Mustache’d Musings with Cameron Hare
One thing I love about a steampunk fantasy game like Tephra is the application for trains. I love them. Hell, we all do. They are at the center of steampunk imagery – I mean, they run on steam! We romanticize the olden days where you would sit at a train depot and check your father’s pocketwatch or blow on a silver harmonica, waiting for the trusty old eight o’clock, engine 89, which was always five minutes late, precisely. Also, they can be hella spooky. Have you ever heard one at night, bellowing in the distance? Gives me the damn willies each time. Also, from a gameplay aspect, you can literally railroad your characters on crazy adventures. Trains make great “dungeons,” if you will, that MOVE!
So, it’s perfect if you want to take your party all around Tephra.
I’ve written out a certain dubious train known as “the Hangman’s Switch.” I’ve used it in a number a Tephra one-shot adventures (including my very first). I figured, if I am going to do a steam-fantasy game, I am doing it on a train. Sky pirates? Been there, done that. Train pirates, dear readers, train pirates. Attention is in the details, I always say. (Which is never.) My players still love those sessions and characters. So, please feel free to use it however you wish, or not. I wont be hurt. Not even a little bit.
Okay. Maybe a bit.
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DANGER ON THE TRACKS! THE HANGMAN’S SWITCH SEEN IN EVANGLESS!
“The dark engine of terror known as the Hangman’s Switch is a legend to some and far too real for those who have survived its wrath. They say it may be a ghost engine that appears out of no where to derail passanger trains, just to disappear as fast at it came. Others claim it is full of cutthroats and thieves with some odd apparatus that allows them to hop from track to track to better smuggle the goods they have stolen, or avoid the law. Not many have been able to see it long enough to guess, most don’t survive to tell the tale. Maybe the characters can hunt it down after a certain cargo has been missing, maybe they are on a trip when unexpectedly they are raided (or haunted) by the Hangman, or just maybe they are the crew of this dreaded engine.”
What the “Hangman” is (Maybe):
The Hangman’s Switch, also known as “Engine 25,” is a fairly old piece of technology. It was built by a group of mercenaries in Bael. Since the city had no tracks leading into it, and automobiles are not very effective for large cargo transporting, they decided to build something that could easily carry large supplies effectively and could throw off any of their pursuers so they could bring in more merchandise to Bael’s local black market. They had the idea of a train engine that could hop from track to track or even fly out of a bad situation. They pulled what resources they had to create schematics, acquire three graviton spheres, and work them into the gut of an old steam engine, a passenger train, and a cargo caboose. After adding some modifications for the trains new ability to fly and some minor defense, she was ready for her maiden voyage.
Now, the Hangman’s graviton technology wasn’t built completely up to code or with enough power to keep them afloat for more then a handful of miles, usually just enough to skip a track and get away. This didn’t stop them from becoming the biggest boogymen in Evangless. This dastardly crew created quite a mythos for their beast, spready rumors throughout the underwold of a savage gang that will get most jobs done for a hefty price. Locals and engineers picked up where they left off, saying at night they would see a black train on the tracks one minute and it would be gone the next. The Hangman’s Switch was born through tall tales and blood. After a few years of glorious trainrobbing, the crew gave up the deadly life and retired with their collective wealth, though they felt too prideful of their mark on Evanglessian history to let the Hangman die. So they passed it down to a new crew and installed a half finished Fuse Box, which they named “T.O.M.” (Train Operations and Maintenance) to look over the train. Years passed and this tradition lived on, and if all of the crew died or retired, any survivors (or T.O.M.) would pass it along to a new hopeful group of cutthroats and opportunists. Thus the legend lives on.
What the “Hangman” could be (Possibly):
The Hangman’s Switch could also be a ghost train that hunts the western tracks of Evangless, running trains off their tracks so they may never see their destination. Maybe it was a passanger train that was destroyed and is now full of demented specters just wanting to find the end of the line to pass on, only to be enraged at the living that crosses its path. The characters could be waiting for the Eight o’clock at an old, dusty trainstation, unknowingly stepping aboard Engine 25 just to be wrapped up in a dark play of unlife and grief; or they did get on the correct trusty eight o’clock only to be haunted by the 25 as it tries to ram their train off its course and flood it with vengeful half-dead who seek to steal the life that was taken from them. Or, maybe, it is just a ghost story that engineers tell young conductors to spook them on late night rides.
Using your party as the crew of the “Hangman”:
Engine 25 is a jet black, stereotypical train engine, made from pieces of ten different trains. Cow guard, big pipe exhaust on top, and completely covered in modifications all welded and jimmy-rigged together. The modifications that run through the cars for the graviton spheres stick out and are haphazardly placed everywhere. On top of all this, spread randomly across the outside of the cars, hang nooses as a final warning as to what this train brings to its victims. There are two super-heavy guns, one mounted on the engine and one on the caboose. The engine looks some-what normal on the inside, minus all the consoles to control the gravaton spheres, which is sitting beside a coal furnace. Maintaining these nobs and switches is T.O.M., a misshapen Fuse Box automaton that hangs from a track on the ceiling of the engine. He has no legs, but four long arms which he uses to pilot the engine far swifter than any human could (and occasionally play a mean accordian). He wears a dirty old conductors hat and can chat the ear off of corn. The next car is a normal passanger car with about ten-or-so small, one-person rooms. The caboose is full of any extra ammo or storage for illicit merchandise.
The crew somehow inherited the Hangman from either the previous crew or maybe even stumbled on the broken down T.O.M. and fixed up the train. After which, T.O.M. probably explained what it was and told them its history and “responsibilities.” Either way, they now are the soul of the Hangman and how they run business is up to them. Do they send out secret messages to the criminal underground to contact them for smuggling jobs? Perhaps they just live as loose cannons stealing what they want or need. Do they leave survivors to tell the tale of the Hangman or leave only evidence of their existance from the dead bodies, empty cargo and a hanging noose they leave behind?
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This article, the Hangman’s Switch, is the first Mustache’d Musings of Cameron Hare, also known as Sixpence the Mime, one of the founders of Mimepunk. Cameron is an old propagator of steampunk and the neo-Victorian, having served for years as the co-founding co-chairman of SANVA (the San Antonio Neo-Victorian Association) and as the co-Chairman for Aetherfest, Texas’s oldest steampunk convention. Today he is a correspondant for Tephra: the Steampunk RPG.
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