DH5, Hill Country and RDR2

DH5, my updated setting, can be seen as reflecting two things equally. One of them is the early Middle Ages; a kind of Robin Hood or Ivanhoe era Anglo-Saxon England, with other European peoples, like the Normans, Franks/French, Scots, etc. around as well. However, they've been transposed, if you will, into a setting that more closely resembles Colonial to Old West America than it does Medieval Europe. Prior to the real conquering and taming of the American West, but long enough ago that they're not confined to a relatively narrow strip of Eastern floodplains on one side of any Appalachian-like mountains; I want genuine American west and southwestern terrain and tropes, animals, and whatnot. I know, I know, those seem a little odd in terms of a combination; but the reality is that both are my own cultural heritage, and they both resonate really well with me, and they tend to, because of that, feel most at home with me. The more I think about fantasy, the more I think that I really need both to really enjoy it.

Now, granted, when I say that I'm equal parts Robin Hood era Middle Ages (maybe even complete with Crusades) and the Old West, keep in mind that this needs to hearken back to when our culture was confident in who it was. Revisionist Westerns and self-flagellating about the Crusades or whatever is nonsense, and I want no part of it.

http://www.unz.com/pub/jhr__life-styles-native-and-imposed/

The poor, hapless "native Americans"—a label that I actually despise because they are no more native than I am, and they are considerably less American—is a trope that I also have no currency with. I have no problem whatsoever reflecting the historical reality that they were savages in every sense of the word. That said, my skraelings aren't exactly red man injuns either; they're kinda their own thing that's part red man injun, part lingering Western Hunter Gatherers, part the Neanderthals from Eaters of the Dead, part Tolkien Druedain and part Tolkien Orc, part degenerate Atlantean refugee.

But that's just the context, really. What I want to talk about today is something that I'm borrowing from Red Dead Redemption just a bit. RDR2 (and RDR1, for that matter) did not focus on strange supernatural stuff, but it was present. Mostly, it was just a bit of atmosphere and easter eggs; something to make players sit up and congratulate themselves on being clever enough to find and understand. But what if the setting actually focused more on them? What if instead of a story about outlaws and anti-heroes trying to make a buck and not sink completely into violence and depravity, it were the story of adventurers wandering around who seemed fated (or who perhaps deliberately) sought out the occult, the supernatural and the mysterious and and confronted it? What if instead of John Marsten and Arthur Morgan, or even Ivanhoe and Robin Hood, it were Solomon Kane and the Winchester brothers?

I don't mean this to be an exhaustive list, but some of the supernatural stuff found in RDR2 is certainly worthy of an entire tale's worth of adventuring, so here's a little list:

• The Saint Denis vampire, or Nosferatu. Who may or may not actually be a vampire, as opposed to just a crazy serial killer, but in DH5—yeah, he's a vampire.
• The pagan ritual human sacrifice site out by Lake Owanjilla
• The ghost train near Flatneck Station.
• The weeping woman in the swamp of Bayou Nwa, who when approached is suddenly guarded by an army of zombies.
• The whispering voices in the woods of Roanoke Ridge, who's story is told in the movie theater tent as The Ghastly Serenade. This is, by the way, also a story of either witchcraft or undead, although what the players actually see "in real life" is just the muted and eerie disembodied whispering.
• The pentacle and whatever exactly cult/occult demonology is going on at Butcher's Creek.
• The Night Folk who practice some kind of voodoo cult, and may include zombies among their number. They also seem to be related, based on the similar or even identical symbology, with the pagan ritual at Lake Owanjilla.
• The bizarrely clairvoyant automated puppet at the crashed circus wagons.
• The supernatural plague at Armadillo, including the deal with the devil made by the storekeeper.
• The Strange Man and his strange house at Lakay.
• UFOs on Mount Shann and at Hani's Bethel.
• Bigfoot
• Time traveling rock carvers
• The mysterious plague of Pleasance and the possibility of zombie outbreaks

This kind of stuff is the bread and butter of what PCs or protagonists would actually be neck deep into with regards to any DH5/Hill Country story. Also, see this.

https://darkheritage.blogspot.com/2019/06/supernatural-and-western-hack.html