to track down the other members of the Hartford Gang to claim their bounties.

He identifies them as: Nick “Deadeye” Hartford, 100G bounty, who goes by many faces and many names, known for being nomadic; Glenn Hartford, 85G bounty, who has been killed; Daisy "Widow" Hartford, 85G bounty, known for using her body to get her way; and Stephen “Sooty” Hartford, 75G bounty, known for vandalism of many sorts usually involving explosives and/or fire.

The party accepts the bounty, first seeking Daisy. The party travels to the other bar that they didn’t start in, asking around for information. This was ultimately not helpful, but the party eventually found Daisy at the inn nearest to the train station, under the assumption that she intended to skip town. Amra Carfaren and Cody bought a room to avoid suspicion, and upon Amra Carfaren trying to command Daisy, Cody covers it up by saying he’s his retarded cousin. Cody takes one of the Daisy simps upstairs, where he unsuccessfully tries to smother him, and instead knocks him out before returning to the bottom floor. Jonah attempts to shoot Daisy but misses, alerting her to the party’s intent. Battle begins, and after enough fighting, Daisy surrenders. Grey orchestrates the capture and plans the information extraction, using Cody’s and Jonah’s intimidation to get her to talk.

The party interrogates Daisy about the inn’s money stash and the location of her brothers, saying the money was behind the counter and her brothers had skipped town. The party takes the now tied-up Daisy to Steele to claim the bounty on her, and the party uses the bounty money to buy various equipment to use. The gun store clerk asks the party for a favor, to deliver a parcel to his brother Earl, which is revealed to be a flannel shirt for him. Midway through the delivery journey, the party has to slink past a group of bandits robbing the bank. Grey goes to the general store for various products, and Amra Carfaren goes to the church to stock up on holy materials. Grey returns to the church to ask Amra Carfaren to bless his bullets.

The party, about to take the train to Snakewood, realizes that Cody is going to transform, as this night is the full moon. They leave him behind for the time being, and take the train. The train gets raided by bandits, one of which being thrown off the roof by Jonah climbing up, another being grabbed and thrown out the window by Jonah, and a third having its head chopped off by Hamilton. The party loots the bodies for various rewards. The next morning, as Cody wakes up in human form, buys potions and other materials in the general store. He reunites with the party in Snakewood, and the party heads to the lumber mill, wherein they find Nick Hartford.

After a long-winded gunfight, the party kills Nick Hartford, and intimidates his minions into surrendering. They loot the minions and Nick for various upgrades. Upon leaving to return to Bitter Creek to claim the bounty, Sheriff Steele shows up, noticeably disheveled, scared and hurt, and upon being questioned and pressured accidentally reveals his true form as a doppelganger. Further questioning revealed that who we know now as Steele accidentally killed the real Steele many years ago, and took his place out of guilt. Amra Carfaren heals Steele back to full health, and Steele allows the party to claim Nick’s bounty.

### Session 2: Get in Losers, We're Going Shopping (7/25/2022):

Starting Characters: Hamilton, Cody, Jonah Winters, Amra Carfaren, Grey, Moon Matt

With the prospect of Sooty, a ten year-old boy, being their last bounty, Jonah Winters yells out “POGGERS” in glee.

Before doing this however, the party takes a not-so-brief shopping trip. Hamilton and Jonah buy horses, named Splingus and Hyppo respectively. Grey buys upgrades to his sword and armor, and haggles to increase the resale value of his weaponry. Hamilton buys a few apples for Splingus.

After a short time, venturing to the tavern brought Moon Matt into the sight of the party, and he joins them to aid in their bounty hunt. He goes shopping for as much black powder as he can afford. Cody goes back to the stable to buy a horse of his own.

