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The Roarin’ West refers to the frontier on the wild edge of the continent of North Atlantis. It is a land in the midst of turmoil, as the mighty States and Territories of Atlantica progress ever westward, expanding, gathering up resources, claiming territories, and building up a great civilization in the name of Libertania, Nova, Veritas, Justine, and of course Victoriana. If you don’t know, those are the angels of freedom, progress, truth, justice, and victory.
However,people can get overly excited about a new thing; so driven toward progress and growth that they might trample over what was already there. They might become blind to the harm that such an effort causes, especially if they spend their days in the fully colonized and domesticated colonial states along the Eastern coast, and believe all they read about their own greatness under the stars. They may be completely unaware of a bloody and murderous war taking place right under their noses.
So I can tell you about the great Cities of Tomorrow, the innovations and technological achievements, with their steam-powered engines, ships that sail through the clouds, incredible weapons of war and conquest, and even machines that walk and do the labor of men. But that’s only part of the story.
I can also tell you about the spirits of these lands. The cryptics, daemons, practitioners of magic, and the supernatural forces that go unseen, largely unrecognized by science, who roam here; some native, some transported just like the colonists from Europa, tryin’ to make their home in a new land. I can tell you about the indigenous people, pushed back and back, in a hundred tearful trails, to make way for the Great Expansion. I can tell you about the people taken from far away lands to serve as enslaved labor for the wealthier colonists. They, too, have to find a way to make their future in the West, even if they have to fight harder for it.
And all these numerous factions, supernatural, colonial, and indigenous, all have their myriad goals, conflicts, and intentions.
All these details may start to give you a thorough understanding of what life is, what it seems like, and all that it can be, here on the frontier. You’ll need it, if you hope to last very long.
Welcome to the Roarin’ West.
The Three Umvelts
It’s a Deutschlandic word, that describes “reality as perceived by a being.” The umvelt of an ant, for example, might be limited to the dusty ground, the dark tunnels where they nest, the depredations of wasps and spiders, following the smell of a dead sparrow, and occasionally a looming shadow and a final end on the wrong side of a boot.
The the finer points of economic development, agriculture, university mathematics, or the in’s and out’s of a solid round of poker… those things don’t exist at all in the umvelt of an ant. Yet they are undeniably real to you and me. We have a wider umvelt than an ant, or a fish, or a mouse. Or perhaps it would be most accurate to say: a different umvelt.
Still, the umvelt is a common way of understanding how such incredible things can exist and so few can know much about them. The state of affairs is commonly understood using the following rubric:
The First Umvelt is the largest by population, but the most sheltered in terms of facts and information about the world. Folks in the first umvelt may have heard stories but don’t really believe in the things they have always been told are make-believe and fairy-tales. Most have likely never strayed far from civilization, or their well-traveled small town. Inhabitants of the first umvelt are often called unseeing, blind, mundanes, or salters.
The Second Umvelt refers to those who have become aware that the first Umvelt is not really the way the world works, but they lack the information, sympathy, or point of view to truly call it understanding. Folks in the second umvelt have witnessed the unexplainable, and come to believe in it. They might’ve spent more time in the wild and experienced a few things unexplainable in the first umvelt. Or maybe someone gave them a load of manure and called it “the truth”.
Now, this bit is important: Different folks will react differently to this difficult breakthrough. Some feel the driving need to know more, and progress to the third umvelt; others recoil, and take refuge in hate and fear; plenty just deny and forget rather than be taken as insane; drinking or faithing their way back to the first umvelt. Some just break. As a rambler, the ones you have to watch out for are those whos’ discovery of the wider world urge them to become hunters of what they deem “unnatural,” for the sake of “destroying evil” or exposing it. Sadly, there are a number of ushc organizations who are set on such paths.
Folks inhabiting the second umvelt might be called strays, spotters, hunters, or twilighters.
The Third Umvelt is the widest in terms of knowledge, but the most narrow when it comes to Europan population. Of course most indigenous people reside here, if they’ve been brought up among their peoples’ knowledge and traditions. Still, all folks in the third umvelt know better than to judge most things by how they look. They already know many of the things you’ll read here. Most of all, they know the importance of keeping the veil between the umvelts drawn shut. The simple fact is: When too many people have their umvelts cracked wide open at a time… the result is almost always a true calamity. Folks here refer to themselves as keenseers, ilk, kindred, or nocturnal.
So, with that understanding, you may consider this text a lantern guiding you into the third umvelt.
To my great regret, as I was never a particularly good student, the next step in this journey involves a history lesson to revisit whatever history you might’ve learned in school.
Ready to keep goin’? All right then.
Two Worlds
Europan History has its traces of the Unknown World. Rumors of foreboding castles in distant mountains. Howls from the forests at night when the moon is full. Hell, you’ll surely find that some of those same cryptic mysteries have made their way out here to the Roarin’ West.
Yet you’ll find that those “old-world” beings and forces, have existed so long in the midst of Western civilization, growing up with it, negotiating with it, hiding from it, even incorporating themselves into it in many ways… while I wouldn’t dare use the word “tame”, I would say these things have no trouble co-habitating.
