@Hardboiled Android I have a few questions.
I don't want to systematically go through the discussion thread right now, so I'm just checking a few things and otherwise going off memory, but in the discussion thread you'll definitely find some detail and rationale that's left out of the worldbook.
I would note - in addition to being able to read how AP ran Grand Junction in this thread, I believe he also ran a one-shot of the 215 Vultures quest as a test-run, which I believe is also contained in the discussion thread. Might be some good info in there.
Are you running a session tomorrow?
Is there a reason given for the Santa Fe wanting the Golden Spike? It says it will restore honor to their clan, however it doesn't detail why exactly this artefact would make up for the death of Jukebox and Lulu's child other than Jukebox also having an intertest in it.
Pretty confident in my answers for this one since it was my idea.
The reason for the spike's value is because it is a real world artifact, the final rail spike in the Transcontinental Railroad that tied the west and east of the continent together. It's in some sense the single most important artifact in the history of American trains. Given that it was driven one state over from the Iron Lines, it seemed appropriate to me that they had an intererst in it, so I suggested this as a quest for that clan.
The artefact doesn't have some
specific value, it's just a spiritually significant item - a totem, it has a lot of mana in it. It's not specifically meant to make up for the death of the kid - indeed, the death of the kid isn't the reason the Santa Fe are weak, that's just the cause of one of the latest feuds. The Santa Fe are just smaller and less powerful than the others, but if they had an uber-powerful totem like the Golden Spike with all of that good juju, it would gain them a ton of respect with the other clans.
I would note - it is by far the least practical of the Grand Junction quests, since it actually requires you to go one whole state over, probably do a ton of other stuff in the process, and then come back. It's not out of the question, but it strikes me as unlikely that many parties would actually want to do that. A consequence of my suggestions to AP often being over-grandiose for a PnP campaign.
Is the Hobo Oracle some kinda Psyker or is he an actual fraud?
It's a vague thing, but he's basically a real psyker. He more or less predicts the arrival of the Player Party, and he more or less predicts the 215 Vultures kidnapping. Again, it's a vague thing, should be kept a little coy, but basically he really has some power of forethought, albeit very weak and foggy. Or maybe he's just crazy, or a fraud, you can bounce between the three. If the players seek any consultation with him, my advice would be for his prophecies to be referring to real things they will encounter in the campaign, but indecipherable to the players in advance and not actually providing any useful information. It's basically just a spooky thing.
I'd also let you know in case you're unaware that the Hobo Oracle is ripped straight from the rail nomads in Wasteland, and indeed hi predictions in that game really do vaguely refer to locations/events in the game.
https://wasteland.fandom.com/wiki/Hobo_Oracle
Is there a name for the child that died with Switch? I don't see one, so I'm just going with Little Circle.
I don't think there was one. Can't say that's the name I would've picked for them, but if that's the name then that's name.
There doesn't seem to be a way suggested in the world book to unite all three clans again, I assume it would be hard to do after Bourbon nearly gets some of the Santa Fe's children killed. Is there more about Grand Junction I can read about? I'm loving the location, but it feels kinda empty compared to others. I'm making a lot of stuff up to fill gaps.
So a few things here:
I'm not really sure that disunited is the right way to describe the clans, and I'm not really sure that it makes sense to speak of uniting them "again". The fussin' and the feudin' is sort of the point of the social order. They get mad at each other, get in disputes, make drama, but it's been that way for as long as anyone can remember. Conflict ebbs and flows, when the Player Party arrives conflict is at a high point and things could fall apart, but it's probably not the first time. They try not to kill each other (though that probably happens when feuds get out of control, and then have to be reigned in by the Brakemen), and they probably have some capacity to unify in the face of outside threats (but it's contingent, depending on both the threat and clan relations). They almost certainly marry each other: Though I don't think this was ever discussed, the point of clans in most tribal societies is to manage kinship and descent, with marriage being between clans (and governed by all sorts of obscure and incomprehensible traditions and rules).
