Weird Out West

The hunter rides the range, armed with a Sharps Model 1874 rifle in the .50-90 Sharps, a gun big enough to take down Nightcrawlers, the twenty-foot long earthworms that wear the skin of past prey and burrow out of the earth to take down their new. As the vampire-lord looms over her on the ground, the gunslinger loads her last Hellfire round that will surely send the undead monster and its soul into damnation. The inveterate gambler stands up from the table and points at Robo Doc, Joe Bones, of cheating and having a hidden card slot. At high noon, the duellists face off against each other, one ready to pull a Colt Single Action Army, but wondering how much of a threat his Kengu opponent is with its daishō, from which it will draw a katana. The Concord stagecoach rides along its regular route, the bearded veteran sitting alongside the driver, holding a shotgun in his lap, loaded with holy shot lest the vehicle lose a wheel or a horse throws a shoe and everyone be swarmed by the zombies that linger just off the trail. Secret Service agents fly the night skies in their black Zeppelin, ready to respond to descend on the latest threat to the United States. The US Marshal dukes it out with the Hex Gunner that raiding trains all along the transcontinental route, ducking and dodging as the servant of Hell snaps off one shot after another from its demonic six-shooter, the bullets smoking with necromantic energy and screaming with hellish fury when fired in search of more souls to collect and send to damnation! The Risen claws his way out of the grave, bearing a demonic brand on his chest and swearing to take vengeance upon his former comrades who put him in the ground. The frontier of the West might well have once been wild, but now it has definitely turned weird and horrifying. This is not the set-up for one game—though it could be, but a range of options, and more, presented in the pages of High Noon at Midnight.

High Noon at Midnight is a genre supplement for the Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. Published by Monte Cook Games as part of the Knights of Dust and Neon project on Backerkit, it is inspired by the films Cowboys & Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Back to the Future III, television series such as The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., West World, and Firefly, comic books like Jonah Hex and Preacher, and even roleplaying games such as Deadlands. It is interesting to see the inclusion of Deadlands mentioned in the list of inspirational reading and watching for High Noon at Midnight, since it is from a rival publisher and it is the obvious roleplaying game when anyone ever thinks of the term, ‘Weird West’. After all, Deadlands was the first to really coin the term—right in its very subtitle—and it has dominated the genre ever since it was published in 1996. So, the obvious question is, “Why even look at High Noon at Midnight when Deadlands is not only easily available, but also richly supported?” The simple answer is, ‘setting versus tools’. Deadlands is a genuinely great, genre defining, and iconic roleplaying game, it is its own thing and its own setting. High Noon at Midnight is not that, but rather offers the tools and means for the Game Master to create and run games in a weird west setting of her own devising. It can do magic, horror, advanced and even alien technology, steampunk, time travel, and so on in the way that the Game Master wants rather than is given. This is not to say that either option of tools versus setting is better or worse than the other, but rather that they offer different choices.

After some explanation of what High Noon at Midnight is, that it is a non-historical treatment of the period and the genre, combined weird, and what that Weird West could be through various other different media, the supplement really begins looking at the tools that the Game Master is going to need to create her own weird west. This includes borrowing from different sources, such as Deadwood or the James Bond films, creating a brand new series based on alternate history, and keeping a setting mostly historically accurate, whilst still being weird. It explores the classic themes of the Wild West, or Old West, genres, such as justice, vengeance, redemption, freedom, and survival, as well as weird themes like magic, magic versus technology, and horror. Throughout there are pointers and suggestions, and tables of options, and this continues throughout much of the book. For example, the ‘Weird West Game World’ table suggests ‘West Mars’, a “[S]parsley settled Martian frontier, six-shooters fire laser rounds, water is as valuable as gold, and terraforming gangs fight for primacy.” and ‘Camelot Gunslingers’ with “Law-sworn knights with long rifles pursue outlaw wizards, despot dragons, and malign fey beings.” Furter tables suggest inflection points when the West changed, how pervasive the Weird is, what the Player Characters do, and lots of plots seeds. The Game Master is free to pick or roll on these tables, or simply use them as inspiration.

