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The geography's actually super easy. Just remember two rivers and California. The Mississippi runs north to south and cuts the USA in half. In 1880, everything east is 'civilization', and everything west is wilderness, homesteads, and one-street towns (basically). The Rio Grande runs from the north-west to the south-east and divides the USA from Mexico. Mexico used to own a bunch of stuff north of the Rio Grande but lost it after people decided they'd rather be part of the USA, mainly because that meant they'd get to keep owning other people as property. The USA changes its mind on that idea a while later anyway. California i

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I'll see what I can do. Itching to write a silly little preamble for Millie back in the city!

Everything you need to know can be learned from the Wild, Wild West TV series with Robert Conrad. 3 episodes should cover you. OK, so maybe a couple of episodes of Kung Fu too.

Ghosts in the Flesh I feel them before I hear them. Octavia’s laughter, sharp and familiar, coils around the back of my mind. Luna’s sigh follows, tender and aching, as if she still doesn’t quite believe she’s here. But they are both here, inside me, crowded into the same fragile flesh that was supposed to be mine alone. It was only meant to be temporary, a stopgap, a mercy. Octavia’s ghost had already been with me for months, tucked like a burning coal into the neural buffer no one else dared use. And then Luna… my bright, impossible Luna. She should have had her own body, her own future. But the people hunting me found her, and ma

Might make a separate topic in the club with a poll and link to it here when it is done. Since in theory it could lead to setting something up here someday. Though who votes might be as important as how many vote, and I know a number of them might be tricky for people to get into if they don’t already have books/familiarity themselves, especially ones that are long out of print and/or have a bunch of books. But I like polls and might be interesting to see results.

I like the crazy blue mineral/crystal. Two names to put forward: Luminite, or Cyanthium. Though that's what the smarty pants call it. The common folk might refer to it as 'Bluefire' or 'Glowstone.' @WritesNaughtyStories I'm with you on the promiscuity, and it makes sense that it being a taboo absolutely does NOT stop people. @IsabellaRoseI'm on board with the list pretty much as is and I like the summing up there. Given we're working in an Alternate History of the real world, you'll all have to forgive my geographical or historical blunders (although I know we're not using real figures.) Ignorant Brit over here.

I'm pretty much on board with Izzy's list. I want to campaign for having the discussion about First Nations and the Army - those both loom large in most westerns.

All of those character options sound like they'd fit pretty seamlessly! For the vampire-esque character, you wouldn't even need to retain any of the actual weaknesses of a traditional vampire. You just "look" like one, so superstitious common folk assume you must be one. You're just an eccentric inventory/scientist who has fled persecution in Europe/back east and setup shop in this town, because you can get anything you need via the railroad in town, and you get the privacy to conduct your experiments without someone looking over your shoulder. But of course, rumors abound about what exactly it is you do in that big house all alone, and

I won't do a classic Vampire then, that is fine. Like I said, I do have other ideas as well. That said (and maybe someone already brought this up but I was too tired last night to notice), maybe the being a weird Human thing would work. Sort of like the weirdo from another culture like @WritesNaughtyStories combined with the Dr. Frankenstein angle. Maybe they look a little vampiric, and they have a bad reputation of being a Vampire (for people who don't know them, sort of like @WickedCadrach's idea of weird being called, for example, "The Werewolf of ____"), and part of their looks and such were due to nature and/or experiments they have

Okay, so far I have... INCLUDE Ashborn: Prudence to have existed in our past and to have left her legacy of defending love in all its forms. With that comes the oppressive social and religious pressure that drove Prudence to condemn her lover. gunfighters in dusty streets Airships aesthetically, I would prefer zeppelins! and hot air balloons government agents in luxury train cars with odd, clockwork and steam-powered gadgets magic being a thing in the setting in the right, mystical, unobtainable doses (The big bad dabbling in something they don't understand and we won't either) automatons, or at leas

Nearly went over 2k words with this one. I also had to rush to finish it, but what else is new? I'm probably going to be in Trails purgatory for about a week minimum since Sky 1st Chapter is out, but if a thing like Kinktoberfest comes along again, I will likely do what I did last year and try coming up with some kind of consistent storyline. Will I engage more in the smutty ideas? I don't know. As we know, my self confidence writing smut is borderline nonexistent still. We'll have to wait and see. If there is no Kinktoberfest, I can probably just recycle ideas from the old thread. On a dark and foggy night, a lone figure i

I was busy and distracted but I'll expand on some things I posted about in the main thread. I'll see about getting the ball rolling I suppose. On Automatons: I think they're a must for this sort of setting, and interesting to have as a sign of the coming advancement. Since we're now in a separate world from the other group I suppose it can be debated if they're new or older though if they're more recent given the 1880's setting we could always say (if we're fine with any historical reference) that after the release of Steam Man of the Prairies (1868) that people did come to realize they were quite partial to the idea of mechanical

Sorry for slow response- stuff to add but working, will poke this when home <3

I couldn't agree more.

