What Manner of Game Is This?

Dear Reader, you have stumbled upon an extraordinary chronicle—one that documents the ongoing exploits of Colonel Augustus Brennan's troubleshooters across the Weird West. But this is no mere accounting of events already transpired. This is an invitation to participate in a grand experiment in collaborative storytelling, what the learned folk call a "text-based role-playing game."

Unlike those parlor games where every action requires consulting tables and calculating modifiers, our method emphasizes narrative over numbers. Your words paint the picture. Your creativity drives the story. You write your character's actions, dialogue, and inner thoughts as if penning a serialized novel—except you share authorship with your fellow players, and none of you knows exactly how the tale will end.

The Role of Fortune: While writing forms the heart of our enterprise, Lady Luck occasionally demands her due. When outcomes hang in the balance—Can you leap that chasm? Will the huckster's hex take hold? Does the shambling corpse spot you in the darkness?—we consult the dice. Our Discord server employs a mechanical assistant that rolls dice and draws playing cards faster than any dealer in Dodge City.

But fear not endless arithmetic! Dice appear only when the outcome is uncertain and dramatically significant. Opening doors, mounting horses, ordinary conversations—these require no rolls. Simply write them happening. Trust your fellow storytellers to be fair, and they shall trust you in return.

The Tools of the Trade

Our Discord server—that marvel of modern telegraphic communication—hosts a bot that manages the mechanical necessities:

Dice Rolling: For skill checks, combat resolution, and determining outcomes when the Marshal calls for it.

Card Drawing: Initiative in gunfights is determined by drawing from a standard deck. Hucksters also use cards to power their hexes—the higher the card, the more powerful the magic.

Fate Chip Tracking: Your precious tokens of cosmic luck are carefully recorded, ready to be spent when death comes knocking.

This technological wonder keeps the story flowing smoothly, handling calculations in the background while you focus on the narrative.

(Continued on "Game Mechanics")

Fate Chips: Your Ticket to Tomorrow

In the Weird West, death is more suggestion than certainty. Throughout your adventures, you'll earn Fate Chips—poker-style tokens representing cosmic luck, divine intervention, or pure ornery stubbornness. These miraculous chips serve multiple purposes:

Improve Your Odds: Spend a chip to gain a bonus on any roll. That bullet grazes instead of kills. That rope holds a moment longer. Fortune smiles upon the prepared.

Soak Damage: A well-placed chip can reduce wounds, turning a mortal blow into something merely painful and inconvenient.

Cheat Death Itself: Here's where things get interesting. If your character dies—and in Colonel Brennan's employ, that's "when" rather than "if"—you can spend Fate Chips for a chance to return as one of the Harrowed.

The Harrowed are those who died but got back up with something dark riding inside them. They're faster, stronger, harder to kill, and in possession of unnatural abilities. The catch? They share their skull with a manitou—an evil spirit whispering terrible suggestions. Play the internal struggle right, and you're nigh invincible. Lose control, and you become the monster you were hired to fight.

Earning Your Chips: The Marshal awards Fate Chips for excellent roleplay, clever solutions, heroic actions, and memorable character moments. Spend them wisely—they're the difference between Boot Hill and collecting your pay.

(Continued "Fate Chips")

The Reckoning of 1863

The year is 1877, and America is not the nation described in history books. The Civil War began in 1861 as it did in that other timeline, but at Gettysburg in July 1863, something went catastrophically wrong. Over three days, thousands died in one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil. And then, on the fourth day, the dead rose.

Both armies retreated in horror. Soldiers who'd faced cannon fire without flinching broke and ran from their own reanimated comrades. The battle that should have turned the tide of the war instead became the first sign that something fundamental had broken in the world.

This event—now called the Reckoning—marked the moment when the supernatural became undeniable. The dead walk. Creatures from legend manifest in flesh. Ancient evils stir. And governments on both sides scramble desperately to hide the truth from their citizens, even as that truth grows harder to conceal with each passing year.

The Civil War, which might have ended in 1865, continues still. Seventeen years of grinding attrition. Seventeen years of death feeding more death. The front lines shift like sand. Neither Union nor Confederacy can gain decisive advantage. The land between is soaked in blood and terror.

Ghost Rock: Miracle or Curse?

In 1868, the greatest earthquake in recorded history shattered California's coastline. The Great Quake dropped much of the state into the Pacific, creating a bizarre maze of towering stone mesas separated by flooded channels. Survivors called it the Great Maze—and within its treacherous confines, prospectors discovered something that would change everything: ghost rock.

This black, translucent mineral glows with an eerie inner light. It burns hotter than coal, lasts ten times longer, and—most disturbingly—screams when ignited. The wails of tormented souls pour from ghost rock fires, driving some workers mad.

But the advantages outweigh the horror. Ghost rock powers steam wagons that traverse impossible terrain. It runs electrical generators with unprecedented efficiency. It fuels weapons of terrifying destructive capability. Mad scientists use it to power devices that defy natural law. Every nation wants it. Every railroad needs it. Men kill for it by the thousands.

The price? Those who work with ghost rock report nightmares, hear voices, sometimes go mad. Some claim burning the stone releases something—spirits, perhaps, or raw fear itself—into the world. The more ghost rock burned, the worse the supernatural phenomena become. But nobody's willing to stop using it. The advantages are too great. The profits too substantial.

(Continued on "Ghost Rock")

The Fractured Continent

What was once the United States has splintered into competing nations, each pursuing its own vision of America's future:

The Union: Led from Washington by President Ulysses S. Grant, the North fights to restore the Union by any means necessary. Their industrial might produces weapons and wonders, but at what cost to the human soul?

