You stand between God's law and the best intentions of the weak.
You stand between God's people and their own demons.
Sometimes it's better for one to die than for many to suffer. Sometimes, Dog, sometimes you have to cut off the arm to save the life.
Does the sinner deserve mercy?
Do the wicked deserve judgement?
They're in your hands.
Dogs in the Vineyard is an 'indie' game set in a pre-Civil War Utah that never quite was. The State of Deseret is occupied mostly by scattered Faithful settlements, governed from Bridal Falls in the mountainous east and stretching right out to the barely inhabited desert in the west. You play as God's Watchdogs, or more accurately the Order Set Apart to the Preservation of Faith and the Faithful, young men and women travelling from town to town carrying mail, performing religious ceremonies and resolving whatever trouble they find.
Each town hides prideful sinners, who's injustices cannot help but attract the attention of demonic forces. Demons manifest themselves as natural disasters, bandit attacks or other misfortune, and to cope false doctrine arises. False doctrine leads to false priesthood, and false priesthood inevitably means Hate and Murder of the most gruesome kind. It's up to you to find out who's blame, punish them appropriately, then ride off into the sunset...
I've only run this game a couple of times before, and never as PbP post, but the rules are simple and I think we can make it work. I'd urge anyone interested to pick up the PDF from the link above, if only to help and independent games designer, but I am willing to teach the game to anyone who doesn't know it.
For the time being I don't want you to think in terms of characters or stats (the game asks "Please don't make your character in advance!"), but simply to provide me with a brief writing sample. This can be Dogs-based, from another game or simply from your imagination, but make sure it's interesting and well written!
I'm looking for at most 3 or 4 players, and will be expecting a fairly high post rate, at least 1/day, although I'm not going to kill you if you end missing the odd day (I sure as hell know I do from time to time).
A Land of Balm and Virtue
