A western where drawing first is still a decision
You put the guns away years ago and the town has run out of other options. What is coming for it is organised, patient, and does not care that you used to be somebody.
No account, no card, nothing to install. The world's lore is already built, so it starts in seconds.
A standoff is a real thing that can go wrong
Whether the draw lands is not decided by the part of the system writing the sentence, so being fast is a fact about your character rather than a promise the story is making to you.
The world
The railroad baron wants the town of Red Mesa gone so his tracks can run through it. The town has one old gunfighter left who remembers how to say no.
The frontier of the Dustlands is a land of sun-cracked towns, cattle trails, and a railroad that swallows everything in its path. Law is thin and bought, the desert keeps its dead, and a fast draw still settles what courts won't.
Who is in it
- Calloway Rail Company
- a railroad baron's empire that buys or burns whatever it wants.
- Red Mesa Townsfolk
- the stubborn holdouts who refuse to sell their land.
- The Dust Riders
- a gang of hired guns on Calloway's payroll.
Where you go
- Red Mesa
- a frontier town built on a vein of stubborn pride.
- The Calloway Railhead
- the advancing end of the line, crawling toward the town.
- Coyote Gulch
- a box canyon where ambushes are won and lost.
What already happened
- The First Eviction
- the day Calloway's men burned the first holdout's homestead.
- The Noon Standoff
- an earlier duel that made the old gunslinger a legend.
Who you can play
-
Della 'Quickdraw' Mott Retired gunslinger
A weary legend who wanted to be left alone and was not granted the mercy.
At the start: old, slower than she was, and the town's last hope.
-
Eli Brooks Young deputy
An earnest young lawman learning what courage actually costs.
At the start: brave, untested, and badly outgunned.
Or write your own character — the setup form takes a name, a background and what you are good at, and the game master works from that instead.
How a turn works
- You say what your character does, in your own words.
- What you attempted is weighed against your character sheet and the state of the scene — and the outcome is settled before the scene is written, so the part telling the story does not get to decide that you succeeded.
- The game master narrates what happened, grounded in the world's own characters, factions and places, and remembers it for the rest of the run.