Ruritanian Old West

I have a lot of hobbies that I often bounce back and forth between, but one that I'm spending as much time as I can get with is Red Dead Redemption 2 on the PS4.  It's a great game.  Not perfect, mind you, (and the writing is to blame here; and curiously political correctness, which RockStar famously isn't supposed to have.)  But it's pretty good.  Now, the game's been out for more than six months.  Most people finished the main game months ago and have been playing, if they're still playing at all, RDR Online rather than the story mode.  I'm way behind.  I'm still in Epilogue 2.  I've moved to Beecher's Hope with Charles and Uncle, but I haven't built the house yet, because I actually kinda enjoy the campsite iteration of it (although I can't find the shaving station, if there is one—so I have to spend money to shave, which is kinda stupid.)

I spent a lot of time as Arthur in chapters 2-4 in particular (I played 5-6 more straight through.  Kinda.) doing things like hunting and whatnot.  I made all of the camp upgrades, all of the satchels, most of the trapper clothing items, etc.  I completed a number of the challenges (although I still have plenty more to do.)  Now that I've got the entire map opened to me, I'm not really doing very many missions yet either; I'm just exploring, hunting, doing challenges, and generally enjoying the ambiance and high quality sandbox activities.  (Relative to most other video games, that is.)  It won't last forever.  I've getting pretty close to finishing up the hunting.  I'm getting close to finishing a few more challenge series (although I still have plenty more to do.)  And I've only got a few more missions to do before I'm all out of those too.  Maybe I'll end up checking out Online after that.

But be that as it may, I enjoy the American Old West as a setting nearly as much as I enjoy Medieval Europe, and I've often wondered about how it would be if a fantasy story (or even whole series) were to be based on the Old West in the same way that most fantasy is loosely based on Medieval Europe.  RDR kinda sorta does it.  There are a lot of fantastic elements in the series (especially given the Undead Nightmare DLC for the older game) including aliens, sasquatches, unicorns, the Four Horses of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a nosferatu, a ghost train, and of course, a plague of zombies.

Another thing that I really like it about is its fictional setting, although sadly, it's not true fantasy Secondary World, but more Ruritanian-like; although locations are fictional, they still are supposed to exist in the real world, and numerous references to actual places occur as well.  This is maybe a little odd, because the map is big enough to encompass all of the types of territories that actually exist in the real American West, and even the not-so West (much of the American South, for instance, and the Midwest, too.)

Here's a reasonably hi-def version of the entire map of RDR2, which covers almost the entirety of the entire area of RDR (with the one exception) and then adds another 150% or so new territory while it's at it.  Then I'll talk briefly about each territory.

This stuff isn't new or exciting, but I'm noodling around what I would potentially do with a WESTERN HACK setting, and this is a much better starting point than most.

In alphabetical order, the Ruritanian states of the Union in RDR2 are:

Ambarino
A mountainous country without much in the way of major settlements, and lots of wildlife.  Clearly based on the mountainous states of the Northern Rockies, there are parts that look like dead ringers for the Tetons or the Wind Rivers, for instance.  There are two constituent regions within Ambarino, Grizzles West and Grizzlies East (the Grizzly Mountains clearly being the Ruritanian Rockies.)  In the game, most of Grizzles West is always snow-covered, but because time passes in such a way that seasons don't actually happen in the game, that's probably not meant to be taken too literally.

Ambarino has a number of small towns and homesteads, although many are abandoned, such as Colter, an old abandoned mining town where the gang takes shelter during Chapter 1 (the "Tutorial Chapter"), the Adler homestead, Dodd's Bluff, etc. and later in Grizzlies East, we find the Wapiti Indian Reservation, the "Mysterious Hill Home" (or hobbit hole) where Arthur's grave ends up, Hamish's place on O'Creagh's Run, the Witch's house and Cotorra Springs, the fake Yellowstone.  It's possible that the section of Ambarino that we see is not meant to be the entirety of Ambarino; given that there aren't any actual settlements, towns, or anything in the territory, that would actually make some sense.

