by AC Horne, Rachel Riordan O

Here lies Jesse Waters, 1912-1938, son of Cora and Obed Waters

No matter how much love you pour into raising a child, there's only so much you can do to shield them from their choices. When Cora heard that Jesse was coming home from the city, gut-shot and dying... well, she was just about swallowed by grief. And how her sweet boy had fallen-- just look at this misfit group of blues men, rounders, sirens and gamblers who carried him home to the Jug. They said that he wanted them to sit vigil over his body until dawn of the day after his funeral. Cora hadn't known that Jesse had sold his soul, but she knew the stories. Now they must try and put his soul to rest even as the collectors from across the Gulfs come to claim their due.

The Jug is not an easy place to get to. Since the Dam went up in '32 much of the farm land was flooded to marsh, and the bridge has been out since Reconstruction. These days it's just Wilson's cable ferry that crosses the river, and many days the river is too high for that even. The town has long been an oasis of the disenfranchised: deserting soldiers, small religious sects, escaped slaves... Other than the occasional foray from the sheriff and the county to "enforce order", the Jug hasn't seen much of outsiders in the past 60 years.

Characters in "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" will be a collection of blues musicians, gamblers, rounders, magicians, priests, tricksters, and small town folks who have maybe lived too long in isolation with their strange beliefs. What they have in common is an intimate understanding of what a soul is worth, their own and others.

This game is a phantasmal blues noir influenced by of the works of Clive Barker, Tananarive Due, China Mieville and Amos Tutuola, and by the music of Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, and Blind Willie McTell, and by old myths and stories.

This game is focused on collaborative narrative building over competitive play styles and will utilize a number of meta/theatrical techniques.

Mild Trigger Warning: This game will deal in a serious manner with experiences and emotions of a diverse group of people in the years leading up to 1938. While this will include experiences of, for example, war, racism, and sexism, we do not anticipate these being handled more explicitly than they would be in an introductory history class. We invite players to discuss specific concerns with us and are quite open to tailoring as necessary to make sure all players are comfortable with engaging fully with the game.