Valley of the Terrible Lizards (Weird West/Lost World, all welcome)

[IrishWolf]

The Gilded Age. The American Civil War ended over a decade ago and the self inflicted wounds of the nation are starting to heal, where they are not being torn open or new ones cut. The Great Transcontinental Railroad has connected East Coast to West Coast and lesser tracks spider across the plains and the west. Dust rises over the cattle trails, as millions of beasts are driven north and east, to feed the need for beef in booming cities. Gold has been discovered in the Black Hills, setting off gold rush and a war. But there is another war going on, the Bone Wars or the Great Dinosaur Rush as some might call it.

Paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh of the Peabody Museum of Natural History and Edward Drinker Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia are in a heated rivalry. They both spend money like water to get their hands on fossils from the rich bone beds of the Great Plains. Both of them have dropped to using underhanded methods to try to outdo the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and even the destruction of bones. Each scientist also sought to ruin his rival's reputation and cut off his funding, using attacks in scientific publications. These two men are racing down a path, which will lead to financial and social ruined but will discover more than a hundred thirty six new species of dinosaur.

However, that is in the future.

In the spring of 1878, a letter arrives on the desk of Professor Marsh, detailing the account of a school teacher turned prospector in the northern Black Hills. According to this man, he found a broad, deep valley, with a narrow entrance, filled with many saurian bones. Included was a map, marking the spot, where the valley was to be found. Marsh, not one for field work, sends out a telegram, instructing one of his agents to ready an expedition to the valley and sends copies of the map by rail.

While recruiting the proper or as close as they get in the west, scientific minds for the expedition, Marsh’s agent dispatches an advance party to locate the valley and set up a proper base camp, along with a cache of food and other supplies. The man chosen to lead this party is Karl Larsson, soldier, army scout and buffalo hunter. His instructions are to head to the town of Deadwood and recruit enough frontiersmen and camp hands to blaze a trail to the isolated valley and keep that trail safe from animal attacks or rogue indians.

To Karl, that means he needs to find more hunters, scouts, surveyors, wagoneers, cooks and washers, at least one doctor (or someone who knows at least a little healing) and a few prostitutes, if anything to keep the other men from bothering any more honest women in the camp. All the better, if some of these men and women, can combine those skills together, if only to stretch out the gold, silver and greenbacks he was given as an advance payment for the company. The supplies would be paid for and awaiting him at Deadwood, if they hadn’t been stolen when he reached the rather lawless town.

Several weeks before the arrival of the scientific minds and the larger work party, Larsson’s expedition heads out, never knowing they will find far more than bones in the valley.

So, plot wise, the story will follow this Larsson's party to the valley, where they will be trapped, after some of Cope's men, destroy the entrance. In the valley, which is kept warm and snow free throughout the winter by hot springs, they will find not only the bones they were sent to collect but living breathing dinosaurs. Not the modern, scientifically correct dinosaur but the reptilian kind. While trying to survive and escape, the party will find that the valley isn't the only home of the dinosaurs but is an entrance to an underground cavern, filled with primordial life. Those creatures they struggled with on the surface, were merely those who accidentally wondered out. But the way to freedom, may just lay on the other side of the cavern.

Now, I've been asked this before with stories that don't focus on adult themes. I like to use what I call Game of Thrones rules. Its a natural part of life and its welcome to happen. Those partaking in a scene, might want to start a separate one shot thread, so the main story doesn't get bogged down.

Current Cast

Karl Larsson

Player: IrishWolf

Name: Karl Larsson

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Profession: Army Scout, Buffalo hunter, Party Leader

Languages: Swedish, German, English, Crow, Lakota

Sexual Preference: Hetero, dominate

Appearance:

Karl is fairly tall, standing at five feet, ten inches, with the hard, lean frame of a man spending most of his time in the saddle or in the wilderness. His skin was fair but is now weathered by the sun. His light brown hair is cut short, like the beard on his face. Grey eyes stare over his straight nose. He can normally be found wearing denim trousers, a checkered shirt and a buckskin jacket, with a battered black slouch hat and leather boots.

Gear: a dark bay Morgan stallion, Sharps Model 1874 rifle chambered in .50-90, Smith & Wesson 1875 No. 3 second model “Schofield” revolver in .45 short colt, Green River knife, welt stone, Diamond matches, box of cigars, gun cleaning kit (brass bristle brush, neatsfoot oil compound, small screwdriver), saddle, saddle bags, bedroll, bar of soap, tin cup, plate, folding fork knife and spoon, spare shirt, his old army shell jacket and forage cap

Backstory: Karl’s parents immigrate to the United States from Sweden and settled in Illinois, among other immigrants from Sweden and the German Confederation. They would go on to have eight children, six of whom survived to adulthood and of which Karl is in the middle. He didn’t speak english until he was ten years old and his father started taking him into ‘city’, to help him load up on things they couldn’t get in the small farming community they lived in. Like the other children, he spoke his parent’s native tongue at home and German with the neighbors. He did learn to speak english rather well, along with a decent ability to read and write. 

In 1861, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, seventeen year old Karl would lie about his age and enlist in the 8th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. He would see action in uncounted skirmishes and nine major battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Brandy Station and Gettysburg. He would acquire several minor wounds and nearly die of typhus in 1862. At the end of the war, he would join his follows in the regiment in the search for John Wilkes Booth, before the 8th was reassigned as President Lincoln's honor guard while he lay in state.

Mustering out in July of 1865, he returned home but found farm life to be unfulfilling. In the spring of 1866, he bought a Morgan stallion and rode west. Over the next twelve years, he would spend his winters hunting buffalo and the summers doing any kind of work he could. He would often sign up as a scout for the US Army and would partake in the Great Sioux War, often riding with Crow warriors, from whom he would learn their language, along with a limited understanding of Lakota.

Karl met Othniel Marsh back in 1872, when he signed up as an assistant on one of the rare time the professor was out in the field. He served as a guard and provided the camp with fresh meat. He also helped out in a few other expeditions, gladly taking Marsh’s money, which was why he was chosen to lead the advance party to the valley.

Character Sheet

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