Lemoyne
Next we have Lemoyne, the Ruritanian American South (sadly, complete with an awful lot of hateful lies about Southerners that we've had to live with for over a century and a half that are perpetuated.)  Curiously, my daughter finds that part of this territory is her favorite. Even though we're Southerners, my daughter has not really ever lived in the South, so that's a little bit unexpected.  There are three constituent parts of Lemoyne, Scarlett Meadows (yes, with two t's), Bayou Nwa (or maybe Bayou N.W.A., actually.  Who knows?  That would be funny and kinda appropriate.) and Bluewater Marsh.  There are also islands off the coast on both ends, which are kinda sorta accessible.  Scarlett Meadows is the largest (and most rural) of the regions, with the town of Rhodes as well as number of plantations and other homestead settlements present.  It's very much post-bellum Dixie, and reminds me a lot of places I've known in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or eastern Texas.  The Scarlett of Scarlett Meadows is probably a double entendre; it refers to the red dirt underneath the grass, as well as referring to the main character of Gone With the Wind.  Bayou Nwa is basically far eastern Texas and Louisiana, famous for its alligators, marshes, crawdads, and it's big Cajun settlement of Saint Denis, the fake New Orleans, and the largest settlement in the entire territory covered by the game.  The Bluewater Marsh seems to merely be a less settled and more rural extension of the Bayou Nwa, although the island of Sisika Penitentiary located in the massive Lannahachee River, which makes up much of the southern border of the playable area, is technically part of this territory too.

Other than Saint Denis and Rhodes, and numerous small homesteads, farms, and country estates here and there, the smaller communities of Lagras, Lakay and the abandoned community of Pleasance, which is really disturbing and probably was abandoned due to either plague, a series of murders, or both.

New Austin
The last territory you explore in this game; you can only access it using Online, or in the Epilogue.  However, it was a major element of the first game, and in fact, the entire territory was part of that game as well.  It is the American Southwest, and it is very frontier-like, with bandits and wild animals making up much of the territory.  Unlike in, say, New Hanover or even West Elizabeth, there are few homesteads of farmers, although a few ranchers make their way out here.  There are a few towns of note, however.  New Austin borders only a portion of West Elizabeth (at least in the area mapped; the large area to the immediate north of this territory which isn't mapped begs the question of what's there, of course.)  Ecologically it is quite diverse, and offers much of the American West sandwiched into a relatively small package.

There are four areas, and three of them are overtly desert-like, although different kinds of deserts if you're keen on the subtle differences.  Hennigan's Stead, however, which borders the West Elizabeth area of Great Plains is more of the actual southern American Great Plains of Oklahoma or West Texas.  Thieves' Landing is the settlement here, although in the slightly earlier phase of RDR2's epilogue, it's just a Mexican gang fortification and is only turned into an American town later in RDR.  Other than that, various ranches and homesteads and even an old Indian camp dot this area.

Cholla Springs is the next area you encounter in New Austin, and it resembles the Arizona deserts with scrub bushes and saguaro catcuses.  There are a few ranch houses, plenty of outlaws, and the struggling town of Armadillo located here.  Curiously, Armadillo struggles a lot more in the prequel than in the original game; in the former, it's been hit by a plague of plagues; scarlet fever, desert plague, typhus, and finally cholera and is more known for it's dead lying the street, it's suspiciously healthy and arrogant store-keep, and its cowardly sheriff who's let gang members do as they please than for anything else, although it does become a bit of a boomtown in the original game, which takes place later.  There are wild theories online that the store-keeper is some kind of warlock who's cursed the town, and who is responsible for the zombie outbreak of Undead Nightmare.

Rio Bravo is the most southerly portion of New Austin and borders with the fake Mexican territory of Nuevo Paraiso.  The small oil work camp of Plainview is located here, as well as Fort Mercer, which is more often than not in the control of gangs of Mexicans than of the US Army.  Ecologically it seems most heavily based on New Mexico and maybe some Trans-Pecos Texas, such as Big Bend National Park.

