This is spoilers for the second season of Brightwater, Brightwater: Damn Outlaws. If you're one of my players, ya better scram. Now.
Alrighty, folks. Here's where I can let off some steam and spin my yarns. Ya see, I been knittin in my mind and know those daft folks ain't gonna see it fer a few months, and hell, they is gonna see it all topsy-turvy like from the first person point of view. So sidle up and peak and what yer Marshall's cookin up fer his friends.
Framework:
It's Resident Evil 8, plain and simple. Man, that video game is perfect. Four separate lords of different domains with complicated "family" ties set around a hub-town that progressively deteriorates? Why, that's a mighty fine recipe for an adventure. You just gotta take those horrific fairy tale tropes and swap em out for wild west tropes and you got a map-based campaign right there, pardner. So instead of the vampire in a castle, ghost in a dollhouse, mermaid in a lagoon, and Frankenstein in a factory, I gotta whip something else up. I propose fer the board's consideration
1) a southern belle on a sharecropping plantation
2) a shovel-seller in an abandoned mine
3) a marooner in a dismal swamp
4) a gunslinger in a boomtown
I do declare that Missus Clarabelle McLain is the finest lady in the land. And perhaps the darkest heart on the continent of Pteris during the First Infernal Emergence, which is saying something since devils have sprung up like a pox. I decided fer sharecropping on two accounts: 1) the deep, dark stain of slavery on America is nothing I want to touch in a fun game and 2) sharecropping allows for people to sell their souls (literally and figuratively) away Hadestown-style.
Her minions are lesser devils disguised as happy folk in green work clothes. That is, when they don't stop everything they're doing to just stare at our heroes and creep em out a bit. You know, the fun stuff. These lesser devils were given into Clarabelle's service as part of her deal with the Devil (we'll get to him later). They serve an important gameplay point, too. They're minions you can feel good killing - you don't want our heroes fighting the good folks of Brightwater that end up in Clarabelle's clutches. This ain't no angst-ridden Ravenloft. It's fast, furious, and fun Deadlands.
Speaking of Ravenloft, I did take some advice from that moody tome Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. The key word is "some," since I ain't runnin' no horror campaign. I ain't runnin' no whore campaign, either, unless our heroes spend too much time in the Cow-Tipping Dance Hall.
A Shovel-Seller in an Abandoned Mine
Why, it wouldn't be a western without mine cart antics, sticks of dynamite (ahem, "shattersticks" in the infernal emergence parlance), and a prospector. Ol Joachim McLain is our "prospector" of choice and Missus Clarabelle's absentee husband, though he's more interested in business prospects. He fills the robber baron archetype, a consummate capitalist that just might've poisoned the well to give all the dwarves at Golden Gorge gold fever. Whether those dwarves are picking in the mines or panning in the river bed, they need supplies from good ol' Joachim. Golden Gorge clearly caricatures the Gold Rush, but the wildest nugget I dug up? The first millionaire of the gold rush was shovel-selling Samuel Brannen. So Joachim represents the greedy man that see someone's else's hunger as a business opportunity, and his "vigilance committee" are some mooks you can off without loosin any sleep.
A Marooner in a Dismal Swamp
Everything can't be all doom-and-gloom and historical critiques, now can it? Here's a western domain that pays homage to good outcasts making a life for themselves in swamps where the white men wouldn't tread - the marooners of swamps. Read a book. They're pretty inspirin. Anywhose, I got this lovely Infernal Emergence and not enough hell. I paid 3 silver dollars for Descent Into Avernus, so I better use it somewhere. So, why not a pseudo-Styx fanning out into a Blood Swamp? Properly miserable, with giant blood-sucking skeeters, some gator wrassling, some humanoid blood/mud men. Home sweet home. The Devil's Child lives out here with his gang of outcasts. But don't be fooled by his name and looks. Eli's a good kid and an old soul, and he's more interesting in a conversation than a scrap.
A Gunslinger in a Boomtown
I believe the kids would call Crooks' Creek my location that's "no thoughts, head empty." It's a lawless town of outlaws. The closest thing to a thought is "outlaws are fun, and pirates are fun fer similar reasons. Let's have a pirate-and-outlaw town, Tortuga-meets-Tombstone." Cheyenne and her bandits are a force to be reckoned with, along with her husband, Mr. Six. He don't talk much, and even if he did you prolly couldn't hear im over the whir of his cursed saw-o-chains situated over the stump of his left hand. And if you think he's scary, wait till you hear why he's called Mr. Six. That tale involves Cheyenne, a reverse Russian roulette, and five less lucky suitors. So keep yer wits about you in this domain.
