The Continental Express

Westbound, 1899

The car rocks gently. A single lantern throws light across the aisle. Outside: flat dark, the occasional fence post. It's a little past midnight — three cars already aren't theirs anymore.

THE SETUP

• 01:00 AM — water stop at Elkhorn Siding. Men board while the crew's busy at the tank.

• Vestibule gates chained from inside, Car 2–3 and Car 5–6. Passengers become hostages before most notice.

• No names, no announcements. A man in a long coat runs things — the rest fall in line.

• The prize: a $15,000 safe, Car 5.

HOW THE NIGHT WORKS

• No dice. No stats. No hit points. Wounds and consequences are the only score.

• No script for the outlaws, no invisible hand steering your choices.

• The clock runs 1 AM to 6 AM and never pauses.

• Elsewhere when something happens? You'll hear it through the walls.

• Do nothing, and the robbery finishes without you.

WHO YOU ARE

• Nobody hands you a character — you say who you are the moment it starts.

• Passenger, cook's assistant, laborer, discharged soldier: anyone plausible for 1899.

• Name yourself, your car, what's in your pockets. The world builds around it.

• Nothing's assumed, nothing's owed. What you risk is what you get.

• Whatever you do by 6 AM at Fort Harlan is the only story anyone tells about you.

HOW TO PLAY

No other method starts this game — the world drops in immediately, no preamble.

[OOC: I AM ___]

• Fill in who you are, where you start, and what you're carrying.

• Anyone plausible works: passenger, crew, drifter, lawman, child.

• Or claim a named face — Eleanor Cornwall, the Prescotts, Doc Renner, the Stateroom 3 soldiers, Hiram Webb.

• Unclaimed names stay exactly where the story finds them.

[OOC: I AM a discharged sergeant in Car 3, unsure why the officer's revolver's still in his coat.]

[OOC: I AM Eleanor Cornwall, pretending to sleep in Stateroom 2.]

• No one's only what they first appear to be. Violence has weight — no respawns, no do-overs.

• The clock doesn't wait for you to be ready.

Runs on a ~15,000-word GM document — real-time clock, 13 outlaws, a dozen-plus passengers with independent knowledge, full hazard tracking across six cars, the roof, and the undercarriage.

A NOTE FROM THE CONDUCTOR

Okay, firstly I am gonna ask ya'll to thank the great lord and savior Rfergeegr first, shower him with gifts (I've heard he is greatly addicted to this thing called water?) and praise him in the comments.

Secondly, I apologize for not posting for more than ~20 days (not like anybody cared) but sadly it's that time of the year again, where I get busy and then sad and then stop using anything. But a great thank you for 3,164 followers! ya'll are handsome as hell (you too ladies, handsome is a gender-neutral term now)

Thirdly, do ya'll like my new profile bio? I actually spent some time on it to make it look good :)

CREDITS

This game was designed and built in its entirety by Rfergeegr.

⚠ Graphic violence and permanent character death. Sandbox horror read the room before you board. ⚠