The Game Master advice suggests that ‘A little Weird goes a long way’, but gives a lot of Weird for her to choose from. Instead of horses, the Player Characters might be riding water buffalo, lions, ostriches, or even stegosauruses, or ogres, griffons, or hellfire steeds, or jet packs, hover cycles, or motorcycles. There is discussion to, of other forms of travel, including train and aerial travel, and supported by lists of Intrusions—the means by which the Game Master can challenge a Player Character, make a situation more interesting, and the Player Character can earn Experience Points—that the Game Master can use. Options are suggested in terms of what groups might be operating in the weird west, including the law, outlaws, and indigenous groups. Traditional groups include US Marshals and train-robbing gangs, but added to this are weird west groups. For example, a weird version of the Secret Service might use advanced technology or magic to protect the president and other important people from assassination or harm, let alone protect the currency, whilst the Pinkerton Rail Agency which rides five rail cars to protect the railways, he Dawn Rangers, who wear grave-stone shaped badges inscribed with RIP and are known for their arrogance, hunt the undead, and the Skinless Six, outlaws who messed with the wrong treasure and now hunt and gamble for new skins! Guidance on the role of the Native Nations and including the indigenous peoples is also given. There is also a lengthy section on locations in the wild west, from uncanny saloons, alchemist’s shops, and uncanny jails to the Badlands, prairies, and mines, all also uncanny, which provides the Game Master with some great places to set her weird west campaign.

Optional rules in High Noon at Midnight enable the Game Master to run Poker games with multiple NPCs as well as the Player Characters, including handling player versus character skill (necessary since not everyone plays Poker and it is not as commonly played outside of the USA) and resolving a game with dice rather than dice. The Hands of Fate actually adds a Poker mechanic to play, each player drawing a personal Hand of Fate, consisting of two cards, at the beginning of each game day. These cards can be combined with community Hand of Fate cards for various effects. For example, a Straight Flush earns the Player Character a point of Experience, whilst a Full House replaces any roll of the twenty-sided die with a roll of twenty. This enforces the wild (or weird) west feel, but the Game Master can go even further by replacing the need to roll a twenty-sided die to determine the outcome of a situation with a deck of cards. The two do complement each other, but do make play more complex and outcomes less obvious in comparison to the standard Cypher System.

As well as curses and the benefits of telling tall tales, High Noon at Midnight adds several Paranormal Vices that the Player Characters or NPCs can suffer. These are similar to curses, but provide both benefits and banes. Every time a Player Character uses one of the abilities associated with the Paranormal Vice, a Connection roll is made. If a one is rolled, the Connection is made with the Paranormal cause behind the vice and the Player Character suffers an associated Repercussion. The range also increases from one to one to two, and so on, each time the Connection is made, until it reaches six and the Player Character is overcome with the Paranormal Vice. For example, the Drinking Paranormal Vice grants Inebriate abilities of ‘Deadeye’, ‘Hair-Trigger Reflexes’, ‘Iron Liver’, ‘Mean Drunk’, and ‘Unflinching’, which might require a Player Character to throw back a drink or two, but Repercussions might be that the Player Character goes ‘Blind in One Eye’ or suffer ‘Retching Summons’ in which he vomits up a pile of gelatinous goo that animates into a horrid thing! Other Paranormal Vices are gambling and swindling, which either case, gives advantages, but not without dangers of their own.

Threats include environmental ones alongside a bestiary of new creatures and a list of entries from the Cypher Bestiary, which are given abbreviated descriptions in this genre supplement. Old NPCs from the Cypher Bestiary include Gunfighters, whilst the new here include Alchemist, Hex Gunner, and Forgeborn golem. New creatures include the Death Binder, alchemists risen from the dead who invest their souls in the bullets in their Soul Pistols, which have devastating effects, but if the sixth and final shot is fired, so is the Death Binder, so they use their Alchemical Pistol instead; Frostwalkers—compacted snow over amalgams of bone, antlers, limbs, and heads of men and animals who died in the cold; and the Hollowed Ranger, a travelling portal to ‘elsewhere’, formed from an innocent gunned down in cold blood and dumped into a shallow grave, and returned to wreak vengeance on all and everyone!

In terms of character options High Noon at Midnight suggests ways in which classic Wild West characters can be created by adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Commands Mental Powers”. Thus, a Lawman could be a Speaker with a combat flavour and a Swindler or Gambler could be an Explorer with a stealth flavour. Seven standard Descriptors and two Species Descriptors are added. The standard Descriptors are Grizzled, Laconic, Slick, Trailblazing, Trigger-Happy, Unforgiving, and Wily, whilst the Species Descriptors are Forgeborn and Risen. The Forgeborn is a figure of metal, reanimated flesh, or similar, often constructed by alchemists as guards, but since been emancipated or lost the desire to keep the alchemist safe. The Forgeborn is tough, but slow, hard to damage, but difficult to repair and knows its own kind well. The Risen has returned from the grave, bearing the sigil of a demon, tougher and able to comeback from the dead again, though not as supple and animals hate him.

Similarly, High Noon at Midnight provides new Foci as well as suggesting those suitable from the Cypher System. The new ones consist of ‘Blazes Paths’ (in the wilderness), ‘Collects Bounties’, ‘Gambles it All Away’, ‘Hits the Saloon’, ‘Rides Like the Wind’, ‘Spits Fire and Lead’, and ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’. ‘Spits Fire and Lead’ combines a love of fire (and possibly brimstone) with gunfighting, whilst with ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’, the Player Character has a supernatural connection to venomous snakes and applies that to his unarmed combat.