The Confederacy: The South maintains its hard-won independence, fueled by ghost rock wealth and European support. Richmond remains defiant under President Davis, though the seventeen-year war has taken its toll.

The Disputed Lands: Formerly Kansas and surrounding territories, claimed by both sides but controlled by neither. A lawless region where anything goes—and usually does. Fear Level: 2 (3 in Dodge City).

Deseret: The Mormon state surrounding the Great Salt Lake has prospered through careful neutrality. They welcome all faiths and political persuasions—provided you can pay. Rich from ghost rock trade, heavily armed, and determinedly independent.

The Sioux Nations: United under Sitting Bull and backed by powerful shamans, the northern plains tribes have reclaimed their ancestral lands and expanded far beyond. They're a major power now, recognized by foreign governments and feared by both Union and Confederacy.

The Coyote Confederation: Southern tribes united against encroachment control vast territories across the Southwest. Their shamans wield power equal to any huckster's hex.

California: The Golden State, shattered by the Great Quake, broke from the Union and remains independent. Whoever controls the Great Maze controls ghost rock—and California isn't sharing.

(Continued on "Nations & Factions")

The Great Rail Wars

In 1872, both Union and Confederate governments announced a competition: the first railroad to complete a transcontinental line connecting their capital to the Great Maze would receive ten billion dollars in subsidies plus exclusive rights to ship California's ghost rock.

Billions of dollars. Control of the miracle fuel. The future of the war itself.

Six major railroads remain in the race, employing thousands and stopping at nothing to win. They hire troubleshooters, mercenaries, and worse. They sabotage competitors. They make deals with supernatural entities. The bodies pile up faster than anyone can count.

This is the context for your employment. Colonel Augustus Brennan's Black River Railroad is one of the six competitors, and the Colonel didn't get where he is by playing nice. He needs troubleshooters—fixers who can handle problems too sensitive for regular employees. Sometimes that means investigating sabotage. Sometimes it means recovering stolen property. Sometimes it means things the Colonel won't put in writing.

The pay is generous. The work is dangerous. And if you're very lucky, you might survive long enough to enjoy your earnings.

(Continued on "The Great Rail Wars")

Dodge City: Your Home Base

Dodge City sits in the heart of the Disputed Lands, where both Union Blue and Black River railroads intersect. Founded as "Peacetown" by entrepreneur Robert Wright, it was meant to be neutral ground where profit mattered more than politics.

The reality is messier. Union sympathizers and Confederate partisans live uneasily side-by-side. Spies from every faction operate from the shadows—Texas Rangers, Agency operatives, freelance intelligencers. Buffalo hunters, railroad workers, guerrillas, and guns-for-hire flow through town like the Arkansas River.

Fear Level 3: Higher than the surrounding territory because violence and terror have soaked into the ground here. Every partisan killing, every spy's bullet, every victim dragged beneath Boot Hill by ghouls adds to it. And when Fear rises in the Weird West, monsters grow stronger.

Key Locations:

•Long Branch Saloon: Finest establishment in town, no professionals at the gambling tables

•Railroad Depot: Where troubleshooters receive assignments

•Dodge City Times: Where news and rumors circulate

•Boot Hill: Cemetery. Avoid after dark. Ghoul infestation.

•Marshal's Office: Larry Deger tries to keep the peace

•Ham Bell's Livery: Reliable but expensive

•Ford County Library: Miss Temperance Page believes the written word outlasts the fastest gun

Marshal Deger enforces a firearms ban within city limits, though killings happen regularly anyway. Judge Moreland is called a "hanging judge" because jail space is limited—most sentences are either hefty fines or the noose.

(Continued on "Dodge City Gazetteer")

Who Will You Become?

In this collaborative narrative, you embody a unique individual in the Weird West. Perhaps you're a gunslinger running from a dark past. A huckster who made deals with entities best left unnamed. A mad scientist whose inventions explode spectacularly. A former soldier who's seen too much death. A blessed warrior channeling divine power against evil.

Common Archetypes Include:

Blessed: Holy warriors channeling divine power. Requires genuine faith and conviction. Can perform miracles—if the Almighty approves.

Hucksters: Card-slinging spellcasters bargaining with manitous to work hexes. Powerful but dangerous—those demons always want something in return.

Mad Scientists: Inventors whose devices defy conventional science. Powered by ghost rock and genius—or madness. The line blurs.

Gunslingers: Masters of the quick draw. In the Weird West, a fast gun means survival.

Soldiers & Veterans: Survivors of seventeen years of war. They've seen horrors both military and supernatural.

Law Dogs: Rangers, marshals, deputies trying to impose order on chaos. Often cynical, always necessary.

Outlaws: Sometimes survival requires working outside the law. Not all outlaws are evil—just desperate.

Shamans: Native medicine workers maintaining traditional ways, communing with spirits both helpful and hostile.

Common Folk: Farmers, merchants, saloon workers, ordinary people in extraordinary times.

(Continued on "Archetypes & Classes")

Getting Started

Ready to risk life and limb for Confederate gold? Here's how to join:

1. Visit the Ford County Library: Visit our comprehensive archives at the link below. Study character creation, house rules, and world information.

2. Create Your Character: Develop a compelling individual with skills, flaws, motivations, and secrets. Colonel Brennan doesn't care about your past—only your ability to solve his problems.

3. Join Discord: Out-of-character coordination, dice rolling, and community interaction happen here. You'll find helpful guides and fellow troublemakers.

4. Read Past Issues: Browse previous adventures to understand tone, writing style, and story structure. See how other players craft their narratives.

5. Jump In: Once approved, start writing! Don't fear mistakes—everyone's learning together. The goal is collaborative storytelling, not winning or losing. Help your fellow players look good, and they'll reciprocate.

(Continued on "Character Creation")