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Does this mean the New Church has bounties out for Ashborn and her blasphemous cultists? Now that I'm actually on deck, I can slack off on the lines and think. Picking up where I left off in my earlier post this morning, ball, promiscuity, lawlessness and blue coal. Balls. It sounds like we all agree, there need to be occasional galas, where what passes for wealth in town, shows up in their frontier finery and parades about in desperate attempts to seduce each other, impress the common folk and angle for alliances and influence. How big of a deal is it when the musicians come into town for these balls? Do they happen on the sol

I think there's room for everyone to have a presence in town. I'm imagining the various factions being sort of like the warring powermongers in Deadwood (the HBO series) - they are all in town, all trying to establish themselves in positions of power due to (resource) being abundant in the area and this being the main railroad stop closest to the mine, ruins, spring, or whatever source of (resource) we decide is nearby to create a gold rush feel. They need the people to follow them, to see them as the power in the area. I can imagine the schism church trying to exert its power, to spread its influence back east. I can also imagine other

So I'm thinking about Prudence and her Ashborn, and given the setting... Prudence would very likely still be active. Perhaps her protection is a sort of frontier legend. Some people who say they've been protected by her have spread her legend, and some directly affected have now started a new faith, one of love and protection. This new faith draws all sorts of followers and is rapidly growing. Perhaps one of their first, or their very first, chapel is in the town where the players are based... Just a thought, given her wild west themed origin.

I think I'm going to come at this in three steps. First, @Chiyako's biologist, then @IsabellaRose's religions and then a combination of @MagnificentBastard, @StarlitSiren and @WickedCadrach's balls, promiscuity and promiscuous balls. So, @Chiyako, it seems the REALLY important thing is being in hiding, on the run and doing these shady experiments. That's more Doctor Frankenstein than vampire. The look is easy to achieve. Anemic and pale, or straight albino, and the experiments and history (removed from the big, fancy hospital back in Saint Linus for unapproved surgeries that revealed your experiments? Maybe to cure your hereditary anemia

Agreeing with this. The feeling of exposure and self-reliance when there's one lawman for your town and sometimes not even that (I'm thinking of Bass Reeves, the US Marshal who was the only lawman covering a frontier territory roughly the size of South Dakota and the real-world inspiration behind The Lone Ranger).

Will see about getting a response with some thoughts in tonight, whether starting the conversation, or building on the replies of others (a chance I will be able to during the day, but can’t guess how likely it will be). Office closing a little early today, that might help.

Okay, so... not a lot of discussion going on here. I'm going to post my lists of what I imagine for this setting and you guys can work from there. Things I Imagine Being in an 1880s/Wild West/Steampunk/Weird West Flavored Game Dusty boomtowns, saloons, and lawless frontier towns. Railroads, train robberies. Airships. Cursed mines. Traveling carnivals and bizarre expositions. Mad scientists in brass-and-copper laboratories. Automatons and clockwork men questioning their humanity. Creepy experiments. Tesla coils, pneumatic weapons, and steam-powered contraptions. Strange inventi

My preference would be to lean away from vampires. A vampire implies someone who turned them into a vampire, which implies other vampires, which implies hunters, which implies more than I personally wanted to include. But, a note to consider: the players don't all have to be friends. They have Relationships with each other, but they don't have to be good relationships, they just have to involve strong feelings. Consider that the original game setup for the Smallville game this system was originally designed for included pre-generated characters for both Clark Kent AND Lex Luthor. Dramatic entanglements between rivals can be even mo

Prudence broke from a very harsh religion that imposed their righteousness through capital punishment of blasphemy. I think they may not be the religion that offers sanctuary, but the one many need sanctuary from. Perhaps there are at least two main religions, one old and established, seeking to bring the light of their god to the masses, including the savages. They mean well, but don't understand how oppressive they are to other beliefs, and offer sanctuary. The religion that Prudence belonged to is a very harsh, extra double plus Puritanical version of this older religion, a group that seeks to cleanse the evils of the world with fire