Yet chat with a few of them and they’ll share with you the bloody histories untold in university: Rivers of blood; mass graves; whole communities destroyed just for one sighting; families and homes burnt to ash; massacres by the score. The truth is, it took thousands of years to achieve the precarious stability that exists in Europan civilization, and yes, it can also be found even in the more “civilized” parts of the west, on the New Alban coast, and such. These “supernatural” elements have learned to operate “Unseen.” As Ramblers, we follow their example as best we can, and protect their secrecy.
I would dearly love to tell you that we’ve been able to avoid the start of such a bloody history here in the Roarin’ West, but regrettably, it simply is not so.
Now I will say, that the Indeos tribes and nations have co-existed for centuries, maybe millennia, within a much broader umvelt. What we have generally written off as pagan superstition is much closer to the way of the world than we could have imagined. The nations coexisted, I wouldn’t say with no violence (for they are human, after all) but at least with some kind of long lasting stability. Call it “balance.”
Maybe it’s simply that they didn’t have a big idea that the world was theirs for the taking. Whatever it was that kept that world goin’, we can only see its echoes now.
The Land Spirits
As you may know, in the early 1600’s the Europans arrived, bringing their own kind of civilization. The only kind, as most still think of it. They found a world untamed, unknown, and filled with terrors. The powerful and inhuman forces about them had always kept to the shadows, stayed easy to ignore. Here in Atlantica, the Unseen World was just… The World. And it was not going to be disbelieved and pushed into the shadows without a fight.
You probably know that the first few Expansions were cut short by disappearing settlements, the violence of the Indeos nations, and the other disparate hazards of the Roarin’ West. What you’ve not been told is the extent to which these massacres can be attributed to supernatural forces. Specifically, an alliance of powerful beings, we’ll call the Land Spirits.
Their exact nature I won’t get into here, but they were powerful, looked mighty frightening, and were possessed of powers that made them as dangerous as an army, each by themselves. They weren’t exactly in-charge of the Indeos Nations where they lived; they were more like heroes, or champions. They were regional protectors who, when needed, would meet with one another to decide what to do about situations arisin’ that affected them all. Situations, like the arrival of strange and destructive “modern” men looking for a new homeland.
Early on, for a hundred years or so, there was some attempt at coexistance, thanks to the more patient and forgiving among the Land Spirits. But the Europan settlers were not content to live peacefully in a small village.
They wanted to expand, and grow, and find new things to fight over. They also panicked at the sight of anything as unexpected as a nine-foot-tall white stag emerging from the forests for a friendly conversation. They often reacted violently to the strange sights that were commonplace to the locals.
After many years of strife and rising tension, a particularly beloved Land Spirit was attacked without provocation, and in an instant the tenuous peace was lost. The more hot-headed Land Spirits got their way. The ensuing violence cut short the lives of many a brave path-cutter, and pioneer family, not to mention a goodly number of Indeos people, many of whom were caught between warring factions.
The forces of Atlantica wanted to keep the invaders penned in with the threat of death and terror, cutting their reach into a short and bloody stump… but while individual Westerners may be clueless and blind, as a culture they had danced this dance before.
Tales of the strange and ‘unnatural’ happenings in the New World reached the ears of the leaders of the Old; the Eldermen, for example, descended of Hellenic knights and keepers of secrets from the Old World’s unseen battles. They, and other such old families and powerful factions, were ready for a Crusade to free the New World from “demonic” clutches. Thus: the battle was enthusiastically joined.
Sherman’s March
Funded and supported by the old families and powerful factions, a Colonial Militia was formed. This much you can see in history. It was war with the Indeos and it was more than bloody. It was made up not just of local fighters, but of foreign mercenaries, even some of the Indeos themselves. History calls it The War of Prevalence. In the unseen world, and even still among Indeos tribes to keep those memories, it was called The Breaking War, for the countless broken treaties and promises.
I could get into more detail about the massacres back and forth, the heroes and monsters on every side, but contrary to how the essay I’m writin’ here might appear, this ain’t supposed to be a history book. What’s relevant for you to know is that in the midst of all the fighting, reports made their way from the front-lines, where some few soldiers managed to survive direct encounters with Land Spirits and their supernatural allies, back to the powerful forces in Europa.
This brings us to General Lionel P. Sherman. A ruthless strategist, with all the heart and compassion of a scorpion. He was chosen for a very important mission.
Now again, you’ve likely heard of Sherman’s March, and how he moved across the West, cuttin’ down Indeos resistance like so much wheat. What I will tell you here what you did not know before, that his mission was to study and wipe out the Land Spirits specifically.
One by one, he studied them in detail, and killed them. He was able to analyze them, not in the context of superstition and fear, but with some knowledge of sorcery and craft. Armed with knowledge, and with nearly limitless resource committed to this action, General Sherman studied their weaknesses, vulnerabilities, strengths, and predilections, in order to take advantage of each. He was an assassin who made his kills with a whole army. He balked at neither scorched earth nor lost soldiers.
