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Region C: North East Encounters
Location Discovery[]
| Encounter Text | Location Unlocked |
|---|---|
| To your delight, you see the silhouette of a big circus tent towering over the pines. | Circus |
| You see a sign labeled "THIS WAY TO THE LAZY-A DUDE RANCH" off the side of the trail. You mark the location on your map. | Lazy-A Dude Ranch |
| You see the imposing silhouette of an army fort on the horizon. | Fort Alldead |
| You hear a strange humming noise, and take a brief detour to discover that it's coming from the mouth of a nearby cave. | Humming Cave |
| You catch sight of the towers of an old mission nestled among the pines. | Rescue Mission |
Non-Combat Events[]
| Type | Encounter | Conditions | Options |
|---|---|---|---|
 ∗ |
Off to the side of the trail, you spot a little cluster of gin blossoms. It's strange to see them growing so far away from Allison Road, which is their native habitat. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
You spot a tombstone nestled into some pines near the trail. You dismount and approach it.
You can't read the inscription because it's covered with pepperoni mold. |
Repeatable |
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∗ |
As you're riding along, your eye is drawn to a polka-dotted flower growing on the side of the trail. It's a Northern Clownwort! | Repeatable |
|
 ∗ |
You see a wagon broken down by the side of the road. Well, if we're being honest, it getting attacked by horrible monsters is probably more likely what happened than a simple mechanical failure.
You dismount and investigate. Most of the easy pickings have predictably already been picked (easily) but there's still a safe in there that was presumably too heavy for the scavengers to move. |
Repeatable |
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∗ |
There's a dusty wooden crate lying near the trail, and it turns out to be half-full of old dynamite. That's uh, probably not something that should just be lying out in the sun like that." | Repeatable |
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∗ |
You find an abandoned crate, with "FORT ALLDEAD" stenciled on the side. Maybe the shippers decided with wasn't worth the effort, considering? | Repeatable |
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∗ |
There's an crate lying in the dust of the trail. It has a pickaxe stenciled on the side, but it isn't clear if that's to indicate contents, destination, or opening instructions. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
There's a crate in the road, which is not a crate's natural habitat. Poor lost crate, maybe you can help it? | Repeatable |
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∗ |
You find a liquor cabinet standing in the woods. Maybe there used to be a house around it.
You try opening it, but find it to be locked. That's probably why it didn't get stolen by whoever stole the walls. |
Repeatable |
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∗ |
There's an old grave off to the side of the trail. Or if not, then someone went and stuck a wooden cross in the ground for no reason. | Repeatable |
|
 ∗ |
You El Vibrato transponder thingy starts bleeping at you, and you play "hot and cold" with it until you find a weird-looking crate hidden behind some rocks. | Repeatable [El Vibrato transponder] |
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∗ |
You encounter a cowpoke trying to ride her horse up the 45-degree surface of a rocky ridge. They're both having a hard time. | Repeatable |
|
∗ |
You catch something out of the corner of your eye -- a horseshoe rolling down the hill toward you. It stops at the edge of the trail and falls over with a small thump. "Hey!" someone calls out. You look up to see two figures at the top of the hill, about a hundred yards away. "Would you mind bringing that back?" the man yells. "We're playing horseshoes!" | Repeatable |
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∗ |
You come upon a rushing river, which a family of four is attempting to cross. However, the bridge is only wide enough for two at a time, and they only have one lantern to light the way. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
Off the trail's shoulder, you see some ancient petroglyphs carved into a rock. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
High atop a nearby pine tree, you see a pine cone with a bullseye painted on it. There must be an artistic bird somewhere nearby. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
In a devastated cornfield off to the side of the trail, you see a similarly devastated scarecrow. Its shirt is untucked, its hat is knocked off, and don't even get me started on the state of its ascot. | Repeatable |
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Combat Events[]
| Type | Encounter | Conditions | Non-Combat Options | Combat Option | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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A burly, grizzled man in leather... well, everything, is busy peeling the skin off of a no-longer-recognizable animal. He looks up at you and growls, brandishing his skinning knife as if to say "bother me, and you'll be next." | One-time |
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A loud thwock! noise draws your attention, and you follow the sound to a man in a once-white apron, who is butchering a bighorn sheep or some other large desert animal with an oversized and heavy-looking meat cleaver. As he's hauling the implement up onto his shoulder for another blow, he catches sight of you and hisses with a wild look in his eye. | One-time |
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Reach for the sky, traitor/clown!
