This is my first blog post about this game.
William H. Esquire Esquire is a bar and brothel owner, he stumbled across the Arcade and has made the most of it, but now is looking to upgrade the business. There were once games on the second floor but most of them are in various states of disrepair. He spent a week traveling south to the Barges with his custodian, Lovelace, looking to hire a technician to bring back to his Arcade only to find that he had permanently soured his relationship with Rolfball, one of the Barges leaders. As Rolfball's men hunted William H. Esquire Esq. another local stirred up dissent against Rolfball, and a gang war ensued. William H. Esquire Esq. slipped away from the Barges and when he returned home from his journey found that a technician had already settled in the makeshift town around his Arcade. Now he seems to have no worries, as a few small gangs followed him back to the Arcade and seem to be bringing some much needed customers back to his part of the world.
Gau is a member of the Good Deal tribe, named such by others since they always seem to give good deals on the food they trade. Gau has been working for William H. Esquire Esq. for several weeks now, acting as a guide on his trip to the Barges and sometimes as a guard at the Arcade. Gau is an excellent tracker and survivalist, and his skills seem to be going to waste while he hangs out with William H. Esquire Esq. which is perhaps why he has taken up a drug habit. Except the drugs that Lovelace supplies give him visions of things that were and things that are and things to come. It's all very unsettling. In the meantime, Gau's tribe is also branching out...
Snail is a scrawny man hiding away inside of a giant spherical suit of advanced technological origin. He calls the suit the House and seems to have a unique connection to it that allows him to communicate with it's mechanical brain. He followed William H. Esquire Esq. back to the Arcade with the promise of assisting the business, but now that he has arrived the House has other plans and has coerced him to settle into the town underneath a tree. This tree just appeared one day as a sinkhole swallowed part of the town and nobody seems to question it, but nobody in town wants to go near the tree either. Except for Snail and Kidboy.
Kidboy was orphaned in the Barges when the fighting first broke out between Barker, Rolfball, Gnarly, and Jackabacka. In the wake of another fight that left Rolfball and Jackabacka dead, Kidboy followed William H. Esquire Esq. back to the Arcade under promises of games to play and style to be learned. Kidboy was instrumental in getting power back to the second floor of the Arcade and now spends his time playing an old beat up Ms.Pac-Man cabinet.
Spector is good with her hands and has an uncanny technological knowledge that lets her build or repair just about anything. She's new to the Arcade, having fled the increasingly theocratic reign over Hanford from the Church of the Reformed Autumn. Spector was once a member of the church, but is not old enough to remember when Autumn returned to the facility underneath Hanford. She is old enough to remember the last time cultists from Montana traded in Hanford, and spoke of the Arcade to the west, where their once and future prophet The Truth died. Lamprey's occasional visits to Hanford helped embolden her decision to leave when he arrived with news that William H. Esquire Esq. was looking for somebody to repair his games.
Clyde followed William H. Esquire Esq.'s group back to the Arcade, but once there he stayed out of sight and was never seen nor heard from by anyone.
In the last session
William H. Esquire Esq. was very happy that Rolfball's old gang, the Ballers, and Jackabacka's tribe, the Swampys, followed him back to the Arcade. It could only mean he would have more customers! Within one day the Ballers spoiled that illusion by burning down half of the still-standing warehouse where Spector was sleeping, and the Swampys continued to exercise their cannibalistic dietary practices when they found the freshly killed body of Twice, one of William H. Esquire Esq.'s prostitutes.
Spector spent her waking hours drinking booze, looking for a place to set up home (twice), and trying to fix the Arcade's second floor power issues and while there was no lack of supplies, she found Kidboy's assistance invaluable due to his thin arms.
The tree on the edge of town seemed to grow in the night and turned over earth and dirt as it grew. Kidboy grew bold and tried to climb the tree with little difficulty, but when he plucked a leaf from one of the branches was thrown to the ground by the branches of the tree itself. While he was dazed on the ground, Snail opened up the House to Kidboy and the House searched Kidboy's mind and soul. After this, Snail offered a deal. If Kidboy would deliver Gau's gnarly hat to Snail then he would offer Kidboy anything he wanted from the House.
Gau had his hands full after taking some weird drugs, having visions of a gun fight in the Arcade and then falling asleep to visions of the previous owner's love life. William H. Esquire Esq.'s bouncer, Happy, kept trying to take Gau or Kidboy back to his home but was thwarted by William H. Esquire Esq. at every opportunity.
The next day, when William H. Esquire Esq. faced off with some of the Ballers trying to wreck the mobile crane in the center of the yard, he noticed some of the Swampys feasting on his missing prostitute Twice. He called his gang over and ordered them to force a halt to the cannibalism, during the fighting a few people died and Gau was hurt, but the Swampys promised to stop eating people.
A visitor to the Arcade, a one-eyed pimply-faced teenager named Ritchie, brought some good barter into town, but he left as soon as the fighting died down.
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