Writer for GeeklyInc. Currently sitting on the bottom of the word in New Zealand. Tweet me outside of my normal time-zone @mrk_bennett. Comic recommendations, cat pictures and recipes for pie are welcomed.New Coventry. A town located somewhere between over there and around about here. A town full of people, places and stories. Depending on who you talk to New Coventry was built on everything from fertile farming land to an ancient burial ground and was founded by pious pilgrims or lizard-headed demons. Whatever the case, New Coventry has had its share of good times and bad and it sure has a lot of stories to go around.
The Living Campaign series aims to bring those stories, good and bad, to the fore. Each article will explore a new place, or a new person, or some new event that’s taken place in New Coventry. It may be something good, something not so good or just something that the good folks of New Coventry just don’t like talking about.
The setting is rules agnostic, so feel free to pick and choose whatever you like, but the general feel is 1920’s small town; don’t expect too many dragons (maybe). If you’re running short on inspiration, every so often the Living Campaign will talk about how to use its various bits and pieces.
So with that, welcome to New Coventry stranger.
New Coventry Station
There are many ways in and out of New Coventry. Cars, boats, roads, sudden inheritance. But none more glamorous than the New Coventry Trans-Continental Express, a mighty, coal-black steam engine that makes its home at New Coventry station, a complex array of buildings that have been growing and expanding for the last 40 years.
New Coventry station, and the attached rail yard, are an important part of New Coventry’s economy and moving people in and out of the town. On any one given day there can be 4 or 5 different trains going in and out of New Coventry, bringing in all kinds of goods and people, while also allowing many more to leave. Once a week, on a Friday morning, the New Coventry Trans-Continental Express pulls in and then pulls out, the tireless journey from New Coventry to two states over never quite done.
In and around the station, one can find a variety of businesses, ranging from news-stands to pleasant (if hygienically suspect) tea-rooms. Indeed, it is considered a New Coventry experience to stop at the station and sample a chicken pastry from the “Toot-Toot Tea Rooms”. Visitors are then advised to immediately take advantage of one of the stations many restrooms.
In charge, or as much as one can be in charge of such a varied collection of things, is Station Master Herbert Puffleton. His family has been in charge of running the day to day operations of the station since it opened and the connection between their last name and trains is wholly coincidental. Herbert’s son Phillip is currently the conductor of the New Coventry Trans-Continental Express, a position that has been passed down from son to son in the Puffleton family.
But of course, nowhere in New Coventry is complete without a healthy dose of death, mystery and speculation. The New Coventry Trans-Continental Express is actually the second train to bear that name. The first Trans-Continental’s launch was marred by lack of funding, safety concerns, and general ill-feelings. But, pressured by the mayors office, the Puffleton family launched the Trans-Continental. The train was due to pull into New Coventry as part of a grand home-coming ceremony on August 9th. August 9th is now a day of mourning. The Trans-Continental never made it to New Coventry. It slipped into the fog filled moors on the fringes of town, and never reappeared; vanishing along with 150 passengers. They say that if you stand at the very edge of Platform 15 on August 10th, the sound of the first Trans-Continental chugging over the tracks can be heard.
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Enjoyed your visit to the New Coventry Station? If you haven’t yet, why not wander the rest of New Coventry and check out these other previously discovered places and people!
Introduction and Johnson’s Eatery Anna Ripley
The Coventry Conversation Coventry Conversation Microfilm Archive
New Hope Housing Cornelius Weatherhorn
Salt Lick Farm McGregor’s Boat Shed
Mr. Mackerton’s Magical Menagerie Campaign Adventures Part 1