You quickly turn around and see a grizzled-looking man in all black clothes -- except for his hat, which is white with brightly-colored spots. He's pointing a gun at you. |
One-time |
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 ∗ |
You spot a hellcalf grazing off the side of the trail, just as it spots you.
Its eyes glow and two shadowcows split off from it, forming a small, frightening herd. |
Repeatable |
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∗ |
As the trail curves through a patch of marshy ground, you catch a whiff of something worse than swamp gas.
It's a stankobove -- a cow skull floating in a cloud of noxious vapors -- and it saw you even before you smelled it. |
Repeatable |
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 |
You come across a goblin, marching around in the woods. They're taller than a typical goblin, probably because their boots are taller than typical goblin boots. In fact these boots are so tall, they must be half-stuffed with socks to keep the tops from jamming the goblin in the groin.
The goblin sees you and marches over, attempting to look intimidating instead of awkward. |
One-time |
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A rustling sound in the bushes draws your attention, and you decide to investigate -- because that's what adventurers do, no matter how bad of an idea it will probably turn out to be.
The rustling turns out to be a goblin -- a goblin wearing (euggh) clown make-up and practicing their cartwheels (and mostly failing). Eventually they give up on tumbling practice and start repeatedly throwing a shiny metal ball in the air and catching it. |
One-time |
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Well, this is unusual. In this wooded area out in the middle of nowhere, a goblin has constructed a little lean-to with a rough wooden counter. It looks like something a kid would sell lemonade out of, except instead of lemonade they've got a display of shiny bits of jewelry. | One-time |
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 ∗ |
With a shout -- well, more of a loud hiss -- a skeleton leaps at you from the underbrush. He/She's wearing a cavalry hat and has a cavalry saber, but isn't riding a cavalry horse, which I'm pretty sure is the main thing that differentiates cavalry from infantry, if not the only thing. | One-time |
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∗ |
You rein in your horse upon hearing a rattle of bones and clanking of chains nearby. With a hiss, a skeletal figure scuttles toward you. | One-time |
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∗ |
A shot rings out and something buzzes past your ear. You quickly dive behind a rock just in case these two things are connected and not just, say, someone hunting nearby and also there's a bee.
Peering carefully around your rock, you eventually spot movement in the underbrush -- it's a hunter with an old-fashioned matchlock rifle and a cloak with leaves stuck to it. (Which is less effective as camouflage than it sounds, because all the trees around here are pine trees.) You also notice that he/she's been out here a very long time, which you can infer from the way he/she is literally a skeleton. |
One-time |
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∗ |
You smell it before you see it: a skeleton trudging toward you, covered with mud and muck and smelling like garbage juice. It must have crawled out of some horrible bog nearby, and if the skeleton smells this bad, the bog must be unimaginable. So it makes sense that even a skeleton would want to get away from there. | Repeatable |
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A greenish, human-shaped cloud of writhing smoke wafts toward you moaning and whispering. Given the smell, you'd guess that someone ate way too much Limburger cheese, and then burped so hard they blasted out their soul. | Repeatable [Pale Horse] |
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 ∗ |
You have a run-in with the worst-smelling snake you've ever seen. It is basically a cartoon stink-line come to life. | Repeatable |
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∗ |
Your El Vibrato bleeps, and you follow the signal, because of course you do! Why wouldn't you?
One reason why you might not is that it led you to a hulking robot that could easily pound you into scrap. |
Repeatable [El Vibrato transponder] |
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