Got a little while before Cairn tonight, and Savage Worlds characters are hella quick, so:
The Game: Deadlands Noir
The Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I played a game of it at a con some years back, I've run and played Deadlands pretty extensively, and of course Savage Worlds is pretty easy
Books Required: Deadlands Noir and some version of the Savage Worlds core rules
Deadlands Noir fast-forwards the Deadlands Reloaded setting to the 1930s and narrows the focus to New Orleans. It also puts a lot of emphasis on being a detective and solving mysteries, which really puts the genre closer to hard-boiled than noir, but whatever (and honestly, it's a distinction suitable mostly for pedantry). Having now read the book, I have a better grip on the progression from Deadlands than when I played it. One thing I didn't see addressed much, though, was the fact that in-setting, the Civil War didn't end with the Confederacy losing, and New Orleans is still very much part of the CSA. Now, slavery was abolished in-setting, though there's not much said about that in Noir and I don't feel like digging through other books to figure it out. I just think that to set a game in the Confederacy, which only came about because the South won their war to keep people enslaved (oh, I'm sorry, did you think it was about state's rights?) and then not examine all that a bit is something of a missed opportunity. But perhaps on brand for Savage Worlds, which is generally not where one goes for that kind of roleplaying.
Well, anyway, I think I want to make a grifter, this game's answer to hucksters. Hucksters, in-setting, have been basically hunted down and exterminated (it'd be interesting to run a pick-up of my old Deadlands game and examine what became of Nikolai, but that's a musing for another time). Grifters, unlike hucksters, pay the otherworldly spirits that enable their magic by indulging in vice. I don't want to make a drunk, I hate smokers in general, and I don't want to make a grifter addicted to something like lying or gambling. Fortunately, laudanum was still very much available in the 1930s, and I'm sure that an enterprising fellow could get his hands on it, even if it wasn't the cure-all that it was purported to be previously.
Woo, big paragraphs for a SW character. Let's get into it!
Race is human, natch. Traits, I'm gonna put bump everything to d6 and be boring about it, but I want this guy to be a pretty good all-rounder (might raise Spirit, though).
Skills, I need to put at least a d4 into Spellcasting. I'll put a d6 in there for now. I'll put a d4 into Driving, Investigation, and Persuasion, and a d6 into Fighting, Gambling, Shooting, Stealth, and Streetwise.
Skipping over derived traits, because they go at the end, FFS. Hindrances! There's one in the Noir book called Corrupt, and that calls to me. I'll take Obligation and say that his mother also lives in New Orleans and is unwell, so he takes care of her. I still need a Major, though. Hmm. Night Terrors or Yellow? I think Night Terrors.
Doing a little background, we'll say that Johannes Keller was born in 1910 in Dodge City, KS. His father died shortly before he was born, and his mother, Irma, took sick when he was a boy. He started sampling her laudanum when he was a teenager, and got involved in some unfortunate criminal enterprises thereafter.
Johannes was involved in a heist that went spectacularly wrong. The vault that he and the others broke into contained money, sure, but it also contained a horrible undead creature, locked away to protect the populace (supposedly by Wyatt Earp, but who really knows). Johannes was the only one to survive, and he still has nightmares about it. He packed up his mother and moved to New Orleans, figuring that the money he'd stolen would last. It might have, but he spent a lot on laudanum, booze, and pleasant company, and now he's doing whatever he can to make ends meet. Oh, and he goes by "John Kelly" now.
As for where he learned the grift, he doesn't actually remember. He just kind of started doing it, and he figures he must have learned from someone, but maybe when he was really off his head? He tries not to think about that too much.
OK, cool. So now I get a free Edge, and then the "points" from my Hindrances. I'll take Arcane Background (Grifter), a-doy. I'll spend 2 and bump Spellcasting to d8 (I don't want to raise my Smarts because I don't feel like Johannes is especially smart), and I'll spend the other 2 to buy Notice d4 and Lockpicking d4. Nifty!
Oh, I get three powers. Hmm. I'll take...blind, succor, and smite. I like that he has a "healing" spell that doesn't actually heal, just makes you feel better.
Johannes is a kind of small fellow, thin and weedy. He wears his hat pulled low and he has exactly one suit, which he overpaid for when he got to New Orleans. He carries a revolver in his jacket pocket, and always has at least a bottle of laudanum on him.
And that'll do it!