There is a full list of equipment in High Noon at Midnight, but more importantly it explains how Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the Weird West genre of High Noon at Midnight. In this setting, there is no one way to handle Cyphers, but it depends how weird the Weird West that the Game Master wants to create and run actually is. Cyphers can either be Subtle, perhaps good fortune, inspiration, an occult or alien concept, a blessing, an ear worm, or the like, or Manifest, such as an alchemical potion, a clockwork device, a demonic scroll, and so on. A Weird West setting can use one or the other or a mix, and it is suggested that there is a geographical limit of Cyphers, Manifest Cyphers being harder to find in more remote locations rather than civilised ones. It also adds Power Words for one of the settings in the supplement as a memetic means of presenting Cyphers both Subtle and Manifest, and describes a range of different Cyphers, including a wide range of alchemical rounds and slugs, and Weird West Artifacts, such as the ‘Deck of Second Chances’, ‘Demon Pistol’, ‘Philosopher Gun’, and ‘Shadow Duster’. In fact, there are more Weird West Artifacts given than there are new Cyphers.

High Noon at Midnight details one setting, ‘The Ghost Range’. This is a Weird West setting, but not a historical one. Magic pervades The Ghost Range and demons, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures stalk its Badlands and beyond, whilst Dustfalls occur at night and can be predicted with some accuracy according to the almanacs owned by certain alchemists. Such Dustfalls are of Stardust, sometimes used as currency, but is mostly used by alchemists in their concoctions and designs. Where exactly Stardust originates and what it is, is the subject of much speculation, but prospectors go out of a night in search of it, knowing that its presence keeps demons away, though there is the danger of becoming mesmerised in an active Dustfall. In millennia past, two mysterious races, the Ilu and the Nihilal, warred with each other, and the Ilu left behind hollow cavities in the earth containing strange devices, weapons of war, and even prisoners still held captive. These are known as ‘Proscribed Zones’, and whilst access to them is not strictly prohibited, the indigenous peoples who on the range and beyond, even on the Moon, advise against it.

Midnight is the only city on the Ghost Range, notably home to the Trail’s End Cantina, where demons, vampires, and other supernatural creatures can be seen as long as they adhere to the Ghost Accords, which keeps them from being attacked. The city is nicely detailed as are the Outer Range and Otherlands which lie beyond its outskirts. In the latter can be found the Moon upon which can be seen a tribe of natives living there and the town of Perdition, populated by demons hiding behind a façade and which stands on Hell’s doorstep. Worse is the Tomb Moon, which rarely shares the same sky and never the same orbit, its appearance sparking off an outbreak of undead activity.

‘The Ghost Range’ setting is further supported by three full scenarios and two Cypher Shorts. They include being formed into a posse and investigating a shootout outside the premises of Midnight’s preeminent alchemist and following the trail out of the city in search of the outlaws responsible; getting involved in a poker tournament at the Trail’s End Cantina and investigating a treasure map; and even travel to the Tomb Moon to prevent a notorious warlock from bringing about the end of the world! The two Cypher Shorts are within the genre, but more generic in nature, though they could easily be used in ‘The Ghost Range’. One sees an undead outlaw return from the grave for revenge against the Player Characters, whilst the other casts the Player Characters as outlaws attempting to rob a train. Both Cypher Shorts could also be run as one-shots or even demonstration scenarios.

Overall, ‘The Ghost Range’ provides High Noon at Midnight with a detailed example of a non-historical Weird West setting. It is an intriguingly different setting that enables the exploration of the genre without of the potential controversies of a more historically based setting. Now whilst ‘The Ghost Range’ setting is well supported with plenty of detail and three decent scenarios, it does mean that there is no space given to other possible settings, so that High Noon at Midnight does not fully showcase the genre with examples as fully as it could have done. This does not mean that it does not suggest other possibilities, in fact, it suggests a lot of them through its many tables of prompts and ideas, but it does not develop them. As a consequence, High Noon at Midnight explores some of the genres associated with the Weird West genre better than others. These are horror and magic, both closely associated with the Weird West genre, whereas steampunk, Science Fiction, time travel, and so on, do not get as much attention. Although ‘The Ghost Range’ is done well, this is nevertheless disappointing and it would be interesting to see these other associated genres given their due in an anthology of settings for the Weird West.

Physically, High Noon at Midnight is very well presented. It is also well written and the artwork and cartography are both excellent.

High Noon at Midnight does showcase the potential of its genre in a well realised and supported setting in the form of ‘The Ghost Range’, but not quite as fully as it could have done. Nevertheless, High Noon at Midnight is a solid introduction to the Weird West genre and its potential with lots and lots of ideas.