Gaptooth Ridge is the most westerly part of the territory, and resembles southern California's deserts, with many Joshua Trees and other typically Californian flora and fauna.  There's mining here, like settlements at Gaptooth Breach, and other small ranches, like Rathskeller Fork and Solomon's Folly, some of which are over-run by bandits.  And, of course, the town of Tumbleweed is located here.  Tumbleweed seems like a decent place in RDR2, but in RDR, which takes place a few years later, it's already more or less abandoned.  There are odd hints here and there of some kind of demonic activity going on in this town and a grave that is empty, which in a fantasy game would be pretty wild, of course.

New Hanover
One of the largest territories, and ecologically quite diverse as well, New Hanover stretches from the far eastern edge of the map north of Lemoyne to almost the western edge, and some of its communities and areas are certainly very iconically "western" as well.  In spite of it's location in the east, it is somewhat lightly settled, and remains frontier-feeling in all respects, and it is crawling with outlaws, including the savage and disturbing Murfree Brood gang.

There are three constituent areas.  Roanoke Ridge is the most easterly, and is heavily influenced in character by the Appalachian Mountains; it's heavily forested, rocky, lots of elevation changes, and sports settlements like the bustling coal mining town of Annesburg, the tough old struggling town of Van Horn, and the hillbilly (I prefer the term Appalachian-American) village of Butcher Creek, not to mention the site of old Fort Brennand, which has been abandoned since the War of Northern Aggression and now houses bandits from Lemoyne.  In addition to the creepy Deliverance people (which is insulting; when I was a kid, those same people were portrayed heroically as The Dukes of Hazzard.  But whatever.) there are strange ghost whispers in some areas, a house that was hit by a meteor killing everyone inside, a Serbian guy who's playing at making a metallic Frankenstein's monster, a house where everyone is mysteriously dead, old Viking ruins, and some other weird stuff.  It also has the tragic-heroic persona of Charlotte, the widow that Arthur teaches how to survive, and some absolutely stunningly beautiful scenery, like Brandywine Drop.  This part of New Hanover borders on Ambarino, and unlike in real life, the Appalachian-like mountains turn gradually into Wind River or Teton like mountains without a break, which would be cool if it were true.

Speaking of which, Cumberland Forest is the second area, and is quite small, and provides a transition of sorts from the mountains to the plains, and the entire place is quite forested.  Other than the wildlife, it's got an Army fort, not far from the Wapiti Indian Reservation just across the border, a major train bridge and a train station, and a few isolated homesteads.

The Heartlands is the major part of New Hanover, though, and one in which you'll spend quite a bit of time.  Reminiscent of the western Great Plains in the real United States, there are parts that are almost dead ringers for real places along the Nebraska Wyoming border, such as Scott's Bluff.  There are a few communities, like Emerald Ranch and especially Valentine, which is a full-blown town, Carmody Dell, and the burned out ruins of Limpany.  Other farmsteads, homesteads, small ranches, and even businesses like Cornwall Kerosene and Tar round out the area, which is still very frontier-like in quality, although more settled than areas even further west.

Nuevo Paraiso
I have to admit to knowing little about this area.  It appears prominently in the first game, but is absent from the second (although the general territory seems to have been more or less modeled, if not fully textured, and exploitation of some glitches has allowed people to wander all over it.  It was probably there to provide background, though—although I'd love to think that a future expansion would make it explorable.  Nuevo Paraiso is part of Mexico, not the US, but of course, during the waning years of the Old West and the time of Pancho Villa, the difference was sometimes more academic than pragmatic.  While this is definitely the desert part of Mexico, such as in Sonora and Chihuahua, some of it bears a surely not coincidental resemblance to places like Monument Valley far to the north.  Punto Orgullo is the most westerly region, and it features a few ghost towns, mostly abandoned mines, and loads of bandits.  The middle section, Perdido (Spanish for Damned) has two small settlements, but is mostly known for having been largely depopulated by the recent Mexican Civil War, and is also crawling with bandits.  The more easterly portion, Diez Coronas, has the Monument Valley-like formations.  There are a handful of small settlements, but rather than bandits, it seems to be crawling with the Mexican Army.