The party ventures to the mines to attempt a search for Sooty, forming a line to prevent major injury when entering. The party spots an unstable beam at the entry point, but moves further in anyway. Eventually, they enter a large room populated by dwarves mining, and soon enters Sooty. The party attempts to convince Sooty to come peacefully, but upon this not working, Cody attempts to scare him into coming with them. This also backfires, with Sooty not trusting the party. After Grey tries to grapple Sooty, one of the Dwarves tries to attack him and is promptly dispatched. Another dwarf blows some of the TNT in the back of the room and the ground starts to shake. Grey grabs Sooty and joins Cody, Hamilton and Jonah at the entrance to the room. Upon trying to make off with some of the TNT, Moon Matt gets exploded by the dwarf igniting the barrel he was trying to carry, and almost dies. This backfires when, after Grey stays behind and hands Sooty to Jonah instead, the mine caves in, trapping everyone except for Cody and Hamilton, who had escaped just before the collapse. Grey dispatches the one remaining dwarf, cleaving his body and stealing his pickaxe. Amra Carfaren punches a beam in the ceiling, and this collapses the ceiling, nearly killing everyone inside, and successfully killing Moon Matt and Sooty, with only his hat remaining. Amra Carfaren resurrects Moon Matt, and Jonah claims Sooty’s hat as his own. Amra heals the wounds of the trapped party members.

Outside, Cody buys a shovel and a pickaxe for him and Hamilton to attempt to use to excavate their friends. They start digging, and on the other side, Grey uses his hybrid form, enlarged and buffed by Moon Matt and Amra Carfaren, to break through the ceiling. Grey jumps everyone out one by one, and everyone successfully escapes. The party claims Sooty’s bounty and Hamilton hands his horse an apple for being a good boy.

After a long rest at the inn, the party goes around looking for extra cash. They ask the mayor for jobs, to which he suggests contributing to the repair effort in Snakewood. After leaving the town hall, T-Bone Stewart, a very sleazy guy, asks the party for help with a few jobs that run “a little under the law” because of their skill. The party, sans Moon Matt, helps T-Bone with his various jobs, with Amra and Hamilton helping with his job to rescue horses from a breeding mill, and Cody, Grey and Jonah robbing a train with a high-value payload set to go to the bank of the next town. Moon Matt stays behind to contribute with the repairs.

The train crew hops onto the side of the train as it passes, inspecting the payload through the windows. It seems to be protected by a magical barrier, with a rune elsewhere. Further inspection showed it being under the close eye of the conductor, who Cody promptly intimidates into giving him the information necessary to dispel it. Grey slashes the rune with his sword, and starts the extraction process using his Bag of Holding. Cody leaves on his horse and returns with a wagon after Grey and Jonah disconnect the payload from the locomotive, and helps load the payload into the wagon. They return it to T-Bone and are promptly paid handsomely.

Amra Carfaren and Hamilton conduct a stakeout at the breeding mill, waiting until night time. They open the gates and free the horses, thus waking up the owner from the noise. He points his gun at Amra, and is promptly intimidated out of doing anything, and is promptly locked into a stable himself. The party takes some of the horses with them to add to the party, and take their payment from T-Bone. Moon Matt finishes his repairs, and claims a donkeh from the horse pool. He receives payment from the mayor, and promptly buys more black powder.

T-Bone’s third job is still available, a bank heist.

### Session 3: Smoke and Mirrors (7/31/2022):

Starting Characters: Hamilton, Amra Carfaren, Grey

Jonah Winters, Moon Matt and Cody take a break, staying in Snakewood for the time being. The remaining three, Hamilton, Amra Carfaren and Grey, split up for information on Sooty’s superior. They learn that he is the reason Brimstone went from boomtown to ghost town. He has a cursed hand enveloped in black magic, caused by some witch from way back when. The party went shopping for more gear to prepare for the final battle. Hamilton feeds Splingus an apple, and buys more for his good boy.

The party takes a long rest.

The party travels to Brimstone, and looks around to investigate. They enter the mine, which is alarmingly empty, before going to the sheriff for some clues. He states that Blackheart’s stomping ground is the old coal mill. The party goes there and scouts out the place, before Hamilton and Grey try to sneak in. A cloud of dark smoke forms near them, and it shapes into a dire wolf to defend the mill. After defeating this wolf, the party bottles up its smoky essence. Amra Carfaren prays for one of these smoke bottles to be transmuted into PINK SAUCE, but it instead got turned into a bottle of feces. Grey and Hamilton move in once again, and stealthily disarm and collect the bombs that the mill was rigged with.