Now, there’s a confession I must make: My father was Arthur Draughon, one of the soldiers on that march. Like General Sherman, the men of that army were aware of the nature of the world. The ranks were filled not only with soldiers, but with hunters, practitioners, occultists, and more. This means that A number of the tools you’ll gain by reading this book came from what was supplied to that regiment, and developed for that bloody campaign. I’d be lyin’ if I said some remnants of the world they destroyed don’t still hold a grudge.
The Continental Divide
So that brings us nearly to where we are today. The Savage West was never totally conquered, but the fighting spirit and military might of the great Indeos Nations was broken. Without the Land Spirits, there was no power to unify resistance, and so the conquering of the West seemed inevitable. The War of Independence kept them off for a while, giving a lot of supernatural beings the chance to prepare and go into hiding, but since then, settlers and builders have crept further and further West.
Now, don’t get me wrong, many Indeos nations still fight the expansion, and they’ve managed to defend their stronghold in what we call Boone Territory thanks to certain natural barriers we’re about to discuss. As railway tracks run goods like veins in a body to support the network of towns, forts, homesteads, and other settlements, just as more settlements pop up along those tracks, all that was halted to the south by the united Indeos nations, and halted the rest of the way by The Continental Divide.
So to backtrack a bit, as this was well before Sherman’s march, the first explorers to seek out the extent of this continent were a pair called Lewis and Clarke. They had a lot of money, and a lot of resources, but the further west they went, the stranger and wilder the wildlife became. They can into great creatures, long thought extinct, and certain few Indeos tribes who’d made us of them. And even further, upon finally finding a viable crossing over the treacherous Rocky Mountains, they found what they called “the end of the World.” A chasm dropping down, nearly three miles to a point below sea-level. It stretched beyond sight to the North, to the South, and continued to the West well beyond the horizon. The ground was covered in fog and cloud, a completely different ecosystem filled with nothing known by man. Unable to find a passage down, Lewis and Clarke returned in defeat.
Now you should know that by now, thanks to airship technology, we know that the Divide stretches far with some few pathways going down, or passages some of them creatures can use and migrate through. And thanks to some intrepid (and sometimes extremely lucky) explorers, we have a sense that what there is down thee is a whole other level of savage. Massive forms of life, great predators with fangs like bowie knives, vicious hunting beasts that roam in packs… untamed and unaccustomed to taking pity on us poor folks of the “modern” world. The Divide has been deemed permanently unconquerable to mankind. What is more, the atmosphere is thick and hot, the plant life is almost as dangerous as the animals, and if you can believe it, the strangeness of that place extends even further.
The spirits and beasts of the world are as careful to avoid it as we are. Those who know will not say what it is about that place, just that our world and that world must remain separate. However, even if civilized men had heard such warnings, they are not those who would shirk the call of curiosity. As almost none who go there ever return, and even settlements close to the divide tend to vanish completely (see Roanoke), but folks in the cities of tomorrow are not ones to let a problem lie. Now, thanks to the advent of the airship, the world has changed yet again. Never dropping too low is important on the journey, mind you, but go far enough and, as with most anything, you reach the other side.
The Bountiful Dorado
As for that other side, early explorers called it a paradise. It has many names, but the one that stuck is Dorado. It’s not just filled with bountiful farmlands, but it’s hills and streams are brimming with gold. This temptation has led to a massive movement to the West by settlers, pioneers, entrepreneurs, and countless desperate folk hoping to strike it rich. Even now, this migration is in full height. Airships carry settlers and prospectors to Dorado, food and gold back to the Eastern Coast. Surely enough storms are a hazard, but nothing compared to another great menace… pirates.
The Brethren of the Storm are a loose coalition of rogue airship crews who make it their aim to rob and steal from the gold-bearing vessels over the Divide. They are as fearsome and as feared as the pirates of the sea ever were, and the need to combat them has led to a new American Air Cavalry branch of the military, utilizing not only airships bearing Gatling guns, but solo-glide craft which dogfight with pirate gliders in the skies. The escalation of these conflicts, and the weapons used by each side to foil the other continue to be a problem.
Still, Atlantica has never been wealthier with the tapping of Dorado. The rail lines are tending towards obsolescence, except that they are still cheaper than airships for travel and freight. While it is still a potent economic force, and the lifeblood of many communities East of the Divide, there are few new rails being laid… the dream of the Northwest Passage stolen from the Iron Horse by the Divide, and won by the might of the Airship.
So now you see that there is quite a lot going on in this Atlantica, in all three umvelts, and above theland and below it. There is danger and adventure almost everywhere you go, but most importantly for many, there is opportunity… not just to get rich, but also to shape a very uncertain future. It’s up to you, now, to decide where you stand… do you fight to conquer the land for Europan settlement once and for all? Or do you fight to preserve or return what was cut down? Do we take power for ourselves, or use it for the greater good? Whatever we choose, one thing is for sure… nothing worth doing is going to be easy, and the cost of greatness is always great.
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