Generally - tensions grow between the tribes over little things, someone stole a beer, someone triggered a rabbit trap, someone flatualted on our side of the camp, etc etc. People get more tense and resentful, one tribe sides with another. People start picking fights over minor slights, boasting. Then something semi-big happens, the tribes really get to brawling. Things get out of control, someone gets hurt too bad or someone steals something too big, and whatever tribe is more in the wrong (as recognized in objective fact, and as agreed to by a majority of the clans, in this case 2/3rds) has to make amends with gifts to the offended party. Things are OK for awhile, and the cycle starts over again. This is the universal cycle of tribal life in any culture.
Now, you see a problem with the fact that Bourbon nearly gets the Santa Fe children killed, however it is precisely the opposite. This was again a suggestion I had made. I suggested to AP the concept that someone organized the kidnapping to teach the Santa Fe a lesson. I further suggested that, if this were exposed, it would bring great shame to the Atchinsons and the Topeka, and they would be forced by guilt (and their common tribal identity) to assist the Santa Fe in saving the children rather than leaving them to fend for themselves, and probably the Atchinsons would have to make further amends with gifts down the line. This would restore tribal relations to a "harmonious" state, but of course it's temporary, so long as the group remains tribal these sort of petty dramas are going to continue to cycle.
So, to summarize: Bourbon's guilt, if the players can sus it out, is the ideal solution to the problem - though if they find some other way to solve the problem (like killing the 215 Vultures), it's probably not the end of the world.
If by uniting the clans you mean something more long-term and involved, like end slides, I have some ideas. I should caution that it's honestly probably not worth worrying about this stuff too much - Grand Junction is a tutorial location more or less, not somewhere the players need to spend a tremendous amount of time. I think AP made this note to some of my grander ideas for the location. That said -
As I conceived it, the conflict between the three clans can be seen through their differing perceptions of the idea of the Big Rock Candy Mountain. All think of it mystically, but precise interpretations differ: The Atchinsons, as the most powerful and with the most prestigous, locate it in the glory of the mythic past. The Topekans, as the most practical but also the most aware of the local area, believe it to be somewhere in the near-by region, up in the mountains. The Santa Fe, as the most destitute and with the least prospects for achieving their hopes, have a slave morality and see it in the most spiritual way - "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" and all, we can build the Big Rock Candy Mountain right here, right now, we don't have to look somewhere else.
With this in mind, here are the "ending slides" I would suggest. These of course don't take anything else into account in the Wasteland, and of course these aren't "canon" or anything, but hopefully they should give you some idea on how to play tensions and drama.
- "Boys, I'm Not Turning - Give the Golden Spike to the Atchinsons, repair John Henry, don't expose Bourbon. The Atchinsons decide to decamp for their old homeland with the help of John Henry, but leave the other clans behind. The Topeka are absorbed into surrounding peoples, but the Santa Fe are reduced to slaver.
- "Come With Me, We'll Go And See" - Give the Golden Spike to the Atchinsons, repair John Henry, expose Bourbon. The Atchinsons decide to decamp for the old homeland. The other clans, bound by their common identity, go with them, out into the great unknown.
- "Streams of Alcohol" - Give the golden spike to the Topeka, improve the stills, don't expose Bourbon. With some very fine hooch, the Topeka build trade networks with surrounding people. Unaccustomed to the strength and quantity of their hooch, Iron Line culture become easy influenced by other cultures who break them out of their tribal lifestyle and set them towards "modern" labor. A clan feud over the loss of identity ends in the destruction of the Atchinsons.
- "Lakes of Whisky" - Give the golden spike to the Topeka, improve the stills, expose Bourbon. With some very fine hooch, the Topeka build local trade networks. Though some of their culture is lost in the process, the unified clans carefully coordinate to preserve some measure of their identity.
- "Fair and Bright" - Give the golden spike to the Santa Fe, expose Bourbon. The Santa Fe focus on building up Grand Junction, abandoning old-fashioned hopes while still charting a course for the future. Grand Junction eventually becomes a power in its own right, the Iron Lines a true nation.
- "The Jerks That Invented Work" - Give no one the Golden Spike, or give the Santa Fe the Golden Spike without exposing Bourbon. As the years pass by, the Iron Lines decline, their primitive ways and disunity no match for a changing world. The Iron Lines become a foot note in the history books.