West Elizabeth
Although the smallest of the territories in the original game, a much expanded northern section that's bigger than the other two components combined makes up the only part of the territory that you're able to explore at all until the epilogues in the second game.  Although largely rural and mountainous, it does feature a number of settlements; the somewhat kitschy mountain town of Strawberry, and the fairly large town of Blackwater being the most notable, but a number of other ranches, farms, homesteads and other smaller settlements are all over the region.  It is perhaps notable that three of the five trappers available in the game are also located within the boundaries of West Elizabeth; it really is a hunter's paradise, crawling with wildlife.

Blackwater itself is located in Great Plains, one of the counties or regions of West Elizabeth which is indistinguishable in most respects from nearby and ecologically very similar Hennigan's Stead in New Austin.  This is also where John sets up his own ranch at Beecher's Hope.  It's a fairly settled and tame area, mostly.  Tall Trees nearby is not; crawling with the savage Skinner Brothers half-Indian gang.  The territory here resembles the mountainous parts of California with trees that might be sequoias or even redwoods and mountains that look like the Sierra Nevada.  There's a fair bit of independent settlement here, there's even sasquatches here, apparently, and loads of wildlife.  The only official town, if you can call it that, is the small village of Manzanita Post, although by the first game the wild section known as Cochinay has become a gang hideout.  While not snow-covered in RDR2, it is in the first game, I suppose indicating that they model a different season (RDR2 seems to be late spring or early summer.)

Big Valley, where Strawberry is located, is the largest area of West Elizabeth, and one that you'll likely explore a lot with Arthur, although John starts the first epilogue all over here too.  It's one of the best hunting (and fishing) grounds in the game, and other than Strawberry and few isolated shacks and homes, it features few settlements—Hanging Dog Ranch, which is the hideout first of the O'Driscoll gang and later the Laramie Brothers being a notable exception, although later Pronghorn Ranch where John finds work ends up smack dab in the middle of the big wildflower meadow just north of the forest.  You can see Teton-like mountains ringing Big Valley, and a very high mountain, Mt. Shann, is located just north of Strawberry (you can climb it actually, and if you're there at night, you can even see a UFO.)  The southern portion of Big Valley is transitional, and more closely resembles the territories that it is adjacent to, including the Heartlands and Great Plains, although with a few more trees, an older Indian Reservation (prior to the tribe being relocated to the Wapiti Reservation further north) and even a lumber camp.

Although I've made a point of highlighting many of the supernatural or weird tales like elements that RockStar included in my descriptions, you'll see that for the most part, they are actually quite realistic rather than fantastic.  And with the exception of the Undead Nightmare DLC, the supernatural elements are more like weird Easter eggs rather than integral components of the setting.  That, of course, can be changed, but it does bring up an interesting point; I actually think that jumping straight into having cowboy elves and orcs and whatnot is a mistake; starting from a more realistic baseline and more gradually and carefully layering in fantastic elements is probably a much better way to go.  There just isn't the established tradition of fantasy Westerns, so people will be confused or simply not like it or get it if you depart too rapidly from their expectations.  Most of the enemies you'll face in RDR are wild animals like alligators, cougars, and grizzly bears, or outlaws and bandits from one of various wild gangs—the most savage and notorious of which are almost more like serial killer cults than traditional outlaw gangs as seen in most Western movies or TV shows of the past.  I don't want to be quite that mundane, but even in Medievalist fantasy, I prefer to make sure that everyone knows that wild animals and wild people are plenty dangerous without having to have the territory constantly crawling with monsters.  Plus, as I've said many times before, monsters have much more of an impact if they are built up and presented rarely rather than routinely.

I even like the idea of the PCs being something akin to supernatural bounty hunters who wander the territory like Clint Eastwood dealing with the occasional supernatural threat that the locals aren't equipped to handle and maybe even aren't entirely sure that they believe in entirely.

Anyway, I teased this months ago, and then did nothing with it, but I think I'd like to not leave it entirely fallow, and see what I can do with it over the summer and early fall, maybe.