After a lot of convincing, Blackheart lets Amra try and remove the curse from him, which only results in his locket falling off. Realizing the curse is tied to the locket, the party asks to take it from him for the time being to purify it. Reluctantly, Blackheart agrees, and Grey takes the locket for the time being, taking on the curse himself. Relieved of his curse, Blackheart promises to make better choices, just as long as the party brings him his prized locket back.

The party goes back to the Snakewood magic shop in pursuit of the woman Grey found before, but she has strangely disappeared. They head to the church to look for her, and the priest informs them that the curse is tied to two objects, so as long as one object remains cursed, so does the other, so they will need to find the other object to remove the curse. After this, a train is flung through the ceiling, crushing the priest, with a strange inscription on the train’s body.

This inscription incorrectly directs the party to the mine outside of Brimstone, wherein dwarves are mining at night (which they shouldn’t do). The party then gets directed to the woods outside of Snakewood, wherein they find a gnome village. Amra Carfaren uses her performing skills to raise a small sum of Gnomecoin™ before they leave. The party heads deeper into the woods to find a witch’s shack, where a woman seems to be working on something. Trying to woo this witch, Amra Carfaren uses her thaumaturgy skills to put on quite the show for the woman, who disappears in a puff of black smoke out of shock. Shortly thereafter, a wendigo is attracted by the noise, who gives the party quite a fight.

After the wendigo is slain, Moon Matt rejoins the party as they take another long rest.

Investigating the shack leads the party to two separate sets of notes, one denoting the neighboring town of Staleworth, the other denoting repeated messages of eternal life.

The party enters Staleworth, using Detect Magic to create a trail to follow, which directs them to a nearby cattle ranch, which is very decrepit and bloodstained, with many cow carcasses strewn about, with the same “eternal life” messages thrown around the place in blood. Going inside the barn, Grey intercepted a ritual being performed by the witch they found and several other witches. The party spends too long arguing as to what to do that the ritual is completed, and the mass of the witches is sucked into the summoning circle, giving a new form to the demon Sorgan, who attacks the party. The body of the witch from before drops a black key, emitting the same black smoke.

After felling Sorgan, Amra Carfaren heals the party, and Hamilton cuts off one of Sorgan’s horns, and gives it to Moon Matt. Grey intentionally transfers the curse from the objects to himself. Amra Carfaren cuts open Sorgan, and Moon Matt drinks his blood, getting cursed and slowly dying twice, being cured both times by Amra Carfaren. The party returns the locket to Blackheart, retrieves the one surviving cow from the Staleworth ranch, and has a long rest.

## Notable Memes

Black powder was a pretty prominent meme throughout the campaign.

## Trivia

* Bitter Creek featured the debut of players Grey and Moon.
* Bitter Creek was the first campaign to feature full town maps and fully-built battle maps.
* Bitter Creek was, by technicality, the last appearance of AmberLoha in a Flafa DnD campaign.
* Bitter Creek had a large amount of scrapped content, including a whole second storyline revolving around a cleansing arsonist cult, the Eternal Flame. The content after the redemption of Blackheart was initially a side quest to be done between major stories.
* Bitter Creek is the only campaign to have been restarted from the beginning, due to a lack of preparation for the first session.
	+ This first trial run featured AmberLoha as Billy, a character not present in the second go-around. Kaiju switched from his character in the trial run, Clara, to Cody in the final version.
* Bitter Creek was the campaign with the longest amount of downtime between campaigns, lasting close to 6 weeks. This was done to make sure all assets were ready before the campaign started.
	+ This strategy has since changed with the oncoming of the Houses campaign, to minimize downtime wherever possible.
* Bitter Creek is the shortest non-oneshot campaign in Flafa history, being only 3 sessions long, spanning over 3 weeks.
* Bitter Creek is the only named campaign to not contain the letter S somewhere in its title.