Electric Bugaloo has Fat Mamma Cass' gang. My wife was telling a story of visiting her parents and old photos and got on to a story about a big rural piece of land. All the relatives lived near by and, being scotch irish in Virginia, well, you can imagine. They had a clubhouse, rumor has it, where they had a still and would go hide form their women and drink and smoke and gamble. And thus, the brigand gang was born. Actually, I rolled "Brigands" on the random number table, and a lot of them at that, with a treasure in lair. So I devised the "they have 1 hp" and tax man thing. I love tempting players and a fight with 18 brigands at level 1 or 2 is going to not be something that the party engages in. But ... put them in front of a LOT of treasure? Maybe ... and then give them all 1hp/make it obvious that they are all REALLY hurt? Well, that box of treasure is looking a lot more interesting now ... This is the classic example I use of the friendly ogre wearing a stunning gold crown, turning his back to the party.
Being brigands, they need something to do, so smoking, drinking, gambling to get away from their women-folks seems like a great thing to mention to add character! And then, in the "global" description, the addition of the hanging tree and relative drama plays off of the rural stereotypes Hatfield/McCoy stuff. Something to leverage AFTER the dungeon adventure is over to add flavor to the town proceedings.
I knew also I wanted to give the gang a name. More color. Make them seem alive. Matriarchal, the name Mamma Cass came up and I'm sure I riffed off of the singer.
Being brigands, they need something to do, so smoking, drinking, gambling to get away from their women-folks seems like a great thing to mention to add character! And then, in the "global" description, the addition of the hanging tree and relative drama plays off of the rural stereotypes Hatfield/McCoy stuff. Something to leverage AFTER the dungeon adventure is over to add flavor to the town proceedings.
I knew also I wanted to give the gang a name. More color. Make them seem alive. Matriarchal, the name Mamma Cass came up and I'm sure I riffed off of the singer.
